D

'{give thefe pboksl
for. ViefovMing of a. CoUege IA] t

Gift of

DR. BEECHER'S

VIEWS IN THEOLOGY.

VIEWS

THEOLOGY

BY

LYMAN BEECHER, D. D.
PRESIDENT OF LANE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY.

PUBLISHED BY REQUEST

THE SYNOD OF CEVCINNATI.

CINCINNATI:
PUBLISHED BY TRUMAN AND SMITH-
NEW YORK:
LEAVITT, LORP AND CO.
18 3 6. '

Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1836,
BY TRUMAN AND SMITH,
In the Clerk's Office- for the District Court of Ohio.

CINCINNATI:
PRINTED AT THE CINCINNATI JOURNAL OFFICE.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

I. INTRODUCTION.
II. NATURAL ABILITY.
ill. MORAL ABILITY.
IV. ORIGINAL SIN.
V. TOTAL DEPRAVITY.
VI. REGENERATION.

INTRODUCTION.

TO THE SYNOD OF CINCINNATI.
Beloved Brethren:
I avail myself of the earliest opportunity permitted by
prior engagements, to comply with your request, ' that I
would publish at as early a day as possible, a concise state
ment of the argument and design of my Sermon on Native
Depravity, and of my views of total depravity, original sin,
and regeneration, agreeably to my declaration and explana
tion before Synod.' I am cheered in this attempt by the
consideration that the Synod ' saw nothing in my views, as
explained by myself, to justify any suspicion of unsound
ness in the faith,' and expressed their entire satisfaction
with the terms of my acquiescence in their decision, and
their belief that nothing insuperable remained to prevent
my usefulness, or impair confidence in me, as a minister
of the gospel in the Presbyterian church. I am cheered,
because, though my doctrinal opinions have been unchanged ¦
from theTieFInmi]^^
in accordance, as I suppose, with the received expositions
ofthe Confession of Faith, and the Bible, and have seemed to
receive some token of Divine approbation, and as eternity
approaches are increasingly precious to my own soul, it is
nevertheless true that I had fallen under suspicions. The
causes of these suspicions, I shall not stop to explain ; nor
am I disposed to regard them with entire disapprobation. In
one view, I regard them with pleasure, as evidence of a

viii INTRODUCTION.
wakeful zeal for the truth, for want of which in a genera
tion past, innovations and heresies were permitted insidiously
to invade portions of the church.
But who does not know that upon the very confines of
honest zeal for the truth, lie the territories of twilight, and
suspicion, and rumor, and fear, and whisperings, and false
accusations, by which confidence is undermined, and very
friends separated 1
The strength of the church, under God, depends on con
centrated action ; and this, like mercantile credit, depends
on confidence. Whatever, therefore, propagates distrust
among brethren, creates a panic, like the failure of capitalists
in a great city. Of this, the enemy of souls is aware ; and
has never failed, when the power of the church became too
formidable to be resisted, to ease him of his adversaries, by
dividing them. Thus the sacramental controversy divided
the reformers, and the contentions of the Independents and
Presbyterians lost the vantage ground in the commonwealth,
and brought back monarchy, dissoluteness, and irreligion.
In this nation, for a long time, the kindred denominations,
Congregational and Presbyterian, lived in peace and good fel
lowship, and were doing valiantly their part in filling the
land with churches and temples, and pastors and revivals,
and seemed to bid defiance to his wiles. But at length the
storm has smitten us, and with a fury proportioned to our
power of annoyance to the kingdom of darkness. I was not
unapprised of the beginning of this evil, when I consented to
come into the Presbyterian church ; but its subsequent devel
opments have indeed outrun all expectation, and have
reached a crisis deeply afflicting, humiliating, and alarming.
Extensively, confidence has ceased, and misapprehension,
and suspicion, and alienation, and contention have entered.
In this condition of the church, though pressed beyond mea
sure by other responsibilities, there is no effort, or sacrifice,
or self-denial which I would not make joyfully, to extend
correct information, allay suspicion, extinguish animosity,

INTRODUCTION. ix
stop contention, and by purity and peace, and concentrated
action, make her prosperity like the waves of the sea.
It will not be easy, however, to illustrate my views on the
subjects named, in the form of independent dissertations,
without the danger of alleged discrepancy. Nor do I under
stand it to be the wish of the Synod that I- should confine
myself to the exact limits and language of my defence. I
have chosen, therefore, to follow the order, and extensively
the language of my defence from copious notes, adding such
illustrations and topics as I had prepared, but a regard to
brevity compelled me to omit. Making such an exhibition,
however as will, in the best manner, answer the design ofthe
Synod, in putting the community in possession of my doc
trinal views on the subjects named.
I cannot, however, forbear to remark, that the necessity of
explanation imposed on me at this time of life by unfounded
accusations, is not unlike calling on an aged merchant of
long-established reputation, to prove his honesty, by the exhi
bition of his books; or a physician of age and experience, to
repel the suspicion of quackery, by publishing an account of
his cases and his practice. I am happy, however, to say,
that it is not the fault of the Synod, that such a necessity
exists, and that all which I requested or hoped, was illus
trated in the kind and candid manner in which the trial was
conducted. 2

VIEWS IN THEOLOGY.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.
Moderator :
It gives me pleasure to express the confidence
which I feel in the christian integrity of this court.
It is possible for man to be so biased by interest, or
swayed by passion, or bound by party, as to super
sede the vision of evidence, or its efficacy, when it is
seen. But no member of this court has, I trust)
placed himself in this predicament. Is there one of
you who would be sorry, should the evidence of my
innocence be made to appear; who would not rejoice,
should he find his suspicions allayed, and his fears
averted? Is there a man in this court who would
not as soon cut his hand off, as to lift it against m e
contrary to his honest convictions? Would any
thing be more grateful to your heart, than to see -the
court united in the acquittal of Dr. Wilson and my.
self, and all of us united in building up the cause of
Christ in the West?
You are aware, however, 'that integrity of purpose
does not guaranty infallibility of judgment; and that
rumors, and suspicions, and prejudgment from ex
parte hearsay testimony, which have no place in the
decisions of this tribunal, are extremely apt, through
human imperfection, to thrust themselves in the

12 PRELIMINARY REMARKS.
Judgment not infallible. The Church bound to be kind.
scales, and bias seriously the judgment. This per
verting influence of preconceived opinion, formed
upon testimony disallowed by law, is so common and
so powerful, that in criminal cases in civil courts, no
man is permitted to sit in judgment who has formed
an opinion touching the merits of the case. In eccle
siastical trials for heresy at the present time, there is
a peculiar liability to the evil bias of a prejudgment,
when accusations long and loud have filled the land,
and roused suspicion, and created panic, and under
mined confidence, and multiplied aggression and
exasperation, and brought on the symptoms in our
church of an approaching dissolution. Zeal for the
truth, and divided responsibility of numbers, and the
fear of suspicion of heresy, if any falter, may em
bolden men to act upon impressions made by testi
mony out of court which is not entitled to the weight
of a straw. It is this extrajudicial evidence, without
the forms of the law, which is invading the life and
reputation of our citizens, and shaking the founda
tions of our republic.
This summary justice, should it enter the church,
would annihilate all protection against prejudice and
passion, and perpetrate injustice as much more detes
table than civil outrage, as the church is bound by a
special obligation to be kind, and unimpassioned, and
impartial ; and whenever the time comes that inno
cence and evidence are no guarantee of a minister's
reputation in the church, the day of her dissolution
is at the door.
I have no disposition to interrogate the members

PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 13
Local phraseology, no evidence of heresy.
of this Synod, whether they have formed an opinion
touching the merits of this appeal. But you, breth
ren, have a right to ask your own heart how it is,
and to watch and pray that you do not permit a kind
of evidence to prevail, which all laws, human and
divine, reject, as tending to anarchy and despotism.
I have only to request, then, that you will not
decide this appeal on the ground of any impressions
from biases or prejudices' produced out of court. It
is here, by evidence to be produced in court, under
the guardianship of our excellent system of discipline
and laws of evidence, that you will enlighten your
understandings and decide.
You will be careful not to ascribe to me opinions
which I never believed or taught, because I may have
employed language in another part of the church,
which, to ears unaccustomed to it, may seem errone
ous. If there be, at the same time, an obvious mean
ing in accordance with truth and my own declarations,
charity and equity alike forbid that I should be denied
the benefit and meaning I claim, and be made answer-
' able for that which I disclaim and abhor.
You will by no means hold me guilty in propaga
ting opinions which you yourselves hold and teach,
though from difference of location and education we
may differ a little in the terms employed to explain
and enforce them.
Especially will you be careful that you do not
convict me of heresy for opinions I have never
avowed, and have always disclaimed, and of which
there is no evidence but suspicion, in or out of court
2*

14 PRELIMINARY REMARKS.
Avowed and proved opinions should be the ground of decision.
— merely upon the apprehension that all is not out —
that something is covered and kept back, which, if I
am spared, will by and by come out and punish the
church. Most assuredly I have no concealed here
sies. I hold no opinions which I do not avow. All
is out. I am determined to be understood, length
and breadth, and from top to bottom. If my doc
trinal belief is adverse to the Confession of Faith, as
immemorially explained, I am not only not reluctant
to go out of the Presbyterian ehurch, but I am deter
mined not to stay in it.
Finally, you will be careful to decide on the ground
of my opinions avowed and proved, and not on the
ground of my suspected affinities with the assumed
heresies of other men. I have refused always to be
made accountable for the language or opinions of
other men. For my own statements I am accounta
ble. They are the symbols of my faith — whatever
accords with them I admit, and whatever differs from
them, I disclaim as having anything to do with my
creed or teaching.
The comprehensive charge against me is, that I
hold and teach Pelagian and Arminian doctrines, in
respect to the subject of Free Agency, and Account
ability, Original Sin, Total Depravity, Regeneration
and Christian Character, contrary to the Confession,
and the word of God.

NATURAL ABILITY.

I commence with the subject of Free Agency, or the
Natural Ability of man, as the foundation of obligation
and moral government.
I begin with this, first, because it is, as Dr. Wilson
has said, ' the hinge of the whole controversy.' This
is eminently true. It is the different theories of
free agency and accountability which have, in all
ages, agitated the church. There is not a discus
sion about doctrine, at this time, in the Presbyte
rian church, which does not originate in discrepant
opinions respecting the created constitutional pow
ers of man as a free agent, and the grounds of moral
obligation and personal accountability. Settle the
philosophy of free agency — what are the powers
of a free agent? — how they are put together, and
how they operate in personal accountable action —
and controversy among all the friends of Christ will
cease. It has been often said, that it never, can be
settled. I believe no such thing. The perplexities
of the schoolmen are passing away, and the symp
toms of approximation to an enlightened and settled
opinion among all evangelical denominations are
beginning to appear. I have no discoveries to

16 NATURAL ABILITY.
Contrary opinion — fallen man has no ability to obey the gospel.
publish on this subject — *no favorite views of my
own to propagate. It has been my great desire to
finish my course and keep the faith without any. The
doctrines of free agency and natural ability, which I
hold and advocate, have been the revealed doctrines
of the church from the beginning. They are not new
•divinity, nor new school — and though I am compelled
to admit that there are some in the church who, when
they are correctly explained, do not hold them; the
number in my belief is very small, who do not, when
all misapprehension is removed, believe the doctrines
just as I believe them. They are also fundamental
doctrines, which, if misinterpreted, will always envi
ron the Calvinistic system with invincible prejudice
and odium without, and fill it with fierce conflicts
within. But when correctly understood, will pour
the stream of truth pure and full and clear as chrys-
tal, through all the channels of the associated system.
The doctrine claimed by the prosecutor as the true
doctrine of the Confession and the Bible is, that to
fallen man there remains no ability of any kind or
degree to obey the gospel — that though he is a free
agent, it is a free agency which includes no ability of
any kind to obey God — and that none is necessary to
constitute perfect obligation to obey, and perfect ac
countability for disobedience. That the obligation to
obey may be infinite, and the punishment for disobe
dience just and eternal, where the obedience claimed
is a natural impossibility as really as the creation of
the world, or the raising of the dead. That I may
not be supposed to mistake or misrepresent, I quote

NATURAL ABILITY. 17
Dr. Wilson's views of free agency.
my own and the language of Dr. Wilson, as it occur
red before Presbytery, and is correctly reported.
Dr. B. — ' Dr. Wilson has made a distinct avowal,
that free agency and moral obligation to obey law do
not include any ability of any kind.''
Dr. W. — ' I limited that avowal to man in his fallen
state.' Dr. B. — ' Yes, so I understood it. We are talking
about man in his fallen state. Dr. Wilson then ad
mits, that it requires no ability of any sort in fallen
man, to make him an accountable agent, and a sub
ject of God's moral government.'
Dr. W. — ' With respect to fallen man, i" do}
Now it must be admitted, that in this avowal, Dr.
Wilson has the merit of magnanimous honesty. He
is fairly out on a subject where, with many a man for
an opponent, I should have had to ferret him out.
There can at least be no doubt as to what Dr. Wilson
does hold. If we are to go to Synod, this point will
be clear; and when the report is published, no man
can misunderstand this part of it. It is seldom that
we meet a man who would be willing to march right
up to such a position, without winking or mystifica
tion. But Dr. Wilson has done it unflinchingly and
thoroughly. He interprets the Confession of Faith
and the Bible as teaching that God may and does
command men to perform natural impossibilities ; and
justly punish them for ever, for not obeying! though
they could no more obey than they could create a
world! And he has riveted the matter by his mental
philosophy of the will. Instead of supposing a mind

18 NATURAL ABILITY.
Alleged heresy — possibility of obedience.
with powers of agency, acting freely in view of mo
tives, he supposes the will to be entirely dependent
on the constitution and condition of body and mind,
and external circumstances; and controlled by these
as absolutely as straws on the bosom of a river are
controlled by the motions of the water.*
It is claimed, then, by the prosecutor, that the
Confession of Faith and the Bible teach, that fallen
man has no ability of any kind to obey God, and that
none is .necessary to perfect obligation and the just
desert of eternal punishment.
Now my alleged heresy consists in believing and
teaching, that the constitutional powers of a free
agent, including the possibility of their correct exer
cise in obedience, is necessary to moral obligation,
and reward and punishment, under the benevolent,
wise, and just government of God.
AndTdo hold and teach, that while to a just liabil
ity to all the consequences of the fall on our constitu
tion and character, no ability of any kind on our part
to prevent or avert the curse existed, or was necessa
ry — the evil coming on us, his posterity, as the curse
of his disobedience through our constituted relation

* Dr. Wilson has said that the reporter has not done him justice.
How? Is not the dialogue verbatim as it took place? How has in
justice be.en done? Does he hold, that fallen man does possess
ability of some kind to obey as the foundation of moral obligation?
Then let him withdraw the charge of heresy on this point, for this
is all I hold ; and if he does not admit this, let him state in what re
spect he has been misrepresented — for it is a point on which there
is no middle ground. But Dr. Wilson will not say that his dialogue,
as reported, is not correct.

