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Christ the fountain of lifeChrist the fountaine of life
Christ the fountain of life: or, Sundry choice sermons on part of the fifth chapter of the first Epistle of St. John. Preached by that learned judicious divine, and faithful minister of Jesus Christ, Mr. John Cotton B.D. now preacher at Boston in New-England. Published according to Order.Christ the fountaine of life: or, Sundry choyce sermons on part of the fift chapter of the first Epistle of St. John. Preached by that learned judicious divine, and faithfull minister of Jesus Christ, Mr. John Cotton B.D. now preacher at Boston in New-England. Published according to Order.
London: printed by Robert Ibbitson, 1651
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.
There is such a venomous power in sin as that it will suspend all acts of grace,1 not so much as show any act of grace in a Christian soul, but the soul and all the graces in it shall lye as the body of a man in a swoon, not any ⟨p. 154⟩breathing, or sight, or hearing, or motion, nothing to show of any spiritual life; that if he should continue so, you would conclude he were dead, only this kind of life of grace is there, you shall have thus much life in him: There is a kind of unlistinesse and heaviness of soul, to act wickedness with all that strength and power, which sometimes a godly man, while he was carnal, did reach forth his heart and hand unto, a kind of frame of spirit in a Christian when it is at the worst, though it can solace it self very far in sin, and goes on hardening its heart in its own way, most desperately, and frowardly, yet notwithstanding there was always something in his heart, that will not suffer his soul to break out, with all that strength of the spirit of wickedness, as it did when it was carnal, and the reason of that is because of that speech, Gal 5.17. there is flesh and spirit in that soul, so as neither can the spirit do what it would, nor the flesh what it would; take a Christian when he is most strong, and he cannot so glorify God, nor so edify his brethren as he would, by reason of the body of sin; there is always in the best of a Christian, something like the spots in the Moon, some darkness in it, not a Christian man; but when he is most lively in grace, but he hath some darkness in his best performances; so when corruption is most strong, and grace most feeble and weak; as in the former, corruption will weaken the best performances, so here corruption cannot carry a Christian man to do all that wickedness, which else he would break forth into; nor with that strength and vigour which else he would put forth in it though he do rejoice in his wickedness,2 and bear it out; yea out-face his very conscience, and out-stare the very light of the graces of God within him, and go on pleasing himself in the hardness of his own heart, yet there is something in the bottom that keeps possession for God, and makes him go about it bunglingly, it becomes him not, he cannot set it forth with a grace;
There is such a venemous power in sin as that it will susspend all acts of grace,