Aggravations of sinning against knowledge by Thomas Goodwin part 3 We now come to the application of the doctrine Now let me speak a word to all such as thus go on in a state of impenitency against knowledge This is a high kind of sinning and of all the most desperate and doth argue more hardness of heart than despising the riches of God's goodness. For if, as in Romans chapter 2 verse 4, to go on in sin when a man knows not, that is, considers not that God's mercy leads him to repentance, is made the sign and effect of a very hard heart, treasuring up wrath, and then much more. When thou knowest and considerest, thou art in an impenitent condition, and hast many motions leading thee to repentance. Is thy heart then to be accounted hard? When a man commits a particular act against knowledge, he happily and usually still thinks his estate may be good, and that he shall not lose God utterly, or hazard the loss of him. Only his spirit being at present empty of communion with him. Well, then he steals out to some stolen pleasure But when a man knows his estate is bad and that he is without God in the world and yet goes on he doth hereby cast away the Lord and professeth that he cares not for him or that the communion which is to be had by him is Esau did with his birthright. David, though he despised the Lord, that is in the act of the business with Bathsheba, yet he did not cast away the Lord as Saul did. For Saul ventured utterly to lose him, knowing his estate was nothing. David, when he sinned, thought God's eternal favor would still continue, though for the present he might lose the sense of it. But when a man goes on in a state of sinning, he ventures the loss of God's eternal love, and slights it, and knows that he does so. When a man knows that he is condemned already as being impenitent, and that all his eternal state lies upon the non-payment of such duties of repentance, etc. That the guilt of all his sins will come in upon him and that an execution is out and yet goes on. This is more than to commit one act against knowledge whereby he thinks he brings upon himself but the guilt of that sin. and upon the committing of which he thinks not the mortgage of lies, though it he deserves it. And herein men show themselves more desperate. the next place I come to those rules whereby you may measure and estimate sinning against knowledge in any particular act of sinning and they are either before the sin or in sinning. Three of either make a second head to explain this doctrine by. Number one, before. The first rule is The more thou knewest and didst consider issues and consequence of that sin that you did commit, the more thou against conscience in it. When as in Romans chapter 1 verse 32, thou knowing that those that commit such things are worthy of death, that you considered that hell and damnation is the issue and desert and yet commit it. Yay! And this when happily hellfire at present flashes in your face and yet you still go on to do it. Well in this case man is said to choose death and to love it. Proverbs chapter 8 verse 36 When a man considers that the way to the whorehouse are the ways of death, as Saul speaks, so when you, a professor, consider with yourself before, the sin will prove scandalous. And undo me, disable me for service, and cast me out of the hearts of good men, and yet does it. Thus that foolish king was told again and again in Jeremiah chapter 38 verses 17 through 19 that if he would yield to the king of Babel he should save his life, his city, and kingdom. And yet there still, by the way Babel, he's saying Babylon, But yet there still, but if he would not, he should not escape. But again, as Jeremiah told him in verse 23, thou shalt cause this city to be burned with fire. You would not hearken. This is the word of the Lord, says Jeremiah, and he knew it to be so. And yet, being a weak prince and led by his nobles, he would not follow the prophet's counsel. Thus Judas finally fully knew the issue Christ had said again and again woe be to him by whom the son of man is betrayed and Yet still he went on to do it Second the second rule is that The more consultations, debates, and motives against it did run through you before you did it. So much the greater and more heinous. How often did mercy come in and tell you, you look for any hope or part in it. You should not do such an evil. How often that came in. Shall I do this and sin against God? Will any scripture come in to testify against you in the neck? Did God send in the remembrance of such a mercy past to persuade you or some mercies to come which you depended upon him for? That which made Spira's sin so great was such debates as these before and this Darius' sin in casting Daniel into the lion's gren is so great. Lion's den is so great. He debated with himself. Daniel chapter 6 verse 14. He was sore displeased with himself and labored to the going down of the sun to deliver him. He considered that he sat at his right hand in all the affairs of the kingdom, that is Daniel, sat in the affairs of all the kingdom, and