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Thus have I given you five steps, as so many links in a chain, all which make up the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost. It is a wilful and malicious opposing of the known truth, joined with final apostacy. Thus have I shewed you, as plain as I can, what this "sin, unto death" is.
Secondly. The next thing to be considered is, That all other sins and blasphemies, whatsoever may be forgiven. Be our sins ever so great and many, though we be the vilest wretches that ever lived, yet there is hope of pardon upon repentance. Manasseth was the vilest wretch that ever we read of, yet he repented and was pardoned. Also, Mary Magdalen was the chief of sinners, for out of her came seven devils; yet because she loved much, much was given her. A man may be a whoremonger, an adulterer, and work witchcraft, and deal with familiar spirits, and yet, at last, he may repent and be saved. And yet I have heard talk of some that are so foolish as to take the sin of fornication for an unpardonable sin, from God's own words, in the fourth commandment: "I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation." From whence they say, that children that are base born, are not saved unto the third and fourth generation. But this is a most erroneous interpretation of God's word: It is those that hate him, and continue in hating
