An End of Doctrinal Controversies, Chapter 15
CHAP. XV. Of Effectual Grace, and how God giveth it.
§. 1. AS I said before about Sufficient Grace, so here about Effectual; the first thing to be done by Disputers, is, to agree what that is which they here call [Grace] as the Subject of the Question. And as I there shewed, 1. It cannot or must not be God's essential Will or Power, for that is simple and immutable, and not in it self (save relatively) distinguishable into sufficient and effectual. 2. An Efflux or vis, which is neither God nor the Effect, there is none, or none proveable. 3. It is not Faith it self that is meant here by Grace, for it is the Grace that effecteth Faith; and it were absurd to ask what Faith is effectual to make or cause it self: This is true both of the Act and Habit. The meaning is not, what Habit of Faith is effectual to the Act, nor what Act to the Habit or it self, but what Grace of God is effectual to cause both Act and Habit. 4. Therefore there is nothing left to be meant by Grace, but the two things before mentioned, viz. 1. The gracious Means or second Causes appointed by God to cause our Faith. 2. The first moving Impress on the Soul, as it is antecedent to Act and Habit, (supposing that such there is, *Some say, that God's meer will causeth man's act, as willing it, without any other Influx or Impress on Man's Will, save our Act it self effected: But though it be only God's essential will, which is the first Cause, yet the thing received by us from God seemeth to be a certain Impress, Impulse, or vis, or Disposition to act in order of Nature, before the act it self, which Impress sometime is made uneffectual by a prevalent Indisposition or Resistance of the Will.though some deny that there is any such thing.)
§. 2. And for the first, all means will be uneffectual without God's inward Operation by his Spirit: He must work on the Speaker and on the Hearer, to make means effectual, as is agreed on. But whether as God worketh in Naturals according to the aptitude of natural second Causes, so he work Faith and other Graces by a settled proportion of Concourse, agreeable to the Aptitude of gracious second Causes (or Means of Grace) is a Question too hard to be boldly and peremptorily determined by us that are in so much darkness.
§. 3. But it seemeth to us, that God would not have made it so great a part of his Government to establish a Course of Means, if he did not intend to work ordinarily by them, and according to their fitness. Christ is the chief Means, and instituteth the rest; Scripture, Ministers, Example, good Company, merciful Providences, Afflictions, Meditation, Books, Prayer, Sacraments, &c. are all appointed for such effects: And if God would ordinarily work immediately without means, what need all these? This teacheth Infidels to say, that he may do it without Christ. The Spirit first indited the Word (as we cut a Seal to be the instrument of Impression) and then by that word doth work on Souls.
§. 4. But if God did tie himself not only ordinarily, but alwaies to apt means, no mortal could say what means is sufficient, and what is insufficient, and what is more than sufficient, even necessarily efficacious: For the means, 1. are very many and more than we can take notice of; and if one be wanting, it may render the rest insufficient or uneffectual, how excellent soever in themselves. 2. And that means is fitted to one Hearer that is not fitted to another: All have not the same temptations, hindrances, prejudices, objections, weaknesses, nor obstinacy: And God only knoweth when means are adequately fitted to the desired effect upon mens Souls.
§. 5. And though many of the means operate ex parte sui, necessarily, yet so do not all: For Preachers and Instructers are free Agents, and so it must be other effectual means that must first move them to do their Duty for a Sinner's good: Which who can judge of?
§. 6. But God is the Arbitrary Absolute Lord of all means, and therefore he can change and dispose of them as he pleases, and yet work by them. So that the Effect is nevertheless from God's free or arbitrary Volition, though he never went beyond the aptitude of means: When even a silly man can turn the natural course of Water and Wind to move his Mill or Sails at his pleasure, without any alteration of their natures: A Fisher can use his Bait as may serve his end; and a Physician can vary his Medicines to cure the Disease without changing their nature, or curing without them.
§. 7. But there is no question but God can work without means, and Intellectual Souls being so near to the first Cause, it is utterly uncertain to us, whether in Works of Grace God have not a double operation on the Soul, one by his appointed means, and another by immediate Influx *Though before I shewed that this seemed not necessary to all acts of Man, & will not overthrow Durand.; and if it be so, how these concurr to one and the same effect, and also how God doth immediately move Souls, are all past Man's reach, and should be acknowledged above our Disputes.
§. 8. II. God hath more inward operations on Man's Soul than one or two (whether with means or without) to bring us to Faith and Repentance: The mind must be enlightened, the dull faculties must be excited, especially Conscience and Will, and the Will must be touched with the gust of Divine Love to breed a holy Complacency in good, and many Impediments must be removed, some by outward acts of Providence, and some by inward Grace. And where Impediments are not removed, no doubt but there needeth more of the other Acts of Grace, to bring such a Soul to Faith and Repentance, than in one where there is less resistance.
