Chapter II
Arguments to prove that not only the inferior powers of the soul, but the supreme,
the understanding and mind, are corrupted. That the mind itself is called
flesh as well as the other. Arguments from reason further to evince it.
It is not only the inferior powers of the soul which this plague of sin hath
seized, but the contagion hath ascended into the higher region of the soul.
It is this supreme, sublime, and noble part (which is not to be found in
beasts), the understanding, judgment, and conscience, which the apostle in
this 1 Thes. v. 23 means by spirit, as needing renovation and sanctification, us much as the lower faculties in man. And in this sense spirit is also taken :
* For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him ? Where spirit of man signifies the knowing and
1 Cor. ii. 11,
discerning part in man ; and in the same meaning it is to be understood when it is distinguished from soul, as here in this 1 Thes. v. 23, and in other places.
Since I design to shew how all the several faculties of our souls are by sin
depraved, that which I am to begin with is the highest and noblest of them
all the spirit of man. And this, then, is the first proposition I will prove. Prop. That the most supreme, most spiritual faculty in man s mind, the
understanding power of man, is corrupted, and needs renewing. This is a doctrine had need be proved, because to a carnal understanding, not enlightened by the word, this hath always been, and is, the greatest paradox. So it was to the heathen philosophers, and to many of the school men also, though called Christians ; who, though indeed they did acknow
ledge dregs to lie at the bottom of the affections in the lower part of the soul, which sometimes, when stirred and joggled by outward temptations, do mud and corrupt the mind ; yet that sublime and noble faculty, according to their
opinion of it, was in itself most pure, and the clearest of all the rest. And
therefore they say, Reason did still direct, advise, and persuade us to the
best things, and was in itself a pure virgin. And thus the pharisee also
judged: Rom. ii. 17-19, Behold, thou art called a Jew, and restest in the
law, and makest thy boast of God, and knowest his will, and approvest the
things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law ; and art
confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness. They boasted they knew God s will, and were confi dent because they were guides to the blind, a light of them in darkness ;
therefore, of all things else, they thought least that their understandings were
corrupt and blinded : John ix. 40, And some of the pharisees which were
CHAP. II.] IN KESPECT OF SIN AND PUNISHMENT. 133
_ When
with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also ?
they heard Christ speaking of blindness even in them that see, said these
men, Are we blind also ? Of all the imputations else they wondered at
this the most ; and indeed when blind reason, which thinks it sees, is judge,
it is not strange that this corruption of the understanding should be a won
der to it. For reason being the supreme faculty of all the rest, which
judgeth all else, and is judged of none but itself, by reason of its nearnqss to itself it least discerns itself. As a man s eye, which though it may see
the deformity of another member, yet not the bloodshot that is in itself, but it must have a glass by which to discern it. And so, though even corrupt nature discerns the rebellions of the affections and sensual part of man by its own light, as the heathens did, and complained thereof, yet it cannot discern
the infection and defilement that is in the spirit itself, but the glass of the word is the first that discovereth it ; and when that glass is also brought, there had need be an inward light of grace, which is opposite to this cor
ruption, to discover it. And therefore the Holy Ghost doth most of all
inculcate this depravation of the mind, and express it with the greatest em
phasis. When he would shew how impure unbelievers are, who yet profess that they know God, says he,
* Even their mind and conscience is defiled, Titus i. 16. They least of all suspected these parts (which are not flesh) to be tainted, because they know God and have some light in them. There
fore now, in opposition to this their conceit, he mentions only the mind and conscience as being impure, and that with an emphasis, %ai v&Dg, xai
avvsidqffn;, even their mind and conscience is defiled. And there is almost no place where he speaks setly of the corruption of nature, but voug or
didvoia, comes in, and is sometimes alone mentioned and put for all the rest:
so Eph. ii. 3, Fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. Eph.
iv. 17, 18, That ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the
vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the
blindness of their heart. Col. i. 21, And you, that were sometime alien
ated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now he hath reconciled.
Enemies, ev TTJ diavo/ q, in the mind ; and so, when he speaks of renewing, he exhorts them to be renewed in the spirit of their mind, Eph. iv. 23. He instances in that for all the rest.
