Aggravation of sin and sinning against knowledge. Mercy. Delivered in several sermons upon divers…Aggravation of sinne and sinning against knowledge. Mercie. Delivered in severall sermons upon divers…

The fourth is to hate the light, and to endeavour §4to extinguish it.¹ This is yet much worse, when men hate the Word, and the Ministers of it, the examples of Gods people, and the light they carry ⟨p. 56⟩with them (they shining as lights in a crooked generation, Phil. 2. 15. and yet they hate these, as thieves do a torch in the night, and fly against the light, as bats do, and as the Jews did, John 3. 20.) This Christ says is the great condemning sin of all others. So these Gentiles put Socrates to death for reproving them. And thus men sin also, when they labour to extinguish the light in their own consciences, and like not to retain God in their knowledge, verse 28. but would study the art of forgetfulness: When men have put the candle out, and drawn the curtains, that they may sin, and sleep in sin more freely and securely. Thus those also sin in a higher measure, who have had a clear conviction, that they ought to be thus strict, and ought to sanctify the Lords day, and pray privately, but now have lost this light, and think they need not be so strict: when men continue not in what they were once assured of, as the Apostle speaks, 2 Tim. 3. 14. these sin against their knowledge, and are the worst of such sinners: and this estate Aristotle himself makes statum maligni, the state of a wicked one, namely, when the sparks of light are extinguished or hated. For when any mans light is lost and turned into darkness by sinning, then, as Christ says, how great is that darkness? When good laws are not only not enacted and embraced, but repealed also, (it is Aristotle's similitude, to distinguish an incontinent person, and a wicked man) this is an high kind of sinning: So of these Gentiles it is said, their foolish heart was darkened; they had extinguished some of that light God gave ⟨p. 57⟩them. As some drink away their wits, so some sin away their consciences; and thus by degrees, they first sin away the light of the word they had, as they in Jude, who were religious once, and then they quench even that little spark of nature that is left. Also verse 10. corrupting themselves in what they know naturally.