A53712:397
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.
Sometimes, I confess, God secretly works the hearts of men by his own finger, without the use and means of such Arguments as those insisted on, to stop the progress of sin. So he tells Abimelech, Gen. 20. 6. I have with-held thee from sinning against me. Now this could not be done by any of the Arguments which we have insisted on, because Abimelech knew not that the thing which he intended was sin; and therefore he pleads that in the integrity of his heart and innocency of his hands he did it, ver. 5. God turned about his will and thoughts, that he should not accomplish his intention; but by what ways or means is not revealed. Nor is it evident what course he took in the change of Esau's heart, when he came out against ⟨p. 214⟩his Brother to destroy him, Gen. 33. 4. whether he stirred up in him a fresh spring of natural affections, or caused him to consider what grief by this means he should bring to his aged Father, who loved him so tenderly; or whether being now grown great and wealthy, he more and more despised the matter of difference between him and his Brother, and so utterly slighted it, it is not known. It may be God did it by an immediate powerful act of his Spirit upon his heart, without the actual intervening of any of these or the like considerations. Now though the things mentioned are in themselves at other times feeble and weak, yet when they are managed by the Spirit of God to such an end and purpose, they certainly become effectual, and are the matter of his preventing grace.
Sometimes, I confess, God secretly works the hearts of men by his own finger, without the use and means of such Arguments as those insisted on, to stop the progress of sin. So he tells Abimelech, Gen. 20. 6. I have with-held thee from sinning against me. Now this could not be done by any of the Arguments which we have insisted on, because Abimelech knew not that the thing which he intended was sin; and therefore he pleads that in the integrity of his heart and innocency of his hands he did it, ver. 5. God turned about his will and thoughts, that he should not accomplish his intention; but by what waies or means is not revealed. Nor is it evident what course he took in the change of Esaus heart, when he came out against