Now for the proof of the spirit of the mind being depraved in man, besides
those places that speak of the particular corruptions of it, which I reserve
till I come to treat of them, I will name but one or two places more which
speak of the corruption of the mind in general.
1. We find that flesh is attributed to this as well as to any other faculty. The understanding, the natural understanding of man, is called flesh and
* Flesh and blood hath not revealed this, says Christ. You may know what faculty he speaks of by the act which he ascribes, or
blood : Mat. xvi. 17,
rather denies to it, revealing, which is proper unto the light of the mind. And now this light and acumen he calls flesh, that is, corruption, as well as
any other. And heresy also, which is seated in the understanding, is yet
said to be a fruit of the flesh, Gal. v. 20. This evil fruit grows upon that
branch or faculty, which is indeed the top branch of all the rest, and yet it
is not so high but flesh or corruption, as ill sap, ascends and comes to it ; and therefore all the wisdom of it is called fleshly, 2 Cor. i. 12 ; and itself
is termed mind of the flesh: Col. ii. 18, Vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind.
Nor is it privatively corrupted only with ignorance, but positively also
: 1 Tim. vi. 4, 5, He is
with corrupt diseases, habitual evil dispositions
134 AN UNREGENERATE MAN S GUILTINESS BEFORE GOD, [BOOK III.
proud, knowing nothing, but doating about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surniisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, &c. He doth not only say their minds are destitute of the truth, so as they assent not to wholesome
doctrine, but he says their minds are corrupt, sick, and diseased, votuv, sick about vain questions, longing for them as a diseased stomach doth for any trash. And this distemper of the mind the apostle in another place calls an itch after fables : 2 Tim. iv. 3, 4, But after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears ; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. And 2 Tim. ii.
25, 26, In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves ; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth ; and
that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken
captive by him at his will. The apostle there speaking of the repentance of those who opposed the gospel, he calls that their repentance, dva^-vj/wtr/s, a recovery out of not an ordinary sickness, but perfect frenzy, unto health and sobriety, which shews that the mind was diseased and frantic before, and that this was the cause of its opposing the truth.
2. As I have proved this infection of the mind by sin from Scripture, so now I will demonstrate it by reasons.
1st, If the spirit, and judgment, and higher faculties of the soul, were not
corrupted, but only the inferior ; if not the spirit, as well as the soul of man, was depraved, then the image of the devil in the proper lineaments of it would not appear in wicked men ; then his chief and main sins would not be found in them, which yet they are. If we consider this great evil one,
Satan, he is a spirit, and hath no sensual or bodily lusts, either of unclean-
ness, drunkenness or gluttony in him, but his wickedness is spiritual wickedness, for which reason the hellish powers of darkness have that pecu liar name given them : Ephes. vi. 12, For we wrestle not against flesh and
blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. And why is the wickedness of the devil called spiritual, but because it is rooted
in a spirit, and all his sins are seated in his understanding and will ? What
is the devil s great sin but pride, the womb whereof is chiefly the under
standing ? And this sin of pride was the devil s condemnation and ruin :
1 Tim. iii. 6, Lest, being lifted up with pride, he fall into the condemnation of the devil. It was this pride which fumed up into the devil s head and made him reel out of heaven. Of such sins as these men are also guilty, and prone to them as well as the devils. Our proud contentious wisdom is
called devilish : James iii. 15, This wisdom descendeth not from above, but
is earthly, sensual, devilish. And all that envy, malice, lying, and dissem
bling, which though in the will, yet are rooted in the understanding, are in
this scripture mentioned by the apostle as bearing the same devilish resem
blance. And these, and such like lusts which are in wicked men, Christ
calls the lusts of their father the devil : John viii. 44, Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own : for he is a liar, and the father of it. When the
devil tells a lie, he speaks it of his own, as being an act of the mind against
Itself. And so blasphemy, and all blasphemous thoughts and expressions concerning God, are said, as well as all other vain thoughts, to proceed out
of our hearts: Mat. xv. 19, For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These
blasphemies, as they are acts of the mind, are more agreeable to the devil s
sins than murders, fornications, &c.
