On the Bondage of the Will (De servo arbitrio)

After this, she lays hold on that sweetest of gospel words, f I would not the death of a sinner/ and gives this turn to it;k ' Does the holy Lord deplore that death of his people, which he works in them himself ? If he would not the death of a sinner, verily, it is to be imputed to our own will if we perish. But what can you impute to a being, the faith which should afterwards be revealed," and which now has been revealed — impliedly promises and exhibits Him who was to be, and who now has been and is, its fulfiller and perfecter. k Sic versat.'] Vers, implies a forced application of it ; as if you should turn a body, that is already in motion, out of its natural course ; or give motion to one that is at rest. who has no power to do any thing, either good or sc.xxvi. evil?* i Pelagius also sang just the same sort of song; when he ascribed not desire and endeavour only, but complete power of fulfilling and doing every thing to Freewill. For these consequences prove this power, as I have before said, if they prove any thing; and therefore fight as stoutly, and even more so, against Diatribe herself (who denies this power in Freewill, and sets up endeavour only), as against us who deny Freewill altogether. But without dwelling upon her ignorance, I will state the matter as it really is.

It is a gospel word, and a word of sweetest The true consolation to poor miserable sinners, when Eze- meaning kiel says, cc I would not the death of a sinner, xvih\ 23. but rather that he should be converted and live, stated. by all means ." As is that of the thirtieth Psalm also, " For his wrath is but for a moment, and his will towards us life rather than death." And that of the thirty-sixth Psalm, " How sweet is thy mercy, Lord !" Also, " Because I am merciful." And that saying of Christ, in Matthew xi. " Come unto me, all ye that labour, and I will refresh you." Also that of Exodus, " I do mercy to them that love me, unto many thousands." Nay, what is almost more than half of the Scripture but mere promises of grace, by which mercy, life, peace, and salvation are offered to men ? l And what other import have words of promise than this, " I would not the death of a sinner ?" Is it not the same thing to say, \ I am merciful/ as to say, ' I am not angry/ ' I do not wish to punish/ ' I do not wish you to die/ ' I wish to pardon you/ ' I wish to spare you V Now, if these divine promises did not stand in the word, to raise up those whose consciences have been wounded with the sense of sin, and terrified with

1 See above, Sect xxiii. note a. part in. the fear of death and judgment, what place would there be for pardon, or for hope ? What sinner would not despair? But, as Freewill is not proved by other words of pity, or promise, or consolation, so neither is it proved by this, "I would not the death of a sinner." But our Diatribe, again confounding the distinction between law words and words of promise, makes this place of Ezekiel a law word, and expounds it thus: 6 I would not the death of a sinner;' that is, c I would not that he should sin mortally, or become a sinner guilty of death ; but rather that he should turn away from his sin, if he hath committed any, and so should live/ For, if she did not expound it so, it would not serve her purpose at all : but such an exposition entirely subverts and withdraws this most persuasive word of Ezekiel, * I would not the death of a sinner/ If we are determined so to read and understand the Scriptures, by the exercise of our own blindness, what wonder if they be obscure and ambiguous ? For he does not say, ' I would not the sin of a man/ but * I would not the death of a sinner ;' clearly intimating, that he speaks of the punishment of sin, which the sinner is experiencing for his sin ; that is, the fear of death. Yes; He raises up and consoles the sinner, when now laid on this bed of affliction and despair, that he may not quench the smoking flax, or break the bruised reed, but may excite hope of pardon and salvation : that so he may rather be converted (converted, I mean, to salvation from the punishment of death) and live ; that is, be happy, and rejoice in a quiet conscience.™

For this also must be observed, that, as the m His state as a sinner is a state of eternal death, the just punishment of his sin -, and of this state he has the beginning in his now realizing apprehensions of it. When converted, he is delivered from this state of punishment ; and when he lives , he is brought into the joy of this changed state. voice of the law is sounded forth only over those sc.xxvii who neither feel nor acknowledge their sin (as Paul speaks in Rom. iii. " By the law is the knowledge of sin"); so the word of grace comes but to those who, feeling their sin, are afflicted and tempted to despair. Thus it is, that, in all law words, you see sin charged by shewing us what we ought to do : just as, in all words of promise, on the other hand, you see the misery, which sinners (that is, those who are to be raised up from their dejection by them) labour under, intimated : as here, the word ? I would not the death of a sinner 9 expressly names death and the sinner ; the very evil which is felt, as well as the very man who feels it. But in this word c Love God with all thy heart 9 there is pointed out the good we owe, not the evil we feel; that we may be brought to acknowledge how incapable we are of doing that good.

So then, nothing could have been more unaptly Ezek.xviii. adduced in support of Freewill, than this passage J^™^ from Ezekiel ; which even fights against it most wm, inlustily. For herein is implied, how Freewill is stead of affected, and what it is able to do, when sin has pioving lt been discovered, and when now the matter is to turn itself to God : it is herein implied, I say, that it could do nothing but fall into a still worse state, adding desperation and impenitence to its other sins, unless God should presently come to its succour, and should recall and raise it up,n by his word of promise. For God's eagerness in promising grace to restore and raise up the sinner, is a very mighty and trustworthy argument, that Freewill of herself cannot but fall from bad to worse; and, as the Scripture says, "to n Revocaret et erigeret.~\ Revoc. implies e departure $' the soul has gone further and further off from God, through despair of mercy : erig. implies e fallen ,' ' thrown down,' ( prostrated ;' like Saul before the witch of Endor. PART in. the nethermost hell/'0 Do you think that God is

so light-minded as to pour out words of promise thus fluently, when they are not necessary to our salvation, for the mere pleasure of talking? You see then from this fact, that not only do all law words stand opposed to Freewill, but even all words of promise do utterly confute it. In other words, the whole Scripture is at war with it. So that this saying ' I would not the death of a sinner* has no other object, as you perceive, than that of preaching and offering divine mercy through the world ;p which none but those who have been afflicted and harassed to death receive with joy and gratitude. These do so, because the law has in them already fulfilled its office, by teaching the knowledge of sin : whilst those who have not yet experienced this office of the law, and who neither acknowledge their sin, nor feel their death, despise the mercy promised in that word.q ° The Psalms abound with expressions of this sort : see especially the 38th and 88th ; from the latter of which these words appear to be a quotation. t( For my life draweth nigh unto the grave (v. 3) ; or, according to the older version, " to hell." (v. 2.)

5 See above, note a. The account I have there given of Luther's meaning is abundantly confirmed here. Mercy is to be preached, and what he calls ' offered,' generally to all men 5 but only those in whom the law has done its office (and whom did Luther understand by these, but God's elect ?) will receive it. His offer, therefore, is a nugatory offer to all but the elect 3 and these must receive 5 not ' physically ' must, but ■ morally.' 1 Luther's answer to Erasmus's argument from Ezek. xviii. 23. is threefold. 1. It proves too much. 2. It proves no more than other gospel words 5 that is, words of promise and mercy. 3. Such words prove against Freewill, by implying, that without them man could only despair. See above, note ', where I have objected to this distinction between law words and gospel words, and to the statements generally made respecting the Law, as though it were opposed to the Gospel. Luther is chargeable here with arguing ' per sequelam,' for which he so much blames Erasmus 5 * God's But, as to why some are touched by the law s.xxviii. and others not/ so that the former take in, and the latter despise, the grace offered; this is another G°J '

word of promise proves that man could only despair without it.' — The true answer to Erasmus's argument from this text (which, according to Luther's distinction, is a gospel word — but then there is quite as much supernatural help necessary to make a gospel word availing, as to fulfil a law one — ) is, that it proves nothing on either side. Inferences may be drawn both ways ; against as well as for, and for as well as against : but the affirmation respects only the mind of God. He declares that he wills not death. What does this assert concerning the natural powers of man ? — For a more full view of the doctrine set forth in this and like texts, and of their place in the great scheme of God-manifestation, see the next Section and its notes. r Luther has given what he considers the true answer to Erasmus's objection drawn from this text 5 t it is a gospel word, for the consolation of the law-stricken y and declares that we have no right to ask any more questions. I do not approve the exact point to which he brings the debate, nor can I agree with him that it ought to end just here. Luther speaks, and many others like him, as if only the law (meaning thereby the law of the Ten Commandments) could do the office of abasing and prostrating man 5 which, in effect, assumes that the law was given to man from the beginning, and that Moses's giving of it was but a republication :

else how were those saints emptied of self and prostrated, who lived before Moses ; such as Abel, Enoch, Noah, and the rest ? But what proof is there of the law having been given from the beginning ? Express proof is afforded in Rom. v. that the law was not till Moses. " For until the law sin was in the world : but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, &c." (vv. 13, 14.) The truth is, it is not the law, but the Holy Ghost (using the law, it is true, as his instrument more generally, where it has been given, but by no means universally so using it) — who needeth not the law, but has proofs enough to supply of man's sin ; of his ** earthly, sensual, devilish " mind 3 without having recourse to that summary of creation duty — that humbles, empties, and makes ready for the manifold Scripture declarations of God's entire readiness to receive the penitent freely. These are indeed made such of God, and can only be made such by him 5 though it is not his plan usually to tell us how we have come, and alone can come, to this mind, when he testifies his love and good-will towards it. So that the question arising from this admitted state of things, ' some receive, others do not receive, this and like gospel words,' is not properly why some are lawstricken ; or, more correctly, why some are prostrated, and self-emptied, and self-despairing 5 but why some have the

be said to bewail the death he produces. part in. question, and one not treated by Ezekiel in this place. He speaks of God's preached and offered mercy, not of that secret and awful will of his, by the counsel of which he ordains whom and what sort of persons he wills to be made capable of receiving, and to become actual participants of his preached and offered mercy. This will of God is not the object of our researches, but of our reverent adoration ; as being by far the most venerable secret of the divine majesty, which he keeps locked up in his own bosom, and which is much more religiously5 prohibited to us, than the Corycian caves to the countless multitude. When now Diatribe cavillingly asks, 'whether the holy Lord bewails that death of his people which he produces in them himself? a suggestion too absurd to be entertained :' I answer, as I have already done, we must argue in one wise concerning God, or the will of Holy Ghost, and others have not ; which is, in other words, why is there ' an election of grace?' — I cannot agree with Luther, that we have no right to ask this question ; or, in other words, that the Scripture does not afford an answer to it -, for here is the secret of God.

If it be asked why such a man is elect, and such a man is not elect, it is most true, we have no answer ; this is God's secret j we have nothing to do with it. But if the question be, why are there elect and non-elect, we have. to do with it, and can give an answer : it is to the manifestation of God ; which is the end of all his counsels, and of all his operations. — For some observations on Luther's accepted aphorism ' Quae supra nos, nihil ad nos,' and upon ( his apparent setting out of two Gods,' with one of which we have nothing to do ; and for the correct answer to Erasmus's insidious question, 'Does God deplore &c.' see notes l, v, x, which follow. s Religiosius.~] ' By religious considerations.' — The multitude might look into the entrance j priests might enter into the penetralia : but the multitude might not go in to explore : if they did, they were filled with terrors ; appalling sights confounded them : just so, and with still more fearful apprehensions of a religious nature, we are prohibited, says Luther, from attempting to penetrate the secret of God. But the question is, where this secret begins ? Luther says, ' in the fact, that some are touched by the law,, and others not.'

