Human nature in its fourfold state ... In several practical discourses

Of the Corruption of the Will.

II. The will, that commanding faculty, (which sometimes was faithful, and ruled with God) is now turned traitor, and rules with, and for the devil. God plan•ed it in man wholly a right seed; but now it is turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine. It was originally placed in a due subordination to the will of God, as was shown before, but now it is gone wholly aside. However some do magnify the power of free-will, a view of the spirituality of the law, to which acts of moral discipline do in no ways answer; and a deep insight into the corruption of nature, given by the inward operation of the Spirit, convincing of sin, righteousness and judgment, would make men find an absolute need of the power of free-grace, to remove the bands of wickedness from off the free-will. To open up this plague of the heart, I offer these following things to be considered.

II. The will, that commanding faculty, (which sometimes was faithful, and ruled with God) is now turned traitor, and rules with, and for the devil. God plan•ed it in man wholly a right seed; but now it is turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine. It was originally placed in a due subordination to the will of God, as was shewn before, but now it is gone wholly aside. However some do magnify the power of free-will, a view of the spirituality of the law, to which acts of moral discipline do in no ways answer; and a deep insight into the corruption of nature, given by the inward operation of the Spirit, convincing of sin, righteousness and judgment, would make men find an absolute need of the power of free-grace, to remove the bands of wickedness from off the free-will. To open up this plague of the heart, I offer these following things to be considered.