John Arndt On the ability to free one’s own self from sin
Man therefore will be forever miserable, and remain eternally drowned and lost in these pollutions, unless there come to his help one that is able to succor; the treader upon the serpents head, the most might Lord over sin, death, and hell; by whose most divine virtue the defiled nature of man may be renewed, transformed, and perfectly purified.
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From True Chrstianity or, the whole economy of God towards man in four books, by John Arndt, translated by Anthony William Boehm in 1712, from a copy printed in 1809