NATURAL ABILITY. 19
Faculties of a free agent.
to him as our federal head — yet, to a personal ac
countability to law and desert of punishment, ability
of some kind or degree, is certainly indispensable.
Some possibility of obedience in adult man is indis
pensable to personal obligation and a just punishment
for transgression. Liability to be involved in the
consequences, natural and moral, of the conduct of
those who represent us, is a law of human society,
and probably a law of the social, intelligent universe
— and as it existed and operated in the case of Adam
and his posterity, is doubtless a wise, benevolent,
and just constitution. But while a liability to suffer
the consequences of another's conduct, on the ground
of a just constitution of things, demands no ability to
avert the evil ; accountability for personal transgres
sion does require some ability to refuse the evil and
choose the good. There must be the faculties and
powers of a free agent, bearing the relation of possi
bility to right action. Faculties that can do nothing,
and powers that have no relation of a cause to its
effect, in possible action, are nonentities. A free
agency that cannot act at all in any way, is no free
agency; and a free agency, that has no power of
right action, is in that respect no free agency. There
must be an agent qualified to act as he is required
to act — something in his constitution which qualifies
him to be governed by law, and rewards and punish
ments — as matter and animals are not qualified. There
must be something which qualifies for obedience and
creates obligation which renders obedience possible,
and makes it reasonable that it should be rendered

20 NATURAL ABILITY.
Freedom of the will. Actual obedience not essential to free agency.
and rewarded, and just that disobedience should be
punished. Now I have taught and I do hold, that the mind of
man, though in a fallen state, is still endued by its
Creator 'with that natural liberty that it is neither
forced, nor by any absolute necessity of nature de
termined to good or evil, nor is violence offered to
the will of the creature' — nor is the liberty or con
tingency of second causes (i. e. the power of the soul
to choose life or death in the view of motives,) taken
away, but rather established. This is what I mean,
and all I mean, by the natural ability of man to obey
the gospel. Material causes, while upheld by heaven,
are adequate to their proper effects ; and the mind of
man, though fallen, is, while upheld, a cause sufficient
in respect to the possibility of obedience to create
infinite obligation. The fall perverted, but did not
destroy the free agency of man. Perverted the use
of his powers in action, but did not destroy the ex
istence of those powers which distinguish man as a
subject of moral government from animals, and lie at
the foundation of. all obligation. This is my alleged
heresy; and to decide that it is a heresy, is to decide
that the Confession of Faith and the Bible teach, that
to fallen man, no ability of any sort is necessary to
constitute infinite obligation, and a just desert of eter
nal punishment.
But while I thus insist on the existence of the
commensurate powers of an agent, as essential to
free agency and accountability, I do not believe, and
have never taught, that actual obedience is essential

NATURAL ABILITY. 21
Bias to actual sin not a coercive cause.
to free agency, or that the free agency which suffices
to create a perfect obligation to obey, ever suffices
without the special influence of the Holy Spirit to
secure in fallen man even the lowest degree of holy,
actual obedience. On the contrary, I hold-and teach,
that such a change in the constitution of man was
produced by the fall, as creates a universal and prev
alent propensity to actual sin — to the setting of the
affections on things below, and loving the creature
more than God — preventing in all meii the existence
of holiness, and securing the existence of that actual,
total depravity, which is enmity against God, not sub
ject to his law, neither indeed can be — a bias which
prevents the power of all truth and motives to reconcile
men to God till its power is overcome by the special in
fluence of the Holy Spirit in regeneration; and though
impaired by that event, still remains in the regenerate
until removed entirely by the Spirit, in making the
soul of the saint meet for heaven. I only say with
our Confession, that this bias to actual sin acts not in
the form of a coercive cause, creating a fatal and irre
sistible necessity of sinning, and of course constitutes
no excuse for actual sin, and no mitigation of the
curse due to it, or abatement of God's boundless
mercy in providing redemption for incorrigible man.
This impediment to obedience, arising from a preva
lent bias of nature and actual aversion to spiritual
obedience, is called in the Confession and the Bible,
inability to obey on account, as I suppose, of the
same absolute certainty between their existence and
the result, that appertains to natural oauses and their
3

22 NATURAL ABILITY.

Moral inability. Certainty of wrong action.
effects; and it is called a moral inability to indicate
that though wrong, as securing wrong action with un
failing certainty, it does so not by a fatal necessity of
sinning, but by an unnecessary, unreasonable, inex
cusable aversion of the soul to God and his reasonable
service. While I teach, therefore, the ability of man as a
free agent, and as the ground of obligation, I teach
his moral inability as a sinner — the subject of the
carnal mind which is- enmity against God — not sub
ject to his law, neither indeed can be.
In the true sense of the terms as employed in the
Confession, and in the Bible, and in the common and
well understood language of men, I teach that, 'no
mere man since the fall has been able perfectly to
keep the commandments of God — and that the natu
ral man cannot understand and know thp things of
the Spirit of God', because they are spiritually dis
cerned — and that no man can come to Christ, except
the Father draw him.'
I proceed now to show, that the preceding account
of man's free agency, and natural ability, and of
his total depravity and moral impotency, are the
doctrine of our Confession, arid of the Bible.
The point at issue is not, whether fallen man ever
did, or ever will, act right, in a spiritual sense,
without the regeneration of the Holy Spirit. It is
admitted, ahd insisted, and to be proved, that he
never did, and never will. The point at issue is — in
what manner the certainty of the continuous wrong
action of the mind comes to pass? Does it come to

NATURAL ABILITY. 23
The mind not forced to a wrong choice.
pass coerced or uncoerced by necessity ? Does fallen
man choose, under the influence of such a constitu
tion of body, and mind, and motive, that every voli
tion bears the relation of an effect to a natural and
necessary cause, rendering any other choice than the
one which comes to pass impossible in existing cir
cumstances? Or is fallen man still an agent, so
constituted that in every act of choice he is uncon
strained and uncoerced by any necessity, like that •
which binds natural effects to their causes? Is the
soul so exempt from the laws of a natural necessity,
that it is never forced to choose wrong; there exist
ing in every case the possibility and obligation
growing out of the possibility of a different, or con
trary choice? The latter is the view of free agency
and accountability which I shall endeavor to estab
lish, as the doctrine of the Confession and the Bible;
ahd, I. There is no reason to doubt that God is able
to create free agents, who being sustained and placed
under the illumination and influence of his laws and
perfect government, shall be able to obey or disobey
in the regular exercise of the powers of their own
mind. The alleged impossibility of created self-existing
agents acting independently of God, does not touch
the point: for the supposition of agency able to
choose the good and refuse the evil, does not imply
the mind's self-existence, but the efficacy of its pow
ers, while upheld; and it might as well be said that
God cannot create natural causes, which, while he

24 NATURAL ABILITY.
Creation and government of mind upon principles of free agency.
upholds them, can, by their own power, produce an
effect, as that he cannot create mind, which, while
upheld by him, is capable of acting right or wrong,
under the requirements and motives of his govern
ment; both lead to pantheism, denying all created
causes, and making God the only cause and the only
agent in the universe.
There is no perceptible difficulty in creating mind,
more than in creating matter — in creating active,
than passive existence — or thinking, than unthinking
— voluntary, than involuntary being. It is just as
conceivable that God should create mind endowed
with an energy which, while it is sustained, is com
mensurate to every requisite action under his govern
ment, by its own power, as that he should create
passive matter, dependent for every movement and
change on external causation.
How God can originate existence of any kind, is
incomprehensible, but no one can prove it to be im
possible. The creation of an intelligent universe, of
free, accountable minds, capable of all the responsi
bilities of a perfect, eternal government, is just as
conceivable therefore, as the creation of hills and
valleys, plants and animals.
II. If it be possible to create and govern mind upon
the principles of -free agency, and a perfect and per
manent moral government, the presumption is strong
that this is in fact the divine plan. What other con
ceivable course could the wisdom of God devise so
comprehensive of good, as the creation of a universe
of mind, with its constitutional susceptibilities, and

NATURAL ABILITY. 25
Animal life. Capabilities of mind.
active, and social, and voluntary powers; qualified
for all the results of a government of perfect laws,
perfectly administered?
It is self-evident that the creation of unorganized
matter could not illustrate the copiousness and
power of the Divine benevolence. God might
amuse himself with curious workmanship, but how
could he impart happiness to unorganized mat
ter? It is equally clear that mere animal life
falls, in its capacity of enjoyment, unspeakably
below the capabilities of mind. How limited is the
range of the monotonous appetites! How narrow
the circle of mere fleeting, instinctive action; and
how feeble the momentary tie of natural affection,
compared with its corroboration by ties of blood,
and habits of intercourse, and the illumination of
reason, and the powers of memory, and the light of
an anticipated eternity, of unextinguished, purified,
augmented and reciprocated friendship!
How immeasurable is that expansion of capacity
in man, above the animal, which opens the eye of his
intellect upon the character, will, and government
of God; which brings him into fellowship with his
Maker, and opens before him the joys of a blessed
immortality; associated with a reasonable service,
and benevolent activity, under the high and perfect
guidance of heaven.
A single mind, through a duration which will never
end, may be capable of more enjoyment than it
were, in the nature of things, possible to pour
through the narrow channels of animal instinct
3*

NATURAL ABILITY.

God's benevolence displayed in the creation of mind.
and appetite. The river of pleasure is of course rep
resented as flowing from the throne of God and the
Lamb, i. e. as being the result of his intelligent crea
tion and moral government; what an ocean of bless
edness, compared to the drops of the bucket, which
any other conceivable mode of being could have
received! A universe, that can live in the past,
present, and future, and experience a copiousness
and variety of blessedness unknown to the moping
animal— to have stopped at the limits of animalism,
and forborne to create mind, would have been to
prefer the ray to the sun — the atom to the universe.
It would seem to be manifest and certain, then, that
for the most perfect manifestation of his wisdom
and benevolence, the Supreme Intelligence would
call into being around him, other beings like himself,
to hold communion with him and with one another,
and after his own illustrious example to be made
happy by their own benevolent activity in doing
good; would create mind — and wake up intelligence
round about his throne, for the mirrors of creation
to throw back the light of his glory upon — hearts to
burn with love, and wills to obey, and energy to
act,* with high deservings of good or evil — a universe
so powerful in intellect as to be able to look with
open face and steadfast vision upon the strong light of
his glory, and so capacious of heart as to be able to
receive the tide of joy which his benevolence shall
pour through the soul — so energetic as to sustain the
strong emotion which his excellence produces, and
to perform for ever untiringly the glorious work of

NATURAL ABILITY. 27
Attributes of mind. Mental energy.
benevolence — and so free that all its actions under
the guidance of law shall be its own, and invested
with all the attributes of a perfect accountability,
which, in all its consequences of good or evil shall reach
through eternity — social, also, we should expect it to
be, holding affectionate communion with God and
other minds; capable of moral excellence and all the
fulness of perfect friendship and society. Obliterate
conscious intelligence, and voluntariness, and ac
countability from the human mind — -disrobe it of its
spontaneous affections, and mutual complacencies,
and you put down the race to the mere caricature of
manhood. There must exist the power of intellect, perception,
comparison, judgment, conscience, will, affections,
taste, memory, the discursive power of thought, the
semi-omnipotence of volition, and those exercises of
soul which constitute personal excellence and inspire
affection. It is only in the possession of these powers that
individual happiness is enjoyed. Convince a man
that he is only the instinctive animal of a day, and
you brutalize him. We love and are beloved, admire
and are admired ; we are praised or blamed on the
ground of a real mental energy of our own, capable
of such high and eternal responsibilities. Blot out the
intelligence and spontaneous affection of husband and
wife, of parent and child, and the family is ruined; the
moral attractions cease; its sun goes down, and it
becomes a den of animals.
In the nature of things, the existence of a universe