CHAP. II.] IN RESPECT OF SIN AND PUNISHMENT. 135
2dly, In the first sin of our first parents (whereby our natures became
tainted) the judgment and understanding had a great, if not the first and main stroke ; and, therefore, if by that act sin entered on our natures, the
understanding, which was so deeply guilty, deserved to be punished and wounded as deeply as any other. Now examine what was the main object which drew on that sin, and which was aimed at in it ; it was an apprehended excellency in the understanding to know good and evil, that they might, as
they conceived, be like unto God ; and the original of their being deceived, was in listening and assenting to the devil rather than God ; for twice when the
apostle speaks of that sin, he expresseth it as an error in judgment, as their
being deceived : 2 Cor. xi. 3, He beguiled Eve through subtlety ; that is, his wit deceived her. Their sin, therefore, consisted primarily in error : 1 Tim.
ii. 14, And Adam was not deceived ; bat the woman being deceived, was in the transgression. So that the woman s being deceived, may seem to have been the first wicket which let sin in ; or, if it be not so, yet, however, it is mentioned as the main cause and subject of that first sin ; and from this deceit it was, that corrupt opinions of God were engendered in their minds, to imagine foolishly that he envied them a happier estate, as I have before shewed. Now, then, if the understanding was (as it appears to have been) one of the chief, if not the chief party in this sin, then certainly that act of the
understanding was the cause of that corruption which is in us ; and there fore this faculty must needs be much, if not most corrupted ; this faculty must receive one of the greatest wounds, and be punished with one of the
greatest losses. For if God said, The soul that sins shall die, then that
faculty in the soul, which you see sinned mainly, must die, that is, must lose the life of holiness which was in it before. The schoolmen s reason why the body is most corrupted, was, because that sin is conveyed by bodily gene ration, not considering that this was only the conduit-pipe; but Adam s first sin was the spring and cause ; and therefore the corruption of the faculties
is to be measured by the stroke which the parts and faculties of his soul had in it. Her eye, indeed, and taste, helped forward the act ; for she saw the
* And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise ; she took of the fruit thereof, and did
apple to be good and desirable : Gen. iii. 6,
eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat. But now the lust of the understanding, and the deceit therein, had first poisoned all, or a mere apple could never have so enticed them, but it was conceived to have virtue in it to give the knowledge of good and evil ; the devil candying it over with such a specious appearance ; and hence it was that the apple became so
alluring. Therefore if it be the influence arid punishment of Adam s sinful act which causeth that corruption of nature which is in us, as I have proved, then, in a just and meet punishment, those faculties must needs be mainly corrupted in Adam, and so in us (though indeed his sin corrupted all in him, and in us too), that had the greatest stroke in his sinning, which I have proved his understanding to have had.
3dly, If we consider the nature of grace, and of sin, and how they are
expressed to us in Scripture, as being both of them of a spiritual nature, it
is evident that therefore they must have the most spiritual subject. They are not as dregs and lees that go down to the bottom, but as light and dark ness which swim above, and are in the finer and sublirner parts of the soul, and mostly possess and lodge in its higher regions ; for, indeed, as it is reason that renders us capable of sin, and of grace, which brutes are not, rea
son, therefore, is the chief seat of them both. We find also, that grace is com pared to light, as corruption (which is the privation of it) to darkness. Thus
136 AN UNREGENERATE MAN*S GUILTINESS BEFORE GOD, [BOOK III.
even the state of grace is called light, and the state of nature, darkness :
* For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord. As he calls grace light, so them he calls the children of light, that
Eph. v. 8,
being the principal and prevailing principle in them. And the strength and
power of sin also is said to lie in darkness, which is opposite to this light
Col. i. 13, Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and trans
lated us into the kingdom of his dear Son. That from which we are deli vered is called the power of darkness ; and the kingdom of Christ, into which we are translated, is called light
* which hath made us meet to be
: ver. 12,
partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. And that the power of
sin lies in darkness, is clear from this, that the strength of a man lies in wisdom and reason, and grace animating that reason : Prov. xxiv. 5, A wise man is strong ; yea, a man of knowledge increaseth strength. So now
corrupted reason, which is darkness, is the strength of sin ; and the cause why the devil rules so in men, is from the darkness of their minds : Eph.
