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…

Fifthly, the power of a natural enlightened Conscience, either a wakened by some heavy affliction, or affrighted with the fear of Judgement, or, at best, assisted with a temper of generousness and ingenuity, a certain nobleness of disposition which can by no means endure ⟨p. 306⟩to be condemned by its own witness, nor to adventure on courses which do directly the wart the practical principles to which they subscribe. For (as I observed before) many men who will not do good Obedientially, ¹with faith in the Power, with submission to the Will, with aim at the Glory of him that commands it, will yet do it Rationally out of the conviction and evidence of their own principles. And this the Apostle calls a doing by Nature the things contained in the Law, and a² being a Law to a mans self. Now though this may carry a man far, yet it cannot pull down the kingdom of sin in him, for these reasons. First, it doth not subdue All sin, All filthiness of the flesh and spirit, and so perfect ³•olynesse in the fear of God. Drive a swine out of one dirty way, and he will presently into another, because it was not his disposition but his fear which turned him aside. Where there are many of a royal race, though hundreds be destroyed, yet if any one that can prove his descent do remain alive, the title and sovereignty runs into him (as we see in the slaughter which Athaliah ⁴made) so in sin, if any one be left to exercise power over the Conscience without control, the kingdom over a mans soul belongs unto that sin. Secondly, though it were possible (which yet cannot be supposed) for a Natural conscience to restrain and kill all the children of sin, yet it cannot rip up nor make barren the womb of sin, that is, Lust and Concupiscence, in which the reign of sin is sounded: Nature cannot discover, much less can it bewail or subdue it. As long as there is a Devil to cast in the seeds of temptations, and lusts to cherish, form, quicken, ripen them, impossible it is but sin must have an of-spring to reign over the soul of man. Thirdly, all the Proficiencies of Nature cannot make a mans endeavours good before God; though they may serve to excuse a man to himself, yet not unto God. If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and with