an cum te dominum cunctis, quaecumquecrearat, praeficeret mundumque tuis servire iuberet imperiis, cumque arva, polum, mare, flumina,ventos dederet, arbitrium de te tibi credere avarus nollet ut indigno libertatemque negaret? quale erat electus magni rex orbis ut esset non rex ipse sui, curto foedatus honore? nam quis honos domini est, cuius mens libera nonest, una sed inpositae servit sententia legi? quae laus porro hominis vel quod meritum, sine certo inter utramque viam discrimine vivere iuste? non fit sponte bonus, cui non est prompta potestas velle aliud flexosque animi convertere sensus.
When God made thee lord over all his creation and bade the world be the servant of thy commands, when He gave up to thee land and sky and sea and streams and winds, would He grudge and refuse to entrust thee with control over thyself because He deemed thee unworthy of it, and deny thee freedom? What sort of honour had it been to have been chosen ruler of the great world but not ruler of oneself, bearing the slur of a privilege that was abridged? For what is the honour of a lord whose mind is not free, but whose will obeys a law imposed on it, and cannot vary? And what credit or merit belongs to man in living righteously if he has not to make a definite choice between two paths? A man does not become good of his own will if he has not the power in his discretion to will something else and to divert his sentiments into an opposite course.
final_alignments\Prudentius_Origin_Of_Sin.json