On the Bondage of the Will (De servo arbitrio)

of all the laws which are written in the book of the law, as often as he mentions the works of the law. What is still more wonderful, he absolutely cites Moses when pronouncing a curse upon those who continue ?iot in the law, whereas he himself pronounces those cursed who are of the deeds of the law, adducing an opposite passage to confirm his opposing sentiment; inasmuch as the former (Moses) is negative, the latter (Paul) is affirmative.— But he does so, because the matter stands thus before God : those who are most zealous of the deeds of the law do least of all fulfil the law ; for that they lack the Spirit, who is the fulfiller of the law : which they may attempt, it is true, to fulfil through their own powers, but can effect nothing. Thus each saying is true : according to Moses they be accursed who do not continue ; according to Paul they be accursed who are of the deeds of the law : for each of these writers requires the Spirit in his performer. Without this Spirit, the deeds of the law, how much soever be done, do not justify, as Paul says : and for the same reason, they do not continue in all the things which are written, as Moses says.*

z The cavil is, Paul speaks of ceremonial works exclusively ; Luther's answer is, 1. Paul's argument would be defective. partv. In fine, Paul abundantly confirms what I am here advancing, by his own division of persons. SECT. XL ° J r 2. Grace would be a mere trifle. 3. These works have not Paul's become deathly. 4. They were a part of the law requirements meaning as much as the decalogue, and have never been abrogated. ls> ' w°1-ks 5# When treating the same subject in Galatians iii. he ex- o t le law, press]y says, ' All things which are written in the book of the done in f , J r ' ° the flesh, law^' , , , condemn.' ^ne true anc* snort answer to this cavil is, the whole law ceremonial and moral is one institution, and Paul makes no exceptions or distinctions. Luther goes wide, and says many exceptionable things. What he says about f not abrogated,' is ambiguous, inconclusive, and unnecessary. Does he mean that the law in both its parts is still standing, just as it was ? Was it the Apostle's place here to say ' not abrogated,' if he considered it so ? as he does explicitly in Romans vi. vii. 2 Cor. iii. Ephes. ii. Colos. ii. Galat. iv. 1 Tim. i. Is it true, that what has been the law shall not be spoken of under the name of the law, except it be still in force and reigning ?

Did the Jews, to whom I say only, he says firstly (see last note), this argument is addressed, require any assertion of its authority ? — What he says to reconcile the apparent discrepancy between Paul and Moses, which forms the basis of his interpretation and position here, he says under a misapprehension of both Paul's and Moses's meaning, and says unwisely and untruly. (Compare Deut xxvii. 1 — 26, with Galat. iii. 10.) Paul has it not for his object to condemn as many as are doers of the law, but " as many as are of the works of the law;" that is, ' all those who are looking for justification, in whole or in part, from their obedience to the law.' What inconsistency is there between this interdict of Paul's, and Moses's curse, denounced upon every one that continueth not in all things, &c. ? — Paul neither takes away this curse, nor condemns the fulfiller : he condemns the attempt to fulfil, not because it succeeds, but because it fails, and must ever fail. — ' They both require the Spirit in their performer : Moses's cursed continues not, because he has not the Spirit ; Paul's cursed is not justified, because he does the works without the Spirit.' Now there is no consideration about either -power or motive, in either. Moses in effect says, * fulfil j' without inquiring or teaching how: and Paul says, ' aiming to be justified by the law curses, because man cannot fulfil it, and there is a curse upon him who doth not.' But so far is the Spirit from being the law fulfiller (legis consummator), as Luther entitles him;

that he who hath the Spirit, after justification, does not " continue in all things," and would be condemned still, if that were required of him ; nor is it in any wise his aim to do so. His aim is to do the whole will of God, in that relation into which he has now manifestly and consciously been brought by Him in Christ, as God shall be pleased

He divides men who are the doers of the law into SECT.xr. twro parties : the one he makes spiritual doers, the other carnal doers ; leaving none between the two. For thus he speaks, " By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified." What does this mean, but that they work at the law without the Spirit, seeing they are flesh; that is, ungodly and ignorant of God : whom those works profit nothing? Thus, in Gal. iii. using the same division, he says, u Received ye the Spirit from the deeds of the law, or from the hearing of faith ?" And again, Rom. iii. u Now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested." And again, " We judge that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law." From all which, as put together, it becomes plain and clear, that the Spirit is opposed by Paul to the works of the law — just as it is to all other things which are not spiritual, and to all the powers and pretences of the flesh — so as to make it certain, that this is the sentiment of Paul, agreeing with Christ in John iii. that all which is not of the Spirit (be it never so specious, so holy and so excellent) is flesh ; and therefore, that even the most beautiful

to make known that will to him, and to enable him, by his Spirit which dwelleth and walketh in him : a rule, if rule it can be called, far more extensive and copious than the law, and of a totally different character ; the law of an eternally saved and glorified sinner, walking in Christ with God — his Father, his Friend, his Portion, his exceeding Joy. — What he says here, and in other places, about the justification of the Spirit, is fallacious. His language implies that, if the obedience of those who are " of the works of the law " were yielded in the Spirit, it would justify ; and that it was for lack of this gift, that Moses's worshippers did not escape their curse, by "continuing in all things." Now, though it be true that the Spirit justifies the Lord's called people (1 Cor. vi. 11.), as it did " God manifest in the flesh" (1 Tim. iii. 16.), by proving whose, and who, and what they are ; this is perfectly distinct from any act of obedience which removes curse, or earns acceptance. — All he wants from ; Galatians, however, he has : f Paul, treating the same subject there, expressly comprehends the whole law.'

part v. works of the divine law are of this character, by whatsoever powers they may happen to have been wrung out. For the Spirit of Christ is necessary ; without which they are all deserving only of damnation. Let it be a settled point then, that Paul means by the deeds of the law not those which are ceremonial only, but all the works of the whole law. It will at the same time be settled, that whatsoever be done without the Spirit, in doing the deeds of the law, is condemned. But this power of Freewill — the most excellent thing forsooth in man — seeing it is of Freewill properly so called that we are now treating, is without the Spirit. Whereas, to be of the works of the law is such a thing, that nothing better can be said of a man. He does not say, you observe, 'as many as are of sins and of transgression against the law;' but " as many as are of the deeds of the law;" that is, the best of men — men zealous for the law — who, besides the power of Freewill, have even been assisted by the law ; that is, instructed and exercised therein.*

a I object to Luther's interpretations and conclusions in this section. He infers a division of law workers from the words no jlesh; by which Paul expresses not division, but universality. No flesh (see above, Part iv. Sect, xxxvii. note k) is no human being. The argument drawn from this supposed division therefore — that it is the deeds of the law done without the Spirit, which fail to justify, and do absolutely condemn — falls to the ground. In the several passages which he quotes, the opposition is not between the Spirit and the deeds of the law, but between the Law and the Gospel. (Gal. iii. Rom. iii.) Nor do I allow the parallel between this text and John iii. 6. any further than that the word ' flesh ' is used in the same sense in both ; but that, not Luther's sense. I must object to the assertion, that it is the absence of the Spirit which makes the deeds of the law damnable ; which would not be damnable, if He were present in them : as if any works of man in the flesh, performed with or without the Spirit, ' could endure the severity of God's judgment !' — All I can allow to Luther, therefore, in this section is, c By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight;' therefore Freewill, even with the help of the law, is still condemned ; for with that help she cannot justify. Then what is she without it ? — And is not this enough ?

If then Freewill assisted by the law, and occu- sect. pied in the law with all its might, profits nothing, XIL and does not justify, bat is left in ungodliness and flesh; what are we to think that it can do alone, does is to and without the law? shew sin. " By the law, says he, is the knowledge of sin/' He shews here, how much, and how far, the law profits a man ; in other words, that Freewill is so blind, when left to herself, as not even to know sin, but to stand in need of the law for a teacher. Now what can he endeavour towards the taking away of sin, who does not know what sin is ? This is what he can do ; he can take sin for no sin, and what is not sin for sin ; as experience abundantly shews. How does the world persecute the righteousness of God which is preached in the Gospel, vilifying it as heresy, error, and all other the worst possible names, by the instrumentality of those very persons, whom she accounts the best of men, and the most zealous for righteousness and godliness. Meanwhile, she makes a boast and brag of her own works and actions, which are in reality sin and error, as though they were righteousness and wisdom. Paul cloth therefore stop the mouth of Freewill with this word of his, by teaching that sin is shewn her by the law; she being herself one who does not know what is sin : so far is he from

Luther misapprehends the scope of the Apostle's argument. He is not reasoning and declaring about man as with,, and as without, the Spirit : but having shewn what man is, both Jew and Gentile, from Scripture ; he is arguing, how impossible it is that he should be justified by the law. The argument is against justification by the law, as preparatory to his opening of justification by the Gospel ; not against man's natural impotency and imbecility, whilst without the Spirit. — Luther makes ' not justified' to mean the same as ' damned.' It implies damnation, certainly- but Luther's expressions and argument intimate, that damnation is brought and incurred by doing these deeds without the Spirit ; whereas, in fact, that damnation had already been incurred, before the law came ; and was only continued and manifested thereby, instead of being removed. part v. granting to her any power of striving after good. And here that question of Diatribe's, so often repeated throughout her whole treatise, ' Tf we can do nothing, what is the use of so many laws, so many precepts, so many threatenings, so many promises/ is answered. Paul here replies, " By the law is the knowledge of sin." He gives a far different answer to this question, from what man, or Freewill, thinks for. Freewill is not proved, says he, by the law; she does not work together with it unto righteousness: for righteousness is not by the law, but the knowlege of sin.

This is the benefit, this the effect, this the office of the law, to be a light to the ignorant and blind : and such a light, as shews disease, sin, wickedness, death, hell, the wrath of God, to be ours; but does not help, or release us from them. She is contented with having shewn us what our state is. Upon this, the man knowing his disease of sin, is sad, is afflicted, yea despairs. The law does not help him ) much less can he help himself. Another light is necessary to shew him his remedy. This is the word of the Gospel, displaying Christ as the deliverer from all these. It is not Reason or Freewill which makes Him known: nay, how should she make him known, when she herself is very darkness, needing the light of the law to shew her that self-disease, which she sees not by her own light, but imagines to be soundness.15

b How clearly do these latter words of Paul confirm the view given in the former note as to his meaning and design ! ' The law cannot justify, for it exposes this state of man which I have been charging upon him ; it just manifests what he is.' He does not say makes sin, or makes him a sinner; but is, or leads to, knowledge and acknowledgment of sin. What connection Would this clause have with the preceding sentence, if the o'biect were to shew, that man's law deeds done without the Spirit do not justify, implying that with the Spirit they do ? — But how strong is the argument, when correctly opened, against Freewill ! She does not even know, what is sinful and what is not j nor how vile she is, through her propensity to it. — In Galatians too, he treats the same question sect. in just the same way, when he says, what then is the law ? and answers this question, not as Dia- Confirme(i tribe would, by saying that it proves there is such by Gal. m. a thing as Freewill, but by saying, " It was *9, ando0 ordained for the sake of transgressions, until the seed should come, to which he had made the promise." For the sake of transgressions, he says : not to restrain them, as Jerome dreams (since Paul maintains, that it was promised to the Seed which should come, that He should take away and should restrain sin, by the free gift of righteousness) ; but to increase transgressions, as he writes in Rom. v. " The law stole in, that sin might abound."0 Not that there were no sins, or that

Luther reads the word " justified" in the present tense, for which I do not find any authority : the future defines the sense both of Sion and of €7ri^vivais ; that it is therefore, not because, and * increased or perfected knowledge,' not e acknowledgment.' The law not only shews what is sin to a greater extent, but also its power over us, and its malignity, or " exceeding sinfulness :" it exacerbates and excites by forbidding and requiring (see Rom. vii. 7 — 12.) ; and what must that soul, or Freewill be, which is provoked to evil by such a cause ? c Luther does not see quite the whole of this great text, though he sees much of it. To understand it, we must connect what has gone before with it ; beginning with verse 12. " Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin : even so death passed upon all men through him in whom all sinned. For until the law sin was in the world ; but sin is not imputed when there is no- law." — Man — the whole race — sinned in and with the first man ; each individual, distinctly and personally, having been created with, and being inseparable from him, when he personally committed the one transgression. — Though sins were committed afterwards by the several individuals of the race, as brought out, one after another, into manifest existence ; these were not imputed, but they were dealt with on the ground of the first transgression, in which they were distinctly, individually and personally, parties 3 by means of their union and unity with Adam. — The law afterwards '«' stole in," that the offence might be multiplied; or, as in Galatians, because of offences ;* that

