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to Jerusalem." Now here was great rage and malice in Saul, against the ways and the people of God; but doing it ignorantly, he at last heard a voice saying, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" And seeing a light from heaven, and hearing it was Jesus that he persecuted, he was pricked at the heart, and trembling and astonished said, "Lord what wilt thou have me to do?" Now, by these two places of Scripture, you may plainly see, that Peter sinned against great light, and Paul out of great malice; yet neither of them committed the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost. But whensoever light and malice meet together in one man then there is the sin against the Holy Ghost. Now, as all other sins, so is this sin against the Holy Ghost,
I. In thought; that is, when a wicked man, against his clear light and knowledge, doth but conceive a malicious thought or purpose towards persecuting the Gospel of Christ, or of the saints of Christ, to hinder the work of the Holy Ghost in them.
This sin as is to be thought, was the sin of the lost angels; for which cause they were lost without all hopes of pardon. Now some dispute whether this sin was a sin of the thought: but I say, in all likelihood it was; for the angels being only spirits, without bodies, and so having no use of bodily tongues, it could not be committed in word, nor yet could they commit it in action because they were cast out of heaven,
