Man’s Inability

“Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?”° — Jer. xiii, 23,

My pear Frienp,

You ask me what I think of the distinction commonly made between moral and physical inability. I answer, that to a certain extent it is aright one. For clearing off certain difficulties and obligations it is excellent; for bringing out man’s responsibility, and man’s real guilt, it is often most useful. For many speak of their helplessness as a mere misfortune which has somehow or other befallen them, but for which they are not responsible, and which infers no guilt on their part.* But it must not be carried too far. It must not be abused or misunderstood.

The distinction, we say, is a good one, and ought never to be lost sight of. There is, for

* «They are fearful words, ‘Ye would not? You will remember this against another day, as our Saviour says to the Jews, ‘ye will not come to me that ye might have life. Whatever is pretended, it is will and stubbornness that lie at the bottom of the refusal.” — Owen on the 130th Psalm.

instance, a great difference between my being determined not to go to church, and my being held from it by force. In the one case I am guilty, in the other I am not. The former is called moral, and the latter physical inability.

But I fear we cannot carry this distinction so far as some would have it carried. You say, why not? I answer, because if we make everything to turn upon this distinction, we must maintain, that wherever there is guilt, there can be nothing physically wrong with the guilty person; nothing so thoroughly wrong with him as to paralyze his moral powers, so that their free play in the direction of what is good is impeded. Anything like physical infirmity or inability of any kind would render him irresponsible.

The question is often asked, ‘ Is moral depravity possible, if there be any physical (or if you like to call it constitutional or organic) — incapacity?” Now, in answering this, allow me to put another which must be previously — answered, ‘‘Is moral depravity possible, if there be nothing physically wrong with the soul?” Tapprehend not. In moral depravity the mind or soul is diseased; that is to say, some physical change has passed upon them; some change which has acted upon the soul in the same way as palsy or fever acts upon the body and its organs. Sin has brought on a real alteration of their nature. For how can a thing be diseased and not in its nature altered? Can the tree rot and yet remain unchanged? Can the limb be palsied, and yet remain physically the same? Can the soul be corrupted, and yet be physically unaltered? Impossible! One depraved act might not necessarily infer a physical change, but a depraved nature must. ‘The people’s heart is

waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed.”* If then this be true, the distinction alluded to will not suffice to carry us through all the

intricacies of this controversy. If we admit sin, we must admit a change in the constitution of the soul. You may call that change a moral one. And no doubt it is. But it is also a physical one, that is, a change in our very nature, just as really as leprosy is a change in the nature of the body. Hence, while you may say that the sinner’s inability is a moral one, you cannét help admitting that there is something more involved init. Nor have I any doubt that it was this something more that the prophet alluded to, when he

* Matt. xiii. 14; Acts xxviii. 26.

said, ‘Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots;” and that Christ alluded to when he said, ‘‘ No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him;’’ or again, ‘‘ No man can come unto me except it were given unto him of my Father,” John vi. 44, 65.

Is then this physical change, or deterioration, or inability, or by whatever name it is called, consistent with responsibility? ‘This is the question. Let us examine it calmly, and see how it stands..

Men are depraved. ‘The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.” ‘The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies.” ‘ Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.”’*

This depravity is thorough and total. Ev-

* Finney of America, who holds almost exactly the same views as the Pelagians on this side of the Atlantic, ridicules the idea of taking this text literally. He maintains that a sinful natwre is an absurdity, and that our natures as they come into the world, are as good as Adam’s was; see his Lectures on Professing Christians, pp. 181 and 301; and his imitators in this country de rapidly advancing to the same point. Some of them seem to have reached it. An anonymous writer well remarks — ‘ It is one of the most refined delusions of Satan to make sin appear an accidental thing, rather than the corruption of the whole moral constitution. Every attempt to make sin consist only in the outward act, has led to the nullifying of the atonement, and to the substitution of morality for Christ’s holiness.”

