A53712:499
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.
If a Man, in the things of this World, had such a hope of a large Inheritance, of a Kingdom, as wherein he is satisfied that it will not fail him▪ but that in the issue he shall surely enjoy it, and lead an happy and a glorious life in the possession of it many days; if one should go to him and tell him, It is true, the Kingdom you look for is an ample and honourable Dominion, full of all good things desirable, and you may attain it; but come, cast away all hopes and expectations ⟨p. 280⟩of it, and come join with Me in the service and slavery of such or such an oppressing Tyrant. You will easily grant; he must have some strange bewitching power with him, that should prevail with a Man in his wits to follow his advice.
If a Man, in the things of this World, had such a hope of a large Inheritance, of a Kingdom, as wherein he is satisfied that it will not fail him▪ but that in the issue he shall surely enjoy it, and lead an happy and a glorious life in the possession of it many dayes; if one should go to him and tell him, It is true, the Kingdom you look for is an ample and honourable Dominion, full of all good things desirable, and you may attain it; but come, cast away all hopes and expectations ⟨p. 280⟩of it, and come joyn with Me in the service and slavery of such or such an oppressing Tyrant. You will easily grant; he must have some strange bewitching power with him, that should prevail with a Man in his wits to follow his advice.
Yet thus it is, and much more so in the case we have in hand. Sin it self cannot deny, but that the Kingdom of Heaven which the Soul is in hope and expectation of, is glorious and excellent, nor doth it go about to convince him, that his thoughts of it are vain, and such as will deceive him, but plainly prevails with him to cast away his hopes, to despise his Kingdom that he was in expectation of, and that upon no other motive but that he may serve some worldly, cruel, or filthy and sensual lust; Certainly here lies a secret efficacy, whose depths cannot be fathomed.