*Witli whatever little variety this test maybe read and understood — whether added because of, or put into the hand of a Mediator because of — it must imply, if it do not express, the same broad truth, that the law had no other effect and design than to multiply transgressions. — Again, the application of PART V. sins did not abound, without the law, but inas- much as transgressions were not known to be transgressions, or such great offences, but the greater part, and the greatest of them, were accounted righteousnesses. Now if sin be not known, there is no room for remedy, and no hope, because they would not bear the hand of the physician; as being whole in their own eyes, and having no need of a physician. The law therefore is necessary in order to make sin known ; that, by knowing the baseness and vastness of his sin, the proud man, who seemeth whole in his own eyes, may be humbled, and may sigh and pant after the grace which is set before him in Christ. See what a simple sentence is here ! " By the law is the knowledge of sin/' Yet this sentence of itself is quite powerful enough to confound and overturn Freewill. For if it be true, that she knows not of herself what sin and wickedness is, as Paul says both here, and in Rom. vii. ("I had not known lust to be sin, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet") how shall she ever know

is, that there might be more than one offence ; that many offences might be added to the first. It is not, therefore, merely the communication of the knowledge of sin, that was sought and conveyed by that institution, but multiplication of transgression ; that, with regard to the Lord's people, who are the displayers of God, specially as that God which is love — love to the uttermost — love in the way of grace and mercy — the God of all grace might be shewn as what He is, in the much more abounding of grace, where sin hath abounded. — Sin has never been imputed by God to man, any more than by man to himself, without express and absolute enactment. The command, or prohibition, in the garden was of this sort ; and there hath been none given since, save the law — which was confined to one family, the seed of Abraham, for a while the visible church — and a second, declaredly an universal one, " Repent ye and believe the Gospel." On the former of these universal commands 1 death was suspended ; on the latter, life. He that believeth — which implies repentance — shall be saved ; he that believeth not — which implies impenitence — shall perish.

Rom. vii. 7. is equally just when that text is understood in its fulness — the provocation which the law gives to sin— as in its inferior and more common interpretation, of mere teaching. what is righteousness and goodness ? If she does sect. not know what righteouness is, how shall she ever strive after it ? We know not sin — in which we have been born, in which we live and move and have our being ; say rather, which lives and moves and reigns in us — how then should we know righteousness which reigns without us, in the heavens ! What a mere nothing, and less than nothing, do these words make of that wretched thing called Freewill !d These things being so, Paul makes proclama- Rom. Hi. tion with full confidence and authority, saying, 2,~~ ?5- " But now the righteousness of God without the manythunlaw is manifested, being witnessed by the law and derboits the Prophets ; the righteousness of God, I say, Freewill, by faith in Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all them that believe in him. For there is no distinction : for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God hath set forth as a propitiation by faith in his blood, &c."

Here Paul utters nothing but thunderbolts First ihunagainst Freewill. First, the righteousness of God derboltwithout the law, says he, is manifested : he separates the righteousness of God from the righteousness of the law; because the righteousness of faith comes by grace, without the law. What he says, " without the law," can mean nothing else, than that Christian righteousness is perfectly independent of the works of the law ; so as that the d The wliole force of the argument from this clause, ff By the law, &c." is, ' if the law, which does so little, be necessary, what is Freewill by itself?' Luther, however, did not thoroughly apprehend the nature and design of that interposed covenant and dispensation ; its twofold relation to Israel, as the elect nation, and as the visible church — its universal typicality — its strict temporariness — and its precise adaptedness to teach sin ; that is, to teach those who have made themselves sinners before they are born into the world, and as such are under the wrath of God, how just that wrath is. part v. works of the law are of no worth or power for the obtaining of it. As he says soon after, " We determine that a man is justified by faith without the works of the law:" and as he has said already, " By the deeds of the law no flesh is justified before him." From all which it is most plain, that the endeavour or desire of Freewill is absolutely nothing:

for, if the righteousness of God consists without the law and without the works of the law, how shall it not much more consist without Freewill ? Since it is the highest endeavour of Freewill to be exercised about amoral righteousness, or the works of the law ; by which its blindness and impotency is aided. This word 'without' clears away works morally good, clears away moral righteousness, clears away preparations for grace : in short, invent what you may as a performance which Freewill is equal to, Paul will persist in saying, ' the righteousness of God has nothing to do with this/

Now, although I should grant that Freewill might by its own endeavour make advances some whither ; that is, to good works, or the righteousness of the civil law or the moral law ; still it advances no way at all towards the righteousness of God, nor does God account its endeavours worthy of any regard towards obtaining his righteousness, when he says that his righteousness availeth without the law. If then Freewill maketh no advances towards the righteousness of God, what would it be profited by advancing through its own performances and endeavours (were this possible) even to the holiness of angels? — These surely are no obscure or ambiguous words ; here is no place left for any tropes. Paul manifestly distinguishes two sorts of righteousness; ascribing the one to the law, the other to grace: affirming, that the latter is freely given without the former and its works; but that the former does not justify or avail any thing, without the latter. — Let me be made to see then, how Freewill can sect. subsist and be defended amidst these objections. The second thunderbolt is, that he says the second righteousness of God is manifested, and is in thunderforce, unto all and upon all who believe in Christ; bolt' and that there is no difference.

Again he in the clearest terms divides the whole human race into two parts, and gives the righteousness of God to believers, whilst he takes it away from unbelievers. Is any one so mad then, as to doubt that the power or endeavour of Freewill is something different from faith in Christ ? Now Paul denies that any thing, which subsists without the limits of this faith, is righteous before God; and, if not righteous before God, it must be sin. For with God there is nothing left in the midway between righteousness and sin, as a sort of neutral substance, which is neither righteousness, nor sin. Else, Paul's whole argument would fail, which proceeds upon this division of things; namely, that whatsoever is done and carried on amongst men, is either righteousness or sin : righteousness, if it be done in faith ; sin, if done without it. With men indeed there are actions, it is true, of a middle and neutral character, in which they neither owe nor yield any thing to each other mutually ; bat the ungodly man sins against God, whether he eat or drink, or whatsoever he do, because he is perpetually using God's creatures wickedly and ungratefully, without giving glory to God from his heart at any moment.6

e The believer alone is righteous before God. It is not pretended by those, with whom Luther reasons,, that Freewill makes any man a believer : it is a power and exercise distinct from, and prior to faith. If the faithful man, then, alone is just, what is the Freewill man — and of what character is his act r — It is scarcely necessary to notice here, that Luther speaks of God's manifested righteous ones. Those who have been justified from everlasting, in the covenant transactions between the divine persons, referred to the Father and to the Lord Jesus Christ This also is no light thunderbolt, that he says, " All have sinned and are come short of the glory of God: neither is there any difference." What could be said more clearly, pray ? — I will suppose a man to act by his Freewill ; tell me, whether this man sins in that self-endeavour of his. If he does not sin, why does Paul not except, but involve him amongst the rest, without any distinction ? Assuredly, he who says all have sinned excepts none in any place, at any time, for any performance, for any endeavour. If you except a man for any endeavour or work, you make Paul a liar; because this Freewill worker, or endeavourc-r, is also numbered amongst the all, and in the all, and Paul ought to have given him reverence, and not to have numbered him so freely, and so generally, amongst the sinners.

So again, it is no light thunderbolt, his saying that they are devoid of the glory of God.- — The glory of God may be understood with a difference here, actively and passively. Paul contrives this by his use of the Hebrew idioms, in which he is frequent. Actively, the glory of God is that with which God glories in us ; passively, that with which we glory in him. I think it should be understood passively here: just as the faith of Christ, in Latin, expresses the faith which Christ has ; but by the Hebrews the faith of Christ is understood to mean the faith which we have towards Christ. So the righteousness of God, in (theFather's will appointing to receive them as just, through the merits of the most precious death and passion of his dear Son) are manifested to be such, by the blessed Spirit's acting upon and within them in due season, and thereby enabling, yea constraining them to believe. Now therefore they have conformed with that edict of God, described above (Sect. xiii. note c), wrhich says, " Repent ye and believe the Gospel :" nor is it until this manifestation has thus been made, that any of their personal actings become the acts of the righteous ; or can in in any sort, consequently, be accounted as righteous acts. The acts of Freewill therefore, being performed before the man has entered into this state, are acts of sin.

Latin, means the righteousness which God pos- sect. sesses : but by the Hebrews is understood to mean the righteousness which we have from God, and before God. Thus I understand the glory of God, not Latin-wise but Hebrew-wise, as denoting the glory which we have iu God, and before God, and which may be called glory in God. He, then, glories in God, who knows of a surety, that God has a favour towards him, and counts him worthy of a kind regard, so that what he does is pleasing in his sight, or what displeases is freely forgiven and borne with. If then the endeavours of Freewill be not sin, but goodness, in the sight of God, assuredly she may boast, and with confidence in that glory may say, c this pleases God/ i God looks with an eye of favour upon this/ ' God ascribes a worthiness to this and accepts it, or at least bears with and forgives it/ For this is the sort of glory which the faithful have in God ; which they who have not, are rather confounded before him. But Paul denies this to all men here, affirming that they are absolutely devoid of this glory : which experience also proves. Ask all the party of Freewill endeavourers without exception, and, if you can shew me one, who seriously from his heart can say of any one desire and endeavour of his, 'I know this is well pleasing to God/ I will acknowledge myself conquered, and will yield the palm to you.

But I know that no such man will be found. Now, if this glory be wanting, so that conscience dares not certainly to know or to be confident, that this particular act is pleasing to God, we may be sure that it does not please God. Because, as the man believes, so it is with him : for he does not believe that he certainly pleases God — which, however, is necessary; since this is the very crime of unbelief!, to doubt of the favour of God : who would have us believe with the most assured faith, that he favoureth us. Thus we prove by the very testimony of their own conscience, that, since Freewill is desti-

part v. tute of the glory of God. she is perpetually sub- jecting herself to the charge of unbelief, together with all her powers, desires and endeavours.1 Fifth bolt. But what will the defenders of Freewill say at last to that which follows; " being justified freely by his grace ?" What is this " freely ?" What is this " by his grace ?" How do endeavour and merit square with a gratuitous and freely given righteousness? Perhaps they will say here, that they ascribe the least tiling possible to Freewill ; by no means a merit of condignity. But these are empty words ; for the very aim of Freewill is to make room for merit. This has been Diatribe's perpetual complaint and expostulation — ' If there be not freedom in the will, what place is there for merit ? If there be not place for merit, what place for reward ? To what shall it be imputed, if a man is justified without merit V Paul replies here, that there is absolutely no such thing as merit, but that all men are justified freely, as many as are justified; and that this is not imputed to any thing but the grace of God : but with the gift of righteousness is bestowed at the same time the kingdom, and eternal life. Where is now the endeavour, the desire, the pains, and the merit of Freewill? What is the use of these things? You cannot complain of obscurity and ambiguity; the matter and the words are most clear and most simple. For what if they do attribute the least thing possible to Freewill ; still they teach us that we can obtain righteousness and

f It will be seen presently, that I consider Luther wrong in the account which he here gives of " the glory of God j but he js excessive and erroneous, even upon his own representation of his thunderbolt. Freewill, he says, is evil because destitute of { the glory of God 3' by which he understands e assurance that we please God.' She is in fact guilty of unbelief, in not having it. This is outrageous : because faith is not ' I believe God has a favour to me ,' but ' I believe in God :' neither is it true that God has a favour to every body. What are Luther's reprobates? Then, if every body is to believe this, many are to believe a lie. grace by this very little thing. For they do not sec.xvi. resolve that question c Why does God justify this man and leave the other in his sins/ otherwise than by setting up Freewill ; that is to say, that the one man has endeavoured, and the other has not : and that God respects the one of these characters for his endeavour, and despises the other, that he may not be unjust, as he would be if he acted otherwi se. Yea altho ugh they pretend both in their writings and in their speakings, that they do not obtain grace by merit of condignity, and do not call it merit of condignity, still they mock us with a word, and do not less hold fast the thing.