God, insofar as that will is proclaimed to us, s.xxviii. revealed, offered to our acceptance, made the ground of worship; and in another wise, concerning God, insofar as he is unproclaimed, unrevealed, unoffered, and unworshipped. So far as God hides himself, and chooses to be unknown by us, we have nothing to do with him. Here is the true application of that saying, c What is above us, is nothing to us/ And lest any one should suppose this to be my distinction, let him know that I follow Paul, who writes to the Thessalonians concerning Antichrist (2 Thess. ii. 4.) " That he would exalt himself above all that is proclaimed of God, and that is worshipped;"* 1 Super omnem Deum prcedicatum et cultum.'] Literally,, f above all the proclaimed and worshipped God.' 1 question the soundness of Luther's interpretation of this text, and of the argument consequently, which he draws from it; although the distinction which he labours to establish is, with some modification and amplification, the root of the answer to the objection. " Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is an object of worship ," is the more correct rendering of the original text. The meaning seems to be, that this Antichrist would both oppose himself to, and exalt himself above, every object of worship, both true and false ; ' every being that is called God, and every substance which is worshipped.' It has therefore nothing to do with distinct views and considerations respecting the true God ;

but only marks the extravagant claims which this Antichrist would make, and which would be allowed by his votaries, as compared with the several objects of worship received in the world. — The word of God, however, doth clearly recognise a distinction between God, regarded as the legislator, governor, and judge of his moral creation — or in any other relations which he may have been pleased to assume towards the whole, or certain parts, of that creation — and God regarded as he is in himself, and as separated from such relations : as also, between that will of His which he hath revealed for our obedience (what may therefore be called his legislative will), and that free, infinite, and eternal will of His, from which this legislative will has emanated, and by which, in perfect consistency with all his assumed relations, and with that of legislator amongst the rest, he regulates his own conduct (what may therefore be called, by way of distinction, his personal will) : in other words, between his commands and his mind. — God, who made the worlds, the alone Being, subsisted in his trinity of co-

part in. plainly intimating, that a man might be exalted above God, so far as he is proclaimed, and wor- equal persons, infinite, and all-blessed, before he made them. Is it presumptuous to say why he made them ? Has he not unequivocally told us ? His end is, as it must be, seated in himself.* He will shew himself — what he is — so far as infinite can be shewn to finite, to certain moral and intelligent creatures, whom he will make capable of apprehending, adoring, and enjoying him, in their measure. Hence the whole counsel, process, series, and results of creation ; in which I include all that belongs to Creator and creature-ship. Hence the true dis* tinction between the hidden and revealed God : which is properly no other than God the revealer and God the revealed ; creation in this wide extent being only God's revealer -, and having in reality revealed much of him, whilst there is much at last in God which is not, cannot be revealed. Thus, we see that this hidden God, or rather this absolute God (so called because not circumscribed by relations j which relations, however, can only be such as he has seen fit to assume ; and which he has seen fit to assume, for the one great end of self-manifestation), is the same God with the revealed and circumscribed God | and that, so far from being an unknown God in this regard, he has revealed himself in his relative and circumscribed capacity, for the very purpose of making himself known (so far as the incomprehensible can be made known) in this absolute and uncircumscribed capacity.

So, again, with respect to his secret and his revealed will -, or, as I have more correctly distinguished them, his personal and his legislative will ; whilst these are distinct, they are neither opposed to each other, nor unconnected with each other — his legislative will subserves his personal will, and is his ordained and specially-devised instrument for accomplishing it : by which accomplishment, his great purpose, in submitting himself to his various creator relationships (to wit, self- manifestation) is achieved. f Luther does not seem to have apprehended the union and concordance of these two distinct views, in which both God and his will are set forth to us, whilst he so strongly marks their distinctness • and thus, his answer (not being the whole truth ; that is, not being the truth j which consists in an harmonious combination of many parts) has an air of evasion and sophistry (to which he seems not to have been insensible himself), and is, in reality, unsatisfying and repulsive. Is it true, that the proverb, ' What is above us, is nothing to us/ has its rightful application here ? Is it true, that we have nothing to * See Vaughan's Calvinistic Clergy defended, p. 64 — 73. 2d Ed.

t In the observations which follow, I do not confine myself to the words immediately under review, but comprehend the whole of Luther's expressions and reasonings in this and the three succeeding paragraphs. shipped ; that is, above that word and worship s.xxviii. by which God is made known to us, and main- do with this God of majesty, as Luther calls him ; the absolute God ? What is the knowledge of God — that last, highest, best gift of promise — but the knowledge of this God ? the communication of which is, as we have seen, the very end of creation and of revelation. — Again -, is it true, that the revealed God, or relative God, wills only life ? or, according to Luther's own way of stating it, that God has revealed himself in his word only as that God who offers himself to all men, and would draw all men unto himself? — Why then does he tell us, in that selfsame word, that in very deed for this cause he had raised Pharaoh lip, for to shew in him His power ; and that His name might be declared throughout all the earth ? — That it was of the Lord to harden the hearts of the Canaanites, that they should come against Israel in battle, that he might destroy them utterly, and that they might have no favour, but that he might destroy them, as the Lord commanded Moses ?

— That Hophni and Phinehas hearkened not unto the voice of their father, because the Lord would slay them ? — That he smells a sweet savour of Christ in them that perish ? — That whom he will he hardeneth ? — That there are those ordained of old to condemnation ? — Those appointed to stumble at the stone ? — Those whom he has commanded to fill up the measure of their iniquities ? — That he is, in short, a potter having power over the clay, and using that power ? — Has he proclaimed all this concerning himself in his word ; does he, moreover, make that word his great instrument of bringing these things to pass ; and is it true nevertheless, that his word stands in contrast, nay direct opposition, to himself, so that we are wisely counselled to attend to his word in contrast, and even in opposition, to God who gave it? — Had Luther discerned the simple end of creation and revelation, ' God manifesting himself as what he really is in his essence ' (in which essence, hatred of that which is contrary to himself is as much a part as love of that which is like himself) ; and seen that by means of creation and revelation, God is actually effecting this end — he would not have talked of salvation being the revealed God's alone work ;

nor have said that we have to do with his word, but not with himself ; nor have warned us that we have nothing to do with His inscrutable will (including therein all that Luther includes therein) — when that inscrutable will is made matter of instruction in his word, and is declared to be what he is continually fulfilling in us ; what the Lord Jesus thanks his Father for ; and what his people find to be their great source of light, and strength, and joy. — How remarkable it is, that Luther should here silence his gainsayer with <f Nay, but O man, who art thou that repliest against God ?" when, with the interval of only a single verse, the Holy Ghost had furnished him with a clue to the whole

part in. tains intercourse with us. But, if God be re- garded, not as he is an object of worship, and as he is proclaimed, but as he is in his own nature and majesty, nothing can be exalted above him, but every thing is under his powerful hand. God must be left to himself then, so far as he is regarded in the majesty of his own nature ; for in this regard we have nothing to do with him ; nor is it in this regard that he hath willed to be dealt with by us : but, so far as he is clothed with his word, and displayed to us thereby; that word, by which he has offered himself to our acceptance; that word, which is his glory and beauty, and with which the Psalmist celebrates him as clothed; so far, and so far only, we transact with him. In this regard, we affirm that the holy God does not bewail that death of his people, of which he is himself the worker in them; but bewails that death which he finds in his people, and is taking pains to remove it. For this is what the proclaimed God is about, even taking away sin and death, that we may be saved. For " he hath sent his word and healed them."u But the God which is hidden in the majesty of his own

counsel of God, and with an answer to those very questions which he says it is not lawful to ask, or possible to get resolved. " What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much long suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction : And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles ?" — Luther both speaks and means incorrectly here ; but he says rather more than he means. It is not against the sober, hallowed use of the knowledge of this inscrutable will (for though there be that which is inscrutable in it, there is also that in it which may be known, for he has told it to us), but against those who denied, or confounded, or impugned, or reviled these distinctions, and would hear nothing of his sovereign majesty, and of his secret counsel, that he is aiming his dart here. 11 Psalm cvii. 20. Luther applies this healing f to all men ;' but the Psalmist declares it only of e those who cry unto the Lord in their trouble and in particular dispensations of his hand.' — This is not all men.

nature, neither bewails nor takes away death ; but s.xxviii. works life and death, and all things in all things/ v Yes — and works life and death, and all things in all things, through the agency of that proclaimed, or relative God ; and in perfect consistency with — ijea, by means of — that legislative* will, which regulates man's duty as his moral creature. It is as the proclaimed or relative God, not as the hidden or absolute God, that he both saves and destroys ; and this, by means of his legislative enactments, not in contradiction to them. The power which he gives to his elect and saved, and which he withholds from the reprobate and damned, is distinct from these legislative enactments ; and, whilst it proceeds from the relative God, proceeds not from him in his legislatorial relation, but in another, which is distinct from and not commensurate with it, although its subjects be also subject to that relation, and to its requirements. It is no part of the legislator's office to give power, or to withhold it. He may do either. He may work any thing, every thing, upon, around, above, beneath him, so he but leave the subject of his enactments a free agent : and this God does, and ever has done.

Thus it was in creation strictly so called ; God, having assumed the relation of Creator to man, gave him a law (Gen. ii. 17.) "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it ; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." It was no part of his relation, as Creator, either to withhold temptation from his creature, whom he had " made upright," <f in his own image," " good," " very good " (but, as we have before noticed, f not having the Holy Ghost, and therefore not held as by a chain to God, but subsisting in a state of severance from him) -, nor yet to sustain him by new powers (additional to those which he had received at his creation), in a crisis of temptation. The result was that he fell ; and that the whole human race (which had been created in him, and of which the several individuals had a distinct personal subsistence in him, and were parts of his substance, when, having first apostatized in heart, he did afterwards put forth his hand, and did take, and did eat) shared in his ruin. — It is by the instrumentality of this law then, that God both saves whom he personally wills to save, and destroys whom he personally wills to destroy : saving those to whom, by a super- creation relation which was given them in Christ Jesus before the world began, he vouchsafes his special grace; and, destroying those from whom, in perfect consistency with all creation dues and obligations, he withholds the same.

* By ' legislative,' I shall be understood to mean all which can be called * enactment,' as given by God, of whatever kind ; whether to one nation, or to the whole world ; whether Law or Gospel. See note 4 above. f Sect, xviii. note i. part in. For, when acting in this character, he does not bound himself by his word, but has reserved to himself the most perfect freedom in the exercise of his dominion over all things. But Diatribe beguiles herself through her ignorance, making no distinction between the proclaimed God, and the hidden God ; that is, between the word of God, and God himself. God does many things which he has not shewn us in Thus it was in God's dealings with the nation of Israel, and with his visible church, as for a season co-extensive with that nation. When now he had formed the seed of Abraham into a nation, and had assumed the relation of king to that people, he gave them a law ; by which, instrumentally, he kept them for his own, so long as it was his personal will to keep them, and scattered them when it was the counsel of his personal will to scatter them.* By the same law instrumentally, He, in their ecclesiastical relation, saved whom he would save, through the bestowal of a grace which was not of their covenant ; whilst he at the same time destroyed whom he would destroy, through the withholding of that grace, in perfect consistency with the provisions of the same.

Thus it is also in the Gospel Church, and in the commanded preaching of the Gospel to all nations, and tongues, and people. God, in the relation of the offended sovereign of the human race, command eth all men every where to repentgiving them what may be called the law of repentance and faith, and demanding of them a state of mind which is suited to their condition as fallen and guilty creatures. ' Repent ye, and believe the Gospel.' f By this legislative will of his, instrumentally, he fulfils the counsels of his personal will ; saving whom he has predestinated to save, and destroying whom he has predestinated to destroy. * Israel, like Adam in Paradise, broke the law nearly as soon as it was given him ; but, by so doing, he prepared the way for all God's future dealings with him. f Implicitly, but not explicitly, this is the demand, and the alone demand, which God has made upon man, even the whole human race, since the Fall; and shall continue to be so, till his mystery be finished by the Lord's second coming. The form of this demand has been varied, the knowledge of it has been varied; the law, eminently so called, has been interposed to the church, God has " winked at times of ignorance ;" but a Manasseh's humbledness of mind, with a peradventure of mercy — the only demand which, in consistency with the recognition of those primary transactions in the Garden, and with the realities of the case, could be made — is in truth the only demand which has been made upon the sons and daughters of fallen Adam, from the period of the ejection out of Paradise until now : a demand which has served to mark the only difference that can ever be found to subsist between the several apostate members of an apostate head ; viz. continued apostasy in some, and restoration in others.

his word. He also wills many things which he s.xxvnr. has not shewn as that he wills, in his word. For ■ instance, he wills not the death of a sinneraccording to his word, forsooth — but he wills it according to that inscrutable will of his. Now our business is to look at his word, and to leave that inscrutable will of his to itself: for we must be directed in our path by that word, and not by that inscrutable will. Nay, who could direct himself by that inscrutable and inaccessible will? It is enough for us barely to know, that there is a certain inscrutable will in God. — What that will wills, why it so wills, and how far it so wills, are matters which it is altogether unlawful for us to inquire into, to wish for knowledge about, to trouble ourselves with, or to approach even with our touch. In these matters, we have only to adore and tofear. So then, it is rightly said, c If God wills not death, we must impute it to our own will that we perish/ Rightly, I say, if you speak of the proclaimed God. For he would have all men to be saved, coming, as he does, with his word of salvation to all men ; and the fault is in our own will, which does not admit him ; as he says, in Matt, xxiii. " How often would I have gathered thy children, and thou wouldest not m — But why this majesty of His does not remove this fault of our will, or change it in all men (seeing that it is not in the power of man to do so);

or why he imputes this fault of his will to man, when man cannot be without it; these are questions which it is not lawful for us to ask ; and which, if you should ask them, you would never get answered. The best answer is that which Paul gives in Romans ix. " Who art thou that repliest against God 1" Let these remarks suffice for this passage of Ezekiel, and let us go on to the rest*

x Luther has in substance given the right answer to this cavil from Ezekiel, but has given it, as we have seen, in an exceptionable form $ exceptionable, as it respects the distinc- part in. After this, Diatribe objects that the exhorta- ■ — - tions with which the Scripture so much abounds, sc.xxix. together with all those manifold promises, threaten- Exhorta- tjQn ^^[^ he institutes, ' hidden God and revealed God / ions, pio- anj exceptionable, in that he does not show the sameness of this God, which is thus distinguishing^ regarded. It is to be remembered, that the words bear only by inference and consequence upon the question of Freewill (which is the question in debate), whatever be the correct interpretation of them ; neither does Erasmus represent them fairly. Erasmus speaks of wailing and working : but where does Ezekiel say that God ff wails r" He says only, ' I would not.' Erasmus argues, c God deplores 5 therefore, it is not his doing that they die ; therefore, it is their own doing ; therefore, there is Freewill.' It is inference two deep ; each of which requires proof. What if their death be self-wrought ? • Why may they not have previously forfeited their Freewill, and therefore die under bondwill? We might hold ourselves excused, therefore, from entering at all into this cavil 3 it is truly nihil ad nos.

