Selected quad for the lemma: knowledge_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A65738
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A practical discourse of confession of sins to God, as a means of pardon and cleansing. By John Wade, minister of Hammersmith
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Wade, John, b. 1643.
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1697
(1697)
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Wing W177; ESTC R219282
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106,995
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284
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Why rather aggravate thy sins from the Commonness of them Say Lord this sin of mine was a common sin which therefore I should have hated and detested shunn'd and avoided but so vile and sinful a wretch was I that even in those things wherein all the prophane World rise up in Arms against God I desperately joined with them and sided with thy Common Enemy against thee Further yet 3. Is' t usual with Men and has it been so with any one of us to make our Ignorance in any degree a Cloak for our sins and to think that God would hold us guiltless because of our Ignorance Why let such an one now confess his sins to be so much the greater by how much his Ignorance was the grosser And certainly such Men as openly or secretly excuse their sins with their Ignorance are always a great cause of their own Ignorance and therefore have good reason to aggravate their sins from their Ignorance in sinning Let such an one therefore go to God on his knees and take such Words with him as these Lord I have committed my sins in Ignorance but has not most of my Ignorance been wilful and affected I have done many things ignorantly indeed but the fault was my own had I not been wanting to my self I might have had much more Knowledge than I have Had I had but a Will to seek the Truth how easily might I have got the Skill to find it But I would not take pains enough I would not do my best endeavours to be inform'd in my Duty I was ignorant but I * At first Man lost his Innocence only in hope to get a little Knowledge and ever since theâ— lest Knowledge should discover his Error and make him 〈◊〉 to Innocence we are content to part with that row and to know â—â—â—ing that may discover or discountenance our sins We call our selves Christians and love to be ignorant of many of the Laws of Christ lâ—st our Knowledge should foâ—â—e us into shame or into the troubles of a â—oly Life Bp. â—ayloâ— â— Serm. of the deceitf of the Heart p. 95. 97. voluntarily continued in my ignorance I was loth to get out of it I nuzzled my self in it I resolv'd to be ignorant that so I might sin the more freely I thought with my self If I knew this and that more distinctly then I should be bound in Conscience to act more strictly my ignorance greatly proceeded from the very intention of my corrupt Will which was so fully bent and set upon sinning that I was well content to suffer the want of Knowledge and to undergo the damage of Ignorance thereby to procure and enjoy a fancied liberty of sinning without guiltiness I 'm deeply guilty of my own ignorance and consequently wretchedly guilty of all those sins unto which my voluntary chosen delightful ignorance has betrayed me Again 4. Is temptation to sin a common and frequent excuse of the sin in the Mouths of Sinners And has this excuse sometimes lodged in thy Heart if not proceeded out of thy Mouth Hast thou with others excus'd thy sins because thou wast tempted to sin Why now rather aggravate thy sins even from thy being tempted to them Say Lord I was tempted to sin but was I not a Cause as well of the Temptation as of the Sin Did I not many times bring temptations upon my self Did I not * Qui silâ—â—tpâ—s occasiones quaerunt pâ—ecandi eleganter dicâ—ntur suscitare Diabolum See Caryl on Job 3. S. p. 374. 40. raise up the Devil by my earnest and busie seeking occasions of sin Did not I put Satan often upon tempting me Was it not the Tinder within me which Satan knew was so apt and more apt at some times than others to take fire that made him so ready upon occasion to Strike fire Was it not this naughty base corrupt treacherous deceitful yielding Heart of mine that not only tempted me but ev'n tempted and invited the Devil to tempt me Did I not hearten and encourage yea even provoke him to tempt me by giving him fair hopes of prevailing upon me Surely I had not been tempted to this or that particular sin had not it been for such and such a particular Lust in me which he could so fitly and seasonably sort and suit and apply his temptation unto Certainly I had not been tempted so often had I not been tempted so easily my f rmer yielding upon so light and easie temptations animated and emboldned him to set new and greater temptations on soot as well as with the same again and again to assault me 5. And lastly Is it the currant excuse of the World the plea of course And has it at any time been thy excuse and plea Alas it is my Nature to do thus and thus Hast thou ever thought that this did much diminish and take a great deal off from the guilt of thy sin Why rather now confess it is thy Nature thereby to add the greater weight unto thy sins aggravate thy sins even from hence because it is thy Nature Say O Lord this is my Nature I am not only guilty of single acts of sin but I have a natural inclination an habitual disposition to every sin I have a sinful nature which has more fundamental foulness in it than all the actual sins which arise from it a Nature which virtually contains the grossest abominablest sins in the World I carry within me a very Sink and Sodom of sin I have within me the Spring and Fountain the Root and Seeds and Spawn of all the sins that ever I have committed or possibly can be committed It 's my Nature to do thus and thus and it 's a wonder I have done no worse This is my Nature and therefore that my Actions in this kind are no worse than they are I cannot in reason thank my self for it who am prone and apt of my self to sin in the highest degree My Heart by Nature is an evil Treasure of Anger and that my rash Anger did not some time or other proceed to revengeful Murder My Heart by Nature is an evil Treasure of Lust and that my base filthy Lust never broke out in Adultery Incest Sodomy I 'm naturally given and addicted to idle Words and that my vain and idle speaking never grew to Swearing Cursing and Blaspheming it is not by reason of my better Nature The Lord knows I should be as wicked a Wretch as lives had I the like bodily Complexion and Constitution the like Temptations the like Opportunities to commit wickednesses which others have and did not the Soveraign Grace of God daily hinder and prevent me with-hold and restrain me By Nature I 'm as very a Tiger as very a Lion as very a Wolf as any is in the World and that I am not as outragious as others I humbly acknowledge it is because I am tied in or chain'd up by Providence or because my evil Nature is corrected by Common or
