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else; and such servants, Paul says, are free from righteousness; destitute of all righteousness, both in heart and life; and, being the servants of sin, they do nothing else but sin; and being in unbelief, and under wrath, all their thoughts and ways, words, and works, are evil, and nothing but evil; and every such servant of sin sinneth continually, and is denominated a servant of sin on that head: and this is the meaning, and the real meaning, of the apostle. But otherwise the best saint under heaven, as considered in the flesh, (for of a saint, in this sense, Paul speaks, "For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh)," yet the best of saints in this tabernacle do groan being burdened; sin is in them, and works in them, and often captivates them, and brings them into captivity to the law of sin which is in their members. And here is the difference between the servants of God and the servants of Satan: one is a new creature, the other in his old state; one is in

Satan; one is in the Spirit, one is a servant of God, the sin; one wars after the flesh,

Christ, the other in the other in the flesh; other a servant of and the other deagainst it; the one

nies its requests, and wars sinneth continually, the other with his renewed mind and will serves God, and none else, and sinneth not at all; and so says God of all such poor, honest, and renewed servants, who love his law after the inner man: "Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the

whole heart. They also do no iniquity: they walk in his ways." In all other points of light but these the best of men sin. "If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us;" and if we say we have not sinned, we make God a liar; and he that says he is perfect in the flesh, has made him a liar also; for in man, that is, in man's flesh, dwelleth no good thing; for that which is born of the flesh is flesh; and flesh and blood, being destitute of all good, cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Therefore a new birth is essential; hence truth itself asserts, that "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." No saint that is in the flesh, no just man, however holy and devout, no soul in this militant state, ever lived without offending in thought, word, and deed; no, not even John himself; for he was going, no less than twice, to fall into rank idolatry, by falling down to worship an angel; but the angel, in the utmost haste, forbad him. Yea, and he often himself needed the cleansing fountain that God hath opened, and the advocate too. "And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him. For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. God himself declares that every imagination of man's heart is only evil continually. Now this evil we received not in our creation, as from God, for all his works were good; Satan

Satan infused this into man at his fall; and Christ came not to repair this, or to change this vile principle into any thing better; he doth not dress nor vamp up the old man which is corrupt; that which is born of the flesh is flesh; he came to destroy it by his death, and to impart a new nature by his Spirit; to dethrone sin by his grace, and to work it all out of the soul at our death, and out of the body at our resurrection, and to leave it upon the head of the devil and all his seed at the day of judgment, that it may reign in and over them in hell to all eternity. This is the work of Christ. But the work of the Arminians, and of the assertors of universal grace, is nothing else but varnishing, whitewashing, embalming, adorning, perfuming, and decorating the old man, which is the image of the devil in fallen man; which sets them, like the pharisees of old, further from the kingdom of God than either publicans or harlots; for they that sanctify themselves and purify themselves shall be consumed together, as well as those that roll in the mire. Now, as corrupt nature doth nothing but sin, so by grace it sustains no change, but is still evil, and present with every child of God when he would do good. And from this corrupt mass springs all evil; and which, in thought, word, look, or deed, discovers itself daily, and that in the best of men, and in every man; for "the thought of foolishness is sin;" and if the thoughts be sin, what are looks, words, and actions? No call for a high priest to bear the ini

quities of our holy things if this corrupt mass was removed. But an advocate with the Father, a mediator in the presence of God for us, and our command to ask the Father in his name, and the prayers of all saints being perfumed by the incense of his oblation, show plain enough the indwelling of sin in every saint of God.

2. I come now to prove that every one that sinneth is of the devil, as are all men that are in an unregenerate state. Sin, which is the seed of the devil, is in them, and reigns in them; hence our Lord says they are of their father the devil, being, as sinners, begotten by him. They bear the likeness of him both in heart and action. They are the subjects of the devil; sin rules in their hearts; and they have their conversation in him, "According to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: among whom also we all had our conversation in times past." Now such can do nothing but sin any more than an Ethiopian can change his skin, or a leopard change his spots; for such are taken captive by him at his will, 2 Tim. ii. 26. Now, according to this account, all of us, while in a state of nature, can do nothing but sin; God is not in all our thoughts; in our flesh dwells no good thing; and every thought of the imagination of the heart is only evil. Such an one sinneth, as the devil does, and that without intermission; and he that thus sinneth is of the devil.

But again as the saint of God never sins with the renewed mind and will, as the apostle asserts when he says, "I would do good, and the good that I would that do I not," so he vows, that "With the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin." So that the apostle makes a distinction between self and self. There is a sinful self to be denied daily by all them that follow Christ; and there is a self that is not to be denied, or mortified, or put off: "So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God." This self considers the saint a new creature and a servant of God, a new man in Christ by grace; but there is a fleshly self, that serves the law of sin. Hence it is plain that he that sinneth is of the devil, as all sinful men by nature are. And he that sinneth in every saint is of the devil also; for it is what Paul calls the flesh, or the sins of the flesh in man, communicated to us by natural birth, which he calls corruption and the old man; and it is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts. This does nothing else but sin, and is to be denied daily, and to be put off again and again: and is also to be mortified through the Spirit. This is he that is of the devil. "For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that I do not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me," Rom, vii. 15-17.

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