A92846:444
The anatomy of secret sins, presumptuous sins, sins in dominion, & uprightness. Wherein divers…
The anatomy of secret sins, presumptuous sins, sins in dominion, & uprightness. Wherein divers weighty cases are resolved in relation to all those particulars: delivered in divers sermons preached at Mildreds in Bread-street London, on Psalm 19. 12, 13. Together with the remissibleness of all sin, and the irremissibleness of the sin against the Holy Ghost preached before an honourable auditory. By that reverend and faithful minister of the Gospel, Mr. Obadiah Sedgwick, B.D. Perfected by himself, and published by those whom he entrusted with his notes.The anatomy of secret sins, presumptuous sins, sins in dominion, & uprightness. Wherein divers weighty cases are resolved in relation to all those particulars: delivered in divers sermons preached at Mildreds in Bread-street London, on Psalm 19. 12, 13. Together with the remissibleness of all sin, and the irremissibleness of the sin against the Holy Ghost preached before an honourable auditory. By that reverend and faithfull minister of the Gospel, Mr. Obadiah Sedgwick, B.D. Perfected by himself, and published by those whom he intrusted with his notes.
London: printed by T.R. for Adoniram Byfeild, 1660
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.
Sol. I answer, this conduceth much, because the presuming sinner leads on his soul to sin upon this ground and confidence, that if the worst come to the worst, he will yet at last put off his sins, and repent; whereupon his heart adventures far.
Now if a man were throughly convinced of two things, this ground would sink, and perhaps his heart might be taken off from presuming.
1. One is, That it is a difficult thing to repent; Why? Repentance is the new setting of the heart and life: it is the very contradiction of a mans former love and practise, it is the undoing of all his doings, it is the shifting (as it were) of his nature, and the transplanting of himself, the divorcing of the affections, the new bent and edge of the soul for all holy and pious obedience: and is this an easy thing? Is it ⟨p. 96⟩easy for a man to become an enemy to himself, to lay down his sweet delight, his precious profits, his closer nature, to judge and condemn his heart and ways, for ever to forsake his own counsels, his own inclinations, his own courses: Know you not, that to sheath up but an idle word and form of language, is not so facile an act? how much more then to put off root and branch? Do we not stick in the same sins after many threatenings of wrath, after many executions of Judgement, after many invitations by mercies, after daily counsels and directions by thy Word, after instances and examples of punishment; nay, after particular and personal experiences of the deceitfulness and bitterness of our sinnings: Doth not this show that it is a difficult thing to repent?
1. One is, That it is a difficult thing to repent; Why? Repentance is the new setting of the heart and life: it is the very contradiction of a mans former love and practise, it is the undoing of all his doings, it is the shifting (as it were) of his nature, and the transplanting of himself, the divorcing of the affections, the new bent and edge of the soul for all holy and pious obedience: and is this an easie thing? Is it