a man entrapped merely for his conscience and that to put him to death was to sacrifice him to their malice. He knew him to be holy and wise and worth all the men that sought after his life and yielded These considered troubled him before and so after and so much as he could not sleep for them in verse 18 By the way, if things sound strange, it's because this text that I'm reading Obviously was not edited. So again, I apologize for the confusion and Now, because that every such consultation should set an impression upon the heart, and counterman the motions of sin, therefore thou dost it. When all such debates and motives to the contrary, this is much against knowledge, and very heinous. Therefore, the Pharisees in Luke chapter 7 verse 30 are said to have rejected the counsel of God, in or against themselves, the words will bear either, and themselves because they knew it and took it into consideration and yet still rejected it, and against themselves because it was their destruction. The third rule is, number three, the more confirmations any man has of the knowledge of that which he sends in and the testimonies against it, the greater sin against knowledge it is. When a man has had a cloud of witnesses in his observation against a particular sin and yet still does it and goes on in it, it's all the more fearful. To go on against that one witness, the bare light and grudging of a natural conscience only, is not so much. But when it is further confirmed and backed by the word written, which a man has already read or heard, continued with testimonies on top of it, out of which a man meets with such places, wherein again and again, in the reading of it, such a practice and then also hears it reproved in sermons. And of all sins else hears in private conference that sin spoken against also, yea, hath in his eye many examples of others sinning in the same manner, which have been punished, yea, happily himself also. And yet to sin against all of these is exceedingly heinous. Sometimes God orders things so, as a sin is made a great sin by such forewarnings. So he contrived circumstances that Judas sinned a great sin. For Judas knew before that the Lord Jesus Christ was indeed the Messiah and the Savior of the world. He knew it by all the miracles that he had seen as also by his preaching, his gracious words and conversation. and he professed as much in following of him, and he had the written word against it. You shall not murder the innocent. But yet further, God, to aggravate Judas' sin to the highest, ordered it so, that the Lord Jesus Christ should tell him of it when he was about to go and do it. pronounced a woe to him Luke chapter 22 verse 22 That it had been good for that man that he'd never been born Mark chapter 14 verse 21 And the disciples well they were sorrowful at the Lord Jesus Christ's speech when he suspected one of them and showed an abomination and detestation of such a fact There was a jury of eleven men, yea, witnesses against it. Yea, and Judas against himself. Well, he asked if it was him. Yea, and the Lord Jesus Christ gave him a sop, that is a piece of the bread, and told him, You have said it, and do what you must do quickly. Which even then might argue to his conscience that indeed the Lord Jesus Christ was God. Searched and knew his heart and yet he went out anyway, and did it immediately How did he sin against the hair as we speak? How did all these circumstances? aggravate his sin But yet a more clear evidence of this is that instance of Pontius Pilate whom God many ways would have stopped his sin of condemning Christ who examining him before the Pharisees he could find no fault with him as concerning those things whereof he was accused Luke chapter 23 verse 14 and yet to ally their malice unjustly scourged him verse 16 and further when he sent him to Herod as excuse me And further, when he sent him to Herod as being willing to rid his hands of him, Herod also found nothing worthy of death in him. And verse 15, which was another witness, might have confirmed him concerning Christ's innocency. Yea, and yet further, that the fact might be more aggravated, a most notorious murderous life, that is Barabbas, must be put into the scale with Christ's, and either the one or the other condemned. And when the people yet chose Barabbas, why, says Pilate, what evil hath he done? Verse 22, again referring to what evil did the Lord Jesus Christ do, Then he distinctly knew and considered that he was delivered up through envy That is the Lord Jesus Christ was handed over because the envy of the Pharisees Yea, and when he was upon the bench and ready to pronounce sentence as it were God admonished him that is Pilate by the words of his own wife Matthew chapter 27 verse 19 whom God himself had admonished in a dream, she sending him word that she had suffered many things by reason of him that night, and therefore she told him to have nothing to do with that just man, yea, he himself, when he condemns him, that is Pilate, washes his hands. and thus it falls out in many sinful