28 NATURAL ABILITY.
Free agents have power to choose life or death.
of mind, of free agents, of rational, social, accounta
ble beings, would seem to be indispensable to the
highest illustration and expression of the goodness
of God.
III. God has actually made free agents who were
able in the exercise of their created powers to choose
either way — life or death.
This is the doctrine of our Confession and Cate
chisms. ' Man in his state of innocency had freedom
and power to will and to do that which is good and
well pleasing to God; but yet mutably so that he
might fall from it.' — Confess. Ch. ix. Sec. 2.
' Our first parents being left to the freedom of their
own will, fell from the state wherein they were crea
ted, by sinning against God.' — Shorter Catechism,
p. 322.
It is the testimony of the Bible: 'Lo, this only have
I found that God made man upright — but he sought
out many inventions.' — Ecc. vii. 29.
It is a part of the recorded history of the intelli
gent universe, and of God's moral government, that
the angels kept not their first estate — and that man
being in honor abode not.
Now had Adam, created holy, been free to choose
obedience only, and that by a natural, constitutional,
unavoidable necessity, so that by the power of natur
al causation, his choice must be in accordance with
his, character and constitution of mind, and the con
stitution of things around him, or the active princi
ple which prevailed in his nature when volition took
place; how could he be said to have power to will

NATURAL ABILITY. 29
The Fall did not destroy the constitutional powers of free agency.
that which is good, yet mutably so that he might fall
from it, and how could he possibly fall ? But he had
power to stand and power to fall; and that is the
essence of free agency, and was the ground of his
accountability. IV. Nothing is apparent in the nature of the fall
from which to infer necessarily the destruction of
the constitutional powers of free agency in Adam,
or his posterity. It was an overt act — an actual sin.
'In evil hour he put forth the hand and plucked and
ate the fruit forbidden.' But does actual sin destroy
the possibility of right action? It creates aversion —
it secures the certainty under law of continuance in
evil if unreclaimed by a mediator and almighty power.
But does it do this by a constitutional necessity, like
the power of a natural cause to its effect? If so, the
adulterer, and the drunkard, and the liar, would like
to alleviate their remorse and quiet their fearful look
ing for of fiery indignation, by the consoling inform
ation that the more they live after the flesh, the
deeper the oblivion of accountability, and crime, and
punishment. But the Bible nowhere teaches, and the Confession
expressly denies, that Adam or his posterity lost
their powers of agency by the fall, and became impo
tent to good on the ground of a natural impossibility
of obedience.
Did the change of character, then, which the fall
occasioned, preclude the possibility of subsequent
obedience in- Adam? What was the change? It was
the utter loss of all holiness, and the prevalence of

30 NATURAL ABILITY.
Powers of agency requisite to obligation. Possibility of obedience.
entire depravity — every imagination of the thoughts
of his heart became evil, and only evil continually.
But does total depravity render spiritual obedience a
natural impossibility? How? Did the perfect holi
ness of Adam render sinning impossible? How then
did he sin? Did God help him? Did the Devil force
him? But if perfect holiness does not destroy the
possibility of sinning, how should perfect sinfulness
destroy the possibility of obedience? Is there not as
much in the 'state of man' as holy, 'including all his
rational, animal, and moral powers, with the active
principle which prevails in him,' to make disobedience
impossible to a holy mind, as in the same state of things
in an unholy mind, to render obedience impossible?
But if perfect holiness does not destroy the natural
possibility of sinning, how does perfect sinfulness de
stroy the natural possibility of obedience? And if the
fall did not destroy the natural powers of agency in
Adam, which rendered obedience possible, obligatory,
and a reasonable service, how should it destroy in his
posterity those powers and responsibilities, which it
did not obliterate in himself? Has the fall overacted
and come down with greater desolation on the rep
resented, than on the federal head and representa
tive of his race?
V. That man possesses, since the fall, the powers
of agency requisite to obligation, on the ground of the
possibility of obedience, is a matter of notoriety.
Not one of the powers of mind which constituted
ability before the fall, have been obliterated by that
event. All that has ever been conceived, or that can

NATURAL ABILITY. 31
Obedience a reasonable service. Nature of choice.

now be conceived, as entering into the constitution
of a free agent capable of choosing life or death, or
which did exist in Adam when he could and did obey,
yet mutable, survive the fall. The intellect, the
conscience, the susceptibilities of the soul to pleasure
and pain, and the heart, including the will and affec
tions of the soul — all these as certainly exist and as
plainly exist as the five senses.
That nothing has been subtracted by the fall from
the powers of agency requisite to the possibility of
obedience, is strongly evident from the fact, that no
one, by the most careful analysis of the mind, has
ever been able to detect and name the fatal deficiency.
The motive to make such an exculpatory discovery,
and throw - off hated obligation and feared punish
ment, has been as powerful as the terrors of eternity;
and the effort as constant as the flow of ages — and
urged with all that talenl, and ingenuity, and
learning could apply, and the wisdom from beneath
inspire to establish the excusable impotency of man;
and to this day the effort has been abortive. To
appearance, the powers of the mind, and the law of
God, and the glorious gospel, and the providence of
God are, as they should be, to render obedience a
reasonable service, and impenitence and unbelief
without excuse; and where, amid the constitutional
powers of agency, the defect lies, has never been dis
covered — what it is, has never been told — or that
there is any such defect, proved.
VI. Choice, in its very nature, implies the possibility
of a different or Contrary election to that which is

32 NATURAL ABILITY.
Fatality of choice. Doctrine ofthe christian fathers.
made. ' There is always an alternative to that which
the mind decides on, with the conscious power of
choosing either. In the simplest form of alternative,
it is to choose or not to choose in a given way; but
in most cases, the alternatives lie between two or
many objects of choice presented to the mind; and
if you deny to mind this alternative power — if you
insist that by a constitution anterior to choice, of the
nature of a natural cause to its effect, the choice
which takes place can come, and cannot but come into
being, and that none other than this can by any pos
sibility exist, you have as perfect a fatality of choice,
as ever Pagan or Atheist, or Antinomian conceived.
The question of free will is not whether man chooses
— this is notorious, none deny it; but, whether his
choice is free as opposed to a fatal necessity — as op
posed to the laws of instinct and natural causation;
whether it is the act of a mind so qualified for choice,
as to decide between alternatives, uncoerced by the
energy of a natural cause to its effect; whether it is
the act of an agent who might have abstained from
the choice he made, and made one which he did not.
To speak of choice as being free, which is produced
by the laws of a natural necessity, and which cannot
but be when and what it is, more than the effects of
natural causes can govern the time, and manner, and
qualities of their being, is a perversion of language.
The doctrine of the christian fathers, and of Luther and
Calvin, and all theprotestant confessions and standard
writers, is not merely that men act by volition or choice,
the choice being the effect of natural causes, a.s

NATURAL ABILITY. 33
Fatality of agency, illustrated.
really and entirely as the falling of rain, or the elec
tric spark, or the involuntary shock that attends it.
They meant and taught that the will is high above
the coercion of natural causation, the fatality of the
Stoics, Gnostics, Manicheans, or Epicureans; that it
is the action of the mind of an intelligent agent, free
as opposed to coercion or constraint; so that if the
mental decision is right, it is properly associated
with a reward, and if wrong, with punishment — an
act which might, in possibility, have been refrained
from, or resolved on when declined. This is what
our Confession teaches and means, when it says that
' God hath endued the will of man with that natural
liberty that it is neither forced, nor by any absolute
necessity of nature determined, to good or evil; and
that God's decrees, which extend to every event,
'offer no violence to the will of the creature, and
take not away, but rather establish the liberty and
contingency of second causes' — meaning by contin
gency, as Dr. Twiss says every university scholar
knows, ' things which come to pass avoidably, and
with a possibility of not coming to pass.' This is the
language of our own Confession in respect to the
voluntary actions of men as contingent, i. e., as
avoidable and with a possibility of not coming to pass.
To illustrate the fatality of an agency, in which
choice is the unavoidable effect of a natural con
stitutional and coercive causation, let us suppose an
extended manufactory, all whose wheels, like those
in Ezekiel's vision, were inspired with intelligence,
and instinct with life, — some crying holy! holy! as
4

34 NATURAL ABILITY.
Edwards' view of free agency.
they rolled, and others aloud blaspheming God; all
voluntary in their praises and blasphemies; but the
volitions, like the motions of the wheels themselves,
produced by the great water-wheel and the various
bands which kept the motion, and the adoration, and
the blasphemy agoing: how much accountability
would attach to these voluntary praises and blas
phemies produced by the laws of water power; and
what would, it avail to say, as a reason for justifying
God in punishing these blasphemies — oh! but they
are free, they are voluntary, they choose to blas
pheme? Truly, indeed, they blaspheme voluntarily;
but their choice to do so is necessary in the same
sense that the motion of the great wheel which the
water, by the power of gravity turns, is necessary,
and just as destitute of accountability.
In this account of free agency, the ablest writers
concur. Edwards says, ' In every act of will what
ever, the mind chooses one thing rather than an
other, the will's determining between the two is
voluntary determining; and to act voluntarily, is
to act electively where things are chosen.' ' There
are faculties of mind,' he says, 'and capacity of
nature, and every thing else sufficient but a disposi
tion. Nothing is wanting but a will.' 'A moral
agent is a being that is capable of those actions that
have a moral quality, and which can properly be
denominated good or evil.' Edwards the younger
says, ' If by power, be meant natural power, I grant
that we have such a power to choose, not only one

NATURAL ABILITY. 35
Back's view of free agency. Fatalism.
of several things equally eligible, if any such there
be, but one of things ever so unequally eligible, and
to take the least eligible.' ' Liberty or freedom
must mean freedom from something, if it be a free
dom from coaction or natural necessity, that is what
we mean by freedom.' Buck, on the article Neces*
sity, says, ' Necessity is, whatever is done by a cause
of power that is irresistible, in which sense it is
opposed to freedom. Man is a necessary agent, if
all his actions' be so determined by the causes pre
ceding each action, that not one past action could
possibly not have come to pass, or have been other
wise than it hath been, nor one future action can
possibly not come to pass, or be otherwise than it
shall be. On the other hand, it is asserted, that he is
a free agent, if he be able at any time, under the
causes and circumstances he then is, to do different
things; or, in other words, if he be not unavoidably
determined in every point of time by the circum
stances he is in, and the causes he is under, to do any
one thing he does, and not possibly to do any other
thing.' And Dr. Woods says, ' The power of choos
ing right or wrong makes him [man] a moral agent;
his actually choosing wrong, makes him a sinner.'
VII. Choice, without the possibility of other or
contrary choice, is the immemorial doctrine of
fatalism. I say not that all who assert the natural inability
of man are fatalists. I charge them not with holding
or admitting the consequences of their theory — and I
mean nothing unkind or invidious, in the proposition

36 NATURAL ABILITY.
Laws of choice. Certainty of choice. Uniformity of choice.
I h ave laid down, and truth and argument are not
invidious. But I say, that the theory of choice,
that it is what it is by a natural, constitutional
necessity, and that a man cannot help choosing
what he does choose, and can by no possibility ,
choose otherwise, is the doctrine of fatalism in all
its forms. That there are laws of choice, so uniform
that in the same circumstances, the action of mind
can be anticipated with great certainty, is not denied.
That choice is in accordance with the state of body
and mind, and character, and external circumstances,
may be admitted, or that it is as the greatest appar
ent good is, may be admitted; but that it is so neces
sarily, to the exclusion of all ability of any kind to be
other than it is, cannot be admitted, without aban
doning the field of God's government of accountable
agents, and going to the very centre of the region of
fatalism. The certainty of choice in given circum
stances does not decide the manner of the certainty,
as one of natural necessity, without power to the
contrary. That a man always, in the same cir-
cumstances> chooses alike, is no evidence that he had
no ability of any kind to choose otherwise, and
chooses by a fatal necessity. Uniformity of choice,
in the same circumstances, is just as consistent with
free agency and natural ability, as with necessity
and fatalism. But that choice, without the power of
contrary choice, is fatalism in all its diversified forms,
is obvious to inspection, and a matter of historical
record. The fatality of the Stoics was an eternal
series of cause and effect, controlling by inexorable

NATURAL ABILITY. 37
Fatalism — Gnostic, Manichean, Pantheistic, Atheistic.
necessity all events, from which the will of gods and
men were not exempt. The fatality of Epicurus is
a material fatality; he denied the existence of spirit,
and held to the universal empire of natural causes
over mind in all its voluntary actions.
The Gnostic fatality made sin an eternal prop
erty of matter, and the contamination of mind the
result of bodily innoculation and contact, and by an
unavoidable necessity, precluding freedom of will as
utterly as the communication of disease by virus.
The Manicheans held with the Gnostics to the cor
ruption of matter, and also to sin in the essence or
substance of the soul ; both making sin a matter of
necessity, independent of choice, and controling vo
lition as natural causes, produce their effects.
The fatalism of Spinoza was material and panthe
istic, making God the soul of the world and the only
agent, and himself subject to a self-existent, eternal
necessity of action, and the author alike of sin and
holiness. The fatalism of Descartes was the atomic theory,
the fortuitous concourse of atoms — intelligence in
results without an intelligent being — design without
a designer — and choice, the product of the happy
concurrence of material accidents.
The fatalism of the French revolutionary atheists,
was Sadducean ; that all existence is material, and all
its combinations and changes the result of material
laws in the form of natural cause and effect; that
mind is matter/ and that volition is the result of
material action; and that death, the decomposition of
4*