more than our sins barely and simply in themselves considered Circumstances are to Actions much like what Ciphers are to Figures which quickly make 1 the very least of all Figures but the beginning of Numbers by being placed with it stand for a 1000 an 100000 and therefore for thee to confess thy sin without it's appendant Circumstances it is at best to say the least thou canst of thy sin nay to hide any notable Circumstance in thy Confessions it is in effect even to cover thy sin Thus you see our Confessions of our sins can't be full and compleat without the aggravating Circumstances of our sins for sinful Circumstances are the most are the greatest part of our sins without these our sins are comparatively but little and light These are they that swell and double and treble the Accounts that encrease and enlarge the Bill that thicken and lengthen the Catalogue Besides leave but these out of thy Confession and thou wilt not be thorowly humbled in thy Confession thou wilt not be deeply affected with thy sins in thy Confession thy sins won't prick thee at thy Heart won't cut and wound thee in thy Confessions Now as we all wounded our selves with our sins in the Commission of them tho' we did not perhaps presently feel that wound so we should wound our selves with our sins in the Confession of them and indeed this wound tends to healing whereas the other tended to Death but our sins without their Circumstances are as a Sword without an Edge the Circumstances of sin they give it an edge they make it sharp keen and piercing By means of these we are very much mov'd and wrought upon in our Confessions and soundly humbled for our sins when we spread them before the Lord. Thus much for a touch of the Necessity of Aggravation of Sin as being absolutely necessary to Confession of Sin Now as the Duty is in it self necessary so the Performance of it is the great care and serious study of every Penitent Sinner who is so far from disguising masking vizarding or palliating his sin that he brings it in and makes it appear in it's own shape in its proper and natural Colours He acknowledges his sins to be Scarlet sins Camel sins to be sins of the greatest Magnitude of the deepest Dye He does dot savour his sin in the least he studies to make it as bad as it is in it self He readily owns all that in his particular sin which he acknowledges to belong to the ugly nature of Sin in general He strives to make the very worst he can of it He is severe and impartial in Self-Accusing He says as much against sin in himself as he would say against sin in any one else as much as any one else would say against his sin Nay he endeavours in his Confessions to say as much against his sins as God himself says against them in his Word He calls his sins by the same Names be they never so bad as the Scripture calls them He calls his neglect of Brotherly reproof as the Holy Ghost stiles it even * 19 lâ—vit 17. Hating his Brother in his Heart He calls his wilful transgression of God's known command * 1 Sam. 15.23 Rebellion and reckons it as bad as the Sin of Witchcraft and accounts his Stubborness to be as Idolatry He labours to give as strict a Judgment to make as rigid a Censure of his sins as the Just and Holy Law-giver himself does and to speak no more mildly and mincingly of them than he finds the very Spirit of Truth to speak of them When he has made himself vile by particularizing of his sins why he 'll make himself yet more vile by aggravating of them until they become out of measure sinful He thinks he can never say too much never enough against himself he thinks he can never sufficiently vilify and debase himself never lay himself low enough before God Of sinners I am chief says humble Penitent Paul 1 Tim. 1.15 and so says Tertullian in like manner * 〈…〉 perâ—terâ—â—a natâ—â— Tertulâ—â—e â—â—niâ—â—nt 〈◊〉 I am a most notorious Sinner as if I were born to no other end than to confess and repent It is is not here impertinent to propound the several Heads of Aggravation with which the Penitent Sinner amplifies and exaggerates his sins in his Confessions I might instance in these 1. In that he has sinned wilfully and voluntarily and this may contain two very great aggravations in it 1. That he has sinn'd wilfully against Light and Knowledge as against the very Light of Nature against the clear Light of the Sacred Scripture against the Light of good Education against the Light of the Preaching of the Gospel against the Light of his own Experiences against the Light of the wholsom Counsels sober Admonitions and seasonable Reproofs of Christian Well-wishing Friends 2. He aggravates his sins from the wilfulness of them in that he has sinn'd as against his Knowledge so upon no Temptation or upon very little Temptation in that he has sinn'd without any Illecebra from without without any Incentive but from himself And indeed this is as humbling an Aggravation as can be that I have sinn'd when it was easie for me to have forborn sinning that I sinn'd when I was neither blinded with Ignorance nor transported with Passion nor over-born with any kind of Temptation but did this and that deliberately and out of Choice sometimes studying and contriving how I might sin most handsomly and often seeking out Companions Occasions and Inflammations of my Lusts This Aggravation of sinning without any Temptation or with very little Temptation is hugely necessary for such as in ordinary buying and selling will Lye and Cheat for a Farthing for such as in common Talk will Swear out of an idle Custom or for a vain Compliment as if an Oath were the Enamel of a Speech the handsomest grace of a Sentence the chief and only thing that makes it come off cleverly And truly among all the sins in the World there is scarce any one of them mâ—re Temptation-less than Customary Swearing But 2. A second Topick of Aggravation may be this He aggravates his sins as from his wilfulness in sinning so from his sinning against the Means which God has us'd to reduce and reclaim him from his sins namely In that he has sinn'd against the Motions and Strivings Helps and Assistances of God's good and holy Spirit sinned against the Divine Mercies both General and Special both Temporal and Spiritual or in that he has sinn'd against the Divine Judgments either National or Personal either feared or felt either threatned or already inflicted But the Penitent Sinner chiefly and especially aggravates his sins from their being committed against intermixed and interwoven Mercies against the Mercies of God's Mercies and the Mercies of his Judgments compounded conjoin'd and united combin'd and conjugated in his wisest and most Providential Dispensations Lord says he I have now