powers of the soul must necessarily move sinfully and inordinately The soul of a man is alwayes working one way or other if then it hath lost original righteousnesse it cannot but be hurried on to what is evil as if you take away the pillar on which a stone liethh presently that will fall to the ground If you spoil the strings of musical instruments immediately they make a jarre and ingratefull noise upon every moving of them The soul of a man is a subject immediately susceptible of righteousnesse or corruption and if it lose its righteousnesse then by natural necessity corruption cometh in the room of it and so when the understanding acts it acteth sinfully when the will moveth it moveth sinfully So that we may well say with Austin to the Pelagian demanding How this corruption could come into us for God was good and nature good Quid quaeris latentem rimum cum habes apertam jannam Not a cranny but a gate or door is open for this corruption to seize upon us SECT IV. Application BEfore we come to answer the Objections Let us affect our hearts with it and labour to be humbled under the consideration of this positivenesse and efficacy of it For first Hereby we see that if it be not restrained and stopped by God we know not where we should stay in any sinne What Cain's what Judas's would we not prove Who can say Hitherto I will goe in sinne and no further for there is a fountain within thee that would quickly overflow all This active root of bitternesse this four leaven within thee would quickly make thy life like Job's body full of ulcers and noisome sores If thou art not plunged in the same mire and filth as others are doe not say Thou hast lesse of this corruption than they Thou art borne more innocent than they onely God stops thee as he did Balaam from doing such wickednesse as thy heart is forward enough unto No Serpent is fuller of poyson no Toad of venome than thou art of sinne which thou wouldst be constantly committing were not some stop put in the way Secondly In that sinne is thus positive and inclining thee thou art the more to admire the grace of God if that work a contrary inclination and propensity in thee If thou art brought with Paul To delight in the Law of God in the inward man If thy heart pants after God as the Hart after the waters which once delighted in sinne which once longed after nothing but the satisfying of the flesh Oh admire this gracious miraculous work of God upon thy soul who hath made thee to differ thus from thy selfe The time was once when thou rejoycedst in those sinnes that are now matter of shame and trembling to thee The time was when thy heart was affected with no other good than that of the creature Thou didst know no other desire no other but that but now God hath made iron to swimme he hath made the Blackmoor white Oh blesse God for the least desires and affections which thou hast at any time for that which is good for this cometh not from thee it is put into thee by the grace of God Lastly Consider that this positivenesse of sinne in thee doth not onely manifest it self in an impetuous inclination to all evil but also a violent resistance of whatsoever is good The Apostle Rom. 8. calleth it Enmity against God and Rom. 7. he complaineth of it as warring and fighting against the Law of his minde And certainly this is a very great aggravation not onely to be without what is good but to be a desperate enemy and a violent opposer of it both in others as also to that which the Spirit of God by the Word would worke in our own hearts not onely without the remedy but full of enmity against it Doth not this make our condition unspeakably wretched Certainly this is the highest aggravation in original sinne that we are not onely unable to what is good but we are with anger and rage carried out against it as if good were the onely evil and sweetnesse the onely bitternesse CHAP. XVII Objections against the Positive Part of Original Sinne answered SECT I. Cautions Premised THere remain only some Objections against this Truth but before we answer them take notice First That although we say original sinne is more than a privation of that Righteousnesse which ought to be in man yet We do not make it to be like some infecting corporeal quality in the body that hereby should vitiate the soul and as it were poison that Lombard and some others especially Ariminensis Distinct 30. They seem to deliver their opinion so as rejecting Anselm's definition of original sinne making it to be want of that original righteousnesse which ought to be in us and do declare it to be a morbida qualitas some kinde of pestilential and infecting quality abiding in the body and thereby affecting the soul As when the body is in some phrenetical and mad distempers the soul is thereby disturbed in all its operations so that these make the want of original righteousness to be the effect of original sinne not the nature of it saying upon Adam's sinne Man becoming thus defiled God refused to continue this righteousness to him any longer But if these Schoolmen be further questioned How such a diseased pestilential quality should be in the body Some say it was from the forbidden fruit that that had such a noxious effect with it but that is rejected because that was made of God and all was exceeding good Arimineâ—sis therefore following as he thinketh Austin maketh this venemous quality in a mans body to have its original from the hissing and breath as it were of the Serpent he conceiveth that by their discourse with the Serpent there came from it such an infectious air as might contaminate the whole body and he saith Austin speaks of some who from the very hissing and air from Serpents have been poisoned But the Protestants they do not hold it any positive quality in this sense for this is to make the body the first and chiefest subject of original sinne and so to convey it to the soul whereas indeed the soul is primarily and principally the seat of original sinne We therefore reject this as coming too near Manicheism as if there were some evil and infectious qualities in the very nature and substance of a man Secondly It must be remembred what hath been said before That when we come to give a particular reason why the understanding or will are propense to any evil We can assign only a privative cause viz. Because it wants that rectitude which would regulate it as if a ship it's Anselm's comparison were without Pilot and Governour of tacklings let loose into the whole Ocean it would be violently hurried up and down till it be destroyed Thus man without this Image of God would be tossed up and down by every lust never resting till he had
prophane man see whether they will bear the Touchstone or no Doth thy conscience tell thee such wayes are lawfull Art thou out of faith thus perswaded to do Look over all thy thoughts all thy words thy actions and weigh them in the balance of the Sanctuary See whether they be chaff or wheat Judge them before God cometh to judge them As our Actions so our Persons and the frame and constitution of our souls and here conscience is more unable to do its work then in the former For actions at least many of them may be condemned by the light of nature but when thou comest to search thy heart to judge that here is much heavenly skill and prudence required Did the hypocrite judge himself Did the civil pharisaical man rightly judge himself what a mighty change would you quickly see on those who now blesse themselves in their good condition Had Judas judged himself Did hypocrites judge themselves Oh the amazement and astonishment they would be in to see themselves so soul and rotten in the bottom when they were perswaded all had been well and happy with them Let conscience therefore set up her tribunal in thy heart often call thy self before thy self thy guilty sell before thy condemning self thy sinfull self before thy judging self for by reason of conscience a man cometh to have two selves God hath placed it in man as an Umpire or an Arbitrator to judge the matter impartially between God and thy own soul so that it may say that which Christ denied of himself God hath made me a Judge and a divider to give to man what belongs to him to God what belongs to God but conscience being polluted is not able to discharge this office Hence it is that this Court ceaseth conscience doth not keep any Assize at all There is no judgement executed within this spiritual society Therefore let us groan under the weight of original sinne in this respect also Fifthly Herein conscience is greatly defiled by original sinne That it is afraid of light it is not willing to come to the Word to be convinced but desireth rather to be in darkness that so a man may sinne the more quietly and never be disquieted John 3. 19. Christ saith This is the condemnation that light is come into the World and men love darknesse rather then light As it is with the wicked man He hateth the light as our Saviour John 3. 20. because his works are evil Truly thus it is conscience being naught and rotten therefore it is unwilling to be brought to the light Hence John 16. 7. It is the work of Gods spirit to convince the world of sinne but this is that the natural conscience cannot abide it is unwilling to be searched and tried to be ransacked This is the reason why men are most pleased with a formal drousie flattering Ministry they rage at that which is powerfull particular heart-searching preaching They do not love conscience should be touched upon to have that say Thou arr the man and all is because conscience is afraid of any light or conviction to come upon it for if that be enlightned then thou canst not with that delight and security commit thy sinnes as thou wouldst do Conscience then would belike Michaiah to Ahab Thou wilt not abide it because it alwayes prophesieth evil to thee and therefore this one thing may discover the vilenesse of every natural mans conscience in that it desireth to be in the dark and that which the Church saith to Christ Awake not my Beloved till he please They say to their conscience Let not that be awakened it will take away my comfort it will make me despair and thus because they wilfully keep a veil over their conscience it is no wonder if they die in their sins Sixthly Herein conscience is naturally defiled That it is subject to many multiforme shapes and disguises it doth appear under so many vizours that it is hard to know when it is conscience or when it is something else farre enough from conscience yet such is the guile and hypocrisie herein that a man doth easily flatter himself with the name of conscience when indeed it is corruption in him It is good to discover that which is a counterfeit conscience that which appeareth to be Samuel and in Samuel's cloaths but is indeed a Devil SECT V. A Discovery of a counterfeit Conscience FIrst It may not be conscientia but cupiditas not conscience but even a sinfull lust may put thee upon many things yet thou flatterest thy self with the scared title of conscience saying it 's thy conscience when if thou didst examine thy self it would appear to be some corruption A sad mistake and delusion it is to have conscience and so God himself abused but yet it is very often so We see it in Saul when he sacrificed and so was guilty of rebellion against God yet he pretended conscience that he had done well and all was to serve God thereby Absolom when he was contriving that unnatural rebellion against his Father he pretendeth a vow he had made and so he must out of conscience perform that Judas when he repined at the ointment poured out on Christs body pretended conscience and charity but it was lust and covetousnesse moved him Oh then take heed of treachery herein lest thou pretending conscience it appear to be thy lust only Secondly It may be thy Fancy and Imagination which perswadeth thee and not thy conscience man consisting of a body as well as a soul his imagination and phantasie hath great influence upon him especially when the body may be distempered as you see in melancholly persons when humbled for sinnes and greatly afflicted it is hard to discern when it is their fancy and when it is conscience that worketh in them It is true the prophasie ones of the world they judge all the trouble and wounds of conscience for sinne to be nothing but melancholly and a meer fancy because they never found the word of God kindly working upon them therefore they think there is no such thing in the world as a wounded spirit but such will one day find that troubles of conscience are more then melancholly that it is a worme alwayes gnawing yea that this is indeed hell for it is because of a tormented conscience that hell is so terrible yet though this be so it cannot be denied but that sometimes in humbled persons there may be conscience and melacholly working together for the Devil he loveth to move in troubled waters and melancholly is called Balneum Diaboli but this may be cured and removed by medicinal helps whereas conscience is only pacified and quieted by the blood of Christ Thirdly Custome education and prepossessed principles these may work upon a man as if they were conscience Many men are affected in religious things not out of any conscience but meerly by custome They have been used to such things brought up in such a way of serving of
verses had asserted the vanity and mortality of man comparing him to a flower which though sweet for a while yet is presently cut down Thus all the comforts all the joyes thou hast in this world they are but a Poesie which have a pinne within them to prick thee for the present while thou smellest on them and will quickly wither away But because flowers also have some substance and sweetness for the present in the next place he resembleth our life to a shadow which as he said was nigrum nihil a black nothing There is both emptiness and transitoriness in all these things and hitherto all the Heathens have arrived They all perceived these miseries and troubles we are obnoxious unto But then in my Text we have the cause of this which they were either totally or in a great measure ignorant of God then did not make man like a shadow thus at first but sinne brought this corruptibility into the world and that not actual sinne but original If there had been none but this yet all these miseries would have fallen upon mankind In the words therefore we have a full and clear Description of that original sin or birth-sinne we are guilty of Yea the Text saith It is impossible it should be otherwise So that the Scripture and those that deny original sinne are diametrally opposite one to another They say there is no such birth-sinne The Scripture saith It cannot be but that there must be such an original contagion In the Text we have the Interrogation and the Answer The Interrogation is therefore put to shew the vehemency and peremptoriness in affirming this truth it 's more than if it had been barely said That none can bring a clean thing out of an unclean The meaning is That every man being by nature unclean it 's necessary that every one born of man therefore should be unclean By uncleanness is meant sinne as appeareth by comparing this with Chap. 15. 14. Chap. 25. 4. where you have this expression used and it is opposed to righteousness and to be justified before God It is therefore an uncleanness not natural or bodily as the Pelagians of old would have wrested it but spiritually opposite to Righteousness and such as depriveth a man of Justification Yea the word unclean is applied to signifie hainous pollution Hence the Devils are so often called unclean spirits so that the Devils and mankind are in this alike The Hebrew Preposition Min is by some understood of mutation by others of origination but one is necessarily connexed with the other of mutation in this sense Who shall give for so it is in the Hebrew that is Who can make pure him that is impure Who can change that which is naturally filthy No man by his free-will or power can or else it is for the originals and that doth seem the most genuine for Job is speaking what belongs to every man naturally and thus the sense is From that which is unclean none can bring that which is clean Even as our Saviour saith in another case None can gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles Mat 6. 16. or as the Apostle James A sweet fountain cannot send forth bitter streams so neither can a bitter fountain sweet streams Jam. 3. Now when it is said Of an unclean thing cannot come a clean Hereby Adam in his first Creation is excluded for he was made holy and came not out of that which was unclean and also Christ is hereby excluded for although he is said to be born of a woman yet that was in a miraculous and extraordinary manner As for the Dispute about the Virgin Mary whose freedom from original sinne some have with great vehemency maintained that seemeth not any wayes probable as is to be shewed It is also good to observe the emphatical expression in the word Out of unclean thing which implieth That man by nature is all over sinfull in mind will affections and the whole man it is the unclean thing even as Christ was called the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the holy thing because he was in every particular altogether holy In the next place you have the Answer Not one Some read this interrogatively Doest not thou alone as speaking to God so the Chaldee Paraphrast These make the sense to be That God alone and no other can deliver out of this uncleanness Hence also some make that expression Who can forgive sinne but God alone to be an allusion to this place For as Aquinas saith De frigido facere calidum est ejus quod per se calidum est c. Of cold to make hot is the effect of that which is hot of it's own nature So of unclean to make clean is the proper work of him who is in his own nature pure and essentially holy The Septuagint they read it differently from others who is free from uncleanness nor a child though he be but a day old That which is most genuine is to take it negatively as our Translators do and hereby is demonstrated That there is not one in all mankind born in a natural manner but he is sinfull and polluted This same is expressed more fully Chap. 15 14. The Socinians give in their exceptions to that place but I shall deferre the consideration of them till we take that to treat on which doth evidently shew That man is so naturally sinfull that he drinketh sin down like water From the Text observe That every one by birth and natural descent is spiritually unclean and sinfull SECT II. A Three-fold Uncleanness TO inform us of this Doctrinal Truth we may first take notice of a threefold impurity or uncleanness 1. That which is corporal and bodily man being born so loathsomly that even the Heathens have abhorred themselves because of it when they came into the world it did so debase them that even the highest did refuse those hyperbolical honours which their flatterers would have put upon them In the sixteenth of Ezekiel you have this bodily filthiness at large described and thereby is represented the uncomely and impotent condition of the Church of Israel in her Infancy to promote her own welfare no more than a little Infant new born is able to help it self Yea this place is allusively brought by some to describe our spiritual uncleanness The child comes not more naked and polluted into the world bodily then the soul doth spiritually being denuded of the Image of God and full of spiritual ulcers and fores like a Job full of botches like a Lazarus all over spiritually ulcerous though few take notice of this and lay it to heart 2. There is a typical and ceremonial uncleanness such as was appointed in the Law of which there were two sorts one more hainous and so did cast a greater and longer separation from the company of men and the publique worship of God The other less and so more easily purified and that in a shorter space and the former kind of
