An End of Doctrinal Controversies, Chapter 14
CHAP. XIV. Of Mans Power and Free-will since the Fall.
§. 1. SO much is said, Chap. 9. of Mans natural Power and Free-will, and so much now, Chap. 13. of grace, and the Power given by it, as may allow me to be short in what is here to be added.
§. 2. All that natural Power and Liberty which was essential to the Will, remaineth in it since the Fall: For Man is of▪ the same Species.
§. 3. The Will is still a self-determining Principle, supposing, 1. God's necessary Influx, as he is the first Cause of Nature, 2. And the Being and convenient Position of Objects, 3. And the Perception of the Intellect, 4. And the concourse of necessary concomitant second Causes.
§. 4. The three Faculties of mans Soul are all vitiated by sin. 1. The vital active Power is so far dead to God and Holiness, as to need the cure of quickening, and strengthening, and exciting Grace. 2. The Intellect is so far blinded, as to need the cure of illuminating grace. 3. And the Will is so far turned by Enmity from God, to the inordinate Love of carnal self-interest and Creatures, as to need the cure of converting, sanctifying Grace.
§. 5. Grace healeth the Will of this Enmity and vitious perverseness, so far as it prevaileth; which is, 1. common Grace enableth it to common good, and prepareth it for better. 2. Special Grace causeth it actually and habitually to will and love special Good; that is, God as God, and the Creature for God, and Holiness as his Image. 3. Perfecter Grace bringeth up the Will to perfecter holy Acts and Habits.
§. 6. Nature it self is not in lapsed man, divested of all moral or Divine Principles, Abilities, and Inclinations: In the Intellect there are commen Notices of a Deity; that is, That there is one God who is infinitely powerful, wise, and good: And in the Will there are some Inclinations still to good as good, and therefore to God as far as he is truly conceived of as good; and so far as that conception is not conquered by a cross Conception of some Enmity: And so of other Good.
§. 7. Nature and common Grace may cause a man to go as far in Love and Religion, as those whom we call the highest Hypocrites, or almost-Christians may do (which our practical Preachers do frequently tell the People at large in Books and Sermons.
§. 8. Such may have a common sort of Faith in Christ (even formerly to the working of Miracles), and of Repentance, and Reformation, and of good Desires, and love to goodness and good Men; yea, to God himself.
§. 9. For men are not so corrupt by Nature (much less under the Effects of common grace) as to hate all goodness, or to hate all that is in God: They may love God as he is the Almighty Creator, Preserver, and Natural-Orderer of the World, and the Cause of its Being, Motion, Beauty, Harmony, and all natural Good: And they may love him as he is the Giver of life▪ and all natural Blessings to themselves, and as he is the Preserver of them, and their only Security and Help in Danger, and not only as his Blessings gratifie their Senses, but as all their Hope of everlasting Happiness is in his Power and Love: They may love him as he doth this good to others also, and is the common Benefactor to the World, without whom it could not subsist a moment. And they may love him as he maketh such Laws as preserve their lives, and Properties, and Rights, from Fraud and Violence, and by making other Men conscionable just, and charitable to all, do both gratifie themselves, and tend to the common Order, Peace, and Welfare of Societies, and of Mankind.
§. 10. I am not able to confute or deny what Adrian (afterwards Pope) hath written (in his Quodlibets) That an unsanctified Man (not in a state of Salvation) may so far love God, even above himself, as to consent rather to die, and be annihilated, than (were it possible) God should be annihilated, or not be God. For a Heathen might consent to die for his Country: And he is a B…ast and no Man, that would not rather be annihilated, than all the World, yea, or all the Kingdom, or all the City should be annihilated, or than the Sun should cease to be, or to shine. And he that knoweth that if there were no God, there could be no World, no Being, Motion, Knowledge, Goodness, or Felicity in the World; besides, that which is worse, the Cessation of the Infinite Good himself; must be yet more unmanly, if he would not rather be annihilated alone (if per impossible, you suppose he could live alone) than all this greater Evil should come to pass. He that tells men, that they shall be saved, if they would rather be annihilated, than that there should be no God, doth make them a promise which God hath not made.
