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…

First,¹ the less passion, or inward violence or temptation to a sin committed against knowledge, the greater sin against knowledge it is argued to be: For then the knowledge is the clearer, passion ⟨p. 74⟩or temptation being as a mist. But then to sin, when a man is not in passion, is to stumble at noonday. For as drunkenness takes away reason, so doth passion (which is a short drunkenness) cloud and mist a mans knowledge. And so Aristotle compares the knowledge of an incontinent person, to the knowledge of one that is drunk. When Peter denied his Master, though he had warning of it before, and so it was against knowledge, and it was by lying, and swearing, and forswearing, which are sins of all other most directly against knowledge, yet he was taken unexpectedly; and when that which might stir up fear to the utmost in him, was in his view; for he was then in the Judgement Hall, where his Master, just before his face, was arraigned for his life, and he thought he might also have presently been brought to the bar with him, if he had been discovered to have been his Disciple; so as his passion being up, his soul was distempered, reason had little time to recover it self; and therefore though it was against knowledge, yet the less against knowledge, because knowledge had laesam operationem, it had not its perfect work upon his heart: but now Judas, in betraying his Master, had not only warning before, but was not tempted to it, but went of himself, and made the offer to the Pharisees, sought how conveniently to do it, plotted to do it, had his wits about him, had time to think of it, and therefore it was (besides the heinousness of the act) more also against knowledge, and so the greater. So David when he went to slay Nabal, was in hot ⟨p. 75⟩blood, in a passion; but when he plotted to kill Uriah, he was in cold blood: he was drunk when he lay with Bathsheba, but sober when he made Uriah drunk: he went quietly and sedately on in it. And therefore we find David blamed only in the matter of Uriah, not so much for that of Bathsheba.

First,¹ the lesse passion, or inward violence or temptation to a sinne committed against knowledg, the greater sinne against knowledge it is argued to be: For then the knowledge is the clearer, passion