ery imagination of the thoughts of his. heart is only evil continually. It has deteriorated the soul in all its powers. It has not certainly taken away any powers or faculties from the soul, but it has most materially affected our power of using them aright. If you admit depravity in any degree, you must admit deterioration, and consequently less physical power for willing and acting right. Does, then, this enfeebled capability infer diminished responsibility and guilt? We have already, so far, answered this question. We answer again, that it does not, and cannot do so — unless this inability has been forced upon us by another mightier than ourselves. If it is a voluntary inability — voluntary at its commencement, and voluntary throughout all its progress, then the guilt remains. Whatever name we may give to it, still if it be an inability into which the heart and will enter — an inability in which we acquiesce, nay rejoice, then it is sinful, and we are responsible. And this is the answer to the objection sometimes adduced, ‘‘ We were born in this state; it was the fall that did this.” Allowing it to be so, and granting what extenuation you please on this account — still is it not a fact that you are of your own will an enemy to God? Is it not a fact, there is nothing compelling you to hate God? Is it not a fact, that every step you take is voluntary, and that every feeling you cherish towards God is entirely unconstrained and unforced from without? If so, then there is still an awful mass of guilt for which you are accountable, even though you could prove that the origin of it may be urged as an extenuation or excuse. Whatever the fall did, it never forced you to commit a single sin. Whatever may be your original corruption, you cannot say that it ever compelled you to sin against your will. And is it not folly as well as profanity for a sinner to be casting the blame of the evil that he does upon some foreign cause, when he is all the while conscious —

that he is doing it of his own will. It is vain, and worse than vain, to attempt to unfasten our guilt from ourselves, and fix it on our birth, or our education, or our circumstances.

These may account for our sin, but they can- —

not annul it. ‘They may in part explain our

conduct, but they cannot prove our innocence

or secure our acquittal.

The question does not turn solely upon the kind or amount of inability, but upon this — is it or is it not inability produced or perpetuated by our own deliberate choice? Did not

~,4

God give you ability, and you threw it away? You could not, indeed, throw away the powers themselves, love, judgment, memory, and such like; but you did what was far worse — you disabled and besotted them, so as to make them only capable of acting wrong. You changed the physical organization of these powers from good to evil; and will you, after all this, venture to say, that you are not responsible for the change? You have done the

evil, and you cannot undo it. But we are responsible for many things which we cannot

undo. If we wilfully do them we are guilty. If a pilot undertakes to steer your vessel into port, and then deliberately besots himself so that he cannot; is he not responsible? Rather, is he not doubly responsible, doubly guilty; guilty for not doing the thing contracted for, and guilty for rendering himself unable to do it? Is not the fact that he

himself has rendered the doing of what he un- - dertook a physical impossibility, an aggravation of his guilt? If a stronger than he were to

imprison him, and prevent his executing his trust, that would be a very different case. He would not then be guilty. In that case he could in no sense help it. His inability was not his own doing at all. His not doing the thing which he undertook, arose neither from”

his unwillingness, nor from his refusal to exercise the powers given him, nor from his having perverted them or thrown them away. None of these being true, he is not guilty. But if any of them should be true, he would be guilty, even if he should plead physical inability. If he wilfully wasted or destroyed

his powers, he would be responsible for the.

complete exercise of them still.

On any other supposition, there would be no such thing as right and wrong, nor any such thing as responsibility at all. If a man is not responsible for that which he is now unable to do, when he himself is the real cause of the inability, then nothing can be more easy than to evade responsibility altogether. If I have a disagreeable duty to perform, I have only to induce disease, or maim my limbs, and then I am no longer responsible for the neglect! IfI have to pay a debt of a hundred pounds, I have only to throw away the money or misspend it, and then I am no longer responsible.

for it! Nay, I may contract debts to any amount, and no man can make me responsible for them, if I can only prove myself unable to pay them. This was exactly Jonah’s way of avoiding the danger and pain of carrying God’s message to Nineveh. He fled away so as to make it physically impossible for him to go to Nineveh, as if the Lord would be mocked with such an excuse! If the simple fact of a person’s being unable to perform a thing excuse him for the neglect of it, then moral obligation must be very loose and uncertain, and the law of God a thing easily dispensed with or trifled away.

