nefs and willingness, without any force of compulfion. The will of the Devil is baf fed only to that which is evil, without the leaft inclination to that which is good, and yet moves freely in the highest acts of fa and malice. The will of man, confider'd ia every ftate he has been, is, or fhall be in, is determined to good or evil, and does not ftand in equilibrio, in an indifference to either. The will of man, in a ftate of innocence, was indeed mutable, and capable of being wrought upon and hotted to evil, as the event shews; yet, drite an fhure, was entirely bent or tar vUCH A KVA, and acted freely, and with an SAGIS

in obedience to the commas will of mac. i til lun addicted to fefel

things, nor can it be mov'd to that which is finful; and yet as they ferve the Lord conftantly, fo with all freedom and liberty. Confider therefore, the will in every rank of beings, its liberty does not confist in an indifference or indetermination to good and evil.

3. The liberty of the will is confiftent with fome kind of neceffity. God neceffarily, and yet freely, hates that which is evil, and loves that which is good. Chrift, as man, was under fome kind of neceffity of fulfilling all righteousness, and yet performed it voluntarily. The will of man is free from a physical or natural neceffity; it does not act and move by a neceffity of nature, as many creatures do. So the fun, moon, and ftars, move in their courfe; fire, by a phyfical neceffity, burns; light things afcend upwards, and heavy bodies move downwards. Moreover, it is free from a neceffity of coaction or force; the will cannot be forced; nor is it even by the powerful, efficacious, and unfruftrable operation of God's grace conversion; for though before, it was unwilling to fubmit to Chrift and his way of falvation, yet it is made willing in the day of his power, without offering the least violence to it; God working upon it, as Au- ftin says, Cum fuavi omnipotentia, & omnipotenti fuavitate, with a fweet omnipotence, and an omnipotent fweetness: But then the

in

will

thens the infor

Great in de

cutes its WR TETT.

abominations;

y, kur licentioulted

man joks upon ligation to t Gou; yet this te

the liberty

the law of God over, there is schoolmen call

which reiceste

neceffar me

that is

will: Fr

and yet men never acted more freely as well as more wickedly than the Jews did in al the parts and circumstances of that tragical scene. So that the liberty of the will is confiftent with some kind of neceffity, yea, even with fome kind of fervitude. A fervant may ferve his mafter freely and voluntarily, as the Hebrew fervant that was unwilling to part from his matter when his time of fervitude was expired. A wicked man, who commits fin, gives up himself wholly to it, is a fervant of it, yet acts freely in all his fhameful and finful fervices; even at the fame time he is a flave to those lufts and pleasures he chooses and delights in; which made Luther call free-will Servum arbitrium.

4. The confideration of the will of man in the feveral ftates of innocence, the fall, regeneration and glorification, ferves much to lead us into the true nature and notion of the liberty and power of it. Man, in his state of innocence, had both a power and will to do that which was naturally and morally good; though his will was left mutable, and fo through temptation might be inclined to evil, at which door came in the fin and fall of man. Man, in his fallen ftate, is wholly under the power and dominion of fin, is a captive under it, and a flave unto it, and has neither a power nor will to that which is fpiritually good. Man, in a flate of regene

ration,