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ledge and conscience; yet this sin against the Holy Ghost, contains all these, and more. It is a sin against the gospel, and free offer and dispensation of grace and salvation by Christ, through the Spirit. Yet, it is not any particular sin against the gospel, nor yet a rejecting of the whole gospel, if in ignorance, Luke xxiii. 34; nor yet every denying of Christ, or sudden revolting from the outward profession of the gospel, when it is of infirmity, through fear, and such like temptation, Matt. xxvi. 69, 70, 74; neither is it called the sin against the Holy Ghost, and is unpardonable, because it is committed against the essence, or person of the Holy Ghost, for the essence of the three persons in the Trinity is all one; and the person of the Holy Ghost is not more excellent than the person of the Father and the Son; but it is called the sin against the Holy Ghost, and becomes unpardonable, because it is against the office of the Holy Ghost, and against the gracious operations of the Holy Ghost, and therein against the whole blessed Trinity, all whose works, out of themselves, are consummate, and perfected in the work of the Holy Ghost. Moreover, know that it is unpardonable, not in respect of God's power, but in respect of his will; he having, in his holy wisdom, determined never to pardon it. And good reason why he should will not to pardon it, in respect of the kind of the sin, if you will observe it; it being a wilful and malicious refusing of pardon upon such terms as the gospel does offer it, scorning to be beholden unto God for it. You may perceive what it is, by this description:

The sin against the Holy Ghost is an utter, wilful, and spiteful rejection of the gospel of salvation by Christ, together with an advised and absolute falling away from the profession of it, so far, that, against former knowledge and conscience, Heb. vi. 4 - 6, a man does maliciously oppose and blaspheme the Spirit of Christ, in the word and ordinances of the gospel, and motions of the Spirit in them; having resisted, rejected, and utterly quenched all those common and more inward gifts and motions wrought upon their hearts and affections, which sometimes were enter-