But there are reasons why we should rather meet it in the face 5 and the answer has, by implication, been given to it already. — Some would say, why not at once knock it down with " Secret things belong unto the Lord ?" (Deut. xxix. 29.) a convenient text for a perplexed disputant ! My answer is, that text does not apply here. The Prophet is not speaking of the principles of divine conduct, but of those providential events and arrangements by which God realizes and fulfils them. It was in the counsels of God to bring the nation of Israel to obedience at the last, through a long course of tergiversation and punishment : but they had at that time the word given to them (" the word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart ; that is, the word of faith, which we preach." Compare Rom. x. 5 — 10. with Deut. xxx. 11 — 14.), which they would at length obey. Now, they had nothing to do with these intermediate events which God would bring about ; it was theirs to use that commandment (or rather that Gospel which the commandment fore-preached) — looking through the type to the reality — which he commanded them that day. — Besides, if we were at liberty to use this text here, we must learn from it, that we have nothing to do with election and reprobation at all :

as some are fond enough of admonishing us. For it is not a question, who is individually of the one class, and who of the other, that is here to be answered ; but whether there really be such distinctions, and why there are such. (See above, note r.) — Then meeting the question fairly, though not fairly attached to the question of Freewill, how does this assertion in Ezekiel comport with the God- willed death of a sinner ? Not to insist upon the peculiarities of the case to which this

ings, expostulations, upbraidings, be seedlings, sect. blessings and cursings, and all those numerous xxix. solemn declaration of God is annexed (the house of Israel was raises, &c brought into peculiar relations to God, and the case of an °f ScnP Israelite was therefore considerably different from that of uncovenanted transgressors) 5 not to notice the ambiguity of Erasmus's expression ' his people ' (God works no death in his people properly so called, though he works death in many who have a name to be his people, and are not) ; without j insisting that the original words t^pf^ V^H<^ as well as the t I : i v I <. T i" Oe\tv, not fiovXopat, of the Septuagint, express inclination rather than determination — and so the sentiment conveyed may be no more than what our translators have assigned to them, ' have I any pleasure at all,' ' for I have no pleasure { implying only such a reluctance as is not inconsistent with a contrary decision — though Luther, as well as Erasmus, makes it e nolo 5' waving all such objections, which do not shield the vitals of the truth, though they may serve to parry off a blow from its extremities (for clearly here is God at least declaring his dislike of that death which he nevertheless inflicts, and which wre affirm that he wills) • the true account of the matter, and that which comprehends all possible cases, has been furnished in the two preceding notes 5 asserted in note t9 and illustrated by examples in note u.

The relative God, in his character of Israel's legislator and sovereign, declares in this chapter that he will deal henceforth both nationally and spiritually with that people, each man according to his own ways j and, in effect, preaches the Gospel to each individual of them, saying, ' Repent, and live.' At the twenty-third verse,* he signifies that he has no pleasure in the death of him that dieth : in the three last verses, he exhorts and remonstrates, and repeats his gracious assurances. — But it does not belong to these and such like relations, to give grace and power ; and, without such grace and power, exhortations promises and threatenings are all, and alike, vain. But is God therefore to withhold them ? Man, without this superadded grace, ought to obey them 5 ought, though he cannot 5 cannot, through a self-wrought impotency. And are there no reasons, no satisfying reasons, why God should give them ? Are not these amongst his choicest instruments, whereby he effects the manifestation of, himself ; manifestation of himself, through the manifestation of what is in man ; " that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and clear when thou judgest." — His elect obey 3 his non-elect harden themselves yet the more, under his outward calls. — Thus, whether the case set forth in Ezekiel be considered as the peculiar case of the national Israel, or

* Erasmus quotes the text unfairly, by joining the oath of v. 3 with v, 23 $ but it is no part of it. part in. swarms of precepts, are without meaning ne- cessarily/ if no one has it in his power to keep Diatribe is always forgetting the question at issue, and proving something different from what she undertook to prove: nor does she perceive, how much more strongly every thing she says makes against herself than against us. For she proves from all these passages a liberty and power of keeping all the commandments, by force of the inference which she suggests from the words quoted; when all the while she meant only to prove ' such a Freewill as can will nothing good without grace, together with a sort of endeavour, which is not to be ascribed however to its own powers/ I see no proof of such endeavour in any of the passages quoted \ I see only a demand of such actions as ought to be performed : what I have indeed said too often already, if it were not that such frequent repetition is necessary, because Diatribe so often blunders upon the same string/ putting off her reader with an useless profusion of words, sc. xxx. Nearly the last passage which she adduces from

the Old Testament, is that of Moses in Deut. xxx. ?i~i4.XX' " ^n^s commandment, which I command thee this the general case of the visible church having the Gospel preached to it (that Gospel which is in one view a statute, enactment, or commandment ; whilst, in another view, it is the Jubilee trumpet, by which the Holy Ghost proclaims liberty to the Lord's captives) ; we see in it, at last, but a farther exemplification of what has been shewn already ; the relative God revealing the absolute, and his legislative fulfilling his personal will. — Luther meant nothing contrary to this statement, though his language might seem to imply it. y Frigere necessarib.'] Frig. A metaphor taken from vegetable or animal substances, which are nipped with cold. These exhortations, &c. have no warmth, no life, no power, no meaning in them, without Freewill. 8 f Ut citharoedus Ridetur, chorda qui semper oberrat eadem.' Hor. Art. Poet. 355. day, is not above thee, nor far off from thee, nor sc. xxx. placed in heaven, that you mightest say, who of us is able to ascend up into heaven, to bring it down to us, that we may hear and fulfil it ? But the word is very near to thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart, that thoumayest do it." Diatribe maintains it to be declared in this place, that we not only have power to do what is enjoined, but that it is even downhill work to do so ; that is, easy, or at least not difficult.

Thanks to you for your immense learning ! If then Moses so clearly pronounces that there is not only a faculty in us, but even a facility of keeping all the commandments ; why submit to all this toil? Why have we not at once produced this passage, and asserted Freewill in a field that is without opponent.11 What need have we any longer of Christ ? what need of the Spirit ? We have at length found a place which stops every mouth, and distinctly pronounces not only that the will is free, but that the observance of all the commandments is easy ! How foolish was Christ to purchase that unnecessary Spirit for us at the price of his own out-poured blood, that it might be made easy to us to keep the commandments ; a facility, which it now seems that we possess by nature ! Nay, let Diatribe herself recant her own words, in which she said that Freewill can will nothing good without grace : and let her now say, that Freewill is of so great virtue as not only to will good, but even with great ease to keep the chiefest and all the commandments. O see what is the result of having a mind which feels no interest in the cause pleaded ! see how impossible it is, that this mind should not betray itself! Is there any longer need to confute Diatribe? Who can confute her more thoroughly than she confutes her own self? This, forsooth, is the animal which devours

a Libero campo.~\ I understand it c liber ab hoste, seu antagonists :' but I do not find any parallel. part in. its own stomach.* How true is the proverb, ' a liar ought to have a good memory \' I have spoken on this passage in my commentary upon Deuteronomy.0 I shall therefore treat it concisely here, shutting out Paul from our discussion, who handles this passage with great power, in Rom. x. You perceive that nothing at all is affirmed here, nor one single syllable uttered, about facility or difficulty, about the power or the impotency, of Freewill or of man, to keep or not to keep the commandment : except that those who entangle the Scriptures in the net of their own consequences and fancies, do thereby render them obscure and ambiguous to themselves, b Se ipsam comedit.~\ What this animal is, and whether real or fabulous ; I must leave in some doubt. The lobster comes nearest to the description : of which it is said ; f At the same time that they cast their shell, they change also their stomach and intestines. The animal, while it is moulting, is said to feed upon its former stomach, which wastes by degrees, and is at length replaced with a new one.' — Bingley's Animal Biography, vol. iii. p. 511. But the pelican seems the more probable allusion here ; whose method of taking its sustenance from its pouch, might well account for the figment of its eating itself, or preying on its own stomach. The scolopendra discharges its own bowels, in order to disgorge the hook ; and the scorpion, inclosed with burning coals, stings itself to death : but neither of these seems applicable here. The name bestia is said to be ascribed properly to wild and noxious animals, but not confined to these ; whilst bellua expresses size rather than fierceness.

c See Luther's commentary on Deuteronomy, in loco : where he notices and chides this unjustifiable use, which the Sophists make of it. He gives another turn to the " secret things" of the preceding chapter : considering them as secrets revealed to Israel, that he may obey. Also, he understands St. Paul's application of this text as an accommodation of the original words, not a quotation according to their true sense, as spoken by Moses. But his comment will be found strongly to confirm the view which I have given of this text, in notex. Moses's word can only be fulfilled, he says, under the Gospel : yet Moses says, " See, I have set before thee this day life and death, &c." Then what more natural, than to understand him as calling upon them to see the Gospel in their Law, and to yield a gospel obedience to that Law ? which every spiritual Israelite no doubt did. for the purpose of making what they please of sc. xxx. them. But now, if you have no eyes, turn your ears at least to what is here spoken, or strike your hand over the letters/ Moses says, 'it is not above thee, nor placed afar off, nor seated in heaven, nor beyond the sea/ What is the meaning of ' above thee?' 'afar off?' 'seated in heaven?' 'across the sea?' Will they even make our grammar and the commonest words obscure to us, till they make it impossible for us to say any thing that is certain; just to carry their point, that the Scriptures are obscure ?

According to my grammar, it is not quality or quantity of human strength, but distance of place, which is meant by these words. It is not a certain power of the will, but a place which is above us, that is expressed by ' above thee.' So the words ' afar off,' ' across the sea,' ' in heaven,' do not denote any power in man, but a place removed from us upwards, to the right hand, to the left hand, backwards or forwards. There may be those perhaps, who will laugh at my thick-headed way of speaking, when witli out-stretched hands I present a sort of chewed morsel6 to these fullgrown gentlemen, as though they had not yet learned their ABC, and teach them that syllables must be combined into words. But what can I do, when I see men hunting for darkness in the midst of such clear light, and studiously wishing to be blind, after reckoning up such a series of ages to us, so many geniuses, so many saints, so many martyrs, so many doctors ; and after vaunting this passage of Moses with such vast authority, although they deign not to inspect the d Manibus palpa.~] e If you cannot see, or hear, submit to have your finger put upon each letter, thai you may trace it out ;' asa child is taught to read.

e Prcsmansum porrigentem.'] Pram. A word of doubtful authority, but well fitted to express the first process in the art of teaching, by which the scholar eats as it were out of the master's mouth. part in. syllables of which it consists, or to put so much of constraint upon their own thoughts as to consider for once the passage of which they make their boast. Go tell us now, Diatribe, how it comes to pass, that one obscure individual sees what so many public characters and the nobles of so many ages have not seen. Assuredly, this passage proves them to have been not seldom blind, were ^ it but a little child that should sit in judgment « upon them. Then what doth Moses mean by these most obvious and most clear words, but that he has discharged his office as a faithful lawgiver to perfection? Having brought it to pass that there should be no cause, why they did not know, and have in array before them, all the commands of God ; and that no place should be left to them for urging by way of excuse, that they did not know or had not commandments, or must seek them from some other quarter. The effect of which would be, that, if they should not keep them, the fault would be neither in the law, nor in the lawgiver, but in themselves ; since they have the law, and the lawgiver has taught them, so that there is no plea of ignorance remaining for them, but only a charge of negligence and of disobedience.