For what excuse is it, that they do not call it merit of condignity, when they still ascribe to it every thing which belongs to merit of condignity ? for instance, that he who endeavours finds favour with God ; he who does not endeavour finds none. Is not this plainly merit of worth ? Do they not make God a respecter of works, of merits, and of persons ? For instance ; that the one has himself to blame for lacking grace, because he hath not endeavoured ; the other, because he hath endeavoured, gets grace ; who wTould not have had ity if he had not endeavoured. If this be not merit of worth, I should be glad to know what can be called merit of worth. You might trifle in this manner with all sorts of words, and say, it is not indeed really merit of condignity^ but it does what merit of condignity usually does. The thorn is not a bad tree, it only does what a bad tree does. The fig-tree is not a sound tree, but it does what a good tree usually does. Diatribe forsooth is not an abandoned woman, but only says and does what abandoned women are wont to*do.g

£ Luther's bolts are five ; 1. The righteousness of God is here declared to he perfectly distinct from the righteousness of the law. 1. Whatsoever is not of faith is sin. 3. All have sinned. 4. All have come short of the glory of God. 5. The part v. These defenders of Freewill have met with the ■ misfortune described in that old saying. ' He sc xvii. J &? justified are all justified freely. — I should rather consider this Sophists magnificent and comprehensive passage as one vast bolt ; the rt,0Ip fhan very emission of which lays Freewill prostrate, because it .e e a" declares what her state was, to give occasion to such emission. <-ricins. This vast bolt, however, may be considered as expanding itself into several smaller bolts, each of which contuses Freewill. — Luther breaks the shock of this bolt, in some measure, by not exactly discerning the order of the Apostle's argument. He considers Paul as speaking of the preached Gospel, in its reception and effects, from chap. i. 16 ; whereas from i. 18. to iii. 20. he is setting out the condemnation of all men, first of the Greek, and secondly of the Jew, as without the Gospel : and then, having previously shewn that there is nothing but condemnation without it, both without and with the law, he proceeds to open the Gospel as the revelation of the counsel and performances of God's free favour, with which Freewill neither has, nor can have, any thing to do ; and which her necessities have rendered necessary, if every individual of mankind — already shewn to be in a damned state — were not to be continued in that damned state for ever and ever. — Some of his bolts also I consider Luther as interpreting erroneously ; whilst each, truly interpreted, is a bolt indeed !

" But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the Prophets." The righteousness of God is that righteousness which God freely bestows ; which, on many accounts, might specially be called his ; but which is specially so called, in opposition to man's own righteousness — a law righteousness — the result of a man's own personal obedience. " Not having mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." (Phil. iii. 9.) — Luther speaks much of distinctness and opposition, but he did not discern the extent of this ; and was for bringing the law in again, after having cast it out. But the words x^P19 v^lH banish all connection with the law for ever ; just as x^P19 XPLa~* (Ephes. ii. 12.) and x^P^ ^f1* (John xv. 5.) declare entire severance from Christ : indeed what is severance, except it be perfect ? — " Even the righteousness of God, which is b}r faith of Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all them that believe." — I say, by the faith of Jesus Christ, meaning the Gospel, as strictly opposed to the Law, and so preserving a distinctness from that which follows, " them that believe" — the distinguishing character of those to whom the Gospel is made the power of God unto salvation : it is unto these — preached especially for their benefit — they are as it were its point of rest -, and upon these — they are efficaciously, consciously, and manifestatively invested with it, even as they

falls into Scylla by wishing to avoid Charybdis/ SC. xvii. Through a desire of dissenting from the Pela- have covenantly, secretly, and to the eye of God and his Christ, possessed it from all eternity. " Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world ;"' " According to his own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began/' — (Matt. xxv. 34. 2 Tim. i. 9.) — !C For there is no difference : for all have sinned,, and come short of the glory of God." The Jew and the Greek are invested with this righteousness alike, through the instrumentality of this preached Gospel : He is hereby shewn and declared to be the God of the Gentile as well as of the Jew, and to be no respecter of persons ; even as all — that is, both Jew and Gentile alike — hare manifested themselves to be sinners, and nothing but sinners (for those who had the law transgressed it, as well as those who had it not), so proving that there was no possibility of acceptance with God — that is, of being made righteous — in any other way. I consider the sin here spoken of to be the sin committed by every individual man whilst living and acting in this world, which rendered it impossible that he should obtain the glory of God en a law ground, even if his original sin and guilt were remitted :

which it was the special design of the law covenant and dispensation to make manifest. The word fjuapTov denotes a time prior to this manifestation of God's righteousness : it is not are sinning, or have sinned, but have in time past been sinning — as the Apostle has shewn distinctly of both these parties, which together constitute the whole human race — and are now therefore " left behind in the race" by the glory of God. This is the proper import of the word va-eplv-at : which applies specially to the Jews who had the covenant of eternal life — that is, i: of the glory of God" — proposed to them, on the ground of their own personal obedience ■ which could not be so properly said of the Gentiles, whilst their conduct had been such as to make it manifest that they could have no claim under such a covenant if they had been allowed to be candidates and competitors for its prize. — I do not accord with Luther in his idea of this glory : it is the same thing which is spoken of, Horn. v. 2. (" rejoice in hope of the glory of God"), and in 1 Peter v. 1. (" a partaker of the glory which shall be revealed.") It is that manifested excellency which God has provided for his people : and which is with the greatest fitness called His glory — the glory of God — because the state into which He will in due time introduce his human people will be one of His most glorious mamfesters : they will in their measure, both individually and collectively, when thus brought into, and displayed in, the completeness of their union with the Image of the Invisible One, shew Him forth as He is. By this glory — which, if it be to be received upon a law ground, requires spotless perfection

partv. gians, they began with denying merit of condignity, and, by the very ground on" which they deny, in him who wins it — they had all been outstripped and overcome, so as to have no part in it. — " Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus." These words open the nature of God's righteousness, as well as the origin and ground of its bestowal. Justified is from the same root with righteousness, and expresses properly ' making the unjust just :' it is God's method of absolving a sinner from his offences by taking them clean away ; the origin of this removal is free favour, and the way of it is Christ's blood-shedding. It is a cleansing which we receive without money and without price, from, and unto the display of, that portion of God which we distinguish by the name of grace ; but it is a cleansing which he has rendered himself just in freely bestowing — that is, which he freely bestows in perfect consistency with his justice — through the price which Christ paid, by joining himself to them in their damned state, living with them as The Righteous One in and under their curse, and at length dying with them, and for them, a death of shame, agony, and complicated torments. The expression is peculiar, " The redemption which is in Christ Jesus ;" marking the peculiar and elect objects of this redemption :

it is a deliverance, through payment of a valuable consideration, had and received by means of union with Christ Jesus — sought and obtained, therefore, for those only, to whom the Father (as both Covenant and Scripture speak) hath vouchsafed this most precious of all gifts, which implies and conveys all the rest — union with, being in, Christ. <( According as he hath chosen us in Him' — that is, to be in Him; that we should be in Him — "before the foundation of the world." — Hereby, as it is afterwards declared, God is shewn to be righteous, though the justifier of sinners ; who are manifested to have had this covenant union, of His free gift, from everlasting, and therefore to have been of the number of those, for the sake of whom He did so come, live, and die — by having faith given to them in clue season, through the regeneration and within agency of the Holy Ghost, and so differencing themselves from others, to whom, according to the will of God, the free grace proclamation is made, and the second universal commandment (which the more private and peculiar one of the law had established to be the only practicable method of salvation and glory) — Repent ye and believe the Gospel — hath been in common with them delivered, whilst it is by them exclusively obeyed.

Thus doth this ordnance text of Luther's fire a sort of volley against Freewill, of which every shot is death. e Righteousness of God' — c without the law ' — e the faith of Jesus Christ' — • all them that believe ' — ' no difference ' — ' all have sinned ' — ' all come short of glory' — ( justified freely'— ' by His grace' — do more strongly affirm it; denying with word SC. xvn. and pen what in reality and in heart they affirm, and making themselves twofold worse than the Pelagians. First, inasmuch as the Pelagians simply, candidly, and ingenuously confess and assert merit of condignity, calling a boat a boat, a figtree a fig-tree; and teaching what they think. But our friends,11 though they think and teach the same thing as these, beguile us meanwhile with lying words, and with a false shew of dissenting from the Pelagians, when in reality they do nothing less than this ; so that, if you look at the character we personate, you see in us the most determined enemies of the Pelagians ; if you look at our real mind, we are double Pelagians. Secondly, inasmuch as, by this assumption, we estimate and purchase the grace of God at a far lower rate than the Pelagians. They assert, that it is not some small thing which is in us, whereby we obtain grace, but many great, whole, full, and perfect endeavours and performances. Our friends, on the contrary, account it to be a very small thing, and next to nothing, by which we earn grace.

If we must be in error therefore, those persons err more honestly and with less pride, who affirm that the grace of God is purchased at a great price, reckoning it to be dear and precious ; than those who teach that it is bought for a little, and for a very little, accounting it mean and contemptible. But Paul beats them both together *■ through the redemption' — ' a propitiation by blood' — e that he might be just' — ' the justifier of him that believeth: ' here are no less than thirteen bolts, thirteen death-blows for Freewill, whilst the very existence of the Gospel declares the Freewill state of those to whom it is sent. h Nostri verb.'] Friends, inasmuch as they profess to be antagonists of the Pelagians together with us. — What follows — ' si hypocrisin spectes' — c hac hypocrisi' — is by a figure taken from the histrionic art j that peculiar species of simulation, of which the stage-player is guilty, when he puts on his mask, and personates a character in the drama. part v. into one mass by a single word, when he says ' that " all are justified freely ;" and again, " that

they are justified without the law ;" " without the deeds of the law." In asserting a free justification as the justifier of all men, he leaves none to work, or merit, or prepare themselves, and leaves no work that can be called congruous or deserving, but breaks in pieces, by one stroke of this thunderbolt, both the Pelagians with their entire merit, and the Sophists with their little modicum of merit. Free justification does not allow you to set up workers of any sort ; inasmuch as i free gift/ and f prepare yourself by some work/ are manifest opposites. Again; justification by grace allows not of any personal worthiness : as he says afterwards also, in chap. xi. u If by grace, then is it no more of works ; otherwise grace is no more grace ;" just as also in chap. iv. he says, " Now to him that worketh is the reward reckoned, not of grace, but of debt." So that my friend Paul stands up as the invincible destroyer of Freewill, laying two whole armies flat on their faces, with a single word. For if we be justified without works, all works are condemned, both small and great; he excepts none, but fulminates equally against all. sc.xviii. See here, also, how drowsy all our friends have

been ; and of what profit it is to a man, if he have Overlooked leanecl upon the authority of the old Fathers, Paul. approved as those have been, through 6 such a series of ages/ Have not they also been all equally blind; rather, have not they also overlooked Paul's most clear and most express words? Is it possible, that any thing could be said clearly and expressly for grace, in opposition to Freewill, pray, if PauPs discourse be not clear and express ? He pursues his argument in a way of comparison,1 making his boast of grace in 1 Per contentionem.~\ Referring to Paul's continual and repeated opposition of grace to works, in this and the following opposition to works; and then, in the clearest sect. and plainest terms, declares, c that we are justified freely ; and that grace is not grace, if it be procured by our works — most explicitly excluding all works in the matter of justification, that he may establish only grace, and gratuitous justification : k and do we still look for darkness in the midst of this light ; and, when wTe cannot ascribe great things and every thing to ourselves, do we endeavour to ascribe very small and inconsiderable things to ourselves, just to carry the point that justification is not free, and without works, by the grace of God? As if, forsooth, the man who denies that we are supplied with the greater things, and the all things which are necessary to justification, doth not much more deny, that we are supplied with the little things and the few — when he is maintaining all the while, that we are justified only by his grace, without works of any kind, and even without the law itself;

in which all works, both great and small, both works of congruity, and works of condignity, are comprehended?— Go now and boast of the authority of the ancients, and trust to their sayings; all of whom to a man, as you perceive, have overlooked Paul, that most clear and explicit doctor ! Nay, they have, as it were, designedly got out of the way of this day-star, or rather of this sun ; being engrossed, forsooth, with the carnal imagination, that it seemed absurd there should be no place left for merits.