38 NATURAL ABILITY.
Fatalism.— R. D. Owen, Bolingbroke, Hobbs, Hume, Priestly.

the body, is an eternal sleep. This is the fatalism of
Robert Dale Owen and Fanny Wright.
The fatalism of Bolingbroke, and Hobbs, and
Hume, was made to approximate a little more to
the confines of rationality and truth, but not near
enough to leave necessity behind and bring them un
der the government of God as free, accountable crea
tures. If they admitted the existence of mind and
spirit distinct from matter, (of which there is some
doubt,) they clothed motives, as the antecedents of
volition, with the coercive power of material causes
to their effects, and thus destroyed the liberty of the
will, and introduced a universal coercive necessity
of choice, just in all cases as it is without the possi
bility of one more or less, or different from those
which actually come to pass.
The necessity of Priestly and Belsham was mate
rial, and all volition in accordance with the laws and
action of material causes. That motives produce
volition necessarily on the same principle that natu
ral causes produce their effects; so that choice, as the
spontaneous action of mind, enlightened, and guided,
and influenced by law and motive, has no existence,
but is in all cases the passive effect of antecedent
natural causation, as incapable with accountability and
desert of punishment as the sparks that rise by their
less specific gravity than that of the surrounding
atmosphere, or the rain drops that fall by their supe
rior gravity to the sustaining element.
VIII. The supposition of accountability for choice,
coerced by a natural necessity, is contrary to the

NATURAL ABILITY. 39
Accountability for choice. Continued obligation and responsibility.
nature of things as God has constituted them. The
relation of cause and effect pervades the universe.
'The natural world is full of it. It is the basis of
all science, and of all intellectual operations with
respect to mind. Can the intellect be ¦ annihilated
and thinking go on? No more can the power of
choice be annihilated and free agency remain. Is
there not a capacity of choice with power of con
trary choice in angels? and was there not in Adam
before he fell? But all the powers of the mind, per
ception, association, abstraction, memory, taste and
feeling, conscience, and capacity of choice, which
were required and did exist when man was created
free, are still required to constitute free agency; and
can it be that when all which capacitated Adam freely
to choose is demolished, that the Lord still requires
of his posterity that they, without the powers of their
ancestor, should exercise the perfect obedience that
was demanded of him. Do the requisitions of law
continue when all the necessary antecedents to obe
dience are destroyed? Has God required effects
without a cause? If he has, then he has in the case
of man, violated the analogies of the whole universe.
For in the natural world there is no effect without a
cause, nor is there in the intellectual world. How
then can it be, that the same analogy does not hold
in the moral world, where there exists such tremen
dous responsibilities? What! will God send men to
hell, for not doing impossibilities — for not producing
an effect without a cause?'
IX. 'The supposition of continued obligation and

40 NATURAL ABILITY.
Effect without a cause. Foundation of accountability,
responsibility after all the powers of causation are
gone, is contrary to the common sense and intuitive
perception of all mankind. On the subject of moral
obligation, all men can see and do see that there can
be no effect without a cause. Men are so constituted,
that they cannot help seeing and feeling this. That
nothing cannot produce something is an intuitive per
ception, and you cannot prevent it. This is the basis
of that illustrious demonstration by which we prove
the being of a God. For if one thing may exist with
out a cause, all things may; and we are yet to get
hold of the first stran of an argument to prove the
existence of a God. All men see that to require
what there is not preparation for, is to demand an
effect without a cause. What is the foundation of
accountability? It is the possession of something to
be accounted for. But if any man does not possess
the capacity of choice with power to the contrary,
he sees and feels that he is not to blame, and you
cannot with more infallible certainty make men be
lieve, and fix them in the belief, that they are not
responsible, than to teach them that they have not
the power of alternative election. It is the way
to make a man a fatalist. But you cannot do it.
God has put that in the breast of man which cannot
be reasoned away. Every man knows and feels that
he has power and is responsible. Men never associate
blame with the qualities of will or action, on the
supposition of a natural impossibility that they should
be otherwise, but always on the supposition that they
were able to have chosen or acted otherwise. What

NATURAL ABILITY. 41
Power of choice, a ground of accountability. Monomania.
would be the education of a family on this principle?
There is not a child five years old, but understands
this. He breaks a plate, or spoils a piece of furni
ture, and when he apprehends punishment, he pleads
with confidence, that he did not mean to do it. His
language is, ' I could'nt help it,' -and on that plea he
rests. The child understands it ; and the parent under
stands it, and all human laws are built upon it. Why
is not an idiot punished when he commits a crime?
For the lack of that natural ability which alone makes
him responsible. Why are not lunatics treated as
subjects of law? Because their reason has been so
injured as to destroy free agency, and with it to put
an end to their accountability. Look at the govern
ment of a family. If one child is an idiot, the parent
does not trust that child as he does the rest. He feels
and admits, that the poor idiot is not responsible for
its acts; and the same principle holds in the case of
monomania, where the mind is deranged in one par
ticular respect. I was myself acquainted with a case
of this sort. I knew an individual in whom all the
powers were perfect — save that the power of associ
ation was wanting; that faculty by which one thought
draws on another; and she was a perfect curiosity.
She would commence talking on one subject, and be
fore the sentence was complete, she would commence
on another, which had not the remotest connection
with it, and in an instant pass to a third, which was
foreign from both; and thus she would hop, skip, and
jump over all the world — there was no concatenation
of thought. Now, suppose this woman had been re-

42 NATURAL ABILITY.
Freedom of choice, a matter of universal consciousness.
quired to deliver a Fourth of July Oration, admitting
that she possessed all the knowledge and talent in
other respects, necessary to such a task; on her
failing to do it, is she to be taken to the whipping post,
and lacerated for that which she wanted the natural
ability to do? The magistrate who would award
such a sentence, would at once become infamous —
and shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?
Will the glorious and righteous Jehovah reap where
he has not sown, and gather where he has not strew
ed? Will he require obedience,. where all power to
obey is gone ? Men do not require that, when even
one faculty is gone; and will God, when all are gone,
come and take his creature by the throat and say to
him, pay that thou owest? That was the libel which
the slothful servant brought against his Lord : ' I knew
thee that thou wast a hard master, reaping where
thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not
strown, and I was afraid.' Who would not be afraid
under such. a ruler? Who could tell what would come
next? God requires according to that which a man
hath, and not according to that which he hath not.
Were it otherwise, who could tell what wantonness
and What oppression might not proceed from heaven's
high throne?
It is a matter of universal consciousness, that men
are free to choose right or wrong, life or death.
Of nothing are men more thoroughly informed, or
more competent to judge unerringly, than in respect
to their mode of voluntary action, as coerced or
free.

NATURAL ABILITY. 43
No alternative, but universal scepticism.
Testimony may mislead, and the sense by disease
may deceive; but consciousness is the end of all con-'
troversy; its evidence cannot be increased, and if it'
be distrusted, there is no alternative but universal
scepticism. Our consciousness of the mode of men
tal action in choice, as uncoerced and free, equals our
consciousness of existence itself; and the man who
doubts either, gives indications of needing medical
treatment instead of argument. When a man does
wrong, and then reflects upon the act, he feels that
he was free and is responsible 5 and so when he looks
forward to a future action. When, for example, he
deliberates whether he shall commit a theft, he list
ens to the pleading of cowardice or conscience on
the one side, and of covetousness and laziness on the
other. All these things come up and are looked at,
and after considering them, he at length screws up
his mind to the point and does the deed; and when
he has done it, does he not know, does he not feel,
that he could have chosen the other way? If not,
why did he balance when he was considering? Did
he not know that he had power to act, and power
to leave it undone? And when it is past recal, is he
not conscious that he need not have done it? And
does he not say in his remorse, lam sorry thati did it?
I say, therefore, it is a matter of common consciousness
to all mankind, that they act uncoerced and with the
power of acting otherwise: Give a child an apple and
an orange; after he has eaten the orange, he will wish
he had it back again, and he will say I wish. I had eaten
the apple and kept the orange. But why, if he did not

44 NATURAL ABILITY.
Universal consciousness, illustrated.
feel that at the time he had the power to keep the
orange and eat the apple ? Yes, men have the power;
and the consciousness that they have it, will go with
them through eternity. What says God, when he
warns the sinner of the consequences of his evil
choice ? ' Lest thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh
and thy body are consumed, and say, how have I
hated instruction and my heart despised reproof, and
have not obeyed the voice of my teacher, nor in
clined mine ear to them that instructed me.' Incur
able regret will arise from the perfect consciousness
that when he did .evil he did it freely, of choice,
under no coercion; that the act was his own, and
that he is justly responsible for it. This is the
worm that never dies; this, this is the fire that never
shall be quenched. And because this consciousness
is in men, you never can reason them out of a sense
of their accountability. Many have tried it, but none
have effectually, or for any length of time succeeded;
and the reason is plain, there is nothing which the
mind is more conscious of than the fact of its own
voluntary action with the power of acting right or
wrong — the mind sees and knows, and regrets when
it has done wrong. Take away this consciousness and
there is no remorse. You cannot produce remorse,
as long as a man feels that his act was not his own —
that it was not voluntary but the effect of compul
sion. He may ,dread the consequences, but you
never can make him feel remorse for the act on its
own account. This is the reason why men who
have reasoned away the existence of God and argued

NATURAL ABILITY. 45
Universal consciousness, illustrated.
to prove that the soul . is nothing, but matter, know,
as soon as they reflect, that all their reasoning is false.
There is a lamp within, which they cannot extinguish;
and after all their metaphysics, they are conscious
that they act freely, and that there is a God to whom
they are accountable; and hence it is that when they
cross the ocean, and a storm comes on, and they
expect to go to the bottom, they begin straightway
to pray to God and confess their sins.'
The natural impossibility of choosing otherwise
than we do choose, is contrary, then, not only to the
common sense and intuitive perceptions of men, but
contrary to their internal consciousness. There is a
deep and universal consciousness in all men as to the
freedom of choice; and in denying this, you reverse
God's constitution of man. You assume that God
gave a deceptive constitution to mind, or a deceptive
consciousness. Now I think that God is as honest
in the moral world as he is in the natural world. I
believe that in our consciousness he tells. the truth;
and that the natural constitution, anduniversalfeelings
and perceptions of men are the voice of God speaking
the truth; and if the truth is not here, where may we
expect to find it?
It has been insisted by some, that in looking for the
ground of accountability, men never go beyond the
fact itself of voluntariness; if the deed, whether good
or evil, be voluntary, that satisfies. It does; but it is
because all men include, unfailingly, both in their the
ory and consciousness, the supposition of powers of
agency unhindered and uncoerced by any fatal neces-
5

46 NATURAL ABILITY.
Power of choice practically acknowledged.
sity. But convince them that choice is an effect, over
which mind has no more control than over the drops
of rain, and the common sense of the world would
revolt against the accountability of choice, merely be
cause it was choice. There is therefore a universal
practical confession of man's free agency, as including
the capacity of choice, uncoerced and free. All men
claim a desert of reward for welldoing, and com
plain of ingratitude and injustice, when it is denied.
They admit and insist that those who injure them in
person, good name, or substance, deserve punishment.
They admit that laws, and rewards, and punishments
are necessary to the government of men, and just,
when administered according to their deeds. Even
atheists and fatalists can rail against superstition
and priestcraft, and bigotry, and persecution, as
deserving execration and punishment; an evidence
that when consciousness and common sense prevail,
their sceptical theory is a dead letter. A nation of
atheists were constrained, in words and deeds, to
falsify their philosophy; and in the family and in the
government, to talk and act as if men were free
agents, and accountable for their deeds.
XI. All attempts to govern man and form his char
acter, and elevate his condition, upon any other sup
position than his spontaneous agency, perverts his
nature and debases society. Just in proportion as
mental culture is superseded by force, he sinks in the
scale of being till he becomes a stupid or a ferecious
animal. Treat men as if they were dogs, and soon
they will act like dogs. But the moment you treat

NATURAL ABILITY. 47
No obligation to do impossibilities. God cannot work impossibilities.
them as free moral agents and responsible for their
actions, that moment you begin to elevate them:
treat a child with affection, repose confidence in
him, and address his reason, he feels that he is raised,
and he acts accordingly; and just as you depart from
this course, you become unable to manage your child.
He gets out of your hands; he gets above you; for as
respects his relation to you, he is indomitable. The
will of man is stronger than anything in the uni
verse, except the Almighty God; and if you disregard
this truth, you ruin your child.
XII. God requires of his subjects only conformity
to himself — to his own moral excellence; but he
admits of no obligation on himself to work impossi
bilities: and does he impose obligations on his subjects,
which he himself refuses to assume ? He does not regard
it as an excellence in himself to work impossibilities:
does he eommand it as a virtue in his subjects?
He has no desire to work impossibilities himself:
why should he desire it in his creatures? He has
never tried, and never will try, to work an impossibi
lity: and why should he eommand his creatures to do
whathe himself neither desires nor tries to accomplish?
He cannot work impossibilities: and how can it be
thought that he will require of his creatures, that
which he himself cannot do ?
XIII. This doctrine of the natural ability of
choice, commensurate with obligation, has been, and
is, the received doctrine of the universal orthodox
church, from the primitive age down to this day.
1. say not that no respectable ministers or mem-

48 NATURAL ABILITY.
Christian fathers on freedom ofthe will. Justin Martyr.
bers of the churches have held a different doctrine ;
but I say that their number is so small, and the mul
titude so great and continuous who have taught the
contrary doctrine, that it stands, unimpeached and
unbroken, as the universally received doctrine of the
orthodox christian church in all ages.
I begin with the doctrine of the christian fathers,
as quoted by Dr. Scott, in his remarks on Tomline's
Refutation of Calvinism.
It is, however, to be remembered, and noted care
fully in reading this testimony of the fathers, that by
free will,'' they mean a will free as opposed to the
coercion of fate — the supposed necessity of a series
of natural causes, by which the wills of God and man
were controlled. The question whether the will is
free in a moral sense, as biased to evil since the fall,
or impartial and unbiased, had not then come up in
the church. The moral bias to evil was admitted,
taken for granted, and not publicly controverted till
the time of Pelagius. Their doctrine of free will,
therefore, is not the Pelagian or Arminian doctrine,
but the anti-fatalism doctrine of mind free as unco
erced in choice, and with the power always of con
trary choice ; and in this view, I begin with Justin
Martyr, A. D. 140.
'But lest any one should imagine, that I am assert
ing that things happen by a necessity of fate, because
I have said that things are foreknown, I proceed to
refute that opinion also. That punishments and
chastisements and good rewards are given according
to the worth of the action of every one, having learnt

