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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.
Thirdly, There is in the will of man a natural proneness to evil, a woeful bent towards sin. Men naturally are bent to backsliding from God, Hos. ii 7. They hang (as the word is) towards backsliding; even as a hanging wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant. Set holiness and life upon the one side, sin and death upon the other; leave the unrenewed will to itself, it will choose sin, and reject holiness. This is no more to be doubted, than that water, poured on the side of a hill, will run downward but not upward, or that a flame will ascend and not descend.
Thirdly, There is in the will of man a natural proneness to evil, a woful bent towards sin. Men naturally are bent to backsliding from God, Hos. ii 7. They hang (as the word is) towards backsliding; even as a hanging wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant. Set holiness and life upon the one side, sin and death upon the other; leave the unrenewed will to itself, it will chuse sin, and reject holiness. This is no more to be doubted, than that water, poured on the side of a hill, will run downward but not upward, or that a flame will ascend and not descend.
Evidence 1. Is not the way of evil the first way the children of men do go! Do not their inclinations plainly appear on the wrong side, while yet they have no cunning to hide them? In the first opening of our eyes in the world, we look a-squint, hell-ward, not heaven-ward. As soon as it appears we are reasonable creatures, it appears we are sinful creatures, Psal. lviii. 3. The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born. Prov. xxii. 15. Foolishness is b•d in the heart of a child: but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. Folly is bound in the heart, it is woven into our very nature. The knot will not loose, they must be broken asunder by strokes. Words will not do it, the rod must be taken to drive it away: and if it be not driven far away, the heart and it will meet and knit again. Not that the rod of itself will do this: the sad experience of many parents testifies the contrary: and Solomon himself tells you,