Let me adduce the example of Abraham, which Paul's ritaPaul subsequently adduces. u If Abraham, says example of chapter, as also in chapters x. xi. Contention, or comparison, is a figure which Paul abounds in ; letter and spirit ; law and faith ; God's righteousness and their own righteousness ; life and death ; flesh and Spirit, &c. &c. are set out by him in the most forcible manner, through this sort of competition. k Solam gratiam. graiuitam justificationem ."] Sol. gr. as opposed to grace mixed with works : gr. just, justification without any personal worth. partv. he, was justified by works, he hath glory ; but not before God. For what saith the Scripture ? Marched1 Abraham believed God, and it was counted to and ap- him for righteousness." phed. Here again, observe Paul's division; he dis- tinctly mentions two righteousnesses of Abraham : one of works, which is moral and civil, but by which he denies that he was justified before God, though just before men by it. Moreover, he has glory with men, although even this man also comes short of the glory of God, by this righteousness. Nor can any one say, that the works1 of the ceremonial law are here condemned ; since Abraham lived so many years before the law. Paul speaks simply of the works of Abraham; and those, none other than his best. It would be ridiculous to reason whether a man be justified by bad works.

If then Abraham be not just by any works of his, but, except he be clothed with another righteousness, that of pure faith, be left, both as to his person and as to all his works, under the charge of ungodliness ; it is plain, that no man makes any advances towards righteousness, by his own works: and further, that no works, no desires, no endeavours of Freewill are of any avail before Gocl; but are all accounted ungodly, unjust and wicked. If the man be not just, his works and desires are not just; if not just, they are damnable, and worthy of wrath. The other righteousness is that of faith, which doth not stand in any works, but in God's favour and manner of accounting of us, through grace. And see how Paul dwells upon that word e accounting

1 Gloriam apud homines. Facat gloria Dei.~] Here again, Luther has the mistake already noticed (see notes § h), respecting the glory of God. It is quite in another sense that all are said to come short, and Abraham not to boast. He had no cause of boasting before God, because he was not justified to God by his works ; else he would have had : as he might boast himself before men, because he was shewing himself to be one justified to God, by his works done after justification. of us ';* how lie urges, repeats, and beats it into sect. us. XIX- " To him who worketh, says he, is the reward " reckoned not of grace but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him who justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness ; according to the purpose of the grace of God." Then he adduces David speaking in like manner of the reckoning of grace ; m and saying, " Blessed is the man to whom the Lord hath not imputed sin, &c." Nearly ten times in that same chapter he repeats the word ' imputation/ To be short; Paul compares the worker and the non-worker : leaving none between these two. He denies that righteousness is imputed to the worker: to the non-worker he asserts that righteousness is imputed, if he but believe. It is not possible for Freewill to escape or slip away here with her endeavour, or pains :

for she must be numbered either with the worker, or the non-worker. If with the worker, you hear in this place that no righteousness is imputed to her; if with the nonworker, who however believes in God, righteousness is imputed to her. But then she will not be Freewill ; she will be the new creature — the soul renewed by faith. n Now, if righteousness be not imputed to him that worketh, it is plain that his works are nothing but sins, wicked "and ungodly acts in the sight of God.

Nor is it possible for any Sophist to turn saucy, and say, ' though the man be wicked, yet his m Reputatione gratia.'] ( The account which grace takes of character:' — rep. is most correctly englished by ' reckon ,' but Luther uses it throughout the whole of this passage interchangeably with ' imputo.' n Renovata creatura per fidem^] As if the Lord's people were renewed by faith ! whence conies their faith then ? So he had said above, acquiescing in Erasmus's term, ' renatus per fidem ;' which I there called ambiguous, but we now see to have been meant wrongly. — See above. Part iv. Sect. xlv. note t. part v. work may not be wicked/ For Paul lays hold, not on the person of the man simply, but on the man at work, for this very purpose, that he may declare in the most explicit terms, how that the very works and endeavours of the man are condemned, whatsoever those may be, and under whatsoever name or species they may be classed. Moreover, it is of good works that he treats, because it is of justification and merit that he is discoursing — and when he speaks of a man that worketh, he speaks universally of all working men, and of all their works ; but especially of good and honest works : else his division into worker and nonworker would not stand.

I here omit those most powerful arguments which are drawn from the purpose of grace, from promise, from the power of the law, from original sin, and from the election of God ; of which there is not one, but what alone, and by itself, utterly takes away Freewill. For if grace comes from the purpose or predestination of God, it comes by necessity, not by our pains or endeavour; as I have already shewn. So, if God promised grace before the law, as Paul argues both here and in Galatians ; then it does not come from our works, or from the law ; else the promise will be nothing. So, faith also will be nothing (yet it is said that Abraham was justified by it before the law), if works have any efficacy. So, whereas the law is the strength of sin, only manifesting, and not taking away, sin ; it makes the conscience guilty before God, and threatens wrath : this is what is meant by that saying, " The law worketh wrath." How then could it be, that righteousness is obtained by the law ? And, if we are not profited by the law, how can we be profited by Freewill when acting without it.0

Luther omits much which he might insist upon. 0 ' No Freewill* follows from God's " purpose and grace :" " Whom he did foreknow, them he did predestinate ; whom he did predestinate, them he also called." The calling is of Again ; seeing, we are all under sin and damn- SEC» xx« ation through the one offence of the one man Adam, how can we attempt any thing which is not sin, and which is not damnable ? For when he says all, he excepts no one ; neither the power of Freewill, nor any workman ; whether he work or work not, endeavour or endeavour not, he will necessarily be comprehended amongst the all, with the others. Nor could we have sinned, and been condemned, by that single sin of Adam's, unless it were our sin. For who could be condemned for another man's sin, especially in the sight of God? But that sin is not made ours by imitation, or by some subsequent act of ours ; since this could not be that one sin of Adam, as being that which we, and not he, hath done : it becomes ours, by birth. But this is not the place for discussing that question. However, original sin suffers not that Freewill do any thing else, save sin and be damned.p

predestination therefore, not of Freewill j " according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord." — f No Freewill' follows from God's promise, which was antecedent to the law, and therefore cannot be dependent upon our works ; which are by the law : indeed, in its very nature, as Paul argues, promise is opposed to work. — ' No Freewill' follows from faith (" the just shall live by faith 5" " they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham") ; of which the law — that is, works — is not. (Galat. iii. 11,12.) — c No Freewill ' follows from the law : for even the knv worketh wrath — and yet she is a help ; Freewill does not even know what sin is, without her. p Luther has his eye, all the way, upon Romans v. 12 — 19. His account is, Adam's sin is ours ' nascendo — by our being born of him, as we are ; bom of him who did it: making us voluntary agents in being born, and God the propagator of sin, in causing that we should be born from him — or, as he has described it, making us out of him. (See above, Part iv. Sect, x.j and, for objections to his statement, note z thereupon.) However, Luther's conclusion is right, though he arrives less correctly at it : the truth is, we are born having previously sinned, guilty, "" children of wrath ;" how then can we do any thing good ? Luther — how near is he to the truth, yet does not reach it ! Observe, he will not have it e sin after birth/ and he will have it e our own and not Adam's only :' but

part v. These arguments, then, I omit, because they are ' most manifest, and most powerful: besides, I have said something about them already. Now, if I had a mind to recite all that Paul only has said to the subversion of Freewill, I could not do this better, than by discussing the whole of Paul's writings in the form of a perpetual commentary, and shewing that this so vaunted power of Freewill is confuted in almost every single word of his : just as I have done in these third and fourth chapters. My special object in thus exhibiting these chapters has been ; first, to shew the stupid drowsiness with which we have all nodded over his writings — reading them, clear as they are, in such a way as not to have the least idea that they contain the strongest possible arguments against Freewill — secondly, to shew the folly of that confidence which leans on the authority and writings of the old doctors — and thirdly, that I might leave it as matter of thought, what these most manifest arguments are capable of eifecting, if handled with diligence and judgment. sec. xxi. For my own part I am greatly astonished, that,

whereas Paul so often uses those universal terms Luther's < A11 , < jjone/ < Not/ < Nowhere/ < Without/ own view _ * ■ . y y n i of Paul. as for instance, " 1 hey are all gone out ot the way," " There is none righteous," " There is none that doeth good, no not one," " All have been made sinners, and damned, by the offence of one." " We are justified by faith without the law, without works;" (so that, if a man had a mind to speak otherwise, he could not however speak more clearly, or more explicitly) ; it is a matter of surprise to me, I say, how it hath come to pass, that, he has not * that distinct individuality of subsistence given to us in the creation of the Man, which makes us truly one with him in his deed;' neither has he ( the power and order before given ;' neither has he ' God's veracity to be shewn in inflicting the curse.' (See as above.) He is somewhat clearer,, however, than our ninth Article -, which wants distinctness, as well as fulness. in opposition to these universal words and senti- sec.xxi. ments, contrary, nay contradictory, ones have prevailed. As for instance ; ' There are some who do not go out of the way, who are not unjust, not wicked, not sinners, not damned. There is something in man which is good, and leans towards good :' as if the man, whosoever he be, that inclines to good, were not comprehended in that saying 'All/ ' None/ 'Not/ I, for my part, should not have any thing to oppose or reply to Paul, if I wished it ; but should be compelled to comprehend the power of my Freewill, together with its endeavour, amongst those 'alls' and ' nones/ of which Paul speaks; unless some new art of grammar, or some new use of speech, be introduced.

One might perhaps be allowed to suspect a trope, and to torture the words, which I have selected, into some other meaning, if he used such an expression but once, or only in one place. But, in fact, he uses such expressions perpetually — and not only so, but uses both affirmatives and negatives together ; so handling his sentiment in a way of contrast and distribution — by which he arrays the several parts against each other, on both sides — that not only the nature of the words, and the sentence itself, but the subsequent, preceding, and immediate context also, together with the scope and very body of the whole discussion, unite in establishing one common conclusion, that Paul means, ' without faith in Christ there is nothing but sin and damnation. q It was in this i The words above cited are a sufficient illustration of Luther's meaning in the several terms — ( words/ ( sentence/ ' contrast/ f division/ ' context/ ' scope/ c discussion at large/ ( mind of the writer.' — Extra f idem Christl, I translate according to Luther's meanings not according to my own view of the Apostle's argument. Both here and in Galatians, it is common to represent Paul as speaking of ' faith in Christ ' as opposed to c works/ But in both places it is ' the Law' as opposed to ( the Gospel/ of which he is speaking : in both places he is shewing, in opposition to Judaizers, ( that the Law cannot

way, that I promised to confute Freewill, so that all my adversaries should not be able to resist me. I think I have done so : even though they should not yield to my sentiment, as vanquished ; or hold their peace. It is not within the compass of my power to bring them to this : this is the gift of God's Spirit. But, before we hear the Evangelist John, let us add PauPs finish to his argument on this subject, as contained in that Epistle • prepared, where this shall not satisfy, to set the whole of Paul's writings in array against Freewill, by a perpetual commentary. In Romans viii. after r dividing the whole human race into two parts, flesh and Spirit, as Christ also does in John iii. he speaks thus : ( They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh ; but they that are after the Spirit do mind the things of the Spirit/ save -, the Gospel only can.' — But then, that this Gospel may save, e it must be believed with the heart { ' Christ must be believed in and into! Under the right interpretation of these passages then, two steps are wanting to Luther's conclusion, ( Paul condemns Freewill.' Paul says only, ( Without the faith of Christ there is nothing but sin and damnation.' But that faith must be received, or obeyed, before it can save ;

and that reception or obedience is e not of the nature power of Freewill, but of the supernature power of God's Spirit.' — There are texts, more than enough, to prove both these points ; I would rather say, Scripture is explicit enough in her witness to both these points — ("Taking vengeance on those that know not God, and those that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ." — <e No man can come unto me, except the Father, which hath sent me, draw him:") so that there can be no question what is truth in this matter ; though Luther does not come at his conclusion legitimately, through misuse of his premises.

r Ubi genus.'] Referring to the preceding verses, " Them which are in Christ Jesus j who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." — As to what follows, it has been seen already (Part iv. Sect. xlii. notes ' k) that I do not admit the parallel. Paul clearly divides men into two classes ; but the Lord, in John iii. is shewing the necessity of a new and spiritual birth. The opposition is not between those who have, and those who have not, this birth ; but between nature power of procreation, and Spirit power of procreation ; Adam produces his like, and the Holy Ghost produces His like. That Paul, here, calls all carnal who are not spi- sc.xxii. ritual, is plain both from the division and opposition between flesh and Spirit, and also from Paul's own words which follow. "Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if but the Spirit of Christ dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." For what else does he mean here, by the words ' Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit/ than that those who have not the Spirit are necessarily in the flesh? But he who is not Christ's — whose is he else, than the devil's ? It stands good therefore, that those who have not the Spirit are in the flesh, and under Satan.