businesses which men are about that God in and in many several ways would knock them off and stops them in their way as he did Balaam. He reproves them as he did Balaam by the donkey And so these, by some silent passage of providence, and not only directly, but by his spirit also, standing in the way, with the threatenings ready drawn, and brandished against them, as the angel did with a drawn sword against Balaam, and yet they still go on. This is fearful. or second. There are three rules also whereby the sinfulness of sin, as it is against knowledge, may be measured from what may be observed in the act. As, number one, first, the less passion or inward violence or temptation to sin committed against knowledge, the greater sin against knowledge it is to be. For then the knowledge is the clearer, passion or temptation acting as a mist to the mind. But then to sin when a man is not in passion is to stumble at noonday. In other words to go into it with eyes wide open. Whereas drunkenness takes away reason so does passion. Which is a sort of drunkenness. cloud. It clouds and mists a man's knowledge. And so Aristotle compares the knowledge of an incontinent person to the knowledge of one when he's drunk. When Peter denied the Lord Jesus Christ, even though that he had warning of it before, and so it was against knowledge. And it was by lying, swearing, and forswearing. which are sins of all others, most directly against knowledge. And yet he was taken unexpectedly, and when that which might stir up fear to the utmost in him was in his view, for he was then in the judgment hall, where his master, just before his face, was arraigned for his life, and he thought he might also have presently been brought to the bar with him, if he had been discovered to have been his disciple. So, as his passion or fear being up, his soul was distempered. Reason had little time to recover it, and therefore, though it was against knowledge, yet the less against knowledge, because knowledge had not its perfection upon his heart. But now, in the case of Judas, in betraying his master, did not have warning before. but was not tempted to it, but went of himself. And the offer to the Pharisees, well, he sought how conveniently to do it. He plotted to do it, had his wits about him, he had plenty of time to think about it, and therefore was, besides the heinousness of the act, more also against knowledge, and so the greater. And so David, when he went to slay Nabal, was in blood and a passion. In other words, he was angry. But when he plotted to kill Uriah, it was in cold blood. He was drunk when he laid with Bathsheba, but sober when he made Uriah drunk. He went quietly and sedately on in it. And there we find David blamed only in the matter of Uriah and not so much for that of Bathsheba. Number two, secondly, the more sorrow or reluctancy and regret in the mind that there is against a sin, it is a sign that the knowledge of it is stronger and quicker against it. So the sin the more against knowledge for that game saying and displeasure of the mind Against it when it arises from strength and violence beating of the pulse of conscience and opposition to it against the sin it springs from the greater and deeper apprehension of evil of the sin in the action which is then in doing and though that reluctancy be a better sign of the estate of a person than if there were none at all, as there is not in those who are past feeling and commit sin and greediness, all whose estate is therefore the worse and more capable of repentance once. Yet the fact itself is argued to be the more heinous, for it argues to be against strong, active, and stirring knowledge of This argued Herod's sin to be much against knowledge as indeed it was. Mark chapter 6 verse 26. The text says he was exceeding sorrowful. This is in the case of John the Baptist. Now that he could not have been unless he had exceedingly apprehended what a great sin it was to behead John, whom he knew was a just and holy man, as is said in verse 20, and who was one that had great place in his estimation, in other words he held him in high regard, for he observed him and was wrought in upon by his ministry, and he knew that he did but sacrifice him to please the malice of Herodias, a wicked woman. And in this case the sin is also hereby made so much the greater in that conscience, that is Herod's conscience, doth stir up a contrary violent passion in the heart against the temptation and yet therefore still to do it when there was such a bank cast up that he might resist it. Bank, he's saying a wall was cast up that he might resist it. yet then to break it all down. Such a sin wastes the conscience much. Thirdly, on the contrary, the more hardness of heart there is and lack of tenderness in committing that sin, which a man knows to be a sin, well it's argued thereby to be the greater sin against knowledge. And not only the greater sin, but the greater sin against knowledge. For hardness of heart in sinning is an effect of having formerly sinned against much knowledge in the past. For as the light of the sun hardens the clay, so the beams of knowledge and conscience lighting upon men's hearts used to harden them and do make them in the end past feeling or being numb to it. Therefore in 1st Timothy chapter 4 verse 2 sinning against knowledge is made the cause of a seared conscience. They speak lies in hypocrisy and therefore knowing that they are lies and such lies as damn others as well as themselves which who believe are damned. 