A Treatise of Freewill
An examination of freewill. By Ralph Cudworth, D.D. (1617-1688). Edited from the original MS., and with notes by John Allen. Printed in 1838.
“...Whereas the true liberty of a man, as it speaks pure perfection, is when by the right use of the faculty of freewill, together with the assistances of Divine grace, he is habitually fixed in moral good, or such a state of mind as that he doth freely, readily, and easily comply with the law of the Divine life, taking a pleasure in complacence thereunto, and having an aversation to the contrary: or when the law of the spirit of life hath made him free from the law of sin, which is the death of the soul. But when, by the abuse of that natural faculty of freewill, men come to be habitually fixed in evil and sinful inclinations, then are they, as Boëthius well expresses it, propri libertati captivi, made captive and brought into bondage by their own freewill, and obnoxious to Divine justice and displeasure for the same. Whosoever customarily committeth sin, which is by his own freewill abused or perversely used, contrary to the design of God and nature in bestowing the same upon us, is thereby made the servant of it, and deprived of that true state of liberty which is a man’s perfection.”