' It is not necessary/ says he, c to fetch laws from heaven' or from the parts beyond the seas, or from afar off; nor canst thou pretend either that thou hast not heard them, or that thou dost not possess them : thou hast them near to thee, they are what thou hast heard by the command of God from my lips ; thou hast understood them with thine heart, and hast received them to be read and expounded by the mouth of the Levites/ which are in the midst of thee, con-

f Tractandas accepisti.~\ In Deut. xxxi. 9 — 13. the ordinance is, (C And Moses wrote this law and delivered it to the priests, the sons of Levi, which bare the ark, the covenant of the Lord, and unto all the elders of Israel. And Moses commanded them, saying, At the end of every seven years, in the solemnity tinually: this very word and book of mine is sc.xxxi. witness. It remains only that thon mayest do them/ — What is here ascribed, pray, to Freewill? Save that she is required to fulfil the laws which she has, and the excuse of ignorance and want of laws, is taken away.s These are nearly all the texts which Diatribe Someofthe adduces from the Old Testament in support of mentwit*~ Freewill ; by releasing which,11 we leave none re- nesses for maining, which are not released as well as they FreewilL — whether she bring more, or be intending to bring more — since she can bring nothing but a parcel of imperative, or conjunctive, or optative verbs, by which is signified not what we can do, or are doing (as I have so often replied to Dia- of the year of release, in the feast of tabernacles, when all Israel is come to appear before the Lord thy God, in the place which he shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel, in their hearing. Gather the people together," &c.

&c. See also vv. 24 — 26. Also Josh. viii. 31 — 35. Also Nehem. viii. 1 — 8. Also 2 Chron. xvii. 7 — 9. xxx. 22. — I render the expression ' ore assiduo' continually : but, if I could have found authority for the use of the word f assiduus,' I should rather have given it a reference to what is said in Nehemiah, " And the Levites caused the people to understand the law, &c. So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading." — Luther is correct then in suggesting, that the Levites (including the priests under this name) were to handle or discourse on the law to the people, not simply to read it : and, although he anticipates the injunction as given on this occasion, it had in substance been given before (see Deut. x. 8, 9.), at the second delivering of the Tables.

s I do not quite fall in with Luther's interpretation of this text, as I have hinted in note x of Sect, xxviii. and note c of Sect. xxx. — (Why are we to*shut out Paul in our interpretation of it ? Is not the Holy Ghost the best commentator upon the Holy Ghost's words ?) — But I do not the less resist its application in support of Freewill. e The thing required is nigh thee j what ought to be in thy month and in thy heart.' Is it therefore immediately and necessarily there ? and that, of our own giving and getting V h Quibus solutis.~\ Sol. ' Quod ligatum est, avinculis libero ;' f the bands of these captive texts having been loosed :' they had been tied and bound in the service of FreewilL part in. tribe so often repeating the same thing") ; but what ■ we ought to do, and what is required of us, to the end that our own impotency may become notorious to us, and the knowledge of sin be vouchsafed. These texts indeed, if they prove any thing, through the addition of consequences and similes which are the invention of human reason, prove that Freewill possesses not only endeavour, or some small particle of desire; but an entire power and the freest ability to do all things,1 without the grace of God, and without the aid of his Holy Spirit.

So that nothing is further from the thing proved by this whole discourse, trodden into us, as it has been, by continual repetitions, than the proposition which she had undertaken to prove ; namely, c that approvable opinion, by which Freewill is determined to be so impotent that it can will nothing good without grace, and is compelled to serve sin, and possesses endeavour which is not to be ascribed to its own energies : 9 a monster forsooth, which can at the same time do nothing by its own energies, yet possesses a power of endeavouring, in its own energies ; and so consists by a most manifest contradiction.* sect. We come now to the New Testament, where a xxxn. |arge force of imperative verbs is again mustered " ' in the wretched service of Freewill, and the New Test. .,. . > Scriptures auxiliaries ot carnal reason, such as consequences for Free- an(j similes, are fetched in : like a picture, or a niii with" dream, in which you should see the king of the Mat. xxiii. flies, with his lances of straw and shields of hay, considered. se^ *n battle array against a real and well-appointed army* of human warriors. — Such is the kind of

1 Totam vim, opposed to a fraction ; liberrimam potestatem, ' the absolute and unrestrained use of this integral power.' k Qua constat contradiction e manifJ] Its constituting elements are power and no power ; which cannot subsist together : what becomes of the compound then ? 1 Veram etjustam aciem, warfare which the human dreams of Diatribe sect. carry on against troops of divine testimonies. First marches forth, like the Achilles of the flies, that text in Matt, xxiii. " 0 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy children together, and thou wouldest not V9. (If all things are done by necessity, says she, might not Jerusalem have justly answered the Lord, Why consume thyself with vain tears? If thou wast unwilling that we should listen to the Prophets, why didst thou send them? why impute to us what has been done by thine own will, our necessity V So much for Diatribe. — My reply is, granting for the moment, that this inference and proof of Diatribe's is good and true; what is proved, pray? that approvable opinion, which says that Freewill cannot will good? Why, here is proved a will that is free, every whit whole, and able to do every thing wThich the Prophets have spoken ! Diatribe did not take upon herself to prove this sort of will in man. Nay, let Diatribe herself be the respondent here, and let her tell us why, if Freewill cannot will good, it is imputed to her that she did not hear the Prophets ;

whom, as being teachers of good, it was not possible for her to hear, through her own strength ? Why does Christ weep vain tears,"1 as though they could have willed, what he assuredly knew that they could not will ? Let Diatribe deliver Christ from a charge of madness, I say, in support of that approvable opinion of hers, and straightway our opinion will have been liberated from this Achilles of the flies. So that this text

m Luther seems to have confounded this passage in Matt, xxiii. with Luke xix. 41 — 44. <c And when he was come near,, he beheld the city, and wept over it." &c: &c. It is remarkable that the words which are so closely parallel in Luke xiii. were not spoken at the same time with those recorded in Matt, xxiii. The latter were spoken in the Temple at the close of the Lord's public ministry : the former, whilst he was yet in Galilee. part in. of Matthew either proves a complete Freewill, or fights against Diatribe herself, as stoutly as against us, and lays her prostrate with her own weapons." I assert, as I have done before, that the secret will of God, as regarded in the majesty of his own nature, is not matter of debate ;° and that the rashness of man, which, through a continual perverseness, is always leaving necessary topics to attack and encounter it, should be called away and withdrawn from occupying herself in scrutinizing those secrets of His majesty, which it is impossible to penetrate,? seeing He dwelleth in light which no man can approach unto ; as Paul testifies. (1 Tim. vi. 16.) Let her rather occupy herself with the incarnate God, or (as Paul speaks) with Jesus the crucified : in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, but hiddenly.q He will teach her abundantly what she ought to know, and what not. It is the incarnate God then, which speaks here. CJ would, and thou wouldest not.' The incarnate God, I say, was sent into the world for this purpose, that he might be willing, that he might speak, that he might do, that he might suffer, that he might offer r all

n Suo Mam jaculo.~\ Nothing less than a complete Freewill can repel the objection here brought by Diatribe : therefore, either there is a complete Freewill — which she denies- — or all such objections have no weight at all. ° Luther expresses this more briefly, but obscurely: 'de secreta ilia voluntate majestatis non esse disputandum.' . p Scrutandis. attingere.^ Send, comes nearest to our c rummage :' f videtur esse a scrutis, quasi sit ita in loco aliquo praetentare, et versare omnia, ut etiam scruta misceantur.' Hence applied to a dog hunting by the scent. . It expresses the search for a thing, rather than the improper handling of the thing found. So Luther applies it here j as is plain from { attingere : ' ' the attaining to, or reaching the thing which was gone after.' i See 1 Cor. i. 23. ii. 2. Coloss. ii. 3. In this latter text, Luther gives the sense strictly according to the original, which our version does not ; £v to elai. . . . a,7roKpv(pot' r See above, Sect, xxiii. note *. things which are necessary for salvation, unto all sect. men : although he stumbles upon many, who, XXXIL being either left or hardened by that secret will '

of His majesty, receive him not ; willing as he is, speaking, working, offering as he does : which is just what John says, i The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not:' and again, ' He came unto his own, and his own received him not/ Thus, it is the act of this incarnate God to weep, wail, and groan over the destruction of the wicked, whilst the will of Majesty leaves and reprobates some, on purpose that they may perish : nor ought we to inquire why he does so, but to reverence God, who is both able and willing to do such things. — No one, I suppose, will here cavil, that the will of which it is said, f how often would 1/ was exhibited to the Jews even before God's incarnation; inasmuch as they are charged with having slain the Prophets which lived before Christ, and, by so doing, with having resisted his will. Christians know, that every thing which was done by the Prophets was done by them in the name of that Christ which was to come; of whom it had been promised that he should become the incarnate God. So that whatsoever has been offered to man by the ministers of the word from the beginning of the world, may be rightly called the will of Christ.3

6 Luther gives two answers to this cavil from Matt, xxiii. — 1. It is equally inconsistent with Diatribe's statement. \ 2. It is the incarnate God, not the God of Majesty, who here speaks. I must strongly object to this latter solution. It implies a difference, nay a contrariety, between the mind of God and the mind of Christ ; and thus destroys the very end for which Christ came — even the manifestation of God as His express image — by not only negativing the fulfilment of that design, but absolutely intimating that he has given us false views of God, by shewing a mind which is the reverse of His : as though He willed salvation, where God wills destruction. Yet he tells us, ' ' I came not to do mine own will but the will of Him that sent me." " My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish his work." " I do nothing of my- part in. But reason, who is quick-scented and saucy, will say here, c An admirable refuge this, which XXXIII. self j but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these thing's."

" I have manifested thy name unto the men that thou gavest The reality me out of the world." And truly, though we shall know far of God's more of God hereafter than we can know here — so that " Whe- secret will tjier tnere De knowledge, it shall vanish away" — our knowledge maintained of God ghall gtin be derived to us through Christ ('< the lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters"), and we shall never know any thing of God contrary to that which Jesus has exhibited of Him. The true answer to this cavil, however, has in substance been given already. (See Sect, xxviii. notes l v x.) God standing in peculiar relations to Israel, as his typical nation and his visible church, had from the beginning been calling that people to repentance. Their history, their institutions, their lively oracles, their ordinary and extraordinary ministers, had caused them to be peculiarly, and above the rest of mankind, without excuse, even before Christ came. These were so many ' I woulds, and ye would nots :' not Christ saying and willing one thing, and the Father another ; but ] Christ by the Father's commandment calling to them, and they refusing. But now he had come personally and visibly amongst them, and could say, ' ( If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin, but now they have no cloak for their sin.

He that hateth me, hateth my Father also. If I had not done amongst them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin ; but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father." (John xv. 22 — 24.) And what is all this, but God in certain assumed relations uttering his voice to those connected with him by these relations (in other words, declaring his legislative will), which those, to whom it is uttered, ought without doubt to obey ; and which if they did obey, they would according to his promise live. But ' ought to obey' is not ' therefore have power to obey ;' and f have not power to obey,' is not ' therefore the command is given in vain.' Here is, man manifested j and God, by his dealings with him. If Israel ( would,' he would have been gathered ; if Jerusalem ' would,' she would have remained unto this day. But it was only by a grace not belonging to those relations by which God had at that period connected himself with Israel, that Israel could then have been made willing : he had all given to him which belonged to those relations ; to withhold trial, or to administer super-creation and super-covenant grace that he might stand, was no part of the dues which God had made himself debtor to him to perform -, and therefore Israel — justly, and no more than justly, tried — having manifested what was in him with such aggravations of guilt, incurred a sentence which is declared to have been the requital of all the righteous blood

you have discovered : so then, as often as you are sect. pressed by the force of your adversary's argu- ' tli.it had been shed upon the earth from Abel to Zecharias. (vv. 35, 36.) — The guilt of that generation was indeed extreme ; but who shall say that it was not the concentrated guilt of the intermediate ages and generations of that people,, together with their own, which was so shortly to be visited upon them ? Carnal reason will not hear of the children being visited for their fathers' sin ; but both Scripture and experience testify this reality to the spiritual mind. — The incarnate God, then, has no will contrary to the God of Majesty; or more intelligibly, Christ's will and the Father's are one ; Christ's tears (see above, note m) imply not any repugnance to the divine counsel ; the legislative is here, as in the former instances, the executor of the personal will. — With respect to the tears which he shed over that woe which he was shortly to inflict, and of which he well knew the length and breadth, the depth and height ; it may be remarked, that the Lord Jesus had a human soul, as part of his complete human person, distinct from his divine person (See Part ii. Sect. viii. note r)j and that such expressions might, without impropriety, be referred to that part of his complex frame.

