CHAPTER 11.

WHETHER SALVATION MAY BE ATTAINED
WITHOUT THE KNOWLEDGE OF, OR FAITH IN, CHRIST JESUS.

It shall shut up all this discourse concerning the meritorious cause of salvation, with their shutting out of Christ from being the only one and absolutely necessary means to bring us unto heaven, to make us happy. This is the last pile they erect upon their Babylonish foundation, which makes the idol of human self-sufficiency every way perfect, and fit to be sacrificed unto. Until these proud builders, to get materials for their own temple, laid the axe to the root of Christianity, we took it for granted that “there is no salvation in any other,” because “there is none other name under heaven given unto men whereby we must be saved,” Acts 4:12. Neither yet shall their nefarious attempts frighten us from our creed, nor make us be wanting to the defense of our Savior’s honor. But I shall be very brief in the consideration of this heterodoxy, nothing doubting but that to have repeated it is fully to have confuted it, in the judgment of all pious Christians.

First, then, They grant salvation to the ancient patriarchs and Jews, before the coming of Christ, without any knowledge of or faith in him at all; nay, they deny that any such faith in Christ was ever prescribed unto them or required of them. [i] [1] “It is certain that there is no place in the Old Testament from whence it may appear that faith in Christ as a Redeemer was ever enjoined or found in any of them,” say they jointly in their Apology; the truth of which assertion we shall see hereafter. Only they grant a general faith, involved under types and shadows, and looking on the promise as it lay hid in the goodness and providence of God, which indirectly might be called a faith in Christ: from which kind of faith I see no reason why thousands of heathen infidels should be excluded. Agreeable unto these assertions are the dictates of their patriarch Arminius, affirming, [ii] [2] “that the whole description of the faith of Abraham, Romans 4, makes no mention of Jesus Christ, either expressly or so implicitly as that it may be of any one easily understood.” And to the testimony of Christ himself to the contrary, John 8:56, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it, and was glad,” he answereth, “He rejoiced to see the birth of Isaac, who was a type of me,” — a goodly gloss, corrupting the text.

Secondly, What they teach of the Jews, that also they grant concerning the Gentiles living before the incarnation of Christ; they also might attain salvation, and be justified without his knowledge. [iii] [3] “For although,” saith Corvinus, “the covenant was not revealed unto them by the same means that it was unto the Jews, yet they are not to be supposed to be excluded from the covenant” (of grace), “nor to be excluded from salvation; for some way or other they were called.”

Thirdly, They are come at length to that perfection in setting out this stain of Christianity, that Bertius, on good consideration, denied this proposition, [iv] [4] “That no man can be saved that is not ingrafted into Christ by a true faith;” and Venator to this question, [v] [5] “Whether the only means of salvation be the life, passion, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ?” answereth, “No.” Thus they lay men in Abraham’s bosom who never believed in the Son of Abraham; make them overcome the serpent who never heard of the Seed of the woman; bring goats into heaven, who never were of the flock of Christ, never entered by him, the door; make men please God without faith, and obtain the remission of sins without the sprinkling of the blood of the Lamb,—to be saved without a Savior, redeemed without a Redeemer,—to become the sons of God, and never know their elder Brother;—which prodigious error might yet be pardoned, and ascribed to human imbecility, had it casually slipped from their pens, as it did from some others.[vi] [6] But seeing it hath foundation in all the grounds of their new doctrine, and is maintained by them on mature deliberation,[vii] [7] it must be looked on by all Christians as a heresy to be detested and accursed. For, first, deny the contagion and demerit of original sin; then make the covenant of grace to be universal, and to comprehend all and every one of the posterity of Adam; thirdly, grant a power in ourselves to come unto God by any such means as he will appoint, and affirm that he doth assign some means unto all,—and it will naturally follow that the knowledge of Christ is not absolutely necessary to salvation, and so down falls the preeminence of Christianity; its heaven-reaching crown must be laid level with the services of dunghill gods.[viii] [8] 

It is true, indeed, some of the ancient fathers, before the rising of the Pelagian heresy,—who had so put on Christ, as Lipsius speaks, that they had not fully put off Plato,—have unadvisedly dropped some speeches seeming to grant that divers men before the incarnation, living meta< lo>gou, “according to the dictates of right reason,” might be saved without faith in Christ; as is well showed by learned Casaubon in his first exercitation on Baronius. But let this be accounted part of that stubble which shall burn at the last day, wherewith the writings of all men not divinely inspired may be stained. It hath also since (as what hath not?) been drawn into dispute among the wrangling schoolmen; and yet, which is rarely seen, their verdict in this particular almost unanimously passeth for the truth. Aquinas[ix] [9] tells us a story of the corpse of a heathen, that should be taken up in the time of the Empress Irene and her son Constantine, with a golden plate on his breast, wherein was this inscription:—“Christ is born of a virgin, and I believe in him. O sun, thou shalt see me again in the days of Irene and Constantine.” But the question is not, Whether a Gentile believing in Christ may be saved? or whether God did not reveal himself and his Son extraordinarily to some of them? for shall we straiten the breast and shorten the arm of the Almighty, as though he might not do what he will with his own; but, Whether a man by the conduct of nature, without the knowledge of Christ, may come to heaven? the assertion whereof we condemn as a wicked, Pelagian, Socinian heresy, and think that it was well said of Bernard, [x] [10] “That many laboring to make Plato a Christian, do prove themselves to be heathens.” And if we look upon the several branches of this Arminian novel doctrine, extenuating the precious worth and necessity of faith in Christ, we shall find them hewed off by the two-edged sword of God’s word.

FIRST, For their denying the patriarchs and Jews to have had faith “in Christum exhibendum et moriturum,” as we in him “exhibitum et mortuum,” it is disproved,—

First, By all evangelical promises made from the beginning of the world to the birth of our Savior; as that, Genesis 3:15, “The seed of the woman shall break the serpent’s head;” and chapter 12:3, 49:10; Psalm 2:7,8,110; with innumerable others concerning his life, office, and redeeming of his people: for surely they were obliged to believe the promises of God.

Secondly, By those many clear expressions of his death, passion, and suffering for us, as Genesis 3:15; Isaiah 53:6-10, etc., 63:1-3; Daniel 9:26. But what need we reckon any more? Our Savior taught his disciples that all the prophets from Moses spake concerning him, and that the sole reason why they did not so readily embrace the faith of his passion and resurrection was because they believed not the prophets, Luke 24:25,26; showing plainly that the prophets required faith in his death and passion.

Thirdly, By the explicit faith of many Jews, as of old Simeon, Luke 2:34; of the Samaritan woman, who looked for a Messiah, not as an earthly king, but as one that should “tell them all things,”—redeem them from sin, and tell them all such things as Christ was then discoursing of, concerning the worship of God, John 4:25.

Fourthly, By the express testimony of Christ himself. “Abraham,” saith he, “rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it, and was glad,” John 8:56. His day, his hour, in the Scripture, principally denote his passion. And that which he saw surely he believed, or else the father of the faithful was more diffident than Thomas, the most incredulous of his children.

Fifthly, By these following, and the like places of Scripture: Christ is a “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,” Revelation 13:8; slain in promises, slain in God’s estimation and in the faith of believers. He is “the same yesterday, and today, and for ever,” Hebrews 13:8, under the law and the gospel. “There is none other name under heaven given unto men, whereby we must be saved,” Acts 4:12. Never any, then, without the knowledge of a Redeemer, participation of his passion, communication of his merits, did ever come to the sight of God; no man ever came to the Father but by him. Hence St Paul tells the Ephesians that they were “without Christ,” because they were “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel,” Ephesians 2:12; intimating that God’s covenant with the Jews included Christ Jesus and his righteousness no less than it doth now with us. On these grounds holy Ignatius called Abel [xi] [11] “A martyr of Christ;” he died for his faith in the promised Seed. And in another place, [xii] [12] “All the saints were saved by Christ; hoping in him, and waiting on him, they obtained salvation by him.” So Prosper, also, [xiii] [13] “We must believe that never any man was justified by any other faith, either before the law or under the law, than by faith in Christ coming to save that which was lost.” Whence Eusebius contendeth [xiv] [14] that all the old patriarchs might properly be called Christians; they all ate of the same spiritual meat, and all drank of the same spiritual drink, even of the rock that followed them, which rock was Christ.

