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CHAP. IV.
Of the Pollution of the VVill of man by Origi∣nal Sinne.
SECT. I.
Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
THe original pollution of the Vnderstanding, Conscience and Memory, hath been largely and fully discovered; We now proceed to the other part or power of the rational soul, which is the will; That is in the soul like the primum mobile in the Heavens, that doth carry all the inferiour orbs away in its own motion, or like the fire among the elements that doth as∣simulate every thing else to it self. This is the whole of a man; A man is not what he knoweth, or what he remembreth, but what he willeth; The understanding is but as a Connsellour; The will is as the Queen sitting upon its Throne, exercising its dominion over the other parts of the soul; The will is the proper subject and seat of all our sinne, and if there could be a Summum malum, as there is a Summum bonum, this would be in the will. Seeing therefore that our will is the master power of the soul, and is to that, what the heart is to the body, the principle of all motion and action, the more we find this will, tho∣rowly infected with sinne, the greater will our misery appear: Neither mayest thou fear that the doctrinal discovery of that poisoned fountain in thee, and the representation of thy soulness and loath somness upon thee may discourage thee, but hereby thou wilt be brought to loath thy self, and admire the riches of grace in Christ, which shall pardon and glorifie such a noisome wretch as thou art by nature. Indeed Lorinus (Comment. in 17. chap. Act.) relateth of Ptolomy King of Aegypt, that he banished one Hegesius a Philosopher and eloquent Orator, because he did so pathetically and sensibly Declaim upon the miseries of mans life, that many were thereby cast into such grief, that they made away themselves; but our end in discovering of this universal leprosie of sinne upon us by nature, is to bring us into an holy despair of our selves, a renouncing of our righteousness, that so Christ may be all in all.
Come we then to make inquiry into the original pollution of our will, which is a subject of very large territories; The Disputes about it are voluminous, but I shall be as brief, as the nature of this truth will permit, and whereas concerning the will, we may consider the nature of it absolutely, in its proper works and