2nd Thessalonians chapter 2 verses 11 and 12 And if so, no wonder if it follows, having their consciences seared with a hot iron. It is not a cold iron that will sear the conscience and make them insensible, but a hot iron, a burning and a shining light, which once having had place in their conscience and being rejected, they begin to be hardened and seared for knowledge makes sins and the apprehension of them familiar to a man, and so less terrible and frightful in the end, as bears and lions do become to their keepers through custom. Judas had a hard heart when he came to betray his master, and surely his conscience had smitten him at first more for nimming out of the bag than it did now for this of murder. He could never have had such a hard heart had he not that much knowledge. Was it not a heart that when he challenged to his face that he could set a brazen face upon it, and did ask as well as the rest, is it I? When also Christ cursed him to his face, who should do it? and the disciples all abhorred it. Had not Judas lived under such blessed and glorious means and sinned long against knowledge, all this would have startled him and have staggered him in his purpose. But instead, he goes on as if it were nothing, though when he had done it, his conscience was then opened far too late. When a man formerly had been troubled with a small sin, more than now with a gross lie, which he can digest better than once the other, or when before, if he omitted praying, it troubled him, now he can go a week without it and is not even sensible of it. It is a sign that his knowledge has hardened him. Roman numeral number three. Thus, having given such rules whereby you may estimate the sinfulness of particular acts, I will now proceed to other ways, aggravations taken from the kind of knowledge a man sins against. To sin against what kind of knowledge is most heinous and dangerous. And these are five, drawn from the several qualifications of that knowledge and the light which men sin against. For the greater or the more strong and efficacious the light and knowledge is, the greater is the sin of knowledge that you commit. And this I make a third general head to explain this doctrine by. all these five rules being applicable and common both to particular acts against knowledge and also lying in a state of impenitency against knowledge and all other particulars which have previously been mentioned. Number one. First, Then, to sin against the inbred light of nature, that is, in such as thou hast wanted the light of the word in, thou wouldst have known to be such. And this is a high kind of sinning, such as the apostle speaks of in Jude 10. What things they know naturally, in these they corrupt themselves, as brute beasts. putting, as it were, no difference of actions than beasts. No, not in what nature teaches them, and therefore therein are as like beasts. For it is the light of nature that puts the first difference between men and the beasts, in such kind of sins the Apostle instances in this first chapter as namely that of unnatural uncleanness in particulars as number one self uncleanness verse 24 that is among themselves so Beza Theophilus understand it and which he makes the first degree of unnatural uncleanness, which is therefore unnatural, because thou destroy'st that which nature gave thee for propagation." In other words, he's talking about homosexuals and lesbians. In our generation, it would be LGBTQ. Then, number two, the unclean love of boys. Men burning in with men, verse 27. Be it discovered, in what dalliance it will, though arising not to an act of sodomy, doing that which is unseemly, which he therefore says, is the perverting the use and intent of nature, and a sin against nature, leaving the natural use of the woman. My brethren, I am ashamed to speak of such things as are done in secret. Then it was done in secret, now it's done in the open. These kinds of sins, by the apostles ranking them, are in a further degree of unnaturalness any other, because they are made the punishments of the other nature, which is right, or me, which were against the light of nature also, namely, not glorifying God when they knew him. Yet, that being a sin, the light of nature was not so clear in comparison of these. Therefore, these are made the punishments of the other, as being more against nature. So, for men to be disobedient to parents, and stubborn towards them, and without natural affection, as the Apostle says in verse 31, this is against nature, even the instinct of it. So, untruthfulness and requiting evil for good is against a common principle