SECONDLY, If the ancient people of God, notwithstanding divers other especial revelations of his will and heavenly instructions, obtained not salvation without faith in Christ, much less may we grant this happiness without him to them who were deprived of those other helps also. So that though we confess the poor natural endeavors of the heathen not to have wanted their reward (either positive in this life, by outward prosperity, and inward calmness of mind, in that they were not all perplexed and agitated with furies, like Nero and Caligula; or negative in the life to come, by a diminution of the degrees of their torments,—they shall not be beaten with so many stripes), yet we absolutely deny that there is any saving mercy of God towards them revealed in the Scripture, which should give us the least intimation of their attaining everlasting happiness. For, not to consider the corruption and universal disability of nature to do anything that is good (“without Christ we can do nothing,” John 15:5), nor yet the sinfulness of their best works and actions, the “sacrifice of the wicked being an abomination unto the LORD,” Proverbs 15:8 (“Evil trees cannot bring forth good fruit; men do not gather grapes of thorns, nor figs of thistles,” Matthew 7:16, 17);—the word of God is plain, that “without faith it is impossible to please God, Hebrews 11:6; that “he that believeth not is condemned,” Mark 16:16; that no nation or person can be blessed but in the Seed of Abraham, Genesis 12:3. And the “blessing of Abraham” comes upon the Gentiles only “through Jesus Christ,” Galatians 3:14. He is “the way, the truth, and the life,” John 14:6. “None cometh to the Father but by him.” He is the “door,” by which those that do not enter are “without,” with “dogs and idolaters,” Revelation 22:15. So that “other foundation” of blessedness “can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ,” 1 Corinthians 3:11. In brief, do but compare these two places of St. Paul, Romans 8:30, where he showeth that none are glorified but those that are called; and Romans 10:14, 15, where he declares that all calling is instrumentally by the preaching of the word and gospel; and it will evidently appear that no salvation can be granted unto them on whom the Lord hath so far poured out his indignation as to deprive them of the knowledge of the sole means thereof, Christ Jesus. And to those that are otherwise minded, I give only this necessary caution,—Let them take heed, lest, whilst they endeavor to invent new ways to heaven for others, by so doing, they lose the true way themselves.

ENDNOTES:

[xv]  [1] “Certum est locum nullum esse, unde appareat fidem istam, sub Vet. Test., praeceptam fuisse ant viguisse.”—Rem. Apol., cap. 7. p. 91.

[xvi]  [2] “Consideretur omnis descriptio fidei Abrahae, Romans 4; et apparebit in illa Jesu Christi non fieri mentionem, expresse, sed illa tantum implicatione, quam explicare cuivis non est facile.”—Armin. “Gavisus est videre natalem Isaac, qui fuit typus mei.”—Idem.

[xvii]  [3] “Gentes sub Veteri Testamento viventes licet ipsis ista ratione qua Judaeis non fuit revelatum, non tamen inde continuo ex faedere absolute exclusae sunt, nec a salute praecise exclusi judicari debent, quia aliquo saltem mode vocantur.”—Corv. Defens. Armin. ad Tilen., p. 107.

[xviii]  [4] “Nego hanc propositionem: neminem posse salvari, quam qui Jesu Christo per veram fidem sit insitus.”—Bert, ad Sibrand., p. 133.

[xix]  [5] “Ad hanc queestionem an unica via salutis, sit vita, passio, mors, resurrectio, et as-censio Jesu Christi? respondeo, Non.”—Venat., apud Fest. Hom. et Peltium.

[xx]  [6] Zulng. Profes. Fid. ad Reg. Gall.

[xxi]  [7] Art. of the Church of Eng., art. xvii.

[xxii]  [8] “Nihil magis repugnat fidei, quam sine fide salvum esse posse quempiam hominum.”—Acost. de Indo. Salu. Proc.

[xxiii]  [9] Aquin. 2, 2ae q. 2, a. 7, c.—“ Christus nascitur ex virgine, et ego credo in eum. O sol, sub Irenae et Constantini temporibus iterum me videbis.”

[xxiv] [10] “Dum multum sudant nonnulli, quomodo Platonem faciant Christianum, se probant esse ethnicos.”—Bern. Epist.

[xxv]  [11] Paradoqei>v ge, tw~n dia< Cristo<n ajnairouma>noin, ajpo< tou~ ai]matov ]Azel tou~ dsikai>ou.—Ignat. Epist. ad Ephes. [cap. 12.]

[xxvi]  [12] Pa>ntev ou=n eiJ a[gioi ejn Cristw~| ejsw>qhsan, ejlpi>santav eijv aujto<n kai< aujto<n ajmagei>nantev, kai< di j aujtou~ swthei>av e]tucon.—Epist, ad Philippians [cap. 5.]

[xxvii]  [13] “Non alia fide quemquam hominum, sive ante legem sive legis tempore, justificatum esse, credendum est, quam hac eadem qua Dominus Jesu,” etc.—Prosp. ad Ob. 8., Gallorum.

[xxviii]  [14] “Omnes ergo illos qui ab Abraham sursum versus ad primum hominem, generationis ordine conscribuntur, etsi non nomine, rebus tamen, et religione Christianos fuisse, si quis dicat, non mihi videtur errare.”—Euseb. Hist. Eccles., lib. 1. cap, 4.

CHAPTER 12.

OF FREE-WILL, THE NATURE AND POWER THEREOF.

Our next task is to take a view of the idol himself, of this great deity of free-will, whose original being not well known, he is pretended, like the Ephesian image of Diana, to have fallen down from heaven, and to have his endowments from above. But yet, considering what a nothing he was at his first discovery in comparison of that vast giant-like hugeness to which now he is grown, we may say of him as the painter said of his monstrous picture, which he had mended or rather marred according to everyone’s fancy, “Hunc populus fecit,”—it is the issue of the people’s brain. Origen[xxix] [1] is supposed to have brought him first into the church; but among those many sincere worshippers of divine grace, this setter forth of new demons found but little entertainment. It was looked upon but like the stump of Dagon, with his head and hands laid down before the ark of God, without whose help he could neither know nor do that which is good in any kind, still accounted but “truncus ficulnus, inutile lignum,”—“a fig-tree log, an unprofitable piece of wood.” “Incerti patres scamnum facerentne?” The fathers of the succeeding ages had much debate to what use they should put it, and though some exalted it a degree or two above its merits, yet the most concluded to keep it a block still; until at length there arose a stout champion,[xxx] [2] challenging on his behalf the whole church of God, and, like a knight-errant, wandered from the west to the east to grapple with any that should oppose his idol; who, though he met with divers adversaries,[xxxi] [3] one especially,[xxxii] [4] who in the behalf of the grace of God continually foiled him and cast him to the ground, and that in the judgment of all the lawful judges assembled in councils,[xxxiii] [5] and in the opinion of most of the Christian bystanders,[xxxiv] [6] yet, by his cunning insinuation, he planted such an opinion of his idol’s deity and self-sufficiency in the hearts of divers, that to this day it could never be rooted out.

Now, after the decease of his Pelagian worshippers, some of the corrupter schoolmen, seeing him thus from his birth exposed without shelter to wind and weather, to all assaults, out of mere charity and self-love built him a temple, and adorned it with natural lights, merits, uncontrolled independent operations, with many other gay attendances. But in the beginning of the Reformation,—that fatal time for idolatry and superstition, together with abbeys and monasteries,—the zeal and learning of our forefathers, with the help of God’s word, demolished this temple, and brake this building down to the ground; in the rubbish whereof we well hoped the idol himself had been so deeply buried as that his head should never more have been exalted, to the trouble of the church of God, until not long since some curious wits, whose weak stomachs were clogged with manna and loathed the sincere milk of the word, raking all dunghills for novelties, lighted unhappily upon this idol, and presently, with no less joy than did the mathematician at the discovery of a new geometrical proportion, exclaim, “We have found it! we have found it!” And without more ado, up they erected a shrine, and until this day continue offering of praise and thanks for all the good they do to this work of their own hands.

And that the idol may be free from ruin, to which in himself they have found by experience that he is subject, they have matched him to contingency, a new goddess of their own creation, who, having proved very fruitful in monstrous births upon their conjunctions, they nothing doubt they shall never want one to set on the throne and make president of all human actions: so that after he hath, with various success, at least twelve hundred years, contended with the providence and grace of God, he boasteth now as if he had obtained a total victory. But yet all his prevailing is to be attributed to the diligence and varnish of his new abettors, with (to our shame be it spoken!) the negligence of his adversaries. In him and his cause there is no more real worth than was when by the ancient fathers he was exploded and cursed out of the church: so that they who can attain, through the many winding labyrinths of curious distinctions, to look upon the thing itself, shall find that they have been, like Egyptian novices, brought through many stately frontispieces and goodly fabrics, with much show of zeal and devotion, to the image of an ugly ape.

