An End of Doctrinal Controversies, Chapter 9
CHAP. IX. Of Natural Power and Free-will.
§. 1. THE Glory of God on his Works is their expression of his Perfections, by the Impression of them which he hath made. And He hath communicated Being and Substantiality as the substratum, and therein the Virtues of Vital Power, Wisdom and Goodness (or Love): and these are his Image upon Man.
§. 2. The more Power therefore a Creature hath, the more he glorifieth the Power of God: And the most powerful Creatures (as the Sun) do more shew forth his greatness than the most impotant. Therefore to deny or extenuate any Power given of God, is to dishonour him in his works: So absurd is it to think that the Power ascribed to Man, is dishonourable to God; as if you took from the Workman all the Praise that you give to his Works.
§. 3. All Man's Power is passive from GOD and superiour Causes, but it is naturally active as to things inferiour, and in it self.
§. 4. God endued man at first with a threefold Power, 1. Natural, 2. Moral, 3. Political, which is a Ruling Power over Inferiours.
§. 5. Man's Power was partly essential or inseparable, and partly accidental or separable. 1. To have the three Powers or Faculties of Vital Activity, Intellection and Will, is essential, and Man cannot be a Man without them: But to have these in promptitude and strength, is but as health or strength to the Body; a separable thing. 2. To have some moral Power to know and desire and practise some moral Good, it seemeth is inseparable from Man in via; for all men naturally have some notitiae communes, and differencing sense of moral Good and Evil: Else men should be as bad as Devils: But to be truly Holy was separable (as Health) and so was lost. 3. To have some superiority over Brutes, and Parents over their Children, it seems is inseparable, or is not separated; for it continueth in Nature: But the true Majesty of this superiority was lost by Sin.
§. 6. No Creature hath any Power but what is totally derived from God and dependent on him, and still upheld by him and used under him.
§. 7. Though some would have more Power ascribed to Nature, and others appropriate more to Grace, yet in this it is no Controversie, How much is to be ascribed to God: For both Nature and Grace, and the Powers of both are totally from God: But all the question is, Which way God giveth it to man.
§. 8. In general we should be most cautious, 1. That we disparage not any Power or Endowment which is God's own Work, whether natural or gracious. 2. That we give not too much to any Work that is proper to Man.
§. 9. Natural Power, of Vital Action, Intellection and Volition, is supposed by God as Lawgiver in his Subjects; that is, that we are Men.
§. 10. Every act of Knowledge, Faith, Repentance, Love and Obedience is done by our natural Powers or Faculties, and none without them.
§. 11. The word [Moral Power] signifieth, 1. Sometimes a Power to moral actions, (and so natural Power in Man is also moral in some degree.) 2. Sometimes a Holy Disposition, especially in the Will, to such holy moral actions; which is the Rectitude of our natural Powers, or the Health of them in a saving degree or sort, and is the Gift of Grace, since Sin departed. 3. Most frequently I use the words for such a degree of God's helping or healing Influx or Grace, as is short of a Habit for promptitude and facility, but yet puts the soul in such a disposition, by which Man can do the Act, (and it may come to pass without more Grace whether it do or not) which the Dominicans call Sufficient Grace, and I rather call Necessary Grace. 4. Sometimes it is meant (as causa moralis) for that which is Power Reputatively.
§. 12. Power hath several degrees: some can act easily, yea, is hardly restrained: some can act with difficulty, yet constantly: some difficultly and very rarely: some can act, but the Impediments are so great, and its weakness such, as that it never will do what it can: And these we call a moral Impotency; as being reputative impotency, in these three last degrees.
§. 13. Sin hath debilituted Man's very natural Vivacity and Activity to things spiritual, and also darkened and undisposed his Understanding to them; but especially dis…ffected him, and perverted his will, with an indisposition, averseness and enmity to God. And none of these are cured, but by the Grace of Christ; quickening (or strengthening and awakening) illuminating and converting the Soul. (Of which more after in due place.)
§. 14. Adam had Power to have stood when he fell: God took no power from him, nor let out such a Temptation as he could not resist: But Sin entered at his Will, and corrupted it before he lost his Power.
§. 15. There is therefore in …, such a thing as a true Power, to do more good and less evil than we do.
§. 16. And there was such a Power in Adam's Will, by which he could have willed what he did not …ill, and by which he could have rejected the Temptation: And this without any other Grace, than that which he then had, and used not.
§. 17. Otherwise all the sin of Adam and the World would be resolved into the necessitating Will and Work of God, and so all Faith would be subverted.
§. 18. Therefore Man's Will was such a Faculty as could be a causa prima, of the moral modification or specification of its own Acts: (Not a causa prima simpliciter, but thus, secundum quid.) For else God must be the causa prima of Sin, which is the ill modification of that Act.
§. 19. I know that to Nature the Reasonings of our late Infidels, to prove, That every Act of the Will is as truly necessitated as the motions of a Clock, do seem plansible and hard …o answer; because it seemeth strange, that in any mode of Action Man should be a first Cause of it, and that a Creatures Act should have no superiour Cause in any mode: But on the other side the Evidence is cogent, 1. That God is able to make a self-determining Power, that can thus do: For it is no contradiction. 2. That it is congruous, that below the happy Race of confirmed Spirits, there should be a Race of such undetermined free Agents, left much to their own self-determining Power. 3. And Experience perswadeth us de facto, that so it is. 4. And they that deny it, must unavoidably make God the prime Cause of all Sin, in a higher degree than it is or can be ascribed to Satan: And is all this with the rejection of Christianity more eligible, than the Concession that God can and doth make a Creature with such self-determining Free-will, as can, as a first Cause ofOf the divers sorts of Freedom of Will, and the fuller opening them, see my Methodus Theologiae, and Cath. Theol. its modified act, sin without God's Predetermination? And by his help could forbear Sin when he doth not. The Contest is, Whether GOD or Man shall be counted the causa prima of Sin; we say, Man is the first Cause, and GOD is none at all: Some say, God must be the causa prima of all that can have a Cause in it: and rather than deny him the Honour which is given to Satan, they will deny Christianity, and deny him to be holy and to be GOD.
§. 20. GOD made this natural Free-will that Man might be a governable Creature, fit to be morally ruled by Laws and rational Motives, and as part of God's Image on Man.