full of the joy of the Holy Ghost, and rashly say and think it is a diabolical delusion, or` if he hear some true doctrine from you, and, mistaking in that point himself, shall rashly say, that it is the devil that teacheth it you. This is not the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost. For this may stand with true faith in Christ, because it is not a blaspheming of that work of the Spirit, which is the great and necessary seal of the Gospel, but of a more private work; and, therefore, even the godly, in a mistake and in a rash zeal, may be guilty of it. If a papist shall say, that it is the devil and not the Holy Ghost that leads the Protestants; or the Lutherans shall say so by the Calvinists, or the anabaptists by the defenders of infant baptism, this is not the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost here in question, though another sort of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost it is. Here are divers in this age that pretend to extraordinary revelations, or workings and teachings of the Spirit; and some to communion visibly with angels; if we go to try these spirits, whether they be of God or not, and find that the spirit of the ranters is a spirit of wickedness; the spirit of the libertines and antinomians, of licentiousness; the spirit of the Behmenists and quakers leadeth to popery, and to railing and contempt of theministry, and seeing that their doctrines are contrary to the word of God, we conclude that it is an evil spirit that moves, that shakes, that transporteth these men. If now there should be some one true prophet among them, or one that indeed is acted by the Spirit of God in the main, and should really have visible converse with angels, which we will believe when it is proved, and yet mix with it some of the errors of the rest, and be taken for one of them, if we should mistakingly tell this man that it is an evil spirit that acteth him, or that he converseth with, this is not the unpardonable sin here mentioned, for the reason before expressed. The like we may say in many the like cases.

14. If a man should be falsely informed by those he liveth with, that Christ and his disciples were all wicked livers, and should not hear what can be said for his better information, and thus, hearing the miracles of the Gospel with such prejudice, should believe and say, that they were all done by magic or evil spirits, which is like to be the case now of many of the Jews, though this be near to the unpardonable blasphemy, yet I think it is not it, while men hear not the true case, but are merely perverted by other men's lies, though they may hear the truth about the matter of fact, which they blaspheme.

15. The blasphemy against the Spirit, described in this text, is not the mere resisting, opposing, quenching, or hating the internal efficiency of the Spirit in the sinner himself, as many take it to be, who make it to be a sin against internal illumination only: but it is a sin against the external, evidencing, testifying works of the Spirit; and for aught I know, it may be committed as well by those that never had any internal illumination at all, any more than heathens and common, unbelieving Jews have, as by those that were illuminated. I find not any extraordinary illumination that these pharisees had; but contrarily that they had eyes and saw not, and hearts and understood not, and were blinded by Satan: it was an external work of the Spirit, which they blasphemed, and not an inward illumination of their own minds.

16. All final infidelity or impenitence, I think, is not this blaspheming of the Holy Ghost. Thousands may die impenitently, and in negative unbelief, that never heard of Christ. Many may die in positive infidelity, that have heard of Christ's doctrine, but not of his Spirit and miracles, or not in any manner fit to convince. Many may have a vulgar, superficial belief of all these, and yet die impenitently as to their other sins. Though these shall certainly perish; yet, I think, it is not as blasphemers of the Spirit.

17. It is not all desperation that is the sin against the Holy Ghost. Indeed, as desperation falls in with infidelity, or is grounded on it, as when men despair that ever the promises of God should prove true and be performed, so desperation may be this unpardonable sin, if it be joined with this blaspheming of the works of Christ, as infidelity itself may be; but otherwise when a man believes that the Gospel is true, but despaireth that ever he himself shall be saved by it, I take not this to be the sin against the Holy Ghost, though it be one of those that Austin once supposed it.

18. Presumption is not the sin against the Holy Ghost; though it be another that Austin once conceited to be it, if the papists mistake him not. I mean by presumption, either a false persuasion that we are the sons of God, when we are not, or else, a boldness in sin upon an ungrounded conceit of God's mercy; which are the things that we commonly call by that name. For, alas! the most of mankind, before conversion, are captivated by that sin, and the relics remain after.

19. It is not all envy at the grace or gifts of our brother that

is this unpardonable sin, though that be another that the schoolmen fetch from Austin: no, nor doth it directly or properly lie in such an envy at all: that sin is great, but not the sin in question.

20. It is not all epicurean contempt of the christian religion, as Melancthon thought, as Pelargus allegeth him, that is this sin against the Holy Ghost. Epicurus was never guilty of this sin himself; and those, who, from an epicurean spirit of sensuality, do contemn the christian religion, may yet not do it in a blaspheming of the works of the Spirit; but, perhaps, never heard or considered of those works; and, therefore, many such, for aught we know, may be recovered.

21. It is not all falling away from grace received that is this unpardonable sin; the godly may fall in part from true grace. Others may fall quite away from some common gifts of mercy, and yet neither sin this unpardonable sin here in the text; though apostasy may in another respect prove unpardonable, as final impenitence doth.