NATURAL ABILITY. 49
Freedom of the will — Tatian, Irenseus.
it from the Prophets, we declare to be true : since if
it were not so, but all things to happen according to
fate, nothing would be in our power; for if it were
decreed by fate, that one should be good, and another
bad, no praise would be due to the former, or blame
to the latter. And again, if mankind had not the
power, by free will, to avoid what is disgraceful and
to choose what is good, they would not be responsi
ble for their actions.' p. 13.
' Because God from the beginning endowed angels
and men with free will, they justly receive punish
ment of their sins in everlasting fire. For it is the
nature of every one who is born, to be capable of
virtue and vice; for nothing would deserve praise, if
it has not the power of turning itself away.' p. 25..
This language of Justin is as plain as it can be.
That to free agency and accountability, the natural
ability of choice with power to the contrary, is indis
pensable. Tatian, A. D. 172. — 'Free will destroyed us. Be
ing free, we became slaves; we were sold, because of
sin. No evil proceeds from God. We have produced
wickedness; but those who have produced it have it
in their power again to remove it} p. 31. [i. e. the
natural power of choosing life or death.]
Irenseus, A. D. 178. — 'But man being endowed with
reason, and in this respect like to God, being made
free in his will, and having power over himself, is the
cause that sometimes he becomes wheat and some
times chaff. Wherefore he will also be justly con
demned ; because, being made rational, he lost true
5*

50 NATURAL ABILITY.
Freedom of the will — Clement, Tertullian.
reason ; and living irrationally, he opposed the justice
of God, delivering himself up to every earthly spirit,
and serving all lusts.' p. 35.
' But if some men were bad by nature, (i. e. by a
natural necessity) and others good — neither the good
would deserve praise, for they were created so, nor
would the bad deserve blame, being born so. But
since all men are of the same nature, and able to lay
hold of and do that which is good, and able to reject
it again, and not do it, some justly receive praise,
even from men, who act according to good laws, and
some much more from God; and obtain deserved tes
timony of generally choosing and persevering in that
which is good: but others are blamed, and receive the
deserved reproach of rejecting that which is just and
good. And therefore the Prophets enjoined men to
do justice and perform good works.' p. 42.
Clement of Alexandria, A. D. 194. — 'Neither
praise nor dispraise, nor honors nor punishments,
would be just, if the soul had not the power of de
siring and rejecting — if vice were involuntary.' p. 54.
'As therefore he is to be commended, who uses his
power in leading a virtuous life; so much more is he
to be venerated and adored, who has given us this
free and sovereign power, and has permitted us to
live — not having allowed what we choose or what we
avoid to be subject to a slavish necessity.' p. 54.
Tertullian, A. D. 200.— 'I find that man was form
ed by God with free will and with power over him
self, observing in him no image or likeness to God
more than in this respect: — for he was not formed

NATURAL ABILITY. 51
Freedom of the will — Origen.
after' God, who is uniform in face, bodily lines, &c.
which are so various in mankind, but in that substance
which he derived from God himself: that is, the soul —
answering to the form of God; and he was stamped
with the freedom-of his will.
' The law itself, which was then imposed by God,
confirmed this condition of man. For a law would
not have been imposed on a person who had not in
his power the obedience due to the law; nor, again,
would transgression have been threatened with death,
if the contempt also of the law were not placed to the
account of man's free will.
'•He who should be found to be good or bad by
necessity,' and not voluntarily, could not with justice
receive the retribution either of good or evil.' p. 64.
This demands no comment.
Origen, A. D. 220. — ' Whence, consequently, we
may understand, that we are not subject to necessity,
so as to be compelled by all means to do either bad
or good things, although it be against our will. For
if we be masters of one will, some powers, perhaps,
may urge us to sin, and others assist us to safety;
yet we are not compelled by necessity to act either
rightly or wrongly.'
' According to us, there is nothing in any rational
creature, which is not capable of good as well as
evil. There is no nature that does not admit of good
and evil, except that of God, which is the foundation of
all good} p. 66.
' We have frequently shown in all our disputations,
that the nature of rational souls is such as to be capa-

52 NATURAL ABILITY.
Freedom of the will — Cyprian, Lactantius, Eusebius.
ble of good and evil. Every one has the power of
choosing good and choosing evil} p. 67.
'A thing does not happen because it was fore
known; but it was foreknown, because it would hap
pen. This distinction is necessary. For if any one
so interprets what was to happen as to make what
was foreknown necessary, we do not agree with him;
for we do not say that it was necessary for Judas to
be a traitor, although it was foreknown that Judas
would be a traitor. For in the prophecies concern
ing Judas, there are complaints and accusations
against him, publicly proclaiming the circumstance
of his blame ; but he would be free from blame, if he
had been a traitor from necessity, and if it had been
impossible for him to be like the other apostles.' pp.
80, 81.
Cyprian, A. D. 248. — 'Yet did he not reprove
those who left him or threaten them severely, but
rather turning to the apostles said, " Will ye also go
away?" preserving the law, by which man, being left
to his own liberty and endowed with free will, seeks for
himself death or salvation} p. 84.
Lactantius, A. D. 306 — ' That man has a free will
[i. e. able to choose either way] to believe or not to
believe — see in Deuteronomy, " I have set before you
life and death, blessing and cursing, therefore choose
life that both thou and thy seed may live." ' p. 88.
Eusebius, A. D. 315 — 'The fault is in him who
chooses, and hot in God. For God has not made
nature or the substance of the soul bad; for he who is
good can make nothing but what is good. Every

NATURAL ABILITY. 53
First heresy — Pagan notion of fate.
thing is good which is according to nature, [i. e. as
God made it.] Every rational soul has naturally a
good free will formed for the choice of what is good.
But when a man acts wrongly, nature is not to be
blamed; for what is wrong takes place not according
to nature, but contrary to nature, it being the work
of choice and not of nature. For when a person
who had the power of choosing what is good, did not
choose it, but voluntarily turned away from what is
best, pursuing what was worst; what room for escape
could be left him, who is become the cause of his own
internal disease, having neglected the innate law, as
it were, his savior and physician.' p. 91.
In all these quotations, I repeat, the words of these
fathers must be expounded with regard to the object
at which their writings were directed. Let it not
be forgotten, that the first heresy which vexed the
church after the days of the Apostles, was the Pagan
notion of fate, or such a necessary concatenation of
cause and effect, as was above the will both of gods
and men; the very gods themselves had no power
to resist it. The same notion was involved in the
heresy of the Gnostics, who held that all sin lay in
matter, and that man was a sinner from necessity;
and ofthe Manicheans, who held that all sin was in
the created substance of the mind. Now in resisting
these heretics, these fathers maintained with zeal the
doctrine ef free will : meaning thereby, not an unbi
ased will, but a will free from the necessity of fate ;
for the philosophers, and the Gnostics, and the
Manichean's all held the doctrine of man's natural

54 NATURAL ABILITY.

Freedom of the will — Cyril, Hilary, Epiphanius.
inability. The philosophers derived it from fate; the
Gnostics, from the corruption of matter; the Mani
cheans, from the constitution and nature of the soul.
This was the first great attack upon the truth, on
which these venerable men were called to fix their
sanctified vision, and it was against these several ver
sions of error, that they bore their testimony in favor
of free will. *
Cyril of Jerusalem, A. D. 348. — 'The soul has
free will : the devil indeed may suggest, but he has
not also the power to compel contrary to the will.
He suggests the thought of fornication — if you be
willing, you accept it; if unwilling, you reject it: for
if you committed fornication by necessity, why did God
prepare a hell? If you acted justly by nature, [i. e.
necessity] and not according to your own free
choice, why did God prepare unutterable rewards?'
p. 103.
Hilary, A. D. 304. — ' The excuse of a certain na
tural necessity in crimes is not to be admitted. For
the Serpent might have been innocent, who himself
stops his ears that they may be deaf p. 110.
' There is not any necessity of sin in the nature of
men, but the practice of sin arises from the desires of
the will, and the pleasures of vice.'
Epiphanius , A. D. 360 — 'How does he seem to retain
the freedom of his will in this world? For to believe,
or not to believe, is in our own power. But where
it is in our power to believe or not to believe, it is in
our power to act rightly or to sin, to do good or to
do evil.'

NATURAL ABILITY. 55
Freedom of the will — Basil, Gregory, Ambrose.
Basil, A. D. 370. — 'They attribute to the heavenly
bodies the causes of those things that depend on every
one's choice, I mean habits of virtue and of vice.'
' If the origin- of virtuous or vicious actions be not
in ourselves, but there is an innate necessity, there is
no need of legislators to prescribe what we are to do
and what we are to avoid ; there is no need of judges
to honor virtue or punish wickedness. For it is not
the injustice of the thief or murderer who could not
restrain his hand even if he would, because of the
insuperable necessity that urges him to the actions.'
p. 116.
Gregory of Nazianzen, A. D. 370.— 'The good
derived from nature has no claim to acceptance;
but that which proceeds from free will is deserving
of praise. What merit has fire in burning? for the
burning comes by nature [i. e. necessity.] What
merit has water in descending? for this it has from
the Creator. What merit has snow in being cold?
or the sun in shining? for it shines whether it will or
not.' p. 124.
Gregory of Nyssa  * Let any consider how great
the facility to what is bad— gliding into sin spontane
ously without any effort. For that any one should
become wicked, depends solely upon choice; and the
will is often sufficient for, the completion of wicked
ness.' p. 127.
Ambrose, A. D. 374.—' We are not constrained to
obedience by a servile necessity, but by free will,
whether we lean to virtue or to vice.'
' No one is under obligation to commit a fault un
less he inclines to it from his own will.' p. 131.

56 NATURAL ABILITY.
Jerome. Moral Inability. Pelagian heresy.
Jerome, A. D. 392. — ' No seed is of itself bad; for
God made all things good; but bad seed has arisen
from those, who by their own will are bad, which
happens from will and not from nature,' [i. e. neces
sity.] p. 141.
' That we profess free will and can turn it either to
a good or bad purpose, according to our determina
tion, is owing to His grace, who made us after His
image and likeness.'
We have now come to Augustine. And now it
will be necessary to avail myself of the remarks I
made on the laws of exposition. I said that it was
necessary, in order to a right exposition of any ancient
instrument in the church, to take into view the con
troversies which prevailed at the time of its composi
tion. We must now apply this especially to Augus
tine. Down to his time, the free will and natural
ability of man were held by the whole church, against
the heretical notions of a blind fate, of material
depravity, and of depravity created in the substratum
of the soul. The great effort, hitherto, had been to
maintain the liberty or uncoerced action of the mind
in choice,' with the power of contrary choice. But
now Pelagius arose, and denied the doctrine of the
fall; and from this spot it became necessary, not so
much to prove natural ability which Pelagius admit
ted, as to prove moral inability, which was as much
opposed to the Pelagian heresy, as natural inability
was to that of the Pagan philosophers, the Gnostics,
and Manicheans.
The church had now to enter upon a new contro
versy, and to fix her eye upon the question, what were

NATURAL ABILITY. 57
Freedom of the will — Augustine.
the consequences of the fall? The question of free
agency was no longer to be argued, for that was not
now controverted. Both Augustine and Pelagius ad
mitted it. The question which now exists between
Dr. Wilson and myself, was not at issue between
them. The question indeed turned on the same
words, viz: free will; but it did not mean the same
thing. The question between them was, is the will
unbiassed? Is it in equilibrio? It was not, whether
it was free from the necessity of fate, or the coercion
of matter, or of created depravity; but the question
was, has the fall given it a bias? has it struck it out
of equilibrio? and struck the balance wrong? Pela
gius said, no. Augustine said, yes; and while in op
position to Pelagius, he denied free will, [meaning
unbiassed will] he was as strong in favor of free will
in the other sense, as any of the fathers before him;
as strong as I am: so that if I am a Pelagian, Augus
tine was a Pelagian; although his whole strength
was exerted against Pelagius. If what I teach is
Pelagianism, then Augustine, and Calvin, and Luther,
and all the best writers of the church in this age
have been Pelagians, except the few who deny nat
ural ability.
Augustine, A. D. 398.—' Free will is given to the
soul, which they who endeavor to weaken by trifling
reasoning, are blind to such a degree, that they do not
even understand that they say those vain and sacri
legious things, with their own will.' p. 176.
'Which free will, if God had not given, there could
be no just sentence of punishment, nor reward for
6

58 NATURAL ABILITY.

Freedom of the will — Luther.

right conduct, nor a divine precept to repent of sins,
nor pardon of sins, which God has given us through
our Lord Jesus Christ; because he who does not sin
with his will, does not sin at all. Which sins, as I
have said, unless we had free will, would not be sins.
Wherefore, if it be evident that there is no sin where
there is not free will, I desire to know, what harm the
soul has done, that it should be punished by God, or
repent of sin, or deserve pardon, since it has been
guilty of no sin.' p. 214.
' That there is free will, and that from thence eve
ry one sins if he wills, and that he does not sin, if he
does not will, I prove not only in the divine scriptures,
which you do not understand, but in the words of your
own Manes himself: hear then concerning free will,
first, the Lord himself when he speaks of two trees,
which you yourself have mentioned: hear him saying,
'Either make the tree good and his fruit good, or else
make the tree corrupt and his fruit corrupt.' When,
therefore, he says, 'do this or do that,' he shows
power, not nature. For no one, except God, can
make' a tree, but every one has it in his will, either
to choose those things that are good and be a good
tree; or to choose those things that are bad and be
a bad tree.' p. 215.
The next authority I shall adduce is that of Luther,
who holds that, in the exercise of its own faculties,
the mind chooses, by its very constitution, just as
much as it thinks by the exertion of its intellect.
'There is,' he says, 'no restraint either on the di
vine or human will. In both cases the will does