* For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principa
vi. 12,
lities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against
spiritual wickedness in high places. And when the apostle would express how opposers of the truth are recovered out of the devil s snare, he puts it
upon their having repentance to acknowledge the truth : 2 Tim. ii. 25, 26, In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves, if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, and that
they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken
captive by him at his will. When they have ft&rdvoiav, a changed mind to
acknowledge the truth ; when they have found the way out of those thick mists of darkness with which they were covered, and in which the devil kept them ; when they avavr^uffiv, are recovered out of that disease, lethargy, and indeed frenzy of the mind, and, like the prodigal, are come to them
selves again ; then the devil s snare is broke, who before, through their igno rance, blindness, and madness, did what he would with them. Now if grace be light, and sin be darkness (and, indeed, what is the life of grace and
glory both, but light ? and sin and hell, but darkness ?), then they have
their principal seat in that faculty to which light properly belongs, as to the understanding it doth ; from which higher part of the soul, as from a sun above, it might diffuse its influence and heat to all the lower faculties. And if the understanding power of man be the subject of the light of grace,
it is also of the darkness of sin, since both light and darkness belong to the same faculty, according to what our Saviour says, Mat. vi. 22, 23, The
light of the body is the eye
: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole
body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be
full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how
great is that darkness ? Which proves my assertion, that not only the
lower, but the nobler faculties in man, the understanding and mind, are
depraved with sin.
4thly, If we consider that the production and increase of grace is said to be a work wrought and transacted in the understanding, and first beginning there, then certainly it follows that this faculty is mainly, if not principally, corrupted. But now the work of grace is expressed to us : Acts xxvi. 17, 18, to be the * opening the eyes, and turning men from darkness to light ; and so when men are raised (whether by a new life, from the death of sin, or
by an awakening out of a sinful backsliding, I will not now dispute), what is the life which comes into them ? Ephes. v. 14, Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. And indeed the life of grace is originally nothing but light ; John viii. 12,
CHAP. II.] IN RESPECT OF SIN AND PUNISHMENT. 137
Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world : he that iblloweth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. As grace there is called the light of life, so answerably in those words : John
i. 4, In him was life, and the life was the light of men. Light is inter
preted to mean that grace which we had in innocency ; that whereas Christ
is said in ver. 3 to have given all things being, so to man he gave that life and image which he had in himself as second person.
* In him was life, and
the life was the light of men, so that the life of grace is principally light ; and if so, the understanding is one of the chief vitals, the pru/nim vixens, that which first lives, as the heart is in man ; and therefore the death of sin
is also mainly seated in the understanding ; as this is the first faculty which
?as the first that died by sin. And this is one
is quickened by grace, so it w
of the first faculties which is enlivened, and by means of it the rest have life
produced in them ; and therefore when the apostle Paul exhorts to put off the old man still more, and to put on the new that is, to get the whole man
changed he puts this in between both, as the means of both, Be renewed
in the spirit of your minds : Ephes. iv. 22-24, That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the de
ceitful lusts ; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind ; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holi
ness. And when he exhorts us to be transformed, which means that the frame of our whole man should be changed, he directs how it is done, viz., by the renewing of the mind, that so we may prove (or in true judgment allow of) the will of God : Rom. xii. 2, And be not conformed to this world : but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God ; which ex-
presseth thus much, that when the mind is once wrought upon and renewed, there is a conformity to God wrought in the whole soul, as, If the eye be
single, the whole body is full of light, Mat. vi. 22. Not that barely the
light doth the work by filling all our powers, but the Holy Ghost by that
light changeth the whole man. As the heavens by their light convey their heat and influences, so heat and life, and quickening in the will and affec
tions, are conveyed into them by the light of the mind. If, then, the reno vation must thus necessarily be begun in the understanding, then certainly that faculty of all other is primarily and most deeply depraved.
