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…

And that you may see the ground of this vast difference between sins of ignorance, and against knowledge,¹ consider first, that if a man sin §1(suppose the act the same) out of ignorance merely, there may be a supposition, that if he had known it, he would not have done it; and that as soon as he doth know it, he would or might repent of it. So 1 Cor. 2. 8. If they had known, they had not crucified the Lord of Glory. The like ⟨p. 38⟩says Christ of Tyre, Sidon, and Gomorrah, that if the same things had been done in them, they would have repented. But now when a man knows it afore, and also considers it in the very committing it, and yet doth it, then there is no room for such a supposition, and less hope. For what is it that should reduce this man to repentance? is it not his knowledge? now if that had no power to keep him from his sin, then it may be judged, that it will not be of force to bring him to repentance for it; for by sinning the heart is made more hard, and the knowledge and the authority of it weakened and lessened, as all power is, when contemned and resisted, Rom. 1. 21. their foolish heart becomes darker. Aristotle himself hath a touch of this notion in the third of his Ethics, that if a man sin out of ignorance, when he knows it, he repents of it; if out of passion, when the passion is over, he is sorry for what he hath done: but when a man sins deliberately, and out of knowledge, it is a sign he is fixed and set in mischief; and therefore it is counted wickedness and malice. And hence it is, that those that have been enlightened with the highest kind of light, but that of saving grace, Heb. 6. 4, 5. and Heb. 10. If they sin wilfully after such a knowledge of the truth, God looks on them, as those that will never repent. And therefore likewise the school gives this as the reason why the Devils sin obstinately, and cannot repent, because of their full knowledge they sin with; they know all in the full latitude that it may be