1The flesh faileth us, because sin hath defiled it. Mans flesh at first was fly-blown with pride, and is ever since liable to putrefaction. Sin is therefore called a body of death, because it causeth the death ⟨p. 21⟩of the body. When one asked who set up the stately Edifices in Rome; it was answered, The sins of Germany (meaning the money which the Popes Agents received for Pardons granted to the Germans) If it be demanded, Who pulleth down the goodly building of mans body; it may be answered, The sins of man. It is sin which turneth such costly curious houses into confused ruinous heaps. Draco the Lawgiver, appointed death the punishment of every offence (for which cause his Laws are said to be written in blood) and being demanded the reason, he gave this answer, that though when crimes were unequal, he seemed to be unjust in making all equal in punishment, yet herein his justice appeared, that the least breach of the Law deserved death. The light of Nature taught them, that those that sin are worthy to die, Rom. 1.32. The estate of all sinners lieth in the valley of the shadow of death. Wheresoever sin hath but a finger, death will have a hand: Sin though never committed, but only imputed, did put to death the very Lord of life. It is like that wild Caprificus, which if it get but rooting, though in the substance of a stone in the wall, it will break it asunder.
1The flesh faileth us, because sin hath defiled it. Mans flesh at first was fly-blown with pride, and is ever since liable to putrefaction. Sin is therefore called a body of death, because it causeth the death ⟨p. 21⟩of the body. When one asked who set up the stately Edifices in Rome; it was answered, The sins of Germany (meaning the money which the Popes Agents received for Pardons granted to the Germans) If it be demanded, Who pulleth down the goodly building of mans body; it may be answered, The sins of man. It is sin which turneth such costly curious houses into confused ruinous heaps. Draco the Lawgiver, appointed death the punishment of every offence (for which cause his Laws are said to be written in blood) and being demanded the reason, he gave this answer, that though when crimes were unequal, he seemed to be unjust in making all equal in punishment, yet herein his justice appeared, that the least breach of the Law deserved death. The light of Nature taught them, that those that sin are worthy to die, Rom. 1.32. The estate of all sinners lyeth in the valley of the shadow of death. Wheresoever sin hath but a finger, death will have a hand: Sin though never committed, but onely imputed, did put to death the very Lord of life. It is like that wilde Caprificus, which if it get but rooting, though in the substance of a stone in the wall, it will break it asunder.
- 1Psa. 90.7 Rom. 8.
