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Human nature in its fourfold state ... In several practical discourses
Human nature in its fourfold state ... In several practical discourses. / By Mr. Thomas Boston, late Minister of the Gospel at Etterick.
United States : s.n. Printed for the booksellers., M,DCC,LXXXVII. 1787
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
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.
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 loaths the Physician. He is a captive, a prisoner, and a slave; but he loves his conqueror, his jailor 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.
Evidence 1. The untowardness of children. Do we not see them naturally, lovers of sinful liberty! How unwilling are they to be hedged in? How averse to restraint? The world can bear witness, that they are, as bullocks unaccustomed to the yoke; and more, that it is far easier to bring young bullocks tamely to bear the yoke; than to bring young children under discipline, and make them tamely submit to the restraint of sinful liberty. Every body may see in this, as in a glass, that man is naturally wild and wilful, according to Zophar's observe,