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…

Do I not dispense with my self for the least sprigs of sin, for irregular thoughts, for occasions of offence, for appearances of evil, for motions of concupiscence, for idle words, and vain conversation, for any thing that carries with it the face of sin? And when in any of these I am overtaken, do I bewail my weakness, and renew my resolutions against it? In a word, when I have impartially and uprightly measured mine own heart by the rule, doth it not condemn me of self-deceit, of hypocrisy, of halting and dissembling, of halving and prevaricating in Gods service? I may then comfortably conclude, that my Faith is in some measure operative and effectual in me: Which yet I may further try by the nature of it, as it is further expressed by the Apostle in the Text; That I may know him.

Do I not dispense with my selfe for the least sprigges of sinne, for irregular thoughts, for occasions of offence, for appearances of evill, for motions of concupiscence, for idle words, and vaine conversation, for any thing that carries with it the face of sinne? And when in any of these I am overtaken, doe I bewaile my weaknesse, and renew my resolutions against it? In a word, when I have impartially and uprightly measured mine owne heart by the rule, doth it not condemne mee of selfe-deceite, of hypocrisie, of halting and dissembling, of halfing and prevaricating in Gods service? I may then comfortably conclude, that my Faith is in some measure operative and effectuall in mee: Which yet I may further trie by the nature of it, as it is further expressed by the Apostle in the Text; That I may know him.

Here we see the nature of faith is expressed by an act of knowledge, and that act (respectively to justification) limited to Christ; This is eternal Life to know thee, and him whom thou hast sent: where by knowledge I understand a certain and evident assent. Now such assents are of two sorts; some grounded upon the evidence of the object, and that light which the thing assented unto doth carry and present to the understanding; as I assent to this truth, that the Sun is light by the evidence of the thing it self: and this kind of assent the Apostle contradistinguisheth from faith by the name of sight. Others are grounded upon the authority or authenticalnesse of a narrator, upon whose report while we rely without any evidence of the thing it self, the assent which we produce is an assent of faith or credence. Now