in the mind. Do not the Gentiles do good to those that do good to them? Your hearts used to rise against such a one out of common humanity. If you see one cruel and unmerciful, which is another reckoned up, there being usually principles of pity in all men's natures, by nature therefore for one man to prey upon and tyrannize over another, as vicious over the smaller ones, as Habakkuk complains about in chapter 1 verse 14. Well, this is against nature, which teaches you to do as you would have done to. So covenant breakers and lying and forswearing, mentioned in verse 30, Inventors of evil and truce breakers are sins against nature and natural light, kind of like liberalism in our day. Lying is against a double light, both moral, which tells us that such a thought not ought to be done. And when we affirm a thing that is not, the knowledge of the contrary arises up in us against it, though there were no law to forbid it. Therefore, of all else, all sins else, the devil's lusts are expressed by two, lying, which is a sin in the understanding, and malice, which is in the will. John chapter 8 verse 44. Secondly, To sin against that light which you did suck in when you were young, to sin against the light of your education, this is an aggravation and a great one. There is a catechism of a blessed mother. Bathsheba, when she taught Solomon when he was a child, put in among the records of sacred writ, Proverbs 31, Wherein she counsels him many times not to give his strength to women in other words his attention and all his his stuff you know don't Make all your focus women She foretold him of that sin And because it is incident in kings the most, they having all the pleasures at their command, well she tells them particularly that it destroys kings. And so also not to drink wine was another instruction there he was forewarned of. Well this aggravated Solomon's fault all the more, for Read the second chapter of Ecclesiastes, and we shall find that he was most guilty in the inordinate love of these two, that is, booze and women. But he had not been brought up so. His good mother had not thus instructed him. And thus also when God would aggravate his own people's sin unto them, he recalls them to their education in their youth in the wilderness. And so Jeremiah chapter 2 verse 2, go and cry to them. I remember the kindness and twardliness of thy youth. He puts them in mind of their education by Moses, their tutor, and their forwardness then. And so also in Hosea chapter 12, when he was a child, I loved him. And then God had their first fruits in verse 3. This he brings to aggravate their backsliding. Verse 5. Therefore the apostle urges it as a strong argument to Timothy to go on to persevere in grace and goodness that he had known the scriptures from the time that he was a child and therefore for him to fall would be more heinous. The reason is because the light is then infused It is the first, a virgin light, as I may call it, which God, in much mercy, vouchsafed to prepossess the mind with, before it should be deflowered and defiled with the corrupt principles of the world, and had put it there to keep the mind chaste and pure, and this also then, when the mind was most soft, agreeable, and tender. and so fitter to receive the deeper impression from it. And hence, ordinarily, the light came in, and then seasons men ever after, whether it be for good or for evil, it forestalls and prejudges a man against other principles. Though a man comes to have more acquired knowledge and reasons put into him when he has come to a perfect age, yet the small light of his education, if it were to the contrary, doth bias him and keep him fixed and bent in that way. So we see it is in opinions about religion. The light, then entertained, can never be disputed out. so in men's ways and actions We're told to train up a child in his way, and he will not depart from it Proverbs chapter 22 verse 6 this is why it's important to teach our children the scriptures for when they're able to even understand not stick them in in youth groups No. No. No. To sin therefore against it, and to put out the beams of it, or defile it, and to wear out the impressions of it, how wicked is it? And what a wretch you are to do so. Many of you young scholars, at Oxford perhaps, have had a good Bathsheba that instructed you. not to pour out your strength to booze or women, but to pray privately and to fear God, to love Him. And when you come hither, you have good tutors also who teach you to pray, ministers who will instill blessed truths into you for which one would think you should never depart. yet you do. Think how grievous this is! For if it is made an excuse for many a man in sinning, that it answers his education, that he never knew or saw better, as you say of many Papists, then it must needs be, on the contrary, an aggravation of sinfulness. and as it was Timothy's commendation that he knew the scriptures from a child and so it will be your condemnation that you knew better from a child or as a child and yet you still rebelled