just, μη τῆς ψυχῆς ἐχέσης τὴν ἐξεσίαν τῆς ὁρμῆς, καὶ ἀφορμῆς, ἀλλ ̓ ἀκεσία τῆς κακίας έσης, ‘if the soul hath not the power of chusing, or abstaining, but evil is involuntary'."" Yea he makes this the very "foundation of salvation, without which there could be neither any reasonable baptism, nor divine ordering of our natures, because faith would not be in our own power.' "n "Sui arbitrii est anima, et in quam voluerit partem est ei liberum declinare, 'the soul,' saith Origen, acts by her own choice, and it is free for her to incline to whatever part she will;" and therefore God's judgment of her is just, because of her own accord she complies with good or bad monitors. Upon this supposition," saith he, "it is that good men are praised, and that God saith reasonably, "Well done, good and faithful servant;' and again, Othou wicked and slothful servant;' that he saith to them of the right hand, Come, ye blessed, &c. and to them of the left hand, depart from me, ye cursed, &c'."P "One of these two things are necessary," saith Epiphanius, “ ή γενέσεως ὑπαρχέσης, either that a necessity arising from our being born,' there should be no judgment, dià Tò Tòν Áρát τοντα ἐκ ἀφ' ἑαυτό πράττειν, because men act not freely;' or if laws be justly made by God, and punishments threatened to, and inflicted on, the wicked, and God's judgments be according to truth, there is no fate; for διὰ τὸν δυνασθαι ἁμαρτάνειν, καὶ μὴ ἁμαρτεῖν, τὸν μὲν διὰ τὰ ἁμαρτήματα δικην ἀπ' αἰτεῖσθαι, τὸν δὲ ἔπαινον ἀπεκδέχεσθαι διὰ τὸ ἔυπεπραγέναι, ' for therefore is one punished for his sins, and another praised for his good works, because he hath it in his power to sin or not." "For how," saith Theodoret, can he justly punish a nature, ἀγαθὸν τὶ δράσαι μὴ δυναμένην, ἀλλὰ τοῖς τῆς κακίας πεπεδημένην δεσμοῖς, 'which had no power to do good, but was bound in the bonds of wickedness'?" again, "God having made the rational nature aržov, with power over its own actions," averts men from evil things, and provokes them to do what is good, by laws and exhortations, ¿x ἀναγκάζει δὲ μὴ βελομένην τῶν ἀμεινόνων μεταλαχεῖν, ἵνα μὴ παρα KINON, THE OPs Tns Quoews, but he doth not necessitate the un

n

m Strom. 1, p. 311, A.

And

Ὥςε ἐδὲ βάπτισμα ἔτι ἔυλογον ἀλλ ̓ ἄθεΘ διμαι ἡ τῶν φύσεων αὐτοῖς ευρίσκεται διανομὴ τον θεμέλιον της σωτηρίας τὴν ἑκήσιον πίςιν ἐκ ἔχεσα.

willing to embrace what is better, that he may not overturn the bounds of nature'." Innumerable are the passages of this nature which might be cited from the Fathers; but these at present shall suffice, because some of them may be mentioned hereafter.

CHAP. III.

Propounding arguments from reason to evince this freedom of the will from necessity.

TO proceed, SECONDLY, to the rational inducements to evince this freedom of the will from necessity, or a determination to one, that is, either to good or evil only, I argue,

1. ARGUMENT FIRST. From what I have insisted on more largely in the preface to the THIRD DISCOURSE, to shew that God acts suitably to our faculties; to wit, by the illumination of our understanding, and by persuading of the will. For if God work only on the will by moral causes, then lays he no necessity upon it, since moral causes have no necessary influence on the effect, but move only by such persuasions as the will may resist ; as when St. Paul persuaded the Corinthians to give alms. And whereas too many divines take this for granted, that though God hath laid no necessity on man to do evil by his own decrees, yet fallen man lies under a necessity of doing evil since the fall, by reason of that disability he hath contracted by it to do any thing which is truly good: I have demonstrated the falsehood of that supposition, in the second part of that discourse, Section Fifth, and shewed in Section Third of the STATE OF THE QUESTION in this discourse, that though the evil habits added to our natural corruption do render it exceeding difficult, they do not render it impossible for them to do what is good and acceptable in the sight of God.

II. ARGUMENT SECOND. I argue from the received notion of the word; for as Le Blanc" observes, according to the common sense of mankind, and the received use of speaking, that only is said to be free for us to do, (1.) Which it is in our power to do; (2.) which may be done otherwise than it is done;

a De Lib. Arbit. part. 2, § 20.

