A64834:422
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.
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. That Sin is a filthy, i. e. a loathsome thing, will be clear, if we do consider a little that to which sin is resembled and likened, as to the most offensive and loathsome diseases; 'tis likened to a Canker or Gangrene, 2 Tim 2.17. Now with such persons as are under these diseases, others are loth to eat or drink: 'tis likened to the rot, to the filth and corruption of the foulest disease, which is so foul and rotten, as (according to the Proverb) one would not touch it with a pair of Tongs. The Apostle tells us of some who (like Jannes and Jambres) resist the truth, and calls them men of corrupt (or rotten) minds: And Solomon gives us to know, that as a sound heart is the life of the flesh, so Envy (any thing opposed to the sound heart) is rottenness to the bones; ⟨p. 195⟩yea, sin is likened to the Plague, which every one flies from; 'tis so noisome and loathsome, that it separates the nearest relations: now sin is called the Plague of the heart, 1 Kings 8.38.39. which is much worse then any plague-sore of the body; and this is not all, but as sin is likened to the most loathsome diseases, so to other the most loathsome things that are; 'tis likened to the blood wherein infants are born, which is loathsome, as Ezek. 16.5, 6. Its likened to Mire and Dung, to the very excrements that lye in Ditches and Common shores, wherein Sows and Swine do wallow, as 'tis expressed, 2 Pet. 2.22. yea, to the Vomit of dogs, in the same place; to the Putrefaction of graves and sepulchres, Math. 23.27, 28. which is stinking, as Martha said of Lazarus, when he had been some days dead, Joh. 11.39: 'tis likened to Poison, Rom. 3.13. All these things and others which I shall not name, are loathsome things, at which men stop their noses, and from which they hide their eyes; yet sin is more loathsome then they all, if we consider, that nothing but the fountain opened for Judah and Jerusalem to wash in, nothing but the blood of Jesus can cleanse from this filthiness: all the Nitre and Soap in the world cannot get it out: beside, 'tis not only filthy, but filthiness; not only corrupt, but corruption, in the very abstract, and all the things to which sin is resembled are far short of sin, they are but shadows, which are very imperfect representations of things: all the former Instances (or others of like name and nature) reach but to the body, and do not defile the man;