Play

Westminster Confession of Faith

Chapter 9: Of Free Will

1
God hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty, that is neither forced nor by any absolute necessity of nature determined to good or evil.
1
2
Man, in his state of innocency, had freedom and power to will and to do that which is good and well-pleasing to God,
1
but yet mutably, so that he might fall from it.
2
3
Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation;
1
so as a natural man, being altogether averse from that good,
2
and dead in sin,
3
is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto.
4
4
When God converts a sinner, and translates him into the state of grace, he freeth him from his natural bondage under sin,
1
and by his grace alone enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good;
2
yet so as that, by reason of his remaining corruption, he doth not perfectly, nor only, will that which is good, but doth also will that which is evil.
3
5
The will of man is made perfectly and immutably free to good alone, in the state of glory only.
1