For even now we see, by a sad experience, that the afflicted and the miserable are not only apt to anger and envy, but have many more desires and more weaknesses, and consequently more aptnesses to sin in many instances than those who are less troubled. And this is that which was said by Arnobius; 'proni ad culpas, et ad libidinis varios appetitos vitio sumus infirmitatis ingenitæ'. No. Arnobius never said so good and wise a thing in his lifetime. His quoted words have no such profound meaning. Ib. s. vii. p. 78. That which remained was a reasonable soul, fitted for the actions of life and reason, but not of anything that was supernatural. What Taylor calls reason I call understanding, and give the name reason to that which Taylor would have called spirit. Ib. s. xii. p. 84. And all that evil which is upon us, being not by any positive infliction, but by privative, or the taking away gifts, and blessings, and graces from us, which God, not having promised to give, was neither naturally, nor by covenant, obliged to give,--it is certain he could not be obliged to continue that to the sons of a sinning father, which to an innocent father he was not obliged to give. Oh! certainly not, if hell were not attached to acts and omissions, which without these very graces it is morally impossible for men to avoid. Why will not Taylor speak out? Ib. s. xiv. p. 85. The doctrine of the ancient Fathers was that free will remained in us after the Fall. Yea! as the locomotive faculty in a man in a strait waistcoat. Neither St. Augustine nor Calvin denied the remanence of the will in the fallen spirit; but they, and Luther as well as they, objected to the flattering epithet 'free' will. In the only Scriptural sense, as concerning the unregenerate, it is implied in the word will, and in this sense, therefore, it is superfluous and tautologic; and, in any other sense, it is the fruit and final end of Redemption,--the glorious liberty of the Gospel. Ib. s. xvi. p. 92. For my part I believe this only as certain, that nature alone cannot bring them to heaven, and that Adam left us in a state in which we could not hope for it. This is likewise my belief, and that man must have had a Christ, even if Adam had continued in Paradise--if indeed the history of Adam be not a 'mythos'; as, but for passages in St. Paul, we should most of us believe; the serpent speaking, the names of the trees, and so on; and the whole account of the creation in the first chapter of Genesis seems to me clearly to say:--"The literal fact you could not comprehend if it were related to you; but you may conceive of it as if it had taken place thus and thus." Ib. s. 1. p. 166. That in some things our nature is cross to the divine commandment, is not always imputable to us, because our natures were before the commandment.