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

Whence did they arise, but from polluted originals? This will not answer the Text in hand, for that speaketh of the first age before the drowning of the world, which yet is called the world of the ungodly, 2 Pet. 2. 5. It was the world of ungodly in the first age, and still in the ⟨p. 447⟩later ages it is the world of ungodly: Yea this is still applied to that remnant of mankind which escaped the deluge, when there were but eight persons, Gen. 8. It's there said, That the imagination of mans heart was […] his youth, It is strange therefore, that if good seed was naturally sown in […] that nothing but tares should come up every where in stead thereof. But let us take notice of another place of Scripture confirming the universal overflowing of iniquity, and that is David's complaint, which he so sadly poureth forth, calling upon God to help and to redress it, Psal. 12. 1. Help Lord, for the godly man ceaseth, the faithful fail from among the children of man; They speak vanity every one with his neighbour; It is true, here are some supposed to be godly and faithful, but they are few comparatively to the ungodly, as flowers to the weeds, as jewels to the sand on the seashore, and those that were so, it was not from nature, but the grace of God that sanctified and prepared them: But if you do regard the general, the Psalmist is so affectionately moved with the overflowing of evil, that he seeth no help but in God himself, and this is the more to be aggravated, because the people of Israel were the Church of God, they had the Prophets of God, they had Gods wonderful presence amongst them, and yet for all that, this garden so planted and dressed by God, did become a wilderness; If then where there are many external and powerful means to subdue and conquer that innate corruption, yet it break out so violently; What if man were left to himself? How abominable and vile would he prove? And was not this the perpetual complaint of all the Prophets successively, that every one did turn aside to their evil ways, that they did preach in vain. that there was no soundness amongst them; a sinful Nation, a seed of evil-doers; The more they were stricken, the more they revolted; The whole head was sick, and the whole heart faint, as Isaiah most affectionately bewaileth it, Chap. 1. 4, 5.