Sthly, This will also appear, if we add to all the former this consideration, that the main and proper end of one of the offices of Jesus Christ, for which
it was appointed, is to cure the defects of the understanding. He hath but
three offices, king, priest, and prophet ; and as a prophet his office is to work on the understandings of men, and to heal the defects in them. As a
prophet he removes our ignorance, and therefore is called a teacher : Mat.
xxiii. 8, 10, But be not ye called rabbi : for one is your Master, even
Christ ; and all ye are brethren. Neither be ye called masters : for one is
your Master, even Christ. The word is 6 xa^/Tjr^, doctor or teacher. And as Christ is a teacher to instruct our blind and ignorant minds, in him
are therefore hid all treasures of w-isdom and knowledge, Col. ii. 3, that he might dispense them to us. And the same apostle in another scripture, reckoning up the main benefits which we have by Christ, puts in wisdom as one and the first : 1 Cor. i. 30, But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and
redemption. Well, and if we consider too all the instructions, reproofs, and doctrines in the word, what are they but as so many plasters which
Christ lays to our heads to cure our diseased judgments, and by healing them
to heal all the other faculties ? All those wholesome words are principally
138 AN UNREGENERATE MAN*S GUILTINESS BEFORE GOD, [BOOK III.
applied to the understanding, as to that part in us which is as sick or most
sick of any, and by that they work on the other.
6thly, It is the defect ard pravity of the mind which is the original and
root of all sin in the other powers of our souls ; nay, a corrupt understanding
is the immediate cause and first mover in most sins, and the prime subject of many, and those the greatest sins, and therefore certainly it is deeply
corrupted.
1. The darkness of the understanding is the author of that rebellion which is in the will and affections, for therefore doth the will and sensual
appetite seek out so inordinately the pleasures of sin, because the mind is
ignorant of God, knows him not, and so is a stranger to him, and can have no fellowship with him ; for it is ignorance of God estrangeth us from him, since all fellowship and friendship is grounded upon knowledge, and all
friendly intercourse is chiefly transacted by the help of it, and therefore rea
sonable creatures are only capable of friendship, which beasts are not. That we may then have communion with God, the knowledge of him is necessary ; and accordingly the first and main thing which God doth, when he enters us
into the covenant of grace, is to teach us to know him : Jer. xxxi. 33, 34,
* Bat this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel ; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts ; and I will be their God, and they shall be my
people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord : for they shall all know me, from
the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord : for I will for
give their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. It is ignorance therefore which keeps men from fellowship with God, and want of that fel
lowship makes every faculty in man shift for itself, hunt and seek about in
other things, in the pleasure of sin and variety of lusts, to find that happi ness and delight which the blinded soul cannot see or discern to be in God. Men are therefore estranged from God, because they know him not, and then
* This I say
they are abandoned to all manner of sins : Eph. iv. 17-19,
therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gen
tiles walk, in the vanity of their mind ; having the understanding darkened,
being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart : who, being past feeling, have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. Mark, it is said that they are alienated from God through ignorance, be cause of the blindness of their hearts, and thence it follows that they gave themselves over to lasciviousness.
