A treatise of original sin ... proving that it is, by pregnant texts of Scripture vindicated from false glosses / by Anthony Burgess.

SECT. X.

That many times sinne is acted by the Imagination with delight and content, without any relation at all to the external Actings of sinne.

THirdly, The sinfulness of the Imagination is further to be amplified, In that many times sinne is acted with delight and content there, without any relation at all to the external actings of sinne. So that a man while unblameable in his life, may yet have his imagination like a cage of unclean birds, and this is commonly done, when there are external impediments, or some hinderances of committing the sinne outwardly; The fear of mens laws, outward reproach and shame, want of opportunity may keep men off from the outward committing of some lust, when yet at the same time their imaginations have the strong impressions of sinne upon them, and so in their souls they become guilty before God; The Adulterous man, Is not his imagination full of uncleanness? The proud man, Is not his fancy lifted with high and towring conceits? As the Apostle Peter speak∣eth of some whose eyes were full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sinne, 2 Pet. 2. 14. or as some read it according to the original [Adulteresse] imagination made them have her in their eyes continually, though absent, for if their eyes were, their imaginations also must necessarily be, because of the immediate natu∣ral connexion between them; so then when there are no outward sores or ulcers to be seen upon a mans life, yet his imagination may be a noisom dunghill, what uncleanness fancied, what high honours imagined, that whereas thou art re∣strained from the actings of sinne, yet thy heart burneth like an oven with lusts inwardly; It is the emphatical similitude that the holy Ghost useth, Hos. 7. 8. They have made ready their heart like an oven; The meaning is, that as the oven heated is ready to bake any thing put therein, so was the heart of those evil men prepared for any kind of naughtiness; Some understand it of the adultery of the body only, as if that were the sinne intended by the Prophet; Others, of

the spiritual adultery of the soul, by which name Idolatry is often called in Scri∣pture; Others referre it to both; we may take it to be a proverbial expression, denoting the readiness of a mans heart to commit any sinne, that it lieth in the heart and the imagination day and night, men highly sinning against God in∣wardly, when outwardly they are restrained; Know then that when the grace of sanctification shall renew thy spirit, soul and body, thou wilt then be very care∣full to look to thy very imagination, that no tickling fancies or conceits of any lust do defile thee, thou wilt keep thy imagination as a precious Cabinet, wherein preci∣ous pearls shall be treasured up, not dirt and filth: As we fitly use an expression concerning delight in sinne, that it is the rolling of honey under the tongue, so there is a rolling of sinne in the imagination with great titillation and pleasure, when sinne cannot be committed in action, we do it in our imagination; Hence it is that by the imagination old men become guilty of their youthfull lusts, when they have not bodies to be as instrumental to filthiness, as they have been, yet in their imaginations they can revive their by-past sinnes many years ago committed: Thus men became (as it were) perpetual sinners in their imaginations: Consi∣der of this more seriously, and pray for an holy, chaste and pure imagination, knowing thou hast to do with an omniscient God that knoweth what is working therein, though it be hid from the world besides; think not sinfull imaginations will escape the vengeance of God, though no sutable operations of impiety do accompany them.