Yet here observe, that we do not absolutely oppose free-will, as if it were “nomen inane,” a mere figment, when there is no such thing in the world, but only in that sense the Pelagians and Arminians do assert it. About words we will not contend. We grant man, in the substance of all his actions, as much power, liberty, and freedom as a mere created nature is capable of. We grant him to be free in his choice from all outward coaction, or inward natural necessity, to work according to election and deliberation, spontaneously embracing what seemeth good unto him. Now, call this power free-will, or what you please, so you make it not supreme, independent, and boundless, we are not at all troubled. The imposition of names depends upon the discretion of their inventers. Again; even in spiritual things, we deny that our wills are at all debarred, or deprived of their proper liberty: but here we say, indeed, that we are not properly free until the Son makes us free;—no great use of freedom in that wherein we can do nothing at all. We do not claim such a liberty as should make us despise the grace of God,[xxxv] [7] whereby we may attain true liberty indeed; which addeth to, but taketh nothing from, our original freedom. But of this after I have showed what an idol the Arminians make of free-will. Only take notice in the entrance that we speak of it now, not as it was at first by God created, but as it is now by sin corrupted; yet, being considered in that estate also, they ascribe more unto it than it was ever capable of. As it now standeth, according to my formerly-proposed method, I shall show,—first, what inbred native virtue they ascribe unto it, and with how absolute a dominion and sovereignty over all our actions they endow it; secondly, what power they say it hath in preparing us for the grace of God; thirdly, how effectually operative it is in receiving the said grace, and with how little help thereof it accomplisheth the great work of our conversion;—all briefly, with so many observations as shall suffice to discover their proud errors in each particular.

[xxxvi] [8] “Herein,” saith Arminius, “consisteth the liberty of the will, that all things required to enable it to will any thing being accomplished, it still remains indifferent to will or not.” And all of them at the synod: [xxxvii] [9] “There is,” say they, “accompanying the will of man an inseparable property, which we call liberty, from whence the will is termed a power, which, when all things pre-required as necessary to operation are fulfilled, may will anything, or not will it;” that is, our free-wills have such an absolute and uncontrollable power in the territory of all human actions, that no influence of God’s providence, no certainty of his decree, no unchangeableness of his purpose, can sway it at all in its free determinations, or have any power with his highness to cause him to will or resolve on any such act as God by him intendeth to produce. Take an instance in the great work of our conversion. [xxxviii] [10] “All unregenerate men,” saith Arminius, “have, by virtue of their free-will, a power of resisting the Holy Spirit, of rejecting the offered grace of God, of contemning the counsel of God concerning themselves, of refusing the gospel of grace, of not opening the heart to him that knocketh.” What a stout idol is this, whom neither the Holy Spirit, the grace and counsel of God, the calling of the gospel, the knocking at the door of the heart, can move at all, or in the least measure prevail against him! Woe be unto us, then, if when God calls us our free-will be not in good temper, and well disposed to hearken unto him! for it seems there is no dealing with it by any other ways, though powerful and almighty. [xxxix] [11] “For grant,” saith Corvinus, “all the operations of grace which God can use in our conversion, yet conversion remaineth so in our own free power that we can be not converted; that is, we can either turn or not turn ourselves;” where the idol plainly challengeth the Lord to work his utmost, and tells him that after he hath so done he will do what he please. His infallible prescience, his powerful predetermination, the moral efficacy of the gospel, the infusion of grace, the effectual operation of the Holy Spirit, all are nothing, not at all available in helping or furthering our independent wills in their proceedings. Well, then, in what estate will you have the idol placed? [xl] [12] “In such a one wherein he may be suffered to sin, or to do well, at his pleasure,” as the same author intimates. It seems, then, as to sin, so nothing is required for him to be able to do good but God’s permission? No! For the Remonstrants[xli] [13] (as they speak of themselves) “do always suppose a free power of obeying or not obeying, as well in those who do obey as in those who do not obey;”—that he that is obedient may therefore be counted obedient, because he obeyeth when he could not obey, and so on the contrary:” where all the praise of our obedience, whereby we are made to differ from others, is ascribed to ourselves alone, and that free power that is in us. Now, this they mean not of any one act of obedience, but of faith itself, and the whole consummation thereof. [xlii] [14] “For if a man should say, that every man in the world hath a power of believing if he will, and of attaining salvation, and that this power is settled in his nature, what argument have you to confute him?” saith Arminius triumphantly to Perkins; where the sophistical innovator as plainly confounds grace and nature as ever did Pelagius. That, then, which the Arminians claim here in behalf of their free-will is, an absolute independence on God’s providence in doing anything, and of his grace in doing that which is good,—a self-sufficiency in all its operations, a plenary indifferency of doing what we will, this or that, as being neither determined to the one nor inclined to the other by any overruling influence from heaven. So that the good acts of our wills have no dependence on God’s providence as they are acts, nor on his grace as they are good; but in both regards proceed from such a principle within us as is no way moved by any superior agent. Now, the first of these we deny unto our wills, because they are created; and the second, because they are corrupted. Their creation hinders them from doing anything of themselves without the assistance of God’s providence; and their corruption, from doing anything that is good without his grace. A self-sufficiency for operation, without the effectual motion of Almighty God, the first cause of all things, we can allow neither to men nor angels, unless we intend to make them gods; and a power of doing good, equal unto that they have of doing evil, we must not grant to man by nature, unless we will deny the fall of Adam, and fancy ourselves still in paradise. But let us consider these things apart.

FIRST, I shall not stand to decipher the nature of human liberty, which perhaps would require a larger discourse than my proposed method will bear. It may suffice that, according to my former intimation, we grant as large a freedom and dominion to our wills over their own acts as a creature, subject to the supreme rule of God’s providence, is capable of. Endued we are with such a liberty of will as is free from all outward compulsion and inward necessity, having an elective faculty of applying itself unto that which seems good unto it, in which it is a free choice; notwithstanding, it is subservient to the decree of God, as I showed before, chap. 4. Most free it is in all its acts, both in regard of the object it chooseth and in regard of that vital power and faculty whereby it worketh, infallibly complying with God’s providence, and working by virtue of the motion thereof; but surely to assert such a supreme independency and every way unbounded indifferency as the Arminians claim, whereby, all other things requisite being pre-supposed, it should remain absolutely in our own power to will or not to will, to do anything or not to do it, is plainly to deny that our wills are subject to the rule of the Most High. It is granted that in such a chimerical, fancied consideration of free-will, wherein it is looked upon as having no relation to any act of God’s but only its creation, abstracting from his decree, it may be said to have such a liberty in regard of the object; but the truth is, this divided sense is plain nonsense, a mere fiction of such an estate as wherein it never was, nor ever can be, so long as men will confess any deity but themselves, to whose determinations they must be subject. Until, then, more significant terms may be invented for this free power in our nature, which the Scripture never once vouchsafed to name, I shall be content to call it with Prosper, a [xliii] [15] “spontaneous appetite of what seemeth good unto it,” free from all compulsion, but subservient to the providence of God. And against its exaltation to this height of independency, I oppose,—

First, Everything that is independent of any else in operation is purely active, and so consequently a god; for nothing but a divine will can be a pure act, possessing such a liberty by virtue of its own essence. Every created will must have a liberty by participation, which includeth such an imperfect potentiality as cannot be brought into act without some premotion (as I may so say) of a superior agent. Neither doth this motion, being extrinsical, at all prejudice the true liberty of the will, which requireth, indeed, that the internal principle of operation be active and free, but not that that principle be not moved to that operation by an outward superior agent. Nothing in this sense can have an independent principle of operation which hath not an independent being. It is no more necessary to the nature of a free cause, from whence a free action must proceed, that it be the first beginning of it, than it is necessary to the nature of a cause that it be the first cause.

Secondly, If the free acts of our wills are so subservient to the providence of God as that he useth them to what end he will, and by them effecteth many of his purposes, then they cannot of themselves be so absolutely independent as to have in their own power every necessary circumstance and condition, that they may use or not use at their pleasure. Now, the former is proved by all those reasons and texts of Scripture I before produced to show that the providence of God overruleth the actions and determineth the wills of men freely to do that which he hath appointed. And, truly, were it otherwise, God’s dominion over the most things that are in the world were quite excluded; he had not power to determine that any one thing should ever come to pass which hath any reference to the wills of men.

