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

Evid. 2. Let those, who, by the power of the spirit of bondage, having had the law laid out before them, in its spirituality, for their conviction speak and tell, if they found themselves able to incline their hearts towards it, in that case; nay, if the more that light shone into their souls, they did not find their hearts more and more unable to comply with it. There are some, who have been brought unto the place of the breaking forth, who are yet in the devil's camp, that from their experience can tell, light let into the mind, cannot give life to the will, to enable it to comply therewith: and could give their testimony here, if they would. But take Paul's testimony concerning it, who, in his unconverted state, was far from believing his utter inability for good; but learned it by experience, Rom. vi.• 9.10, 11, 1•. I own, the natural man may have a kind of love to the law: but here lies the stress of the matter, he looks on the holy law in a carnal dress: and so, while he hugs a creature of his own fancy, he thinks he has the law, but in very deed he is without the ⟨p. 60⟩law: for as yet he sees it not in its spirituality: if he did, he would find it the very reverse of his own nature, and what his will could not fall in with, till changed by the power of grace.

Secondly, There is in the unrenewed will an averseness to good. Sin is the natural man's element; he is loath to part with it, as the fishes are to come out of the water into dry land. He not only cannot come to Christ, but he will not come, John v. 40. He is polluted, and hates to be washen, Jer. xiii. 27 Wilt thou not be made clean? When shall it once be? He is sick, but utterly averse to the remedy: he loves his disease so, that he loathes the Physician. He is a captive, a prisoner, and a slave; but he loves his conqueror, his jailer and master: he is fond of his fetters, prison and drudgery; and has no liking to his liberty. For evidence of this averseness to good, in the will of man, I shall instance in some particulars.