I would ask, what law
If they are a breach of
And if they be not

Now, how can these things be made consistent? these imperfections of our obedience are a breach of? no law that we were ever under, then they are not sins. sins, what need of Christ's dying to satisfy for them? But if they are sins, and the breach of some law, what law is it? They cannot be a breach of their new law; for that requires no other than imperfect obedience, or obedience with imperfections: and therefore to have obedience attended with imperfections, is no breach of it; for it is as much as it requires. And they cannot be a breach of their old law; for that, they say, is entirely abolished; and we never were under it. They say, it would not be just in God to require of us perfect obedience, because it would not be just to require more than we can perform, or to punish us for failing of it. And therefore, by their own scheme, the imperfections of our obedience do not deserve to be punished. What need therefore of Christ's dying, to satisfy for them? What need of his suffering to satisfy for that which is no fault, and in its own nature deserves no suffering? What need of Christ's dying, to purchase, that our imperfect obedience should be accepted, when, according to their scheme, it would be unjust in itself, that any other obedience than imperfect should be required? What need of Christ's dying to make way for God's accepting such an obedience, as it would be unjust in him not to accept? Is there any need of Christ's dying, to prevail with God not to do unrighteously? If it be said, that Christ died to so satisfy that old law for us, that so we might not be under it, but that there might be room for our being under a more mild law: still I would inquire, what need of Christ's dying, that we might not be under a law, which (by their principles) it would be in itself unjust that we should be under, whether Christ had died or no, because, in our present state, we are not able to keep it?

So the Arminians are inconsistent with themselves, not only in what they say of the need of Christ's satisfaction to atone for those imperfections, which we cannot avoid, but also in what they say of the grace of God, granted to enable men to perform the sincere obedience of the new law. "I grant (says Dr. Stebbing*), indeed, that by reason of original sin, we are utterly disabled for the performance of the condition, without new grace from God. But I say then, that he gives such grace to all of us, by which the performance of the condition is truly possible: and upon this ground he may, and doth most righteously require it." If Dr. Stebbing intends to speak properly, by grace he must mean, that assistance which is of grace, or of free favor and kindness. But yet in the same place he speaks of it as very unreasonable, unjust and cruel, for God to acquire that, as the condition of pardon, that is become impossible by original Sin. If it be so, what grace is there in giving assistance and ability to perform the condition of pardon? Or why is that called by the name of grace, that is an absolute debt, which God is bound to bestow, and which it would be unjust and cruel in Him to withhold, seeing he requires that, as the condition of pardon, which we cannot perform without it.

Treatise of the Operations of the Spirit, setond edition, p. 112, 113.

SECTION IV.

Command and Obligation to Obedience, consistent with moral Inability to obey.

Ir being so much insisted on by Arminian writers, that necessity is inconsistent with Law or Command, and particularly, that it is absurd to suppose God by his command should require that of men which they are unable to do; not allowing in this case for any difference that there is between natural and moral Inability; I would therefore now particularly consider this matter.

And, for the greater clearness, I would distinctly lay down the following things.

I. The Will itself, and not only those actions which are the effects of the Will, is the proper object of precept or Command. That is, such or such a state or acts of men's Wills, is in many cases, properly required of them by Command; and not those alterations in the state of their bodies or minds only that are the consequences of volition. This is most manifest for it is the soul only that is properly and directly the subject of precepts or commands; that only being capable of receiving or perceiving commands. The motions or state of the body are matter of command, only as they are subject to the soul, and connected with its acts. But now the soul has no other faculty whereby it can, in the most direct and proper sense, consent, yield to, or comply with any command, but the faculty of the Will; and it is by this faculty only, that the soul can directly disobey, or refuse compliance; for the very notions of consenting, yielding, accepting, complying, refusing, rejecting, &c., are, according to the meaning of the terms, nothing but certain acts of the Will. Obedience, in the primary nature of it, is the submitting and yielding of the Will of one to the Will of another. Disobedience is the not consenting, not complying of the Will of the commanded to the manifested Will of the commander. Other acts that are not the acts of the Will, as certain motions of the body and alterations in the soul, are obedience or disobedience only indirectly as they are connected with the state or acts of the Will. according to an established law of nature. So that it is manifest, the Will itself may be required, and the being of a good Will is the most proper, direct and immediate subject of command; and if this cannot be prescribed or required by command or precept, nothing can; for other things can be required no otherwise than as they depend upon, and are the fruits of a good Will.

Corol. 1. If there be several acts of the Will, or a series of acts, one following another, and one the effect of another, the first and determining act is properly the subject of command, and not the consequent acts only, which are dependent upon it. Yea, it is this more especially, which is that which command or precept has a proper respect to; because it is this act that determines the whole affair in this act the obedience or disobedience lies, in a peculiar manner; consequent acts being all subject to it, and governed and determined by it. This determining, governing act must be the proper subject of precept, or none.