The real question is not simply, Am I unable? but, How did this inability come to

pass? Have I destroyed and disabled myself, or did God do it? It is in vain to plead inability, so long as it is true that I produced it myself, in direct opposition to the will of him that

made me; and so Jong as I am daily perpetuating and strengthening it, willingly and deliberately. We may in many cases measure a man’s guilt by reference to his present resour-

ces and capacities; but God measures it by

reference to the original powers conferred upon him, and which he has deliberately thrown away. ‘lo measure it by any other standard would be to give man the entire power to fix the amount of his own guilt, and estimate its penalty.

It is vain to say, Oh yes, man is responsible for the act of throwing away his powers, but

Tea not for everything that has happened to him, or been done by him, in consequence of these’ being disabled. J answer, if a man is responsible for the first act, then he is so for all the others; for what are the others but a repetition of the first? And even though they were not, yet in every act the measure of responsibility must be the power which God gave him to perform the act aright. You may say, per-’ haps, Yes, man is responsible for everything into which his will enters; but not beyond the degree of will involved, or the degree of power possessed. Now, I admit that more or less of will must be involved in what a man does.* Even what are called involuntary movements, both of body and soul, have perhaps more of the will in them than we suspect, however unconsciously brought into play. Hence in things which seem the mere result of physical constitution, there may be a far greater amount of will than we imagine. So that to determine the amount of wil, in anything is a matter of exceeding difhieulty. In any particular sin it is impossible for us to say how much may be the result of will, and how

* “There is no command given unto men for evangelical faith or obedience; but they can and do put forth a free positive act of their wills in the rejection of it.’ — Owen’s Works, vol. ii. p. 337.

much of power. How vain then to say, we must ascertain how much will and how much power are involved in an action, before we determine the amount of guilt.

I do not maintain that the Holy Spirit creates new faculties or powers in us. No. He renews all our faculties, but he creates no new ones. faith is not a new faculty, neither is love, neither is trust. What is faith, but the soul believing; what is love, but the soul loving; what is trust, but the soul trusting? The work of the Spirit is to renew the soul, not to annihilate it; and being renewed, it believes, and loves, and trusts, when that which is true, and lovable, and trustworthy is presented to it. In its unrenewed state it rejects all that is true and lovable and trustworthy in God. Not till the Holy Spirit’s renewing hand is laid on it will it receive these. But in all this there is no creating new faculties in the soul; there is simply the ‘‘renewing us in the spirit of our minds.”

I am willing to admit that we have all the powers that man ever had. We need no more. We require no new powers to be created in us. But then the right action of our powers — their action in the direction of what is good, is totally suspended, palsied, prostrate. ‘The power of using these powers aright is gone.* These powers we still possess, the power we have cast away. I have all the bodily limbs that Adam had; but the power to use them is not like his. I have all the mental and moral powers which he possessed, but the power to use them I have sinned away. Now, it is the possession of the powers that makes me responsible, not simply the possession of the power. If I came into the world bereft of intellect, then I could not be expected to understand truth, nor commanded to believe it. But if my understanding remain, however paralyzed a are by sin, Iam responsible. If I came into the world without a conscience, I could not be commanded to keep the holy law of God; but if I have a conscience, however depraved by sin, I am responsible for keeping it. If I came into the world without a heart to love, any more than the worm beneath my feet, I could not be enjoined to love. But if I have a heart still, however changed in regard to its tastes, then I am responsible up to the extent of my original powers of loving. If I came into the world without a will, like a stone, I could not

* Yet we say with Owen, “It is granted that there is in man a natural remote passive power to give obedience unte God.” — Works, vol. ii. p. 885.

be guilty; but if I have a will, though utterly set against God, utterly in bondage to sin, then I am responsible up to the full measure of that for which that will was at first given.

Man is truly a far more depraved being than many seem to suppose. The seat of his disease lies far deeper than they imagine. They would make it a very superficial thing, easily cured, by a mere act of his own will. God makes it very different, — deep-seated, awfully malignant, utterly incurable, save by the direct forthputting of the will and power of God.*

that the seat of the disease is the will, still the case remains unaltered. ‘The will must have undergone a change, so that it is not now what once it was. The will has become depraved, and that depravity can only be removed by the mighty power of God. Let the seat of the malady be where you like, still it is a malady of such a nature as to re-

* I am surprised that any one should maintain that the physical organization of our souls does not suffer, and is not deteriorated by our fall. Look at the savage, and see how his mental and moral capacities have suffered. They have shrunk and withered up like a limb that is cramped or out of use. Look at the uneducated man, it is the same with him. Look at the drunkard, it is the same with him. Their whole soul is deteriorated, and physically injured. They are not capable of comprehending or relishing truth, to which in other circumstances they would have been perfectly adequate. I say nothing as to the means to be employed for rectifying this disease and incapacity: I simply advert to the fact.

quire the interposition of Omnipotence for its cure.

