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…

But it may be objected, Doth not the Apostle say, that by being baptized into Christ, or planted into the likeness¹ of his death, our old man is crucified, the body of sin is destroyed, we are freed from sin, as a woman is from a dead husband, we have put off the body of the² sins of the flesh, by the Circumcision made without hands that is, by Baptism and the Spirit? Doth not the Apostle Saint John say, He that is borne of God, that is, he that is Regenerate by Water and the Spirit. sinneth not, neither can sin? To this I answer in general with the same Apostle, If we say we have no sin, we deceive our ⟨p. 145⟩³selves, and there is no truth in us. More particularly, we⁴ must distinguish both of Death and of sin. There is a twofold Death; an Actual, or Natural Death, when the essential parts of a living Creature are taken asunder, and the whole dissolved: and a Virtual or Legal Death; when though the party be naturally Alive, yet he is Dead in Law, and that notes two things: First, a designation unto a certain Death at hand, and ready to be executed: Secondly, a disability unto many purposes which lay before in the mans power; as a man condemned, though he have his life out of indulgence for a short space, yet he is then set apart, and appointed for death, and in the very sentence disabled to order or dispose of any thing which was then his own. When a woman is divorced for adultery from her husband, though she be Alive naturally, yet Legally and to the purpose of marriage she is Dead to her husband, so that though she should live in the same house, yet she should have nothing to do with his bed or body. And thus the Apostle speaketh of sinful Widows, that they are Dead while they Live, 1. Tim. 5. 6.

But it may be objected, Doth not the Apostle say, that by being baptized into Christ, or planted into the likenesse¹