The Soul's Conflict with Itself

If the will would use that sovereignty it should, and could at the first, we should be altogether freed from this necessity. Men are not damned because they cannot do better, but because they will do no better; If there were no will ⟨p. 163⟩there would be no hell; For men willingly submit to the rule and law of sin, ¹they plead for it, and like it so well, as they hate nothing so much as that which any way withstandeth those lawless laws.

If the will would use that soveraigntie it should, and could at the first, wee should bee altogether freed from this necessity. Men are not damned because they cannot do better, but because they will do no better; If there were no will ⟨p. 163⟩there would be no hell; For men willingly submit to the rule and law of sin, ¹they plead for it, and like it so well, as they hate nothing so much as that which any way withstandeth those lawlesse lawes.

1. 1C•sset voluntas propria & non erit infernus

Those that think it their happiness to do what they will, that they might be free, cross their own desires, for this is the way to make them most perfect slaves. When our will is the next immediate cause of sin, and our consciences bear witness to us that it is so; then conscience is ready to take Gods part in accusing our selves: Our consciences tell us to our faces, that we might do more then we do to hinder sin; and that when we sin, it is not through weakness, but out of the wickedness of our nature: