Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

2. Tis universally natural: The wicked are estranged from the Womb, Psa. 58.3. They go astray as soon as they be born, their poison is like the poison of a Serpent. The wicked: And who by his birth hath a better title? They go astray from the dictates of God and the rule of their Creation as soon as ever they be born; Their poison is like the poison of a Serpent, which is radically the same in all of the sames species. Tis seminally and fundamentally in all men, though there may be a stronger restraint by a Divine hand upon some men, than upon others. This principle runs through the whole stream of Nature. The natural bent of every mans heart is distant from God: When we attempt any thing pleasing to God, tis like the climbing up a Hill, against nature; when any thing is displeasing to him, tis like a Current running down the Channel in its natural course: When we attempt any thing that is an acknowledgement of the Holiness of God, we are fain to rush with Arms in our hands through a multitude of natural passions, and fight the way through the oppositions of our own sensitive appetite. How softly do we naturally sink down into that which sets us at a greater distance from God? There is no active, potent, efficacious sense of a God by nature. The heart of the Sons of men is fully set in them to do evil, Eccl. 8.11. The heart in the singular number; as if there were but one Common heart beat in all mankind, and bent as with own pulse, with a joint consent and force to wickedness, without a sense of the Authority of God in the Earth; as if one heart acted every Man in the world.

2. Tis universally natural: The wicked are estranged from the Womb, Psa. 58.3. They go astray as soon as they be born, their poyson is like the poyson of a Serpent. The wicked: And who by his birth hath a better title? They go astray from the dictates of God and the rule of their Creation as soon as ever they be born; Their poyson is like the poyson of a Serpent, which is radically the same in all of the sames species. Tis seminally and fundamentally in all men, though there may be a stronger restraint by a Divine hand upon some men, than upon others. This principle runs through the whole stream of Nature. The natural bent of every mans heart is distant from God: When we attempt any thing pleasing to God, tis like the climbing up a Hill, against nature; when any thing is displeasing to him, tis like a Current running down the Channel in its natural course: When we attempt any thing that is an acknowledgment of the Holiness of God, we are fain to rush with Armes in our hands through a multitude of natural passions, and fight the way through the oppositions of our own sensitive appetite. How softly do we naturally sink down into that which sets us at a greater distance from God? There is no active, potent, efficacious sence of a God by nature. The heart of the Sons of men is fully set in them to do evil,