CXLV expository sermons upon the whole 17th chapter of the Gospel according to St.…

1. The true knowledge of God doth make a man effectually purge himself from all filthy and noisome lusts. To say we know God and yet give our selves to sin, is a lye, and it argueth no truth in us, 1· John 3.6. He that commits sin hath not known or seen God, which is the reason why the Prophets attribute all the ungodliness in a Land to the not knowing of God: So our Saviour tells the Pharisees, that all their wickedness was because they did not know him and his Father; and in this Chapter Christ saith, The world hath not known thee, but these have known thee. Ephes. 4. If ye have been taught as the truth is in Jesus; ⟨p. 87⟩and ye have not so learned Christ. What is this? when we have so learned Christ, as to put off the old man with the lusts thereof. Never then boast of thy knowledge and thy parts, what mortification of sin, what cleansing from thy filth doth it cause in thee; if thy Christian knowledge doth not work a Christian life, but thou art brutish and dissolute in thy life, tremble at thy estate, for thou art out of the way to heaven, 1 Pet. 2.20. some are said to have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of God, yet these did it externally only. They were swine though washed, not sheep, but thou dost not come thus far; though thou hast the knowledge of God, yet thou wallowest in thy mire, and lickest up thy vomit: Thy condemnation will be the greater, because thou knowest thy Masters will and dost it not. What sentence then shall we pass upon all the carnal and wicked ways of most men, they know well enough, they understand well enough, but because this knowledge hath no efficacy upon their lives, therefore they go in the broad way to hell.

1. The true knowledge of God doth make a man effectually purge himself from all filthy and noisome lusts. To say we know God and yet give our selves to sin, is a lye, and it argueth no truth in us, 1· John 3.6. He that commits sin hath not known or seen God, which is the reason why the Prophets attribute all the ungodlinesse in a Land to the not knowing of God: So our Saviour tels the Pharisees, that all their wickednesse was because they did not know him and his Father; and in this Chapter Christ saith, The world hath not known thee, but these have known thee.