A53712:474
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.
Now such is the efficacy, power, and force of Indwelling-sin in man, an infection that the nature of other creatures knows nothing of, that in many it prevails to stop this fountain, to beat back the stream of natural affections, to root up the principles of the Law of nature, and to drive them unto a neglect, a destruction of the fruit of their own loins. Paul tells us of the old Gentiles, they were [Greek or Hebrew], Rom. 1. 31. without natural affection; that which he aims at is that barbarous custom among the Romans, who oft-times to spare the trouble in the education of their children, and to be at liberty to satisfy their lusts, destroyed their own children from the womb. So far did the strength of sin prevail to obliterate the Law of nature, and to repel the force and power of it.
Now such is the efficacy, power, and force of Indwelling-sin in man, an infection that the nature of other creatures knows nothing of, that in many it prevails to stop this fountain, to beat back the stream of natural affections, to root up the principles of the Law of nature, and to drive them unto a neglect, a destruction of the fruit of their own loins. Paul tells us of the old Gentiles, they were 〈non-Latin alphabet〉, Rom. 1. 31. without natural affection; that which he aims at is that barbarous custom among the Romans, who oft-times to spare the trouble in the education of their children, and to be at liberty to satisfie their lusts, destroyed their own children from the womb. So far did the strength of sin prevail to obliterate the Law of nature, and to repel the force and power of it.
Examples of this nature are common in all Nations; amongst our selves, of women murdering their own children, through the deceitful reasoning of sin. And herein sin turns the strong current of nature, darkens all the light of God in the soul, controls all natural principles, influenced w•th the power of the command & will of God. But yet this evil hath, through the efficacy of sin, received a fearful aggravation. Men have not only slain, but cruelly sacrificed their children to satisfy their lusts. The Apostle reckons Idolatry, & so consequently all superstition, among the works of the flesh,