A10659:479
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.
and therefore if it were put to his choice in such terms as might distinctly set forth the painfulness and contrariety of it to his present nature, he would undoubtedly refuse it, because he should be destitute of a principle to live and move by: and every thing naturally desires rather to move by a principle of its own, then by violent and foreign impressions, such as are those by which natural men are moved to the ways of God. And therefore the natural conscience doth ever bear with some sins, if they be small, unknown, secret, or the like, and hearkens not after them. But the spirit holds peace with no sin, fights against the least, the remotest, those which are out of sight. Paul against the sproutings and rebellions1 of natural Concupiscence, David against his secret sins, as Israel against Jericho and Ai and those other cities of Canaan; it suffers no Accursed thing to be refer•ed, it slays as well women and children as men of war, lest that which remains should be a snare to deceive, and an engine to induce more. The natural conscience shoots only by aim, and level against some sins, and spares the rest, as Saul in the slaughter of the Amalekites. 2[…] ⟨p. 314⟩[…] ⟨p. 315⟩⟨p. 316⟩But the spiritual shoots not only by level against particular notorious sins, but at random too against the whole army of sin, and by that means doth peradventure wound and weaken lusts which it did not distinctly observe in it self, by complaining unto God against the body of sin, by watching over the course and frame of the heart, by acquainting it self out of the Word with the armour and devices o• Satan, &c. The opposition then between the natural conscience and sin is like the opposition between fire and hardness in some subjects; the conflict between the spiritual conscience and sin is like the opposition between fire and coldness. Put metal into the fire, and the heat will dissolve and melt it, but put a brick into the fire, and that will not melt nor soften (because the consistency of it doth not arise Ex causâ frigidà, but siccâ) but