The question then comes to be, not what is the disease, or what is the seat of it, but is it capable of removal by any but God? Grant that there is no inability but what is entirely moral, not physical at all, still the question recurs, is the removal of that moral inability more within man’s power than the removal of the physical? If both are equally beyond his power, though in a different way, then really the stress laid upon the distinction between moral and physical inability, though right in itself perhaps, is still far away from the real point before us. My determination not to ens ter a church is a very different thing from my being positively unable to do so; yet practically they come to the same point. And the real question is, whichever of the two it be, How is it to be removed? ‘That which concerns me most is not so much the precise seat of the disease, as the amount of power required to cure it. And whether we count our inability a moral or physical one, there can be no doubt that it can only be removed by God.

I press this point for the following reason: As long as the distinction between moral and physical inability was brought out for the purpose of enforcing the sinner’s responsibility, there could be no harm in it. Nay, it was right. But when it is brought out in order to prove to the sinner that his disease is of such a kind, that he can remove it all by an act of his own will, then we are called upon to guard against the conclusions drawn from the distinction, and to clear up the distinction itself. I have no doubt that the reason of its being so much dwelt upon by some, is in order to show the sinner that he has the power to heal the disease, or at least to commence the healing process, without the direct interposition of God.

Make then the inability small or great, make it natural or moral, make it of whatever kind you will, still this fact comes prominently out, that man cannot remove it. God alone can do this. Man is utterly helpless. God must interpose; and in whatever way he interposes, there is a testimony of man’s helplessness. If God must interpose, either directly or indirectly, then up to the amount of power put forth in that interposition, I am counted by him as helpless. With this question the mode of operation has nothing to do. At another stage of the question this point will be discussed; but here we speak, not of the necessity for a particular kind of operation, but for any operation at all, mediate or iImmediate. Without the Spirit working in some way or other, it is admitted by all, that man would remain an unbeliever. Is he not then responsible for this unbelief — an unbelief which it requires the Spirit to remove? If it 1s confessed that he is responsible in such circumstances, then I answer, the whole question is conceded; for it is granted that he is responsible for that which without the Spirit never will be done by him.

A favorite argument with many is, ‘‘ How can a man be called on to believe if he is not able of himself to do so? and how can the gospel be free if man be unable of himself to receive it?” On this I would make the following remarks : —

1. This is a wrong way of settling the matter. The true question is as to what Scripture says, and not as to what we think. Now, Scripture does call upon us, and command us to believe, yet declares also our entire helplessness. Both of these things are true, whether we can reconcile them or not. The truth of either of them does not depend upon our being able to adjust and explain them, but simply upon Goud’s declaration concerning them. He has revealed both, and it is not for us to ask how can both of these be true, or to refuse to admit one of them, because it appears to our reason inconsistent with the other. We know so little of the things of God, and are so utterly unable to reconcile many things much plainer than these, that it becomes us to be silent. God commands men everywhere to believe and repent, yet he says, ‘‘no man can come to Christ unless it be given him of the Father.” Let us receive both of these statements, for both are of God. It is sad, indeed, when men will not believe what God tells them, unless their own reason can approve of it. There can be little reverence for God when men will not receive his revelation unless borne out by the demonstrations of their own erring reason. ‘There can be little reverence for the Bible when men will not admit one of its plainest statements, because they cannot see how it accords with another to which they happen to be particularly attached. There may be perfect harmony, though we do not see it.*

* “The word goes on in its way, not obviating every possible mi-conception, not giving anxious pains to show how this statement which it makes and that agree. It is satisfied that they do agree, and lets those that are watching for an offence take it... It is ever the manner of that word,

How foolish, then, and unreasonable to dwell upon such apparent contradictions, as if these could settle the question. Christ’ commanded Lazarus to come forth. Did that prove that Lazarus could do it of himself? How profane, as well as foolish, would it be to say, Lazarus could not be entirely dead; he must have had some life and power remaining, else Christ would never have commanded him to come forth.

