There is a sin called the sin against the Holy Ghost, from which there is no redemption, and this sin doth more than ordinarily befall professors; for there are few, if any, that are not professors, that are at present capable of sinning this sin.  They which “were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,” Heb.6:4, 5—­of this sort are they that commit this sin.  Peter also describes them to be such, that sin the unpardonable sin:  “For if after they have escaped the pollution of the world, through the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.” 2 Pet. 2:2.

The other passage in the tenth of the Hebrews holdeth forth the same thing:  “For if we sin wilfully, after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin. but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation that shall devour the adversaries.”

These, therefore, are the persons that are the prey for this sin.  This sin feedeth upon professors, and they that are such do often fall into the rnouth of this eater.

The unpardonable sin, the sin against the Holy Ghost, is a sin of this nature:  For a man after he hath made some profession of salvation to come alone by the blood of Jesus, together with some light%and power of the same upon his spirit—­I say, for him knowingly, wilfully, and despitefully to trample upon the blood of Christ shed on the cross, and to count it an unholy thing, or no better than the blood of another man; and rather to venture his soul any other way, than to be saved by this precious blood.

It is called the sin against the Holy Ghost, because such sin against the manifest light of the Spirit; that is, they have been formerly enlightened into the nature of the gospel, and the merits of the man Christ, and his blood, righteousness, intercession, etc., and also have professed and confessed the same, with some life and comfort in and through the profession of him; yet now against all that light, they maliciously and with despite to all their former profession, turn their backs, and trample upon the same.

This sin is immediately committed against the motions and convictions and light of that Holy Spirit of God, that makes it his business to hand forth and manifest the truth and reality of the merits and virtue of the Lord Jesus.

To some men that have grievously sinned under a profession of the gospel, God. gives this token of his displeasure:  they are denied the power of repentance; their heart is bound, they cannot repent.  It is impossible they should ever repent, should they live a thousand years.  It is impossible for those fall-aways to be renewed again unto repentance, seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to open shame.  Now, to have the heart so hardened, so judicially hardened, this is as a bar put in by the Lord God against the salvation of this sinner.  This was the burden of Spira’s complaint:  “I cannot do it; O, now I cannot do it.”