[23]
desperation itself continually torments me! And now I count my present ſtate worse than if my ſoul, ſeparated from my body, were with Judas, and the rest of the damned! and therefore now deſire rather to be there, than to live in the body!
They perceiving but ſmall effects of all their labour, but rather that he grew worse; for the avoiding of a concourse of people (for every day ſeldom fewer than twenty continued with him) and to ſtop the course of fame, which was continually blown abroad of him, they consulted to carry him back again into his own country: And those of his friends that came to comfort him, began to take their last leave of him.- Vergerius, among the rest, required, That at their parting they might pray together with him. Spira consented hardly, and as unwillingly performed: "For, ſaid he, my heart is estranged from God; I cannot call him Father from my heart; all good motions are quite gone; my heart is full of malediction, hatred, and blaſphemy against God! I find I grow more and more hardened in heart, and cannot stop myself. Your prayers for me ſhall turn to your own profit, they cannot do me any good."
Vergerius then came to take his leave of him; whom Spira embracing, ſaid, "Although I know that nothing can bring any benefit to me a reprobate, but that every thing ſhall tend to my deeper condemnation; yet I give you most hearty thanks for your kind offices of love and good-will; and the Lord return it unto you, with a plentiful increase of all good."
