CHAPTER XIV.
OF FREE-WILL.
"The condition of Man after the fall of Adam is such that he cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and good works, to faith, and calling upon God: wherefore we have no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a goodwill, and working with us, when we have that goodwill."—Article X.
§ 1. "If our creation is hateful, the fault is the Creator's; but if our free-will is evil, we alone are reprovable. If we have no freedom, why is our will accountable? If we have no freedom, the will is unjustly condemned; but if there be freedom, the will is justly made accountable. Accountability is the inseparable companion of freedom, and the law is bound up with the two. Freedom is accountable for this reason, because it has transgressed the limits fixed by the Lawgiver. What profit is it to the Creator, who is the Truth, to lie unto us by giving us the law without giving us freedom? [or free-will.] Let truth be set up, let it question and be questioned, whether our Creator gave us freedom or not. Accountability and responsibility are the offsprings of freedom, and searching out and inquiry, which is its sister, are the daughters of freedom." From the service appointed in the Khudhra for the sixth Sunday in Lent.
§ 2. "After God had created man a reasonable image, a wonderful temple, and a bond of the universe, in short, a small world existing in the great world, He took from him a rib and made therewith woman, and placed them in the delectable paradise of Eden which He had prepared for them, and commanded them that they might eat of all the trees in paradise, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they were not to eat.
