to resist that action?"

And if that action be the action of the

will, it is to say "I have no power to will otherwise, and so no power to chuse otherwise; since what I chuse I chuse by my will." And then, First, I am no more rewardable for chusing as I do, than the blessed angels are for chusing as they do. And it is as vain to excite men to chuse the good, or refuse evil, by arguments or motives from promises and threats, as to move blessed angels by them to chuse or to refuse as they do: for as they being determined to one cannot need these motives, so when this unfrustrable operation comes upon men, they can as little need them as these angels do, because then they are as certainly, infallibly, and unfrustrably determined to one as the angels are; and as they being antecedently determined to one cannot use these motives to induce them or incline them to that good they chuse, so till lapsed man be thus determined to one he cannot use them to incline him to the performance of his duty: and, for the same reason, as long as this action is deferred or withheld, we are as little liable to punishment for not doing what is spiritually good, for not repenting and believing, as are the devils and the damned spirits, because we are as much disabled as they are, it being evidently the same to have no motives so to do, which is their wretched case, and to have none by which we can be moved so to do without that action which will not be vouchsafed. And as the devils are not determined to one in individuo,* but in kind only, as being determined to do evil in the general, and that only privatively for want of motive or inducement to do otherwise, so is it upon this supposition with lapsed man left in that state, without provision of this unfrustrable grace.

VI. To say that "men under this unfrustrable operation are still free, because what they are moved thus to do they will to do, and do it with complacency," is only to say "man herein hath the freedom of an elect angel, which is not rewardable;" but not that "he hath the freedom of a proficient, or of one in a state of trial and probation." Again, either this divine action only enables the will to determine itself, or it necessitates it to act; that is, to will. If it only enables it to do so, it renders not the action certain and infallible, for the will even of the regenerate person doth

*Individually.' ED.

not always necessarily or certainly chuse what it is able to chuse, for then regenerate persons would be guilty of no sin. If the divine motion doth necessitate the will, then is there no power in the will to do otherwise, and so there is no freedom either in that will, or that complacency which necessarily follows upon that divine impulse.

Thirdly. God thus unfrustrably moves the will either by rational motives and persuasions only, or by some physical influx upon it, which it cannot resist. If he uses the first way only, it is plain that his motion may be frustrated, since the regenerate too often act against the highest motives and the most powerful persuasions. If by a physical influx which the will cannot resist, though it hath contrary motives so to do, what can be further requisite to the compulsion of the will? For if my hand be compelled to act, when it is moved by an external force which I cannot resist, why is not my will compelled also, when it is acted by an extrinsical influx of God which it cannot resist? In fine, if the will and influx of God does thus unfrustrably interpose to determine the will of man before it determines itself, it is no more liable to an account for acting, or not acting, than the earth is for standing still, or the heavens for moving; for this they do only because the will and action of God in putting that motion into the one, and not into the other, makes it necessary for them so to do. If then man can do nothing that is is spiritually good till this divine motion determine him so to do, and then he cannot but do what he is thus moved to do; there is the same necessity for that which he doth, or doth not in this kind, as for the heavens to move, and the earth to stand still. To say "there is yet a difference betwixt these two cases, because man hath a remote capacity of doing otherwise," solves not the difficulty; for if that capacity cannot be exerted without this determining impulse, it is as none at all without it; it being, as to our spiritual interests, the same thing to have no capacity of doing good, as to have none that we can

exert.

That this is the true state of the question cannot be reasonably doubted, if these things seriously be considered,

(1.) That the contrary doctrines of the determining influx on the one hand, and the supposed disability which renders it necessary on the other, without the special grace of God, to be still

doing evil, have no countenance from, nor firm foundation in, the holy scriptures.

(2.) That these new notions concerning the consistence of a liberty that is rewardable, or penal, with necessity, and a determination to one, and an invincible necessity connate to fallen man, and rendering it impossible for him to do what is commanded, or to avoid what is forbidden under the highest penalties, is evidently repugnant to the common sense and natural reason of mankind, and as such hath been rejected by the christian writers. And,

(3.) That the christian world for four whole centuries condemned it as destructive of true liberty, of the nature of vice and virtue, of rewards and punishments, of the equity of the divine precepts and of a future judgment, and also contrary to the plain declarations of the holy scripture. And,