" We have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." He had all the sinless feelings of a man, and might therefore not incongruously weep at such a woe. But where is the contradiction to Scripture and right reason in understanding God himself to be moved with compassion at the very grief and pain which He in just judgment inflicts ? cc Therefore my bowels are troubled for him." " Have I any pleasure at all in the death of him that dieth ?" " For he doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men."

It is pleasing to notice, how nearly Luther approximates to the truth — viz. e That Christ was eternally fore-ordained as Christ, and did by a covenant subsistence assume his person and personal relations, as the risen God-man, before the foundation of the world' — in the defence which he makes against the cavil, ' Christ was not yet come.' He declares that every thing was done by the Prophets in Plis name, and that, all expressions of mercy from the beginning may be rightly called the will of Christ : which will, according to his representation of it, is perfectly distinct from that of the Father (his language implies, contrary to it), so that there must have been a distinct agency of Christ from the beginning. Verily, this is so ; though not exactly as he understood and would have represented it : and I have often been surprised that, whilst most of those who know any thing of Christ are ready enough to acknowledge, that regard was had to his sacrifice from the begin- part in. ments, you have but to run back to this terrible will of sovereignty, and you compel your antagonist to silence, when he has become troublesome; just as the astrologers evade all questions about the motions of the whole heavens, by their invention of Epicycles.'1

I answer, i It is not my invention but a direction confirmed by the divine Scriptures. Thus speaks ning (for how else could any soul of man, as Abel, Enoch, Abraham, David, &c. &c. have been pardoned and accepted) ; so few distinctly recognise his personal subsistence and agency, as Christ, from the same period ; although it be in this regard that he is called " the Word," " the Word of life," " the life," " that eternal life," &c. and although a distinct personal agent, to use the blessed materials of his future coming and dying in the flesh — as a Priest-king — was not less necessary to the salvation and glorification of every individual of the saved who lived and died before those events had been realized ; than was the article of his death. — In what Luther says about abstaining from what he calls ' the secret will of majesty,' he speaks indistinctly, injuriously, and contradictorily : indistinctly, because there is an use as well as an abuse of such inquiries, which he ought to have discriminated ; injuriously, because his observations would go the length of deterring men from even the recognition of such a will, and so would mar the joy and fear and gratitude and love of the Lord's people ; contradictorily, because he afterwards recognises and makes assertions about it. Christ forsooth impinges upon some of God's reprobates !

— Still, a hint or two may be borrowed with advantage from Luther's statement. God, in addressing himself to the world as he does by the ' every where to be preached ' Gospel, does clearly set himself forth to as many as have a heart in any degree softened and turned towards him, in the form and character of the Father of mercies not willing that any should perish. Such ought not to be deterred and affrighted by the knowledge that he has his reprobates. The melting heart is not the heart of a reprobate. But is he to shut his eyes to the fact that God has his reprobates ? Nay, that fact combined with the consciousness of his own personal impotency, turns unto him for a testimony. Neither can he regard God as he ought now, or in any future stage of his experience, without it ; for without it, the God whom he serves is not the true God.

1 Epicycles.'] * A little circle, whose centre is in the circumference of a greater : or a small orb, which, being fixed in the deferent of a planet, carries it round its own axis, whilst it is itself carried round the axis of the planet. — An invention of some bungling philosophers to account for the anomalies of planetary motion.' Paul in Rom. ix. "Why doth God complain sect. then ? Who shall resist his will ? O man, who art XXXIIL thou that contendest with God ?» " Hath not the potter power?" and the rest. And before him, Isaiah, in his 58th chapter, had said, " For they seek me daily, and desire to know my ways, as a nation which hath done righteousness : they ask of me the ordinances of justice, and desire to draw near to God." In these words, I imagine, it is abundantly shewn to us, that it is not lawful for man to scrutinize the will of sovereignty.11 Besides, this question is of a kind which most of all leads perverse men to attack that awful will ; so that it is especially seasonable to exhort them to silence and reverence, when we prosecute it. In other questions, where the matters treated of are such as admit of explanation, and such as we are commanded to explain, I do not proceed so.

Now if a man will not yield to my admonition, but persists in scrutinizing the counsels v of that will, u This text does not seem to bear upon the point in hand ; viz. that we ought not to scrutinize the personal will of God ; or, as he terms it, ' the will of majesty/ or sovereignty. Luther understands e their seeking of God daily, and desiring to know his ways, and asking of him the ordinances of justice j as if they not only complained of God's appointments towards them being unjust, but were prying curiously into the secret springs of them. But does God, speaking by his Prophet, really mean any more than that they were hypocrites and formalists, yet expected the acceptance of true and devout worshippers ? Accordingly they were answered by shewing them that their fasts were not such as he had chosen, and that the worship which he accepts is the reverse of theirs. c Ask of me the ordinances of justice,' are the only words which bear at all upon the subject ; and these do not necessarily imply, or with any probability here imply, * a spirit of curiousness.' v Rationem scrutari.'] Rat. More literally, the method of that will. ' Ratio ' expresses most nearly the ' all about it.' Scrut. (see last Section, note p) does not necessarily denote a bad state of mind ; though clearly so here : a mind which doubts the fact that God has such a will, questions his right to have it, and cavils at its decisions. To inquire what the word of God has recorded concerning this will with deep reverence ;

part in. I let him go on and fight with God, as the giants did of old ; waiting to see what sort of triumphs he carries off, and very sure in the mean time, that he will withdraw nothing from our cause, and confer nothing upon his own. For it will remain fixed, that either he must prove Freewill to be capable of doing every thing, or the Scriptures which he quotes must contradict his own position. Whichsoever of these be the issue, he lies prostrate as the conquered man, and I am found standing upon my feet, as the conquerors sect. Your second text is Matthew xix. 17. " If thou xxxiv. w«jj. enter jn£0 }jfe^ keep the commandments." Matt xix 'With what face could it be said, "If thou j 7. and wilt," to a man whose will is not free/ So says other like Diatribe, considered. To whom I reply ; does this saying of Christ's and meekly, rejoicingly, to submit to that record -, would not be making war as the giants of old did against Jupiter. x See here a confirmation of my remark in Sect, xxviii. note1, that it is against the impugners and deniers of that will which is distinct from God's legislative will, not against its sober investigators and maintainers, that Luther is protesting ! His answer to the cavil from Matt, xxiii. and like passages is, ' Aye, but there is another will behind this, which is contrary to this, and which we must be content to leave, with asserting it.

God as revealed, or, as he afterwards describes him, Christ, the incarnate God, wills only life ; but there is another will of God, a will not expressed by this incarnate God, which wills death j and therefore these things which appear to prove Freewill (by inference) may still be said, and yet man be in bondage : because, whilst he deplores, he doth also not deplore. This latter will is not to be searched into, or acted upon ; it is only to be asserted and believed: deny it, if you dare ; you will only be running your head against the wall, making war against God. — For objections to this statement, and for a more consistent answer to the cavil, &c. &c. see note s of the last Section. — Luther says worse than he means, but he means ignorantly. It had not been given him to know the mystery of God and the Father, and of Christ : He did not understand how that God is not hiding himself behind Christ, but making himself seen in Christ 5 so that it shall be truly said, " He that hath seen me hath seen the Father : if ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also ; and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him." (John xiv. 9. 7-)

then establish that the will is free ? Why, you sect. meant to prove that Freewill can will nothinggood, and will necessarily serve sin, if grace be out of the way. With what face then do you now make it all free ? The same shall be said to the words, ' If thou wilt be perfect/ c if any man will come after me/ * whosoever will save his soul/ ' if ye love me/ '- if ye abide in me/ (Nay, let all the conjunctions € if/ and all the imperative verbs, as I have said/' be collected together — by way of assisting Diatribe in the number, at least, of her quotations.) 6 All these precepts are unmeaning/ she says, if nothing be attributed to the human will. How ill does that conjunction, 'if' agree with mere necessity I' I answer ; if they be unmeaning, it is your own fault that they are so, or rather are nothing at all : you make this nonentity of them by asserting that nothing is ascribed to the human will, so long as you represent that Freewill cannot will good, and here on the other hand representing, that it can will all good ; unless it be, that the same words are both hot and cold in the same instant, as you use them, at once asserting every thing and denying every thing.a Trulyl am at a loss to think, why an author should have been pleased to say the same thing so many times over, forgetting his thesis perpetually, unless perchance, through mistrust of his cause, he had a mind to gain the victory by the size of his book, or to wear out his adversary by making it tedious and burthensome to peruse. — By what sort of consequence, I would ask, does it follow that will and power must

y See above, Sect. xx. 2 Frigent.'] See above, Sect. xxix. note y. a It is you who take away all warmth and life from such passages as these, by making the will a contradiction • it can do nothing, it can do all things : these assertions destroy each other, and leave a nought as the result, unless they mean opposite things, such as ' yes/ and ' no,' at the same instant. part in. forthwith be present to the soul, as often as it is said, f If thou wilt/ 'if a man will/ ' if thou shalt be willing/ Do not we most frequently denote impotency and impossibility, rather than the contrary, by such expressions ? As in these examples: 'If thou wilt equal Virgil in singing, my Msevius, thou must sing other songs ; f ' If thou wilt surpass Cicero, my Scotus, thou must exchange thy subtilties for the most consummate eloquence ; f 'If thou wilt be compared with David, thou must utter Psalms like his/ By these conditionals, it is plain that things impossible of attainment to our own powers are denoted, whilst by a divine power all things are possible to us. Thus it is with the Scriptures also : what may be done in us by the power of God, and what we cannot do of ourselves, is declared by such like words.

Besides, if such things were said about actions absolutely impossible, as those which even God also would never at any time do by us, then would they be rightly called either cold or ridiculous, as being said to no purpose. But the truth is, these expressions are used not only to show the impotency of Freewill, which causes that none of these things be done by us ; but at the same time to intimate that all such things are, at some time or other, about to be and to be done — howbeit by another's power, even God's : if we quite admit that there is in such like words some intimation of things which are to be done, and which are possible. As if a man should interpret them thus : ' If thou shalt be willing to keep the commandments / that is, e If thou shalt at some time possess a will (thou wilt possess it however, not of thyself, but of God — who will give it to whom it shall be his will to give it) to keep the commandments, they also shall preserve thee/ Or, to speak more freely, these verbs, particularly the conjunctive verbs, seem to be

inserted thus on account of God's predestination sect. also — as being that which we do not know — and to ' XVr involve it : as if they should mean to say, c If " thou wilt/ ' If thou shalt be willing' — that is, 'If thou shalt be such in the sight of God as that he shall count thee worthy of this will to keep the commandments — thou shalt be saved/ Each of these two things is couched under this trope :b namely, that, on the one hand we can do nothing of ourselves ; and on the other, whatever we do, God worketh it in us. I should speak thus to those who would not be content to have it said, that our impotency only is expressed by these words, but would maintain, that a certain power and ability of doing those things wThich are enjoined, is proved by them. Thus it would at once be true, that we could do none of the things commanded, and could at the same time do all of them; if we should apply the former assertion to our own powers, the latter to the grace of God.c