§. 11. But (as the same Author observeth) that which the unholy cannot do, is, to love God as God, as the ultimate Object, and most amiable Good to be known, and by Love and Holiness enjoyed, and pleased by a holy Soul; and this above all sensual terrene Delights, and to love him as the holy Ruler of the World, who forbiddeth all sinful sensuality, and all mens inordinate Conceits, Desires, Delights, and Practices, and requireth holiness and purity of Mind, and Life, and Sobriety, and Temperance, and Self-denial in all that will be saved. And as he is a just Judge who will execute all these Laws, and condemn the ungodly to endlers Misery. They love not God, as he is the holy Go…our, and righteous Iudge of men, that would restrain them from their sinful Wills and Pleasures, and damn them if they will not be holy. And consequently they love not his Laws, and other means by which this is to be done: Because loving the pleasure of their Lusts, and being averse to things spiritual, high and holy, they love not that holiness and rectitude in themselves, which God commandeth, Rom. 8. 5, 6, 7, 8, &c.
§. 12. Though God, as the Fountain of Nature, continue the natural power and liberty of the Will, yet its moral Impotency, Pravity, or ill Disposition, by which it is averse to Holiness, and prone to Sensuality, must be cured by Grace; where common Grace and special, cause common and special Effects in the Cure.
§. 13. The moral Power given by Grace, consisting in the right Disposition of the Will, is not of the same kind with the Natural Power or Faculty: And the Words [CAN] and [CANNOT] used of both sorts, have not the same signification, but are equivocal; otherwise Sin and Grace should change mans Species. Those Disputants therefore that confound them for the sounds sake, deceive the Auditors.
§. 14. We must say then, That quoad vires, vel potentiam naturalem, every man can believe, who hath the use of Reason, Objects revealed, and extrinseck necessary Causes; that is, He wanteth not the natural Faculty or Power, nor needeth another natural Faculty, but only the Excitation, Illumination, and right Disposition of that which he hath: But as to the said right Disposition, or moral Power, no one can truly repent and believe without that Grace which must so dispose him: Common Grace must dispose him to a common Faith, and special Grace to a saving Faith.
§. 15. It is more proper to say, That an Unbeliever, and unholy Sinner will not repent and believe, than that he cannot; though that also may be truly said, if well explained. But the meaning is not, that he cannot, though he sincerely would: Nor yet that he cannot be willing, for want of the natural Power of willing: But, 1. That he hath a Logical, and, 2. A moral Impotency; that is, an Indisposition; he wanteth both Disposition, Habit, and Act, but not the Faculty.
§. 16. It is an abusive miscarriage of those Disputants, who in the Words [CAN] and [CANNOT] use to confound not only, as aforesaid, natural and moral Power, but even Logical also, which is neither, and signifieth no more but that in ordine probandi; such Premises being put, the Conclusion Can or Cannot follow: For so it may be truly said, That no man can do, speak, or think any other than he doth; and nothing can ever come to pass, but what doth come to pass; even from Gods fore-knowledge this will follow: For seeing nothing ever will be otherwise than God foreknoweth it will be, a Disputant will say, It can be no otherwise; but he must only mean that posita praescientia divina, the Conclusion cannot be true, that the Event will be otherwise: when yet as to the nature of Causation, we must say, sensu physico & morali, that it Can be otherwise oft-times, though it will not be otherwise.
§. 17. These things considered, it appeareth that we are commonly agreed as followeth: 1. That all Men have natural Powers and Free-will to good, even spiritual good; that is, Whenever such good is chosen or willed, it is done by the natural Power or Faculty; and when it is not willed, it is not for want of a natural Faculty, but its due Disposition.
