ON HOSEA XIV.- -VEItSE S. 233 to the condition of its created being, wherein it was so made, as when it chose one part of a contradiction, it retained an inward and fundamental habitude unto the other, like those gates which are so made, as that they open both ways. So that as the tongue which was wont to swear or blaspheme, when it is converted, loth by the force of the same faculty of speaking, being newly sanctified, utter holy and gracious speeches: so the will, which being corrupted did choose evil, and only evil, being sanctified, doth use the same manner of operation in choosing that which is good : the created nature of it remaining still one and the same, but being now guided and sanctified by dif- ferent principles. This we speak only with respect to the natural manner of its working ; for if we speak of liberty in a moral or theological sense, so it is cer- tain, that the more the will of man doth observe the right order of its proper objects, and last end, the more free and noble it is, (the very highest perfection of free will standing in an immutable adherency unto God, as the ultimate end of the creature, and all ability of receding or falling from him being the de- ficiency and not the perfection of free will.) And therefore the more the will of man doth cast off and reject God, the more base, servile, and captive it grows. In which sense we affirm against the papists, that by nature man since the fall of Adam, hath no free will or natural power to believe and turn unto God, or to prepare himself thereunto. II. In man fallen, and being thereby universally in all his faculties leavened with vicious and malignant principles, there is a native pravity and corrupt force, which putteth forth itself in resisting all those power- ful workings of the word and Spirit of grace, that oppose themselves against the body of sin, and move u3
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