Let us now see^ what he thinks of the endeavour and power of Freewill in the carnal. " They that are in the flesh cannot please God." And again ; " The mind of the flesh is death :" and again, " The mind of the flesh is enmity against God." Again, "It is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be."5 Let the advocate for Freewill answer me here, how that which is death, which is displeasing to God, which is enmity against God, which is disobedient to God, and which cannot obey him ; can endeavour after good ! For he has not been pleased to say, /the mind of the flesh is dead, or hostile to God/ but " is death itself, is enmity itself:" to which it is impossible, that it be subjected to the law of God, or please God ; as he had also said just before, " For what the law could not do, in that it was s Sensus carnis. non est suhjectus."] Sensus, f the mind in action ;' or rather the result of that action -3 c what it thinks or desires.' It is not so properly the mind, or desire,, that is not and cannot be subject (as is commonly understood) ; but the flesh, that is, the unrenewed body itself: (fipovrjpa, according to the analogy of language, should be ' the desire formed,' not f the faculty forming it,' and therefore, it is not this (ppovijpia but the substance that forms it (the flesh — cap};), which ought to be subject, but is not.

partv. made weak by the flesh, God hath done/ &c. I know, as well you do, Origen's tale about three 1 Legi impossibile."] Luther does not explain, as we might have wished him to do, this most difficult text : but the considerations which we have already entertained respecting the flesh and the Spirit will assist us to unravel it. — In the preceding chapter, Paul had been describing a very remarkable temptation, with which, for his own good and that of the church, he had been visited since his conversion. He had been tempted to think that he must still obey the law ,• and, having been put upon trying to do this, had acquired a deep knowledge of his own state : which is also that of every called child of God. He discovered, that he had a law in his members (his body) which warred against the law of his mind, and brought him into captivity to the law of sin which was in his members. He sighed for deliverance from that body — fitly called a dead body — whose law made him so wretched. He was assured that he should one day possess it, through the gift of God in Christ Jesus. At present, however, his state was that of a person serving two laws, in the two distinct parts of his frame. But still, even now, he was not condemned. Why ? because he was a man in Christ.* Why, as a man in Christ, had he no condemnation ?

Because the Holy Ghost, as had by him in Christ, had delivered him from the thraldom and bondage of that law which still reigned in his members. Why had he the Holy Ghost in Christ Jesus ? Because God, by sending his own Son in flesh of sin, had condemned sin in the flesh j that is, had executed sentence of death upon this sinful flesh, and could now, in consideration of that sentence so borne, raise up both Him and that people for whom and with whom he had borne that sentence, into a new state of being, in which they should be the subjects of spiritual influences in both parts of their frame : in whom even here, whilst tabernacling in their flesh of sin, the foretaste and firstfruits of this grace is shewn in their being renewed, and dwelt in, by the Holy Ghost, f Thus, they have that done for them which the law could not do, because it was weak through our flesh's being what it is ; they are enabled to fulfil the righteousness of the law — or rather to yield to God a service

* I perfectly approve Griesbach's improved reading, which casts " Who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit," as read in chap. viii. 1. into the interior margin. It breaks the connection of the argument; and may very naturally he supposed to have been interpolated from verse 4. •f I have here stated the reality, which is more commonly set forth by the Holy Ghost in figure ; the dying, quickening, rising, and now sitting of the Lord's elect in and with Him. (See Rom. vi. Ephes. i. ii. Coloss. ii. iii.) God's eternal, covenanted design of raising them up, in Christ, from that death into which they were contemplated as having brought themselves by their fall in and withAdam, is the basis and element of this reality. sorts of affection, one of which is called the flesh by SC. xxu. him ; another, the soul ; another, the spirit ; and of ' which is far more righteous, because more adapted to that full manifestation which He has now made of himself, than a law obedience would, or could be. — Hereafter, as he proceeds to shew most triumphantly, in the progress of this chapter, the other part of their frame will also have its triumph : the body which has death in it, and has yet assuredly to die, shall be quickened by the same Spirit which hath already quickened and dwelt in their souls, and shall live.

This, which had been glanced at in chap. vii. 25. and is so distinctly affirmed in rv. 11. 21. 23. of this chapter, receives its seal and crown in 1 Cor. xv. where the paean is sung, and the victory ascribed to its giver and communicator. " But thanks be to God which giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ." — I have found it impossible to render a consistent account of these two chapters (to which the precedent sixth may be added), verse byverse, and clause by clause, on any other principle than this -, which makes f flesh' the substance of the body, and e spirit' the renewed mind. (See Part iv. Sect, xxxvii. xli. xlii. and much that has elsewhere gone before.) There is much emphasis in verse 1 . Howbeit* (that is, although with the flesh they serve the law of sin) there is now (opposed to I thank God, chap. vii. 25. for what shall be) no condemnation (all these out-breakings and manifestations of evil are forgiven, and not allowed abidingly to mar the peace of their souls — for " Who shall lay any thing, &c. &c." viii. 33 — 39.) to them which are in Christ Jesus.f (It is of the Lord's called that he here bears this testismony, as appears from the context : a testimony, which is in the Lord's time realized to all his elect, and for the same reason — God has condemned their sin which is in their flesh — " Who is he that condemneth ? It is Christ that died.") Hath made me free ; an

* The argument is closely connected and compacted from verse 24. of the preceding chapter. He pants. He thanks God. He sums up his state. apa ovv. ovdev &pa vvv. ■f- The people of God are said to be in Christ Jesus, with reference to two distinct states : in Him, by covenant and predestinative union from before the worlds (" According as he hath chosen us in Him, &c." " Grace which was given us in Him, &c") ; in Him by realized, conscious and efficacious union, through the calling of the Holy Ghost. (" Andronicus and Junia. . . .who also were in Christ before me." " I knew a man in Christ, &c") A third state maybe distinguished as that of sacramental union (see Part iv. Sect. xlv. note t), which is distinct and separable from the other two ?. bearing analogy to that entrance which the Lord had into his kingdom, by his baptism. — The blessedness here described belongs to his called, but it i& the ordained, earned and waiting portion of all his elect ; who, as they are one by one brought by the Holy Ghost into the knowledge of this grace, regard themselves as those who have virtually died in and with Christ, and who therefore are dead, and have their life hid with Christ in God. Hence they live and walk after that part of their frame which lives — into which life has already been introduced ; not according to that which is virtually dead.

part V. which the soul is the middle one — what may be turned towards either side, the flesh or the spirit. But these are his own dreams ; he only tells, he does not prove them. Paul here calls whatsoever has not the Spirit flesh, as I have already shewn." So habitual deliverance is not incompatible with an occasional ravished subjection — such as he has described in chap. vii. The law of sin and death is clearly the law of evil which is in the members, or flesh, or body. The impossibility of the law — the law gave no power, and therefore could not possibly get itself to be obeyed by a creature whose substance is such as fallen man's. Likeness of flesh of sin does not deny reality any more than in Philip, ii. 7- Condemned etc. not only passed the sentence but inflicted the judgment.* Righteousness of the law is not what is commonly meant by it, ' the act, or ground, of justification 5' but ' the enactment' — e the matter of the statute' — Biicaiw^a, not hacaioGvvn. Wlio ivalk — denoting habitual conduct, aim and principle. — Their conformity with the law is circuitous, not direct j incidental, not deliberate and designed. They "walk in the Spirit" (Gal. v. 16.) ; that is, ' in or after their renewed mind :' just as it is said here, Who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

— I cannot forbear remarking what a close parallel that whole chapter (Gal. v.) is to this seventh and eighth of Romans, and how truly the whole rule or law of the Lord's called ones (" Ye have been called unto liberty") is set out in the four words which I have recited above. For what is, not only the whole law, but even the whole volume of Scripture to us, save so far as it is apprehended and received by our renewed mind, through the inspiration of the Holy Ghost ?

u I cannot agree with Luther here. Origen is more nearly right than he, if by soul may be understood ' the will with its affections 'f and the distinction is surely recognised in Scripture, when Paul prays for the Thessalonians " that their whole spirit and soul and body may be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Thess. v. 23.) According to Luther, ' those that are after the flesh,' and ( the flesh,' are the same substance ; whereas, in truth, the distinction of character is made by these constituent parts of their frame, according to which they walk (that is, habitually act) severally. The natural man (^xt/c^s) liyes a^er ms flesh, and is carnal : * Compare 1 Peter iv. 1 — 6. also iii. 18 — 22. « Christ's flesh condemned, and made to suffer or die,' is not only the burden of Scripture, but the essence of the reality of the foundation of God's new creation transactions in Him : even as the knowledge of this body of ours, what it was in its formation, what it was in and became by the Fall, what it is to the unregenerate, and specially what it is to the regenerated sons and daughters of Adam, is one of the great keys to the mystery of man, and to christian experience,

that those highest virtues of the best of men are sc- XXIL * in the flesh ;' that is, are dead, enemies to God, ' not subject to the law of God, nor capable of being subjected to it, and displeasing to God. For Paul does not only say that they are not subjected, but that neither can they be subjected. So Christ also in Matthew vii. " A corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit." And in Matthew xii. " How can ye, being evil, speak good things?" You see here, that we not only speak evil, but even cannot speak good. And he who in another place says, that we, being evil, know how to give good gifts to our children, still denies that we do good even in the very act of giving good things ; inasmuch as the creature of God (which we give) is good; but neither are we ourselves good, nor do we give our good things well : and when so saying, he speaks to all ; yea, even to his disciples. So that these twin sentiments of Paul stand good : " The just lives by faith ;>' and " Whatsoever is not of faith is sin:" of which the latter flows from the former. For if there is nothing but faith by which we can be justified; it is evident, that those who have not

the spiritual man {7rvevf.ia7iKo<s) — lie who has a 7ri>evfia — that is, e an Holy-Ghost-renewed spirit' — lives after his renewed spirit, and is spiritual. Thus the spirit and the man, and the flesh and the man, are distinct substances severally 5 though the one includes the other. — Still, Luther's conclusion is not affected. He who does not live after the spirit, but after the flesh, does only evil ; because that flesh, after which he lives is only evil ; ' defecated' evil : and, except and until a man be renewed in the spirit of his mind, and thus be made spiritual, he neither does, nor can do any thing good. Nay further, if he be thus renewed, and when he hath been thus renewed, it is only so far as his renewred spirit be impelled and sustained by the Holy Ghost, that he either resisteth evil, or worketh good. There are seasons, wrhen, for the fuller manifestation of God unto his real good, the Holy Ghost, who never leaves his temple, is but as the friend who sitteth by, neither speaking, nor putting out a finger to help. So far as he is left to the endeavour and power of Freewill, therefore, all that is here said by Paul about not pleasing God, &c. belongs to him.

