Two treatises the first of fear, from Isa. 8, v. 12, 13, and part…

Some have been in such horror of Conscience, that they have chosen strangling rather than life; they have felt that anguish of Conscience that hath put them upon desperate resolutions and attempts against their own lives to rid themselves of it. This was the case of Peter Moon, who being driven by his own fears to deny the truth, presently fell into such horror of Conscience, that seeing a sword hanging in his Parlour, would have sheathed it in his own bowels. So Francis Spira, before mentioned, when he was near his end, saw a knife on the Table, and running to it would have mischieved himself, had not his friends prevented him; thereupon he said, O that I were above God, for I know that he will have no mercy on me. He lay about eight weeks (saith the Historian) in a continual burning, neither desiring, nor receiving any thing but by force, and that without digestion; till he became as an Anatomy, vehemently raging for drink, yet fearful to live long, dreadful of hell, yet coveting death, in a continual torment, yet his own Tormentor; and thus consuming himself with grief and horror, impatience and despair, like a living man in hell, he represented an extraordinary example of Gods justice and power, and so ended his miserable life.

Some have been in such horror of Conscience, that they have chosen strangling rather than life; they have felt that anguish of Conscience that hath put them upon desperate resolutions and attempts against their own lives to rid themselves of it. This was the case of Peter Moon, who being driven by his own fears to deny the truth, presently fell into such horrour of Conscience, that seeing a sword hanging in his Parlor, would have sheathed it in his own bowels. So Francis Spira, before mentioned, when he was near his end, saw a knife on the Table, and running to it would have mischieved himself, had not his friends prevented him; thereupon he said, O that I were above God, for I know that he will have no mercy on me. He lay about eight weeks (saith the Historian) in a continual burning, neither desiring, nor receiving any thing but by force, and that without digestion; till he became as an Anatomy, vehemently raging for drink, yet fearful to live long, dreadful of hell, yet coveting death, in a continual torment, yet his own Tormentor; and thus consuming himself with grief and horror, impatience and despair, like a living man in hell, he represented an extraor dinary example of Gods justice and power, and so ended his miserable life.