§. 9. And seeing that Recipitur ad modum recipientis, and the disposition of the Recipient hath so great a hand as common Experience telleth us in almost all the Changes in the World, (what wonderful variety of Effects doth the same Action of the Sun produce throughout the World, by the diversity of receptive dispositions)? Therefore no mortal man can say when the efficacy or success of Divine Grace is more to be ascribed to the Preparatory Disposition of the Recipient by a former act of Grace, and when more to the present moving Influx? nor what proportion these alwaies bear as comparable. And what man dare say that he can search out the waies of God?
§. 10. When we know so little of the secret Energies of natural Principles, nor how God produceth Animals in the Womb, nor how he causeth our Food to nourish us, nor how any of our Senses do their Office, nor how our Souls do use the Corporeal Spirits, &c. And when Christ hath told us, That the Wind bloweth where it listeth, and we hear the sound of it, but know not whence it cometh, and whither it goeth; and so is he that is born of the Spirit, Ioh. 3. 8. Should not this, with the experience and consciousness of our Ignorance, suffice to keep us from bitter Contendings about that which is certainly beyond our reach, and from presumptuous boldness with the unsearchable things of God?
§. 11. Whether you will with Bradwardine and many others say, That it is God's meer Volition that effecteth all things ad extra; or whether you will say with the most, That it is not his Will alone, but his Will as operating by his executive Power, the meaning seemeth to be the same, and the difference to be but notional, as is aforesaid: For they that speak in the first manner, mean, That it is not God's Will as in it self immanently considered, but his will as going forth to produce an effect; which emanation or exertion is, from the effect, called by those that speak in the second manner, God's Executive Power.
§. 12. The prime Reason of the Effect, is God's Wisdom, Will, and Power as the Cause: And so the prime reason why Means and Grace become effectual whenever they are effectual, must be from God the prime Cause.
§. 13. The first Impress on the Soul moving it toward the Act (e. g. Faith) is the first Grace internal (sub ratione effecti): And this God himself worketh on man as on a meer Patient; tho' not antecedently to all former acts of Man, or all preparative dispositions, (usually) yet antecedent to that Act of Man to which it moveth: So that as to this, 1. Man is passive, 2. and the Divine Operation (or the powerful Will of God) is not only sufficient but effectual; for that Impress or Motus is effected.
§. 14. Though God being a Spirit moveth not by such Contact as Bodies do on each other, yet must we conceive of his motion, and the motion of all Spirits on Bodies, as analogous to corporeal Contact, and as a motion by Efflux and eminent Contact of Virtue and Essence, according to the more excellent nature and operation of Spirits; or else we cannot conceive positively of them.
§. 15. It is already proved, that God useth various degrees of Impress or Motion on Souls; of which some do by their proper power or degree so ascertain the effect, that the Argument is alwaies good as a causa, [where-ever God doth so move, there the Effect (that is the Act, e. g. Faith or Consent) followeth: And this Grace is effectual ex propria vi vel virtute: But that God sometime operateth by a less Impress or Motion, which doth not from its own force inferr the effect, but so far disposeth the Mind or Will to the Act, that the man can do it without any more grace; which is it that is called Sufficient Grace, as aforesaid.
§. 16. It is a thing not to be believed, that this latter degree of Divine motion is never eventually effectual to the Act: Seeing, 1. it is granted, that there is such a Power in Man's Will as c…n act in some cases by that degree of Grace called Sufficient: And frustra fit potentia quae nunquam reducitur in actum. 2. And it's granted, that the Angels and Adam did act by such help. Therefore as to acts preparatory before special Faith, few do affirm that they are all done by such Grace as is necessarily effectual ex propria vi alone, but that sufficient Grace leaveth them often to Man's Will.
§. 17. Therefore all that remaineth, is to resolve what is the reason of the certain effect when we believe? To which I say, 1. It is ever an effect of two Causes (at least) God's motion and man's faculty, and so both must be said to be the Cause of the effect. 2. But man's will is no Cause (save a recipient Cause) of God's Part or Impress. 3. God sometimes, at least, maketh so powerful an Impress, as doth necessarily determine man's will, by a Necessity consistent with his Liberty. 4. It cannot be proved by any man, that no man believeth by that sufficient Motion, which doth not necessarily determine his will; seeing many preparatory duplicate page duplicate page duplicate page duplicate page acts are done by such a motion. And it's probable that it is oft so. 5. But the certainty of this, or when and how oft it is so, no man can know.
§. 18. But by which degree of Grace soever the effect be produced, still God's Will is the chief cause of it; which can procure the effect infallibly, when it doth not necessitate: Yea, and his premotion or impress called Sufficient, is incomparably more the cause than Man's Concourse is; though God leave some part of the Causation to man's Free-will.
§. 19. But when the Effect doth not follow, that is, when men believe not, it is man's will by omission and resistance, that is the chief cause, and culpable, and not God's omission or non-determination.
§. 20. The same degree of divine Impress or Motion, which prevaileth with a Soul predisposed by common Grace, is not enough to prevail with some others that are ill or indisposed: Though God's Absolute Will and Answerable Operation would prevail with any, how bad soever.