Precious faith considered in its nature, working, and growth

Theophrast was wont to say, That the Soul paid a dear rent for her dwelling in the Body, considering how much it suffered at the Bodies hand. The Stoics declaim against the Passions, as the sicknesses and languors of the Soul; all the load is laid upon [Greek or Hebrew], the common people of the Soul, (as some call the Passions), as if the Princes, Reason and Will, were free, never considering the Spiritual wickednesses which are among them. Neither could it be expected, that they should know the latitude of Sin, seeing they had not the pure Law, but only some fragments of it in their hearts, by which they could no more discern the proportions of Sin, than a man can understand features by the broken pieces of a Picture.

Theophrast was wont to say, That the Soul paid a dear rent for her dwelling in the Body, considering how much it suffered at the Bodies hand. The Stoicks declaim against the Passions, as the sicknesses and languors of the Soul; all the load is laid upon 〈non-Latin alphabet〉, the common people of the Soul, (as some call the Passions), as if the Princes, Reason and Will, were free, never considering the Spiritual wickednesses which are among them. Neither could it be expected, that they should know the latitude of Sin, seeing they had not the pure Law, but only some fragments of it in their hearts, by which they could no more discern the proportions of Sin, than a man can understand features by the broken pieces of a Picture.

Leaving the Pagans, let us search among the Jews, a People to whom the Divine Oracles were committed, there the Believers had a true sense of Original Sin; David senses it, in primo ardour, in the first warmth of Natural Conception, Psal. 51.5. But such among them as wanted Faith, wanted a sense thereof. Indeed they had the Law, but the veil being on their hearts, they understood it only as prohibiting manum, non animum, the outward act, not the Will; and, Non concupisces, Thou shalt not covet; was rather taken tor a Moral sentence, than a Divine precept among them. ⟨p. 255⟩