POWER OF SIN IN UNKEGENERATE PERSONS. 303
CHAPTER XVL
The strength of indwelling sin manifested from its power and effects in persons unregenerate.
It is of the power and efficacy of indwelling sin, as it remains in several degrees in believers, that we are treating. Now, I have else- where showed that the nature and all the natural properties of it do still remain in them; though, therefore, we cannot prove directly what is the strength of sin in them, from what its power is in those in whom it is only checked and not at all weakened, yet may we, from an observation thereof, caution believers of the real power of that mortal enemy with whom they have to do.
If the plague do violently rage in one city, destroying multitudes, and there be in another an infection of the same kind, which yet arises not unto that height and fury there, by reason of the correc- tion that it meets withal from a better air and remedies used; yet a man may demonstrate unto the inhabitants the force and danger of that infection got in among them by the effects that it hath and doth produce among others, who have not the benefit of the preven- tives and preservatives which they enjoy; which will both teach them to value the means of their preservation, and be the more watchful against the power of the infection that is among them. It is so in this case. Believers may be taught what is the power and efficacy of that plague of sin which is in and among them by the effects the same plague produceth in and among others, who have not those cor- rections of its poison and those preservatives from death which the Lord Jesus Christ hath furnished them withal.
Having, then, fixed on the demonstration of the power of sin from the effects it doth produce, and having given a double instance hereof in believers themselves, I shall now farther evidence the same truth or pursue the same evidence of it, by showing somewhat of the power that it acteth in them who are unregenerate, and so have not the remedies against it which believers are furnished withal.
I shall not handle the whole power of sin in unregenerate persons, which is a very large field, and not the business I have in hand; but only, by some few instances of its effects in them, intimate, as I said, unto believers what they have to deal withal: —
]. It appears in the violence it offers to the nature of men, com- pelling them unto sins fully contrary to all the principles of the rea- sonable nature wherewith they are endued from God. Every creature of God hath in its creation a laiv of operation implanted in it, which is the rule of all that proceedeth from it, of all that it doth of its own
304 THE NATURE AND POWER OF INDAVELLTNG SIN,
accord. So the fire ascends upwards, bodies that are weighty and heavy descend, the water flows; each according to the principles of their nature, which give them the law of their operation. That which hinders them in their operation is force and violence; as that which hinders a stone from descending or the fire from going upwards. That which forccth them to move contrary to the law of their nature, as a stone to go upwards or the fire to descend, is in its kind the greatest violence, of which the degrees are endless. Now, that which should take a gTeat millstone and fling it upwards into the an-, all would acknowledge to be a matter of wonderful force, power, and efficacy.
Man, also, hath his law of operation and working con created with him. And this may be considered two ways; — either, first, as it is common to him with other creatures; or as 'peculiar, with reference unto that special end for which he was made. Some things are, I say, in this law of nature common to man with other creatures; as to nourish their young, to live quietly with them of the same kind and race with them, — to seek and follow after that which is good for them in that state and condition wherein they are created. These are things which all brute living creatures have in the law of their nature, as man also hath.
But, now, besides these things, man being created in an es^^ecial manner to give glory to God by rational and moral obedience, and so to obtain a reward in the enjoyment of him, there are many things in the law of his creation that are peculiar to him, — as to love God above all, to seek the enjoyment of him as his chiefest good and last end, to inquire after his mind and will, and to yield obedience and the like ; all which are part of the law of his nature.
Now, these things are not distinguished so, as though a man might perform the actions of the law of his nature, which are common to him with other creatures, merely from the 'principles of his nature, as they do ; but the law of his dependence upon God, and doing all things in obedience unto him, passeth on them all also. He can never be considered as a onere d'eature, but as a creature made for the glory of God by rational, moral obedience, — rational, because by him chosen, and performed with reason ; and moral, because regulated by a law whereunto reason doth attend.