Three treatises of the vanity of the creature. The sinfulness of sin. The life…Three treatises of the vanity of the creature. The sinfulnesse of sinne. The life…

ROM. 7. 9. For I was alive without the Law once: but when the Commandment came, Sin revived, and I died.

ROM. 7. 9. For I was alive without the Law once: but when the Commandement came, Sinne revived, and I died.

WE have seen in the former Treatise, that man can find no Happiness in the Creature; I will in the next place show; That he can find no happiness in Himself; It is neither about him, nor within him: In the Creature nothing but vanities and vexation, in Himself nothing but Sin and Death. The Apostle in these words sets forth three things. First, The state of Sin, Sin Revived: Secondly, the Guilt of Sin, I Died, or found my self to be a condemned man in the state of perdition. Thirdly, the evidence and conviction of both, When the Commandment came, which words imply a conviction and that from the spirit. First, a conviction, for ⟨p. 118⟩they infer a conclusion extremely contradictory to the conclusions in which Saint Paul formerly rested (which¹ is the form of a conviction) Saint Pauls former conclusion was, I was alive; but when the commandment came, the conclusion was extremely contrary, I Died. Secondly, It was a spiritual conviction. For Saint Paul was never literally without the Law, but the va•le till this time was before his eyes, he is now made to understand the Law in its native sense and compass; the Law is spiritual, v. 14. and he is enabled to discern it spiritually. Absurd is the² Doctrine of the ^aSocinians, & some others, That unregenerate men by a mere nature all perception, without any divine superinus'd light (they are the words of