The sound believer. A treatise of evangelical conversion. Discovering the work of Christ's spirit,…

3 Help. Do not judge of Sin by any other Rule, but as God judgeth of it, according to the Rule of the Word by which all Men's Ways shall be judged at the ⟨p. 31⟩last Day. What made Saul, 1 Sam. 15. extenuate his Sin to Samuel? he judged not of it as the Lord in his Word did: for had he done so, he would have seen Disobedience to a Command as bad as Witchcraft, as Samuel told him; which also made his proud Heart sink, and say, I have sinned. Remember for this End these Scriptures, Rom. 1.18. Rom. 2.9. Rom. 6.23. Gal. 3.10 by which thou mayst see, either I must die, (in the State I am) or God himself must lie. Remember that an angry Look or Word is Murder in God's Account; a wanton Eye, an unchaste Thought is Adultery, (2 Cor. 5.10.) before a holy God, before whose Tribunal thou must give an account of every vain Thought and Word. And therefore do not judge of Sin by the present Pleasure, Gain, Honour, or Ease in it; for this is a false Rule: Moses forsook the Pleasures of Sin for a Season, Heb. 11.25. Nor yet by not feeling any Punishment for it, for God reserves Wrath, Nahum 1.2. till the Day of Reckoning: Nor yet by the Esteem that others generally have of it, who make no more of wounding the Son of God by Sin, then they do of crushing Vermin under their Feet: Nor yet by the Practise of others; every Man sins, and therefore I hope I shall do as well as others: Nor yet by seeing thy self better, and thanking God thou art not as other Men; it may be so, thou didst never steal, nor whore, nor murder as yet, but hast thou had any one vain Thought in Prayer? Hast thou heard one Sermon unprofitably? Hast thou sinned? Then know God spared not the Angels that sinned, & how wilt thou escape, unless the Lord die for thee? Nor yet, lastly, judge of it by thy own Opinion of God, in thinking God is like unto thee, that as thou makest Light of it, so he maketh less,