Thirdly, All the acts of the will being positive entities, were it not previously moved by God himself, “in whom we live, move, and have our being,” must needs have their essence and existence solely from the will itself; which is thereby made aujto< o>n, a first and supreme cause, endued with an underived being. And so much to that particular.

Let us now, in the SECOND place, look upon the power of our freewill in doing that which is morally good; where we shall find not only an essential imperfection, inasmuch as it is created, but also a contracted effect, inasmuch as it is corrupted. The ability which the Arminians ascribe unto it in this kind, of doing that which is morally and spiritually good, is as large as themselves will confess to be competent unto it in the state of innocency, even a power of believing and a power of resisting the gospel, of obeying and not obeying, of turning or of not being converted.

The Scripture, as I observed before, hath no such term at all, nor anything equivalent unto it. But the expressions it useth concerning our nature and all the faculties thereof, in this state of sin and unregeneration, seem to imply the quite contrary; as, that we are in “ ,” Hebrews 2:15; “dead in sins,” Ephesians 2:1, and so “free from righteousness,” Romans 6:20; “servants of sin,” verse 17; under the “reign” and “dominion” thereof, verses 12, 14; all “our members being instruments of unrighteousness,” verse 13; not “free indeed,” until “the Son make us free.” So that this idol of free-will, in respect of spiritual things, is not one whit better than the other idols of the heathen. Though it look like “silver and gold,” it is the “work of men’s hands.” “It hath a mouth, but it speaketh not; it hath eyes, but it seeth not; it hath ears, but it heareth not; a nose, but it smelleth not; it hath hands, but it handleth not; feet, but it walketh not; neither speaketh it through its throat. They that made it are like unto it; and so is every one that trusteth in it. O Israel, trust thou in the LORD,” etc., Psalm 115:4-9. That it is the work of men’s hands, or a human invention, I showed before. For the rest, it hath a mouth unacquainted with the “mystery of godliness,” “full only of cursing and bitterness,” Romans 3:14; “speaking great swelling words,” Jude 16; “great things, and blasphemies,” Revelation 13:5; a “mouth causing the flesh to sin,” Ecclesiastes 5:6;—his eyes are blind, not able to perceive those things that are of God, nor to know those things that are “spiritually discerned,” 1 Corinthians 2:14; “eyes before which there is no fear of God,” Romans 3:18;—his “understanding is darkened, because of the blindness of his heart,” Ephesians 4:18; “wise to do evil, but to do good he hath no knowledge,” Jeremiah 4:22; so that without farther light, all the world is but a mere “darkness,” John 1:5;—he hath ears, but they are like the ears of the “deaf adder” to the word of God, “refusing to hear the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely,” Psalm 58:5; being “dead” when his voice first calls it, John 5:25; “ears stopped that they should not hear,” Zechariah 7:11; “heavy ears” that cannot hear, Isaiah 6:10;—a nose, to which the gospel is “the savor of death unto death,” 2 Corinthians 2:16;—“ hands full of blood,” Isaiah 1:15; and “fingers defiled with iniquity,” chap. 59:3;—feet, indeed, but, like Mephibosheth, lame in both by a fall, so that he cannot at all walk in the path of goodness; but “swift to shed blood, destruction and misery are in his ways, and the way of peace hath he not known,” Romans 3:15-17. These, and divers other such endowments and excellent qualifications, doth the Scripture attribute to this idol, which it calls “The old man,” as I shall more fully discover in the next chapter. And is not this a goodly reed whereon to rely in the paths of godliness? a powerful deity whereunto we may repair for a power to become the sons of God, and attain eternal happiness? The abilities of free-will in particular I shall consider hereafter; now only I will, by one or two reasons, show that it cannot be the sole and proper cause of any truly good and spiritual act, well-pleasing unto God.

First, All spiritual acts well-pleasing unto God, as faith, repentance, obedience, are supernatural; flesh and blood revealeth not these things: “Not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man; but of God,” John 1:13; “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit,” John 3:6. Now, to the performance of any supernatural act it is required that the productive power thereof be also supernatural; for nothing hath an activity in causing above its own sphere. “Nec imbelles generant feroces aquilas columbae.” But our free-will is a merely natural faculty, betwixt which and those spiritual, supernatural acts there is no proportion, unless it be advanced above its own orb, by inherent, habitual grace. Divine, theological virtues, differing even in the substance of the act from those moral performances about the same things to which the strength of nature may reach (for the difference of acts ariseth from their formal objects, which to both these are diverse), must have another principle and cause above all the power of nature in civil things and actions morally good, inasmuch as they are subject to a natural perception, and do not exceed the strength of our own wills. This faculty of free-will may take place, but yet not without these following limitations:—First, That it always requireth the general concurrence of God, whereby the whole suppositum in which free-will hath its subsistence may be sustained, Matthew 10:29, 30. Secondly, That we do all these things imperfectly and with much infirmity; every degree, also, of excellency in these things must be counted a special gift of God, Isaiah 26:12. Thirdly, That our wills are determined by the will of God to all their acts and motions in particular; but to do that which is spiritually good we have no knowledge, no power.

Secondly, That concerning which I gave one special instance, in whose production the Arminians attribute much to free-will, is faith. This they affirm (as I showed before) to be inbred in nature, everyone having in him from his birth a natural power to believe in Christ and his gospel; for Episcopius denies that [xliv] [16] “any action of the Holy Spirit upon the understanding or will is necessary, or promised in the Scripture, to make a man able to believe the word preached unto him.” So that it seems every man hath at all times a power to believe, to produce the act of faith upon the revelation of its object: which gross Pelagianism is contrary,—

First, To the doctrine of the church of England, alarming that a man cannot so much as prepare himself by his own strength to faith and calling upon God, until the grace of God by Christ prevent him, that he may have a good will.—Artic. 10.

Secondly, To the Scripture, teaching that it is “the work of God that we do believe,” John 6:29. It is “not of ourselves; it is the gift of God,” Ephesians 2:8. To some “it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven,” Matthew 13:11. And what is peculiarly given to some cannot be in the power of everyone: “To you it is given in the behalf of Christ to believe on him,” Philippians 1:29. Faith is our access or coming unto Christ; which none can do “except the Father draw him,” John 6:44; and he so draweth, or “hath mercy, on whom he will have mercy,” Romans 9:18. And although Episcopius rejects any immediate action of the Holy Spirit for the ingenerating of faith, yet St. Paul affirmeth that there is no less effectual power required to it than that which raised Christ from the dead; which, sure, was an action of the almighty Godhead. “That ye may know,” saith he, “what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead,” Ephesians 1:18-20. So that, let the Arminians say what they please, recalling that I write to Christians, I will spare my labor of farther proving that faith is the free gift of God; and their opposition to the truth of the Scripture in this particular is so evident to the meanest capacity that there needs no recapitulation to present the sum of it to their understandings.

ENDNOTES:

[xlv]  [1] Hieron. ad Ruff

[xlvi]  [2] “Pelagius: Dogma quod—Pestifero vomuit coluber sermone Britannus.”—Prosper. de Ingrat., cap. 1.

[xlvii]  [3] Adfuit, exhortante Deo provisa per orbem, Sanctorum pia cura patrum:—1. Pestern subeuntem Prima recidit, Sedes Roma Petri. 2. Non segnior inde, orientis Rectorum cura emicuit. Synod. Palest. 3. Hieronymus libris valde excellentibus hostem Dissecuit. 4. Atticus Constantinop. 5. Duae Synodi Africanae.”—Prosper. de Ingrat.

[xlviii]  [4] “Concilium cui dux Aurelius ingeniumque Augustinus erat. Quem Christi gratia cornu Uberiore rigans, nostro lumen dedit aevo.”—Prosp., ibid.

[xlix]  [5] “Dixit Pelagius, quis est mihi Augustinus? Universi acclamabant blasphemantem in episcopum, ex cujus ore, dominus univerae Africae, unitatis indulserit felicitatem, non solum a conventu illo, sed ab omni ecclesia pellendum.”—Oros. Apologet., p. 621, de Synod. Palest.“Prae omnibus studium gerite libros. S. Aug. quos ad Prosp. et Hilar. scripsit, memoratis fratribus legendos iugerere,” etc.—Epist. Synod. Byzac.

[l]  [6] “Imo noverunt, non solum Romanam Africanamque ecclesiam, sod per omnes mundi partes, universae promissionis filios, cum doctrina hujus viri, sicut in tota fide, ita in gratiae confessione congruere.”—Prosp. ad Rufin. “Augustinum sanctae recordationis virum pro vita sua, et meritis, in nostra communione semper habuimus, nec unquam hunc sinistrae suspicionis saltem rumor suspexit.”—Coelest., Epist. Ad Gal. Episcop. These I have cited to show what a heavy prejudice the Arminian cause lies under, being professedly opposite to the doctrine of St. Austin, and they continually slighting of his authority.

