A10659:454
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
THE SINFULNESS OF SIN. › THE REIGN OF SIN.THE SINFVLNESSE OF SINNE. › THE RAIGNE OF SINNE.
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 second Question is, Whether privy and secret sins which never break forth into light may reign. To which I answer, That of all other sins, those which are secret have the chiefest rule, such as are privy pride, hypocrisy, self-justification, rebellion, malicious projects against the Word and worship of God, &c. The Prophet compares wicked mens hearts to an Oven, Hos. 7. 6, 7. As an Oven is hottest when it is stopped that no blast may break forth: so the heart is oftentimes most sinful, when most reserved. aIt was a great part of the state and pride of the Persian kings, that they were seldom seen by their subjects in public; and the kingdom of China at this day is very vast and potent, though it communicate but little with other people: so those lodging thoughts, as the Prophet calls them, which lie stifled within, may be most powerful, when they are least discovered. First, Because they are ever in the throne (for the heart is the throne of sin) and every thing hath most of it self, and is least mi•ed and altered where it first riseth. Secondly, because they are in the heart as a stone in the Centre, freest from opposition and disturbance, which, breaking forth into act, they might be likely to meet withal. And ⟨p. 295⟩this may be one of the depths and projects of Satan against the soul of a man, to let him live in some fair and plausible conformity for the outward conversation, that so his rule in the heart may be the more quiet both from clamours of conscience, and from cure of the Word.
The second Question is, Whether privy and secret sins which never breake forth into light may raigne. To which I answere, That of all other sinnes, those which are secret have the chiefest rule, such as are privy pride, hypocrisie, selfe-justification, rebellion, malitious projects against the Word and worship of God, &c. The Prophet compares wicked mens hearts to an Oven, Hos. 7. 6, 7. As an Oven is hottest when it is stopp'd that no blast may breake forth: so the heart is oftentimes most sinfull, when most reserv'd. a