Thirdly, Diatribe is affected by this consider- Erasmus's ation : ' Where there is such frequent mention objection of good and bad works, says she ; where there ceptsPare is mention of reward ; I do not see how there can given, and b Tropo.'] Any figurative mode of speech, as opposed to one that is plain, simple, and straight forward -, whatever be the particular nature of the obliquity ; whether grammatical, as here ; or rhetorical. c Luther gives three answers to these texts. 1. Erasmus inconsistent with himself. 2. They teach human impotency. 3. They insinuate the possibility of divine help, and glance at his predestinative favour. — In some instances, doubtless, as in Matthew xix. and its parallels (Mark x. Luke xviii.), a peculiar design may also be traced — the teaching of the natural man's impotency, and the hint at what God, according to his eternal purpose, will do in his people — but all these, multifarious as they are, maybe resolved into, ' the Lawgiver speaks :' whose voice implies not either power in man, or promise in God. The end is not always conviction of sin in mercy ; sometimes it is <s whom he will he hardeneth ;" but always, it is man made to shew what he is, unto the more perfect manifestation of God by him. See Sect, xxviii. notes t T x.

merit is ascribed to Freewill, considered.— Erasmus inconsistent with himself. New Testament precepts are addressed to the con- be place for mere necessity. ' Neither nature, nor necessity, says she, hath merit.' d Nor do I forsooth understand how there can be this place ; save, that the ' approvable opinion* asserts mere necessity in saying that Freewill can will nothing good, but here attributes even merit to it. Freewill has made such advances during the growth of this book and disputation of Diatribe's, that now she not only has desire and endeavour for her own (howbeit, by a strength not her own); nay, she not only wills and does good, but even merits eternal life ; because Christ says in the fifth of St. Matthew (ver. 12), " Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for your reward is abundant in the heavens." Your reward ; that is, FreewilPs reward : for so Diatribe understands this text, making Christ and the Spirit to be nothing; for what need is there of these, if we have good works and merits through Freewill ? — I mention this, that we may see how common it is for men of excellent abilities to be wont to show a blindness in matters which are manifest to even a dull and uncultivated mind ; and how weak an argument drawn from human authority is, in divine things : where divine authority alone has weight.6

Two distinct topics must here be spoken to : first, the precepts of the New Testament; and secondly, merit. I shall dispatch each of these in few words, having spoken of them rather prolixly on other occasions. The New Testament properly consists of promises and exhortations, just as the Old properly consists of laws and d Natura, necessitas.'] By ( nature/ in this connection, I suppose he means ' an inherent-, settled, constitution of things/ which produces actions involuntarily : by ' necessity,' ' a compulsory influence' exercised upon such a constitution, from without. e The inconsistency is Erasmus's : his Freewill is necessity -, but, according to him, is the subject of reward. threatening. For, in the New Testament, the sect. Gospel is preached ; which is nothing else but a ' discourse offering the Spirit, together with grace, verted not unto that remission of sins which hath been to those in obtained for us by the crucifixion of Christ : and Freewi11all this gratuitously, because the mercy only of God the Father befriends us, unworthy as we are, and deserving damnation, as we do, rather than any thing else. Then follow exhortations, to stir up those who are already justified, and have obtained mercy, unto a strenuousness in bringing forth the fruits of that freely bestowed righteousness and of the Spirit, and unto the acting of love in the performance of good works, and unto the bearing of the cross and of all the other tribulations of the world with a good courage.

This is the sum of all the New Testament. — How entirely ignorant Diatribe is of this matter, she abundantly shows in not knowing how to make the least difference between the Old Testament and the New ; for she sees almost nothing in either, save laws and precepts, by which men are to be formed to good manners. What new birth is ;.. what renewal, regeneration, and the whole work of the Spirit ; she sees not at all : to my utter wonder and astonishment, that a man who has laboured so long and so studiously in the Scriptures should be so perfectly ignorant of them.

So then, this saying, " Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for much is your reward in the heavens," squares just about as well with Freewill as light agrees with darkness. For Christ therein exhorts not Freewill, but his Apostles (who not only were in a state above Freewill, as being already partakers of grace and just persons ; but were even established in the ministry of the word; that is, in the highest station of grace), to bear the tribulations of the world. But we are engaged in discussing Freewill, specially as she subsists without grace; who is instructed by laws and threatenings (that is, by the Old Testament) into part in. the knowledge of herself, that she may run to the " promises set forth in the New/ f Such is Luther's representation of the New Testament as contrasted with the Old, and of the Gospel. The New is ' promises and exhortations }' the Old is ' law and threatening.' The Gospel is ' the Spirit, and grace unto salvation, offered to all men ; through Christ, who died for all.'* — For some objections to this statement, as it respects ' offers of grace,' see above, Sect, xxiii. note a; as it respects the opposition between the Law and the Gospel, see above, Sect. xxiv. note \ — The Gospel is certainly to be preached to all ; to the reprobate as well as to the elect ;

but with what propriety this can be called ' an offer of grace ' to all, or to any, may be fairly questioned : much more, with what consistency such language can be used by one who so stoutly maintained, as Luther did, both the impotency of the natural man, and the God-made difference between the elect and the reprobate. With such views as Luther had of the atonement, as though Christ had shed his blood for those from whom it was the Father's good pleasure to hide the mysteries of his kingdom -, and with such a want of insight into the first principle of divine counsel, operation, and revelation — even God's design of manifesting himself 5 in short, with such a want of insight into God 3 it was impossible that he should not speak inconsistently. Indeed it would be little, if inconsistency were all. Such language is illusive, perplexing, and subversive to man j and, whilst it aims to beautify God, defames him ! He is correct, however, to some considerable extent : he nobly asserts, that salvation is altogether gratuitous, the produce of the Father's mercy, conferred upon the hell- deserving through the alone merit of Christ's death. He nobly asserts, that the preceptive parts of the New Testament are for the called and justified only. — But why is the Old Testament to be thus set in array against the New ? Where is ' the law and threatenings ' in the book of Genesis ?

What more truly Evangelical Words are to be found in the New Testament, than in Isaiah and the other Prophets ; in the Psalms, and in Luther's favourite book of Deuteronomy ? f The Old Testament, as our 7th Article wisely speaks, is not contrary to the New : for both in the Old and New Testament everlasting life is offered to mankind by Christ, who is the only mediator between God and man, being both God and man.' — The truth is, even the Law itself, as I have already remarked, is ' Gospel in enigma/ and the scribe that is instructed in the New Testament finds the Old its best commentator and confirmerj what has instructed the same family in its tenderer years, and now makes the " young men" perfect. — I should speak rather differently

* Note, he distinguishes between the Spirit and grace, though not very correctly ; it is the Spirit as given to the justified, of which he speaks : but this is part of the grace of God ; that is, " of the things which are freely given to us of God." But as to merit, or a reward being proposed, sect. what is this but a sort of promise? This proves XXXVIL not that we have any power; for nothing else is Merit and expressed by it, but that, if a man shall have done reward this or that thing, then he shall have a reward. ™ayc.°£- But our question is, not koiv* a reward, or what necessity. sort of a reward, shall be rendered to a man ; but whether we can do those things to which a reward is rendered. This was the thing to be proved. Is it not a ridiculous consequence : The reward of the judge is proposed to all that are in the course; therefore all can run and obtain ? If Caesar shall have conquered the Turk, he shall enjoy the kingdom of Syria: therefore Caesar can conquer, and does conquer the Turk. If Freewill rules over sin, it shall be holy to the Lord ; therefore Freewill is holy to the Lord. — But I will say no more about these superlatively stupid and palpably absurd reasonings ; save, that it is most worthy of Freewill to be defended by such exquisite arguments. Let me rather speak to this point ; that c necessity has neither merit,

of the Apostles. They were to be what he describes, with the exception of one of them ; but they ivere not this yet. If they could be truly said to know Christ at all, till the day of Pentecost was fully come, they knew him " after the flesh." (2 Cor. v. 16.) But it is not to the Twelve exclusively, that the Lord addresses these words (Matt. v. 12.), nor of them exclusively that he speaks. His precepts were for the regulation of their conduct, and of the conduct of all his converted people (whilst walking through the wilderness of this world in his kingdom), as they should hereafter be called, one by one, into vital union with him : that union, of which his elect have the sacrament in their baptism, but the reality, when either before or after the receiving of that sacrament, the Spirit has been given, to convert and to dwell in them. — Luther's argument, however, is not shaken by this distinction. The Lord speaks as to real members of his kingdom ; to persons therefore, who are above and beyond that state of Freewill which is the matter of dispute. — Already Luther has shewn Erasmus inconsistent with himself in arguing from this text (see Sect. xxxv.) : his second answer is, ' this text (to which all other New Testament precepts might be added) does not apply.'

* Quo modo.~] How, in point of action 5 what he must do ; that he may be entitled. part in. n0r reward/ If we speak of a necessity of com- ' pulsion, it is true : if we speak of a necessity of immutability, it is false.11 Who would give a reward, or impute merit, to an unwilling workman? But to those who wilfully do good or evil, even though they cannot change this will by their own power, there follows, naturally and necessarily, reward or punishment; as it is written, " Thou wilt render unto every man according to his works." It follows naturally, ' if you plunge into water, you will be suffocated ; if you swim out, you will save your life.' To be brief; in the matter of merit, or reward, the inquiry is either about the worthiness, or about the consequence, of actions. If you look at worthiness, there is no such thing as merit ; there is no such thing as reward. For, if Freewill can will nothing good of itself, and wills good only through grace (we are speaking, you know, of Freewill as separate from grace, and are inquiring what power is proper to each), who does not see that this good will, together with its merit and its reward, is of grace only? And here again, Diatribe is at variance with herself in arguing the freedom of the will from merit, and is in the same condemnation with me whom she opposes : since it fights equally against herself as against me, that there is merit, that there is reward, that there is liberty; after she has asserted, as she does above, that Freewill can will nothing good, and has undertaken to prove such a sort of Freewill.

If you look at the consequences of actions, there is nothing either good or bad, which has not its reward. And we get into mistakes from this cause, that, in speaking of merits and rewards, we agitate useless considerations and questions about the worth of actions — which is none — when h For this distinction, see above, Part i. Sect. xi. Sect. we ought to be debating only about the conse- sect. quences of them. For hell and the judgment of XXXVI1God await the wicked by a necessary conse- " quence, even though they themselves neither desire, nor think of such a reward for their sins; nay, though they exceedingly detest and, as Peter says, execrate iV In like manner, the kingdom awaits the godly, though they neither seek it, nor think of it themselves; being a possession prepared for them of their Father, not only before they were themselves in existence, but even before the foundation of the world. Nay, if these latter were doing good that they might obtain the kingdom, they never would obtain it; and would belong rather to the community of the wicked, who, with an evil and mercenary eye, " seek their own,"k even in God. But the sons of God do good through a gratuitous good pleasure ; not seeking any reward, but simply seeking the glory, and aiming to do the will, of God : they are prepared to do good, even though according to an impossible supposition, there were no such thing as either kingdom or hell-fire. I think these things are quite sure from that single saying of Christ in Matt. xxv. " Come ye blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom, which hath been prepared

1 Detestentur, execrentur .~] For proper meaning of ' detestor,' see above, Part i. Sect. vii. note l. It is opposed to ( obtestor ;* as calling God to witness, unto evil and not unto good. ' Malum alicui imprecari, Deos testes ciendo ; c execrari.* Here, however, I understand it literally, according to its derived meaning ; and so, ' exsecror ;' which properly denotes ( removing out of sacred relations,' or subjecting to a curse. — The allusion is to 2 Pet. ii. 10 — 15. " But these. . . . speak evil of the things they understand not, and shall utterly perish in their own corruption ; and shall receive the reward of unrighteousness." B\da<j)7)iLi§i>Te?. The original text makes the reference plainer than our version. k " All seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's." (Phil. ii. 21.) Not content with seeking their own glory, &c. &c. in their dealings with man, they seek it even from the hands of God : He is to do them good, not himself. part in. for you from the foundation of the world/5 How ■ do they earn that, which is even now theirs, and which was prepared for them before they were born ? So that we should speak more correctly, if we should say, the kingdom of God doth rather earn us for its possessors, than we it ; placing merit where they place reward, and reward where they place merit. For the kingdom is not to be prepared, but hath been prepared ; but the children of the kingdom are to be prepared, not themselves to prepare the kingdom: that is, the kingdom earns her children, not the children the kingdom. Hell, in like manner, doth rather earn her children, and prepare them, than they it ; since Christ says, " Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire, which hath been prepared for the devil and his angels."1