against the light. Thirdly, the more real and experimental the light is that men sin against, yet still the more sin, as when they have learned it from examples of godly men whom they've lived amongst, or observations of God's dealings with themselves, or even with others, and not only from the word notionally. To sin against such light, this adds a further degree. not only to sin against the bare light of nature, but also further, when nature hath besides lighted her torch at the scripture. And then, when beyond all this, the real examples and observations made of God's dealings with a man's self and others shall confirm all of this. And this makes a man's sinfulness much more grievous. For the knowledge gotten by experiments of mercies or judgments is of more force and evidence. Knowledge learned by experience is the most efficacious. Therefore, Christ himself, who knew all things already, yet learned in the school of experience by what he suffered, Little of some knowledge distilled out of a man's own observation is most precious Every drop of it and therefore the Apostle urges it upon Timothy continue in the things that you have learned and been assured of knowing of whom you Had learned them 2nd Timothy chapter 3 verse 14 Now there is a twofold motive and both emphatical First he was assured in himself and secondly that which strengthened that assurance and was a means to work it was the example of the Holy Apostle and of his own parents knowing of whom thou has learned it and So in verse 10 the Apostle again urges his own example Thou hast fully known my doctrine in manner of life then also brings to his mind the education of his godly parents who instructed him. Hence also Isaiah chapter 26 verse 10 made an aggravation that in the land of uprightness men deal unjustly. Thus light drawn from the observation of God's judgments upon others much aggravates as it is laid to Belshazzar's charge. You knew this! How God dealt with your father Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel chapter 5 verse 22. Some of you come here and live in a religious society and see someone, sometimes another of your colleagues, turn to the Lord Jesus Christ. Yay! Happily! Chamber fellow converted from his evil courses and yet you still go on This is sinning against a great light. Fourthly, the more vigorous, strong, powerful the light is that is in you, and more stirring in your heart, and joined with a taste, it is the taste of the sins committed against it, they are to be accounted. The more you have tasted the bitterness of sin and God's wrath, and you have been stung with it as being bitten by a snake, the more you have tasted God's goodness in prayers and in the ordinances, the more such a knowledge, and yet sin worse. In John chapter 5 verse 35, Christ aggravates the Jews' unbelief in their present hardness, that John was to them. not only a shining, but also a burning light. That is, they had such knowledge engendered by his ministry as wrought joy and heat as well as light. Therefore, he added, they rejoiced therein for a season, or for a little time, a little while. And thus their fall, Hebrews chapter 11, is aggravated that it was such a light as had tasting with it. For to explain this, you must know that between ordinary national light, or that assenting to spiritual truths which is common with men from traditional knowledge living in the church, that between it and true saving light, or the light of life, that there is a middle kind of light which is more than the common conviction that men have, and less than having a regular light. It is a light which leaves also some impression upon the affections, makes them feel the power of heaven and hell, and to be affected with them. Now the more of such light against a sin, be it drunkenness or uncleanness or oppression, and you keep falling to it again and again, that's all the worse. For this is a further degree added to knowledge, and not common to all wicked men. And therefore, as those who had not only common means of knowledge, but miracles also, and believe not, shall be all the more condemned. And so, those who by such tasting of knowledge set upon the mind by the Holy Ghost, which is as much a miracle were wrought, for it is above nature, a supernatural work of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, Therefore, to sin against that light, and such only, is that which makes a man in the next degree of fitness to sin against the Holy Ghost. Number five, fifthly, to sin against professed knowledge is an aggravation, and a heavy one. To sin against a man's own principles, which he teaches others, or reproves, or censures in others, Titus 1 verse 16, those that trust they know God, yet deny him. These are most abominable of all others, for these are liars, and so sin against knowledge as liars do. 1st John chapter 2 verse 4, such and one is called a liar in a double respect. Both in that he says he has that knowledge that he has not. It not being true. And because also that he denies that indeed which he affirms in word. In other words, he's a hypocrite. This is a scandalous kind of sinning. And so, Romans chapter 2 verse 24. The Jews, boasting of the law and having a form of knowledge in their brains, caused the Gentiles to blaspheme when they saw that they lived clean, contrary thereunto. And therefore, a brother that walks inordinately was to be delivered to Satan, to learn what it was to blaspheme. 