2. The darkness of the mind is not only thus negatively (as depriving the
soul of the knowledge of God) the root of all sin, but it is positively the immediate cause of most corruptions in men s lives. Thus Paul mentions
fleshly wisdom as the corrupt principle by which men lead their lives, and
: 2 Cor. i. 12, For our rejoicing
as the main opposite principle unto grace
is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conver
sation in the world, and more abundantly to yon-wards. There is a fleshly
practical wisdom which enables men to do much mischief, and therefore wicked men are said to be wise to do evil : Jer. iv. 22, For my people is
foolish, they have not known me ; they are sottish children, and they have none understanding
: they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no
knowledge. And indeed this carnal wisdom is the cause of the greatest
part of wickedness in the world : Isa. xlvii. 10, For thou hast trusted in
thy wickedness : thou hast said, None seeth me. Thy wisdom and thy
CHAP. II.] IN RESPECT OF SIN AND PUNISHMENT. 139
knowledge, it hath perverted thee ; and thou hast said in thine heart, I am, and none else besides me. What practices do corrupt opinions put men
upon ? How do they hold them in the snare of the devil ? How do cor
rupt principles in the practical understanding secretly steer men, and do all
covertly, and with underhand dealing, when yet the contrary principles keep a noise in the conscience and speculative part ? Corrupt reasonings and
false judgments of things are the chief movers and actors in all our sinnings
Eph. ii. 3, Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind ; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. They are said
to fulfil the wills of ruv diavoiuv, of the mind, of the reasonings, as well as of
the flesh, the sensual part. And really thus it is with men, that though they are convinced in their speculative understandings that there is a God, and that it is best to serve and worship him, &c., yet there is a corrupt
principle in their practical judgments which will deny and renounce all this, and act contrary to it ; and men will still walk in the vanity of their minds, Eph. iv. 17 ; that is, vain principles are their guide. 3. The understanding itself is the subject of many sins, and the chief
transactor of them, and though usually they affect the will also, yet they are
seated there principally. As pride hath its chief place in the mind, and there
fore the apostle Paul describes it by a being puffed up with a fleshly mind :
Col. ii. 18, Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility, and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not
seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind. So idolatry, heresy, blasphemy, hypocrisy, infidelity, evil surmisings, seeking after credit, and praise, and
glory, which is an aerial thing, a sublimated object of the understanding ; in
fine, all inordinacies after any excellencies, of which the understanding only judgeth, all these sins are principally seated in it ; and all the evil thoughts, wicked devisings, sinister and hypocritical ends, which set unregenerate men on work in all their ways, these are all seated in the understanding. And these sins are both the great swaying sins in men s lives, of longest con
tinuance, of mightiest strength and of highest guilt; which I add, to shew the deep corruption of the understanding, and as motives to mortify them,
having them in our eye, searching them out, and also humbling ourselves
for them.
1st, These sins in the understanding are the most swaying of all other ;
they are of a larger extent and compass, and a man hath more occasions to
please them than others, and therefore they command most, and bear the
greatest sway in a man s life. As to instance in one of them, credit and
glory of a name, a man seeks to uphold it, and is mindful of it continually ;
yea, for the sake of it a man will abstain from many a gross sin, and some
affections and lusts are starved to feed and nourish this, and it keeps other
sins under ; and, in short, acts a part in every thing, whenas other lusts do but occasionally, and at some times exert themselves.
2dly, These sins in the understanding are the strongest of all other. The
strongholds which exalt themselves are sins seated in the mind, and there
fore called reasonings, which exalt themselves against God : 2 Cor. x. 4, 5, For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds ; casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into
captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. And, therefore, these
sins are the strongest holds, because they are founded in the reason, which
argues for them, defends and justifies them, when other lusts have no shew or colour of reason, and have little or nothing to say and plead for them-
140 AN UNRKGENERATE MAN S GUILTINESS BEFORE GOD, [BOOK III.
selves. When Christ was here on earth, what was the strongest lust which
kept men from coming to him and believing ? It was pride and vain glory. What was it they stuck at most ? Disgrace, and renouncing the credit of
their learning, and foregoing hopes of preferment and wealth, and abandon
ing the correspondency of their friends by losing their esteem. Here it was
they stuck most, and all these are sins of the understanding.
3dly, These sins are of most continuance. When the body decays and
the temper alters, other lusts wither, but not these in the mind and spirit, which are as green and fresh in old age as in youth ; ay, and as men grow in years, ihese sins grow more strong and lively in them.
4thly, These sins are of the deepest guilt, for, corruptio optimi est pessima, the best things corrupted became the worst of all, as a stain is worse on a
fine cloth than a coarse. And, therefore, as the understanding is the most
excellent part in man, and the very spirit of the soul, and the image of God
is chiefly wrought there, so the corruption of it is worse than that of the
other faculties : If the eye be dark, how great is that darkness, Mat. vi. 23. And besides all this, it is in these sins of the mind that we resemble the
devil, whenas in other sins we are only like unto the beasts.