But, some one will say, there is a mighty difference between this instance and the matter before us. I grant there is; but the difference is all against such an objector. It does not matter what you call the kind of death or the kind of inability, it may be moral or it may be physical, still it 7s death, and it és inability. It is such a death and such an

now boldly to declare its truth upon this side, and then presently to declare it as boldly and fearlessly on the other, not painfully and nicely balancing, limiting, qualifying, till the whole strength of its statements had evaporated, not caring though its truths should seem to jostle one another. Enough that they do not do so indeed. It is content to leave them to the Spirit to adjust and reconcile, and to show how the rights of each are compatible with the rights of the other, and not compatible only, but how most often the one requires that the other have its rights before it can truly have its own.. .. It is this glory of Scripture that its harmonies lie deep; so deep that to the careless or perverse ear they may sometimes taken for discords.” — Zrench’s Hulsean Lecture pp. 118-120. get inability as requires to be removed by the power of another.

And this is enough. Even where the power of another must go forth in order to enable the person to comply with the command, the command is quite consistent with man’s responsibility. It is needless then to discuss the ques. tion of moral and physical inability. All J] contend for here is an tnability which the power of another ts required to remove. In consistency our adversaries ought to maintain that wherever the inability is of such a kind as to require the aid of another, then moral obligation ceases. In this point of view it does not matter what the inability be, or where it lies. If it be so great, or of such a nature as to require the forthputting of the Spirit’s power for its removal, then, according to the new theology, the sinner is not responsible, and God is unjust in commanding or inviting. We say, if the sinner produced the inability he is responsible. Tey say, no; he is not responsible, unless he is able to remove it himself. So that it would just come to this; — if you say that the Spirit’s help is absolutely necessary in conversion, and that the sinner cannot convert himself, you make him no longer a responsible agent, — no longer a person to whom commands or invitations can be honestly or consistently addressed.

It is remarkable, also, that it is from reswrrection that many of the expressions are taken regarding the power required to convert the soul. “You hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins.” ‘What is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead.” It is then the exceeding greatness of his power that is required to raise us. It is the same mighty power which raised Christ — nothing less than this. It is more than creation-power. It is resurrection-power.

2. Upon any theory regarding the Spirit’s work the same difficulty occurs, and the same question may be put regarding man’s responsibility for believing the gospel. If I entirely deny both the being and the work of the Spirit, I can consistently put the question, how can you ask a man to believe, and yet say that he needs the Spirit in order to this? But if I admit that the Spirit’s aid is necessary in any sense, then I admit that but for that help the sinner would not or could not have believed. And what is this but confessing the great truth, that man is in himself helpless, but still responsible — that man cannot, or at least will not, believe without the Spirit — yet still that he may be called upon to do so, and condemned for not believing? Let me grant that the Spirit does not operate directly, let me admit this to the fullest extent ; — still it remains true that his indirect operation is absolutely necessary, and that without it the sinner’s unbelief would remain immovable. If then there is an admission of the necessity of the Spirit’s agency in any degree or mode, then there is a confession that man in himself is helpless, and yet responsible. You must either deny the Spirit and his work totally, or else admit the sinner’s responsibility even in the midst of his helplessness.

3. Let me grant that the inability is wholly in the wz// and nowhere else: that the sinner can, if he will, do everything in believing, &c. Does this get clear of the difficulty? By no means. For still the w7/l being wholly set against God presents the grand obstacle. God sees that man never wll turn of his own accord, and yet he invites, entreats, and commands him to do so. Is not this as great a difficulty as ever? Allowing that it places the question of the sinner’s responsibility in a

