of it should be, but the eternal loss and perdition of our souls?

3dly, We forsake Christ to the loss and forfeiture of our souls, when by obstinate heresy we add to or subtract from that heavenly doctrine which he hath revealed to us. By heresy, I do not mean barely a false opinion in our religion, whether it be of greater or lesser moment; for I doubt not but the same error may be an innocent mistake in one man, and a damnable heresy in another; that in the one it may be the effect of a weak understanding, but in the other of a perverse and obstinate will; and when the understanding misleads the will, it is weakness, but when the will misleads the understanding, it is wickedness. For simple error is only a defect of understanding, which in a fallible creature is every whit as inculpable as sickness in a mortal one; but heresy is a fault of the will, which is the only subject of virtue and vice. When therefore by the wicked prejudice of our corrupt wills against the purity of Christianity, our understanding is betrayed into loose and erroneous principles; when we understand by our vicious affections, and adapt our opinions to the interests of our lusts; when we believe for the sake of any darling vice, and suffer our own factious, covetous, and extravagant passions either to tempt us to profess those erroneous opinions which we do not believe, or to prejudice us into a belief of them; then is our error no longer to be attributed to the weakness of our understanding, but to the wickedness of our wills, which improves our error into a damnable heresy. For he would be a wicked man, though he were not an heretic, that harbours those sinful lusts which betrayed him into heresy; but by

being an heretic he is much more wicked, because now he is wicked under a pretence of religion, and cloaks his impieties with the garments of righteousness. And what greater profaneness can any man be guilty of, than to make his religion a bawd to procure for his lusts? So that if out of a vicious propension of will we obstinately persist in any religious errors, we are not only guilty of that wicked propension which is of itself sufficient to ruin our souls, but we are also accountable for vitiating our religion with those erroneous mixtures by which we have rendered it a shelter and protection to our lust. And what the consequence of this will be, St. Jude will inform us, who, speaking of certain heretics, who to gratify their own wicked inclinations had sophisticated Christianity with sundry black and poisonous principles, pronounces this fearful doom on them; for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for

ever, verse 13.

4thly and lastly, We forsake Christ to the loss and forfeiture of our souls, when by any wilful course of disobedience we do virtually renounce the authority of his laws. For whilst we continue in any course of wilful sin, we live in an open rebellion to our Saviour, and do by our actions declare that we will not have him to reign over us. And accordingly, Titus i. 16. the abominable and disobedient are said to deny God in their works, even while they profess to know him; and what the fate of such will be, St. Paul hath forewarned us, Rom. ii. 8, 9. But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew

first, and also of the Gentile. And the same apostle, speaking of these obstinate rebels, who live and persist in an open defiance to our Saviour's authority, tells us, that they shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, 2 Thess. i. 8, 9. But before we dismiss this argument, it will be requisite more particularly to explain what those wilful courses of sin are by which they thus renounce him; all which may be reduced to these three heads. First, We renounce the authority of his laws, when we sin against him out of wilful ignorance of them. Secondly, When we sin on against him out of wilful inconsideration of our obligation to them. Thirdly, When we persist in our sin against knowledge and consideration.

1st, We virtually renounce the authority of our Saviour, when we sin on against him out of wilful ignorance of his laws. For the laws of our Saviour, in which the great lines of our duty are described, are so plain and legible, that no man can be long excusably ignorant of them. But if our ignorance proceed either, first, from a profane and profligate mind, that is altogether regardless of God, and hath utterly worn off its natural sense of religion, and so neither heeds it nor concerns itself about it, but is become quite deaf to all the means of instruction ; or if it proceed, secondly, from the vicious prejudice of our wills, and we industriously set ourselves, for the sake of some darling lust, to exclude from our minds all the means of conviction; and either studiously to avoid all thoughts of religion, that we may sin on without disturbance, which is the way of those that are openly profane and irreligious; or to use all possible arts to wheedle our understandings into

the belief of such principles as are most indulgent to our lusts, which is the way of hypocrites and false pretenders to religion: if, I say, our ignorance of Christ's laws proceeds from either of these causes, it will no more excuse our falling into sin, than the want of light will a man's falling into a ditch that shuts his eyes at noon, and winks on purpose, lest he should see and escape the danger that is before him. But then,

2dly, We virtually renounce the authority of our Saviour, when we sin on against him out of a wilful inconsideration of our obligations to obey him. For we, being reasonable creatures, are bound by the very constitution of our natures to act considerately, especially in matters of religion, which are of the greatest moment and importance to us; so that if we miscarry herein through wilful inconsideration, we are every whit as inexcusable as if we had considerately betrayed ourselves. Now wilful inconsideration is either actual or habitual; actual is either, first, when, notwithstanding we have been sufficiently warned by precedent surprises, we take no care for the future; for though it cannot be expected we should always keep so strict a guard upon ourselves as never to be surprised by an enemy; yet when we have been overtaken, there is all the reason in the world we should take warning by it, and grow more wary and vigilant for the future, that we should awaken in our minds such considerations as are necessary to prevent our being surprised again; which if we do not, our next surprise will be inexcusable and if the sense of the lapse which was perhaps but an innocent error, or at most but a sin of infirmity, doth not make us more careful of

ourselves for the future, the next will be a wilful fall. Or else, in the second place, this actual wilful inconsideration is, when upon the presenting of any beloved temptation we either quench the good motions of our minds, and refuse to consider the evil and danger of the sin we are tempted to, lest we should be thereby deterred from committing it; or purposely contrive to baffle our own consideration by opposing it either with some ungrounded hope of impunity, or some fallacious promise of future amendment and if to make way for our sin we do either of these ways wilfully drive all good thoughts from our minds, lest they should disturb and interrupt us in the enjoyment of it, our inconsideration is to be resolved into the wickedness of our wills, and not into the weakness and infirmity of our natures. And he that will not consider because he will sin, and afterwards extenuate his sin by his inconsideration, urges one sin in excuse for another, and makes that which is his fault his apology. Whensoever therefore we sin out of any actual and wilful inconsideration, we sin wilfully, and consequently do thereby virtually renounce the authority of our Saviour; the final event of which, without our repentance, will be our everlasting ruin and perdition. But then, besides this actual, there is also an habitual inconsideration, which is wilful; and that is, when by often stifling the convictions of our consciences, we have seared them into a deep insensibility of good and evil, so as that now we sin on without any remorse or reluctancy, and return to our lusts with the same indifferency as we do to our beds or our tables, without either considering what we are doing, or reflecting on what we have done: and this is so far from