A64834:558
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.
3. Thought-sins are root-sins, and the roots of all other sins; they are the mother-sins, actions are their issue, Prov. 4.23. evil deeds are the off-spring and children of evil thoughts, the branches and fruit that grow out of this root. ⟨p. 278⟩Thoughts are the first-born of the soul, words and actions are but younger brothers: They are the oil that feeds and maintains the wick, which would else go out; life-sins receive their juice and nourishment from thought-sins. St. James speaks as if our thoughts were the belly and womb where sin is conceived, James 1.15. Now when men would (as Job did) curse grievously, they curse the day and place of their birth, the womb that bare them; so do you curse sin even in the very womb that bare it, lay the axe to the root of this tree. The wickedness of mens lives is charged upon their thoughts, as having its root and rise there, Gen. 6.5. Mat. 12.35. & 15.19. murders, adulteries, &c. they all come out of the heart, as out of the belly of a Trojan-horse: one would wonder (as we do at some birds, where they lodge all winter) to see so many flocks and herds of wickedness, one would wonder whence, from what corner of the world they come; why, they all come out of the heart, the rendez-vous of wickedness, the common Inn that lodges all the thieves and travelling lusts that are in, and do so much mischief in this world; all the unclean streams flow from this unclean Fountain, this Ocean, and Sea of Sin. Saith holy David, Psal. 119.113. I hate (vain) thoughts, any thoughts that are against thy Law, which I love; we all hate that which is against what we love: but why doth he hate thoughts of sin? because evil thoughts beget evil words, and evil words corrupt good, and beget ill manners; vain imaginations beget vain conversations: 'tis hard for them that think well to do ill, and ⟨p. 279⟩