A10659:394
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…
Three treatises of the vanity of the creature. The sinfulness of sin. The life of Christ. Being the substance of several sermons preached at Lincolns Inn: by Edward Reynolds, preacher to that honourable society, and late fellow of Merton College in Oxford.Three treatises of the vanity of the creature. The sinfulnesse of sinne. The life of Christ. Being the substance of severall sermons preached at Lincolns Inne: by Edward Reynoldes, preacher to that honourable society, and late fellow of Merton Colledge in Oxford.
London: printed by Felix Kyngston for Robert Bostocke, 1631
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
The last thing in this first point proposed was, How the spirit by the Commandment doth thus convince men to be in the state of sin. To this I answer briefly. First, by quickening and putting an edge upon the Instrumental cause, the sword of the Spirit. For the word of it self is a dead letter, and profiteth nothing, it is the spirit that puts life and power into it. I am full of power by the 1Spirit of the Lord to declare unto Jacob his transgressions, saith the Prophet, Mic. 3. 8. As the Spirit is a Spirit of life, so hath he given to the Word to be a Word of life, quick and powerful, Phil. 2. 16. Heb. 4. 12. Secondly, by writing it in the heart, casting the heart into the mould of the Word, and transforming the spirit of man into the image of the Word, and making it as it were the Epistle 2of Christ, bending and framing the heart to stand in awe of Gods Word; for writing his Law, and putting his fear into the heart is the same thing with God. In which ⟨p. 259⟩respect (amongst others) men are said to be Sealed by3 the Spirit, because that Spiritual Holiness which is in the Word, is fashioned in the hearts of the Saints, as the image of the seal is in the wax. As the light of the Sun doth by reflection from the Moon enlighten that part of the earth, or from a glass that part of a room from which it self is absent: So though the Church be here absent from the Lord, yet his Spirit by the Word doth enlighten and govern it: It is not the Moon alone, nor the glass alone, nor yet the Sun without the Moon or the glass that enlighteneth those places upon which it self doth not immediately shine, but that as the principal, by them as the instruments; so the Spirit doth not, and the Word cannot alone by it self convince or convert, but the Spirit by the Word as its sword and instrument. So then when the Spirit turns a mans eyes inward to see the truth of the Word written in his own heart, makes him put his Seal unto it, frameth the will to search, acknowledge and judge the worst of its self, to subscribe unto the righteousness of God in condemning sin, and him for it, to take the office of the Word, and pass that sentence upon it self which the Word doth, then doth the Word spiritually Convince of sin.