1 Erasmus objects, that e so much mention of good works and reward, in Scripture, is inconsistent with mere necessity j which can have no merit.' Luther answers, though not exactly in this order : 1. Merit and reward are as inconsistent with your Freewill (which can will nothing good) as with mine. 2. Reward is a matter of promise $ which implies nothing of power, the alone thing in question. 3. Merit and reward are not inconsistent with a necessity of immutability, though they be inconsistent with a necessity of compulsion. (See above, note h.) Merit is not necessarily merit of worth ; reward may be a consequence of actions, in which there is no merit of worth. 4. The kingdoms of heaven and hell earn their children, severally 5 not they them. The two first of these answers are valid ; and, if it were merely so many rounds of the boxer, or so many grapplements of the wrestler, of which we are watching the result, we must give the palm to Luther : he has supplanted, he has knocked down his antagonist. But we want to hear something against merit and reward : and here, Luther is evasive and subtle in his reasoning, though correct in his conclusion. Necessity of immutability does not necessarily imply absence of merit ; because that which the will cannot do for itself, it may be changed by another to do. Luther has supplied the basis of a solid and satisfactory answer, in his fourth reply ; whilst he has neither opened it, nor appears to be sensible of its force and marrow. ( The kingdoms earn their children severally, not they them/

Then what mean those declarations which pro- sect. mise the kingdom and threaten hell ? What xxxvm; Upon Luther's principles, it is impossible to give a solid an- are"uvo_ swer to the objection of ' merit.' For, if Christ has died alike m-iscs an(j for all 3 if he has done and suffered the same both for the elect threatenand for the reprobate 5 so that there is no difference between ings in them, as far as respects his merit (which is the essence of the Scripture, doctrine of Universal Redemption) ; then, either there must be merit in the individuals of the elect, or there is with God repect of persons : he makes a different award to some from what he does to others, alike meritorious or unmeritorious, through partiality. Nor will it suffice to say (as Luther does), this reward is mere matter of consequence, like the man swimming out of water, &c. God sees somewhere that which makes it the demand of His justice that he should put a difference : and, since this is not in Christ, it must be in the individuals themselves. The true answer is, that God has assumed distinct, super-creation relations to his elect, in Christ ; which render it imperative upon him to give them grace and glory, each in its season. This is the true meaning of the kingdom of heaven earning her sons : there are relations of and belonging to that kingdom, which communicate the power that is necessary to the inheriting of that kingdom, in consistency with all that God is, and to the manifestation of him as that God which he is.

So again, with respect to the kingdom of hell : that kingdom has relations which have procured its inhabitants and inheritors. The devil has had a power given to him, by which he has drawn legions into his service, and is bringing those legions to be his companion in torments -, legions, not of devils only, but of reprobate and accursed men : from which number, as equally ruined by the devil and selfdestroyed with the rest, the elect people of God, through their super-creation relations to him in Christ, or, as it has just now been expressed, through the relations of the kingdom of God (of which God, of his distinguishing favour, has given to them to be members), are rescued. Merit and reward are made nearly as much a stumbling-block to the maintainers of free grace, as the sin and impotency of the natural man are to the merit-mongers : with this difference, that the stumbling-blocks which may be thrown upon the path of truth are superable and removable, whilst falsehood may pass by, and cover over, but she cannot expose and expel her stumbling-blocks. Too often, however, the sincere and strenuous advocates of truth defend her cause weakly, and even dangerously. — Who will be satisfied, for instance, with that answer to an objection brought against the truth, which assumes that there is no such thing as " recompense of reward" in the Bible 5 no soldier's crown j no servant's wages ; no agonistic palm ; no ' for' to the call of the blessed of my Father 5 or that all these things and

part in. meaneth that word 6 reward/ so often repeated as it is, throughout the Scriptures ? " Thy work sayings are resolvable into "what Christ personally hath done , and might, if, according to that will of his and of the Father's which is represented as no other than perfectly arbitrary, he saw fit to do so, be bestowed upon his enemies and blasphemers, just as righteously as upon his servant-friends ? (See John xv. 15.) The true objection to merit and reward is, that, as generally understood and represented, they suppose something of good in the natural man; in that self-ruined, self-damned, and selfmade-impotent thing which has merited Hell before he was born into the world, and can merit nothing but Hell. — But, what now if it please God to give to this self-ruined, selfmade-impotent thing new powers, under a new relation, and by a new title ? Is there any thing to prevent God from accepting an equivalent, if such can be found, for that punishment which is the just reward of this his moral creature's sin -} and, of his own free, sovereign and distinguishing favour (as it respects the subject of his infinite, everlasting, and inestimable bounty), placing him in new relations, and endowing him with new capacities as the fruit of those relations ? And why may not this new-made creature, so related, so capacitated, and so connected, act in a manner worthy of those relations, and so entitle himself to those results which the God of all grace has seen fit to attach to the maintenance and fulfilment of those relations \ — This is just the state and case of the eternally foreknown, elect, predestinated, given and received people of God, in Christ Jesus, their grace and glory Head.

Contemplated as now already self-destroyed and fallen in Adam ; under express sentence of death, with all that awful hereafter which was implied though not expressed in that sentence ; the Lord Jesus, by making himself sin for them, and dying with them, renders it consistent in God to raise them up from the dead, and to bring them out into a new state of being, with new relations, capacities, enjoyments and privileges, in him. In a figure, they are said to have risen with Christ ; in reality, the indubitability of their future rising was publicly sealed, and manifested to the whole world, by his rising : I say publicly, because it had been secretly sealed, in the eternal covenant transactions of the Three in Jehovah, before the worlds. "This is that grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." (2 Tim. i. 9.) Regeneration, in its most correct view, is a partial fulfilment of the personal resurrection of the Lord's elect : it is the resurrection of the soul or spirit. u The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live." (John v. 25.) By it they are brought into a resurrection state ; are shewn to be of those who shall hereafter rise with a body like His, and

hath a reward," saith he. " I am thy exceeding; sect. great reward." Again; "Who rendereth unto j are now called to serve him in an intermediate state,, as " God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them."'* (Ephes. ii. 10.) Thus they are, essentially, grace receivers of grace powers, called and enabled to act in a manner worthy of a grace reward. Here is reward then, not of mere consequence., but of merit : of merit, which has worth or dignity in it, yet is all the while grace ; free, distinguishing, sovereign grace. Thus grace reigneth ; but it is through righteousness : which, means, if the connection of those words be duly observed, not merely through Christ's being personally righteous ; but through, and in a way of righteousness, as it respects the persons of his people. (Rom. v. 20, 21. compare with the whole of Rom. vi. which follows, specially from ver. 14 to ver. 23.) — Many, doubtless, will cavil at this statement ; but it is for lack of distinguishing things which essentially differ ; it is for lack of understanding the true nature, origin, design, constituent subjects, and provisions of the kingdom of God j it is for lack of understanding that the members of that kingdom are persons already saved (ec Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling;" " for by grace ye are saved 5" "unto us which are saved, it is the power of God") 5 not men striving for life to get life, but already -living men 5 not natural men, but men joined unto the Lord, and who are one spirit with him ;

which constitute the reward-earning community : concerning whom, it is God's glory that they, being brought out, as they are, in the face and heart of the world — a world made up of hypocrites, or false professors of his name, on the one hand j and of declared enemies and persecutors on the other — " should walk worthy of the vocation wherewith they are called;" "should walk worthy of God, who hath called them to his kingdom and glory ;" " should be counted worthy of his kingdom," and should manifest him to be the righteous God in recompensing rest (their consummation and bliss) to them, when he recompenseth tribulation to them that have troubled them." — If this statement be duly apprehended,

* When we speak of good works, people are apt to run immediately into the idea of law works, as if the Ten Commandments were to be brought back again : not considering, that good is a relative term ; and that good works, therefore, must be those which are consistent with the relations under which we stand, when performing them. If it were possible for renewed man, in the days of his flesh, to keep the whole law, he would not thereby do good works. The law is for creation man ; the Gospel is for supercreation man. It is the obedience of a redeemed sinner, to which he is called in Christ Jesus ; an obedience analogous to that fuller and more distinct manifestation of God, which he has made of himself in his new, aftercreation kingdom. To this obedience, as many as have been created, or builded, in Christ Jesus from the very first, as Abel, &c, have been called and brought, according to their measure of faith. part in. every man according to his works." And Paul s~ in Romans ii. saith, " To those who by the patience of good works seek for eternal life :"

and many like sayings. The answer is, that all these sayings prove nothing but a consequence of reward, and by no means a worthiness of merit : m that those, for- it will give their legitimate force and meaning to numberless passages of Scripture, which some bring forward to contradict the truth of God, and others pare down and mutilate to maintain it. — The essence of the distinction too, that the grace which earneth reward is truly super-creation grace, furnishes a sure test by which to try and convict hypocrites. How common is the language, ' O, I know I have nothing that I have not received.' Yes, but how hast thou received it ? Grace is that principle in the divine mind which makes distinctions : grace is not only favour, but free favour ; not only free favour, but separating favour -, in the case we are considering, is separating favour, shewn in a way of mercy 5 that is, shewn to those who have deserved a contrary sort of treatment. Hast thou received then by a new and super-creation title 5 which puts a difference between Adam's alike self-destroyed and whollydestroyed sons ? Or, is it that thou hast cultivated thy natural powers j or, if it pleaseth thee rather, hast improved that gospel-grace which is bestowed on all, and has put all into a capacity of working out their own salvation ? The answer will unmask the man : grace knows itself, and knows its origin.

In asserting that the kingdom of hell has earned, and is earning, its subjects through a power which God has given to the devil, I would be understood to intimate that the devil could neither be, nor continue to be, without the will of God ; and that hell is filled through his agency : by which, in perfect consistency with all creation relations and obligations, ruin was originally brought upon man ; and by which he secures and retains to himself that spoil, which it is the Father's good pleasure that he should carry off, to his glory. m Sequelam mercedis, meriti dignitatem.'] The expression seems inverted ; l worthiness of merit,' for merit which has worth in it : the meaning clearly is f reward follows as a consequence, but there is nothing of meritorious worthiness in the subject.' Luther, in what follows, overstates the matter of disinterestedness j and afterwards virtually contradicts himself. We are not called to be insensible to the end, but urged to keep it in view j and why, but as a source of encouragement ? which he presently affirms. What, indeed, is that f following because,1 but an admission of the same thing ? — The cure for servility is, " to the praise of the glory of his grace" - *' saved

sooth, who do good, do it not through a servile sect. and mercenary disposition to gain eternal life, but xxvn ' still seek eternal life ; that is, are in the way by which they shall arrive at and obtain eternal life. So that, to seek eternal life, is painfully to strive, and with urgent labour to endeavour, because it is wont to follow after a good life. Now, the Scriptures declare that these things will take place, and will follow after a good or evil life; in order that men may be instructed, admonished, excited, terrified : for, as by the law is the knowledge of sin and admonishment of our impotency, yet is it not inferred from this law that we have any power ; even so, we are admonished and taught, by those promises and threatenings, what follows after that sin and impotency of ours, which the law has pointed out to us ; but nothing of worthiness is ascribed by them to our merit. Wherefore, as law words stand in the place of instruction and illumination, to teach us what we ought to do i and, as the next step, what we cannot do : so words of reward, whilst they intimate what is to happen, stand in the place of exhortation and threatening, to stir up, comfort, and revive the godly,n that they may go on, persevere, and conquer, in doing good, and enduring evil, least they should be weary or broken-hearted. Just as Paul exhorts his Corinthian converts, saying, " Quit yourselves like men ;" " knowing that your labour is not in vain in the Lord."0

already' — c the triumph sure' — ' Christ magnified by my body' — ' God does all our works in us' — f we will do what he enables' — ' we will suffer what he appoints to us' — f happy by the way' — ' how much more happy when in my Father's house ! ' — There is nothing mercenary here j but the end is neither hidden, nor undesired. — See above, note \ n Excitantur, consolantur, erigwitur.~] Exc. is a more general term, applicable to any that want excitement ; but erig. applies especially to those who have fallen or been cast down, and so want raising up. How beautifully this process is described in Ezek. xxxiv. ! ° Luther quotes these words, as if they were parts of the part in. Thus God revives Abraham by saying, ? I am thy exceeding great reward/ Just as if you should cheer a person, by telling him that his works assuredly please God : a sort of consolation which the Scripture frequently uses. Nor is it a small degree of consolation for a man to know that he pleases God ; though nothing else should follow from it : which is, however, impossible. sect. All that is said about hope and expectation must be referred to this consideration, that the

