Treatise of the Dominion of Sin and Grace

What sin is consistent with the state of grace, and what not — Sin’s great design in all to obtain dominion: it hath it in unbelievers, and contends for it in believers — The ways by which it acts.

The psalmist, treating with God in prayer about sin, acknowledgeth that there are in all men unsearchable errors of life, beyond all human understanding or comprehension, with such daily sins of infirmity as stand in need of continual cleansing and pardon: Ps. xix. 12, “Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults.” But yet he supposeth that these things are consistent with a state of grace and acceptation with God. He had no thought of any absolute perfection in this life, of any such condition as should not stand in need of continual cleansing and pardon. Wherefore, there are or may be such sins in believers, yea, many of them, which yet, under a due application unto God for purifying and pardoning grace, shall neither deprive us of peace here nor endanger our salvation hereafter.