Koo TheNATURE andPowEi& fee, might alto be inftanced in; but thefe may fiffice unto our prefent pur- pofe. Whatever it ufeth, it felf is hill the principle i and this is no fniall demonftration of its efficacy and power: E41.0DliDSX:10710311MlnKIMIZOrdiaiNIERICilatilM C H A P. XVI. The firength of indwelling fin mans fefïed from its power and effec`ls in perfons unregenerate. T is of the power and efficacy of indwelling fin, as it re- mains in feveral degrees in believers that we are treating. Now, I have elfewhere lhewed, that thenature and all the natural properties of it do Hill remain in them : though therefore we cannotprove directly what is the ftrengthof fin in them, from what its power is in thofe, in whom it is only checked andnot at all weakned i yet may we from an obfervation thereof cautionbelievers of the real power of that mortal ene- my, with whom theyhave to do. If the plague do violently rage in one city, deftroying multitudes, and there be in another an infectionof the famekind, which yet arifes not unto that heigth and fury there, by reafonofthe correaion that it meets withal from a better air, and remedies ufed:, yet a man may demonftrate unto the inhabitants the force and danger of that infection got in among' them, by the effeas that it hath and doth produce among others, who have not the bene- fit of the preventives and prefervatives which theyenjoy , which will both teach them to value the means of their prefervation,and be the morewatch- ful againft the power of the infeaion that is among them. It is fo in this cafe : Believers may be taught what is the power and efficacy ofthat plague offin, which is its and among them, by the effeas the fame plague pro- duceth in and among others, who have not thofe corrections of its poyfon, and thofe prefervatives from death which theLordJefus hath furnilhed them withal. Having then fixed on the demonftration of the power offin, from the effeas it doth produce; and having given a double inftance hereof in believers thenifelves, I fhall now farther evidence the fame truth, or pur- fue the fame evidence of it, by (hewing fomewhat of the power that it ad- eels in them who are unregenerate, and fo have not the remedies againfi it which believers are furnilhed withal. I (hall not handle the whole power offin in unregenerate perfons, which is a very large field, and not the bufinefs I have in stand, but only by foste few inftances of its effeas in them, intimate, as I faid unto believers, what they have to deal withal. r. It appears in the violence it offers to the nature of man, compelling them unto fins, fully contrary to all theprinciples of the reafonable nature wherewith they were endued from God. Every creature ofGod bath in its creation, a law of operation implanted in it, which is the rule of all that proceedeth from it, of all that it doth of its own accord. So the fire afcends upwards, bodies that are weighty and heavy defcend i 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 hone from defcending, or the fire from going upwards. That which forceth them to move contrary tto
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