A brief discourse of justification. Wherein this doctrine is plainly laid down according to…

2. Here also we may be informed, that a man may be without sin in respect of Justification, and yet have a great deal of the remainders […] sin in him, in respect of Sanctification. It hath offered matter of no little perplexity to ••rious souls, when they read such Texts of scriptures, as speaking of new born Christians, or regenerate m•n, represent them to be such as are without sin, as 1 Joh. 3. 9. Whatsoever is born of God doth not commit sin, and Numb. 23.21. He hath not beheld inequity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel: and are thereupon ready to conclude themselves not to be of Gods Israel, not to be born of God, for alas, they commit sin every day, and that not only thought sin, but word sin, and deed sin too; are strangely overtaken with it, and led captive by it; and certainly if they were truly regenerate it would be otherwise with them. I shall not ⟨p. 110⟩here dispute how far these Scriptures are applicable with regard to the sanctification of the people of God; it is not to be denied but that in that respect they do not so commit sin as ungodly men do; they have a principle of true holiness in them which hates it, which maintains a spiritual warfare against it, which humbles them, and leads them to godly sorrow and repentance, by reason of it; it is against their new nature, it is no longer they that do it, but sin that dwelleth in them, it obtains not the full consent of their whole soul: But still it is also woefully true on the other hand, that they are over taken with sin, drawn forcibly into it; yea, they are miserably hampered with it, the oppression which they suffer from it sets them […] groaning, and fills their Souls with distress holy Paul makes bitter complaint about it, Rom. 7. and so doth David too, though a man after Gods own heart, as we have instanced in divers Psalms: yea, they find, by reason of the body of death, that they have in the […] much of love to it, liking of it, hankerings after it, and proneness to be over easily carried away with the temptations to it; which fills them with sorrowful groans under the oppressing weight of it, and bitter cries for a deliverance from it; doubtless; in