A20559:697
The bright star which leadeth wise men to our Lord Jesus Christ, or, A…
The bright star which leadeth wise men to our Lord Jesus Christ, or, A familiar and learned exposition on the ten commandments gathered from the mouth of a faithful pastor by a gracious young man, sometime scholar in Cambridge.The bright star which leadeth wise men to our Lord Jesus Christ, or, A familiar and learned exposition on the ten commandements gathered from the mouth of a faithfull pastor by a gracious young man, sometime scholler in Cambridge.
London: printed by John Harison for Thomas Man, 1603London: printed by Iohn Harison for Thomas Man, 1603
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
From this then that God forbids coveting we learn that the ⟨p. 98⟩first motion and inclination of the heart to any sin though a man never yield to it, or plot and cast about how to bring it to pass, is a sin. And the reasons are plain; first, because God hath forbidden it, as in Rom 7. Paul saith, he had not known lust to be a sin, but that the law saith, thou shalt not lust. He knew, and many heathen men that never heard of Gods law, did confess that the inward thoughts, joined with consent and full purpose to do them if occasion served, were sins; but for those that did but as it were pass through the hart and staid not there, had no place of abode yielded to them, but were shut out so soon as they entered, he could never be persuaded that these were faults, & provoked Gods wrath, but that by the law he knew God had said and then he believed it. Secondly, if one examine these by that general rule, do as you would be done by, he shall see that they agree not with it. For no man would be willing to have an other man, conceive the least flying conceit or thought that might hurt him, though he never went about to put in practise; & therefore also must be driven to confess that it is a sin in him to have such thoughts towards an other. 3, if we consider the cause it will appear what they be. They are fruits of original sin and proceed from natural corruption; now who can draw a clean thing out of an unclean thing, who can pull good fruit out of a bad tree? (being then effects of our natural pollution that we received from Adam, for if we had continued in innocency we should have been perfect without any such motion of the inward heart,) they are naught; for what ever comes from sin is sin. Lastly, if the effects be marked they shall appear to be evil. Now Saint James. 1. 14. sets down the effects of these evil thoughts & motions, every man saith he is tempted when he is drawn away by his own concupiscence and is enticed. This Saint James shows that let one make as little account of these thoughts as he please and count them small matters, yet the work that they do is not small; for they draw on a side from beholding God, they turn the heart from considering God, to marking those things, that he should not, & then when he is pulled from looking unto God, he falls to according and practising, and then sin ⟨image 194⟩brings death.