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the

Corol. 2. It also follows, from what has been observed, that if there be any sort of act, or exertion of the soul, prior to all free acts of the Will or acts of choice in the case directing and determining what the acts of the Will shall be ; that act or exertion of the soul cannot properly be subject to command or precept, in any respect whatsoever, either directly or indirectly, immediately or emotely. Such acts cannot be subject to commands directly, because they are

no acts of the Will; being by the supposition prior to all acts of the Will, determining and giving rise to all its acts: they not being acts of the Will, there can be in them no consent to, or compliance with, any command. Neither can they be subject to command or precept, indirectly or remotely; for they are not so much as the effects or consequences of the Will, being prior to all its acts. So that if there be any obedience in that original act of the soui, determining all volitions, it is an act of obedience wherein the Will has no concern at all; it preceding every act of Will. And therefore, if the soul either obeys or disobeys in this act, it is wholly involuntarily; there is no willing obedience or rebellion, no compliance or opposition of the Will in the affair: and what sort of obedience or rebellion is this?

And thus the Arminian notion of the freedom of the Will consisting in the soul's determining its own acts of Will, instead of being essential to moral agency, and to men's being the subjects of moral government is utterly inconsistent with it. For if the soul determines all its acts of Will, it is therein subject to no command or moral government, as has been now observed; because its original determining act is no act of Will or choice, it being prior, by the supposition, to every act of Will. And the soul cannot be the subject of command in the act of the Will itself which depends on the foregoing determining act, and is determined by it; inasmuch as this is necessary, being the necessary consequence and effect of that prior determining act, which is not voluntary. Nor can the man be a subject of command or government in his external actions; because these are all necessary, being the necessary effects of the acts of the Will themselves. So that mankind, according to this scheme, are subjects of command or moral government in nothing; and all their moral agency is entirely excluded, and no room for virtue or vice in the world.

So that it is the Arminian scheme, and not the scheme of the Calvinists, that is utterly inconsistent with moral government, and with the use of laws, precepts, prohibitions, promises or threatenings. Neither is there any way whatsoever to make their principles consist with these things. For if it be said, that there is no prior determining act of the soul, preceding the acts of the Will, but that volitions are events that come to pass by pure accident, without any determining cause, this is most palpably inconsistent with all use of laws and precepts; for nothing is more plain than that laws can be of no use to direct and regulate perfect accident; which, by the supposition of its being pure accident, is in no case regulated by any thing preceding; but happens, this way or that, perfectly by chance, without any cause or rule. The perfect uselessness of laws and precepts also follows from the Arminian notion of indifference, as essential to that liberty, which is requisite to virtue or vice. For the end of laws is to bind to one side; and the end of commands is to turn the Will one way; and therefore they are of no use, unless they turn or bias the Will that way. But if liberty consists in indifference, then their biassing the Will one way only, destroys liberty; as it puts the Will out of equilibrium. So that the Will, having a bias, through the influence of binding law, laid upon it, is not wholly left to itself, to determine itself which way it will, without influence from without.

II. Having shown that the Will itself, especially in those acts, which are original, leading and determining in any case, is the proper subject of precept and command, and not only those alterations in the body, &c., which are the effects of the Will; I now proceed, in the second place, to observe that the very opposition or defect of the Will itself, in that act, which is its original and determining act in the case; I say the Will's opposition in this act to a thing proposed or commanded, or its failing of compliance, implies a moral Inability to that thing⚫

or, in other words, whenever a command requires a certain state or act of the Will, and the person commanded, notwithstanding the command and the circumstances under which it is exhibited, still finds his Will opposite or wanting, in that, belonging to its state or acts, which is original and determining in the affair, that man is morally unable to obey that command.

This is manifest. from what was observed in the first part, concerning the nature of moral Inability, as distinguished from natural; where it was observed, that a man may then be said to be morally unable to do a thing, when he is under the influence or prevalence of a contrary inclination, or has a want of inclination, under such circumstances and views. It is also evident, from what has been before proved, that the Will is always, and in every individual act, necessarily determined by the strongest motive; and so is always unable to go against the motive, which, all things considered, has now the greatest strength and advantage to move the Will.-But not further to insist on these things, the truth of the position now laid down, viz., that when the Will is opposite to, or, failing of a compliance with a thing in its original, determining inclination or act. it is not able to comply, appears by the consideration of these two things.

