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

Fourthly, This sin is Natural, Because it would carry a man out to the §4highest actings of the grossest impieties that can be. As they say, Nature doth act always to the highest it can. Thus it's true in respect of this natural corruption, it doth incline every man to be as vile, and as enormous as any are; For although this original corruption doth not deprive him of his understanding and will, making of him an irrational beast, yet it doth so captivate and enthral the whole man; That though to understand and to will be of nature, yet this understanding and willing in a sinful manner will always be, because it's corrupted nature; and therefore it would hurry every man even as the Devil did the Swine into the sea of perdition: Every one would be a Cain, a Judas, if his corrupt nature were left to it self, and if you ask, Why then are not all men turned into so many beasts and Devils? Why is not the whole world in confusion? How comes there to be any civility or morality? Why is not every place like an hell, if all men are thus vile by nature? It's answered, God hath a reforming and restraining grace; If this later may be called Grace: Now those that God reformeth, and inwardly sanctifieth; They are made to delight in the Law of God; They have the fear of God put into their hearts, and so they keep from sin out of love to God; but then there are others, and God layeth a restraint upon them, he puts a bridle in their mouths: So that although they have an insatiable appetite to sin, and do not put forth the whole abundance of that evil, which is within them, yet they have a principle inclining thereunto, only God stops them; as he did Balaam, whose heart was desirous to curse the people of Israel, though he was restrained from it; As it is with the sea, by its own natural motion, it would overthrow the whole world, but that God hath put his bounds to it, saying, Hitherto shalt thou go and no further. Thus God hath a supreme dominion even over the sinful heart of man, so that it cannot sin, when and how, and as much as it listeth, but it's under the providence of God, Cui nihil est malum, as Austin said, because he can turn it unto good. But all this is no thanks or praise to man; Say then with thy self, If I run not into the same excess of riot with others; If I be not so abominable and loathsome, as many others are;