1 Se truer light, does it throw any light upon God’s reasons for entreating sinners to do what he knows they never will? I might still ask the question, and insist upon a solution of the difficulty, “Why does God call on us to turn, when he knows we never will do so until he turns us? Is it not mockery in God to plead with us, and ply us with arguments and motives, when he knows quite well that we never will comply with these of our own accord? Here is the great difficulty, — a difficulty which exists in our opponents’ system as well as ours, — a difficulty which, even upon their principles, would lead to the conclusion that God is insincere in what he says, — giving us invitations which he knows will never be complied with. 4, Let me again grant that the inability is entirely moral, entirely in the will, how does this clear up matters? Moral inability I should imagine to be something much worse than physical inability, — something much more difficult to remove. And if so, I may well ask, How is moral inability consistent with the commands of God in the gospel? It may be a different thing from the other kind of inability; it may preserve man’s responsibility, but how does it in the very least furnish an answer to the question before us? If then the moral be worse than the physical inability, any prospect of the sinner’s believing, turning, &c. of his own accord, and unacted upon by another, is wholly at an end. The impossibility, or at least the unlikelihood, cf such a thing, is increased, not diminished. And how is that moral impossibility or unlikelihood to be overcome? Only by God. If so, why does God call on the sinner to do that which is morally, though not physically, impossible?

5. God commands the sinner to keep the whole law, in every jot and tittle. The command is a just one. Man is responsible for. obeying it. But does this prove that unrenewed man is able to keep the whole law? A man’s being unrenewed does not free him from his obligation to keep the law. He is still bound to do so even in his unrenewed state. But does this prove that in that state he is also able to keep it? According to some, it does; otherwise God would not be just in enjoining him to keep it. But further, a man has the same power to keep the law as he has to believe the gospel. His powers for both are of necessity the same, unless a new faculty be required in order to his keeping the law. If, then, he can believe of himself, he can keep the law of himself. He is equally responsible for both.

6. God commands us to “make ourselves new hearts,” Ezek. xviii. 31. Are we able to do this? Not even the advocates of free-will maintain this.* They admit that a man cannot convert himself, and give himself a new heart. Yet God commands us to do this, and tells that if we do not do this, iniquity will be our ruin. We are responsible for making our hearts good, for we made them evil. It is no excuse to say, we have made them so evil that we cannot renew them: it is beyond our power. We are responsible for all the evil that we have done, whether we can undo it or not; and God is righteous in saying to us, Do this good, or undo this evil.

These considerations may help to show us that man’s utter helplessness is not at all inconsistent with God’s authority over him, and that it is quite possible to hold the doctrine of man’s inability, and yet to press upon him the command, ‘‘ Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ;” nay, to say, ‘‘ Ye will not come unto me, that

* Finney of America does maintain this; and thus far he is self-consistent. But few are so bold. The harmony of their system requires and implies it; but they shrink from a harmony involving such consequences, at least they have done so as yet.

ye might have life;” ‘As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the sinner, but rather that he turn from his way and live; turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die;” “whosoever will let him take of the water of life freely.”

It is not surely very difficult to see the consistency between man’s helplessness and his responsibility to obey the calls to believe, to turn, to repent. [or these calls are not to anything save what the sinner feels he is bound to do, whether he be assisted or not in the doing of them. ‘Those feelings which the Holy Spirit works, are jusi what every man ought at all times to have, and which he is guilty for not having. If that which He wrought was something alien to our being, something so entirely new, that we could form no conception of it, then the inconsistency would exist. But since he only does for us, and in us, that which we ought always to possess, and for which we are responsible, the consistency is plain and indisputable.

As to the freedom of the will, I must be content with a few remarks. Philosophers and Pelagians say that man’s will is free; Scripture says that it is in bondage. I admit that God does not force it, that the devil cannot force, that nothing outward can force it. I admit that man is a free agent in what he does, in so far as anything outward is concerned. But still his will is a captive. Christ says, ‘¢ Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin;” and he adds, ‘‘ If the Son make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” Does this not mean, that till Christ make us free, we are not free? Paul also speaks of our being the ‘“servants of sin,’ — of our being “carnal, sold under sin;” and Peter says, ‘‘ They promise them liberty, while they themselves are the servants of corruption; for of whom a man is overcome, of the same he is brought in bondage.” (2 Peter ii. 19.) Let these passages suffice for those who boast of the freedom of the will. But, indeed, if they have not learned, in their own bitter experience, the miserable bondage of their own will, and the sad dominion which sin has over them, I despair of convincing them either by reason or Scripture.*

* How like men speak now-a-days to the carnal Jews of old, when Christ told them that they were not free: “We be Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?” — John Viii. 33. Thomas Adam, in his Private Thoughts, has the following remark: — * It is the general opinion of mankind, and what the fathers (Chrysostom and others), flourish much on with great confidence, that the will is free. I do not find it so. The captivity of the will is my misery and great complaint before God; nor do J think that if it were in equilibrio, any man on earth would choose evil.”

