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

Thirdly, For want of knowledge herein, that main duty so much commended both by Scripture, and the Heathens, viz. To know our selves, can never be put in practice. The Heathen said, è Coelo descendit, [Greek or Hebrew]. And as for the Scripture, How often is it required, That we should search and try our hearts; That we should examine our selves, and commune with our own hearts, and be still, Psal. 4. Now these duties can never be effectually done, without a firm belief of that desperate pollution which is in our heart; And till we acknowledge with Jerem. 17. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, Who can know it? Yea, we see David, Psal. 19. 13. though a godly man, and much enlightened thereby, being enabled to make deep search into his soul, and having the Sun beams, could discern those atoms and motes of sin, which man in the dark could not do, yet he crieth out, Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret sins, that is, such sins that lie latent and lurking in my heart, that never yet I could find out. If then this duty be so great of knowing our selves, that some make all Religion to be in these two things, The knowledge of our selves, and of God; then how necessary is it, that we should be thoroughly acquainted with this heart, and nature-sinfulness, for without this we can never know how vile and loathsome we are? Our actual impieties, though never so gross and numerous, do not demonstrate our loathsomeness so much as this bitter and sour leaven within; These are the stream, that is the fountain; These are the effects, that is the cause; Therefore the greatest strength of our wickedness lieth in a defiled Nature, as you see in a Serpent or Toad, that venom it sends forth at any time, is nothing to the venom in its nature; If you look upon a Cain, a Judas, though his outside be so detestable, yet his inwards are much more abominable, so that a mans heart is like Peters great sheet, which he saw in a vision, Acts 11. 6. which was full of four-footed beasts, and wild beasts, and creeping things, all unclean; such a receptacle is mans soul of all impiety:

Thirdly, For want of knowledge herein, that main duty so much commended both by Scripture, and the Heathens, viz. To know our selves, can never be put in practice. The Heathen said, è Coelo descendit, . And as for the Scripture, How often is it required, That we should search and try our hearts; That we should examine our selves, and commune with our own hearts, and be still,