A64834:101
Sin, the Plague of Plagues
Sin, the plague of plagues, or, Sinful sin the worst of evils a treatise of sins trial and arraignment, wherein sin is accused for being, proved to be, and condemned for being exceeding sinful : and that 1. as against God, his nature, attributes, works, will, law, image, people, glory and existence, 2. as against man, his good and welfare of body and soul, in this life, and that to come : with the use and improvement to be made of this doctrine, that men may not be damned, but saved, &c. : being the substance of many sermons preached many years ago in Southwark / by Ralph Venning ...Sin, the plague of plagues, or, Sinful sin the worst of evils a treatise of sins tryal and arraignment, wherein sin is accused for being, proved to be, and condemned for being exceeding sinful : and that 1. as against God, his nature, attributes, works, will, law, image, people, glory and existence, 2. as against man, his good and welfare of body and soul, in this life, and that to come : with the use and improvement to be made of this doctrine, that men may not be damned, but saved, &c. : being the substance of many sermons preached many years ago in Southwark / by Ralph Venning ...
London: printed for John Hancock, 1669
Title page typeset from the transcription.
SIN, THE PLAGUE of PLAGUES; OR Sinful Sin the worst of Evils. › 2 In a Moral sense, for
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.
2 Mans folly appears to be great, 2not only in relation to his end and happiness, in his mistaking that, but in relation to the means and way leading to happiness, in mistaking this also: The enjoyment of God is our happiness; Religion, viz. right worshipping and serving God is the ⟨p. 44⟩means of enjoying God, i. e. of our happiness. Alas! here man is a very fool! Though in the general men acknowledge that there is a God, and that God is to be worshipped and obeyed, yet who this God is, and how to be worshipped, man is full of darkness, doubt and perplexity about it: whence it is that we have such expressions in the Scripture concerning sinners; ye worship ye know not what, Joh. 4.22. Surely they that worship they know not what, do worship also they know not how; as it there follows. The Athenian Altar had this Inscription, To the unknown God, Acts 17.23. and the world by wisdom knew not God, viz. manifest in the flesh, 1 Cor. 1.21. Though there be nothing more knowable, yet nothing more unknown then God: 'Tis visible to all the Creation, by the Creation, that there is a God; as Rom. 1.22. but who, and what he is, and what his will is, who hath known the mind of God? 1 Cor. 2.16.
2 Mans folly appears to be great, 2not only in relation to his end and happiness, in his mistaking that, but in relation to the means and way leading to happiness, in mistaking this also: The enjoyment of God is our happiness; Religion, viz. right worshipping and serving God is the ⟨p. 44⟩means of enjoying God, i. e. of our happinesse. Alas! here man is a very fool! Though in the general men acknowledge that there is a God, and that God is to be worshipped and obey'd, yet who this God is, and how to be worshipped, man is full of darknesse, doubt and perplexity about it: whence it is that we have such expressions in the Scripture concerning sinners; ye worship ye know not what,