[li]  [7] Homo non libertate gratiam, sed gratia libertatem, assequitur.”—Aug.

[lii]  [8] “Libertas Arbitrii consistit in eo, quod homo, positis omnibus requisitis ad volendum, indifferens tamen sit, ad volendum vel nolendum, hoc vel illud.”—Armin. Art. Perpend., p. 11.

[liii]  [9] “Voluntatem comitatur proprietas quaedam inseparabilis, quam libertatem vocamus; a qua voluntas dicitur potentia, quae positis omnibus praerequisitis ad agendum necessariis, potest velle et nolle, aut velle et non velle.”—Remon. in Act. Synod, p. 16.

[liv]  [10] “Omnes irregeniti habent Lib. Arbit. et potentiam Spiritui Sancto resistendi, gratiam Dei oblatam repudiandi, consilium Dei adversus se contemrendi, evangelium gratiae repudiandi, ei qui cot pulsat non aperiendi.”—Armin. Artic. Perpend.

[lv]  [11] “Positis omnibus operationibus gratiae, quibus Deus in conversione nostri uti possit, manet tamen conversio ita in nostra potestate libera, ut possimus non converti; hoc est, nosmet ipsos convertere vel non convertere.”—Corv, ad Bog., p. 263.

[lvi]  [12] “Non potest Deus Lib. Arbit. integrum servare, nisi tam peccare hominem sineret, quam bene agere.”—Corv, ad Molin., cap. 6.

[lvii]  [13] “Semper Remonstrantes supponunt liberam obediendi potentiam et non obediendi; ut qui obediens est idcirco obediens censeatur, quia cum possit non obedire obedit tamen, et e contra.”—Rem. Apol., p. 70.

[lviii]  [14] “Quod si quis dicat omnes in universum homines, habere potentiam credendi si velint, et salutem consequendi: et hanc potentiam esse naturae hominum divinitus collatam, quo tuo argumento eum confutabis?”—Armin. Antip., p. 272.

[lix]  [15] “Lib. Arbit. est rei sibi placitae spontaneus appetitus.”—Prosp, ad Collat., cap. 18, p. 379.

[lx]  [16] “An ulla actio S. S. immediata in mentem aut voluntatem necessaria sit, aut in Scriptura promittatur ad hoc, ut quis credere possit verbo extrinsecus proposito, negativam tuebimur.”—Episcop., Disput. Privat.

CHAPTER 13.

OF THE POWER OF FREE-WILL
IN PREPARING US FOR OUR CONVERSION UNTO GOD.

The judgment of the Arminians concerning the power of free-will about spiritual things in a man unregenerate, merely in the state of corrupted nature, before and without the help of grace, may be laid open by these following positions:—

First, That every man in the world, reprobates and others, have in themselves power and ability of believing in Christ, of repenting and yielding due obedience to the new covenant; and that because they lost not this power by the fall of Adam. [lxi] [1] “Adam after his fall,” saith Grevinchovius, “retained a power of believing; and so did all reprobates in him.” [lxii] [2] “He did not lose” (as they speak at the synod) “the power of performing that obedience which is required in the new covenant considered formally, as it is required by the new covenant; he lost not a power of believing, nor a power of forsaking sin by repentance.” And those graces that he lost not are still in our power. Whence they affirm, that [lxiii] [3] “faith is called the work of God only because he requireth us to do it.” Now, having appropriated this power unto themselves, to be sure that the grace of God be quite excluded, which before they had made needless, they teach,—

Secondly, That for the reducing of this power into act, that men may become actual believers, there is no infused habit of grace, no spiritual vital principle, necessary for them, or bestowed upon them; but everyone, by the use of his native endowments, doth make himself differ from others. [lxiv] [4] “Those things which are spoken concerning the infusion of habits before we can exercise the act of faith, we reject,” saith the epistle to the Walachians. [lxv] [5] “That the internal principle of faith required in the gospel is a habit divinely infused, by the strength and efficacy whereof the will should be determined, I deny,” saith another of them. Well, then, if we must grant that the internal vital principle of a supernatural spiritual grace is a mere natural faculty, not elevated by any divine habit,—if it be not God that begins the good work in us, but our own free-wills,—let us see what more goodly stuff will follow. One man by his own mere endeavors, without the aid of any received gift, makes himself differ from another. [lxvi] [6] “What matter is it in that, that a man should make himself differ from others? There is nothing truer; he who yieldeth faith to God commanding him, maketh himself differ from him who will not have faith when he commandeth.” They are the words of their Apology, which, without question, is an irrefragable truth, if faith be not a gift received from above; for on that ground only the apostle proposeth these questions, “Who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received?” The sole cause why he denies anyone by his own power to make himself differ from another is, because that wherein the difference consisteth is “received,” being freely bestowed upon him. Deny this, and I confess the other will fall of itself. But until their authority he equal with the apostles’, they would do well to forbear the naked obtrusion of assertions so contradictory to theirs; and so they would not trouble the church. Let them take all the glory unto themselves, as doth Grevinchoviua [lxvii] [7] “I make myself,” saith he, “differ from another when I do not resist God and his divine predetermination; which I could have resisted. And why may I not boast of this as of mine own? That I could is of God’s mercy” (endowing his nature with such an ability as you heard before); “but that I would, when I might have done otherwise, is of my power.” Now, when, after all this, they are forced to confess some evangelical grace, though consisting only in a moral persuasion by the outward preaching of the word, they teach,—

Thirdly, That God sendeth the gospel, and revealeth Christ Jesus unto men, according as they well dispose themselves for such a blessing. [lxviii] [8] “Sometimes,” say they in their synodical writings, “God calleth this or that nation, people, city, or person, to the communion of evangelical grace, whom he himself pronounceth worthy of it, in comparison of others.” So that whereas, Acts 18:10, God encourageth Paul to preach at Corinth by affirming that he had “much people in that city” (which, doubtless, were his people then only by virtue of their election), in these men’s judgments [lxix] [9] “they were called so because that even then they feared God, and served him with all their hearts, according to that knowledge they had of him, and so were ready to obey the preaching of St Paul.” Strange doctrine, that men should fear God, know him, serve him in sincerity, before they ever heard of the gospel, and by these means deserve that it should be preached unto them! This is that pleasing of God before faith that they plead for, Act. Synod., p. 66; that [lxx] [10] “preparation and disposition to believe, which men attain by the law and virtuous education;” that “something which is in sinners,[lxxi] [11] whereby though they are not justified, yet they are made worthy of justification.” For [lxxii] [12] “conversion and the performance of good works is,” in their apprehension, “a condition pre-required to justification,” for so speak the children of Arminius; which if it be not an expression not to be paralleled in the writings of any Christian, I am something mistaken. The sum of their doctrine, then, in this particular concerning the power of free-will in the state of sin and unregeneration, is, That every man having a native, inbred power of believing in Christ upon the revelation of the gospel, hath also an ability of doing so much good as shall procure of God that the gospel be preached unto him; to which, without any internal assistance of grace, he can give assent and yield obedience; the preparatory acts of his own will always proceeding so far as to make him excel others who do not perform them, and are therefore excluded from farther grace;—which is more gross Pelagianism than Pelagius himself would ever justify. Wherefore we reject all the former positions, as so many monsters in Christian religion, in whose room we assert these that follow:—

First, That we, being by nature dead in trespasses and sins, have no power to prepare ourselves for the receiving of God’s grace, nor in the least measure to believe and turn ourselves unto him. Not that we deny that there are any conditions pre-required in us for our conversion, dispositions preparing us in some measure for our new birth or regeneration; but we affirm that all these also are the effects of the grace of God, relating to that alone as their proper cause, for of ourselves, “without him, we can do nothing,” John 15:5. “We are not sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves,” 2 Corinthians 3:5, much less do that which is good. In respect of that, “every one of our mouths must be stopped;” for “we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God,” Romans 3:19, 23. We are “by nature the children of wrath, dead in trespasses and sins,” Ephesians 2:1-3; Romans 8:6. Our new birth is a resurrection from death, wrought by the greatness of God’s power. And what ability, I pray, hath a dead man to prepare himself for his resurrection? Can he collect his scattered dust, or renew his perished senses? If the leopard can change his spots, and the Ethiopian his skin, then can we do good who by nature are taught to do evil, Jeremiah 13:23. We are all “ungodly,” and “without strength” considered, when Christ died for us, Romans 5:6; “wise to do evil,” but “to do good we have no strength, no knowledge.” Yea, all the faculties of our souls, by reason of that spiritual death under which we are detained by the corruption of nature, are altogether useless, in respect of any power for the doing of that which is truly good. Our understandings are blind or “darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in us, because of the blindness of our hearts,” Ephesians 4:18; whereby we become even “darkness” itself, Ephesians 5:8. So void is the understanding of true knowledge, that “the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; they are foolishness unto him,” 1 Corinthians 2:14.[He is] nothing but confounded and amazed at spiritual things; and, if he doth not mock, can do nothing but wonder, and say, “What meaneth this?” Acts 2:12, 13. Secondly, we are not only blind in our understandings, but captives also to sin in our wills, Luke 4:18; whereby “we are servants of sin,” John 8:34; “free” only in our obedience to that tyrant, Romans 6:20. Yea, thirdly, all our affections are wholly corrupted, for “every imagination of the thoughts of the heart of man is only evil continually,” Genesis 6:5. While we are “in the flesh, the motions of sin do work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death,” Romans 7:5.

