An answer, to a little book call'd Protestancy to be embrac'd or, A new and infallible method to reduce Romanists from popery to Protestancy

A Subsect. Vows put not a Man in a worse condition more then the Law of God.

OUr Adversary cryes down Vows, as making Man in a worse condition than afore, for if a Man break his Vow of Chastity, for example, he commits a double Sin, whereas with∣out it he had committed only a single one.

Answer. First, is a Man after Marriage in a worse condition then afore? yet the Sin of the Flesh in him is double.

Answer. Secondly did God put Man in a worse condition by giving him the Law, then that in which he was afore he gave it him? Yet St. Paul, Rom. 7. v. 7. did not know that Concupiscence was a Sin without the Law, and so had not Sinned, committing it afore he knew the Law, and had Sin∣ned if had committed it after.

Answer. Thirdly, who Sins against Chastity, having made a Vow of Chastity, is in a worse con∣dition, then he who commits the same not being under Vow, I grant, but the Vow does not make him Sin no more then the Law of God makes a Man Sin: Contrarywayes, it forbids him to Sin, with-draws him, and frights him from Sin more then the Law of God alone: So its by accident, that 'tis an occasion of Sin; of it self ••ts a strong help to abstain from Sin, in as much as it repre∣sents

a far greater malice in that Sin, to which it is annexed, and a more formidable punishment to be expected.

Thus you see a Man is more removed from Sin and the occasion of Sin with it, then without it. Our perverse Nature of striving against what is Commanded us militates equally against the Com∣mand of God, as against a Vow, but is more for∣cibly resisted by the Command of God, when this is backed by a Vow.