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Fourthly, There are many who are great strangers to §4their own hearts and the blessed Scriptures, and are ignorant of what may be said from the blessed Word,¹ to evidence the lawfulness of this practice that is under our present consideration. And hence it comes to pass that they cry down marks and signs, and deny sanctification to be a sure and blessed evidence of mens justification. Ignorat sane improb•• omnis; ignorance is the source of all sin, the very well-spring from which all wickedness doth issue.² Ignorance enslaves a soul to Satan, it lets in sin by Troops, locks them up in the heart, shuts out the means of recovery, and so plasters up a mans eyes, that he can't see the things that belongs to his own or to others internal or eternal peace. The Scripture sets ignorant persons below the Ox and the Ass. Did men either see the deformity of sin,³ or the beauty and excellency of holiness, they would never delight in the one, nor cry down the other. Peter ⁴tells you of some that speak evil of the things that they understood not, they did reprehend that which they could not comprehend. Ignorance is a breeding sin, a mother sin, all sins are seminally in ignorance; ignorance is the mother of all the mistakes, and of all the misrule in the world. Christ told the Sadducees,⁵ That they did err not knowing the Scriptures; and so I may say many err in crying down such signs and evidences of grace which are bottomed upon Scripture, because they are ignorant of what the Scripture saith in the case. But,

Fourthly, There are many who are great strangers to §4their own hearts and the blessed Scriptures, and are ignorant of what may be said from the blessed Word,¹