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

II. I will lay before you a few things, in which ye should have a special eye to the sin of your nature. (1.) Have a special eye to it in your application to Jesus Christ. Do you find any need of Christ, which sends you to him as the Physician of souls? O forget not your disease when you are with the Physician. They never yet knew well their errand to Christ, that went not to him for the sin of their nature: for his blood to take away the guilt of it, and his Spirit to break the power of it. Tho' in the bitterness of your souls, you should lay before him a catalogue of your sins of omission and commission, which might reach from earth to heaven; yet if the sin of your nature were wanting in it, assure yourselves, you have forgot the best part of the errand a poor sinner has to the Physician of souls. What would it have availed the people of Jericho, to have set before Elisha all the vessels in their city full of the water that was naught, if they had not led him forth to the spring, to cast in the salt there? 2 Kings ii. 19.20, 21. The application is easy. (2.) Have a special eye towards it in your repentance, whether initial or progressive, in your first repentance, and in the renewing of your repentance, afterwards. Tho' a man be sick, there is no fear of death, if the sickness strike not his heart; and there is as little fear of the death of sin, as long as the sin of our nature is not touched. But if ye would repent indeed, let the streams lead you up to the fountain; and mourn over your corrupt nature, as the cause of all sin, in heart, lip, and life. Psal. li. 4, 5. Against thee, thee only have I sinned, and none this evil in thy sight — Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. (4.) Have a special eye upon it, in your mortification. Gal. v. 24. And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh. It is the root of bitterness, that must be struck at, which the axe of mortification must be laid to; else we labour in vain. In vain do men go ⟨p. 91⟩about to purge the streams, while they are at no pains about the muddy fountain: It is vain religion to attempt to make the […] truly good, while the corruption of nature retains its ancient vigour, and the power of it is not broken. Lastly, Ye are to eye it in your daily walk. He that would walk aright, must have one eye upwards to Jesus Christ;