and (3.) about which there is ground for consultation and deliberation. Seeing then, (i.) necessarium est quod non potest aliter se habere, that only is necessary to be done one way which cannot be done otherwise;' and that which is thus necessary cannot be free, because that only is so which may be done otherwise. (ii.) Seeing that is not in our power to omit which we are determined to do, nor is it in our power to do that which we are determined to omit; if that be only free which it is in our power to do, or not to do; that evil which through the fall we are determined to do, or that omission of good we are necessitated to; and that good which by the divine influx we are necessitated or determined to perform, cannot be free; and so can neither be blame-worthy nor rewardable. And (iii.) Seeing there can be no rational consultation or deliberation about those things which antecedently are either necessary or impossible; and so when persons are infrustrably determined to one, that one thing becomes necessary, and any other thing is thereby made to them impossible; they who are only free in matters about which they can reasonably consult and deliberate, cannot act freely in those things which they are thus determined to do, or not do. Moreover all consultation and deliberation is in order to choice and election: Now choice, or election, in the very nature of it, is of more than one; but there can be no choice of more than one in him who is determined to one, and so a consequent election cannot consist with an antecedent determination to one. If therefore the divine grace in man's conversion unfrustrably determines him to one; or if the disability contracted by the fall determines men to chuse that which is evil only, and to omit that which is truly good; both these determinations must take away the freedom of men's actions, at least as far as they are worthy of praise or dispraise, of reward or punishment. For,

First. Either the divine influx leaves men room to chuse to turn to God, or it doth not: if it doth not, they do not chuse to turn to God when they are thus converted: if it doth, it cannot unfrustrably determine them to turn to him, because it leaves it to their choice whether they will turn or not. Again, either this disability determines lapsed man to what is evil only, and so to the omission of what is truly good, or it doth not so: if it doth not so, it leaves him an ability to do good: if it doth not, he

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cannot properly be said to chuse not to do good. In a word, when God calls, invites, and exhorts him to chuse the thing that is good, and to learn to do well; when he attempts by threatenings to affright him from continuance in his evil ways, and by his promises to allure and to incite him to return unto him; are not these things designed to engage him to consider of, and attend to, God's exhortations; to consult and deliberate how he may avoid the evils threatened, and obtain the blessings promised? But if they lie under an utter disability of doing what is spiritually good, and so of obtaining the blessings promised, to what purpose should they deliberate about it? To what purpose should they consider how they may avoid the evil that they do? I conclude therefore this argument with that which Gennadius" delivers as the doctrine of the church of God, that "though man by the fall hath lost, vigorem arbitrii, 'the vigour of his free-will,' non tamen electionem, ne non esset suum quod evitaret peccatum, nec merito indulgeretur quod non arbitrio diluisset; yet hath he not lost his choice, lest it should not be of his choice that he avoided sin, nor should that be accounted to him for reward which he did not freely put away:' manet ergo ad quærendam salutem arbitrii libetas, sed admonente prius Deo et invitante; there remains therefore yet to fallen man a freedom of will to seek after his salvation, though God must first admonish and invite him so to do'."

III. ARGUMENT THIRD. Le Blanc adds, (ibid.) that all the actions which proceed freely from us may be subject to a command, and by the law of God or man may be enjoined or forbidden; but this cannot agree to those acts, circa quos voluntas immutabiliter se habet, in which the will is so immutably determined that it never can or could do otherwise.' So that if this be the case of lapsed man, his sin cannot proceed freely from him, and so cannot be reasonably forbidden; for as St. Austin' saith, peccati teneri reum quempiam quia non fecit id quod facere non potuit, summæ iniquitatis et insaniæ est, 'it is the height of madness and injustice to hold any person guilty because he did not that which he could not do;' as will be farther evident even from the essential condition of a law, viz. that it be just; those laws being certainly unjust which prohibit that under a penalty which a man cannot

possibly shun, or require that which cannot possibly be done by him of whom it is required. And the greater is the penalty, the greater still is the injustice. For, (1.) just laws are the ordinances of wisdom and right reason; whereas that which commands impossibilities can never be required reasonably or wisely. Quis enim non clamet stultum esse, præcepta ei dare cui liberum non est quod præcipitur facere? For who,' saith St. Austin, 'will not pronounce it folly, to command him who is not free to do what is commanded?' (2.) Just laws are instituted for the publick good, and God hath made this declaration concerning his own precepts, that he commands them for our good; but that law which prescribes impossibilities under a penalty upon non-performance, cannot be instituted for the publick good, but rather for the greatest evil to the generality of mankind, who are said to be left to the defect and disability of their own wills. (3.) Good laws do shew to a man what is to be done by him, and what is to be shunned; but those laws which prescribe what cannot be done or avoided, cannot direct a man to what he is to do, or what he is to shun. And, indeed, who feels not the truth of those words of St. Austin, iniquum esse eum damnare cui non fuit potestas jussa complere, 'that it is unjust to condemn him as disobedient, who hath no power to obey,' or to punish men for doing evil, though they lie under a necessity of doing it, only because they do it willingly, seeing they must do it willingly, if they do it at all; because they must first will to do it, and so it is as necessary for them to be willing, as it is to do it?

IV. ARGUMENT FOURTH. If wicked men be not necessitated to do the evil that they do, or to neglect the good they do neglect, then have they freedom from necessity in both these cases; and if they be thus necessitated, then neither their sins of omission or commission could deserve that name; it being essential to the nature of sin, according to St. Austin's definition of it, that it be an action, à quo liberum est abstinere, from which the sinner might abstain.' Three things seem plainly necessary to make an action or omission culpable, (1,) that it be in our power to perform or to forbear it; for as Origen, and all the Fathers, say, ἐδεἰς ἀδύνατον μὴ ποιήσας ψεκτός ἐςι, ' no man is blame-worthy for

c L. de Fide contr. Man. c. 10.

d Ibid. e Aqud Euseb. Præp. Ev. L. 6. c. 11. p. 287.