A treatise of original sin ... proving that it is

WE proceed therefore to make a further discovery of the bondage of the will to sin, and that it hath no liberty, no power or ability to do any thing that is truly godly; If we take notice of all those ways, wherein learned men do place liberty or freedom of will, we shall find evidently, that none of these descriptions, or definitions are any ways competent to the will, while it is unsanctified; For,

WE proceed therefore to make a further discovery of the bondage of the will to sinne, and that it hath no liberty, no power or ability to do any thing that is truly godly; If we take notice of all those wayes, wherein learned men do place liberty or freedome of will, we shall find evidently, that none of these descriptions, or definitions are any wayes competent to the will, while it is unsanctified; For,

First, if that opinion be received, (which Bellarmine and others follow) That liberty is radically in the understanding, though formally in the will, (that is) the reason of the wills liberty is from the understanding, which doth propound several objects, and thereupon the will is indeterminate, whereas in beasts their appetite is plainly limited, because they want reason; as it is arbitrium, so (they say) it is in intellectu, as liberum so in voluntate. Now (I say) let this be received (for I do not dispute the truth of it) then we must say, The will hath no liberty to what is good, because it faileth in the root; The stream cannot run, when the spring is dried up; for if we take the understanding in respect of spiritual, and heavenly things, so it is altogether darkened and blinded; Therefore there is the grace of illumination required that it may know and believe the things of God, without which men love and delight in darkness rather then light: The things of God are said to be foolishness to a natural man; so that all the while a man hath no more then nature in him, he is like those birds that can see in the night, but are blind in the day; They have quick and sharp apprehensions in worldly and earthly matters, but are altogether stupid and senseless in regard of heavenly; How then can the will be free, when the mind is altogether dark; for God in conversion, when he will set the will and affections at liberty from sin, begins first in the understanding, light in the mind is first created, there are holy thoughts and spiritual convictions wrought in the soul, and by this light the other parts of the soul they come to be sanctified; now then if there be not so much as this antecedaneous work upon the mind, the will is as yet very far from the Kingdom of heaven? Wonder not then if ye see unregenerate men walking and stumbling in the dark; that you see them so captivated unto every lust; you may as soon remove a mountain out of its