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 lastly and principally lust hath much strength in and from us. First, because they are natural unto us. A mans sin is himself, it is called by the name of our ^aOld man. And therefore to be ^bcarnal, and to walk as man, to live after the lusts of the flesh, and after the lusts of men are all one. To ^clive to sin in one place is to ^dlive to our selves in another. To ^ecrucify fleshly affections in one place, is ^fto mortify our earthly members in another. To ^gdeny ungodliness and worldly lusts in one place, is to ^hdeny our selves in another. To ⁱlay aside the sin that doth so easily beset us in one place, is to ^kcast away our right eye and our right hand in another. And therefore the ways of sin are called ^lour own ways, and the lusts of the flesh ^mour own lusts, and being our own, we love and cherish them. ⁿNo man ever hated his own flesh, neither can any man by nature hate his own lusts, unto which he is as truly said to be ^omarried as the Church is to Christ. And this serves much to set forth the power of sin. For the love of the subject is the strength of the Sovereign; a king shall then certainly be obeyed, when he commands such things as it were difficult for him to prohibit. Secondly, lust hath from us weapons to set forward its strength, The heart a forge to contrive, and members instruments to execute, the heart a womb to conceive, and the members midwives to bring forth lusts into act. Lastly, sin must be very strong in us because we are by nature full of it. So the Apostle says of natural men that they were filled with all unrighteousness,