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

The first Demonstration of the slavery of the Will is from the Necessity of sinning that every man is plunged into.

Several particulars being premised as introductory to our intended matter, our next work is to show, Wherein this servitude & slavery of the will doth consist; Not that you are to conceive of the will, as some prisoner who is chained up in a dungeon, that hath power to walk and run, only those external impediments do hinder him, which is Bellarmine's similitude about the inability of a natural man to supernatural good: So the will hath some inward power and ability to do that which is holy, only there are lusts, which are vincentes and vincientes, as Austin expresseth, conquering and binding this will, that it cannot actually perform what internally it hath a power to do, here is no such thing, for we must conceive of this habitual depravation and defilement of the will in its state and condition more inward and deeply rooted in it.

SEveral particulars being premised as introductory to our intended matter, our next work is to shew, Wherein this servitude & slavery of the will doth consist; Not that you are to conceive of the will, as some prisoner who is chained up in a dungeon, that hath power to walk and run, only those external impediments do hinder him, which is Bellarmine's similitude about the inability of a natural man to supernatural good: So the will hath some inward power and ability to do that which is holy, onely there are lusts, which are vincentes and vincientes, as Austin expresseth, conquering and binding this will, that it cannot actually perform what internally it hath a power to do, here is no such thing, for we must conceive of this habitual depravation and defilement of the will in its state and condition more inward and deeply rooted in it.

First therefore, That the will of man is destitute of any freedom to what is good, appeareth, In the Necessity of sinning that every man is plunged into, that he cannot but sin in all that he doth; That as the Angels and Saints in Heaven have Beata Necessitas, a blessed necessity of loving of God, and delighting in him, so that no temptation in the world can draw them off: Thus every man by nature is in an unhappy and wretched necessity of sinning, Dura Necessitas, as Austin called it. Insomuch that though the Scripture doth represent the things of Heaven in a most glorious manner to affect us, yet we cannot be taken off from our sin to love that; Hence it is that every man till regenerated is compared to an evil tree, and