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

And one cause of the rottenness and defect of this humiliation is, because it did not go to the bottom of the sore; there was the inward and deep corruption of original sin that such never took any notice of, and so in all his sorrow did omit that which is the most aggravating cause of all grief and trembling: O Lord, I have not only done this wicked thing, but I had an heart, an inclination of soul to carry me to it, and therefore actual sins, though ten thousands of them, they pass away, the guilt only remaining; but this original pravity continueth in the pollution of it.

And one cause of the rottenness and defect of this humiliation is, because it did not go to the bottom of the soare; there was the inward and deep corruption of original sin that such never took any notice of, and so in all his sorrow did omit that which is the most aggravating cause of all grief and trembling: O Lord, I have not only done this wicked thing, but I had an heart, an inclination of soul to carry me to it, and therefore actual sinnes, though ten thousands of them, they pass away, the guilt only remaining; but this original pravity continueth in the pollution of it.

Fifthly, Ignorance of original sin makes us also mistake in the crucifying and mortifying of sin; No man can truly and spiritually leave a sin, unless he doth conquer it and subdue it in some measure in the original and root of it; and this is a sure difference between a regenerate and unregenerate man about leaving or forsaking of sin; They both may give over their wonted actual impieties; They both may have escaped the pollution of the world, and that through the knowledge of the Gospel, 2 Pet. 2. 20. but the one leaveth only the acts of sin, the other mortifieth it gradually, though not totally in the cause and inclination of the soul. Thus Paul. Rom. 7. though he complain of those actual stirrings, and impetuous motions of sin, yet withal he can truly say, I delight in the Law of God, in the inner man. Now no hypocrite, or unregenerate man can say so; Though he be outwardly washed, yet he hath a swinish nature still, his inward parts are as loathsome, as noisome as ever before: Though there be a fair skin drawn over the wound, yet in the bottom there is as much corruption, and putrefaction, as ever before: Samson's hair is only cut, it's not plucked up by the root, so that it's not enough to have given over thy former profaneness; Thou thankest God thou art not the man once thou wert: Oh but consider whether sin in the root of it, as well as in the branches of it, doth wither and die daily. A disease is not cured, till the cause of it be in some measure at least removed. As long as original sin is not in some degree mortified, thy old sins, or some other will break out as violently as ever, here is the fountain and root of all within thee.