'Sin and consideration cannot dwell together': a Tillotson sermon on Repentance

From Tillotson's sermon 'The Danger of Impenitence, Where the Gospel is Preach'd', on the text Matthew 11:21-22:

Sin will yet farther appear shameful, in that it is so great a Reproach to our Understandings and Reasons, and so foul a Blot upon our Prudence and Discretion. Omnis peccans aut ignorans est, aut incogitans, is a Saying, I think, of one of the School-men; (as one would guess by the Latin of it) Every Sinner is either an ignorant, or inconsiderate Person. Either Men do not understand what they do, when they commit Sin; or if they do know, they do not actually attend to, and consider what they know: Either they are habitually or actually ignorant of what they do: for Sin and Consideration cannot dwell together; 'tis so very unreasonable and absurd a thing, that it requires either gross Ignorance, or stupid Inadvertency, to make a Man capable of committing it. Whenever a Man sins, he must either be destitute of Reason, or must lay it aside or asleep for the time, and so suffer himself to be hurried away, and to act brutishly, as if he had no understanding.

Did but Men attentively consider what it is to offend God, and to break the Laws of that great Lawgiver, who is able to save or to destroy, they would discern so many invincible Objections against the thing, and would be filled with such strong Fears and Jealousies of the fatal Issue and Event of it, that they would not dare to venture upon it. And therefore we find the Scripture so frequently resolving the Wickedness of Men into their Ignorance and Inconsiderateness, Psal. 14.4. Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? intimating that by their Actions one would judge so. And the same account God himself also gives elsewhere of the frequent Disobedience and Rebellion of the People of Israel, Deut. 32.28, 29. They are a nation void of counsel, neither is there any understanding in them. Oh! that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end! Knowledge and Consideration would cure a great part of the Wickedness that is in the World; Men would not commit Sin with so much greediness, would they but take time to consider, and bethink themselves what they do.

Have we not reason then to be ashamed of Sin, which casts such a reproach of Ignorance and Rashness upon us? and of Imprudence likewise and Indiscretion? Since nothing can be more directly and plainly against our greatest and best Interest both of Body and Soul, both here and hereafter, both now and to all Eternity.

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