A53712:529
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.
I shall yet touch upon some other evidences of the same truth, that I have under consideration; but I shall be brief in them: In the next place then, the great endeavours of Men ignorant of the Righteousness of Christ for the subduing and mortifying of sin, which are all fruitless, do evidence the great strength and power of it.
Men who have no strength against sin, may yet be made sensible of the strength of sin. The way whereby for the most part they come to that knowledge, is by some previous sense that they have of the guilt of sin. This Men have by the Light of their Consciences; they cannot avoid it: This is not a thing in their choice, whether they will or no, they cannot but know sin to be evil, and that such an evil that renders them obnoxious to the Judgement of God. This galls the Minds and Consciences of some so far, as that they are kept in awe, and d•re not sin as they would. Being awed with a sense of the guilt of sin, and the terror of the Lord, Men begin to endeavour to abstain from sin, at least from such sins as they have been most terrified •bout. Whilst they have this design in hand, the ⟨p. 293⟩strength and power of sin begins to discover it self unto them; They begin to find that there is something in them, that is not in their own power; for notwithstanding their resolutions and purposes, they sin still; and that so, or in such a manner, as that their Consciences inform them that they must therefore perish eternally. This puts them on self-endeavours to suppress the eruption of sin, because they cannot be quiet unless so they do; nor have any rest or peace within. Now being ignorant of that only way whereby sin is to be mortified, that is by the Spirit of Christ, they fix on many ways in their own strength to suppress it, if not to slay it; as being ignorant of that only way whereby Consciences burdened with the guilt of sin may be pacified, that is by the blood of Christ; they endeavour by many other ways to accomplish that end in vain; for no Man by any self-endeavours can obtain peace with God. Some of the ways whereby they endeavour to suppress the power of sin, which casts them into an unquiet condition, and their insufficiency for that end, we must look into.