1 Timothy chapter 1 verse 20, that is, to learn to know how evil and bitter a thing it is, by the torments of an evil conscience, to live in such a course as made God in His ways evil spoken of, as it befell David when he thus sinned. Yea, 1 Corinthians 5, 10, 11, Though they might keep company with a heathen, because he was ignorant, and professed not the knowledge of God, Yet if a brother, that is one that professed, and so was to walk by the same rules, did sin against those principles he professed, then keep him not in your company. Thus did Saul sin. All the religion he had and pretended to in his latter days, and in the end persecuting witches. And in the end he went against this, his own principle. In other words he's saying that Saul was persecuting witches and in the end he went to one, that is the witch of Endor. He went to a witch in his great extremity at the last. And thus God will deal with all that are hollow and sin secretly against knowledge in the end. He allows them to go on against their most professed principles. These are aggravations in general applicable both to any act of sinning or going on in a known state of sinning. Now we come to the use of the doctrine. Now the use of all that has been spoken is What is it but to move all those that have knowledge to take more heed of sinning than other men do? And those of them that remain in their natural state to turn speedily and effectually unto God. For if sinning against knowledge be so great an aggravation of sinning, then of all engagements to repentance Knowledge is the greatest. First, you who have knowledge can't not sin so cheap as another who is ignorant. Therefore, if you will be wicked, your wickedness will cost you ten times more than it would another. Places of much knowledge and plentiful in the means of grace are dear places to live in sin in Kind of like people who claim 1 John 1 9 and then still continue on in their wicked ways to be drunk and unclean after enlightening and the motions of the spirit and powerful sermons is more than twenty times before. Thou mightest have committed ten to one, and been damned even less. This is the condemnation, says the Lord Jesus Christ, that light came into the world. Neither canst thou have so much pleasure in your sins as an ignorant person, for the conscience puts forth a sting or at least it should, in the act when you have knowledge, and does subject you to bondage and the fear of death. When a man knows how dearly he must pay for it, there is an expectation of judgment embittering all. Therefore, the Gentiles sinned with more pleasure than we. Therefore Ephesians chapter 4 verses 18 and 19 the Apostle speaking of them says that through their ignorance and darkness and lack of feeling they committed sin with greediness and so with many more pleasures They not having knowledge or heart sensible of the evils that attend upon their courses Secondly, you will, in sinning against knowledge, be given up to greater hardness. If the light that is in you be darkness, how great is that darkness? Therefore, the more light a man has, and yet goes on in works of darkness, the more darkness will that man be left unto, even to a reprobate mind in the end. It will procure thee to be given up to the worst of sins, more than another man. For God, when he leaves men, makes one sin the punishment of another, and reserves the worst for sinners against knowledge. These Gentiles, when they knew God, they worshipped him not. Well, God gave them up to the worst sins possible, whereof they were capable. such as unnatural uncleanness, etc. Again, unnatural uncleanness, LGBTQ in this generation, or liberalism. But, these are not sins great enough for thee. Thou art a sinner of the Christians, to be given up to drunkenness or adultery, otherwise than to discover your rottenness. These are too small. But you shall be given up to inward profaneness of heart, as Esau, having been brought up in a good family. So as not to neglect holiness only, but to despise it, to despise the good word of God and his saints, and to hate godliness and even the appearance of it. You shall be given up to condemn God and his judgments, to trample underfoot the blood of the covenant, or else some other devilish opinion. Those others are too small punishments of your sin. For still the end of such an one must be seven times worse than in the beginning, as the Lord Jesus Christ says it shall. If you were a drunkard or a swearer, that's not a person who cusses, that's a person who makes promises and doesn't keep them, or an unclean person before, and your knowledge wrought alteration in you, you shall not happily be so now at your fall, but