A second volume of discourses or sermons on several scriptures

Thirdly,¹ It appears also from the irritating power that the Law hath. Even in the best of God's Children there is accidentally through our Corruption such a Malign influence (if I may so call it,) in the Holy, Just, and Good Law of God, that instead of quelling Sin it doth the more enrage and provoke it, and this we call the irritating power of the Law. Thus the Apostle tells us in Rom. 7.11, 13. That Sin takes occasion by the Law to work in us all manner of Concupiscence. Why, now were it possible that Sin should grow strong by that Law that was given on purpose to destroy it, but that there is in us violent propensions towards what is forbidden us, and eager desires after that which God hath denied us: So strangely depraved are our Corrupt Natures, that we swell with our Yoke, and labour to throw off whatever may lay a restraint upon us; like Green Sticks which being bent one way, by natural strength we start as far back the other way. Can none of us call to mind some Sins that possibly we should never have committed, had they not been forbidden to us; the Command often-times gives ⟨p. 216⟩Corruption a hint in what & how it may offend God: And is not this therefore a clear demonstration of that mighty proneness that there is in all of us unto Sin, when that Law that forbids Sin shall prove an incentive to it. The more will a high mettled Horse foam and fling the harder you Rein him in. And if you stop a River in its course, it will rise and swell till it over-flows its Banks; and whence is this, but because there is a Natural Proneness in it to run towards the Sea: And when God casts his Law before Men as a stop to them in their sinful course, they swell the higher till they have born or over-flown all those Bounds and Dams that God hath set to Bound them in: And whence proceeds all this, but only because there is a Natural tendency and propension in Men's Hearts to Sin, and therefore the more they are opposed the higher still do our Corruptions swell, and the more do they rage; and although the force of this sinful propension may be in some of God's Children in a good measure broken, yet in the very best of them is there some degree or other of this irritating power of the Law to stir them up ⟨p. 217⟩to Sin, even by forbidding of them to Sin. And that's the last demonstration.