The Parable of the Ten Virgins Opened and Applied

II. That this sin of nature is most properly only the reigning sin. The text is evident for it, Rom. 6. 12. Let not sin reign, to obey it in the lusts thereof. There is 1. Obedience, i. e. the outward acts. 2. Lusts, the inward breathings. 3. Sin it self where those lusts are seated. It hath been a Question, What a mans reigning master sin is, and many discoveries have been made of particular sins, as that which riseth and awakeneth first in the morning with us, that which rides and labours a man upon the Sabbath day, when the Lord or sin must ride in triumph: yet that is the misery of a carnal heart, that when he gives his beasts rest, yet such is sins tyranny, he being sins beast, that he shall then have no rest. Now if their meaning be, that some particular sin may be a reigning sin, or a mans personal reigning sin; then 'tis true, Judas loves his bag best, and Ahithophel and H•m•n his honour most, and […] his whore most. But if they mean a mans natural reigning […]; the reigning sin then, 'tis not any particular sin so much as this: For no sin is able to reign over any man but by commission and power from this. As the Weeds can never grow •all, but by virtue of their soil where they grow, Mat. 15. 19. All the boughs flourish by virtue of the root whence they grow. And hence we shall see, let Satan sow his seeds of pride or lust or passion in a man whose nature is changed, its impossible they should come to any perfection there, b•• ••ey will die away within a time, because the heart of the ⟨p. 197⟩soil is gone, and power of sin removed; and hence also it comes to pass, that a mans master sin may be changed: Those sins that are his master-sins in his youth, are not in his old age, those that are at one time, in one place, are not in another. Now there could never be such change of Governors and Vice-roys, unless there were some great King, that sets up one, and pulls down another, satis pro imperio; This is therefore the reigning sin, which hath taken possession of every part, which hath its hand in every act, which pulls down one sin and sets up another under it, which gives strength to every sin that hath any, which fights it out till the last: This is I say the reigning sin; hence think not that then the reigning sin is down, when your personal sins are destroyed, though it be with a most sudden and fearful destruction.