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…

Secondly, to sin against that light which thou didst suck in,¹ when thou wert young, to sin against the light of thy education, this is an aggravation, and a great one. There is a Catechism of a blessed mother Bathsheba, which she taught Solomon when a child, put in among the records of sacred Writ, Prov. 31. wherein she counsels him betimes, not to give his strength to women; she foretold him of that sin: and because it is incident to Kings most, they having all pleasures at command, she tells him particularly, it destroys Kings: and so also not to drink wine, was another instruction there he was forewarned of: this aggravated Solomons fault the more; for read the 2. Chapter of Ecclesiastes, and we shall find there, that he was most guilty in the inordinate love of these two; but he had not been brought up so, his good mother had not thus instructed him. And thus also when God would aggravate his own peoples sin unto them, he recalls them to their education in their youth in the wilderness. So Jerem. 2. 2. Go and cry to them, I remember the kindness and towardliness of thy youth: he puts them in mind of their education by Moses their Tutor, and their forwardness then. And so ⟨p. 81⟩Hos. 12. when he was a child, I loved him; and then God had their first fruits, ver. 3. this he brings to aggravate their back-sliding, ver. 5. Therefore the Apostle urgeth it as a strong argument to Timothy, to go on to persevere in grace and goodness, That he had known the Scriptures from a child: and therefore for him to fall, would be more heinous. The reason is, because the light then infused, it is the first, a virgin light, as I may call it, which God in much mercy vouchsafed to pre-possess the mind with, before it should be deflowered and defiled with corrupt principles from the world; and did put it there to keep the mind chaste and pure: and this also then, when the mind was most soft and tender, and so fitter to receive the deeper impression from it. And hence ordinarily the light sucked in then, seasons men ever after, whether it be for good, or for evil; it fore-stalls, and pre-judgeth a man against other principles: and though a man comes to have more acquired knowledge and reasons after put into him when he is come to perfect age, yet the small light of his education, if it were to the contrary, doth bias him, and keeps him sixth, and bent that way.