A treatise of original sin ... proving that it is, by pregnant texts of Scripture vindicated from false glosses / by Anthony Burgess.

SECT. II.

What is implied in that Expression, So easily beset us.

LEt us take notice, What is contained in this excellent and emphatical word. And

First, There is implied our utmost impotency and inability to shake off the power of it. For although the Apostle exhorteth us to lay it aside, yet that must be understood as a duty alwayes in doing, that we are neverable to compleat¦fully and perfectly; You see, though they are godly to whom he writeth, and they are already in the race, yet it is their work daily to be unburdenning of them∣selves: When therefore it's called, The sinne so easily besetting us, hereby is taught us our inability and insufficiency to withstand it; Insomuch that all those Doctrines, which teach Free-will, and a power to do what is good, are justly to be abandoned, John 15. when separated from Christ, we cannot do any thing, and therefore are said to be not asleep, but even dead in sinne; so that no Infant new born is more unable to help it self, than we are to promote the good of our own souls. This therefore must be laid as a foundation, without this our humi∣liation doth not goe deep enough; We are to lie bemoaning our selves, as that poor Cripple, which had no power to put himself into the water; And indeed till we be sensible of this impotency, we cannot expect that Christ will help us; When that Cripple said, He had no man, than our Saviour relieved him: Oh then, bewail the strait and misery thou art in If it were a temporal calamity thou wert in, and such as neither thou thy self, or any man in the world could help thee, How greatly would it afflict thee? But now though neither men or Angels can deliver thee out of this spiritual evil, yet thou doest not lay it to heart.

Secondly, As it densteth that our power to good is lost by this original sinne;

So also our will and desire: For why should it be said to beset us so easily? But because we have neither power or will against it; so that till the principle of Re∣generation be infused into us; sinne hath defiled our will, as well as our power; as we cannot, so neither we will not gain say the lusts thereof. We must not then conceive of man, as indeed miserably polluted, and such as cannot help himself, but is very willing, and heartily desireth to be freed from this bondage, but his will is as grosly polluted, as any thing, He willeth not the things of God, he loveth not, yea he hateth every thing that is spiritual and holy; Insomuch that we may truly say, That the actual wickednesse in mens lives, doth not onely arise from weaknesse and impotency to what is holy, but from an unwillingnesse, and an aversnesse to it. Though they be allured with the glorious promises of Gods favour, and eternal glory; Though the terrors of God, and the everlasting flames of hell be set before them, yet they will not; Though their consciences be convicted, though the word of God be plain against their lusts, so that they cannot tell what to say, yet they will not: So that herein lieth the sad and dreadfull efficacy of original sinne, that it hath cor∣rupted the will all over, so that whereas we will the lusts of the flesh, the pleasures of sinne, the comforts of the world, we have no will to what is good: If then the will, which is the appetitus universalis, and like the primum mobile, that doth carry all the inferiour orbs with it, be thus infected with sinne, no wonder if we be easily beset by it: This is to bribe the Commander in Chief, that ruleth all, and so it is no wonder, if all be at last betrayed into the hands of sinne and Satan.

Thirdly, When original sinne is said thus to beset us, and compasse us about, hereby is denoted, What an impediment and hinderance it is to us in our way to Heaven, that were it not for this clog upon us, we should with all chear∣fulness and alacrity runne the way of Gods Commandments. It is this that makes the Chariot-wheels of the soul move so slowly; It is this that stops us in the way, that makes us draw back.