of sinne is expresly said to be in the members And whereas the Apostle in that verse saith He seeth a Law in his members bringing him into captivity to the Law of sinne that doth not argue a distinction between these but according to the use of the Scripture the Antecedent is repeated for the Relative the sense being That the Law of his members did bring Paul into captivity to it notwithstanding the Law of the mind with in him as Gen. 9. 16. I will remember saith God himself the everlasting Covenant between God that is my self and every living creature We see then in these words that the Apostle giveth another name to that original sinne which dwelleth in him he calleth it very emphatically The Law of sinne in him Original corruption is even in Paul though converted how much more in all unregenerate persons by way of a Law From whence observe That the Scripture cals original sin the Law of sin Within us SECT II. TO understand this take notice of these things First The Apostle in his Epistles doth delight to use the word Law and that when speaking of contrary things The Law of God the Law of Works This he mentioneth properly but then he cals it The Law of faith because the Hebrew word for Law signifieth no more than Doctrine for Torath either comes they say from a word that signifieth to appoint or teach or from a word that signifieth to rain because saith Chemnitius as the raine is gathered together in the clouds not to be kept there but to be emptied on the earth that so it may be made fruitfull Thus the Law of God was appointed by God not meerly to be written in the Bible but also to be implanted in our hearts The word then in the Hebrew signifying Doctrine in the general no wonder if the Gospel be called The Law of Faith So Regeneration Rom. 8. is called The Law of the Spirit of life as in other places it is The Law of God written in our hearts but the Apostle doth not only apply it to these things but especially in this Chapter he cals it The Law of sinne not sin only but the Law of sinne and the Law in our members why the Apostle doth so you shall hear anon Only In the second place you must consider when the Apostle cals it The Law of sinne it is in an improper and abusive or allusive sense for a Law properly is only of that which is good the matter of a Law must be honest and just because a Law is pars juris and Jus is à justo Therefore Aquinas saith That unjust Laws are rather violentia than leges Yea Tully saith Such Decrees are neither Leges nor ne appellandae quidem yet the Scripture speaks of some who make iniquity a Law Psal 99. 20. or who frame mischief for a Law Tacitus complaineth of the multitude of Laws in his time and saith The Commonwealth groaned ut flagitiis ita legibus So that although the properties of a Law are to be good and profitable yet by allusion all unjust and hurtfull Decrees are called Laws and thus the Apostle cals it the Law of sinne alluding to those properties or effects which a Law hath What the Law of God doth in a regenerate man the contrary doth the Law of sinne in a natural man SECT III. Original Sinne compared to a Law in five respects ORiginal sinne therefore may be compared to a Law in these respects First A Law doth teach and direct Lex est lux It informeth and teacheth what is to be done Thus the Schoolmen they make Direction the first thing necessary to a Law The work of grace in a godly man is called by the Apostle The Law of the mind in this Chapter Because grace within a man doth teach and direct him what to do Hence 1 John 2. 27. the godly man is said to have an anointing within him The Law of God is written in his inward parts and so from within as well as by the Word without they are taught what to do Thus on the contrary the Law of sinne in a natural man doth teach and prompt him to all kind of evil This Law of sinne doth not indeed teach what we ought to do but it doth wonderfully suggest all kind of wickedness to us and from this cause it is that you see children no sooner able to act but they can with all readiness runne into evil sinnes that they have not seen committed before their eyes they can with much dexterity accomplish What a deal of instruction and admonition is requisite to nurture your young ones in the fear of the Lord And all is little enough And why is this The Law of God is not in their hearts they have not that in them which would direct and teach holiness But on the other side children need not to be taught wickedness you need not instruct them how to sinne they have much artifice and cunning in an evil way And why so The Law of sinne is in them this is that they are bred with So that as the young ones of Foxes and Serpents though they have no teacher yet from the Law of nature within them they grow subtil and crafty in their mischievous wayes Thus the Law of sinne doth in every man he is ingenious and wise to do evil As the ground ere it will bring forth corn doth need much labour and tillage but of it self bringeth forth bryars and thorns Thus all by nature are so foolish and blind that without heavenly education and institution you cannot bring them to that which is holy but of their own selves men have subtilty and abilities to frame mischievous things And why is all this They have a Law of sinne within them which directs suggests and informeth to do much evil So that we are not to put all upon the Devil to say He put it into my minde he suggested such thoughts to me No the Law of sinne within thee can sufficiently prompt thee to all evil Secondly A Law doth not onely teach but it doth instigate and incline it presseth and provoketh to the things commanded by it Thus the Law of the mind in a godly man doth greatly instigate and provoke him to what is good It is like a goad in his side it is like fire in his bowels he must do that which is good else he cannot have any rest within him You read when David refrained for a while from speaking good at last he could hold no longer but the fire did break out So Paul 2 Cor. 5. The love of Christ constraineth us Thus the true believer he hath a principle of grace within him which is like a Law upon him he cannot do otherwise he must obey it Thus on the contrary Original sinne in a natural man is like a Law within him it provoketh him it enflameth him to all evil Whensoever any holy duty is pressed upon him this Law of sinne stirreth him
have a contrariety to it and why is it that a man should thus naturally be an enemy to his own peace Is it not because of this imbred sin working in us 2. If the Spirit of God go further and doth not outwardly teach onely but inwardly and spiritually also changing even the whole man making it a new creature yet because this corruption is not quite rooted out it doth continually gain say and withstand that Law of the mind within us Whence then is it that such rebellion and opposition is within thee to every good thing Is it not because original sinne hath put thee into this disorder Thirdly It is an impediment alliciendo and inescando It doth ensnare and allure the heart so that while the soul should pursue the race that throweth in the way some alluring objects or others and thereby it is stopt in its course As the Heathens speak of golden Apples cast in the way to hinder one that was swiftly running in the race He that runneth in a race must not step out of the way to gather every flower that groweth by the way-side nor is he to stand still and refresh his eyes with pleasant objects Thus neither ought we in our way to Heaven but this original corruption bewitches and enticeth the heart with many deceitfull and alluring lusts So that by this means we are for the most part in golden sweet dreams promising this and that comfort to our selves till at last with Dives we awaken in hell and see our selves bereaved of all happiness The Apostle James doth fully confirm this secret bewitching way of original sinne within us which he calleth lust Jam. 1. 14. So that marvel not to see thy self drowned in all the pleasures of sinne to be sucking down the comforts of earthly things with all delight for this lust within thee this bewitching Dalilah in thy breast puts thee into a sweet sleep and so heavenly things have no relish no taste to thy appetite but the things of the world are sweeter than the honey-comb Oh why is it that sinne which is indeed full of stings and bitterness should be so sweet Why should it be such a pleasing thing to go in the wayes that lead to hell and damnation that when thou art sinning it is as thou wouldst have it Is not all this because sin hath insnared and inticed thee Lastly Sinne is a burden to the soul in our race debilitando By weakning and debilitating the principles of grace within us So that although we are regenerated and sanctified yet because original sinne doth intimately adhere even to the very habits of grace within us so that they are not perfect and pure Hence it is that their actings are more remisse and languid we cannot love God perfectly we cannot have pure and sinnelesse actions because we have not pure and sinnelesse principles So that whereas some have thought that there is not such a spiritual conflict in a godly man as we speak of because that would make the will to will and nill at the same time two contrary things they do not rightly understand this Assertion for it 's not from contrariety of volitions but because the will being not perfectly healed willeth good things remisly and faintly not with that perfection or freedom and alacrity as it ought to do Vse Of Instruction Every day to bewail this depraved estate of thine more and more We take thee as Ezekiel was in another case and cause thee to see every day more and more abomination Thou hast not heard all the worst nor have we discovered all the worst that is in us yea we are never able to goe to the bottome of it This original sinne is an unsearchable Mystery It is a long while ere we come to know any thing of it and longer ere we come to know the breadth and length of it Know this sufficiently and then be in love with thy self or trust in thy good heart and thy own righteousness if thou canst CHAP. VI. Of the Name Evil Treasure of the Heart given to Original Sinne. SECT I. MAT. 12. 35. And an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth evil things THese words are part of an Apologetical Answer that our Saviour made against the Pharisees who were guilty of blaspheming the holy Ghost because they did maliciously oppose the known truth and what was done by the Spirit of God attributing it to the power of the devil And in this Apology the fervency and zeal of our Saviour doth appear in the compellation he giveth them Generation of vipers Here you see That it is not alwayes railing and indiscreet zeal to call wicked men by such names that their sinnes do deserve In the next place he giveth the reason of this their blasphemy it is no wonder if they speak ill who have ill and naughty hearts which he expresseth emphatically 1. By an interrogation How can ye 2. By the impossibility How can ye 3. From the matter mentioned he doth not say How can ye being evil de good things but speak We might think wicked men might easily forbear evil words though not evil actions but their heart is first set on fire with hell and then the tongue The Physician discovers how the heart is by the tongue and so doth Religion also Now that good words cannot proceed from a bad heart viz. naturally for on purpose and artificially many evil-minded men may speak religiously and men may have butter words whose hearts are like swords our Saviour proveth from the common and even proverbial rule A good man hath a good heart and a good treasure and so of this sweet fountain cannot come bitter streams But a bad man hath an evil treasure in his heart and so from these thorns men cannot gather grapes nor from these thistles figs we see here then a good man and a bad diversified by that which is wholly hidden and secret not known to any but God till he discover it by words or actions Now this evil treasure in every mans heart is two-fold 1. That which is Natural that which he cometh into the world with thus every man hath an inexhausted treasure of wickedness which he spends upon all his life time and yet never cometh to the bottom of it And in this sense our Divines do well prove That no natural or unregenerate man is able to do any thing though never so little that is good because he is a bad Tree and being also of the seed of Serpents there cannot come any honey or sweet thing from him 2. There is an acquired and increased treasure of sinne which a man storeth up by daily custom in sinne so that he becometh to have two treasures of evil in his soul as if one were not enough natural and voluntary innate and voluntarily contracted For you must know That original sinne though it be a full fountain of poison ready of it self to overflow yet custom in sin doth
full as ever Thus it is with this treasure of original sinne all the sins that have come from it to this day have not at all diminished the fountain it 's as full and as overflowing as ever yea as sudden showrs make the rivers fuller causing a flood Thus do all actual and customary sins they make this original corruption like Nebuchadnezzar's fornace seven times hotter than it was before Fourthly In that it is called a treasure we thereby see the delight and pleasure that we naturally take in what is sinfull Our Saviour saith Where a mans treasure is there his heart is also how much more when this treasure is his heart when his heart and treasure is all one Therefore this expression doth denote the futable and pleasing nature of sinne to us it sheweth that what water is to the hydropical man as Job 15. so is sinne to a man by nature Hence Heb. 11. they are called The pleasures of sinne Who would think so you would rather think we might as well say The pleasures of hell and the pleasures of damnation that a man would be as willing to be damned as to sinne But thus sweet and pleasing is sinne to every man by nature because his heart is upon it it is a treasure to him That as the godly account Gods will sweeter than the honey-comb so do they the will and lusts of sinne Do ye not pity such who are so distempered in their palate that they cannot forbear eating those things which will be their death at last How much more miserable is man to whom nothing is so pleasant so much sought after as that which will prove his eternal damnation And certainly if sinne be not such a delight to thee naturally how cometh it about that no threatning no fear of hell all the curses in the Law denounced against thee cannot make thee forbear If you regard sinne in its own nature so the Scripture represents it most irksom and loathsom comparing it to gall to a bitter root to mire to vomit And who can desire to swallow down these things But because original sinne hath infected all hath made us like so many beasts therefore what is in it self abominable to our corrupt natures is become exceeding pleasant Fifthly Because it 's a treasure therefore it is that every day there cometh from us some new corruption or other some new sinne or other to be matter of condemnation to us That when we might think if once we had got our hearts to such a frame if once we could subdue such a corruption then we hope we should be at some ease but no sooner have we obtained such desires but this treasure of evil poureth out new matter of sorrow corruptions rise fresh again when we began to hope all were dead So that the soul begins to be even hopeless crying out O Lord how long When shall this bloudy flux be stopped When shall it once be that I may be quiet and free from this molesting enemy within But it is with thy heart as with the sea when one wave is over presently there cometh another and again another and it cannot be otherwise as long as this treasure is in us as Job saith Chap. 14. A Tree though the boughes of it be cut yet the root will spring again and be as big as ever if suffered to grow Thus original sin though it may be mortified and crucified in some measure though there may be much stopping and abating the strength of it by grace yet because the root is there still it will quickly sprout again Hence are the godly put upon those duties of crucifying and mortifying the flesh because they will have this work to do as long as they live there is a treasure and so out of this as the good Scribe cut of his good treasure Mat. 13. 52. doth bring out new and old thus doth he old lusts and new Vse Of Instruction Have we all by nature an evil treasure in our hearts then see why it is that thou art alwayes sinning that thou art never weary that all the world cannot change thee or make thee of another mind Is it not this evil treasure within As it is a treasure of sinne so it is of wrath and punishment Rom. 2. some are said To treasure up to themselves wrath against the day of wrath and this is thy case and never do thou flatter thy self because thou dost not feel and perceive any such evil upon thee for therein art thou the more miserable Treasures use to be hidden and secret therefore in the Scripture called hidden treasures and thus is this treasure of evil in thy heart it is hidden from thee thou dost not know it till God open thy eyes till he give a tender heart CHAP. VII Of the Name Body given to Original Sinne. SECT I. ROM 8. 13. But if ye through the Spirit doe mortifie the deeds of the Body ye shall live I Come now to the last Name I shall insist upon that the Scripture giveth original sinne and that is a Body For although the most famous and notable name is flesh yet because that will most properly be considered when we speak of the Nature and Definition of it I shall put it off till that time Only we must necessarily take notice of this Title given to it here and elswhere viz. a Body Not that this word is to foment the Illyrican absurdity That original sinne is not an accident but a substance but hereby is manifested the real and powerfull efficacy of it upon the whole man For the coherence of the words the Apostle at vers 12. from that glorious and precious Doctrine of Justification by Faith and also Sanctification begunne in us doth inferre this Exhortation by way of Conclusion That therefore we are not Debtors to the Flesh we have received such great and unspeakable favours from God that we owe all to him as for sinne called here the Flesh we owe nothing at all to that sinne will not justifie us sinne will not save us Neither hath the Devil shewed that love to us which Christ hath done By this then we see That though Justification and Gospel-mercies be not for any works or merits of ours yet Believers are to study and abound in holiness as that which Christ aimed at by the work of Redemption as well as our Justification Now for this reluctancy against and mortification of sinne the Apostle useth several Arguments as in the Text the danger that will accrew even to the godly If they live after the flesh they shall die that is eternally The godly need this goad to prick them forward they must not please themselves as if because they were elected justified they may live as they list and walk after the flesh No if they do so they shall surely be damned SECT II. What is implied by the word Mortifie BUt on the contrary If they mortifie the deeds of the body by the Spirit they shall
