A44439:264
A second volume of discourses or sermons on several scriptures
A second volume of discourses or sermons on several scriptures by Ezekiel Hopkins ...
London: printed by E.H. for Nathanael Ranew, 1693
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Sermon 4: The Nature, Danger, Aggravations, and Cure of Presumptuous Sinning, &c. ON
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.
The next thing propounded,1 was to enquire into the Original Cause whence this sinful inclination proceeds; how it comes to pass that there is in all Men, and even in the best Christians, such a strong propension unto Sin.
- 1Whence it is that Christians have a proneness in them unto every Sin.
Now in the enquiry into this, I shall lead you on gradually by these following steps.
First, In Man's first Creation the Will had in it a Natural Power to determine the Specification of its own Acts, that is, freely to sway it self either unto Good, or Evil, which of them it pleased, and if there was any Bias in it to draw it more one way than another, as some there was, it was an inclination to that which is Good; for Man's Faculties were then entire and perfect, his Knowledge clear to discern what was his chief Good, and his highest Happiness, his Will free to choose it, and his Affections ready to embrace and clasp about ⟨p. 218⟩it: His Love, his Fear, his Joy, his Delight, were all of them Centred in God; that which is now in us from Grace, was in him from Nature: Since the Fall we need a Twofold assistance, one a Common influence and assistance, such as is vouchsafed to all Men to enable them to the performance of the common and ordinary Actions of this Life, it is from God's immediate influence that we are enabled to Move, to Think, to Speak, for in him we Live, Move, and have our Beings. And then we need also a Special influence vouchsafed only to the Children of God, whereby we are enabled to perform Holy and Spiritual Actions, as to Love, Fear, and Obey God sincerely, and this Special influence we commonly call Grace, whereby we are enabled to Act Divinely and Spiritually: Now the difference betwixt Common and Special influence lies in this, that what God works in us by a Common influence, that is wrought without any grudge or reluctancy in Man's Nature to the contrary, but what is wrought in us by a Special influence, that is, brought to pass, Nature gain-saying and contradicting it,