A53712:332
The Nature, Power, Deceit, and Prevalency of Indwelling Sin
The nature, power, deceit, and prevalency of the remainders of indwelling-sin in believers together with the ways of its working and means of prevention opened, evinced, and applied with a resolution of sundry cases of conscience thereunto appertaining.The nature, power, deceit, and prevalency of the remainders of indwelling-sin in believers together with the wayes of its working and means of prevention opened, evinced, and applyed with a resolution of sundry cases of conscience thereunto appertaining.
London: printed for Thomas Cockerill, 1675
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.
First, There is in his will a principle fixed on good, on all good, Rom. 7. 21. He would do good. The principle of grace in the will, inclines him to all good. And this in general is prevalent against the principle of sin, so that the will is denominated from thence. Grace hath the rule and dominion, and not sin, in the will of every Believer. Now that consent unto sin in the will, which is contrary to the inclination and general prevailing principle in the same will, is not, cannot be total, absolute and complete.
First, There is in his will a principle fixed on good, on all good, Rom. 7. 21. He would do good. The principle of grace in the will, inclines him to all good. And this in general is pravalent against the principle of sin, so that the will is denominated from thence. Grace hath the rule and dominion, and not sin, in the will of every Believer. Now that consent unto sin in the will, which is contrary to the inclination and general prevailing principle in the same will, is not, cannot be total, absolute and complete.
Secondly, There is not only a general, •••ng, prevailing principle in the will against sin, but there is also a secret reluctancy in it against its own act in consenting unto sin. It is true, the soul is not sensible sometimes of this reluctancy, because the present consent carries away the prevailing act of the will, and takes away the sense of the lusting of the spirit, or reluctancy of the principle of grace in the will. But the general rule holdeth in all things at all times, Gal. 5. 17. The spirit lusteth against the flesh: it doth so actually, though not always to the same degree, nor with the same success. And the prevalency of the contrary principle in this or that particular act, doth not disprove it. It is so ⟨p. 174⟩