part v. faith are not yet justified. Now those who are not justified are still sinners; and sinners are corrupt trees, which can do nothing but sin, and bear corrupt fruit. So then, Freewill is nothing but the servant of sin, death and Satan : which neither doeth, nor is able to do or to attempt, any thing but evil.v sc.xxm. Add that example in chapter x. taken from Esaias, Ci I have been found of them that sought Grace ex- me nof-. j ]iave ]3eeri macle manifest to those v Luther adduces these expressions in Romans viii. as the crown of Paul's testimony against Freewill. The flesh — meaning, as I maintain, the natural, unrenewed substance of man, with all that is in it (and the unrenewed man has nothing else) — is enmity against God. — He confirms this saying by two of Christ's, which say we can do nothing else j not merely that we do evil, but that we can do nothing else, from our very composition ; being like e corrupt trees,' "being evil." And in another place: ' Ye "being evil," do evil, even whilst ye are giving good gifts.' — Then, by insinuation and implication, he proves the same from Paul's twin sayings. If the just man lives by faith, he that hath not faith is not just; and, if not just, he is a sinner. — If whatsoever be not of faith is sin, whatever is done by mere Freewill is sin ;

because Freewill has nothing to do with faith, but is by the supposition perfectly distinct from it : neither has faith any thing to do with Freewill, but has another origin. Whatsoever it doth therefore, not being of faith, is sin. So that Freewill is only sin. — I object to the application of these two texts in this connection. It is the eternal state of the already justified person, which is proclaimed by tf shall live." (See Habak. ii. 4. Galat. hi. 11. Heb. x.3S.) Faith then is the acceptable principle; without which (it is implied) there shall be no acceptance to any man. Freewill has no faith ; therefore does nothing acceptable. — But still the fair application is, shall not live; not does only sin. — '.' Whatsoever is not of faith, &c." if Luther interprets rightly y proves his point ; because Freewill, not acting in and by faith, can do nothing, therefore, but what is sin. — But that text means, r-if a man is not satisfied as to the rectitude of his own act, but doubts about it,' it is sin. — This text therefore does not fairly apply ; because Freewill may have no doubts — yet still is damned, whether she doubt or not. On the other hand, a person may sin in some particular act, by acting without faith, yet not be a condemned person : it is of such that Paul speaks. — Thus, although the principles which Luther would establish from these two texts be true -f these texts, rightly understood, do not prove them.

who inquired not after me." He says these things sc.xxiii. about the Gentiles ; because it hath been given to """; them to know and hear of Christ, when they could Gentiles"" not even think of him before, much less seek after called. him, or prepare themselves for him, by the power of Freewill. It is abundantly plain from this example, that grace comes so truly gratuitously, that not even a thought about it, much less any thing of endeavour or pains precedes its approach. Thus Paul also, when he was Saul, what did he by that most exalted degree of Freewill which he possessed ? Assuredly, he was revolving the best and most honest things in his mind, if mere reason be inquired of. But see what endeavour it is of his, by which he finds grace : he is not seeking it; nay, it is even by raving like a madman against it, that he receives his portion. On the other hand, speaking of the Jews in the ninth chapter, he says that the Gentiles which did not follow after righteousness have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith ; but that Israel which followed after the law of righteousness hath not attained to the law of righteousness. What can any advocate for Freewill mutter against these sayings? The Gentiles, when filled to the full with impiety and all sorts of vices, receive righteousness freely from a pitying God. The Jews, seeking after righteousness with the greatest pains and endeavours, are disappointed. Is not this just to say, that the endeavour of Freewill is vain, whilst endeavouring after the best things; and that she herself rather makes bad worse, stumbles and runs backwards No one can say that they have not tried hard, with the utmost power of Freewill. Paul himself bears them this testimony in his tenth chapter, " That they have a zeal for God, but not

x Sublapsum referri.'] < Omnia rursus In pejus mere, ac retro sublapsa referri.' Virg. G. I. v. 200. 201. part v. according to knowledge." In the Jews therefore, ' none of those excellencies are wanting which we ascribe to Freewill, and yet nothing follows ; nay, the contrary result follows. In the Gentiles none of those excellencies which we ascribe to Freewill are present, but still the righteousness of God follows. What is this, but to have it confirmed, as well by the most manifest example of both nations, as by the clearest testimony of Paul at the same time, that ( grace is bestowed freely upon the undeserving, nay upon the unworthiest of human beings ; whilst it is not obtained by any pains, endeavours, or performances, great or small, even of the best and most respectable of men, though seeking and following after righteousness with a burning zeal/ * sc.xxiv. Let us also come to John, who is of himself an abundant and able devastator of Freewill. In the devourer. vei7 beginning of his Gospel, he ascribes such a blindness to Freewill, as that she is not able to see the light of truth — so far is she from having power to endeavour after it. For thus speaks he, Ci The light shineth in darkness, but the darkness comprehendeth it not." And presently : u He was in the world, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not." What does he mean, think you, by the world ? Will you except any man from the number included under this name, except he be created anew by the Holy Ghost ? Indeed, it is a peculiar use2 which this Apostle makes of the word

y For some considerations which seem desirable,, to mitigate the harshness of this statement, see above, Part iv. Sect. xxxiv. note d; also Part iv. Sect. x. Part hi. Sect, xxxviii. note *, z Peculiaris.~] Luther means peculiar to this Apostle, as contrasted with the other sacred writers : but it is not confined to John. Paul has it also, Ephes. ii. 1*2. Coloss. i. 6. It may be doubted too, whether he ever speaks of the world universally ; that is, of a strict c all men,' { all mankind / though his contrast is varied. Sometimes it is the world at ' world/ expressing the whole race of man, with- sc.xxiv. out exception, by it. Whatever he says about mmm the worlds therefore, is meant concerning Freewill, as that which is the most excellent thing in man. Now it is said by this Apostle, i that the world knew not the true light. The world hateth Christ and his people. The world knoweth not, neither seeth the Holy Ghost. The whole world lieth in wickedness ; or in the wicked one. All that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.— Love not the world/ Again ; " Ye are of the world, saith he. The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it that its deeds are evil/* All these and many like sayings, then, are so many proclamations about Freewill ; that is, about the principal constituent part, which reigneth in the world, under the empire of Satan. For even this John speaks of the world in a way of opposition ; meaning by it, whatsoever of the world is not translated into the Spirit ; a as Christ says to his

large, opposed to the Jews j sometimes the multitude of the unregenerate, opposed to the called people of God, as Luther afterwards distinguishes (" Nam et ipse Johannes, #c.") : which is a more correct distinction than Christ's people, and the seed of the wicked one. For, until called by the effectual working of the Holy Ghost, the children of the kingdom are often found to be as fierce opponents of the truth, and of its children, as the devil's seed. What was Paul ? — Luther does not notice the former of these oppositions, but it is a necessary one to mark. Clearly, it obtains in the words under consideration. " He was in the world (that is, in the material world — on the earth) and the world knew him not : he came unto his own, &c." The contrast here is between the world at large, and his peculiarly connected ones, the Jews. And so, in John iii. <( God so loved the world, &c." It is all kindreds and tongues, and languages, &<\ contrasted with the natural seed of Abraham. The clear sense here assists in establishing this use of the term, and serves to confirm the ascription of it to John iii. 16, &c.

a Translation in spiritum.'] We might render ''made spiritual ;■ but this would efface the distinction which he means to mark. He opposes Christ to the world 5 making Christ the Spirit, in contrast with Adam, the flesh. So, by realized union with Christ, we are transferred from the world into the Spirit, •PARTV. Apostles,, " I have taken you out of the world, ■"" ' and have constituted you, &c." If now there were any in the world, who strove for good by the power of Freewill — as must be the case if Freewill could really do any thing — John ought properly to have moderated his expression out of respect to these, that he might not involve them by a general expression in the multitude of crimes, of which he accuses the world. From his not doing so, it is evident that he charges Freewill with all the crimes with which he charges the world ; since whatever the world does, it does by the power of Freewill; that is, by the understanding and the will, the most excellent of its constituent parts. It follows : " But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God; even to them which believe in his name : which were born not of bloods, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God/5

Having made this division, he rejects from the kingdom of Christ e bloods/ 6 the will of the flesh/ and c the will of man/ By ' bloods' I suppose him to mean the Jews ; that is, those who had a mind to be sons of the kingdom, because they were sons of Abraham and of the Fathers ; boasting forsooth of their descent. — By ' the will of the flesh' I understand the pains with which that people exercised themselves in law works. For the flesh, here, signifies carnal persons which have not the Spirit ; as being those who have will and endeavour, but, since there is no Ho]y Ghost in this will and endeavour, have them carnally. By i the will of man,' I understand the pains which mankind in general, all men take — whether under the law, or without the law — the Gentiles, say, or whom you will — to find favour with God. The meaning therefore is, neither by a birth of the flesh, nor by a zeal for the law, nor by any other human means, are they made sons of God, but only by a divine birth. If then

they are not born of the flesh, nor trained by the SC.xxiV- law, nor obtained by any human discipline, but are born again of God ; it is plain that Freewill is of no avail -here. For I think the word ' man/ here, is taken, in the Hebrew acceptation, for any one whatsoever; just as 'flesh' is taken, by contrast, for the people of Israel not having the Spirit : and c will/ again, for the highest power in man ; that is, the principal ingredient in Freewill. But grant that we may not understand each word correctly, still the sum and substance of the assertion is most plain ; namely, that John, by this division, rejects whatsoever is not of divine begetting, in saying that men are not made the sons of God but by being born of God; which is effected, according to his own interpretation, by believing in his name. Now in this rejection, the will of man, or Freewill, not being a thing born of God, nor yet faith, is necessarily included. If Freewill availed any thing, the will of man ought not to be rejected by John ; neither ought men to be withdrawn from it, and sent to faith and new birth only : else that might be said to him, which was said in Isaiah v. " Woe unto you who call good evil." But now, since he equally rejects 'bloods/ 'the will of the flesh/ and 6 the will of man/ it is certain, that the will of man has no more power towards making sons of God, than bloods or fleshly nativity. Now, no one counts it doubtful whether fleshly birth makes, or doth not make, sons of God ; as Paul also tells us in Romans ix. "They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God :" which he proves by the examples of Ishmael and Esau,b

b ' The will of the flesh' and ' the will of man' separated and distinguished, and both named, must, upon every conceivable interpretation of those terms, exclude every thing belonging to the human will from this generative power ; and therefore decide the question as to the power of Freewill, in bringing us part v. The same John introduces the Baptist speaking — thus ; cc Of whose fulness have all we received, grace for grace." He speaks of grace received by us out of the fulness of Christ ; but for the sake of what merit, or endeavour? For the grace, says he, forsooth of Christ :c just as Paul also speaks in Romans v. " The grace of God, and the gift by grace of one man Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many." Where now is the endeavour of Freewill, by to the inheritance of God's children. But I should rather understand s bloods' to express natural birth generally (we have not it by descent from our parents) ; c will of the flesh' for our own personal and individual will, which we have by nature 3 and ' will of man' for the ordinance and appointment of man generally : it is not a human device j what men have chosen and procured for themselves, or what can, in any individual instance, be conferred by man, one or many, willing it to another. A man may leave his estate at death, or confer a liberal gift in his lifetime, but he cannot will or bestow new birth.

— Luther speaks as if we were e begotten' by believing (f nascendo ex Deo, quod fit credendo in nomine ejus') ; like Erasmus's c renatus per fidem,' which, as we saw, he does not object to : but the truth is, we must be begotten again before we can believe j and then, believing, we take our place amongst God's adopted children. So that there is a sense in which we are regenerated by faith, inasmuch as it is by faith we are manifested to be of the Lord's children : but the birth, or generation more properly, spoken of in verse 13. is prior to faith j so that it cannot in this view be said, c nascor ex Deo, credendo in nomine Jesu Christi.' (See above, Part iv. Sect. xlv. note *j also Part v. Sect. xix. note n.)

c pr0 gratid scilicet Christi.'] Luther seems to understand him as saying e grace in return for, or on account of, his grace \ that is, the grace which Christ has himself shewn. So he clearly explains himself afterwards, when he says f gratiam eis impetrat per suum sanguinem.' In this view, it is parallel with the passage which he cites from Romans v. — It is more commonly interpreted ' grace for grace ;' that is, one degree or measure of grace for another. But Luther is the more correct : although the grace which we have from Christ is in reality grace given to us by the Father in the same instant in which the grace is given to Christ, by means of which he has done and endured every thing personally ; still it comes to us, and is actually conferred upon us, in the way of fruit and consequence of his actings — grace bestowed on us; for the sake of grace acted previously by himself. which grace is procured ? Here John says, not sc. xxv. only that grace is received without any endeavour of ours, but even by another's grace, or another's merit ; namely, that of one man, Jesus Christ. Either therefore it is false, that we receive our grace for the sake of another's grace 5 or it is evident that Freewill is nothing; for the two cannot stand together — that the grace of God is on the one hand so cheap, as to be obtained commonly, and every where, by the paltry endeavour of any man you please ; and on the other so dear, as to be freely bestowed upon us for and by the grace of one so great a man only.