1. The Will in the time of that diverse or opposite leading act or inclination, and when actually under the influence of it, is not able to exert itself to the contrary, to make an alteration, in order to a compliance. The inclination is unable to change itself and that for this plain reason, that it is unable to incline to change itself. Present choice cannot at present choose to be otherwise: for that would be at present to choose something diverse from what is at present chosen. If the Will, all things now considered, inclines or chooses to go that way, then it cannot choose, all things now considered, to go the other way, and so cannot choose to be made to go the other way. To suppose that the mind is now sincerely inclined to change itself to a different inclination, is to suppose the mind is now truly inclined otherwise than it is now inclined. The Will may oppose some future remote act that it is exposed to, but not its own present act.

2. As it is impossible that the Will should comply with the thing commanded, with respect to its leading act, by any act of its own, in the time of that diverse or opposite leading and original act, or after it has actually come under the influence of that determining choice or inclination; so it is impossible it should be determined to a compliance by any foregoing act; for, by the very supposition, there is no foregoing act; the opposite or noncomplying act being that act which is original and determining in the case. Therefore it must be so, that if this first determining act be found noncomplying, on the proposal of the command, the mind is morally unable to obey. For to suppose it to be able to obey, is to suppose it to be able to determine and cause its first determining act to be otherwise, and that it has power better to govern and regulate its first governing and regulating act, which is absurd; for it is to suppose a prior act of the Will, determining its first determining act; that is, an act prior to the first, and leading and governing the original and governing act of all; which is a contradiction.

Here if it should be said, that although the mind has not any ability to Will contrary to what it does Will, in the original and leading act of the Will, because there is supposed to be no prior act to determine and order it otherwise, and the Will cannot immediately change itself, because it cannot at present incline to a change; yet the mind has an ability for the present to forbear to proceed to action, and to take time for deliberation; which may be an occasion of the change of the inclination,

I answer, (1.) In this objection that seems to be forgotten which was ob

served before, viz., that the determining to take the matter into consideration, 18 itself an act of the Will; and if this be all the act wherein the mind exercises ability and freedom, then this, by the supposition, must be all that can be commanded or required by precept. And if this act be the commanded act, then alı that has been observed concerning the commanded act of the Will remains true, that the very want of it is a moral Inability to exert it, &c. (2.) We are speaking concerning the first and leading act of the Will in the case, or about the affair; and if a determining to deliberate, or on the contrary, to proceed immediately without deliberating, be the first and leading act; or whether it be or no, if there be another act before it, which determines that; or whatever be the original and leading act; still the foregoing proof stands good, that the noncompliance of the leading act implies moral Inability to comply.

If it should be objected, that these things make all moral Inability equal, and suppose men morally unable to Will otherwise than they actually do Will, in all cases, and equally so in every instance:

In answer to this objection, I desire two things may be observed. First, That if by being equally unable, be meant as really unable; then, so far as the Inability is merely moral, it is true, the Will, in every instance, acts by moral necessity and is morally unable to act otherwise, as truly and properly in one case as another; as I humbly conceive has been perfectly and abundantly demonstrated by what has been said in the preceding part of this Essay. But yet, in some respect, the Inability may be said to be greater in some instances than others; though the man may be truly unable (if moral Inability can truly be called Inability), yet he may be further from being able to do some things than others. As it is in things, which men are naturally unable to do.-A person, whose strength is no more than sufficient to lift the weight of one hundred pounds, is as truly and really unable to lift one hundred and one pounds, as ten thousands pounds; but yet he is further from being able to lift the latter weight than the former; and so, according to common use of speech, has a greater Inability for it. So it is in moral Inability. A man is truly morally unable to choose contrary to a present inclination, which in the least degree prevails; or, contrary to that motive, which, all things considered, has strength and advantage now to move the Will, in the least degree, superior to all other motives in view; but yet he is further from ability to resist a very strong habit, and a violent and deeply rooted inclination, or a motive vastly exceeding all others in strength. And again, the Inability may, in some respects, be called greater in some instances than others, as it may be more general and extensive to all acts of that kind So men may be said to be unable in a different sense, and to be further from moral ability, who have that moral Inability which is general and habitual, than they who have only that Inability which is occasional and particular.* Thus in cases of natural Inability; he that is born blind may be said to be unable to see, in a different manner, and is, in some respects, further from being able to see, than he whose sight is hindered by a transient cloud or mist.

And besides, that which was observed in the first part of this discourse, concerning the Inability which attends a strong and settled habit, should be here remembered, viz, that fixed habit is attended with this peculiar moral Inability, by which it is distinguished from occasional volition, namely, that endeavors to avoid future volitions of that kind, which are agreeable to such a habit, much more frequently and commonly prove vain and insufficient. For though it is impossible there should be any true, sincere desires and endeavors against a

* See this distinction of mal Inability explained in Part I. Sect. IV.