These are the endowments of our nature, these are the preparations of our hearts for the grace of God, which we have within ourselves. Nay,—

Secondly, There is not only an impotency but an enmity in corrupted nature to anything spiritually good: The things that are of God are “foolishness unto a natural man,” 1 Corinthians 2:14. And there is nothing that men do more hate and contemn than that which they account as folly. They mock at it as a ridiculous drunkenness, Acts 2:13. And would to God our days yielded us not too evident proofs of that universal opposition that is between light and darkness, Christ and Belial, nature and grace,—that we could not see everyday the prodigious issues of this inbred corruption swelling over all bounds, and breaking forth into a contempt of the gospel and all ways of godliness! So true it is that “the carnal mind is enmity against God: it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be,” Romans 8:7. So that,—

Thirdly, As a natural man, by the strength of his own free-will, neither knoweth nor willeth, so it is utterly impossible he should do anything pleasing unto God. “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then can he do good,” Jeremiah 13:23. “An evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit.” “Without faith it is impossible to please God,” Hebrews 11:6; and “that is not of ourselves, it is the gift of God,” Ephesians 2:8. So that though Almighty God, according to the unsearchableness of his wisdom, worketh divers ways and in sundry manners, for the translating of his chosen ones from the power of darkness into his marvelous light,—calling some powerfully in the midst of their march in the way of ungodliness, as he did Paul,—preparing others by outward means and helps of common restraining grace, moralizing nature before it be begotten anew by the immortal seed of the word,—yet this is certain, that all good in this kind is from his free grace; there is nothing in ourselves, as of ourselves, but sin. Yea, and all those previous dispositions wherewith our hearts are prepared, by virtue of common grace, do not at all enable us to concur, by any vital operation, with that powerful, blessed, renewing grace of regeneration whereby we become the sons of God. Neither is there any disposition unto grace so remote as that possibly it can proceed from a mere faculty of nature, for every such disposition must be of the same order with the form that is to be introduced; but nature, in respect of grace, is a thing of an inferior alloy, between which there is no proportion. A good use of gifts may have a promise of an addition of more, provided it be in the same kind. There is no rule, law, or promise that should make grace due upon the good use of natural endowments. But you will say, here I quite overthrow free-will, which before I seemed to grant. To which I answer, that in regard of that object concerning which now we treat, a natural man hath no such thing as free-will at all, if you take it for a power of doing that which is good and well-pleasing unto God in things spiritual, for an ability of preparing our hearts unto faith and calling upon God, as our church article speaks, a home-bred self-sufficiency, preceding the change of our wills by the almighty grace of God, whereby any good should be said to dwell in us; and we utterly deny that there is any such thing in the world. The will, though in itself radically free, yet in respect of the term or object to which in this regard it should tend, is corrupted, enthralled, and under a miserable ; tied to such a necessity of sinning in general, that though unregenerate men are not restrained to this or that sin in particular, yet for the main they can do nothing but sin. All their actions wherein there is any morality are attended with iniquity: “An evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit;” even “the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD.” These things being thus cleared from the Scripture, the former Arminian positions will of themselves fall to the ground, having no foundation but their own authority; for any pretense of proof they make none from the word of God. The first two I considered in the last chapter, and now add only concerning the third,—that the sole cause why the gospel is sent unto some and not unto others is, not any dignity, worth, or desert of it in them to whom it is sent, more than in the rest that are suffered to remain in the shadow of death, but only the sole good pleasure of God, that it may be a subservient means for the execution of his decree of election: “I have much people in this city,” Acts 18:20; “I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight,” Matthew 11:25, 26. So that the Arminian opposition to the truth of the gospel in this particular is clearly manifest:—

ENDNOTES:

[lxxiii]  [1] “Adamus post lapsum potentiam credendi retinuit, et reliqui reprobi etiam in illo.”—Grevinch. ad Ames., p. 188.

[lxxiv]  [2] “Adamus non amisit vires eam obedientiam praestandi quae in novo foedere exigitur, prout puta ea consideratur formaliter, hoc est, prout novo foedere exacta est, nec potentiam credendi amisit; nec amisit potentiam, per resipiscentiam, ex peccato resurgendi.”—Rem. Declar. Sent. in Synod., p. 107.

[lxxv]  [3] Fides vocatur opus Dei, quia Deus ipse id a nobis fieri postulat.”—Rem. Apol., cap. 10. p. 112.

[lxxvi]  [4] “Ea quae de habituum infusione di ur, ante omnem fidei actum, rejiciuntur a nobis.”—Epist, ad Wal., p. 67.

[lxxvii]  [5] “Principium internum fidei a nobis in evangelio requisitum, esse habitum quendam divinitus infusum, cujus vi ac efficacitate voluntas determinetur; hoc negavi.”—Grevinch, ad Ames., p. 324.

[lxxviii]  [6] “Quid in eo positum est, quod homo discriminare seipsum dicitur? Nihil verius; qui fidem Deo praecipienti habet, is discrimiunt se ab eo qui Deo praecipienti fidem habere non vult.”—Rem. Apol., cap. 14. p. 144.

[lxxix]  [7] “Ego meipsum discerno, cum enim Deo ac divinae praedeterminationi resistere possem, non restiti tamen. Atqui in eo quidni liceat mihi tanquam de meo gloriari? Quod enim potui Dei miserentis est, quod autem volui cum possem nolle, id meae potestatis est.”—Grevinch, ad Ames., p. 253.

[lxxx]  [8] “Interdum Deus hanc vel illam gentem, civitatem, personam, ad evangelicae gratiae communionem vocat, quam ipse dignam pronuntiat comparative,” etc.—Rein. Declarat. Sent. Synod.

[lxxxi]  [9] “Illi, in quorum gratiam, Dominus Paulum in Corinthum misit, di ur Dei populus, quia Deum turn timebant, eique, secundum cognitionem quam de eo habebant, serviebant ex animo, et sic ad praedicationem Pauli,” etc.—Corv. ad Molin. 3. sect. 27.

[lxxxii]  [10] “Per legem, vel per piam educationem vel per institutionem—per haec enim hominem praeparari et disponi ad credendum, planissimum est.”—Rem. Act. Synod.

[lxxxiii]  [11] “Praecedit aliquid in peccatoribus, quo quamvis nondum justificati sunt, digni efficiantur justificatione.”—Grevinch, ad Ames., p. 434.

[lxxxiv]  [12] “Tenendum est, veram conversionem praestationemque bonorum operum esse conditionem praerequisitam ante justificationem.”—Filii Arm. Praef. ad cap. 7. ad Rem.

CHAPTER 14.

OF OUR CONVERSION TO GOD.