I would at the same time admonish the advocates of Freewill in this place, that in asserting Freewill they are deniers of Christ. For, if I obtain the grace of God through my own endeavour, what need is there of the grace of Christ for my receiving of grace ? or, what is wanting to me, when I have obtained the grace of God? But Diatribe has said, all the Sophists also say, that we obtain the grace of God by our own endeavour, and are prepared for the reception of it, not of condignity indeed, but of congruity : which is absolutely denying Christ, for whose grace's sake the Baptist here testifies that we receive grace. For, as to that figment about condignity and congruity, I have already confuted it; shewing that these are empty words which in reality mean merit of condignity/ and have more impiety in them than the Pelagian assertions; as I have declared. So that the impious Sophists, with Diatribe at their head, deny the Lord Christ who bought us, more than the Pelagians, or any heretics have done : so utterly incompatible is grace with any particle or power of Freewill.— Howbeit, that the advocates for Freewill

d Meritum condignum."] c Worthy merit/ i. e. ' merit worthy of the reward which is proposed to be given to it 5 ' ' merit of worth to the uttermost. '. — See above, Sect. xvi. part v. deny Christ, is proved not only by this Scrip- ' ' tore but by their own life. Hence it is, that they make Christ to be no longer a sweet Mediator, but a tremendous Judge; whom they are endeavouring to appease by the intercessions of his Virgin Mother, and of the Saints ; moreover by many works, rites, superstitions, vows of their own invention : the object of all which is to make Christ favourable to them, that he may give them his grace. On the other hand, they do not believe that he intercedes with God, and obtains grace for them through his blood; and grace, as it is here said, for grace. And as they believe, so it is done unto them. They have Christ truly and deservedly for their inexorable Judge; whilst they forsake him in his office of most powerful Mediator and Saviour, and account his blood and grace a more worthless thing than the pains and endeavours of Freewill, saxxvi. Let us a]so ]iear an example of Freewill. Nico- ~ demus, I warrant you, is a man in whom nothing

mus°s case. was wanting which Freewill can effect: what is it of pains or endeavour, which this man omits ? He confesses Christ to be a true witness, and to have come from God; he makes mention of his miracles, he comes by night to hear and to compare the rest. Does not this man seem to have sought the things which belong to piety and salvation, by the power of Freewill? But see how he founders ! When he hears the true way of salvation by new birth pointed out to him by Christ, does he recognise that way, or confess that he has ever sought it? Nay, he so revolts from it, and is confounded, that he not only says he does not understand it, but even turns away from it, as impossible. — How can these things be, says he? And no wonder indeed: for who ever heard that a man must be born again of water and of the Spirit, if he would be saved ? Who ever thought that the Son of God must be lifted up, to the end that all that believe in him sect. might not perish, but have eternal life. Have the XXVL acutest and best of philosophers ever made mention of this ? Have the princes of this world ever learned this science ? Has any man's Freewill ever made an attempt at it? Does not Paul confess it to be wisdom hidden in a mystery ? foretold, it is true, by the Prophets, but revealed by the Gospel; so as to have been from eternity kept secret and unknown to the world.6

What shall I say ? Shall we consult experience ? Even the whole world, even human reason, even Freewill herself is compelled to acknowledge, that she neither knew nor heard of Christ, before the Gospel came into the world. Now, if she did not know, much less hath she sought, or been able to seek, or to endeavour after him. But Christ is the way, the truth, the life and the salvation. She confesses therefore, whether she would or no, that by her own powers she has neither known, nor been able to seek those things, which are belonging to the way, the truth and the salvation. Still however, in opposition to this very confession and our own experience, we play the madman; and maintain, by a mere war of words, that we have a certain power remaining in us, which both knows and can apply itself to the things that appertain to salvation: which is as good as saying, knows and can apply itself to Christ the Son of God, e It is most true, that the Gospel mystery is strictly matter of revelation, and not within the discovery of natural reason. But it is also true, that it has been the will of God there should be intimations, of this mystery, hereafter to be revealed, and traces of such, intimations amidst all nations, from the beginning. The kingdom of God was announced immediately after the fall, in the denunciation upon the serpent ; and it has been part of the counsel and work of God, that it should be spoken of, and looked for, and that the eternal separation between the two parts of the human race into hell and into heaven, should be made on the ground of it. — Still, it is not that Freewill has found this out— but God has shewn it.

John xiv. forestalled. Way, truth, &c. are exclusive. who was lifted up for us ; f whereas no one has ever known, or could have thought of such a person. Still, this ignorance is not ignorance, but knowledge of Christ ; that is, of the things which appertain to salvation ! Do you not even yet see, and almost feel with your hands, that the assertors of Freewill are downright mad ; when they call that knowledge, which they confess themselves to be ignorance. Is not this to call darkness light ? (Isaiah v.) So mightily doth God shut the mouth of Freewill, according to her own confession and experience ; but, with all this, she will not hold her tongue, and give glory to God.s Again, when Christ is called the way, the truth and the life; and that, by way of comparison — so that whatever is not Christ, is neither way, but out of the way; nor truth, but a lie j nor life, but death — -Freewill, being neither Christ, nor in Christ, must have its dwelling place in error, falsehood and death. Where then is to be found, and whence is to be proved, that middle and neutral substance — this substance of Freewill forsooth—which not being Christ (that is, the way, the truth and the life), still does not necessarily become error, falsehood and death? For, if what is said about Christ and his grace were not all said by way of comparison, in opposition to their contraries; as for example, that out of Christ there is none but the devil ; out of grace, there is nothing but wrath ; out of light, there is nothin

but darkness : out of the but error ; out of the truth, there is nothing but f Pro nobis exaltatum.~\ Exalt, is a word of doubtful meaning-, which might refer to his seat at the Father's right hand ; but I understand it with allusion to the Lord's words,, "And I if I be lifted up " (vyjs&Gw, John xii. 32.), as explained by the comment, <e this he said, signifying what death he should die." s Nee sic tamen tacere."] A sort of ogvfiivpov, like c stremna inertia,' ' concordia discors j' but there is no real inconsistency -. Freewill should be silent for herself, and give glory to God. falsehood; out of life, there is nothing but death :* SECT. what would all the discourses of the Apostles, xxx IL and all Scripture amount to? all surely would be said in vain, since it would not force the conclusion that Christ is necessary to us (which however is their great object); inasmuch as some middle substance might be discovered, which of itself is neither evil nor good, belongs neither to Christ nor to Satan, is neither true nor false, neither alive nor dead — yea, perhaps, is neither any thing nor nothing — yet shall be called the noblest and most excellent endowment of all that is found in the whole human race.

Choose which you will, therefore: if you grant that the Scriptures speak by way of comparison, you can ascribe nothing to Freewill which is not contrary to what is in Christ ; you must say of it, that error, death, Satan, and all evil reigns in it. Ifyou do not grant that they speak by way of comparison, you in that case enervate the Scriptures to such a degree, that they effect nothing, and do not prove Christ to be necessary. And thus, in establishing Freewill, you make Christ void, and tread all Scripture under foot. Again ; whilst you pretend in words to be confessing Christ, you really and with your heart deny him : for, if Freewill is not all error and damnation, but sees and wills things honest and good, and things which pertain to salvation, she is whole, and has no need of Christ for her doctor ; nor hath Christ redeemed that part of our nature : for what need is there of light and life, where there is light and life? Now, if this be not redeemed by Christ, the best ingredient in the composition of man is not redeemed ; but is of itself good and sound. In this case, God, also, is unjust in condemning any man, because he condemns that which is best in

b The word extra is used throughout the whole of this passage, to denote distinctness : there are but two sorts of sub* stances j to be without the one, is to be within the other. partv. man, and which is sound; in other words, he condemns the innocent. For there is no man who has not Freewill : and, though a bad man abuses his Freewill, still we are taught that the power itself is not extinguished in him, so as neither to strive, nor be able to strive, for good. Now if it be such, without doubt it is holy, just and good, and therefore ought not to be condemned, but to be separated from the man that is to be condemned. But this cannot be ; and if it could be, in that case the man, no longer having Freewill, would no longer be a man, and would neither merit evil nor good, neither be damned nor saved, but must be an absolute brute, and no longer an immortal being. It remains therefore, that God is unjust who condemns that holy, just and good power, which has no need of Christ, in and with a bad man.1 sect. But let us g;o on with John. "He who believeth

J ' on him, says he, is not judged. He who believeth johniii. n0^ na*n been judged already,1' because he be18. 36. lieveth not in the name of the only begotten Son of God." 1 Luther's argument is, Scripture speaks by way of comparison (See above, Sect, xviii. note j) ; therefore Freewill, which confessedly is out of Christ, must be sin, death, Satan, error, &c. &c. If you deny that Scripture speaks by comparison, 1. You make Scripture void. 2. You deny Christ. 3. You make God unjust. — His reasoning is subtile, but conclusive.— See the same sort of argument pursued, and remarked upon, Part iv. Sect. xliv. note s. k Jam judicatus est."] Already as opposed to the judgment day : he need not wait for that ; the preaching of Christ tries him, of what sort he is, whether he be a doer of evil, or a doer of the truth — as appears from vv. 20, 21. The secret is, a regenerated soul, when Christ is preached, knows, owns and receives him : he who rejects Christ, thereby proves that he is not regenerated, but is in his nature state ; devilish, and possessed by the devil. — It is supposed, that the state here described is the abiding, unchanged, yea dying state of the man. Every deliberate rejection of Christ, when preached, gives ground of awful apprehension ; but it is final rejection, which stamps this judgment. Such being his mind towards Christ, he needs not the process of the last judgment to declare whether he be " in God/' or not,

Tell me, whether Freewill is in the number of sect.- the believers, or no ? If she be, again she has no xxvmneed of grace, seeing she believes in Christ of " herself, which Christ, however, she of herself neither knows, nor has any conception of. If she be not, she has been judged already : and what is this, but that she hath been condemned before God ? Now God condemns nothing but what is wicked. She is wicked therefore : and what pious act can an impious thing attempt ? Nor can Freewill, I suppose, be excepted here ; since he speaks of the whole man, which he says is condemned. Besides, unbelief is not a gross affection, but that highest sort of affection which sitteth and reign eth in the citadel of the will and understanding; just as its contrary, faith, does. Now to be unbelieving, is to deny God and make him a liar. (1 Johni. 10.) If we believe not, we make God a liar.1 Now, how can that power which is contrary to God, and which makes him a liar, strive after good? If this power were not unbelieving and ungodly, he ought not to have said of the whole man, " he hath been judged already," but to have spoken thus : 'the man hath been judged already with respect to his gross affections ; but with respect to his best and most excellent one, he is not judged, because it strives after faith, or rather is even now believing/

Thus, as often as the Scripture says, cc Every man is a liar," we shall say upon the authority of Freewill, ' On the contrary, the Scripture rather lies, because man is not a liar in his best part, that is, in his understanding and will, but only in his flesh, blood and marrow; so that all from whence man has his name — that is, understanding and will — is sound and holy/ So, in that saying 1 Luther refers only to 1 John i. But the testimony is equally strong 1 John v. 10. ", He that believeth not God hath made him a liar ; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son." partv. of the Baptist's, « He that believeth on the Son, ' ' hath everlasting life : but he that believeth not the Son, shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him ;" by K upon him ' we must understand, ' upon his gross affections the wrath of God remaineth ;' but upon that eminent power of Freewill— upon his understanding and will forsooth — grace and eternal life abideth. It appears from this example, that, in order to maintain Freewill, you, by a synecdoche,"1 turn and twist what is said in the Scriptures against ungodly men so as to confine it to the brutish part of man ; hereby keeping the rational and truly human part of him safe and sound.

In this case, I will render my thanks to the assertors of Freewill ; since I shall not feel the least concern for my sin, being confident that my understanding and will, that is, my Freewill, cannot be condemned, inasmuch as it is never extinguished, but always remains sound, just and holy. But if my understanding and will are to be happy, I shall rejoice that my filthy and brutish flesh is separated and condemned 5 so far am I from wishing that Christ should be its redeemer. You see whither the dogma of Freewill carries us, even to the denying of all divine and human, temporal and eternal realities, and to the deluding of itself with so many monstrous fictions ! Johniii. So again, the Baptist says, "a man cannot

27, receive any thing except it shall have been given Cease, Diatribe, to display your great fluency here, by enumerating all the things which we receive from heaven ! We are not arguing about nature, but about grace; we are not inquiring what sort of persons we are upon earth, but what in heaven and before God. We know that man is constituted lord of the things beneath him ; 1X1 Per synecdochen."\ Syn. ' A figure by which part is taken for the whole, or the whole for part .-' here, Diatribe makes it the whole of man put for his grosser part. over which he has power and Freewill, that they sect. may obey him, and may do what he wills and thinks. But this is our question, whether he has Freewill towards God, so that God obeys and does what man wills ; or, whether God, rather, has Freewill over man, so that he wills and does what God willsfcand can do nothing but what God shall have willed and done. Here the Baptist says, that he can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven : so that Freewill is nothing.11 So again, " He that is of the earth is earthly, John m. and speaketh of the earth ; he that cotneth from 31* heaven is above all."

