Human nature in its fourfold state ... In several practical discourses

2. Behold here, as in a glass, the spring of all the wickedness, profanity, and formality in the world; the source of all the disorders in thy own heart and life. Every thing acts like itself, agreeable to its own nature; and so corrupt man acts corruptly. You need not wonder at the sinfulness of your own heart and life, nor at the sinfulness and perverseness of others: if a man be crooked, he cannot but halt; and if the clock be set wrong, how can it point the hour right.

3. See here, why sin is so pleasant, and religion such a burden to carnal spirits: sin is natural, holiness not so. Oxen cannot feed in the sea, nor fishes in the fruitful fields. A swine brought into a palace, would get away again, to wallow in the mire. A corrupt nature tends ever to impurity.

4. Learn from this, the nature and necessity of regeneration. First, This discovers the nature of regeneration in these two things, (1.) It is not a partial, but a total change, tho' imperfect in this life. Thy whole nature is corrupted, and therefore the cure must go through' every part. Regeneration makes not only a new head for knowledge, but a new heart, and new affections for holiness. All things become new, 2 Cor. v. 17. If one who has received many wounds, should be cured of them all, save one only, he might bleed to death, by that one, as well as a thousand. So if the change go not through the whole man, it is naught. (2.) It is not a change made by human industry, but by the mighty power of the Spirit of God. A man must be born of the Spirit, John iii. 5 Accidental diseases may be cured by men, but these which are natural, not without a miracle,