But you, my dear friend, know something of the struggles of a soul in bondage. [ven when rejoicing in forgiveness, and walking in the liberty which the Son hath given, we are continually made to feel the remains of our former bondage, and to cry out because of it. Our chains no longer bind us, but their fragments still remain upon our limbs. And if even now we feel the traces of our bondage, how heavy and sore must it have been in other days! Our wills, our faculties, our whole nature, were in bondage. We were not free till Christ made us so. And it is in this that we rejoice; we once were the slaves of sin, now we are set free; once it had dominion over us, now we are delivered from its yoke! And instead of being less free, because filled and moved by the indwelling Spirit, we are all the more free. It is his omnipotent interposition that gives us liberty. We were helpless bond-slaves before. Blessed be the name of him who sent from above, and took us and drew us out of many waters! Blessed be his glorious name forever, who hath opened our prison-gates, and brought us forth out of the low dungeon to breathe in gladness the fresh air of a heavenly day !* — I am yours, &e.

* Those who say that the whole disease lies in the wid/,

THUS SAITH THE LORD:

“God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.’ — Gen. vi. 5.

“The Lord hath not given you a heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day.” — Deut. xxix. 4,

“Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one.” — Job xiv. 4.

“Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.” — Ps. li. 5.

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” — Jerem. xvii. 9.

“Neither knoweth any man the Father but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth (purposeth) to reveal him.” — Matt. xi. 27. The word here is Povdoua, 1 purpose, not merely Ged», I will.

“Their heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed.’ — Matt. xiii. 15.

“Which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” — John 1 18.

“That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.’ — John iii. 6.

“No man can come to me except the Father, which hath sent me, draw him.’ — John vi. 44.

“No man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.” — John vi. 65.

“J am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that dol... Towill is present with me; but how to perform that which is good, I find not.... The good that I would I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do. AES I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin.” — Rom. vi. 14-18, 19-238.

“The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.”” — Gal. v. 17.

and nowhere else, must have some difficulty in sympathizing with Paul, when he said, “7o witu is present with me, but HOW TO PERFORM that which is good I find not.” I would earnestly recommend the careful study of the seventh chapter of the Romans in connection with this letter.

“You hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins.” — Eph, ii. 1.

“Who being past feeling, have given themselves over to lasciviousness. — Eph. iv. 19.

“Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin.” — — 2 Pet. ii. 14,

NOTE.

The following paragraphs may help the reader to understand how man may be a free agent, and yet in bondage to sin. “Has not man liberty in respect of the law, as well as of the Gospel? Does he, in any instance, break the law against his will? Surely not. Ifa bias of mind to evil tends to destroy free agency, then the devil can be no free agent, and so is not accountable. The same holds true of a bias to good; neither God, nor Christ, nor saints in glory, are capable of doing wrong. The bias of their minds is so invariably fixed to holiness, that it is impossible they should in any instance deviate from it, and yet will any one deny them to be the subjects of free agency?” — Fudller.

“Sinners are free and voluntary in their bad temper. Did anybody force them to be of such a bad temper? Surely no. Their hearts and Wills were in it.... The stronger any inclination is, the more full and free the heart and soul is in the thing. Hence the habitual bad inclination of the devil is at the farthest distance from any compulsion. He is most perfectly free and hearty in it... If, then, we are so averse to God that we cannot love him; and if our bad disposition is so strong, so settled, so rooted, that we cannot get rid of it; this is so far from being matter of excuse for us, that it renders us so much the more vile, guilty, and heildeserving. To suppose that our inability in this case extenuates our fault — an inability which increases in preportion to our badness, is to suppose that the worse a sinner grows the less to blame he is.” — Bellamy’s True Religion Delineated.