A treatise of original sin ... proving that it is

How it cometh to pass that a man can commit those sins, which he knoweth to be sins, which his conscience tells him are sins? Who are there so much stupefied and besotted by sin, that do not in the general know, that the ways they live in are wicked, that they provoke God, that they ought not to do so? How then is it possible, that they should close with those sins that they know to be so, seeing the will cannot will evil, as it is evil.

How it cometh to pass that a man can commit those sinnes, which he knoweth to be sinnes, which his conscience tells him are sinnes? Who are there so much stupified and besotted by sinne, that do not in the general know, that the waies they live in are wicked, that they provoke God, that they ought not to do so? How then is it possible, that they should close with those sinnes that they know to be so, seeing the will cannot will evil, as it is evil.

Now the Answer is, This ariseth from the defect of conscience, she doth not particularly make such a powerful application pro hic & nunc, as it ought to do; There is therefore a general knowledge, an habitual knowledge of such things to be sins; yea it may be a particular apprehension, that they ⟨p. 228⟩are now sinning and offending God; but this is only a speculative apprehension, it's not a practical one produced by conscience in thee: Oh therefore that all our Auditors were delivered from this original pollution of conscience, for therefore we preach in vain, and you hear in vain, because no application is made to your own hearts! None brings the truth, the command, the threatening to his own soul, saying, This is my portion, none so guilty as I am in this particular, and thus (as she said to the Prophet) Thou hast brought my sins to my mind; or as the woman of Samaria concerning Christ, He had told her of all that she had done: Thus faith the applying conscience, This Sermon brings my sins to my mind, This Sermon tells me of the wickedness at such a time committed by me: It was the Prophets complaint of his hearers, None said, What have I done? They did not make a particular application; Therefore till the grace of God quicken the conscience, making thee to cry out, What shall I do, I have sinned? Gods Word hath found me out; It is me the Law condemneth; It is me that the curses belong to, as if I were mentioned and named, as if I had heard a voice from Heaven, saying, Thou Thomas, Thou John, here is thy sin, here is thy doom; Till (I say) this be done, all thy knowledge in the general, all the Texts of Scripture in thy memory, they have no influence at all.