A Body of Practical Divinity

6. Original sin is a vigorous active Principle within us; it doth not lye still, but is ever exciting and stirring us up to evil; it is an Inmate, very unquiet; Rom. 7.15. What I hate, that do I. How came Paul to do so? Original sin did irritate and stir him up to it. Original sin is like Quicksilver, always in motion; when we are asleep, sin is awake in the Fancy. Original sin sets the Head a plotting evil, and the Hands a working it; it hath in it principium motus, not quiet is, it is like the Pulse ever beating.

7. Original sin is the cause of all Actual; it is fomes peccati, it is the Womb in which all actual sins are conceived. Hence come Murders, Adulteries, Rapines; it is the Trojan Horse, out of which a whole Army of Impieties come. Though Actual sins may be more scandalous, yet Original sin is more heinous; the Cause is more then the Effect.

8. It is not perfectly cured in this Life. Grace, though it doth subdue sin, yet not wholly remove it. Though we are like Christ, having the first fruits of the Spirit, yet we are unlike him, having the remainders of the Flesh. There are two Nations in the Womb. Original sin is like that Tree, Dan. 4.23. though the Branches of it were hewen down, and the main body of it, yet the stumps and root of the Tree were left: Though the Spirit be still weakening and hewing down sin in the godly, yet the stump of Original sin is still left: it is a Sea, that will not in this Life be dried up.

8. It is not perfectly cured in this Life. Grace, though it doth subdue sin, yet not wholly remove it. Though we are like Christ, having the first fruits of the Spirit, yet we are unlike him, having the remainders of the Flesh. There are two Nations in the Womb. Original sin is like that Tree,