whereas the reason they give why by flesh cannot be meant wholly sinfull Because say they then in the opposition by Spirit would be meant wholly spirituall whereas the Orthodox do acknowledge a conflict with the Spirit and the flesh abiding in every regenerate man But to this the Answer is That the abstract is put for the concrete spirit for spiritual so that the Subject in the Proposition Born of the Spirit Spirit is the holy Spirit of God and the Predicate is made spirit Spirit is to be understood of that spiritual and heavenly nature wrought in us by him And although he who is made thus spiritual is not purely and absolutely so yet the Spirit will in time subdue and wholly conquer the flesh in which sense Gal. 5. They that are Christs are said to have crucified the flesh with the lusts thereof Although there be the reliques and remainders of it still in the most holy The Text then being thus vindicated the Observation is That all men born in a natural way are not only without the Image of God but thereby also are positively polluted and made all over flesh and sinfull SECT II. Of the use of the word Flesh in Scripture And why Original Corruption is called by that name TO discover this in the first place It is good to take notice of the use of the word Flesh in Scripture for the mis-understanding or mis-applying of it hath brought in a world of mischief The Papists by Flesh I mean some of them understanding only the bruitish and sensitive part as if sinne were onely resident there and the rational part were free and pure but this is a very great errour For besides the general use of the word Flesh in the Scripture there is two more pertinent to our purpose 1. Flesh is sometimes taken for that which is weak and frail Isa 31. Their horses are flesh and not spirit Psal 78. He remembred they were but flesh And 2. It is often taken for sinfulness and corruption Thus Gal. 5. The works of the flesh are opposite to the works of the Spirit and men who are in the Flesh Rom. 8. cannot please God Gal. 3. Who having begun in the Spirit will ye end in the flesh To be in the flesh and in the Spirit are made two opposite beings by the Apostle Insomuch that we may make it a sure Rule That wheresoever flesh is opposed to the Spirit of God or its spiritual operations that then flesh is used for that which is evil and sinfull and thus it is in the Text. The true notion therefore of the word Flesh being retained Let us consider Why original sinne is thus called Flesh And First It is called so Because of its opposition to what is spiritual Whatsoever the Spirit of God revealeth to be believed or commands to be obeyed it is wholly contradicted by man while abiding in the flesh Thus the Apostle Rom. 8. The wisdom of the flesh is enmity against God You see here is not only a meer privation of what is spiritual but a positive enmity and frowardness against God and therefore we do not speak enough to describe the fulness of our natural evil when we say that we came naked into the world without the Image of God and his Spirit for original sinne hath a contrariety in it against God it puts a man upon hatred of whatsoever is holy therefore the Apostle addeth Rom. 8. 5. It is not subject to the Law of God neither indeed can be Oh then that God would make our hearts more of flesh in the Prophet Ezekiels sense viz. tender and melting under considerations of how much flesh is in both mind and heart in the Apostles sense Would thy self-righteousness thy self-love thy self-fulness continue any longer if thou didst thus judge and believe concerning thy self Oh what a noisom carkass what a loathsom monster wouldst thou be in thy own eyes if thou didst consider the positive frowardness and opposition which is in thee to what is holy And therefore even in the regenerate Gal. 5. 17. The Flesh is said to lust against the spirit Search then into thy heart and say From whence doth arise these gainsayings and oppositions which are in me to what is holy Why should not heavenly and spiritual things be as welcome pleasing and delightfull to me as sinfull and wordly objects Is not all this because thou art Flesh Certainly there is a thousand times more reason for thee to imbrace spiritual objects than earthly They have more real excellent and enduring good in them then all the pleasures of sinne if put together but it is because thou art flesh that thy heart is naturally so full of enmity against whatsoever is spiritual And although this natural enmity be encreased in thee by voluntary wickedness yet that which cleaveth to thee as soon as thou hast a being is enough to make thee refuse the word of God the Ministry inviting of thee and to slight every Sermon thou hearest or every affliction God layeth upon thee for thy sinne mourn then under this enmity this Law of sinne that rebelleth against the Spirit of God This may sensibly and evidently teach thee that thy natural corruption is more than a meer want of the Image of God Secondly In that original corruption is called flesh is manifested That even the whole intellectual and sublimer parts of a man are become sinfull We see our Saviour saith That which is born of flesh is flesh nothing is excepted so that whereas some would have it the rational part The mind and understanding not to be comprehended under this flesh we say the contrary according to Scripture That in the soul and faculties thereof there is originally sinne chiefly seated There is the spring and fountain from whence issue all the streams of sinne into the lower parts of the soul Thus when the Apostle reckons up the works of the flesh Gal. 5. 19 20. There are Idolatry and Heresies numbered with the rest which must needs be sins of the mind How often doth the Scripture speak of darkness ignorance folly and blindness in the minds of all men by nature Col. 2. 18. There it 's called a fleshly mind and certainly if the mind must be renewed as the Scripture speaks Rom. 12. 2. Col. 3. Eph. 4. 23. it necessarily followeth that it is fleshly and sinfull Behold then what a fountain of evil and misery springs out from us in this respect which may overwhelm us For though the inferior parts of the soul had been throughly infected with this Leprosie yet if the superiour and chief parts had not been contaminated there would have been hopes that those Sun-beams would have dispelled such misty clouds but seeing that the eye is become dark How great is our darkness and salt it self having lost its seasoning all must become loathsom and unprofitable Not only thy eyes thy ears not only thy affections and passions of love fear anger c. which are the
understanding Another is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth desire in the general and is used in a good sense Psal 132. 13. in a bad sense Numb 11. 4. There is also the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is many times applied to the object desired as wives children houses c. Lastly there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Hebrews do commonly call evil concupiscence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But to return to the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Col. 3. 5. There is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Evil Concupiscence Though the English word Lust seemeth to be ordinarily taken in an ill sense yet Gal. 5. 17. our Translators render it The Spirit lusteth against the flesh Hence in the Scripture we may observe a three-fold lust or desire 1. That which is natural flowing from the appetite of nature Thus it is said of Lazarus Luk. 15. 16. he did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 desire to be satisfied with the crums of the rich mans table 2. There is in the Scripture mention of a good concupiscence or coveting and that is when a godly man doth earnestly desire to do or suffer the wil of God Thus Mat. 3 17. righteous men are said to desire to see those things which were to be seen in Christs dayes So Luk. 22. 15. Christ is there said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 greatly and earnestly to desire to eat the Passeover with them The godly then have a holy coveting an holy desiring after the things of God as carnal men have lusts after their sinfull objects and therefore they ought to nourish and cherish those affectionate desires They cannot go beyond their bounds and limits in this case the modus is sine mâ—de But then lastly There are evil covetings and desires sinfull lustings In which sense we read often of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes 1 John 2. 16. The lust of the world 1 John 2. 17. And men are said To walk after their lusts to be delivered up to their lusts There is then a natural concupiscence a good concupiscence and a sinfull wicked one And this again is two fold either when we desire such objects as are absolutely and simply sinfull Or secondly when the objects are lawfull and good yet we desire them excessively and for sinfull unlawfull ends SECT VI. A Three-fold Appetite in Man THe third particular necessary for the understanding of this Doctrine viz. That original sinne is lust or concupiscence in a man is To take notice of a three fold appetite Natural Animal and Rational Even inanimate bodies the stone and the fire have a kind of an appetite to descend the one downward the other upward In a man there is a natural appetite of eating or drinking 2. There is the animal or sensitive appetite whereby the sensitive faculties do desire their sutable objects Lastly There is the Rational Appetite whereby a man is carried out to desire those good things that are judged to be so by reason Now if we take these appetites substantially as it were or physically so they are good and the actions that flow from them are good but then take them Ethically and Morally with that Ataxy and Inordinacy that doth cleave to them as they are in man and so they do become polluted and defiled Insomuch that a man doth sinne till regenerated in all these things his eating and drinking became sinne and all other his actions because the principles from which they flow are all vitiated So that whatsoever principle we have of any action it being destitute of that original rectitude which adhered to it therefore it is that it moveth to every object sinfully So that this consideration may take off that calumny which the adversaries of original sinne would fasten upon the Orthodox herein as if we made man to be nothing but opus Diaboli the work of the Devil as if he were not the good creature of God Vide August lib. 2 do de nuptiis concupiscentiâ where the Pelagian saith Qui originale peccatum defendit perfectè Manichaeus est ne vocentur Haeretici fiunt Manichai as also this freeth them from the aspersion of â—â—ccianism though Cortzen the Jesuite saith The Calvinists by their principles cannot avoid it Necessario concedere coguntur substantiam esse peccatum qui concupiscentiam affirmant Com. 5. ad Rom. but very absurdly For we say take these faculties of the soul as they are naturally planted in the soul so they are good and of God The understanding the will the affections these are in themselves good but man having sinned away original righteousnesse which would have habitually disposed them to their due objects in a due manner for a due end hereby it is that they are only for sinne which were at first only for good SECT VII 4. VVHen we say That original sinne is habitual lust we must not take lust strictly but most largely as it comprehends any part of the soul in its motions to their respective objects Our English word lust is by custom almost limited to unclean desires as if those corporal burnings were onely lust Even as the Latine word libido though originally signifying quicquid libet any thing that pleased a man is for the most part also restrained to fleshly lusting but we told you that the word lust 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is in the Scripture used onely largely in a good sense in a bad sense and a neutral indifferent one Therefore in the affections there is this lust in the will there is this lust yea in the understanding and fancy which are apprehensive faculties only there is this lust For although Aquinas saith That we cannot properly in the understanding say there is motus ad objectum because a passive faculty yet in a large sense all faculties of the soul have their inclination and motion to their objects and so this original lust diffuseth it self through them all and therefore they also limit this concupiscence too much which confiae it only to the sensitive part the inferiour region of the soul For the more acute Papists do ingeniously confesse That Heresies Idolatries are sins of the mind and yet flow from this concupiscence so that this habitual lust is diffused and extended as farre as the soul hath any power or motion Oh but how few are there that do regard lust any further than bodily or sensible The spiritual the intellectual lustings of the soul are not apprehended as an heavy load or burden So that original sinne hath its upper-springs and its nether-springs the corporal chanel and the spiritual in which its filth runneth down In the gross prophane man there is original sinne acting carnally and bodily in the heretique in the proud Scholar there is original sinne acting mentally and intellectually So that as man doth consist of two parts one visible and the other invisible so also doth original sinne as it were consist of two ingredients the
entertain Insomuch that every man by nature may say he no longer liveth but sinne in him and the Devil in him Hereby thy heart may be called hell yea and Legion because many Devils do rule in thee Oh that God would make this Truth like a two-edged sword in our hearts that we may not rest day or night till God hath delivered us from this wretched estate Pray for it groan for it all the day long CHAP. XX. A clear and full Knowledge of Original Sinne can be obtained only by Scripture Light SECT I. A Full and large information concerning the whole Nature of original sinne both in the Privative and Positive part thereof hath been delivered to which this Text hath been very usefull There remaineth one thing more in it which is very considerable and that is the way or means how Paul cometh to be thus convinced of that sinfulnesse which he did not acknowledge before and that is said to be by the Law In what sense Paul said He knew not lust to be sinne hath already been declared There remaineth therefore this Doctrine to be observed viz. That original sinne in the immediate effect thereof is truly and fully known onely by the light of Gods word None are ever clearly and throughly perswaded of such an universal horrid defilement but those who look into the pure glass of Gods word This Paul acknowledgeth in himself and yet no Heathen he lived under the light of the Word but following traditional expositions from his fathers and wanting the Spirit of God to enlighten him therefore he was wholly stupid and senslesse in this matter as therefore the Doctrine of Christ and Evangelical grace is a mystery so is also this Doctrine about original sinne SECT II. Whether the wisest Heathens had any Knowledge of this Pollution BUt because this matter is under Debate and Question let us further enquire into it examining Whether the wisest Heathens had any knowledge of this natural pollution the Word doth so fully inform us in And First As for that original sinne called originans viz. Adam's actual transgression made ours by Gods will and appointment through imputation that is wholly known by revelation so that no Heathens by the highest improvement and cultivage of nature could ever discern such things That God made Adam righteous giving him a command of tryal in obedience or disobedience whereof all his posterity should be involved this they had not the least him of and the reason is Because the truth of such things lieth not in nature neither have second causes the least demonstration of this but it is wholly discovered as a matter of fact by the Scripture So that we Christians ought the more to bless God for the sight of his Word seeing thereby a very Ideot amongst us may know more then the wisest Aristotle or Plato amongst the Heathens Secondly As for original inherent sinne it must necessarily be granted That even the Heathens had some general confused knowledge about a mans natural defilement Hence was their custom of a solemn washing and lustration of their Infants in a religious way implying hereby that they came into the world polluted and needed the propitious savour of their gods This solemn religious custom of theirs was some general confession of original sinne but as for the Philosophers who were the wisest and most learned of them some do speak more congruously to this point than others That noble and learned Plessâ—us in his Book of the Truth of the Christian Religion Pag. 377. which he endeavoureth to prove even from Heathinish Authors especially the Platonists doth alledge some things pertinently to our subject For Plato holding That the soul was put into the body as into a prison and a dungeon for former sinnes committed through he grosly erred in the foundation thinking souls pre-existent before the body and for faults committed then adjudged to the body as a place of prison which was an absurd errour yet there was some truth he did take notice of for observing that the soul which should rule and command the body was yet mancipated and enslaved to it he concluded there was some fore-going crime deserving this though he was wholly ignorant of Adam's fall Hence he saith That the soul hath lost and broken her wings which she had at first and thereby doth onely creep and crawl upon the ground Theâ—phrastus also Aristotle's Scholar was wont to say That the soul payeth a very dear rent for the house of her body the body is such a clog and impediment to it The Platonists do seem to acknowledge more truth herein then Aristotls for Aristotle doth expresly deny That either virtue or vice is in us by nature the very same thing which Pelagin afterwards did use to say Therefore the Schoolmen though enslaved to Aristotle yet when urging this Argument That there cannot be a sinne by birth in a man because no man is to be reproved or beaten for that which he hath by nature but rather to be pitied it is not his sinne but misery Which speech if true doth utterly contradict that of the Apostle We are by nature the children of wrath The Schoolmen I say though 〈◊〉 vasalized to Aristotle and alledging him oftner than Paul do answer that Argument thus It is no matter what Aristotle saith in this case because he knew nothing of original sinne Thus you see they are forced to leave him in this point and therefore Aristotle is more to be renounced in this point then any other Philosopher Grotius also Comment in 2d. Luc. v. 21. alledgeth several Hethenish Authors who lay down this for a Position that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is implanted and ingraffed into man to sinne Tully lib. 3. Tusc doth speak so fully to this purpose as if he had read what Moses speaketh of man by nature Simul ac editi sumus in lucem suscepti in omni continuè pravitate versamur c. as soon as ever we are born we are presently exercised in all manner of evil Vt poenè in lacte nutricis errorem suxisse videamur as if we sucked down errour with the nurses milk Here you see he speaketh something like to Moses when he saith Gen. 6. That the imagination of the thoughts of our hearts are only evil and that continually Although at the same time he seemeth to attribute this propensity to evil to wicked manner and depraved opinions for there he saith Nature hath given us of honesty parvulos igniculos and that there are ingeniis nostris semina innata virtutum But although some of their wisest men have confessed such a misery and infirmity upon us yet it may be doubted Whether they looked upon this as truly and properly sinne deserving punishment either from God or man They rather thought all sinne must be voluntary Hence Seneca Erras si existimas nobiscum nasci vitia supervenerunt ingesta sunt Indeed in their sad complaints concerning mans birth and all misery accompanying
