The Nature, Power, Deceit, and Prevalency of Indwelling Sin

Fifthly, The Law stays not here, but also it slays the soul, Rom. 7. 3. that is, by its conviction of the nature, power, and desert of this indwelling-sin, it deprives him in whom it is of all that life of self-righteousness and hope, which formerly he sustained himself withal: It leaves him as a poor, dead, helpless, hopeless creature. And all this in the pursuit of that opposition that it makes against this sin. May we not now expect, that the power of it will be quelled, and its strength broken; that it will die away before these strokes of the Law of God; but the truth is, such is its power and strength, that it is quite otherwise; like him whom the Poets feign to be born of the Earth, when one thought to slay him by casting him on the ground, by every fall he recovered new strength, and was more vigorous than formerly: So is it with all the falls and repulses that are given to Indwelling-sin by the Law. For,

Fifthly, The Law stays not here, but also it slays the soul, Rom. 7. 3. that is, by its conviction of the nature, power, and desert of this indwelling-sin, it deprives him in whom it is of all that life of self-righteousness and hope, which formerly he sustained himself withall: It leaves him as a poor, dead, helpless, hopeless creature. And all this in the pursuit of that opposition that it makes against this sin. May we not now expect, that the power of it will be quelled, and its strength broken; that it will die away before these strokes of the Law of God; but the truth is, such is its power and strength, that it is quite otherwise; like him whom the Poets feign to be born of the Earth, when one thought to slay him by casting him on the ground, by every fall he recovered new strength, and was more vigorous than formerly: So is it with all the falls and repulses that are given to Indwelling-sin by the Law. For,

First, It is not conquered. A conquest infers two things in respect of the conquered: First, Loss of Dominion; and, secondly, loss of strength. Where ever any one is conquered, he is despoiled of both these. He loseth both his authority and his power. So the strong man armed, being prevailed against, he is bound, and his goods are spoiled. But now neither of these befalls Indwelling-sin by the assaults of the Law; it loseth not one jot of its dominion nor strength by all the blows that are given unto it. The Law cannot do this thing,