Accordingly, it is not valid to say: (1) it begets sin, therefore it is not sin. For a man, because he begets a man, does not cease to be a man; indeed, as we have said, it is sin by the very fact that it begets sin.
Related quotations
We must here observe, that not only are corrupt and disordered inclinations sins, but the thinking of evil, in as far as it is connected with an inclination and propensity to pursue it, or with a desire to practice it, is sin.
It is illicit, not only to give consent to evil, but also to have an inclination, or propensity to such consent: because all our powers ought to be carried toward the good.
This very thing cannot be conceived, how something by way of an internal habit could be the cause of sin and not be sin. An internal cause inclining to act well is good.
Lust in the bud; that is, the first risings of lust, even before the consent of the will to them; the first openings of particular lusts, sometimes not regarded nor noticed, and so neither approved nor disapproved; and sometimes checked in their very rising, Rom. 7:15. But however it be, they are sins here forbidden, though the Papists will not allow them to be so