Here again he makes all earthly (and says that they mind and speak earthly things) who are not of Christ, and leaves none between the two. But Freewill, surely, is not he that cometh from heaven. So that it must be of the earth, and must mind and speak the things of the earth. Now, if there n Hie dicit.'} That is, according to Luther (who assumes that the things here spoken of are things of God, not of the creature), determines this question ; it is God's will, not man's, that is done. — I have already objected many times to the distinction which Luther here again resorts to (see above, Part iv. Sect. xlvi. note x) ; nor can I allow this text to be a direct testimony against Freewill. — John is accounting for the superior honour paid to Jesus above himself: he had just been informed concerning Jesus, " All men come to Him." The principle of the remark therefore is, I can have no more of honour than it is the will of God to bestow upon me. And he goes on to say, that he never claimed to be Christ, and consequently never claimed to receive the honour which it had been the Father's good pleasure to appropriate to Him. It is honour and distinction therefore, not spiritual power and capacity, of which. John here speaks. — But it is honour in and of the kingdom of God 5 which is preceded by a gift of super-creation power exciting and leading to it.

As the honour, so the precedent power is of God, and according to the measure in which he has ordained to bestow, and does produce it. — However, non tali auxilio. If Luther understands it, ' we must have power given to enable us to receive power,' it is a testimony : but its meaning is far simpler than this. What we have, we have received : if another has more, it is because God has given it.

part v. were any power in any man, which at any time, ' in any place, in any work, did not mind earthly things, the Baptist ought to have excepted this man, and not to have said generally concerning all out of Christ, that they are earthly, and speak of the earth.0 Johnviii. So, afterwards in chap. viii. Christ ^lso says, 23. cc ye are of the world ; I am not of the world : ye are from beneath, I am from above." The persons to whom he spake had Freewill, to wit, understanding and will ; and yet he says Ci they were of the world." Now what news would it be, if he should say they were of the world, with respect to their flesh and gross affections? Did not the whole world know this before? Besides, what need is there to say that men are of the world in that part in which they are ° This is a testimony borne to Jesus by John, in contrast with himself : though filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother's womb, and having the hand of the Lord with him (Luke i. 15. 66.), he had not been born 'by the Holy Ghost's coming upon a virgin mother, and the power of the Highest's overshadowing her ;' ' he had not come down from heaven ;' he had not * come from above,' ' come from heaven,' (and, as compared with Him, was earthly in his words (see Luke i.

35. John iii. 13. 31. vi. 38. 41, 42.*), as well as in his frame and formation.) Luther misunderstands the text — does not see its glory, and does not elicit its testimony against Freewill correctly. It Sis however a testimony : if John only so far as he had a gift from heaven was other than earthly, and had comparatively so little of this gift as fitly to call himself earthly — what is 'Freewill,' 'nature man,' 'that which is nothing but earth,' instead of being such an one as John by the grace of God had been made. It is not ' Christ's people,' and ' the world,' which are opposed to each other here by the names 'earthly ' and 'heavenly •' but Christ and John singly: John was a man in nowise different from other men as to his natural frame, he was truly and solely a son of Adam : but Christ's human person, as to its spiritual part, was from heaven.

* I do not refer to 1 Cor. xv. 47. because I consider it as belonging to another subject — Christ the risen head of his risen people, come down the second time from heaven to raise his dead ones : — it is of Christ as walking upon this earth that the Baptist here testifies, he comet h or (what is the same in import here) hath come from heaven ; and so in the other passages to which I have referred. brutish ; when, at this rate, the beasts also are sect. of the world ?p XXIX' Again, what does that saying of Christ's in j0hnvj. John vi. " No one cometh unto me, except my 44. Father shall have drawn him'/5 leave to Freewill? q He says, it is necessary that a man hear and learn from the Father himself; and afterwards, that all must be taught of God. (vv. 44, 45.) Here forsooth he teaches that not only the works and pains of Freewill are vain, but that even the word of the Gospel (of which he is here treating) is heard in vain, except the Father himself speak, teach, and draw within. No man can come, says he : that power forsooth, by which a man is enabled to make any endeavour after Christ; that is, after those things which are appertinent to salvation ; is asserted to be nothing. Nor is that saying of Augustine's which Diatribe adduces for the purpose of blurring this most clear and most mighty passage — that God draweth just as we draw a sheep by shewing it a bough — of any service to Freewill. She will have it, that this simile proves there is a power in us to follow the drawing of God. But this simile is of no avail here : forasmuch as God shews us not one good thing only, but all his good things, and even Christ himself —

p Surely the Lord means more by ' from beneath' here, than the Baptist did ; who spake of himself — or, according to Luther, e of himself and all that are Christ's.' The Lord speaks of these Jews as the devil's seed, whose throne and habitation are beneath the earth : whilst his own origin, as well as throne, was and is heaven. (See that whole discourse John viii. especially from v. 21 to the end of the chapter.) — Luther's conclusion however is correct. He bore this testimony to their best and finer part, not to the grosser. An objection may indeed be taken ' These were expressly and emphatically children of the wicked one -, and therefore their case is somewhat different from that of the children of the kingdom. The answer is, not as it respects nature — Freewill and all nature powers. ° Venit ad me.~\ The original text is stronger ; " is able to come unto me." part v. his Son ; but still no man follows him, unless the — — Father shew him something else within, and in other ways draw him : nay, the whole world persecutes that Son, whom he shews. This comparison of Augustine's squares perfectly enough with the case of the godly * who are now sheep, and know their shepherd God. These, who live by the Spirit and are moved by the Spirit, follow whithersoever God willeth, and whatsoever he shall have shewn them.

But the ungodly cometh not, even when he hath heard the word, except the Father draw and teach within; which he does by bestowing the Spirit. In them is another drawing, distinct from that which is without; in them Christ is shewn by the illumination of the Spirit, through which the man is married off to Christ by a most delightful ravishment, and rather endures the act of a speaking teacher and a drawing God, than performs one himself by seeking and running/

r Illuminaiionem SpiriMs.'] Not ' the enlightening of the man's own soul,' but < the throwing of light upon Christ :' the blessed Spirit casts his bright beams upon the face, or person, of the Lord Jesus Christ; and so wins to him. — A most beautiful and accurate description this, of that Holy Ghost violence, with which the soul is converted. One can hardly help saying to Luther, 0 si sic omnia! A single testimony, like this broad and irresistible one, opened as he opens it, is worth a hundred abstruse and obscure ones 3 of which it is a question in the first place, whether they bear at all upon the subject — secondly, how they exactly bear upon it — and thirdly, with what degree of effect. — I am not meaning to disparage Luther's testimonies— which, with a few exceptions, are clear, and strong to the point ; but I think the question might be safely rested upon this single text — considered in its connection — and that, on such a subject, to bring those which will admit of a doubt, or of a possible misconstruction-^ — in short to use any other implement than a sledge-hammer — is unwise. Even Luther might have made his proofs clearer and stronger -f and they would have lost nothing by being fewer. The impression is weakened by being extended 5 and many small blows, of which one or two beat the air, render the victory doubtful, in the sight of the by-standers. (See above, Part iv. Sect. xlii. note i.) — But what have we here ? It is not only that the words are so express it is impossible to evade them,, and that to cite them

I will brine: yet one more text from this same sect. John, who in his sixteenth chapter says, " The spirit shall reprove the world of sin, because they have not believed in me/' (John xvi. 9.) Here you Johnxvi.9. see it is sin not to believe in Christ. But this sin, surely, is not fixed in the skin or in the hair, but in the very understanding and will. Now, when he charges the whole world with this sin, and it is ascertained by experience that this sin of theirs is as unknown to the world as Christ himself — seeing it is that which is revealed by the reproving of the Spirit — it is plain that Freewill, together with its will and understanding, is considered as captured, and condemned for this sin, before God. So then, whilst Freewill is ignorant of Christ and does not believe in him, she cannot will or endeavour after any good thing, but is necessarily the slave of this unknown sin. In short, since the Scriptures preach Christ in a way of comparison and opposition every where, as I have said; representing every thing which hath not the Spirit of Christ as the subject of Satan, ungodliness, error, darkness, sin and the wrath of God; how many soever testimonies there be which speak of Christ, these will, all and every of them, fight against Freewill. Now such testimonies are innumerable ; nay, they make up the whole of

is even more impressive than to enlarge upon them,, but they must mean what they say — ' There is no power whatsoever in the natural man to come to Christ ' — because otherwise they have no meaning at all, in this context. — The Lord is accounting for their murmurs, in which they muttered out a rejection of him. fYou reject me! What wonder? It cannot be otherwise, seeing ye are not drawn to me of God.' — And when he repeats the same sentiment at the 65th verse, it is to account for the same fact, and is followed by a consequence which would naturally result from such a declaration ; but which no other sentiment would account for. " From that time many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him. Then fc said Jesus unto the twelve, l' Will ye also go away ?" The testimony therefore is so unequivocal, as well as so decisive,, that Freewill has not even a heel to lift up against it. part v. Scripture. So that if we try this cause at the ' judgment seat of Scripture, I shall conquer everyway ; s there not being a single jot or tittle remaining, but what condemns the dogma of Freewill.

Now although our great theologians and maintamers of Freewill either know not, or pretend not to know, that the Scripture thus preaches Christ in the way of comparison and opposition, still all Christians know this, and publicly confess it. They know I say, that there are two kingdoms in the world, which are most adversative to each other ; that Satan reigns in the one, and is on this account called by Christ the Prince of this w7orld, and by Paul the God of this age ; holding all men captive at his will, who have not been torn from him by the Spirit of Christ, as the same Paul witnesseth ; and not sivffering them to be torn from him by any force, save by the Spirit of God; as Christ testifies in his parable of the strong man keeping his palace in peace. In the other reigneth Christ: whose kingdom is continually resisting and fighting with that of Satan. Into this kingdom we are translated, not by our own power, but by the grace of God; by which we are delivered from this present wicked age, and snatched out of the hands of the power of darkness. The knowledge and confession of these kingdoms, as fighting perpetually against each other with such might and resolution, would be of itself sufficient to confute the dogma of Freewill : seeing that we are compelled to serve in the kingdom of Satan, unless we be rescued from it by a divine power. These

5 Omnibus modis vicero.'] Omn. mod. like iravil Tpo-rrw, or Karairavra rpoTrov, of the Greeks, expresses the manner in which any act is] done, or event accomplished : ' By what arts and means soever, or with what spirit and turn of mind soever, the contest be carried on, I shall have conquered so as not to leave a single jot or tittle for Freewill.' — The argument is, Scripture preaches Christ by antithesis ; therefore, whatsoever preaches Christ excludes Freewill. But Christ is preached every where : therefore Freewill is opposed every where. things, I say, the vulgar know, and by their sect. proverbs, prayers, efforts and whole life, ahund- xxxi. antly confess.1 I omit that truly Achillean argument of mine, Omits to which Diatribe in her noble courage has left g^SS untouched; namely, that in Romans vii. and Gala- between tians v. Paul teaches us that the conflict between fle.sl? ar}d_ flesh and spirit is so mighty in the sanctified and cause no godly, that they cannot do the things which they attempt would. I argue thus from it: if the nature of man is teen made so wicked, that in those who have been born again to repel of the Spirit, not only it does not endeavour after ^satd good,but even fights against and opposes good ; how about it. should it endeavour after good in those who, being not yet regenerated, are serving under Satan, in the old man ? For Paul does not speak of the gross affections only in that place, through which as a sort of common outlet Diatribe is wont to slip like an eel out of the hands of every Scripture; but reckons heresy, idolatry, dissensions, contentions, mischiefs, which reign in those highest powers of the soul — the understanding and the will, say — amongst the works of the flesh. If then the flesh maintains a conflict against the spirit, by means of