§. 18. 2ly. That as to Civil or Law-power and Liberty, all men have much more than Liberty granted them by God to repent and believe. For Helps and a Command are more than Leave or Liberty: But Liberty from the Penalty for sin, belongeth only to the pardoned.
§. 19. 3ly. That as to Ethical Power and Liberty, which lieth in a right Disposition of mans Faculties, every man hath it so far as Grace hath prevailed, and wrought it in him, and none any further.
§. 20. Or as Liberty is denominated from the Evil which we are free from, 1. All mens wills are free from being constrained to sin, 1 By natural inclination of the faculties themselves; 2. Or by the senses; 3. Or by Objects; 4. Or by Men; 5. Or by Devils; 6. Or by God: Because the rest cannot and God will not; no, not physically premove and predetermine it thereto.
§. 21. 2. The wills of all men are free from any Commands to Sin: that is, God cannot command it (for else it were no Sin) and if men command it, their Commands are null, and lay no obligation on the will to obey them.
§. 22. 3. We are free from sinful Dispositions so far as Grace freeth us, and no further: Therefore by common Grace men have common Liberty, and by special Grace saving Liberty; but none perfect Liberty here; and no unsanctified man hath saving Liberty of Will: that is, such by which he is duly disposed to such acts as have a flat Promise of Salvation: And where now doth our difference remain?
§. 23. Obj. The difference is, Whether a bad man can change his own will?
Ans. Your [can] meaneth the natural Power, or the due disposition: As to the first, he can, that is, he hath those faculties which want not natural Power to act better: But as to the latter, he cannot without Grace, that is, through indisposition he will not.
§. 24. Q. But is not Grace the only cause of the Change?
Ans. Grace only causeth the first Impress on the Soul, which moveth it to act; but the Soul (or will) it self is a Cause of the Act, else it were not Man but GOD that doth repent, believe, obey, &c.
§. 25. Q. But is it Grace or Free-will that is the chief Cause?
Ans. Grace no doubt: Which is commonly acknowledged by the several Parties.
§. 26. The very marrow then of all the question about the Power and Liberty of the Will, is that so often before mention'd, Whether Man's Will be made of GOD such a self-determining Power, as can truly do any more good than it doth, or forbear more evil, without any more Grace from God, than that which it hath while it doth no more: And whether ever the Will can and do make a various use of the same degree of Divine Assistance: And this as is said, is confessed of the Angel's Case and Adam's: For if Adam had not Power to have stood when he fell, by the same Grace that was given him, but fell because God withdrew or with-held such necessary Grace without which he could do no other than he did, we may then lay by these Controversies, and think how to answer Infidels.
§. 27. Those persons that make others odious by their revilings, for holding Free-will, or denying Free-will, without telling men what Freedom it is that they mean (natural, ethical, legal or logical, Freedom from Coaction, necessitating Premotion, natural Inclination, or vi…ious Disposition, &c.) should be rebuked by the Lovers of Truth and Peace, as the Peace-breakers of the Church and World, that presume in their proud ignorance to reproach others for that which they understand not.
§. 28. They that say, That the Liberty of the Will as natural is not violated, but by Coaction, and that Coaction, is nothing but making a man will against his Will in the same respect and act, and so that to will and to will freely is all one, and that to will by Coaction is a contradiction, viz. to will and nil the same, and that God predetermineth all mens wills to all sinful habits and acts in specie as circumstantiated, by immediate, necessitating or unresistible premotion, and yet taketh not away their Liberty, because he maketh them will and not nil the sin. These do but play with the name of Free-will, and are confuted as aforesaid from the instance of Adam, and from the scope of Scripture, and do subvert the Foundations of Christianity. To will is the proper act of my will; and if he that moveth me by prime physical efficiency to will the circumstantiated act of Sin, deprive me not of my Liberty, because it is willing that he maketh me do, then if Men or Devils had Power to make me will Sin, as I cause my Pen to write, or the Fire to burn this or that, it would be no loss of Liberty. But of this more largely elsewhere.