NATURAL ABILITY. 59
Freedom of the will— Calvin.
what it does, whether good or bad, simply, and as at
perfect liberty, in the exercise of its own faculty — so
long as the operative grace of God is absent from us,
every thing we do, has in it a mixture of evil; and
therefore, of necessity, our works avail not to salva
tion. Here I do not mean a necessity of compulsion,
but a necessity as to the certainty of the event. A man
who has not the Spirit of God, does evil willingly and
spontaneously. He is not violently impelled, aganist
his will, as a thief is to the gallows.' — Milnor, vol. v.
cent. 16. chap. 12. sec. 2.
Thus we see that it was Luther's sentiment, that
depravity does not destroy the innate liberty of the
will, or its natural power; although it corrupts and
perverts its exercise.
I now proceed to quote from Calvin, who holds
that necessity is voluntary, that is, that the will is
under no such necessity as destroys its own power
of choice; that there was no other yoke upon man
but voluntary servitude; and that the doctrine for
which I contend is not new divinity, but old Calvin
ism. Calvin says — ' That God is voluntary in his good
ness, Satan in his wickedness, and man in his sin.'
'We must therefore observe,' he says, 'that man,
having been corrupted by the fall, sins voluntarily,
not with reluctance or constraint; with the strongest
propensity of disposition, not with violent coercion;
with the bias of his own passions, and not with exter
nal compulsion.' He quotes Bernard, as agreeing
with Augustine, in saying, 'Among all the animals,

60 NATURAL ABILITY.
Freedom ofthe will — Turretin.
man alone is free; and yet by the intervention of sin,
he suffers a species of violence, but from the will, not
from nature; so that he is not thereby deprived of his
innate liberty} Both Augustine and the Reformers
speak, indeed, of the bondage of the will, and of the
necessity of sinning, and of the impossibility that a
natural man should turn and save himself without
grace ; but they explain themselves, to mean that cer
tainty of continuance in sin, which arises from a perver
ted free agency, and not from any natural impossibility.
For ' this necessity,' they say expressly, 'is voluntary.'
'We are oppressed with a yoke, but no other than
that of voluntary servitude : therefore our servitude
renders us miserable, and our will renders us inexcu
sable.' See Calvin's Instit. Book ii. ch. 3. sec. 5.
'I always exclude coercion, for we sin voluntarily,
or it would not be sin unless it were voluntary.'
Commentary on Rom. vii.
My next quotation is from Turretin, the apostle of
orthodoxy, whose works are the text book in the
Princeton Seminary.
' The question is not concerning the power or nat
ural faculty of will, "a qua est ipsum velle vel nolle,"
which may be called, first power and the material prin
ciple of moral action; for this always remains in man,
and by it he is distinguished from the brutes.'
'Velle vel nolle' means in the technics of the day,
the power to choose or not to choose in every case;
and this he says always remains in man in every con
dition, as by it he is distinguished from the brutes.
' The natural power of willing in whatever condi-

NATURAL ABILITY. 61
Freedom ofthe will — Howe, Witherspoon.
tion we may be, is never taken away from us, inso
much as by it we are distinguished from the brutes.'
p. 999.
Howe is my next witness. He was cotemporary
with the Assembly of Divines at Westminster. He
quotes the following with approbation from Twiss.
'The inability to do what is pleasing and accepta
ble to God, is not a natural, but moral inability; for
no faculty of our nature is taken away from us
by original sin: as saith Augustine — It has taken
from no man the faculty of discerning truth. The
power still remains, by which we can do whatever
we choose. We say that the natural power of doing
anything according to our will is preserved to all,
but no moral power.'
Dr. Witherspoon: — 'The sinner will perhaps say,
But why should the sentence be so severe? The law
may be right in itself, but it is hard, or even impossi
ble for me. I have no strength. I cannot love the
Lord with all my heart. I am altogether insufficient
for that which is good. Oh, that you would but con
sider what sort of inability you were under to keep
the commandments of Godi Is it natural, or is it
moral? Is it really want of ability, or is it only
want of will? Is it anything more than the depravi
ty and corruption of your hearts, which is itself crim
inal, and the source of all actual transgressions? Have
you not natural faculties and understanding, will and
affections, a wonderful frame of body and a variety
of members? What is it that hinders them all from
being consecrated to God? Are they not as proper
6*

NATURAL ABILITY.

Freedom ofthe will — Dr. Watts, Dr. Samuel Spring.
in every respect for his service, as for a baser pur
pose? When you are commanded to love God with
all your heart, this surely is not commanding more
than you can pay. For if you give it not to him, you
will give it to something else that is far from being
so deserving of it. The law, then, is not impossible,
in the strict and proper sense, even to you.'
'He (the convinced sinner,) will see that there is
nothing to hinder his compliance with every part of his
duty, but an inward aversion to God, which is the very
essence of sin}
'Without perplexing ourselves with the meaning
of the imputation of Adam's first sin, this we may be
sensible of, that the guilt of all inheritant corruption
must be personal, because it is voluntary and consen
ted to. Of both these things a discovery of the glory
of God will powerfully convince the sinner.'
Dr. Watts: — 'Man has lost, not his natural power
to obey the law; he is bound, then, as far as natural
powers will reach. I own his faculties are greatly
corrupted by vicious inclinations, or sinful propensi
ties, which has been happily called by our divines a
moral inability to fulfil the law, rather than a natural
impossibility of it.'
Dr. Samuel Spring of Newburyport. — 'What is
moral action? A moral action is an exercise of the
will or heart of man. A moral action is the volition
of a moral agent. Nothing is moral which is not vol
untary. It is as absurd to talk of sin separate from
moral exercise or volition, as it is to talk of whiteness
separate from anything which is white.'

NATURAL ABILITY. 63
Freedom of the will — Dr. Spring of New York, Henry, Dr. Wilson.
Dr. Spring of New York. — 'Seriously considered,
it is impossible to sin without acting voluntarily.
The divine law requires nothing but voluntary obe
dience, and forbids nothing but voluntary disobe
dience. As men cannot sin without acting, nor act
without choosing to act, so they must act voluntarily
in sinning.' — Spring's Essays, p. 120.
This nature of sin, as actual and voluntary, he car
ries out in its application to infants. He says:
'Every child of Adam is a sinner [an actual sinner]
from the moment he becomes a child of Adam. He
sins not in deed nor word, but in thought. The thought
of foolishness is sin. * * * Who ever heard or
conceived of a living immortal soul without natural
faculties and moral dispositions? Every infant that
has attained maturity enough to have a soul, has such
a soul as this. It is a soul which perceives, reasons,
remembers, feels, chooses, and has the faculty of
judging of its own moral dispositions.' — Spring on
Native Depravity, pp. 10, 14.
Henry on Ezekiel xviii. 31. 'The reason why
sinners die, is because they will die. They will go
down the way that leads to death, and not come up
to the terms on which life is offered. Herein sinners
are most unreasonable and act most unaccountably.'
Dr. Wilson of Philadelphia. ' No mere man is able,
either of himself, or by any grace received in this
life, perfectly to keep the commandments of God,'
&c. The ability which is here denied is evidently
of the moral kind, because the aid of the inability is
' supposed to be grace, which adds no new faculties.

64 NATURAL ABILITY.
Freedom of the will — Dr. Wilson of Philadelphia.
The passage taken from the Confession of Faith,
chap. xvi. is a representation of the same thing.
' This ability to do good works is not at all of them
selves, but wholly from the Spirit of God.' Here
the ability spoken of, is that which the saint has,
and the sinner has not; and is derived from the
Spirit of God; it is therefore merely the effect of
regenerating grace, which changes the heart, removes
the prejudices, and thus enlightens the understanding ;
the law itself ought to convince such minds of their
inability to render an acceptable righteousness, and
thus lead them to Christ. In all these instances, the
inability consists not in the natural, that is physical
defects, either of mind or body; if it were such, it
would excuse; but it consists in the party's aversion
to holiness. This is also clear from another passage
cited in the essay, page 1 5, from the Confession of
Faith — ' A natural man being altogether averse from
that which is good, and dead in sin, is not able, by
his own strength, to convert himself, or to prepare
himself thereto.' Here the words ' dead in sin,''
express a , higher degree of that ' aversion to good^
which had been predicted of man in his natural and
unrenewed state, and suppose the party to have no
more disposition to things spiritual and holy than a
dead carcass possesses towards objects of sense.
The inability or want of strength here mentioned,
is affirmed of the natural man ; and his inability, or
that circumstance in which it consists, is pointed out
expressly by the intercalary member, 'being alto
gether averse from that which is good, and dead in

NATURAL ABILITY. 65
Freedom of the will — Dickinson, Davis, Edwards, Witsius.
sin.' Language can scarcely be found more clearly
to show, that the only culpable inability or want of
strength in the sinner, lies in his aversion to that
which is good} pp. 14, 15.
Dr. Dickinson, a cotemporary of Dr. Witherspoon
in New Jersey, and a cotemporary also with Dr. Green
in the early part of his life, has this sentiment on the
point of discussion : ' Let inability be properly denom
inated and called obstinacy.' This was a divine of
admitted and unimpeachable orthodoxy, a man of
eminent abilities, a friend to revivals of religion, and
one of the pillars of the Presbyterian church.
President Davis, the pioneer and planter of Pres-
byterianism in Virginia, afterward president of
Princeton college, one of the most pungent, popular,
and successful of preachers, inquires, ' What is ina
bility but unwillingness?'
Edwards, the younger, president of Union college,
was a Presbyterian, and what does he say? To the
question, whether the moral inability which his
father taught, can be removed by the sinner, his an
swer was : ' Yes : and the moment you deny this, you
change the whole character of the inability together
with the whole character of the man; for then his
inability ceases to be obstinacy, and becomes physi
cal incapacity.'
Witsius. — ' He [Adam] sinned with judgment and
will, to which faculties, liberty, as opposed to com
pulsion, is so peculiar, nay essential, that there can
be neither judgment nor will, unless they be free.'
Vol. i. p. 198.

66 NATURAL ABILITY.
Freedom of tbe will — Andover Declaration, Dr. Tyler.
The Andover Declaration, subscribed by the profes
sors.—' God's decrees perfectly consist with human li-
berty,God's universal agency with the agency of man,
and man's dependence with his accountability. Man
has understanding and corporeal strength to do all
that God requires of him; so that nothing but the
sinner's aversion to holiness prevents his salvation.'
Laws, p. 9.
Dr. Tyler: see National Preacher, vol. ii. pp.
161, 163  'Several doctrines of the gospel, have been
regarded by some as presenting insuperable obsta
cles to their salvation.'
' The doctrine of Human Depravity, has been thus
regarded. If I am entirely depraved, the sinner some
times says, then I am utterly helpless. It is beyond
my power to do anything which God requires; and,
consequently, it is totally impossible that I should
comply with the terms of salvation revealed in the
gospel. This representation proceeds upon an entire
misapprehension as to the nature of depravity. De
pravity does not destroy moral agency. It does not
so impair the natural faculties of man, as to disable
him from doing his duty, if he will. It has its seat in
the heart, and consists in a perverse and sinful incli
nation. When we say, that man is entirely depraved,
we do not mean that he is a poor, unfortunate being,
who is commanded to do impossibilities; but we
mean that he is a guilty rebel, who voluntarily
refuses to yield allegiance to the God who made him.
We mean, that he loves sin, and is unwilling to
abandon it; that he hates his duty, and is unwilling

NATURAL ABILITY. 67
Freedom of the will— Dr. Tyler.
to perform it; that he dislikes the terms of salvation,
and is unwilling to comply with them. We do not
mean, that all the powers and faculties of his soul are
so impaired, that he could not do his duty if he would;
but we mean that he will not do his duty when he can
— that in the full possession of all the powers of moral
agency, and with perfect ability to comply with the
terms of salvation, if he will, he chooses the road that
leads to death, and will not come to Christ that he
might have life. This supposes no difficulty in the
way of his salvation, except what lies in a perverse
and obstinate will.
'Again: the doctrine of Regeneration, is supposed to
imply an insuperable obstacle in the way of the sin
ner's salvation. We often hear the sinner reasoning
thus — " If I must be born again, in order to enter into
the kingdom of God; and if this change is exclusively
the work of the Holy Spirit; a work which he is
under no obligations to perform, and which my own
efforts will never accomplish; then, there is a diffi
culty in the way of my salvation, which is beyond
my power to remove. It does not depend on my
will, but on the will of God, whether I shall be saved."
But here again the sinner labors under an entire
misapprehension, as to the nature of the change in
question, and as to the reason why this change is
necessary. What is it to be born again? Simply, to
be made willing to do what God requires. It is thus
represented in the scriptures, Thy people shall be wil
ling in the day of thy power. Why is it necessary,
that men should be born again? Not because they

NATURAL ABILITY.