22. I think that the sin against the Holy Ghost consisteth not in the total excussion of special, sanctifying grace once received because I think that those that have received this are preserved by Christ from such a total excussion or apostasy. Otherwise, if I did believe that there ever were such a total apostasy, I should think it were either of the same nature with this before us, or at least very near it, and of the like consequence.

23. No soul is guilty of this unpardonable sin, who believeth that Christ is the Son of God, and the Redeemer of the world, and would fain have part in the merits and mercy of his Redeemer. The sin against the Holy Ghost casteth out this. It is the sin of infidels; or, at least, of men who would have none of Christ if they might: those, therefore, that would have Christ, and yet fear they have committed this sin, they know not what it is, nor what they are afraid of.

24. It is a sign that a man hath not committed the sin against the Holy Ghost, when he is troubled with fears lest he have committed it, and complaineth of his danger and sad condition. For it is the nature of that sin to harden a man in confidence against Christ, and make him think he ought to be an infidel; and, therefore, will rather despise Christ, than be grieved lest he have lost him, or shall be deprived of his benefits. These fears, lest you have sinned against the Holy Ghost, do show that you

would not so sin: and if you would not, you have not; they show that you would not lose your part in Christ, nor be deprived of the fruits of his death and merits: and that shows that you yet believe in the death and merits of Christ, and do not blaspheme him as a confederate of Beelzebub, as the pharisees here did. So that of all people, poor, troubled, complaining Christians have least cause to fear that they have sinned against the Holy Ghost. It is those that never fear it, that are most like to be guilty of it: for it maketh men secure.

So much for the negative: to tell you what is not the sin against the Holy Ghost, before I come to tell you what it is, which I have not done in way of contention or contradiction of others, but only for the better discovery of the sin, and to prevent the causeless fears or desperation of any, who, by imagining that they are guilty of it when they are not, may be drawn to cast away their hopes, and give up all as lost.

For the affirmative what this sin is, I think it best to proceed towards the discovery of it by certain preparatory conclusions, ascending to it by just degrees: because that truths are concatenated, and one tendeth to introduce another into our understandings.

1. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world; who, coming on that business to take away sin, by the sacrifice of himself hath made a sufficient satisfaction for the sins of all men, and prescribed a way by which he will have the benefits actually conferred.

2. The sufficiency of this satisfaction is to be measured, judged of, and denominated, in relation to the ends for which it is said to be sufficient; and those ends are freely determined of by the Father and the Redeemer, whose death, therefore, is sufficient, not to all things, but to what he willed it, or to those ends to which he did intend it.

3. The death of Christ was never intended to be a sufficient satisfaction for all sin absolutely, howsoever aggravated. It was no satisfaction for some, and therefore no sufficient satisfaction. It pleased him to except some aggravated sins from all pardon, in his Gospel, and consequently in his dying, and in his intentions about the ends and effects of his death. Not, as some conceit, merely because they were the sins of such persons, viz., the nonelect, whom, say they, he died not for; for indeed he hath given to those men a conditional pardon of other sins, but not of these; but it hath pleased him to except the very sin itself con

sidered in its own aggravated nature, from all pardon, without laying the reason only on the subject in whom it is found.

4. There must be somewhat, therefore, in the nature of that excepted sin, that must make it unfit for God to pardon it; or else it would be pardoned as well as others. And that must be either the greatness of it, or some special contradiction or inconsistency that it hath with the frame of God's design in the pardoning and recovering of sinners. The former it is not likely to be, at least, simply and proximately; for the greatest sinners have mercy offered them, and may have it on God's terms: so that if the greatness of their sin lie not in a contradiction of God's terms of pardoning, they cannot hinder them from pardon. So that if you ask, why cannot such sins be pardoned, the proper answer is, because Christ hath procured and granted out in the Gospel no pardon of them. But if you further ask, why hath he not granted a pardon of them in the Gospel, the answer is, because they were unfit for pardon, as having a special contradiction to the causes of a pardon, and to that design which the free will of God hath laid: and so it is indeed the greatness, but not simply, but respectively, as being thus aggravated by an opposition to this pardoning grace; that is, the reason (as far as we may give one from the nature of the thing) why the excepted sins are unpardonable, and Christ hath made no satisfaction for them.

5. The sin against the Holy Ghost, therefore, must lie in some such contradiction to the pardoning terms or way of God, rather than in the absolute greatness of the sin.

6. The tenour of Christ's promise, or covenant, by which he pardoneth sin, is, that whosoever believeth and repenteth, shall have all his sins pardoned. And this is in force to persons of every age, and at every season in this life. So that, by the tenour of this grant or covenant, final unbelief and impenitence are excepted from pardon directly, and nothing else: but consequentially, whatsoever is inseparably concomitant with them, or is inconsistent with faith and repentance in this life. That which is made the condition of pardon, is so far as a condition most plainly thereby excepted from pardon itself; that is, the non-performance of that condition is so excepted: else a man might have the benefit without condition, and then it were no condition, seeing it suspendeth not the benefit.

7. The sin against the Holy Ghost, therefore, must needs be some aggravated sort of infidelity or impenitence, or some in