before it was an evil heart, and therefore the devil took possession of it. The Apostle James, cap. 1. 14. doth notably discover the true cause, and natural fountain of all the evil committed by us, and that is, The lust and concupiscence, that is within us, he saith, We must not charge God with our sins, as if he were to be blamed, because we are not kept from wickedness; neither doth he bid us, Charge it upon the Devil, though he doth tempt us, but upon our own corrupt lust within. Thus then you see, that as Paul saith of those, who are in Christ, They no longer live, but Christ within them, Gal. 2. 20. So we may on the contrary affirm of every man by nature, that he doth not so much live, as sin within him; for when our physical nature causeth us to think, or speak, or do, then also sin like our moral nature, doth make us think, and speak sinfully: Even as the lame horse can never move himself to go, but he halteth in that motion. Surely, this consideration should make all mankind mourn in sackcloth, and roll it self in ashes: What should a man do in his whole life, but as Anselm said, to deplore his whole life, in totâ vitâ totam vitam deplorare, for he cannot move, or stir, or do any thing, but he sinneth; If he cateth, if he drinketh, if he worketh, yea, if he prayeth, in all these he sinneth, as is more to be showed. We see then, that because this original sin is by way of a principle within us of all our irregular motions; Therefore though there were no Devil to tempt, no examples for men to imitate, yet their corrupt nature within would carry them to it; Did not Cain murder Abel, when there had been no such sin in the world before? We many times wonder how children, yea and sometimes grown men should commit such sins, that they could not see practised before their eyes; but we need not wonder, when we consider what a shop of all impieties every mans heart by nature is. Hence Solomon speaking of the uprightness God made man in, Eccles. 7. 29. he instanceth in the effects of original sin, as opposite to that uprightness, that it makes a man seek out many sinful inventions, he doth not only sin by imitation, but invention.
before it was an evil heart, and therefore the devil took possession of it. The Apostle James, cap. 1. 14. doth notably discover the true cause, and natural fountain of all the evil committed by us, and that is, The lust and concupiscence, that is within us, he saith, We must not charge God with our sinnes, as if he were to be blamed, because we are not kept from wickedness; neither doth he bid us, Charge it upon the Devil, though he doth tempt us, but upon our own corrupt lust within. Thus then you see, that as Paul saith of those, who are in Christ, They no longer live, but Christ within them, Gal. 2. 20. So we may on the contrary affirm of every man by nature, that he doth not so much live, as sinne within him; for when our physical nature causeth us to think, or speak, or do, then also sinne like our moral nature, doth make us think, and speak sinfully: Even as the lame horse can never move himself to go, but he halteth in that motion. Surely, this consideration should make all mankind mourn in sackcloth, and roll it self in ashes: What should a man do in his whole life, but as Anselm said, to deplore his whole life, in totâ vitâ totam vitam deplorare, for he cannot move, or stirre, or do any thing, but he sinneth; If he cateth, if he drinketh, if he worketh, yea, if he prayeth, in all these he sinneth, as is more to be shewed. We see then, that because this original sinne is by way of a principle within us of all our irregular motions; Therefore though there were no Devil to tempt, no examples for men to imitate, yet their corrupt nature within would carry them to it; Did not Cain murder Abel, when there had been no such sinne in the world before? We many times wonder how children, yea and sometimes grown men should commit such sinnes, that they could not see practised before their eyes; but we need not wonder, when we consider what a shop of all impieties every mans heart by nature is. Hence Solomon speaking of the uprightness God made man in, Eccles. 7. 29. he instanceth in the effects of original sin, as opposite to that uprightness, that it makes a man seek out many sinfull inventions, he doth not only sin by imitation, but invention.