Freedom of the will — Dr. Woods.

are unable to do their duty, if they will; but because
they are unwilling to do it. It is their depravity
which renders this supernatural change necessary.
But their depravity is not their calamity merely, but
their crime. It consists, as we have seen, in a per
verse inclination; in a voluntary and obstinate refusal
to yield obedience to the reasonable commands of
Jehovah. What the sinner needs, therefore, is to
have this perverse inclination changed; that is, to be
made willing to do what God requires. The neces
sity of this change, therefore, supposes no obstacle in
the way of his salvation, except his own unwillingness
to do his duty.'
Dr. Woods: Letters to Dr. Ware, ch. v. p. 183. —
' According to our views, there can be no such neces
sity in the case, as implies force or coercion, or any
thing contrary to perfect voluntariness.
'What, then, is the freedom which belongs to a
moral agent? It is freedom from that physical coer
cion or force, which either causes actions that are
not voluntary; or prevents those which the agent
chooses to perform.
' I grant that man has a power of choosing be
tween different courses, and of yielding to either of
two opposite motives.' Remarks on Ware, pp. 34,
35, 36.
' Men have by nature the constitution — they have
all the faculties, essential to moral agency.'
Third Letter to Dr. Beecher; Spirit of the Pilgrims,
vol. vi. No. 1, pp. 19 — 22. — ' I have just received your
sermon on Dependence and Free Agency; and,

NATURAL ABILITY. 69
Freedom of the will — Dr. Woods.
according to a suggestion in your last letter to me,
I shall proceed to remark on some of the topics which
it introduces. * Between your views and mine on the subject of
man's ability and inability, there is not, so far as I
can judge, any real disagreement. You do indeed
sometimes use language different from that which I
am accustomed to use. But when you come tot ex
plain your language, as you do in your second letter,
and in your sermon just published, you show that you
have a meaning which I can fully adopt. In the first
place you do, what many who make much of man's
ability neglect to do ; that is, you clearly make the
distinction between natural ability and inability, and
moral. Natural ability you explain to be, " the intel
lectual and moral faculties which God has given to
men, commensurate with his requirements;" — "the
plenary powers of a free agent;" — " such a capacity
for obedience as creates perfect obligation to obey."
You say, it is '.' what the law means, when it com
mands us to love God with all our heart, and soul,
and mind, and strength." The sinner, according to
your representation, is under no natural impossibility
to obey God; that is, it is not impossible for him to
obey God in the same sense in which it is impossible
for him " to create a world." To all this I fully sub
scribe. Here then is no room for debate. I have
been acquainted with ministers who have differed
widely in their language respecting human ability,
and who have had much debate on the subject, and
have seemed to entertain opposite opinions. But I
7

70 NATURAL ABILITY.
Freedom of the will — Dr. Woods.
doubt not, they would all coincide with the above
statements. They would all admit that man has
those intellectual and moral faculties which consti
tute him a moral agent, justly accountable for his
actions, and under perfect obligation to obey the
divine law. But all would not judge it best to give
to these faculties the name of ability, or even of na
tural ability. In regardvto the words by which the
sentiment, held by them all, may most properly be
expressed, there would be a difference. And would
not this be the only difference? And would not any
dispute on the subject be logomachy? Suppose a
minister of Christ does not like the expression, that
sinners have a natural ability to obey the divine
law. But he admits that they have those faculties of
mind which constitute them moral and accountable
beings, put them under a perfect obligation to obey,
and bring on them a just condemnation for disobedi
ence. That is, he admits all that you mean by
natural ability, though he does not use the language.
Respecting this, you and he may differ. But the
moment you lay aside the word, ability, and use
other words expressing exactly what you mean by
this, the difference between you and him is ended.
You both believe that sinners have all the powers
necessary to moral agents, and that they are under
perfect obligation to do what God commands; though
you may perhaps attach more importance to this
yiew ofthe subject, and may give it more importance
in your preaching, than he thinks proper.
'The same as to inability. I find from your expla-

NATURAL ABILITY. 71
Freedom of the will— Dr. Woods.
nations, that you believe the sinner to be the subject
of all the inability which I have ever attributed to
him. You say that man, in his unrenewed state, is
" destitute of holiness and prone to evil;" that he has
" an inflexible bias of will to evil;" " a sinfulness of
heart and obliquity of will, which overrule and per
vert his free agency only to purposes of evil;" that
he has " an obstinate will, which as really and cer
tainly demands the interposition of special divine
influence, as if his inability were natural;" that " his
NATURAL ABILITY NEVER AVAILS, EITHER ALONE, OR BY ANY
POWER OF TRUTH, OR HELP OF MAN, TO RECOVER HIM FROM
alienation to obedience;" thaf'the special renovating
influence of the Spirit is indispensable to his salva
tion;" " that motives and obligation are by his obsti
nacy swept away;" and " that it is the work of the
Holy Spirit to convince him of sin, to enlighten his
mind, to renew his will, and to persuade and enable
him to embrace Christ;" that " the powers requisite
to free agency, which still remain in degenerate man,
are wholly perverted, and hopeless of recovery, with
out the grace of God;" " that men, as sinners, are
dependant on Christ for a willingness to do any thing
which will save their souls." You hold it to be " a
fact, that mind, once ruined, never recovers itself;"
that the'1 disease rages on, unreclaimed by its own
miseries, and only exasperated by rejected reme
dies;" that "the main-spring of the soul for holy
action, is gone, and that divine influence is the only
substitute." ' You not only make these just and moving repre-

72 NATURAL ABILITY.
Freedom of the will — Dr. Woods.
sentations of the state of unregenerate man, but you
expressly speak of him as having an inability to obey
God. You make the ." distinction between the
ability of man as a free agent, and his inability as a
sinner" and say, " it is a distinction singularly plain,
obvious to popular apprehension, and sanctioned by
the common sense of all men." You fully justify the
language of the Bible in ascribing to man, " inability
to obey the gospel." You quote the passages which
declare, that "the carnal mind cannot be subject to
the law of God; — that they who are in the flesh can
not please God;" and you say the inability spoken of
means the impossibility of becoming holy by any phi
losophical culture of the natural powers, or by any
possible modification of our depraved nature;" though
you very properly take care to guard us against sup
posing, that the inability of sinners implies " an abso
lute natural impossibility," or has " ^passive, material
import." You say, also, that " no language is more
frequent in the common intercourse of men, than the
terms, unable, cannot, and the like, to express slight,
or determined and unchanging aversion ; and that the
same use of these terms pervades the Bible;" that
" inability, meaning only voluntary aversion, or per
manent choice or disinclination, is ascribed to God,
to Christ, and to good men in as strong terms, as ina
bility to obey the gospel is ascribed to sinners."
' In regard to the above cited representations of
yours, I see no ground for controversy. I am aware
that, in your preaching, you are accustomed to say
less frequently than many others, that sinners cannot

NATURAL ABILITY. 73
Freedom of the will — Dr. Woods.
believe and obey. But even if you should think it
best, as some do, to go farther, and wholly to avoid
expressions of that kind; still while, in other words,
you attribute to the sinner every thing which I and
others mean by such expressions, there would be no
difference except in words. In the unmeasured abun
dance of remarks which have lately been made on
the subject of ability and inability, it has not been
always remembered that the principal, if not the only
difference, which exists among thinking and candid
men, is verbal. If this should be kept in mind, as it
OUGHT TO BE, AND IF MEN WHO ARE GOING TO DISPUTE,
WOULD JUST STOP TO INQUIRE WHAT THEY ARE GOING TO
DISPUTE ABOUT, IT WOULD VERY MUCH NARROW THE
GROUND OF DEBATE, AND DIMINISH, IF NOT REMOVE, THE .
OCCASIONS OF STRIFE.
' Still I hold the question about the use of particular
words to be of no small importance. Words are the
usual means of conveying the thoughts of our own
minds to the minds of others. If then our words are
not well chosen, we may fail of communicating what
we wish, and may communicate something very
different; and so the gift of speech, instead of con
tributing to useful purposes, may become positively
hurtful. 'It is not my design to controvert any ofthe posi
tions which you lay down on the subject of ability
and inabilty. Putting a candid and fair construction
on your language, and considering you as agreeing
with those excellent authors to whom you refer with
approbation, I am satisfied, as I have before said,
7*

NATURAL ABILITY.

Freedom of the will — Dr. Bellamy.

that there is no material difference between your
opinions and mine on this subject. My remarks
therefore will relate chiefly, if not wholly, to modes of
expression; though not so much to any which you em
ploy, as to those employed by others. There is
danger, I think, of a wrong impression being made on
the minds of men from the manner in which some
preachers speak respecting the sinner's ability. And
although there is much in what you have lately
given to the public, which is well calculated to guard
against this danger, I humbly conceive that still
greater caution in your manner of treating the sub
ject, would do no hurt.'
Dr. Bellamy. — 'The law is exactly upon a level
with our natural capacities; it only requires us to
love God with all our hearts. Hence, as to natural
capacity, all mankind are capable of a perfect conform
ity to this law; for the law requires of no man any
more than to love God with all his heart. The sin
ning angels have the same natural capacities now, as
they had before they fell ; they have the same facul
ties, called the understanding and will; they are still
the same beings as to their natural powers. Their
temper, indeed, is different; but their capacity is the
same ; therefore, as to natural capacity, they are as ca
pable of a perfect conformity to the law of their Cre
ator as ever they were. So Adam, after his fall, had the
same soul that he had before, as to his natural capa
cities, though of a very different temper; and therefore,
in that respect, was as capable of a perfect conformity
to the law as ever. And it is plainly the case, that

NATURAL ABILITY. 75
Freedom of the will — Dr. Samuel Hopkins.
all mankind, as to their natural capacities, are capable
of a perfect conformity to the law, from this, that
when sinners are converted, they have no new nat
ural faculties though they have a new temper; and
when they come to love God with all their hearts in
¦heaven, still they will have the same hearts, as to their
natural faculties, and may, in this respect, be justly
looked upon as the very same beings. When, therefore,
men cry out against the holy law of God, which re
quires us only to love him with all our hearts, and
say, "It is not just in God to require more than we
can do, and then threaten to damn us for not doing,"
they ought to stay awhile, and consider what they
say, and tell what they mean by their can do; for it
is plain, that the law is exactly upon a level with our
natural capacities, and that, in this respect, we are
fully capable of a perfect conformity thereto. And
it will be impossible for us to excuse ourselves by an
inability arising from any other quarter." "And
finally, this want of a good temper, this voluntary
AND STUBBORN AVERSION TO GoD, AND LOVE TO THEM
SELVES, THE WORLD, AND SIN, IS ALL THAT RENDERS THE
IMMEDIATE INFLUENCES OF THE HOLY SPIRIT SO ABSO
LUTELY NECESSARY, OR INDEED AT ALL NEEDFUL, TO RE
COVER AND BRING THEM TO. LOVE GoD WITH ALL THEIR
hearts." ' — True Religion Delineated, Disc. I. Sec. 3.
Dr. Samuel Hopkins. — 'It has been thought and
urged by many, that fallen man cannot be wholly
blameable for his moral depravity, because he has
lost his power to do that which is good, and is wholly
unable to change and renew his depraved heart. But

76 NATURAL ABILITY.
Freedom ofthe will — Dr. Smalley.
what has been before observed must be here kept in
mind, that man has not lost any of his natural powers
of understanding and will, &c., by becoming sinful.
He has lost his inclination, or is wholly without any
inclination to serve and obey his Maker, and entirely
opposed to it. In this his sinfulness consists; and in
this lies his blame and guilt, and in nothing else; and
the stronger and more fixed the opposition to the law
of God is, and the farther he is from any. inclination
to obey, the more blameable and inexcusable he is.
Nothing but the opposition of the heart, or will of
man, to coming to Christ, is or can be in the way of
his coming. So long as this continues, and his heart
is wholly opposed to Christ, he cannot come to, him,
it is impossible, and will continue so, until his unwil
lingness, his opposition to coming to Christ, be re
moved by a change and renovation of his heart by
divine grace, and be made willing in the day of God's
power.' 'Nothing is necessary but the renovation
of the will, in order to set every thing right in the
human soul.' — System of Divinity, Part I. Ch. 8, and
Part II. Ch. 4.
Dr. Smalley. — 'The whole Bible evidently goes
upon the supposition that man is a free agent; and so
do all mankind in their treatment of one another.'.
' It is certain that no natural men, except idiots, or
such as are quite delirious, are totally incapable of
good works for want of understanding.' ' The power
of will is not the deficiency in natural men.' ' Were
men destitute of understanding to know what is right;
or destitute of power to choose according to their

NATURAL ABILITY. 77
Freedom of the will — Dr. Stephen West, Dr. Nathan Strong.
own disposition; or destitute of members to act, ac
cording to their own choice ; they would so far not
be proper subjects of. commands, and no blame would
lie upon them for not obeying. But no such powers
of moral agency are the things wanting in natural
men. They have hands and heads sufficiently good;
and a sufficient power to will whatever is agreeable
to them. All they want is a good heart. Their in
ability is therefore their sin, and not their excuse.' —
Sermons 10, 16.
Dr. Stephen West. — 'It therefore appeareth, that
all those voluntary exercises and affections which are
required of us in the divine law, may be said to be in
our power. There is no opposition to any obedience
which is claimed by the divine law, except it be in
our wills.' — On Moral Agency, Part I. Sec. 2.
Dr. Nathan Strong. — 'Here the proud heart ob
jects. Can this be cause of rejoicing, that I am in the
hand of a most absolute sovereign? Is this consis
tent with my dignity as a rational creature and a free
agent? Truly it is. If thy reason be exercised right,
all its dictates will be in conformity to the sovereign
counsel and acting of God. If thy heart be opposed
to infinite reason, or prejudices thy reason, it is the
depravity of thy heart, and not the sovereignty of
God, which degrades, and takes dignity away from
thee. Neither is thy dignity as a free agent lessened.
Art thou not as free in sinning, as the holy angels
,and holy men are in loving and obeying God? Is not
sin thy choice? Dost thou not sin because thou lovest
sin? The sovereignty of God will never destroy thy

78 NATURAL ABILITY.
Freedom of the will — Dr. Dwight.
freedom as a rational agent, but an evil use of this
freedom hath made thee base, and without repentance,
will be the means of thy misery forever.' — Sermons,
vol. I. Ser. 4.
Dr. Dwight. — ' The nature of this inability to obey
the law of God is, in my own view, completely indi
cated by the word indisposition, or the word disincli
nation} 'The real and only reason why we do not
perform this obedience [perfect obedience to the law
of God] is, that we do not possess such a disposition
as that of angels. Our natural powers are plainly
sufficient: our inclination only defective.' 'There is
no more difficulty in obeying God, than in doing any
thing else, to which our inclination is opposed with
equal strength and obstinacy.' 'Indisposition to come
to Christ, is the true and the only difficulty which
lies in our way. Those who cannot come, therefore,
are those, and those only, who will not. The words
can and cannot, are used in the Scriptures, just as
they are used in the common intercourse of mankind,
to express willingness or unwillingness} 'From these
observations it is evident, that the disobedience of
mankind is their own fault.' And 'the degree of our
inability to obey the divine law, does in no case les
sen our guilt.' And ' these observations teach us the
propriety of urging sinners to immediate repentance.'
— Theology, Sermon 133.
The Assembly's narrative for 1819, declares that
the destruction of the finally impenitent is charged
' wholly upon their own unwillingness to accept of
the merciful provision made in the gospel.'