Reason things hoped for will certainly take place ; alobjects to though godly men do not hope, because of the this ac- things themselves, or seek such benefits for their is an-' own sake. So again, ungodly men are terrified swered and cast down by words of threatening, which thewiiuf announce a judgment to come, that they may God.' cease and abstain from evil; that they may not be puffed up ; that they may not grow secure and insolent in their sins. — Now, if reason should turn up her nose here and say, c Why would God have these impressions to be made by his words, when no effect is produced by such words, and when the will cannot turn itself either way? why doth he not perform what he cloth, without taking notice of it in the word (seeing he can do all things without the word ; and seeing the will neither has more power, nor performs more, of itself, through the hearing of the word, if the Spirit be lacking to move the soul within; nor would have less power, or perforin less, though the word were silent, if the Spirit were vouchsafed; since all depends upon the power and work of the Holy Ghost) ; my reply is, God has determined to give the Spirit by the word, and not without it, having us for his cooperators, to sound ivithout what he alone and by himself breathes within, just where he pleases; producing effects, which he could no doubt accomplish

same sentence : but the one is part of 1 Cor. xv. 58. the other of 1 Cor. xvi. 13. . without the word, but which it is not his sect. pleasure so to do. And who are we, that we m should demand the reason why God wills so ? It is enough for us to know that God wills so ; and it becomes us to reverence, to love, and to adore this will, putting a restraint upon rash Reason. Even Christ, in Matt. xi. assigns no other cause for the Gospel being hidden from the wise and revealed to babes, than that so it seemed good to the Father.p So he might nourish us without bread, and he has, in point of fact, given us a power of being nourished without bread, as he says in Matt. iv. " Man is not nourished by bread alone, but by the word of God."q Still, it hath pleased him to nourish us inwardly by his word, through the means of bread ; and that bread fetched into us from without/ It stands good, therefore, that merit is not proved by reward ; in the Scriptures, at least : and again, that Freewill is not proved by merit; much less such a Freewill as Diatribe has undertaken to prove ; one which cannot will any thing good, of itself. For, if you should even concede that there is such a thing as merit, and should

p Here we are reminded again of the defect of Luther's views. It is not arbitrary will, but counselled will of God accomplishing the best end by just and necessary means, which gives occasion to this arrangement. The declaration of his truth, by the word, to the self-made-impotent is necessary to the manifestation of himself, through his dealings with them. The " Even so, Father," would be enough ; but he has been so kind as to show us more ; and there are places and seasons where this ( more' should be brought into sight. See Sect, xxviii. notes l v x. i The original text in Deuteronomy viii. says, KJWF'Ss, tf Every that proceedethj" meaning no doubt, as the Lord quotes it, ' every word of command which he gives.' r Thus it is God's word which imparts its power of nourishing to the natural bread ; but still he is pleased to use that bread : so, the spiritual bread of the word only nourishes when he gives the word for it to do so ; but still he uses that spiritual bread, when he wills to nourish. part in. add those wonted similes and consequences of

Reason ; as, that commandments are given in vain ; that reward is promised in vain; that threatenings are held forth in vain ; except there be Freewill : if any thing be proved by these arguments, I say, it is that Freewill can of herself do every thing. For, if she cannot do every thing for herself, that consequence of reason retains its place; 'therefore it is vain to command, it is vain to promise, it is vain to hold out threatenings/ Thus is Diatribe continually disputing* against herself, whilst opposing me. The truth meanwhile is, that God alone worketh both merit and reward in us, by his Spirit; but he announces and declares each of these to the whole world, by his outward word ; in order that his own power and glory, and our impotency and ignominy, may be proclaimed even amongst the ungodly, the unbelieving, and the ignorant ; although none but the godly understand that word with the heart, and keep it faithfully ; the rest despising it. sec. XL. And now, it would be too tiresome to repeat the several imperative verbs which Diatribe enu- fb?°noty iterates out of the New Testament; always apconsider- pending her own consequences, pretending that ing ail his an these expressions are vain, superfluous, untexts^epa- meaning, absurd, ridiculous, nothing at all, exrateiy .— Cept the Will be free. I have already declared, to cavUfrom a high degree of nauseating repetition, what an Matt. absolute nothing is made out by such expressions vn' ' as these; which, if they prove any thing, prove

an entire Freewill. Now, this is nothing else but a complete overturning of Diatribe ; who undertook to prove such a Freewill as can do nothing good, and serves sin ; but does really prove one which can do every thing : so ignorant and so forgetful of her own self is she continually. They are mere cavils then, when she argues, ' ye shall know them by their fruits/ saith the Lord : by fruits, he means works. He calls these works ours: but sec.xli. they are not ours, if all things be performed by What! are not those possessions most rightly called ours, which we have not made ourselves, it is true, but have received from others ? Why should not those works then be called ours, which God hath given to us by the Spirit? Shall we not call Christ ours, because we have not made him, but only received him? On the other hand, if we make all those things which are called ours, why then we have made our own eyes for ourselves, we have made our own hands for ourselves, we have made our own feet for ourselves; unless we are forbidden to call our eyes, hands, and feet ours ! Nay, what have we, which we have not received ; as Paul says ? Shall we then say, that these possessions are either not ours, or they have been made by our ownselves ? But let be now, let be that these fruits are called ours, because we have produced them ; what then becomes of grace and the Spirit ? For he does not say, c by their fruits, which are in some very small degree and portion theirs, ye shall know them/s — These, rather, are the ridiculous, the superfluous, the vain, the unmeaning sayings — nay, a parcel of foolish and odious cavils, by which the sacred words of God are polluted and profaned.

Thus too, that saying of Christ upon the cross Lukexxiii. is sported with ; t u Father, forgive them ; for they 34- .is know not what they do." (Here, when you would lot /or expect a sentence attaching11 Freewill to the Freewill. s Erasmus argues, it is necessary to their being called f ours/ that they be clone by our own natural powers. Then they are wholly done by our natural powers j for he calls them ours, without addition or subtraction. — Then there is no Spirit and grace in our good works. — Another of the ( nimis probats.' 1 Luditur.~) ' Ludo se, delectationis causa, exercere.' I do not know any classical authority for this passive form of the verb fludo.'' — Verbum, &c. luditur. u Astrueret.~] ' Juxta struo/ f prope extruo :' not superstructure/ but ' additional or contiguous structure.' — It is the part in. testimony adduced, she betakes herself again to her consequences.) ' How much more justly, says she, would he have excused them by saying that they were those who had not a free will, and could not, if they would, do otherwise !' And yet, that sort of Freewill which can will nothing good, though it be the one in question, is not proved by this consequence ; but that sort of Freewill which can do every thing ; which no one contends for, and which all deny, except the Pelagians.

— But now, when Christ expressly says that they know not what they do, does he not at the same time testify, that they cannot will good ? For, how can you will what you do not know ? There can be no desire, surely, for an unknown thing. What can be more stoutly affirmed against Freewill, than that it is in itself such a perfect nullity, as not only to be incapable of willing good, but even of knowing how much evil it is doing, and what good is. Is there any obscurity in any word here ? " They know not what they do." What is there remaining in Scripture, which may not, by the suggestion of Diatribe, prove Freewill, when this most clear and most adversative saying of Christ is to her an affirmation of it? A man might just as easily say, that Freewill is proved by that saying, " The earth was empty v and void;" or by that, " God rested on the seventh day :" and the like. Then will the Scriptures be ambiguous and obscure indeed ! nay, they will mean all things, and mean nothing, in the same moment. But such audacious handling of the word of God argues a mind signally contemptuous both towards God and towards man; which deserves no patience at all.x

flying off from the proof alleged, in pursuit of something more remote ; to which Luther here objects. v Inanis.'] We say, ' without form ;' but Luther has it f without substance •' having nothing in it, or upon it. x Luther answers, 1. It is inference. 2. The text is against you. 3. Such use of Scripture is criminal. So again, that saying in John i. " To them sc.xlii. gave he power to become the sons of God/' she ; — takes in this wise : c How can power be given to \f^\ for them, that they should become the sons of God, grace. if there be no liberty in our will V This passage, also, is a cudgel y for Freewill — such as nearly all the Gospel of John is — but adduced in support of it. See, I pray you, John is not speaking of any work of man's, whether great or small ; but of the actual renewal and transmutation of the old man, who is a son of the devil, into the new man; who is a son of God. This man is simply passive (as they speak), and does nothing, but is altogether a thing made. For John speaks of his being made : " to be made the sons of God/' he says; by a power freely given to us of God, not by a power of Freewill which is natural to us.z

But oar Diatribe infers from hence, that Freewill is of such power, as to make sons of God; prepared else to determine, that this saying of John is ridiculous and unmeaning. But who has ever extolled Freewill to such a height, as to give it the power of making sons of God ; especially such a Freewill, as can will nothing good ; the one, which Diatribe has taken up to prove.* But let this pass with the rest of those consequences, so o.ten repeated; by which, if any thing is proved, it is nothing else, but what Diatribe denies ; namely, that Freewill can do every thing. What John means is this : that, by Christ's coming into the world, a power is given to all men, through the Gospel (that Gospel by which grace is offered, and not work demanded), which y Malleus.'] More properly., ' a mallet)' ' fab rile instrumentum ad tundendum.' z Viinsitd.~] Ins. properly, ' what is inserted as a graft { but transferred to signify ' what is natural, innate, inherent.' ' Nativus, innatus, ingenitus.' a Assumsit.~\ Scil. ad probandum. What he elsewhere expresses by c probandum suscepit.' part in. is magnificent in the extreme ; even that of

■ becoming the sons of God, if they be willing to believe ! But this being willing, this believing in his name, as it is a thing which Freewill never knew, never thought of before ; so is it a thing, which she is yet much further from being able to attain to, by her own powers. For how should reason imagine that faith in Jesus, the son of God and of man, is necessary ; when she does not even at this day comprehend, nor can believe, even though the whole creation should as with an audible voice proclaim it, that there exists a person, which is at the same time both God and man. On the contrary, she is the more offended by such preaching ; as Paul testifies in 1 Cor. i. so far is she, from being either willing or able to believe.b John, therefore, proclaims those riches of the kingdom of God which are offered to the world by the Gospel, not the virtues of Freewill : intimating at the same time, how few there are that receive them ; because Freewill, forsooth, resists the proposal, her power being nothing else, through the dominion which Satan has over her, but even to spurn the offer of grace, and of

b We have here Luther's usual, exceptionable expression about e offers.' (See Sect. xxiiL note a ) ; and his mention of the person of Christ suggests over again the importance of the distinction which I remarked in Part ii. Sect. viii. note r. If we do not keep the divine and the human person of Christ distinct, but regard him simply as a person who has put another nature, the human nature, upon his former and eternal, divine nature ; his whole history and the things said of him are a Babel : not so, if we be brought to apprehend him as the co-equal of the Father and of the Holy Ghost acting in and by a human person which he has taken up into union with himself. — The text evidently proves nothing for Freewill : it only says " as many as received him;" without saying by what power ; whether natural or supernatural. I do not agree with Luther, in its being the making of the old man into the new man : it is the state of privilege and glory, into which the son of Adam and child of the devil has been brought, by that preceding process of transmutation.

that Spirit0 which would fulfil the law. So ex- sc.xliii. quisite is the force of her desire and endeavour to fulfil the Jaw ! — But, hereafter, I shall shew more at large, what a thunderbolt this text of John's is against Freewill. Meanwhile, I am not a little indignant, that passages so clear in their meaning and so powerful in their opposition to Freewill, should be cited by Diatribe in her favour : whose dulness is such, that she discovers no difference between law wrords and words of promise; for, having first of all established Freewill, most ridiculously, by lawr testimonies, she afterwards reaches the highest height of absurdity/ by confirming it with words of promise. This absurdity, however, is easily explained, by considering with what an averse and contemptuous mind Diatribe engages in the discussion. To her it is no matter, whether grace stand or fall; whether Freewill be laid prostrate or maintain her seat; if she may but prove herself the humble servant of a conclave of tyrants, by uttering a number of vain wrords to excite disgust against our cause. After this we come to Paul also, the most Objections determined enemy to Freewill, who is never- fl'°™^f theless compelled to establish Freewdll by what dSpSch-7 he says in Rom. ii. " Or despisest thou the edriches of his goodness and patience and longsuffering ? or knowest thou not that his goodness leadeth thee to repentance?" How can it be, that contempt of the commandment is imputed, where the will is not free ? How can it be, that God invites to repentance, when he is the author of impenitence ? How can it be, that damnation