The sum of sacred divinity briefly & methodically propoundedThe summe of sacred diuinitie briefly & methodically propounded

Fifthly, It is a witting and ^qvoluntary sin, freely, without compulsion, or other, not cause only, but colour or show of cause.

Fiftly, It is a witting and ^qvoluntarie sin, freely, without compulsion, or other, not cause onely, but colour or shew of cause.

1. qHeb. 10. 2. 6. [Greek or Hebrew].Heb. 10. 2. 6. 〈non-Latin alphabet〉.

Sixthly, It is of mere malice against that which their own conscience telleth them to be so good, and against Christ, the Author of it, ^rcrucifying him in their hearts, and making a mock of him: because, if they will be his, they see they cannot enjoy those Pleasures, Profits or Preferments which they dote upon, and are resolved to hold, though they lose their own souls for it; whereof cometh a persecuting and blaspheming of things they have believed, and of all that do profess the same, an utter ^srevolt from Christ, and open war against him. It seemeth, the Holy Ghost noteth this sin, to have been in Saul, 1. Sam. 22. 17. Kill the Priests of JEHOVAH. He saith not simply, Kill the Priests: but the Priests of JEHOVAH: as if he should have said, I? Hath Christ indeed served me so, not only to turn me out of my Kingdom, and to give it to my servant; but will he now, by his answers and Oracles, teach him how to rise up and lye in wait against me? Well, though my malice cannot reach to him who is in Heaven, yet I will wrack it upon his Darlings the Priests: Go, kill me all his Priests, &c. It is not a falling of frailty and infirmity, though wittingly as that of Peters was. By all which may appear, that this being a hidden and a secret sin lurking in the heart, is most hard to be discerned, save when it pleaseth God himself, as it were, from Heaven to reveal it: which in the time of the Apostles, to whom the extraordinary Graces of his Spirit were more plenteous, he did now and then, as appeareth in those that seduced the Galatians, and further, by that alleged out of Paul and John before, but in the succeeding Ages more rarely, whereof