him as Austin said they did rem scire but causam nescire they evidently saw we were miserable but they knew not the cause of it whereas original sin according to Scripture light though not personally voluntary yet is truly a sinne and maketh a man in a damnable estate Therefore the word original when we divide sinne into original and actual is not terminus restrictivus or diminuens as when we did divide ens into ens reale and rationis but terminus specificans as when animal is divided into rationale and irrationale both properly partaking of the general nature of sinne So that whatsoever apprehensions they had and complaints they made about man yet they did not believe he was born in sinne though experience told them he was in misery The Persians as Plesseus in the above-mentioned place saith had every year a solemn Feast wherein they did kill all the Serpents and wild beasts they could get and this Feast they called viâ—iorum interitum the slaying of their vices By which it doth appear that they had a guiltiness about their sinfull wayes and that none were exempted from being sinfull Yea Casaub Exâ—rcit 16. ad Annal. Bar. pag. 391. speaking of the sacred mysteries among the Grecians the discharging whereof was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 affirmeth That therefore they called the scope of those holy actions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because it was as they thought a perduction of the soul to that state in which it was before it descended into the body which he interpreteth of the state of perfection from which we fell in the old Adam so that even in this errour there was some truth which made Tertullian say Omnia adversus veritatem de ipsà veritate constructa esse operantibus aemulationem istam spiritibus erroris Thus you see how the wisest of the Heathens have been divided in this point Some making the soul of a man to come without vice or virtue as a blank fit to receive either Others acknowledging a disease and an infirmity upon the soul yet ignorant of the cause of it neither acknowledging it to be a sinne and so deserving punishment In the second place Although the Heathens did not see this sinne nor could truly bewail it yet so farre many of them were convinced that if they had any sinfull desires or lusting in the soul or any wicked thoughts in their hearts to which they gave consent that these were sinnes and wholly to be abstained from though they did not break forth into act Grotius in his Comment upon the 10th Commandment sheweth out of several Heathenish Writers That all secret lustings of the soul with consent thereunto were were wholly unlawfull Yea as one of them is there said to expresse it they are not so much as to covet a needle the least thing And as for Seneca he hath high assertions about the governing of our thoughts and ordering the inward affections of our souls so as that the gods as well as men may approve us Tully saith That an honest man would do no evil or unjust thing though he could have Gyges his ring which they feigned made a man invisible And this is the rather to be observed because herein they surpassed the Pharisees who though brought up under the Law and had constantly the word of God to guide them yet they did not think any covetings or lustings in the heart to be a transgression of the Law as appeareth by our Saviours information and exposition he gave them Matth. 5. And Josephus is said to deride Polybius the great Historian for making the gods to punish a King meerly because he had a purpose and an intent to commit some enormious iniquity Yea This principle of the Heathens may make many Christians ashamed and be greatly confounded who live as if their thoughts were free and their hearts were their own so that they might suffer any poisonous evil and malicious actings of soul to be within them and to put to check or controll upon them As they matter not original sinne so neither the immediate effects and working thereof Though their hearts be a den of theevish lusts and their souls like Peter's sheet wherein were a company of innumerable unclean creeping lusts yet so as their lives are unblameable they wholly justifie themselves but you are to know that the strength of sinne lieth in your hearts The least part of your evil is that which is visible in your lives SECT III. THirdly We see that original sinne is so hardly discernable that though men do enjoy the light of Gods Word yea and read it over and over again yet for all that they are not convinced of this native pollution We see in all the Heretiques that have been in all ages who have denied this original sinne they were summoned to answer the Word of God Scripture upon Scripture was brought to convince them but a veil was upon their eyes they would wrest and pervert the meaning of it rather than retract their errour so that Scripture-light objectively shining therein is not enough Paul is a clear instance in this he was most exact and strict about the Law yet wholly ignorant of this fundamental truth before he was converted he knew the Commandment Thou shalt not covet yet he did not fully and throughly attend thereunto Hence In the fourth place To have a full and clear understanding of this native defilement we are to implore the light of Gods Spirit The light of the Word is not enough unlesse the Spirit of God be efficacious to remove all errour and impediments as also to prepare and fit the soul to receive it Hence it 's made the work of Gods Spirit to lead into all truth if into all then into this while the eyes remain blind the Sunne with all its lustre can do no good It is true Gods Word is compared to a light and to a lamp but that is only objective without us there must be something subjectively within us that shall make a sutableness between the object and the faculty To be made then Orthodox and to have a sound judgement herein it must be wholly from the Spirit of God For why is it that when one heareth and readeth those Texts We are by nature the children of wrath Who can bring a clean thing out of unclean He adoreth the fulness of these Texts he is convinced of such heart-pollution and blesseth God for the knowledge of this truth But another he cavilleth at the Texts he derideth and scorneth at such a truth Is not this because the Spirit of God leadeth one into the truth and leaveth the other to his pride and blindness of mind SECT IV. FOurthly It is not enough to know this sinne in an orthodox speculative manner to acknowledge it so But we are also in a practical experimental manner to feel and bewail the power and burden of it And happily this may be part of Paul's meaning when he saith He did not
know lust to be sinne that is not so clearly so fully so experimentally as now he did since the grace of God had both enlightned and sanctified him How many have with great orthodoxy maintained this Truth against Pelagians and all the enemies of Gods grace shrouding themselves under the praise of nature but it is rare to see those that do not onely theoretically believe it but practically walk with broken and contrite hearts under it Examine then thy self Doest thou believe this is Gods Truth that thou camest into the world all over polluted Doest thou think that thou as well as any other though never so civil and unblameable in respect of actual sinnes art by nature a child of the Devil prepared fuel for the eternal flames of Hell And doest thou not onely believe this to be thy particular case but withall thou art so affected with an holy fear and trembling thou hast no quietnesse or rest in thy soul because of it then thou art come to a true and right knowledge of it For the end of our preaching on this Subject is not onely to establish your minds in this Truth against all errours therein but also to mollifie and soften your hearts that you may all your life time loath your self and advance the fulnesse of Christ And seeing that natural light is dimme and confused in this matter keep close to the Word and not only so but implore the Spirit of God that in and through the Word this Truth may enter like a two-edged sword into thy bowels knowing that without this foundation laid there cannot be any esteem of Christ CHAP. XXI That Reason when once enlightned by the Scripture may be very powerfull to convince us of this Natural Pollution SECT I. A Clear and full knowledge of original sinne can be obtained onely by Scripture light Although as you heard some Heathens have had a confused apprehension about it My work at this time shall be to shew That even Reason where once enlightned by the Scripture may be very powerfull to convince us of this natural pollution So that when Scripture Reason and Experience shall come in to confirm this Truth we may then say there needeth no further disquisition in this point And First This may abundantly convince us That the hearts of men are naturally evil Because of the overflowing of all wickednesse in all ages over the whole world How could such weeds such bryers and thorns grow up every where were not the soil bad It 's true in some ages some kind of sinnes have abounded more than others and so in some places But there was never any generation wherein impiety did not cover the earth as the waters do the Sea Insomuch that if we should with zeal undertake to reprove them according to their desert Non tam irascendum quà m insaniendum est as Seneca of the vices of his time Erasmus in his Epistle to Othusius complaineth That since Christ's time there was not a more wicked age then that he lived in Christ saith he crieth I have overcome the world but the world seemeth as if it would say shortly I have overcome Christ because of the wickedness abounding and that among those who profess themselves the salt and light of the world Now how were it possible that the whole world should thus lie in wickedness 1 Joh. 5. 19 as the Apostle affirmeth but that all mankind by nature is like so many Serpents and Toads of which there is none without poison If this wickedness did abound only in some places we might blame the Clymate the Countrey or their Education but it is in all places under the Equator as well as the Tropick in all ages former times as well as later have been all groaning under ungodliness and whereas you might say The world is in its old age now and the continual habituated customary wayes of wickedness have made us drink the dregs of impiety yet the Scripture telleth us That not long after the Creation of the world when we might judge greater innocency and freedom from sinne to have been every where yet then all flesh had corrupted their wayes Gen. 6. 12. which provoked God to bring that wonderfull and extraordinary judgement of drowning it with water as if it were become like a noisom dunghill that was to be cleansed And lest you should think this was only because of their actual impieties we see God himself charging it upon this because the imaginations of a mans heart were only evil and that from his youth up So that there is no man who considers the wayes and manners of all the inhabitants of the world but must conclude had there not been poisonous fountains within there had never been such poisoned streams The warres the rapines the uncleannesses and all the horrid transgressions that have filled the earth as the vermine did Aegypt do plainly declare That all men have hearts full of evil And lest you might think this deluge of impiety is only in the Heathenish Paganish and bruitish part of the world The Psalmist complaineth of that people who were the Church of God and enjoyed the light of the Word That there was none righteous that there was none that did good no not one Psal 14. 3. So that as graves and dead mens bones the Sepulchres and monuments every where do fully manifest men are mortal no lesse do the actual impieries that fill all Cities Towns and Villages discover that all are by nature prone to that which is sinfull SECT II. SEcondly This original sinne may be proved by reason yea and experience thus If you consider all the miseries troubles and vexations man is subject unto and at last death it self and that not only men grown up who have actual sinnes but even new born Infants will not this plainly inform us That all mankind hath sinned and is cast out of the favour of God How can it enter into any mans heart to think that God the wise Creator so full of goodness to man that he made him little lower than Angels should yet make him more miserable than all creatures It was Theophrastus his complaint when he lay a dying That man had such a short time of life prefixed him who yet could have been serviceable and by long age and experience found out many observable usefull things when Crows and Harts and other creatures of no consideration have a long life vouchsafed to them Yea all the Heathens even the most learned of them complained much concerning this Theme of mans misery being never able to satisfie themselves in the cause of it But now by the Scripture we see it 's no wonder the race of mankind is thus adjudged to all misery seeing it 's all guilty of sinne before God so that if there had been no actual sinnes committed by the sonnes of men yet the ground would have been cursed to bring forth bryers and thorns man would have been miserable and mortal So that this doth
necessary that he should create souls daily but conserve the order appointed as he doth about the Heavens The Answer is easie therefore do the words relate to the Creation at first with the conservation of them because new Heavens and new earths are not every day made but both they and we do acknowledge new souls are every day produced as often as a man is born and God at first making Adam's soul by breathing into it the same order is still to be conserved This Text thus cleared we may adde as proofs also of the like kind Isa 42. 5. Though Austin thought by spirit there might be meant the sanctifying Spirit of God But that hath no probability Psal 33. 15. the Psalmist saith God hath fashioned the hearts of men alike or wholly throughout By which is meant the soul of a man in all its thoughts and workings because the soul puts forth its vital actions in the heart That also is remarkable which yet I find not mentioned by any in this Controversie Jer. 38. 16. where Zedekiah maketh an oath to Jeremiah that he will not kill him after this manner Thus saith the Lord who made us this soul not this body but this soul he putteth that into the oath intimating what an heavy sinne it would be to kill a man that is innocent seeing he hath his soul from God I shall mention but one Text more and that is in the New Testament which seemeth clearly to demonstrate the creation of the soul Heb. 12 9. We have had fathers of our flesh that corrected us c. Shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of Spirits I think this Text may put us out of all doubt God is opposed as a Father to our natural parents God is called a Father of Spirits natural parents father of our flesh Now if our souls did come from our parents they might be called fathers of our spirits as well as of our flesh The Apostles Argument would have no force if the Creation of the soul by God alone and the generation of the flesh only by natural parents be not asserted Thus Numb 16. 20. as also Chap. 27. 16. God is there styled The God of the spirit of all flesh in a peculiar manner It may be wondered that though Austin busied himself so much in finding out of this Truth diligently attending to the Scripture yet he never mentioned this place Certainly this Text might have removed his doubt and made him wholly positive in affirming the creation of the soul That which I find later Writers reply to it is That God is called the Father of Spirits in respect of Regeneration because he sanctifieth and maketh holy But the opposition to our fathers of the flesh evidently confuteth this and withall they can never shew that God is called a Father of Spirits or a God of Spirits but in respect of Creation not Regeneration It is true the word spirit may sometimes be used for a man as regenerate as flesh is for a man wholly corrupt but they can never shew that the word spirits in the plural number is taken for men regenerate Vse Of Exhortation To quicken up your attention to this Truth do not think this is unprofitable and uselesse that this Question is like those of which Paul complaineth some doted foolish and endlesse No it is very profitable for in knowing the original of thy soul how it cometh even from God himself may it not shame thee to make thy self like a beast as if thou hadst no better soul then they have Prophanenesse and sottish ignorance do greatly oppose the nature of thy soul Why do men say in effect Let us eat and drink for to morrow we shall die but as if they and beasts were all alike And why is it that you see so many have no understanding but that they are like the horse and the mule Why doth the Scripture compare wicked men to so many kind of beasts but because they live as if God had put no rational soul into them That though in the making of their bodies they differ from beasts yet in their souls they do greatly agree SECT III. THus you see we are examining Whether that Doctrine of the Propagation of souls from parents be a sure foundation to build upon in clearing the conveyance of original sinne to Adam's posterity And we have evidently proved That the soul hath its immediate creation from God So that to runne to the Sanctuary of the Souls Traduction would be to implore a dangerous errour to assist the Truth As God needeth not a lie so neither doth his Truth any error And indeed Although I shall not call the Doctrine of the Creation of the soul an article of faith because so many learned men have hesitated therein So that it would be an high breach of charity to commaculate such with the note of heresie yet we may with Hierom call it Ecclesiasticum dogma a Doctrine that the most Orthodox have alwayes received So that the contrary opinion seemeth to be absurd as Whitaker well saith Although Vorstius would make this dispute to be meerly philosophical in his Antibellarm Having therefore laid down those Texts which are a sure pillar of this Truth we shall adde some further reasons and then make use of this point which is very fruitfull SECT IV. Arguments from Scripture to prove the Souls Creation THe first Reason which may appear in the defence of the Souls immediate Creation from God is From the historical Narration which Moses makes of the beginning and original of Adam 's soul For as God when he was to create man did it in a more transcendent and glorious way then when he made beasts or the other creatures For then he said Let there be light and Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creatures that have life Gen. 1. 20. And so Let the earth bring forth the living creatures the beasts after their kind But when he comes to make man then the expression is altered Let us make man in our Image and Gen. 2. 7. where we have the manner of the execution of this counsel it is said He formed the body of Adam out of the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life No such thing was done to other creatures So that you see Adam's soul was from God immediately though his body was from the earth This breathing of life into Adam was infusing of the rational soul Some Ancients thought that it was the bestowing of the holy Ghost upon Adam and that he had his rational soul before They compare it with Christs breathing on his Disciples whereby was communicated the holy Ghost Now it is plain they had their rational souls before This is vain because by the breathing of this life it 's said Adam became a living soul so that he was but a dead lump of earth as it were before And indeed this Text is so clear that I know
desired to number the people though Joab withstood it 2 Sam. 24. which might exceedingly have shamed David that a meer mortal man should see that sinfullness which he did not yet he will proceed and the people are numbered but assoon as David had done it then his heare smote him when it was done it smote him not while it was a doing the nine moneths were spent in numbring of the people Why not before then it had prevented the deaths of many thousands But thus it is conscience will not seasonably and opportunely bear witness against sinne Consider then the deceitfullness and falseness of thy conscience herein all the while thou art contriving sinne purposing yea and acting of sinne nothing doth trouble thee but at last when sinne is committed then it ariseth with horror and terror And do we not see this constant pollution of conscience in most dying persons when summoned by God and arraigned by death when the sentence of death is upon them Then their conscience flyeth in their faces taketh them by the throat oh send for the Minister let him pray for me let all that come to me pray for me Thus conscience is stirring now oh but how much better were it if in thy health time if in thy strength and power then conscience had been operative To have heard thee then cry out oh my sinnes oh I am wounded at the heart oh pray for me then there had been better grounds to hope thy conscience was awakened upon true and enduring considerations such as would continue alwaies living and dying whereas such are but sick-suddain fits of conscience and commonly turn into greater hardness of heart and obstinancy afterwards Secondly Conscience troubled doth naturally discover its pollution By the slavish servile and tormenting feares which do accompany it So that whereas the proper work of conscience is By Scripture-light to direct to Christ so that the troubles thereof should be like the Angels troubling of the pool of Bethesda and then immediately to communicate healing Now it is the clean contrary These wounds do fester and corrode more The conscience by feeling guilt runneth into more guilt so that whereas we would think and say Now there are hopes now conscience stirreth now he begins to feel his sinnes we see often the contrary an obortive or a monstrous birth after such travailles of the soul and wherein doth it manifest it self more then by tormenting teares about God So that if it were possible the conscience troubled would make a man runne from the presence and sight of God never to be seen by him Thus you see it was with Adam when he had sinned his conscience was awakened he knew what he had done and therefore was afraid at Gods voice and runne to hide himself such a slavish servile temper doth follow the conscience when wounded for sinne Now all such tormenting feares are so many manifest reproaches unto the goodness of God and his mercy revealed The hard thoughts the accusing imaginations that there is no hope for thee that thy sinnes are greater then thou canst bear or that God will forgive these dishonour the goodness of God these oppose his grace and mercy which he intendeth to exalt in the pardon of sinne Insomuch that the Atheist who denieth the Essence of God is in this respect less hainous then thou who deniest the good Essence of God He denieth his natural goodness thou his moral goodness as it were Is not the great scope of God in the Word to advance this attribute of his mercy especially in Christ he hath made it so illustrious and