How little or nothing at all it is that the Arminians assign to the grace of God, in performing the great work of our conversion, may plainly appear from what I have showed already that they ascribe to our own free-will, so that I shall briefly pass that over, which otherwise is so copiously delivered in holy Scripture that it would require a far larger discussion. A prolix confirmation of the truth we profess will not suit so well with my intention; which is merely to make a discovery of their errors, by not knowing the depths whereof so many are deceived and inveigled. Two things, in this great conjunction of grace and nature, the Arminians ascribe unto free-will:—first, A power of co-operation and working with grace, to make it at all effectual; secondly, A power of resisting its operation, and making it altogether ineffectual; God in the meantime bestowing no grace but what awaits an act issuing from one of these two abilities, and hath its effect accordingly. If a man will co-operate, then grace attains its end; if he will resist, it returns empty. To this end they feign all the grace of God bestowed upon us for our conversion to be but a moral persuasion by his word, not an infusion of a new vital principle by the powerful working of the Holy Spirit. And, indeed, granting this, I shall most willingly comply with them in assigning to free-will one of the endowments before recited,—a power of resisting the operation of grace; but instead of the other, must needs ascribe to our whole corrupted nature, and everyone that is partaker of it, a universal disability of obeying it, or coupling in that work which God by his grace doth intend. If the grace of our conversion be nothing but a moral persuasion, we have no more power of obeying it in that estate wherein we are dead in sin, than a man in his grave hath in himself to live anew and come out at the next call. God’s promises and the saints’ prayers in the holy Scripture seem to design such a kind of grace as should give us a real internal ability of doing that which is spiritually good. But it seems there is no such matter; for if a man should persuade me to leap over the Thames, or to fly in the air, be he never so eloquent, his sole persuasion makes me no more able to do it than I was before ever I saw him. If God’s grace be nothing but a sweet persuasion (though never so powerful), it is a thing extrinsical, consisting in the proposal of a desired object, but gives us no new strength at all to do anything we had not before a power to do. But let us hear them pleading themselves to each of these particulars concerning grace and nature. And,—

First, for the nature of grace: [lxxxv] [1] “God hath appointed to save believers by grace,—that is, a soft and sweet persuasion, convenient and agreeing to their free-will,—and not by any almighty action,” saith Arminius. It seems something strange, that “the carnal mind being enmity against God,” and the will enthralled to sin, and full of wretched opposition to all his ways, yet God should have no other means to work them over unto him but some persuasion that is sweet, agreeable, and congruous unto them in that estate wherein they are. And a small exaltation it is of the dignity and power of grace, when the chief reason why it is effectual, as Alvarez observes, may be reduced to a well-digested supper or an undisturbed sleep, whereby some men may be brought into better temper than ordinary to comply with this congruous grace. But let us for the present accept of this, and grant that God doth call some by such a congruous persuasion, at such a time and place as he knows they will assent unto it. I ask whether God thus calleth all men, or only some? If all, why are not all converted? for the very granting of it to be congruous makes it effectual. If only some, then why them, and not others? Is it out of a special intention to have them obedient? But let them take heed, for this will go near to establish the decree of election; and out of what other intention it should be they shall never be able to determine. Wherefore [lxxxvi] [2] Corvinus denies that any such congruity is required to the grace whereby we are converted, but only that it be a moral persuasion; which we may obey if we will, and so make it effectual. Yea, and Arminius himself, after he had defended it as far as he was able, puts it off from himself, and falsely fathers it upon St. Austin. So that, as they jointly affirm, [lxxxvii] [3] “they confess no grace for the begetting of faith to be necessary, but only that which is moral;” which one of them interpreteth to be [lxxxviii] [4] “a declaration of the gospel unto us;”—right like their old master, Pelagius. “God,” saith he, [lxxxix] [5] “worketh in us to will that which is good and to will that which is holy, whilst he stirs us up with promise of rewards and the greatness of the future glory, who before were given over to earthly desires, like brute beasts, loving nothing but things present, stirring up our stupid wills to a desire of God by a revelation of wisdom, and persuading us to all that is good.” Both of them affirm the grace of God to be nothing but a moral persuasion, working by the way of powerful, convincing arguments; but yet herein Pelagius seems to ascribe a greater efficacy to it than the Arminians, granting that it works upon us when, after the manner of brute beasts, we are set merely on earthly things. But these, as they confess that, for the production of faith,[xc] [6] it is necessary that such arguments be proposed on the part of God to which nothing can probably be opposed why they should not seem credible; so there is, say they, required on our part a pious docility and probity of mind. So that all the grace of God bestowed on us consisteth in persuasive arguments out of the word; which, if they meet with teachable minds, may work their conversion.

Secondly, Having thus extenuated the grace of God, they affirm, [xci] [7] “that in operation the efficacy thereof dependeth on free-will:” so the Remonstrants in their Apology. [xcii] [8] “And to speak confidently,” saith Grevinchovius, “I say that the effect of grace, in an ordinary course, dependeth on some act of our free-will.” Suppose, then, that of two men made partakers of the same grace,—that is, [who] have the gospel preached unto them by the same means,—one is converted and the other is not, what may be the cause of this so great a difference? Was there any intention or purpose in God that one should be changed rather than the other? “No; he equally desireth and intendeth the conversion of all and every one.” Did, then, God work more powerfully in the heart of the one by his Holy Spirit than of the other? “No; the same operation of the Spirit always accompanieth the same preaching of the word.” But was not one, by some almighty action, made partaker of real infused grace, which the other attained not unto? “No; for that would destroy the liberty of his will, and deprive him of all the praise of believing.” How, then, came this extreme difference of effects? who made the one differ from the other? Or what hath he that he did not receive? “Why, all this proceedeth merely from the strength of his own free-will yielding obedience to God’s gracious invitation, which, like the other, he might have rejected: this is the immediate cause of his conversion, to which all the praise thereof is due.” And here the old idol may glory to all the world, that if he can but get his worshippers to prevail in this, he hath quite excluded the grace of Christ, and made it “nomen inane,” a mere title, whereas there is no such thing in the world.

Thirdly, They teach, that notwithstanding any purpose and intention of God to convert, and so to save, a sinner,—notwithstanding the most powerful and effectual operation of the blessed Spirit, with the most winning, persuasive preaching of the word,—yet it is in the power of a man to frustrate that purpose, resist that operation, and reject that preaching of the gospel. I shall not need to prove this, for it is that which, in direct terms, they plead for; which also they must do, if they will comply with their former principles. For granting all these to have no influence upon any man but by the way of moral persuasion, we must not only grant that it may be resisted, but also utterly deny that it can be obeyed. We may resist it, I say, as having both a disability to good and repugnancy against it; but for obeying it, unless we will deny all inherent corruption and depravation of nature, we cannot attribute any such sufficiency unto ourselves.

Now, concerning this weakness of grace, that it is not able to overcome the opposing power of sinful nature, one testimony of Arminius shall suffice: [xciii] [9] “It always remaineth in the power of free-will to reject grace that is given and to refuse that which followeth; for grace is no almighty action of God, to which free-will cannot resist.” [Not that I would assert, in opposition to this, such an operation of grace as should, as it were, violently overcome the will of man, and force him to obedience, which must needs be prejudicial unto our liberty; but only consisting in such a sweet effectual working as doth infallibly promote our conversion, make us willing who before were unwilling, and obedient who were not obedient, that createth clean hearts and reneweth right spirits within us.

That, then, which we assert, in opposition to these Arminian heterodoxies, is, That the effectual grace which God useth in the great work of our conversion, by reason of its own nature,—being also the instrument of and God’s intention for that purpose,—doth surely produce the effect intended, without successful resistance, and solely, without any considerable co-operation of our own wills, until they are prepared and changed by that very grace. The infallibility of its effect depends chiefly on the purpose of God. When by any means he intends a man’s conversion, those means must have such an efficacy added unto them as may make them fit instruments for the accomplishment of that intention, that the counsel of the Lord may prosper, and his word not return empty. But the manner of its operation,—that it requires no human assistance, and is able to overcome all repugnance,—is proper to the being of such an act as wherein it doth consist. Which nature and efficacy of grace, in opposition to an indifferent influence of the Holy Spirit, a metaphorical motion, a working by the way of moral persuasion, only proposing a desirable object, easy to be resisted, and not effectual unless it be helped by an inbred ability of our own (which is the Arminian grace), I will briefly confirm, having premised these few things:—

First, Although God doth not use the wills of men, in their conversion, as malign spirits use the members of men in enthusiasms, by a violent wrested motion, but sweetly and agreeably to their own free nature; yet in the first act of our conversion the will is merely passive, as a capable subject of such a work, not at all concurring cooperatively to our turning. It is not, I say, the cause of the work, but the subject wherein it is wrought, having only a passive capability for the receiving of that supernatural being, which is introduced by grace. The beginning of this “good work” is merely from God, Philippians 1:6. Yea, faith is ascribed unto grace, not by the way of conjunction with, but of opposition unto, our wills: “Not of ourselves; it is the gift of God,” Ephesians 2:8. “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves; our sufficiency is of God,” 2 Corinthians 3:5. “Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned,” Lamentations 5:21.

