[Nature] is[1] that which both holds the world together and which makes things on the earth grow. Or as follows: [nature is] a condition which is moved by itself in accordance with the seminal reasons, that which completes and holds together the things coming from it at determined periods of time, and which performs those activities from which they are distinguished. And nature aims at utility, as is obvious from craftsmanship of heaven.[2]
Or nature is a principle of the whole, it is both the motion and rest of each existing thing.[3] For example, earth is set in motion in the process of growing, breeding and, in general, being altered. However, it is at rest in respect to the change from one place to another, since it is completely immovable and untraveling. Now they call 'nature' the substantial principle (that is to say the 'natural') of such a motion and rest, namely the principle that inheres in earth not incidentally. But they have not called 'nature' the motion itself and the rest of things, but 'principle', that is 'cause', in virtue of which substances are set in motion and rest not incidentally but substantially.
But when the Apostle says 'we were the offspring of anger by nature, just like the rest,[4] he does not express in this assertion the meaning of nature (since the accusation would be against the one responsible for doing it); what he means is the abiding, long-lasting, bad disposition: a perverse habit.