amiable that it may ravish the heart of a poor humbled sinner but a slavish conscience about sinne rob God of this glory So that although it may be the Spirit of God by the Word that convinceth thee of thy sinne and affecteth thy conscience yet the slavishness and servility of it that is the rust and moth which breedeth in thy own nature that is not of Gods Spirit Thirdly The troubled conscience discovereth its natural pollution By the proneness and readiness in it to receive all the impressions and impulses of the Devil That as in the secure conscience the Devil kept all quiet and would by no means molest So on the contrary in the troubled consience there be endeavours to heighten the trouble to increase the flame and he that before tempted thee to presumption that God was ready to pardon that sinne would easily be forgiven now he useth contrary engines provoketh to despair represents God as severe and one who will never forgive such trangressions that there is no hope for him that he is shut out of the Ark and so must necessarily perish Thus you see he wrought upon the troubled conscience of Judas and of Cain one goeth trembling up and down and cannot cast off the terrors and horrors which were upon him The other is so greatly tormented with anguish of soul that he hangeth himself In what whirlepooles of despair In what self-murders and other sad events hath a troubled conscience agitated and moved by the Devil cast many into Now all this ariseth because the wounded conscience being not as yet regenerated doth hearken more unto the Devil then unto Gods Spirit The Spirit of God through the Word of the Gospel speaks peace to the broken in heart offereth oil to be poured into such wounds holdeth out the scepter of grace but the troubled conscience heareth not this believeth not this but what the Devil that soul-murderer and Prince of darkness doth suggest and dart into the thoughts that is received and followed Hence it is that so many have been under troubles of conscience under terrors of spirit for sinnes for a season but all this pain in travel was only to bring forth wind and emptiness all hath either ended in tragical and unbelieving actions or in a bold and more hardened obstinacy and the great cause of this hath been the Devils moving in these troubled waters he hath presently interposed to marre this vessel while upon the wheel Know then that when thy conscience is awakened and grieved then is the Devil very busie then he tempteth he suggesteth but keep close to the Word see what the Spirit of God calleth upon thee to do get out of the crowd of those Satanical injections and compose thy self in a ferene and quiet manner to receive the commands of God in his Word for the Spirit of God that calleth to believe to come in and make peace with God but the Devil he presseth a final departure from God Fourthly The troubled conscience is internally polluted By that ignorance and incapacity in knowing of what is the true christian-liberty purchased by Christ I speak not as yet of that main and chief liberty which is freedome from the curse of the law through the bloud of Christ but in many doctrinal and practical things The Apostle Rom. 14. speaketh much of the weak conscience which hath not attained to
if nothing aâ—led them many yeares after when they were in anguish of mind by Joseph's severe carriage towards them Gen. 42. 21. Then they said one to another We are very guilty concerning our brother in that we saw the anguish of his soul when he besought us and we would not hear therefore is this distress come upon us so that some unexpected calamity may be to us as the hand-writing on the will to Belshazzar making conscience to tremble within us 3. God as a just Judge can command these Hornets and Bees to arise in thy conscience It is plain Cain when he set himselfe to build Townes thought to remove that trembling which was upon him but he could not do it how many have set themselves with all the might they could to be delivered from this anguish of conscience and could not because God is greater then our conscience if he command terror and trembling none can expell it This troubled conscience is threatned as a curse to such who did break the Law of God Deut. 29. 65 67. The Lord shall give thee a trembling heart and sorrow of mind In the morning thou shalt say would God it were day for the fear of thy heart Here we may observe that God can when he pleaseth strike the heart of the most jolly and prophane sinner with such a trembling conscience that he shall not have rest day or night and when God after much patience abused doth smite the soul with such horror and astonishment many times This never tendeth to a gracious and Evangelical humiliation but as in Cain and Judas is the beginning even of hell it self in this life So fearfull a thing is it to fall into the hands of the living God when provoked Heb. 10. 31. For in such as ver 27. there is a certain fearfull looking for the indignation and wrath of God which will devour the adversaries 4. This troubled conscience may and doth often come by the Spirit of God convincing and reprooving by the Word especially the law discovered in the exactness and condemning power of it Joh. 16. 8. The Spirit of God doth reproove or convince the world of sinne Now conviction belongs to the conscience principally and indeed this is the ordinary way for the conversion of any Gods Spirit doth by the Law convince and awaken conscience making it unquiet and restless finding no bottome to stand upon it hath nothing but sinne no righteousness to be justified by the law condemneth justice arraigneth and he is overwhelmed not knowing what to doe This is the worke of Gods Spirit and of this some do expound that place Rom. 8. 15. Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear but of adoption It is the same spirit which is called the spirit of bondage and of Adoption onely it 's called so from different operations It 's the spirit of bondage while by the Law it humbleth us filleth the conscience with fear and trembling not that the sinfulnesse or slavishnesse of these fears opposing the way of faith are of the Spirit but the tremblings themselves and it is the Spirit of Adoption when it rebuketh all tormenting fears giving Evangelical principles of Faith Love and Assurance Now these fears thus wrought by the Spirit of God in the Ministry of the Word though they be not alwaies necessary antecedents of conversion yet are sometimes ordained by God to be as it were a John Baptist to make way for Christ Lastly These troubles of conscience may arise through Gods permission from the Devil For when God leaveth thee to Satan's kingdome as it was the case of the incestuous person to be buffeted by him tempted by him you see he did so farre prevail with him that he was almost swallowed up with too much grief Therefore when God will evangelically compose the conscience by faith in Christs bloud he taketh off Satan again and suffereth him not to cast his fiery darts into us any longer The false wayes that the wounded Conscience is prone to take THese things explained Let us return to consider the pollution of natural conscience in the two particulars mentioned whereof The first is That the wounded conscience for sinne is very ready to use false remedies for its cure These stings he seeleth are intollerable he cannot live and be thus he taketh no pleasure in any thing he hath but he cometh not to true peace for either they go to carnal and sinfull wayes of pleasure so to remove their troubles or to superstitions and uncommanded wayes of devotion thinking thereby to be healed The former too many take who when troubled for sinne their hearts frequently smite them they call this Melancholly and Pusillanimity Tush they will not give way to such checks of conscience but they will go to their merry company they will drink it away they will rant it away or else they will goe to their merry pastimes and sports Thus as Herod sought to kill Jesus as soon as he was borne so do these strive to suffocate and stifle the very beginnings and risings of conscience within them Oh wretched men prepared for hell torments Though now thou stoppest the mouth of conscience yet hereafter it will be the gnawing worme It 's this troubled conscience that makes hell to be chiefly hell It 's not the flaming fire it 's not the torments of the body that are the chiefest of hels misery but the griping and torturing of conscience to all eternity This is the hell of hels Others when none of these means will rebuke the stormes and waves of their soul but they think they must perish then they set themselves upon some superstitious austere waies as in Popery to go on Pilgrimage to enter into some Monastery to undertake some bodily affliction and penalty and by these means they think to get peace of conscience but Luther found by experience the insufficiency of all these courses That all their Casuists were unwise Physicians and that they gave gall to drinke in stead of honey In the next place therefore This pollution of a troubled conscience is seen In it's opposition to Christ to an Evangelical Righteousnesse and the sway of believing Conscience is farre more polluted about Christ and receiving of him then about the commands and obedience thereunto for naturally there is something in conscience to do the things of the Law but the Gospel and the Doctrine about Christ is wholly supernatural and by revelation Hence although it is clear That the conscience truly humbled for sinne ought to believe in Christ for expiation thereof Yet how long doth the broken heart continue ignorant of this duty Their conscience troubleth them accuseth them for other sins but not for this of not particularly applying Christ to thy self for comfort whereas thou art bound in conscience to believe in Christ as well as repent of sinne I say thou art bound in conscience and if thou doest not by particular acts of faith receive Christ in
remember then they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hence they say that sometimes a man thinketh he remembreth when he doth not yea he cannot tell whether he remembreth such a thing or no because say they the Phantasma is thus absolutely presented and not as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Even as a man may look upon a picture either absolutely as having such lineaments and colour or relatively as an Image whereby we come to remember such an one But these Philosophical notions about Phantasmata and Species are so obscure that it is better with Austin to acknowledge our ignorance of this noble and admirable power in the soul whereby it doth remember things whatsoever it be though given us as an admirable and usefull gift yet now it is grosly polluted and is the conserver of all evil and vanity SECT VII Demonstrations of the Pollution of the Memory THat the memory is thus polluted will appear 1. By several discoveries thereof And 2. By the particulars wherein In the former way herein we have a full demonstration of the depraved nature of our memory In that we need the Spirit of God to sanctifie and help it So that one work or office of the Spirit of God is to be a remembrancer unto us about holy things It 's the gift of Gods Spirit to give thee a good memory to make thee able to remember holy things This is clearly and unquestionably affirmed John 14. 26. The comforter which is the holy Ghost I will send in my name and he will teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you Here we see the Spirit of God hath a twofold office or work to do 1. To teach us holy things We are blind and unbelieving not knowing spiritual objects till Gods Spirit doth teach us But this is not all suppose we be taught and instructed is all done then Do we need the Spirit of God no more Yea. Therefore 2. The Spirit of God putteth it self forth in a further work which is to bring the things thus taught to our remembrance As then the mind in respect of understanding and knowing cannot do any thing about what is spiritual without the Spirit of God so neither can the mind about remembring Certainly if the memory of it self could do these things the Spirit of God would be in vain If the Moon and Starres could give so much light as to make a day the Sun would be in vain Hence the children of God do evidently find and feel the work of Gods Spirit upon their memories as well as their understandings for in their temptations how ready to be overwhelmed how ready to be swallowed up with such thoughts and then the Spirit of God doth seasonably re-mind the soul of such Promises of such comfortable Arguments So also upon the temptation to any sinne the Spirit of God doth interpose and prevent it by making them to remember such a threatning such a place of Scripture and this stoppeth them from the evil they were ready to do for they are the Disciples themselves though sanctified and made so eminent to whom this Spirit of remembrancing is promised as usefull and necessary If then the Spirits presence and assistance be thus necessary even to a regenerate mans memory this argueth the natural defilement and impotency of it to any good thing for where nature is able there the Spirit of God is not necessarily required A second Discovery of the pollution of the memory may be from the end of the Scripture why God would have it written so as to be a perpetual monument to his Church Among other ends this is one to be a memorial to us to put us in continual mind of the duties required of us Thus the Apostle Peter indeavoureth to make believers alwaies remembring of the Gospel by those Epistles he did write to them It is true the Orthodox do justly refuse that of Bellarmine who will make the Scripture to be onely utile communitorium as if that were the chief end why the Scriptures were written viz. to serve for our memory only and not to be a rule of our faith for he himself doth acknowledge it to be a partial rule But the principal and chief end why the Scriptures are delivered to the Church is to be a Canon and Rule to it so that the Church must not believe worship or live otherwise then the Scripture commands This is not a partial but a total Rule neither may any thing be added to it or detracted from it But yet we grant also That the Scripture may have other secondary and subservient ends whereof this is not the meanest to be usefull to our memory And certainly one great cause of so much evil committed by thee is forgetfulnesse of the Scripture The Apostle James Chap. 1. 25. doth notably instance to this purpose for he compareth a forgetfull hearer of the Word to one that looketh in the glasse and going away straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was If therefore we did abide and continue looking in this glasse take notice what we are by the direction of the Word how quickly would we reform He that doth make a practical use of remembring the Scripture so as to regulate and order his life accordingly can never miscarry To have the word of God in thy memory against such and such a temptation would prevent all the evil thou fallest into John 15. 20. when our Saviour would encourage his Disciples against the hatred of the world he saith Remember the Word that I said unto you the servant is not greater then his master Remember this truth and that will make thee suffer more willingly So John 16 4. These things have I told you that when the time shall come ye may remember that I told you of them To remember Scripture in the season to have the Word of God in thy mind when a temptation like Joseph's Mistress is soliciting of thee this will cause that no deadly thing shall hurt thee for the word of God is a two edged sword it 's an hammer it 's fire it 's the sword of the Spirit by it both the Devil and all temptations are subdued Christ overcame the Devil by Scripture Now if that be not in thy memory then it cannot be any waies serviceable to thee in the time of need Exercise your memories therefore in the Scripture and that not for memories sake much lesse for ostentation to shew what a good memory you have above others but for a practical and holy use Treasure up such a place against thy drunkennesse thy whoredoms Treasure up such a place against pride earthlinesse and covetous desires What a precious and excellent memory is that which is like a mine of gold or an Apothecaries shop that can from the Scripture presently fetch what Antidotes against sinne or cordials to revive that he pleaseth And truly our memory should be filled up only with Scripture considerations
This is the cabinet and choice closet of thy soul If a man should take his cabinet that was for jewels and precious stones and fill it only with mud and dirt would it not be exceeding great folly No lesse is it when thy memory is full of stories and merry tales and in the mean while rememberest not what God saith in his Word which would be so usefull to thee for thy souls good acknowledge then the goodnesse of God to thee in providing the Scriptures as an help to thy memory and withall know that seeing the Spirit thought it necessary to commit them to writing hereby is fully declared the pollution and sinfulnesse of thy memory For in Heaven when the memory will be fully sanctified and perfected then there will be no more use of the Bible we shall not then need to read the Scriptures to quicken up our minds for all imperfection will then be done away Thirdly The sinfulnesse and weaknesse of the memory is manifested not only by the end of the Scriptures in general but also several parts of the word of God are peculiarly so ordered that they might be the more easily conserved in our memory Thus when any great deliverances were vouchsafed to the Church those mercies were made into Psalms and Songs that for the meters sake and the pleasantness of the matter all might have them in remembrance This method did signifie how dull and stupid our memories are and how apt to forget the benefits and mercies of God and therefore our memories are to be helped therein Thus the 119th Psalm is put into an alphabetical order thereby to further our memory about it yea there are two Psalms Psal 8. 1. and Psal 70. 1. which have this Title To bring to remembrance And the matter of those two Psalms containeth a complaint under afflictions and earnest importunity with God for deliverance The Spirit of God by instruments made them to be composed for this end that afflicted and troubled soules should have them in remembrance and indeed we may say of every Chapter as well as of those Psalmes A Chapter to bring to remembrance yea of many Verses A Verse to bring to remembrance And because the memory is so slow and dull about holy things you may read of a peculiar command to the Jews in this case and although the same obligation doth not belong to us yet it teacheth us all what forgetfullness and oblivion is ready to seize upon us about holy things Numb 15. 39 40. God doth there command Moses to speak to the children of Israel that they make fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their generations It was a perpetual Ordinance And why must this be done To remember all the Commandments of God This was Gods special command The Church under the Gospel may not in imitation hereof prescribe Ceremonies or appoint Images to stirre up the dull memory of man The Popish-Church commendeth their Crucifixes and their Images upon this account because so helpfull to the memory being the Lay-mens Books But though the memory be greatly polluted yet it belongs not to man but to God as part of his regality to appoint what he pleaseth to stirre up and excite the memory in holy things God hath appointed other things the Word and Ministery and Sacraments for our memory as is to be shewed and therefore this is a devotion which God will reject because not having his superscription upon it Fourthly That the memory of man is naturally polluted is plain By the Ministry appointed in the Church of God by Christ himself for one end of that is to bring us to remembrance Thus you heard the Apostle Peter speaking he thought it meet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 just and righteous while he was in the flesh to put them alwayes in remembrance of these things so Jude also Thus Paul injoyneth Timothy 2 Tim. 2. 14. Of these things put them in remembrance so 1 Tim. 4. 6. If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things thou shalt be a good Minister of Jesus Christ He is not a good or faithfull Minister of Christ tha is not diligent to put you in mind of Scripture-things The Ministery is not only to instruct the ignorant to convert the prophane but also to put in t mind those that do know and are converted They are like Peter's Cock upon his crowing Peter was brought to remembrance and he went out and wept bitterly Every Sermon we preach should bring thy sinnes and thy duties to remembrance The Spirit of God you heard had this office to bring things to your remembrance and the Ministery is the instrument by which he doth it Alexander would have a monitor to be alwayes prompting this mementote esse hominem And the Romans when riding in glorious triumph would have some to remember them of their mortality But Christ hath provided a more constant help for thee to have spiritual watchmen and remembrancers who are never to cease minding of thee Say not then what should I go to hear a Sermon for I know already as much as can be said For though that be false yet if it were granted you must know the Ministery is for your memory as well as judgement and who needeth not to have that often quickned to its duty Fifthly In that Christ hath appointed Sacraments in the Church which among other ends are to quicken up and excite our memory it is plain that they are polluted that we are prone to forget all the benefits of God though never so precious Sacraments have for their generical nature a sign They are signs and that not only obsignatives and in some sense exhibitive but also commemorative hence in the very Institution of the Lords-Supper we have this injunction Do this in remembrance of me 1 Cor. 11. 24. Not that the commemoration of Christs death with thankfullness and joy is the total and adequate end of the Lords-Supper as the Socinians affirme making us to receive no new special influences of Gods grace thereby upon our soules or any renewed exhibitive Communion of Christ with his benefits to us but meerly a commemoration of what benefit is past As say they the Israelites when they celebrated that publick mercy of deliverance out of Egypt had not thereby a new deliverance but only there was a celebration of the old Thus they would have it in the Sacrament of the Lords-Supper But the principall and chief end of the Lords-Supper is to conveigh further degrees of grace and comfort to the true receivers yet we acknowledge it also a speciall and great end in the Sacrament to be commemorative and that Christ hereby would have our memories quickned about that infinite love shewed to us in dying for us Now what can be more demonstrating the naughtiness and sinfullness of the memory then this very thing For who would not think that Christs voluntary giving up of himself to such an accursed and ignominious death for us would
