Englands Unthankfulness Striving with Gods Goodness, Division 2 · Chapter 12
CHAP. XII.
1. § FIrst, admit thou hadst never offended in the least, in all thy life: either in thought, word, or deed. Yea, admit thou couldest now, keepe all the Commandements, actually, and spiritually; yet this were nothing, thou wert miserable notwithstanding. Because thou broughtest a world of sinne …to the world with thee; and deservedst to dye, so soone as thou beganest to live. Even when thou wast a little childe; thou wert a great sinner. Wee are the cursed seed of rebellious parents. And are as guilty of Adams, and Eves sinne (being in their loynes) as any Heire is lyable to his Fathers debt, Rom. 5. 12. 14, 15, 17, 18, 19. They were the roote or stocke of all mankinde: and their act was ours, as the act of a Knight, or Burges; is the act of the whole County. If they had stood, and continued in that estate of innocencie, and happinesse; (as it was put to their choise) we had stood also; and been for ever blessed: And so on the contrary, Gen. 2. 17. Insomuch that we were conceived in sin, and borne the children of wrath. Even condemned, so soone as conceived, and adjudged to eternall death, before we were borne a temporall life, Psal. 51. 5. God indeed made us, after his owne image: but by sinne, we have turned that image of his, into the image of Satan. So that by nature, (be we never so milde, and gentle) we are the seed of the Serpent, Gen. 3. 15. and children of the Devill, Iohn 8. 44. Yea, the very best naturall man, is but a tame Devill: as Athanasius well notes.
2. §. Nor wouldest thou need, any more to humble thee, and make thee loath and abhor thy selfe, then the cleare sight of thy guiltinesse, wickednesse, and wretchednesse by nature. For no tongue is able to expresse, what impotent, pittifull, and poluted wretches we are; when we are in our blood, Ezek. 16. 6. As Christ at the first finds us, and before he hath washed us white, in his blood, sanctified us by his Spirit; and covered us with the long white Robe of his righteousnesse. As O what swarmes, what litters, what legions of noysome lusts: lye lurking in every naturall mans heart; by reason of originall sin. For out of the heart naturally, proceeds nothing but evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, theifts, false-witnesse, blasphemies, &c. as our Saviour shewes, Mat. 15. 18. 19. Yea, every imagination of the thoughts of mans heart; are onelyonly, and continually evill; and deceitfull above all things, Jet. 17. 9. and that from his youth, Gen. 6. 5. and 8. 21. And we are all cut out of the same cloath. So that every man hath the seeds of every sinne in his heart. And we are beholding to God, and not to our selves: that we runne not out into all manner of enormeties; even the sin against the Holy Ghost not except. That we are not worse then Manasses himselfe. Lord saith St. Austin, thou hast forgiven me those sinnes which I have done; and those sinnes, which onelyonly by thy grace I have not done. They were done in our inclination to them; and even that inclination needs God, mercy. Nor are we onelyonly apt to all evill: but we are also reprobate, and indisposed to all grace, and goodnesse: yea, to all the meanes thereof. we are not onelyonly weake, but altogether so dead in sinne; that we cannot stirre the least joynt, no not so much as feele our deadnesse, nor desire life: we can no more turne our selves, then we could at first make our selves. And as God did at first make us, so he must new make us, or we shall everlastingly perish. Yea, except God bestow upon us daily privative grace to desend us from evill; and daily positive grace, inabling us to doe good: we are utterly undone. We have ability, we have will enough to undoe our selves: scope enough Hell-ward, but neither motion, nor will to doe good. Our understandings are darkned, and dulled; our judgements blinded, our wills perverted, our memories disordered, our affections corrupted, our reason depraved, our thoughts surprised, our desires intraped; and all the faculties, and functions of our soules: yea, our very natures are no better then poysoned: as every sanctified heart both feeles, and will freely confesse, as did David and Paul. And this let me tell thee, that if ever thou obtainest the grace, truly, and orderly to repent of thy sinnes: thou wilt begin here, as esteeming it the mother and nurse of all the rest: the puddle or spring of all other sinnes. The most soul, and hatefull, secret, deceitfull, and powerfull evill, Psal. 51. 5. Rom. 7 23, 24. This is the great wheele in the Clocke, that sets all the wheeles a moving, while it seemes to move slowest.