Secondly, Though the will of man conferreth nothing to the infusion of the first grace, but a subjective receiving of it, yet in the very first act that is wrought in and by the will, it most freely cooperateth (by the way of subordination) with the grace of God; and the more effectually it is moved by grace, the more freely it worketh with it. Man being converted, converteth himself.

Thirdly, We do not affirm grace to be irresistible, as though it came upon the will with such an overflowing violence as to beat it down before it, and subdue it by compulsion to what it is no way inclinable [unto.] But if that term must be used, it denoteth, in our sense, only such an unconquerable efficacy of grace as always and infallibly produceth its effect; for who is it that can “withstand God?” Acts 11:17. As also, it may be used on the part of the will itself, which will not resist it: “All that the Father giveth unto Christ shall come to him,” John 6:37. The operation of grace is resisted by no hard heart; because it mollifies the heart itself. It doth not so much take away a power of resisting as give a will of obeying, whereby the powerful impotency of resistance is removed.

Fourthly, Concerning grace itself, it is either common or special. Common or general grace consisteth in the external revelation of the will of God by his word, with some illumination of the mind to perceive it, and correction of the affections not too much to contemn it; and this, in some degree or other, to some more, to some less, is common to all that are called. Special grace is the grace of regeneration, comprehending the former, adding more spiritual acts, but especially presupposing the purpose of God, on which its efficacy doth chiefly depend.

Fifthly, This saving grace, whereby the Lord converteth or regenerateth a sinner, translating him from death to life, is either external or internal. External consisteth in the preaching of the word, etc., whose operation is by the way of moral persuasion, when by it we beseech our hearers “in Christ’s stead that they would be reconciled unto God,” 2 Corinthians 5:20; and this in our conversion is the instrumental organ thereof, and may be said to be a sufficient cause of our regeneration, inasmuch as no other in the same kind is necessary. It may also be resisted in sensu diviso, abstracting from that consideration wherein it is looked on as the instrument of God for such an end.

Sixthly, Internal grace is by divines distinguished into the first or preventing grace, and the second following cooperating grace. The first is that spiritual vital principle that is infused into us by the Holy Spirit, that new creation and bestowing of new strength, whereby we are made fit and able for the producing of spiritual acts, to believe and yield evangelical obedience: “For we are the workmanship of God, created in Christ Jesus unto good works,” Ephesians 2:10. By this God “gives us a new heart, and a new spirit he puts within us;” he “takes the stony heart out of our flesh, and gives us an heart of flesh;” he “puts his Spirit within us, to cause us to walk in his statutes,” Ezekiel 36:26, 27.

Now, this first grace is not properly and formally a vital act, but causaliter only, in being a principle moving to such vital acts within us. It is the habit of faith bestowed upon a man, that he may be able to eliciate and perform the acts thereof, giving new light to the understanding, new inclinations to the will, and new affections unto the heart: for the infallible efficacy of which grace it is that we plead against the Arminians. And amongst those innumerable places of holy Scripture confirming this truth, I shall make use only of a very few, reduced to these three heads:—

First, Our conversion is wrought by a divine, almighty action, which the will of man will not, and therefore cannot resist. The impotency thereof ought not to be opposed to this omnipotent grace, which will certainly effect the work for which it is ordained, being an action not inferior to the greatness of his “mighty power, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead,” Ephesians 1:19, 20. And shall not that power which could overcome hell, and loose the bonds of death, be effectual for the raising of a sinner from the death of sin, when by God’s intention it is appointed unto that work? He accomplisheth “the work of faith with power,” 2 Thessalonians 1:11. It is “his divine power that giveth unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness,” 2 Peter 1:3. Surely a moral, resistible persuasion would not be thus often termed the “power” of God, which denoteth an actual efficacy to which no creature is able to resist.

Secondly, That which consisteth in a real efficiency, and is not at all but when and where it actually worketh what it intendeth, cannot without a contradiction be said to be so resisted that it should not work, the whole nature thereof consisting in such a real operation. Now, that the very essence of divine grace consisteth in such a formal act may be proved by all those places of Scripture that affirm God by his grace, or the grace of God, actually to accomplish our conversion: as Deuteronomy 30:6, “And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.” The circumcision of our hearts, that we may love the Lord with all our hearts, and with all our souls, is our conversion, which the Lord affirmeth here that he himself will do; not only enable us to do it, but he himself really and effectually will accomplish it. And again, “I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts,” Jeremiah 31:33. “I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me,” chap. 32:40. He will not offer his fear unto them, but actually put it into them. And most clearly, Ezekiel 36:26, 27: “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes.” Are these expressions of a moral persuasion only? Doth God affirm here he will do what he intends only to persuade us to, and which we may refuse to do if we will? Is it in the power of a stony heart to remove itself? What an active stone is this, in mounting upwards! What doth it at all differ from that heart of flesh that God promiseth? Shall a stony heart be said to have a power to change itself into such a heart of flesh as shall cause us to walk in God’s statutes? Surely, unless men were willfully blind, they must needs here perceive such an action of God denoted, as effectually, solely, and infallibly worketh our conversion; “opening our hearts, that we may attend unto the word,” Acts 16:14; “giving us in the behalf of Christ to believe on him,” Philippians 1:29. Now, these and the like places prove both the nature of God’s grace to consist in a real efficiency, and the operation thereof to be certainly effectual.

Thirdly, Our conversion is a “new creation,” a “resurrection,” a “new birth.” Now, he that createth a man doth not persuade him to create himself, neither can he if he should, nor hath he any power to resist him that will create him,—that is, as we now take it, translate him from something that he is to what he is not. What arguments do you think were sufficient to persuade a dead man to rise? or what great aid can he contribute to his own resurrection? Neither doth a man beget himself; a new real form was never yet introduced into any matter by subtle arguments. These are the terms the Scripture is pleased to use concerning our conversion:—“If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature,” 2 Corinthians 5:17. The “new man after God is created in righteousness and true holiness,” Ephesians 4:24. It is our new birth: “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God,” John 3:3. “Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth,” James 1:18. And so we become “born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever,” 1 Peter 1:23. It is our vivification and resurrection: “The Son quickeneth whom he will,” John 5:21, even those “dead,” who “hear his voice and live,” verse 25. “When we were dead in sins,” we are “quickened together with Christ by grace,” Ephesians 2:5; for “being buried with him by baptism, we are also risen with him through the faith of the operation of God,” Colossians 2:12. And “blessed and holy is he that hath part in that first resurrection; on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.”

Tw~| Qew~| ajristomegi>stw| do>xa.

ENDNOTES:

[xciv]  [1] “Deus statuit salvare credentes per gratiam, id est, lenem ac suavem liberoque ipsorum arbitrio convenientem seu congruam suasionem, non per omnipotentem actionem seu motionem.”—Armin. Antip., p. 211.

[xcv]  [2] Corv. ad Molin.—“His ita expositis ex mente Augustini,” etc.—Armin. Antip. De Elec.

[xcvi]  [3] “Fatemur, aliam nobis ad actum fidei eliciendum necessariam gratiam non agnosci quam moralem.”—Rem. Act. Synod. ad Art. 4.

[xcvii]  [4] “Annuntiatio doctrinae evangelicae.”—Popp. August. Port. p. 110.

[xcviii]  [5] “Operatur in nobis velle quod bonum est, velle quod sanctum est, dum nos terrenis cupiditatibus deditos mutorum more animalium, tantummodo praesentia diligentes, futurae gloriae magnitudine et praemiorum pollicitatione, succendit: alum revelatione sapientiae in desiderium Dei stupentem suscitat voluntatem, dum nobis suadet omne quod bonum est.”—Pelag., ap. Aug. de Grat. Ch. cap. 10.

[xcix]  [6] “Ut autem assensus hic eliciatur in nobis, duo in primis necessaria sunt:—1. Argumenta talia ex parte Dei, quibus nihil verisimiliter opponi potest cur credibilia non sint. 2. Pia docilitas animique probitas.”—Rem. Declar., cap. 17. sect. 1.

[c]  [7] “Ut gratia sit efficax in actu secundo pendet a libera voluntate.”—Rem. Apol., p. 164.

[ci]  [8] “Imo ut confidentius again, dico effectum gratiae, ordinaria lege, pendere ab actu aliquo arbitrii.”—Grevinch, ad Ames., p. 198.

[cii]  [9] “Manet semper in potestate Lib. Arbit. gratiam datam rejicere et subsequentem repudiare, quae gratia non est omnipotentis Dei actio, cui resisti a libero hominis arbitrio non possit.”—Armin. Antip., p. 243.

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John Owen