A Body of Practical Divinity

(4.) Those Sins are greater which proceed from a Spirit of Malignity. To malign Holiness is Diabolical. 'Tis a Sin to want Grace, it is worse to hate it. In Nature there are Antipathies, as between the Vine and Laurel. Some have an Antipathy against God because of his Purity. Isa. 30.11. Cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us. Sinners, if it lay in their Power, would not only Unthrone God, but Unbe God. If they could help it, God should be no longer God. This Sin is boiled up to a greater height.

(4.) Those Sins are greater which proceed from a Spirit of Malignity. To malign Holiness is Diabolical. 'Tis a Sin to want Grace, it is worse to hate it. In Nature there are Antipathies, as between the Vine and Lawrel. Some have an Antipathy against God because of his Purity. Isa. 30.11. Cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us. Sinners, if it lay in their Power, would not only Unthrone God, but Unbe God. If they could help it, God should be no longer God. This Sin is boil'd up to a greater height.

(5.) Those Sins are of a greater Magnitude, which are mixed with Ingratitude. God cannot endure of all things to have his kindness slighted. God's Mercy is seen in reprieving Men so long, in wooing them by his Spirit and Ministers to be reconciled, in crowning them with so many Temporal Blessings; now to abuse all this Love, when God hath been filling up the Measure of his Mercy, that Men should fill up the Measure of their Sins! This is high Ingratitude, and doth make their Sins of a deeper Crimson. Some are worse for Mercy. The Vulture (saith Aelian) draws Sickness from Perfumes: So the Sinner contracts Evil from the sweet Perfumes of God's Mercy. The English Chronicle reports of one Parry, who being condemned to die, Queen Elizabeth sent him his Pardon; and after he was pardoned, he conspired and plotted the Queens Death. Just •o some deal with God; he bestows Mercy, and they plot Treason against him.