many now are led aside with Who would not desire to live the lives and die the deaths of such holy gracious men Thirdly Another object of our memory commended in Scripture is The former works of Gods Spirit which happily have been upon us but we have decayed and revolted This were alone necessary for many a man and especially in these times Remember what love thou didst once bear to the Ordinances Remember what delight and sweetness thou didst once find in them but now thou hast cast them off Thus the Apostle remindeth the Galatians Gal. 4. 15. Where is the blessedness you once spake of Once they did so rejoyce in Paul's Ministry accounted it a blessing of an eminent nature but now began to slight it There are also many who have formerly been zealous and active for good things they manifested their good desires about the things of God to all the world but now they are become like so many clods of earth they have forsaken the better part which with Mary once they did chuse and are either turned dissolute or earthly crawling upon the ground like so many worms Thus these flourishing trees are quite withered having neither fruit or leaves Thus the Church of Ephesus guilty of partial Apostasie Revel 2. 5. is injoyned To remember from whence she is fallen and this counsel is to be given to many persons Remember it was otherwise with thee once Remember it was not so with thee as it is now The time hath been thy heart hath been much affected with the word of God preached The time hath been thou hadst family-duties and daredst not to neglect the family-worship of God But now What is become of all this Religion You that began in the Spirit do you not end in the flesh Especially your memories are often to be stirred up and quickned who have been under many fears and dangers who have been at the point of death Oh what thoughts what resolutions have you made against sinne What bitter thoughts and apprehensions had you about your former evil wayes But alas how quickly are all those agonies of soul forgotten In this your memories are very much polluted that all your vows all your promises to God all your fears and terrors are forgotten Thou that art now imbracing of thy lusts entertaining thy Dalilah's again Oh remember what thou didst think of these things when thou didst look upon thy self as a dying man Oh remember what woes and wounds were upon conscience What confident expressions if ever God did recover thee again if ever thou wert delivered again all the world should see thy repentance and Reformation These things thou shouldest remember and shame thy selfe yea be confounded and never able to open thy mouth to excuse thy self Fourthly The Scripture doth propound to our memory as a special object never to slip out of it The consideration of our later end the day of death the day of Judgement these things are to be constantly in our memory The neglect of this is made by the Prophet Jeremiah a bitter instance in his Lamentations concerning the people of Israel Lam. 1. 9. She remembred not her later end therefore she came down wonderfully Here the forgetting of her later end is made the cause of all those strange and wonderfull judgements which come upon them Thus Isa 47. 7. Babylon is there arraigned for her pride and arrogancy And she did not lay the judgements of God to heart neither did she remember the later end of it And how pathetically is Gods desire expressed Deut. 32 29. Oh that they were wise that they understood this that they would consider their later end Here you see the summe of all godliness is expressed in considering our later end No wonder then if men who forget their death and the day of Judgement be violently carried on to all excess of riot For what should stop or stay them in their paths Whereas didst thou remember as Solomon adviseth his young man That for all this thou must die thou must be brought to judgement This would bind him as it were hand and foot Quicken then up thy memory whatsoever thou forgettest do not forget that thou art a mortal dying man that the day of judgement is coming upon thee which thou canst not avoid The memory of this would make thee flie from every enticing sinne as Joseph did from his mistress Lastly The Scripture requireth That we should remember the desolation and troubles that are upon others especially the Church of God So that although it be never so well with us though God give us our hearts desire yet the remembrance of the afflictions and straits of others should make us mourn and pray for them Thus Col. 4. 18. Paul calleth upon them to remember his bonds So Heb. 13. 3. Remember them that are in bonds as bound with them What an hard and great duty is this yet if thou art not a dead member in the body if spiritual life be in thee thou wilt remember the sad condition the afflicted estate of many of Gods children when thou enjoyest all thy soul longeth for It was thus with good Nehemiah he was in the Princes Palaces he wanted nothing for his own advantage yet he mourned and was sad from day to day because he remembred how it was with Jerusalem See how impossible a thing almost David maketh it to forget Jerusalem Psal 137. 5. If I forget thee O Jerusalem let my right hand forget her cunning If I remember thee not let my tongue cleave to the rooff of my mouth If I preferre not Jerusalem above my chief joy here is a gracious worthy spirit see what David resolveth shall be in his memory more then the chiefest good in this world he will forget his own friends his own joyes yea his own self sooner then the Churches good now may not even a godly man bewail his forgetfullness herein Thou mindest thy own estate thy own family seekest thy own self but how little is thy memory about the affaires of the Church Thou dost not remember how many afflicted Joseph's how many impoverished Lazar's there may be in the Church of God how many exiles and banished persons how many desirous to take up the crums that fall from thy table Did we remember the afflictions and straights of others it would put us more upon prayer for them and it would also make us walk more thankfully and humbly for our mercies then we do And thus you see though the memory be a vast treasure though it hath infinite recesses and capacious receptacles yet the Scripture hath prescribed matter enough to fill every corner as it were and if the memory were thus frighted if it were such a good store-house how happy would it be whereas naturally it 's like a cage of unclean birds and a den of thieves I proceed therefore to shew as it was to Ezekiel about the Jewes still more abomination in this memory of ours SECT X. The
the cup of gold in Benjamin's sack and therefore this must greatly debase us Thirdly We are not able of our selves to have the least desire or longing after grace and a state of holinesse Not only Pelagianism but Semi-pelagianism is a dangerous rock to be avoided The later made our desires to begin and then Gods grace to succeed and accomplish But there is not so much as the least groan the least desire can arise in thy heart Oh that God would change me Oh that I were in the state of those that do truly fear God! And the reason is because the Scripture describeth us by nature to be dead in sinne and compareth the work of grace to a spiritual resurrection Oh how great is thy bondage which doth so farre oppress thee that thou canst not so much as long for any freedom Oh hopeless and wretched man if left to himself Fourthly From this followeth the next demonstration of our vassalage and spiritual impotency That we cannot pray to God that he would deliver us out of this misery No natural man can pray it is the grace of God that doth inable thereunto he may utter the words of prayer he may repeat the expressions but alas he doth not he cannot pray as God requireth and so as he will accept of it The Apostle is clear for this Rom. 8. 26. The Spirit helpeth our infirmities for we know not what to pray for as we ought Is not this unspeakable misery who needeth to pray more then thou and yet thou canst not pray Thou art sinning thou art dying thou are damning and yet canst not pray Is not thy heart like an adamant if this break thee not Fifthly Such is our impotency and bondage That we are not able to affect our selves with the fear and terrour of the Law thereby to be convinced and humbled in our selves If we cannot do the preparatories for grace much lesse grace it self if we cannot do the lesse How shall we do the greater Now one great preparatory work is To have a divine and powerfull fear in our souls by reason of the Law whereby we are afraid of hell of the day of Judgement and cannot have any rest in our spirits because of this Now this is wrought by the Spirit of God in a preparatory way Rom. 8. 15. It is called The Spirit of bondage And Joh. 14. The Spirit doth convince the world of sinne So that in and through the preaching of the Law and discovery of sinne the Spirit of God doth awaken and terrifie the conscience of a man maketh him afraid that he cannot eat or drink or take the delight he used to do It is true the slavish sinfulness of this fear the Spirit of God doth not work but the heart being like a mudded pool when it is moved such slavish fears will arise likewise But how farre is every natural man from this he is secure and jolly blessing and applauding himself crying peace peace all is at quiet within him because the strong man doth keep the house It is the voice of the Lord only that can make these mountains to quake and melt Sixthly Such is our weakness That we cannot barden or soften our hearts in the least manner but they remain obdurate and like brasse and iron Thy heart is like a stone within thee and thou art no wayes able to mollifie it Therefore God maketh it his work and he graciously promiseth I will take away the heart of stone Ezek. 11. 19. and give an heart of flesh As if God had said I know this work is above you you are not able to do it And certainly if the godly themselves because of the remainders of original corruption doe complain of the hardnesse of their hearts cannot mollifie or soften them as they desire Is it any wonder if the wicked man be not able to remove the stone from him Seventhly A man cannot by the power of nature believe no not so much as with an historical faith till grace prepare the heart therein Now faith is the first foundation-stone Heb. 11. He that cometh to God must believe he is and so he must believe the truth about Christ But we see by the Pharisees who heard Christ preach saw the wonderfull miracles he did yet in stead of believing in him did deride and oppose him so that all the acts of faith whether dogmatical or saving we are enabled unto only by the grace of God Matth. 13. 11. To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of Heaven but not to them Thus Act. 18. 27. the Disciples are said to believe through grace faith then is the gift of God not the work of mans free-will And if he cannot do this it is plain he cannot move one foot of himself towards Heaven Lastly Such is our impotency That when grace is offered and tendered to us the will of it self hath no power to consent to it or make improvement of it It can and oft doth resist and refuse grace but of it self it cannot imbrace it It is true Papists and Arminians plead hard for this power of the will but this is to give more to mans will then to Gods grace this is to make man to differ himself from others It might be thought that the will indeed cannot chuse Christ or receive him as a Lord because there is no revelation or manifestation of a Christ They are a people happily who sit in darkness and have no light and therefore though they may have an inward power to see yet for want of light to actuate the medium they cannot so that the defect ariseth not from the power within but the manifestation of the object without And this indeed is gratly to be considered whether an Infidel or Pagan for example doth not believe because there is no proposition of the object in the Ministry otherwise if he enjoyed that then he had power over his own to assent to it Now even the Pelagians themselves and their followers yea even all that give not grace its full due yet thus farre they do acknowledge there must be a doctrinal revelation by the Spirit of God of the truths to be acknowledged and when this light is set as it were upon the Candlestick then a man of his own self is able to see but such is the corruption of man that not only grace must bring in the light but it must also give the eye to see So that the work of Gods grace is both objective and subjective objective in revealing the object and subjective in preparing and fitting the subject It being the Lord who doth give the seeing eye and the hearing ear Prov. 20. 12. Yea the Arminians go further acknowledging that grace doth irresistibly work upon the understanding of a man for it being a passive faculty it cannot withstand its illumination but the will that retaineth its indifferency when grace hath done all it will do This therfore is granted That without the
to excessive anger What torments and vexations doth it work making thy soul like an hell for the present if to excessive fear and sorrow Will not these be like rottennesse in thy bones immediately In how many particulars may thy condemnation arise Thy love may damn thee thy fear may damn thee thy anger may damn thee or any other affection which yet do continually work in thy soul SECT III. How the Affections are treated of severally by the Philosopher the Physitian the Oratour and the Divine THirdly These affections may be treated of in several respects but what is most advantagious to the soul is to handle them as a Divine enlightned and directed by the Word of God 1. The Natural Philosopher he is to treat of them while he writeth De animâ of the soul and certainly the nature of them is as necessary to be known as any other part of men Hence it is said Aristotle did write a book of these nature affections but it is lost The Philosopher he discourseth of them but as to their natural being not at all regarding the holy mortifying of them and therefore a man may be an excellent Philosopher but yet a slave to his corrupt affections 2. The Physitian he also treateth of the affections Galen wrote a Book concerning the curing of them but he also considers them onely as they make for or against the health of the body they attend not to the souls hurt how much the salvation of that is indamaged thereby onely they treat of them as they are hurtfull in the body Erasistratus discovered the inordinate love of a great man by his pulse Amnon did pine and consume away by his inordinate affection to Tamar Therefore the Physitian he considers them no further then how they may be cured that the health of the body may be preserved And indeed this is also a good Argument in Divinity to urge that you must take heed of the sinnes of the passions for they torment the body indispose the body they kill they body Worldly sorrow worketh death so doth worldly anger and worldly fear But of this hereafter 3. The Rhetorician and Oratour he also writeth of the affections as Aristotle in his Rhetoricks Now the Oratour he discourses of them no further than as they may be stirred up or composed by Rhetorical speeches how to put his Auditors into love anger fear and grief as he pleaseth for it is a special part in Oratory to bow the affections This was represented in Orphens harp which is said to make beasts follow him yea very trees and stones that is Oratory doth civilize and perswade the most rude and savage Now although those who write of the method of preaching do much commend this gift in a Minister of the Gospel to be able to stirre up and quicken the affectionate part yet the grace of God is required to go along herein For it is easie for a Tully or Demosthenes to stirre up the affections of their Auditors when they declaimed about such civil and temporal matters that they saw themselves deeply concerned in The very principles of nature did instigate them to this but we preach of supernatural things and the matters we press are distastfull and contrary to flesh and bloud therefore no wonder if men hear without affection and go away without any raised affection at all 4. There is the Moral Philosopher and he looketh upon it as his most proper work to handle the affections for what hath moral virtue to do but to moderate the affections that we do not over-love or over-fear This is the proper work of the Moral Philosopher but neither is this handling of them high enough for a Divine The curing and ordering of them which Moralists do prescribe is but to drive out one sinne with another so that their virtues were but vices if you regard the principles and ends of their actions Therefore In the last place The Divine or Minister of God he is to preach of them and he only can do it satisfactorily having Gods Word to direct him for by that we find they are out of all order by that we find they are to be mortified by that we find only the Spirit of Christ not the power of nature is able to subdue them The true knowledge therefore about the pollution of them will greatly conduce to our humiliation and sanctification SECT IV. The Natural Pollution of the Affections is manifest in the Dominion and Tyranny they have over the Understanding and Will ¶ 1. SOmething being already premised about the nature of the Affections we shall in the next place consider the horrible and general depravation of them and that originally First The great pollution of them is evidently and palpably manifested in the dominion and tyranny they have over the understanding and will which are the superiour magistrates as it were in the soul Thus the Sunne and Starres in the souls orbs are obscured and obnubilated by the misty vapours and fogs which arise from this dung-hill A man doth now for the most part reason believe and will according to his affections and passions Aristotle observed this That Prout quisque affectus est it a judicat As every man is affected so he judgeth They are sinfull affections which make the erroneous and heretical judgements that are they are sinfull affections which make the rash corrupt and uncharitable judgements that are Thus the vanity may be observed in the soul which Solomon took notice of to be sometimes in the world Princes go on foot and servants ride on horsback God did at first implant affections in us for great usefulness and serviceableness that thereby we might be more inflamed and quickned up in the service of God They were appointed to be hand-maidens to the rational powers of the soul but now they are become Hagars to this Sarab yea they are become like Antichrist for they lift themselves up above all that is called God in the soul The understanding and conscience is made to us as God appointed Moses to Pharaoh it is ordained as a god to us but these passions will be exalted above it and so man is led not by reason not by conscience but by affections This is the very reason why either in matters of faith towards God or in matters of transactions with men our judgements are seldome partly and sincerely carried out to the truth but some affection or other doth turn the balance in all things Therefore as Abraham was to go out of his own Countrey and so to worship God in a right manner Thus if we would ever have a sound faith a right judgement we must come out of all affections that may prepossess us What a wofull aggravation of our sinfull misery is this that our affections should come thus boldly and set themselves in the throne of the soul that they should bid us judge and we judge that they should bid us believe and we believe So that we
