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…

First, in those men there appeareth not so sovereign and absolute a dominion of sin as hath been spoken of, in as much as they seem to live in fair external conformity to the truths which they have learned. To which I ⟨p. 292⟩answer first in general, that there may be a reign of sin where it is not perceived, and that Insensibility is a main argument of it. For this is a certain rule, the more tenderly and seriously any man is affected with sense and sorrow for the power of sin, the more he is delivered from it. The young man in the Gospel was fully persuaded that he had kept the whole Law, and little thought that his own possessions were his king, and that he was a vassal to his own wealth, till Christ convinced him of a mighty reign of covetousness in his heart. A ship may in the midst of a calm by reason of a great mist, and the negligence of the Mariners to sound and discover their distances from land, split it self against a rock, as well as be cast upon it by some irresistible storm: and so that man who never fathoms his heart, nor searcheth how near he may be to ruin, but goes leisurely and uniformly on in his wonted formal and pharisaical securities, may, when he thinks nothing of it, as likely perish under the power of sin, as he in whom the rage thereof is most apparent. As there is a great strength in a River when it runs smoothest and without noise, which immediately discovers it self when any bridge or obstacle is set up against it: so when sin passeth with most stillness, and undisturbance through the heart, then is the reign of it as strong as ever, and upon any spiritual and searching opposition will declare it self. The Pharisees were rigid, demure, saint-like men, while their hypocrisy was let alone to run calmly and without noise; but when Christ by his spiritual expositions of the Law, his Heavenly conversation, his penetrating and convincing Sermons, had stopped the current, and disquieted them in their course, we find their malice swell into the very sin against the holy Ghost. It is the light of the Sun which maketh day when it self lies shut under a cloud and is not seen; so in every natural man there is a power and prevalence of sin, which yet may lie undiscovered ⟨p. 293⟩under some general moralities.

First, in those men there appeareth not so soveraigne and absolute a dominion of sinne as hath been spoken of, in as much as they seeme to live in faire externall conformitie to the truthes which they have learned. To which I