FIRST. That the doctrine of the determining influx rendering faith, repentance, and conversion in man unfrustrable, and irresistible by man, when the divine influx comes upon him; and by plain consequence impossible to him till it comes upon him, hath no foundation in the holy scriptures, hath been sufficiently demonstrated in the THIRD DISCOURSE concerning special and effectual grace; to which I shall only add this one observation, that some of those scriptures, which are now used to prove it, viz. God's promise to 'take away the stony heart, and give us hearts of flesh;' the apostle's words, that 'it is not of him that wills or runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy; and that it is God that worketh in us both to will and to do,' "where the very arguments used," saith Origen," "by them, who destroy free-will, διὰ τὸ φύσεις εἰσάγειν ἀπολομένας ἀνεπιδέκτες τὸ σώζεσθαι, καὶ ἑτέρας σωζομένας ἀδυνατως ἐχέσας πρὸς τὸ ἀπολέσθαι, ‘by introducing natures lost and incapable of being saved, and others saved which could not possibly perish';" which, as we learn from Clemens of Alexandria, was the doctrine of the Basilidians and the Marcionites," and which," saith he, "makes faith involuntary, and unworthy of praise, or incredulity of dispraise, as τὸν θεμέλιον ἔχεσα φυσικὴν áváyun, 'depending on an antecedent necessity;' and by destroying liberty overthrows, τὸν θεμέλιον της Σωτηρίας, ' the foundation of

salvation,' and renders all retribution unjust, and so destroys the doctrine of us christians, who have received from the scriptures that God hath given αἵρεσιν καὶ φυγὴν αυτοκρατορικὴν, a power from ourselves to chuse one thing, and fly from another;' and puts this plea into the mouths of wicked men, 'I did this unwillingly, and was compelled to do it'."

VII. Again, that the doctrine which teacheth that "man by the fall hath contracted such a disability to what is good; that, without the special grace of God, he can do nothing that is truly good, and is fallen under such a servitude to sin, as renders it necessary for him to be still doing evil," hath no foundation in the holy scriptures, is also easy to demonstrate: this I shall do, First, by laying down the doctrine of those divines who do maintain this opinion, as it is faithfully delivered by Le Blanc; and then producing what they alledge from scripture to confirm it.

Now Le Blanc, in his theses Of the liberty of man in the state of lapsed nature to what is morally good, hath given us the doctrine of these Reformers thus,

1. That "there be some moral precepts which man in this lapsed state cannot do at all; viz. that which saith negatively, 'thou shalt not covet;' and that which saith positively, ‘thou shalt love the Lord thy God' with all thy heart;" whence these things necessarily follow, that God must lay on lapsed man an obligation to impossibilities, and must command him, under the severest penalties, to do what he could never do from his birth, and to avoid what he had never power to avoid; unless he had this power before he had a being, or any faculty at all; and consequently that he can only require these impossibilities to increase his sin and enhance his damnation.

2. That according to the doctrine of the Protestants," "those actions of theirs which are materially good, are yet formally sins, because they are neither done out of love to God as the principle, nor for his glory as the end, and so have two essential defects inconsistent with the nature of an action morally good;" whence it must follow, that by endeavouring to obey God's commands as well as they can, they must formally sin.

3. That "most Protestants deny that man, in the state of lapsed nature, is free to chuse what is morally good, and so hath

c P. 409.

d Part 2. sec. 2. and 48.

e From sec. 11 to the 20th.

lost the freedom of his will as to those actions;" and, consequently, if God damn him for not doing what is morally good, he must damn him for that which he could not have the will to do.

4. That therefore "he is so far become the servant of sin, that whatsoever he doth, non possit nisi peccare, he cannot but sin;" and then St. Austin's definition of sin, that "it is the will to do that, a quo liberum fuit abstinere, 'from which he could abstain,” must be false; though he saith, that "the consciences of all men attest the truth of it."

5. "The Protestants," saith he, "teach that the grace without which, nemo bene operari potest, et vel unicum opus revera bonum efficere, esse ipsam gratiam regenerantem et justificantem, no man can do what is good, or perform one good action, is regenerating and justifying grace;' that is, without justifying faith," as he expounds them: "and this grace," saith he, "hath its beginning, progress, and completion from that efficacious grace, by which God in us doth abolish the dominion of sin:" whence it must follow, that no man can begin to do one good work till God vouchsafe that efficacious grace which will end in his sanctification; and therefore all that hope, fear, grief for sin, love, and imploration of the divine grace, which doth not end in this sanctification must be sin, or at least no good work.

Now to prove things so absurd and contrary to the first principles of reason, it is very reasonable to expect both plain and frequent testimonies of the holy scriptures, saying, that "man is by the fall of Adam become utterly unable to do any thing that is good, or any thing that God requires of him in an acceptable manner:" yea that "by reason of that fall alone, his faculties are so horribly perverted, that he can do only what is evil, and cannot but do evil." Whereas the whole scripture hath not one saying of this nature: it nowhere any farther charges the wickedness committed in the world upon this fall, than by saying that by one sin of one man, sin entered into the world, and death by sin;' but doth still charge it either upon men's want of consideration, or their unwillingness to do what they know to be their duty, or on the corrupt dispositions they had contracted through a long course of sin. It saith indeed that no man can bring a clean

f Sec. 48.

g Sec. 10, 11, 39.

h Sec. 25.

i Sec. 33.