these earthly things therefore it is that as we have inordinate delight in the possessing of them so immoderate sorrow in the losing of them For that is a true Rule about all these things Non est earendo difficultas nisi cum in habendo est cupiditas Now all this trouble and perplexing grief ariseth from the pollution of the soul being destitute of that glorious Image Sixthly Man having lost the Image of God thus in his soul hence it is that he liveth a wretched instable and unquiet life for being off in his heart from God he therefore is tossed up and down according to the mutability of every creature Hence no man having no more then what he hath by Adam can live any quiet secure and peaceable life but is tossed up and down with contrary winds sometimes fears sometimes hope sometimes joy sometimes sorrow so that he is never in the Haven but alwayes floting upon the waters Thus miserable is a mans life till the Image of God be repaired in him Lastly From this universal pollution upon a man it followeth That be abuseth every good thing he hath that he sinneth in all things and by all things That whether he eateth or drinketh whether he buyeth or selleth he cannot refer any one of these to the ultimate end which is Gods glory but to inferiour and self-respects Oh wretched and miserable estate wherein thou hast abused every mercy God hath given thee to his dishonour and thy damnation Thou hast turned all thy honey into gall and poison thou wast never able to fulfill that command 1 Cor. 7. So to use the world as not to abuse it Thy meat thy raiment thy health thy wealth they have all been abused neither hath God been glorified or the salvation of thy soul promoted thereby CHAP. VII Of the last Subject of Inhesion or Seat of Original Sinne viz. the Body of a Man SECT I. 1 THES 5. 23. And the very God of peace sanctifie you wholly and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ HItherto we have been discovering the universal pollution of the soul by original sinne and that both in the upper and lower region the rational and sensitive part thereof Our method now requireth that we should manifest the defilement and contagion that is upon the Body also For as it was in the deluge that did overflow the world the cause did precede both from above and beneath Gen. 7. 11. The fountains of the great deep were broken up and the windows of Heaven were opened from above and below did come the overflowing of waters Thus it is in that spiritual deluge of sinne which doth overflow all mankind There is corruption in the superiour parts of the soul and there is also in the body the lowest and meanest part of man So that whatsoever goeth to the making of man is all over defiled There is nothing in soul or body but is become thus polluted we therefore proceed to the last subject of Inhesion or seat of original sinne and that is the body of man which will be declared from the Text we are to insist upon SECT II. The Text explained FOr the Coherence of it observe that the Apostle having in the former verses enjoyned many excellent and choice duties In this verse he betaketh himself to prayer to God in their behalf that God would sanctifie them and inable them thereunto for in vain did Paul water by this Doctrinal Information unless God did give the increase and withall we see that is a true Rule That precepts are not a measure of our power They declare indeed our duty but they do not argue our power otherwise prayer thus to God would have been needless In the prayer it self we may consider the matter it self prayed for and that is set down 1. Summarily and in the General And then 2. Distributively in several particulars The General is That they may be sanctified wholly or throughout 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Thessalonians were supposed to be sanctified already but yet the Apostle doth here pray for their further sanctification which doth evidence That the Doctrine of perfection in this life is a proud and presumptuous errour If they had attained to the highest pitch of sanctification already why should they still grow in it Thus the Apostle doth often press Gospel-duties upon such as attain to them already but because they have not perfection therefore they are to be urged forward Thus the Apostle writing to those that were reconciled 2 Cor. 5. 20. saith We pray you be reconciled to God So to the Ephes 4. 23 24. Be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new man c. He speaketh as if the work were now to begin as if they had not as yet been partakers of this new-creature Not but that they were so onely there was much behind still to be perfected much leaven was to be purged out they were still imperfect and therefore are to forget what is behind pressing forward to the mark In the second place you have the Distribution of this whole in its parts This Sanctification is to be exercised in a three-fold subject your Spirit Soul and Body It is not Sanctification simply he prayeth for but growing and increasing that it be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as in the Original that it have all that the lot 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a lot what the condition of them doth require what holiness is the spirits portion the souls condition to have that they are to partake of but because this will never be gradually perfect in this life though integrally it is therefore he saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without blame Though the godly are not preserved without sinne yet they may without fals such as may make them notoriously culpable and faulty before men but because it is not enough for a time to be preserved and then afterwards to be left to our selves for then we should quickly lick up our old vomit again he therefore addeth that this preservation should be even to the coming of Christ Now that which I intend chiefly out of these words is the Subject to be sanctified and that not the two former viz. Spirit and Soul of whose uncleanness we have largely treated already but of the Body which is last of all Only it is necessary to speak a little to the explication of these three parts of man how they differ for commonly when the Scripture speaketh of man it enumerateth but two parts the Soul and the Body as Eccles 12. 7. and in the creation of man we have only two parts instanced in which are his Soul and his Body Because of this there have been various conjectures upon this place for some have hence made three parts of man his Body his Soul which they make to be the sensitive part of man and his Spirit which they make to be some
part as it were flowing from the essence of God and this they acknowledge immortal but the soul and the body they say are mortal And the ancient Heretiques the Apollinarists might runne to this refuge who denied Christ to have any rational soul but his Divine Nature and his sensitive soul and body do make upon Christ The Manichees also affirmed two souls in men the one rational that was good and of God The other evil and the fountain of evil the sensitive soul coming from the Devil Yea Cerda upon Tertul. de anima lib. 3. saith not only Dydimus but others of the ancients did incline to this opinion that the Spirit was a distinct part in a man from soul and body which opinion Austin opposed Thus this Text hath favoured as some think that opinion of two souls in a man his rational and sensitive not in the Manichean way but in a Philosophical way and some learned men indeed have thought by holding two distinct souls many inconveniences would be avoided which are maintained in Philosophy and also the conflict and combate that is between the flesh and the spirit would be better explicated But certainly the Scripture speaketh constantly of man as having but one soul What will it profit a man to winne the whole world and lose his soul not his souls which Chrysostome used as an argument to make man watchfull to the salvation of it saying If thou hast lost one eye thou hast another to help thee if one arm another to support thee but if thou losest thy only soul thou hast not another to be saved Others therefore that they may avoid this inconvenience of holding three parts in a man do by spirit understand the work of grace in a man Thus the Greek Interpreters of old and some learned men of late but this doth not appear any wayes probable nor will the Context runn smoothly to make grace as it were a part of a man neither is it coherent to pray that God would preserve our grace our soul and body but rather grace in them Therefore we take spirit and soul for the same real substance in a man onely diversified by its several operations Lactantius cals it an inextrieable Question Whether animus and anima be the same thing in man meaning by anima that whereby the body is enlivened by animus that whereby we reason and understand but there seemeth to be no such difficulty therein the Scripture promiscuously calling it sometimes a soul and sometimes a spirit It 's called the spirit in regard of the understanding and reason as Ephes 4. 23. Be renewed in the spirit of your mind and soul because of the affectionate part therein so that the Apostle doth not mean two distinct parts in a man but two distinct powers and offices in the same soul You have a parallel expression Heb. 4. 12. where the word of God is said To divide between soul and spirit which afterwards is expressed by discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart Thus when Mary said Luke 1. 46 47. My soul doth magnifie the Lord and my spirit hath rejoyced in God she meaneth the same part within her only giveth it divers names This being explained whereas we see the Apostle praying for the sanctification of the body as well as the soul it is plain That it is unclean and sinfull as well as the soul else it did not need Sanctification From whence observe That the body of a man naturally is defiled and sinfull Sanctification extendeth adequately to our pollution Seeing then it is required of man that his body be holy and he is to glorifie God in that as well as in his soul and this cannot be without the sanctification of it it remaineth that our bodies are not only mortal but sinfull And indeed under the corruptibility of them we do readily groan and mourn under the diseases pains and aches of the body but spiritual life is required to be humbled for the sins of the body Object And if you say How can there be sinne in the body seeing that is not reasonable all sinne supposeth reason now the body being void of that it should seem that it is no more capable of sinne then bruit beasts are Answ To this it is answered That the body is called sinfull not because sinne is formally in it for so it is in the soul but because by it as an instrument sinne is accomplished The subjectum quod or of denomination of sinne is the person man himself The Principium quo formale is the soul the mind and will The medium or instrumentum quo is the body not that the body is only an instrument to the soul for it is an essential part of man with the soul as is further to be shewed Thus we truly call them sinfull eyes sinfull tongues because they do instrumentally accomplish the sinfulness of the heart when the Apostle prayeth That they might be sanctified wholly in spirit soul and body he prayeth for the reparation of Gods Image again Now when that was perfect in Adam the spirit was immediately subject to God the soul to the spirit the body to the soul So that what the spirit thought the soul affected and the body accomplished but now this excellent harmony being dissolved as the spirit is disobedient to God the affections to the spirit so also in the body to both and thereby it becometh a co-partner with the soul in sinne and therefore must be joyned with it in eternal torments SECT III. Scripture Proof of the sinfull pollution of the Body THat the very body of a man is sinfull and needeth sanctification is plain from these Texts 2 Cor. 7. 1. Having these promises let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit perfecting holinesse This is spoken to those also that are regenerated none is perfect they must be perfecting As Apelles when he drew his line would write faciebat in the Imperfect tense not fecit as if he had finished it he would be still making it more exact so should we be in our best holy duties Amabam not amavi credebane not credidi there remaineth a further complement and fulness to be added to our best graces Now this perfection is by cleansing of the flesh and spirit that is the body and the soul It is a great errour among some Papists that they hold the spirit and mind of a man free from original contagion and therefore confine it only to the inferiour bodily parts but that hath sufficiently been confuted yet we deny not but the bodily part of man is likewise greatly contaminated and like an impure vessel defileth whatsoever cometh into it The uncleanness of the body appeareth also from that command Rom. 12. 1. where the Apostle enjoyneth that we should present our bodies a living Sacrifice holy and acceptable So that whatsoever we do by our body it is to be holy and acceptable unto God Now this exhortation was needless if we did
estate now in being consistent thus of a body he doth partake with beasts and agreeth with them But the other part of man is spiritual immaterial and immortal substance breathed at first into Adam by God himself and herein he doth agree with Angels According to these two constituent principles a man doth act either according to the soul or the body In the state of integrity his soul was predominant he was like an Angel in this particular but now since man is fallen his body is principal and chief and thereupon is become like the bruit beaâ—â— living and walking according to the inclinations and temptations of the body This the Psalmist observed Psal 49. 12. Man being in honour abideth not he is like the beasts that perish And vers 20 man that is in honour and understandeth not is like the beasts that perish Here you see that though a man be exalted to never so much glory and dignity in the world yet if he understand not if he doth not live according to the true principles of reason and grace he is but like a beast not only in that he perisheth like a beast but also in that he liveth and walketh like one Hence it is that the Scripture doth so often compare wicked men to beasts to the Ass to the Wolf to the Dog and Swina because they fall from the principles of a rational soul and become like them in their operations Thus evil men are said 2 Tim. 2. 26. To be taken captive by the Devil at his will or as in the Greek taken alive As the hunter doth drive wild beasts into his nets and so taketh them alive Thus are wicked men brought as it were willingly into the Devils hands and are tame under him and if so be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his will be referred to the Devil as some do then it sheweth in what willing subjection they are in to Satans lusts but because it 's not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it therefore relateth rather to the remote antecedent which is God implying that it is by Gods just judgement that man is thus become a miserable slave and doth the Devils drudgery even as we make beasts do our work And thus it is with all men since the fall they are not worthly the name of a man therfore the whole body of wicked men are compared to the Serpents seed as if they were the off-spring of such a poisonous creature rather then of man yea doth not experience confirme this take men without the work of grace either internally sanctifying of them or externally restraining of them take them as left to their own natural principles and having no more to walk by what do you perceive in them more then a beast Indeed their body is still upright and so they differ from them but in their life and manners they are conformable unto them Oh that men would consider and lay this to heart to be affected with this original sinne that hath thus degraded us even from the honour as it were of a man There doth not appear in us the actings and workings of a rational soul we are as our body and the inclinations thereof do carry us away ¶ 4. The Body by original Sinne is made a Tempter and a Seducer FOurthly The body by original sinne is made a tempter and a seducer it doth administer daily matter and occasion to sinne As the Devil is a tempter without so the body is the tempter within we are incited and drawne away to many bodily sinnes from the temptations thereof hence we read in the Scripture that the word flesh is so often put for the sinful part of a man and spirit for the regenerate part and why is it called flesh but because it is so intimately adhering to the body and by the body so much iniquity and sinfulness is expressed Thus sinne is called our flesh as if it were no longer a quality polluting of us but our very bones and corporeal substance There are several bodily sinnes which are bred as it were in this noisome pudddle of the body as drunkenness this is a bodily sinne and where this vice is accustomed unto how greatly doth the body crave and importune for the accomplishing of it this maketh repentance of it and a through reformation so difficult because it is now soaked as it were in the body that as you see it is with the food we eat while in the mouth or stomack it is with some ease exonerated but when digested and by nourishment turned into the very parts of the body then it cannot be separated Thus when sinnes come to be incorporated into thee when thy body is habituated to any vice it requireth much prayer and agony much humiliation and supplication ere such a lust can be disposessed Oh then bewail thy body that is thus become an enemy to the soul that is like a furnace sending forth continual sparks of fire That as the tree by the moisture and softness thereof doth cause wormes to breed in it which do at last destroy it Thus out of thy body arise such lusts that will at last be thy eternal perdition As drunkenness so uncleanness this is also a lust of the body this sinne ariseth from it and although that be very true which the Apostle saith 1 Cor. 6. 18. That fornication and such uncleanness they are against the body because the body is to be kept holy and pure it being the temple of the Holy Ghost where a man is sanctified yet take it as corrupted and polluted so these lusts are very sutable and consonant to it who can think then that the body is such as at first Creation such a ready instrument to much bodily wickedness yea a tempter and a seducer This is the Dalilah that doth so often plunge us into soul sinnes there was no root of bitterness in mans body at first but as it was with the ground when cursed for mans sinne then it did naturally and of it self bring forth weeds and thorns so doth the body thus defiled it is now the continual nourisher and fomenter of vice we damn our souls to please our bodies we are become slaves to our bodily pleasures and delights though we know they are to the eternal perdition both of soul and body at last nourish it we must provide for it we must yet we cannot nourish that but sinne also is thereby strengthned Hence you have that holy Apostle himself much afraid of his body that it may not rise up in rebellion against the work of grace 1 Cor. 9. 27. he useth two emphatical words to this purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I keep under my body an allusion to those who did fight for masteries by way of exercise so that when one did beat the other black and blue about the face 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the countenance and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are those marks upon the face Hence