instead you'll be seven times worse. profane, injurious to saints, a blasphemer or a derider of God's and his ordinances. A derider is like being in derision or mocking God's law. Fourthly, When you come to lay hold on mercy at death, your knowledge will give you up to more despair than any other man. Knowledge, then, when it is but newly revealed, it can be a help, and it is a help, yet not made use of, and in doing so, turns against the soul to wind it up and to work despair in you. and this both because we have sinned against the very means that should have saved us and also because such as sin against knowledge they sin with more presumption and the presumption in their lives the more despair they are aptly to fall into at their deaths. Therefore Isaiah chapter 59 verses 11 and 12 What brought such trouble and roarings upon these Jews and That when salvation was looked for yet. It was so far off from them in their apprehensions Our iniquities say they Our sins testify to our face and we know them. Now then, sins testify to our face when our conscience took notice of them, even to our faces when we were committing them. And then also, the same sins themselves will testify again and again to our faces when we have recourse for the pardon of them. Therefore thou wilt lie Roaring on thy deathbed and thou knowest them will come as an argument that you shall not have mercy as Ignorance is a plea for mercy. I did it ignorantly Therefore I obtained mercy That's kind of like the person will be on their deathbed like the Arminian Who ignored God's law? Well, I didn't read the law. I didn't know any better. Yet, they had it all along. They were preached to all along that they had the law. They didn't bother with it. I'm not talking about ceremonial law. I'm talking about the moral law, how we're to conduct our lives. And just like those sinners that Goodwin is talking about here as I continue, so I did it knowingly. And it will come in as a bar and a plea against you. therefore you shall not have mercy." Fifthly, both here and in hell it is the greatest executioner and tormentor. Well, in this sense it may be said, he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow, as Solomon speaks, for knowledge enlarges our apprehension of our guilt. And that brings more torment. Have they no knowledge who eat up my people? Yes. There is their fear, says David. And therefore, Hebrews chapter 10 verse 28, after sinning against knowledge, there remains not only a more fearful punishment, but in a fearful expectation of the punishment in the conscience of the parties involved. And this is the worm in hell that gnaws forever. The light breeds these worms. But then you will say, it is best for us to be ignorant and to keep ourselves so. And I answer, no, no, no, and no. For to refuse knowledge will damn as much it will damn the soul as much as abusing it This you may see in Proverbs chapter 1 verse 28 ye fools you that hate knowledge turn And I will pour my spirit upon you and make known my words to you well verse 24 They refused, and would have none of my reproof. Therefore, says God, I will laugh at your calamity. That is, I will have no pity. But instead of pity, God will laugh at you and mock. And when your fear comes, I will not answer, because you hated knowledge. " Verse 29. So this is as bad Wow, is it bad. And there remains therefore no middle ground, no shade of gray, no fence to sit on, of refuge to extricate yourself at. And to avoid all this, or and avoid all this, no remedy, no other way but turning unto God and His Word. Otherwise you can't not be more miserable than other men. Yay! And this must be done speedily so. For you having knowledge, God is quicker in denying you grace and in giving you up to a reprobate mind than another man who's totally ignorant. He will wait upon another that knows not his will and his ways 20, 30, 40 years as he did upon the children of the Israelites that were born in the wilderness and had not seen his wonders in Egypt and at the Red Sea. But those that had, he soon swear against many of them that they should never enter into his rest. Christ comes as a swift witness against those to whom the gospel is preached. Malachi chapter 3 verse 5. He makes quick dispatch of the treaty of grace with them. Therefore, few that have knowledge are converted when they're old or that lived long under the means of grace. therefore you that have knowledge are engaged to repent and to turn to God and His Word and to bring your hearts to the knowledge of the Word and that speedily or else your damnation will not only be more intolerable than others but the sentence of it will be passed out all the more quickly against you. Therefore, as the Lord Jesus Christ says in John chapter 12, whilst you have the light, walk in it. For that day of grace, which is very clear and bright, is usually a short one. And though men may live many natural days after and enjoy the common light of the sun, Yet the day of grace and of gracious excitements to repentance may be but a short one. The End