A64687:156
Twenty sermons preached at Oxford before His Majesty, and elsewhere
Twenty sermons preached at Oxford before His Majesty, and elsewhere by the most Reverend James Usher ...
London: printed for Nathanael Ranew, 1678
Speedy Conversion The only Means to prevent IMMINENT DESTRUCTION. › Sermon
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.
1. The World. Wherein times past ye walked after the course of the World. He swims along with the stream of the World. Nor will he be singular, not such a precise one as some few are, but do as the World doth, run amain whither that carries him. See the state of a natural man. He's apt to be brought into the slavery of the World. This is his first guide. Then follows
2. The Second, which is the Devil. The Devil leads him as well as the World: According to the Prince of the power of the Air, the Spirit that now worketh in the Children of disobedience. In stead of having the Spirit of God to be led by, he's posted by the Spirit of Satan, and the lusts of his Father the Devil he will do, He hath not an heart to resist the vilest lusts the Devil shall persuade him to. When Satan once fills his heart, he hath no heart to any thing else, then to follow him.
2. The Second, which is the Devil. The Devil leads him as well as the World: According to the Prince of the power of the Air, the Spirit that now worketh in the Children of disobedience. In stead of having the Spirit of God to be led by, he's posted by the Spirit of Satan, and the lusts of his Father the Devil he will do, He hath not an heart to resist the vilest lusts the Devil shall perswade him to. When Satan once fills his heart, he hath no heart to any thing else, then to follow him.
3. There remains the Flesh, his guide too, and that's not left out, v. 3. Amongst whom we had our conversation in times past in the lusts of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. So that you see the three guides of a natural man; and he is as bad as these three can make him: and till the stronger man comes and pulls him out, in this condition he remains, and in this natural estate, he is a son of disobedience. We see then the state of disobedience described to be wretchedness.