having named two contrary principles and their lustings one to another there is no reason to limit it to one but that we understand it thus That even in had things a godly man is not carried out with the full command of the flesh but the Spirit of God doth in a great measure check and prohibit it And also in good things though the Spirit of God doth enlighten and enlarge the soul yet the flesh doth something retard and by its opposition causeth that we cannot do holy things with that fulness purity and perfection as we would do Thus you have this noble Text explained which will afford excellent practical matter concerning that property of original sinne that it remaineth in some measure even in the most holy and that therefore there is no perfection in this life None is all spirit without any flesh at all in them Therefore the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Text may have its emphasis The same things ye cannot do that ye would For what godly man doth not feel that it is not the same prayer the same faith the same repentance he desired The duty like Jeremiah's vessel cometh to be marred upon the wheel in the very doing so much deadness distraction lukewarmness and senslesness of spirit appeareth that he wondereth to see how different the duty exercised is from the desire and purpose in his soul From the words thus declared observe That original sinne remaineth in every man though never so godly in some measure whereby there is a combate between the flesh and the Spirit so that we cannot do any holy duty perfectly in this life I limit my Discourse only to the good will in the Text not the bad because that is most homogeneous with my subject And besides The Pelagians calumniated this Doctrine of original sinne as a discouragement unto holiness and that hereby perfection could never be attained because this sinne is said to have some being and working in the most holy though it have not dominion It is from original sinne that the most holy men find a combat within them more or lesse that alwayes in this life they find a need both of pardon of sinne and of the righteousness of Christ which if any deny as the Pelagians did we will not believe them with Austin in that they say but attribute it to their arrogancy and hypocrisie pretending more holiness to the world then they have for their self-advantage or else to their stupidity and senslesness not feeling what doth indeed annoy and oppose the Spirit of God and truly they who have not the Spirit of God abiding in them How can they discern of such a combate That moral conflict which Aristotle speaketh of in the incontinent person he may perceive within himself but this of the Spirit and the flesh He cannot know because it is spiritually discerned SECT II. Several Propositions clearing the truth about the Combat between the Flesh and Spirit in a godly man ¶ 1. The Difference between Original and Actual Sinne. THe only way to comprehend the latitude of this excellent truth about the Conflict between flesh and spirit in the true believer because of original sinne still adhering to him is to lay down several Propositions wherein we may at the same time assert truth and obviate some error First Original sinne doth greatly differ from actual sinne in this particular that when an actual sinne is committed there remaineth no more but the guilt of it which upon repentance by justification is wholly removed away and thus an actual sinne is as if it had never been but in original sinne although the guilt of it be taken away yet the nature of it abideth still though not with such dominion as formerly it did It is true the Schoolmen except Biel and some others say actual sinnes leave a macula a blot or defilement upon the soul as well as a reatus or guilt and what this macula is they are different in their explication of but we must necessarily grant that every actual sinne doth defile the soul depriving it either of the beauty it hath or ought to have but yet still the act of sin is passed away whereas in original sin the sin it self doth still continue by which it is that though to those who are in Christ there is no actual condemnation yet there is that which is damnable in them insomuch as without Christ there is a wo to their most holy and praise-worthy actions It is true the Papists and others look upon this as non-sense or a contradiction that sin should be in a man and not make him guilty as if actual condemnation might not be separated from sinne though indeed the desert of condemnation cannot It cannot be but wheresoever sinne is it doth deserve hell it hath enough in it to provoke God to wrath but yet when humbled for and withstood then through the bloud of Christ this actual guilt though not the potential one is taken away Yea original sinne doth not only differ from actual sinne but also habitual because though habitual sinnes do abide in a man yet when a man is regenerated and made a new creature all the habits of sinne are expelled for if the habits of sinne and grace should abide together then a man might at the same time be holy and unholy the sonne of God and the sonne of the Devil seeing our denomination is from the habits that are within us therefore that cannot be But though in our Regeneration the habits of sinne are removed yet it is not so with original corruption that is not an acquired but an innate habit of sinning within us Thus our original corruption is farre more pertinaciously cleaving unto us then any habits or customs of sinne can be though of never so long continuance ¶ 2. IN the second place That is a false position which the Remonstrants have Exam Censurae cap. 11. pag. 128. that the difficulty which new converts have to leave their former lusts doth arise chiefly from their former custome and exercise in wayes of impiety not from original sinne For they distinguish of godly men such as are incipients new beginners that are but newly converted unto Christ and these they say have a great conflict within them they have much ado to leave their former lusts and impieties they have been accustomed unto and then there are the Adulti such who are proficients and grown up now these they say may arise to such a measure of holiness as to be without any conflict at all between flesh and spirit or to feel it very rarely but that is directly to contradict this Text which speaketh it universally of all that have the Spirit of God in them while in this life they do meet with opposition not only from the devil without but the flesh within Therefore they would elude this Text as if it did not mean an actual reluctancy or lusting against one another but only potential that it is the
is usually objected against this truth And First The command of God requiring we should not lust and that we should love God with all our heart and all our soul and might From hence they argue if these two commands cannot be perfectly fullfilled why are they required of us To this it is answered that it must be granted no man living is able to answer the perfection and exactness of this law who can say he loveth God as much as the command requireth that he never faileth in the least degree who can say that he never finds any sinful motions any irregular workings of heart though he do not consent to them suppose that were alwayes true which is not to be granted yet such motions being in the heart the very having of them maketh us to fall short of the exactness of the law But yet these commands are necessary for the rule must alwayes be perfect not wanting or failing in any thing The command doth represent the perfect Idea of compleat righteousness as Statues that are erected up in high and eminent places are commonly of greater length then the ordinary stature of men is Thus it is one thing the righteousness commanded in the law and the participation of it in the subject that receiveth it according to its proper capacity The law then is perfect but we are imperfect true obedience and imperfect must not be confounded as Castellio most ignorantly doth and therefore abandoneth that opinion De Justificat pag. 46. which maketh imperfection a sinne but he calumniateth the orthodox when he saith we hold nothing a vertue but what is chiefest ibid. pag. 43. neither do we call that imperfection which may have a greater degree Adam was not imperfect because he had not so much holiness as the Angles have In heaven it may be judged that one Saint shall have more grace then another yet every one perfected in their measure and though it be so he that hath not so much holiness as the chiefest shall not be judged sinfully imperfect there is a negative imperfection and a privative this later is when the subiect doth not partake of what degrees it ought to do and then it is alwayes a sinne The starre hath not as much light as the Sunne but this is no privative imperfection because it is not bound to be the Sunne Now the command of God requireth of us the chiefest love that we can by grace put forth not the highest degree of love which is possible but what we are bound to do and any defect herein is a sinne We admit that all graces are not alike no more then all sinnes one may be more holy then another yet he that is the highest attainer doth not reach to the utmost of the command and therefore whatever falleth short of that is damnable deserving wrath of God Secondly When we say no man is able to fullfill the Law of God in this life because the flesh doth still abide in us We mean not as if this were so because God could not subdue it or sinne and the Devil were more potent then Christ but he hath in his Word declared that he will not give such a measure of grace in this life by the righteousness whereof we should be justified So that Castellio's exclamations in this case are ridiculous here is no injury done to the Spirit of God we do not make Christ a semi-Saviour for we readily grant That the Spirit of God could make us absolutely free from sinne in the twinkling of an eye In the hour of death we are immediately purged from all evil So that it 's plain the Spirit of God could make us thus compleat but he will not neither doth this tend to his dishonour no more than that we die that we are â—â—ck and carry about with us corruptible bodies For did not Christ die that we might have glorious bodies that we might be redeemed from this corruption Yet this is not done immediately Seeing then Christ hath assured us that both soul and body shall be made perfectly holy and happy in time though it be not done as soon as we would have it we are not to cavil herein but satisfie our selves with the wisdom of God who doth every thing beautifull in his season It is true Christ when he cured bodily diseases he did perfectly cure them but doth it therefore follow that he must do so in soul-diseases as Castellio urgeth No certainly but rather as Christ though he healed some perfectly of their diseases yet he did not take away their mortality from them So though by the grace of God we have strength to overcome gross sinnes yet we are not made impeccable as the glorified Saints in Heaven are but there remaineth the fuell of sinne still within us not but that God could remove it as he could have inabled the Israelites to have conquered all the Canaanites but because he will not God could have made all the world at once but he proceeded by degrees and thus he doth in our sanctification So that herein we are daily taught to be humble in our selves and to depend alone upon the grace of God It is true if all sinne were removed and we confirmed in a state of grace then there would be no danger of pride as there is not in those who are made glorious in Heaven But were were we made perfect and delivered from all sinne yet abiding still in a mutable condition we should quickly be drunken with the thoughts of our own excellencies so that perfection while we are in the way would not be so advantagious unto us unless to perfection God should also add confirmation and this would be to confound Heaven and earth together And thus much for the first Objection ¶ 6. I Shall onely name a second Objection made in the general against the reliques of original corruption in a man though regenerated and thereby the imperfection of our renovation because this doth more properly belong to another head in Divinity which is much disputed viz. De Perfectione Justitia Of the Perfection of righteousness in this life The Objection which is plausibly and speciously urged against this truth is That this Doctrine is an enemy to a holy life it is pernicious to godlinesse that it is a pleading for sinne and an encouragement to men to content themselves in their formal and sluggish way because they cannot be perfect Thus it is thought we bring up an ill report about the way to Heaven as those Spies did about Canaan we discourage people making their hearts faint because of great Gyants that we say are in the way In this manner Julian the Pelagian old of calumniated Austin that he did in naturae invidiam malae conversationis sordes refundere that he did Peccantibus metum demere quorum obscenitatum Apostolorum sanctorum omnium injuriis he did consolari because he made Paul to speak those words The evil that I hate that I do of his
of integrity 479 Nor is there sense or feeling of any such Conflict in a natural man 480 It 's in all that are sanctified 81 Conflict the several kinds 500 Conscience What Conscience is 223 Whence quietness of Conscience in unregenerate men 90 And whence troubles of Conscience in the regenerate ib. Erroneous Conscience ought to be obeyed 224 Conscience horribly blind and erroneous by nature 225 And senslesse 226 The defect of Conscience in its offices and actings 228 The corruption of Conscience in accusing and excusing 230 Of a counterfeit Conscience 233 Sinfull lust fancy and imagination custome and education mistaken for Conscience ib. Conscience severe against other mens sins blind about its own 236 Security of Conscience 237 The defilement of Conscience when troubled and awakened 238 The difference between a troubled and a regenerate Conscience 243 Causes of trouble of Conscience without regeneration ib. False cure of a wounded Conscience 245 Consent A two-fold Consent of the will expresse and formal or interpretative and virtual 287 Creation Christ had his soul by Creation and so we have ours 195 Creature Mans bondage to the Creature 317 D Damnation DAmnation due to all for original sinne 528 Death Death not natural to Adam before sin 31 115 Death and all other miseries come from sin 173 Devil The Devil cannot compell us to sinne 15 114 Difference Difference between original and actual sins 477 Difficulty Difficulty of turning to God whence 478 Doubtings Doubtings whence 241 Duties Imperfection in the best Duties 11 Of doing Duties for conscience sake 234 E Exorcisms EXorcisms used anciently at the Baptism of Infants 54 F Faculties SOme Faculties and imbred principles left in the soul after the fall 224 Mans best Faculties corrupted by sinne 139 Flesh Flesh and spirit in every godly man 11 How the word Flesh is used in Scripture 139 Flesh and spirit contrary ib. Forgetfulness Forgetfulness natural and moral 257 Forgetfulness of sin 260 Of usefull examples and former workings of Gods Spirit 261 Of our later end the day and death and judgement and the calamities of the Church 262 Freedom Several kinds of Freedom 306 Freedom from the dominion of sin whether it be by suppression or abolishing part of it 503 G Grace WHat sanctifying Grace is 20 Given not so much to curb actual sin as to cure the nature ib. Free Grace exalted by the Apostles 308 The Doctrine of free Grace unpleasing to flesh and bloud 310 The necessity of special Grace to help against temptations 314 H Habits THe Habits of sin forbidden and the Habits of grace required by the Law 45 Heathens Heathens how far ignorant of original sin 168 Condemn the lustings of the heart 169 Heresies Hereticks The Heresies of the Gnosticks Carpocratians Montanists and Donatists 225 The guilt and craft of Heretiques 303 I Jesus Christ JEsus Christ his conception miraculous 388 But framed of the substance of the Virgin 389 Why called the Son of God ib. Had a real body ib. Born holy and without sin 390 How he could be true man and yet free from sin 392 Ignorance A universal Ignorance upon a mans understanding 178 210 Image Gods Image in Adam not an infused habit or habits but a natural rectitude or connatural perfection to his nature 19 Why called Gods Image 21 The Image of God in man Reason and understanding one part of it 113 Holinesse and righteousnesse another part ib. Power to persevere in holinesse another part ib. A regular subordination of the affections to the rule of righteousnes another part 114 Primitive glory honour and immortality another part 115 Dominion and superiority another part yet not the only Image of God as the Socinians falsly ib. How man made in it 131 Imagination Imagination its nature 351 Its sinfulnesse in making Idols and conceits to please it self 352 And in its defect from the end of its being 353 By its restlesnesse 355 By their universality multitude disorder their roving and wandring their impertinency and unseasonablenesse 356 357 It eclipseth and keeps out the understanding 358 Conceiveth for the most part all actual transgressions 359 Acts sin with delight when there are no external actings 360 Its propensity to all evil 361 Is continually inventing new sins or occasions of sin 362 Vents its sinfulnesse in reference to the Word and the preaching of it 364 Mind more affected with appearances than realities 365 And in respect of fear and the workings of conscience 366 And its acting in dreams 367 Is not in subordination to the rational part of man 368 The instrument in Austins judgment of conveying sin to the child 368 Prone to receive the Devils temptations 369 Immortal How many wayes a thing may be said to be Immortal 509 Of Adams Immortality in the state of innocency 513 Impossibility Impossibility of mans loosing himself from the creature and return to God 371 Infants Infants deserve hell 7 Sinners 29 Cannot be saved without Christ 35 55 Infant-holinesse what it is 56 Infants defiled with original sin before born 62 Judgment Whence diversities of Judgment in the things of God 219 Justification Justification by imputed not inherent righteousnesse 29 K Knowing Known CVriosity and affection in all of Knowing what is not to be Known 184 Which comes from original sin 212 L Law THe Law impossible to be kept 10 A Law what 85 The Law requireth habitual holinesse 130 Forbids lust in the heart 156 Liberty Liberty of will nothing but voluntarinesse or complacency 132 Lust What Lust is 155 How distinguished 157 Lust considered according to the four-fold estate of man 160 Sinfull Lust utterly extirpated in heaven 161 M Man MAn by nature out of Gods favour 117 Man made to enjoy and glorifie God 132 133 How sin dissolved the harmony of Mans nature ib. Man unable to help himself out of his lost condition 153 Through sin it is worse with Man than other creatures 174 The nobler part of Man inslaved to the inferiour 175 Man utterly impotent to any spiritual good 177 By his fall became like the devil 183 Memory The pollution of it 247 What it is 250 A two-fold weaknesse of Memory natural and sinfull ib. The use and dignity of it 251 The nature of it 253 Discoveries of its pollution 253 Wherein it is polluted 257 Wherein it fails in respect of the objects ib. Hath much inward vitiosity adhering to it 263 Subservient to our corrupt hearts 265 Mind Whence the vanity and instability of the Mind 217 Ministry One end of the Ministry 255 N Natural EVery Natural man is carnal in the mysteries of Religion in religious worship in religious ordinances in religious performances 140 141 In spiritual transactions and religious deportment 142 143 Necessity What Necessity is consistent with freedom 312 O Original Sinne. THe necessity of knowing it 1 The term ambiguously used and how taken in this Treatise ib. That there is such a natural concontagion on all 2 Why called Original sin 5 Denial of