NATURAL ABILITY. 79
Freedom of the will — Dr. John Matthews.
Rev. John Matthews, D. D., Theological Professor
of South Hanover Seminary, commended by Dr.
Wilson as correct. — 'Our case though in some res
pects it bears a striking resemblance to those who
sleep in the grave, yet in others is widely different.
They make no opposition to the active pursuits of
life. Nor does any blame attach to them on account
of their insensibility. Not so, however, with us. We
have eyes, but we see not; ears, but we hear not; we
have indeed all the intellectual faculties and moral
powers which belong to rational beings, but they are
devoted to the world; they are employed against God
and his government. Instead of love, the heart is
influenced by enmity against God. Instead of re
pentance, there is hardness of heart. Instead of faith,
by which the Savior is received,, there is unbelief by
which with all his blessings he is rejected. We pos
sess, indeed, all the natural faculties which God de
mands in his service; but we are without the moral
power. We have not the disposition, the desire, to
employ them in his service. This want of disposition,
instead of furnishing the shadow of excuse for our
unbelief and impenitence, is the very essence of sin,
the demonstration of our guilt. , Here, then, is work
for Omnipotence itself. Here is not only insensibility
to be quickened, but here is opposition, here is enmity
to be destroyed. The art and maxims of men may
change, in some degree, the outward appearances,
but they never can reach the seat of the disease.
There it will remain, and there it will operate, after
all that created wisdom and power can do. That

80 NATURAL ABILITY.
Freedom of the will — Dr. Wilson.
power which can start the pulse of spiritual life
within us, must reach and control the very origin of
thought, must change our very motives. Our case
would be hopeless, if our restoration depended on
the skill and efforts of created agents.'
I now beg leave to adduce the testimony of Dr.
Wilson himself. This passage from Dr. Matthews
goes the whole length of all that I hold in respect to
natural ability. If this is not heresy, it is all I mean,
and all I teach, or ever did teach. If Dr. Wilson is
not opposed to this, then he has misunderstood me,
and he and I think alike. If he agrees to this, then
he and I do agree; for I challenge man or angel to find
anything like a discrepancy, and I challenge him to
find any. That he does agree to this is manifest, and
two things which are equal to the same, are equal to
each other. In the notes he says :
'Thus it is evident, that without conference or
correspondence, or even personal acquaintance, there
are ministers in the Presbyterian church, who can
and do speak the same things, who can and do speak
the language of the true reformers in all ages. May
the Lord increase their number and bind up the breach
of his people.'
My argument is this: — The fact that these writers
held the opinions which they have here declared, I
do not bring as proof absolute that the Confession of
Faith teaches as they held; but that it is altogether
probable the framers of that instrument belonging to
this class of men, and standing in the same rank with
them, did not teach doctrines in direct contradiction

NATURAL ABILITY. 81
Qualifications for moral gov't — natural ability — scriptural argument.
to this. I have brought down these testimonies to
the present time, because these expositions throw
light upon the 'pages of the Confession, by showing
the impression which it made on these writers, and
the sense in which they received it. It would begone
of the strongest anomalies in the whole history of the
human mind, that men who kriew all about the con
troversy of Augustine and Pelagius, as well as the
controversy which preceded, should, when they sat
down to make a Confession of Faith, go directly
against the whole stream of the Faith of the church.
Such is the testimony of the Christian fathers, and
the received doctrine of the orthodox church, from
the beginning to this day. I now add:
XIV. That the Bible teaches the free agency and
natural ability of man to obey or disobey, uncoerced
by any natural necessity or hindrance, as his qualifi
cation for moral government, and the foundation of
his obligation and accountability.
1. That the Bible has been understood to teach
this by the universal orthodox church, is a strong
presumptive argument that the Bible does teach it.
It was made to be understood by fallen man, and
by common uneducated minds, in respect to its most
vital doctrines; and there is no doctrine more immedi
ately fundamental, than that of free agency as the
ground of obligation and accountability. Now, the
impression which the Bible makes on common minds,
who, unsophisticated by theory, read and receive its
impression, is, that there remains to man, in the esti
mation of heaven, the capacity of choosing whom he
8

82 NATURAL ABILITY.
The Bible understood bythe holiest men as teaching natural ability.
will serve, God or the world, and of choosing life or
death; and that his obligation to choose good and
'refuse the evil, originates in their constitutional power
of choice, with power of contrary choice. This is
the popular feeling and belief of those who read the
Bible. But if the uninstructed may be supposed to mis
take, it was certainly intended to be intelligible to
the most talented, learned, and holy men, who make
the study and translation and exposition of it their
profession and habitual employment.
But unanswerably the Bible has been understood
to teach the doctrine of man's free agency and natu
ral ability, in the manner I have above explained, by
the ablest, holiest, and most learned men. These,
interpreting the Bible in accordance with the laws of
language and the best operations of sanctified intel
lect, have understood it to teach the natural ability
of man, as the foundation of obligation', and the
moral inability of man as consisting in a perverse
will. If this decision of so many men of talented
mind, and learning, and labor, is false, all attempts
to expound the Bible are vain — the Bible is yet a
sealed book — and all the promises of wisdom to those
who ask, and of guidance in judgment to the meek,
have, unanswered, been scattered to the wind.
2. The implications of the Bible teach the free
agency of man as including a natural ability to
obey, as the qualification for moral government, and
the foundation of accountability.
The directory precepts, the commands and prohi-*

NATURAL ABILITY. 83
Commands, prohibitions, &c. ofthe Bible, imply natural ability.
bitions, the rewards and punishments, the exhorta
tions, warnings, entreaties, and expostulations of
the Bible teach this — the oath of God's preference
that fallen man should obey rather than disobey;
and the regrets and the wonder of heaven at his
obstinacy and unbelief, teach the same; and the
punishment, executed not only for what he did
do that was wrong, but because in place of this,
he did not do what was right, because he did not turn,
did not repent, did not believe, all imply ability.
That such implications are multiplied throughout the
Bible, will not be denied: that they do strongly imply
capacity of right or of wrong choice, and are based
on that supposition, is equally plain. But what
would be thought of a human government that
should address such language to stocks and stones,
or to animals, or to machines moved by steam
or water power? And why should they be ad
dressed to man, if he has no more power to obey
than these?
If obedience to commands, exhortations, and en
treaties, is prevented by a constitutional necessity, a
natural impossibility of choosing right; and the diso
bedient choice is also the unavoidable, coerced result
of a constitutional necessity, over which the will has
no power, but of which, it is the unavoidable effect:
then choice is as much the effect of a natural cause,
as any other natural effect; and directory precepts,
and rewards and penalties, and exhortations and
entreaties are as irrelevant and superfluous, as if they
were addressed to our appetites, or applied to secure

84 NATURAL ABILITY.
Implication the most uniform mode of scriptural teaching.
the beating of the heart, or the circulation of the
blood. If a created constitution secures the volition, what
ever it may be, what need of another apparatus to
produce it? Is not one cause sufficient; and if it
were not, why add an apparatus which is totally
irrelevant and powerless ? The adoption of law and
motive, then, as the means of moral government, im
plies irresistibly that God's unerring wisdom has not
entrusted the will of men, like instinctive actions, to
the guardianship of natural causes, and has committed
it to the guidance and guardianship of law, and
reward and punishment, with such capacity that
choice in accordance with requirement is possible,
and reasonable; and contrary choice, possible also,
and inexcusable, and justly punishable. On this ar
gument, we observe:
That these implications of the Bible do clearly and
in the strongest possible manner, treat the doctrine
of man's free agency and natural ability to obey or
disobey the gospel, as the foundation of his obligation.
Implication is the most uniform and established mode
of scriptural teaching in respect to natural, mental,
and moral philosophy. It teaches almost nothing by
formal definitions, and regular .propositions, and
proofs; but assumes and takes for granted whatever
truths of this kind it has occasion to recognize. But
the assumptions of an inspired unerring book, the
assumptions of Him who created and organized the
world, and forms and governs the mind, are the most
powerful, unequivocal, infallible mode of teaching.

NATURAL ABILITY. 85
All the assumptions of the Bible, marked with uniform exactness.
In demonstration, men may err, and come out with
false conclusions; but God, in his assumptions, cannot
err. The Bible, therefore, teaches in the most direct,
and forcible manner, the free agency and natural
ability of men as qualified subjects of moral govern
ment. The supposition that these assumptions of
the Bible are not true, and that man, after all, is not
able to modify and diversify his choice indefinitely,
but chooses sin or holiness by a coercive necessity
— that he cannot but sin when he does sin, more than
rivers of muddy water can purify themselves, and stop
flowing — and cannot turn and prefer the Creator to
the creature, more than the prone waters can roll
back their tide to their fountains ; destroys the credi
bility of the Bible as an inspired book.
Hitherto, all the assumptions of the Bible have
been marked with a uniform and wonderful exactness.
Its astronomical, geographical, historical, chrono
logical, and all other implications are always verified
in the results of the strictest examination.
And it is necessary to the credibility of the Bible
that it should be so. If it spoke of the visible heavens
different from their appearance to the eye — and if
its geography, and chronology, and natural history,
were at every step falsified by scientific investiga
tions — if the lion and the ostrich and the war-horse of
the Bible were verified by no correspondences in na
ture, and all its assumptions of countries, and scenery,
and natural productions, were contradicted by the
condition ofthe countries alluded to, it would disprove

86 NATURAL ABILITY.
Philosophy corroborates theverity ofthe Bible in all its assumptions.
the credibility of the Bible as an inspired book. In
fidels aware of this fact, have made ceaseless efforts
to catch the Bible tripping some where in the field
of natural science, and have exulted exceedingly
when they supposed they had detected a few mis
takes of this description. But no sooner did the
lamp of true philosophy follow the footsteps of their
presumptuous ignorance, than it dissipated their pre
mature rejoicing, by discovering the exact verity of
the Bible in all its assumptions of the attributes and
laws of nature.
But what would be said, if in tracing the implica
tions of the Bible, in respect to the qualifications of
mind, for accountable agency and government by
law, we should find them all contradicted? While
natural philosophy verified, mental and moral phi
losophy contradicted, the fundamental principles- it
takes for granted. The Bible assuming every where
that man is free to choose with power of contrary
choice ; when, in fact, as the truth is developed, it ap
pears that he is no more able, as a free agent to choose
at all, than a spark is to strike itself out without the
collision of flint and steel, and no more able to choose
otherwise than he does choose, than water is to be
fire, and fire water.
Christianity could not stand before such contradic
tions of revelation by science. It would open upon
us the floodgates of an all-pervading, irresistible infi
delity. Nay, it would not stop at infidelity — it would
undermine all confidence in consciousness or argu
ment, and terminate in universal scepticism.

NATURAL ABILITY. 87
The Bible in no way contradicts its own implications.
Our argument against transubstantiation is, that
our senses are a correct revelation of the reality
and attributes of external things; that no written
revelation from heaven can contradict the testimony
of this constitutional revelation by the senses con
cerning attributes of external objects, without sup
posing the conflict of contrary revelations, which
would not only destroy the credibility of the Bible,
but vacate all confidence in the testimony of the
senses. These implications are corroborated by the analogy
of cause and effect through all the works of God — by
the common sense and universal consciousness of
men — by all the results of mental analysis, uniting
philosophers in the definition of free agency — and
by the concession of individuals and the public sen
timent of the world, as disclosed in moral govern
ment as the means of elevating society. But if these
implications of the Bible of a free agency and natural
ability to obey commensurate with law thus corrob
orated, are not true, it brings on the Bible over
whelming evidence of incorrect teaching; and if on
this tremendous subject all its implications are false,
the Bible fails to sustain its claims, and the whole
system of revelation and its doctrines goes out in
darkness. 3. The Bible does in no way contradict its own im
plications, by teaching the natural ability of man to
render to God a holy and spiritual obedience.
It applies to fallen man in respect to spiritual obe
dience the terms, ' cannot, unable,' &c. This is not

88 NATURAL ABILITY.
The term inability, used in two senses.
denied — it is admitted — it is insisted on. But the
question is, what does the term inability mean, when
applied to a free agent and a totally depraved sin
ner — are the terms, ' cannot, unable,' &c. used in
common language of men and in the Bible only in
one sense, and that the sense of a natural impossibil
ity? If so, the question is settled, and we are at
fault? -But if there are two senses in which these
terms are used in common and in scriptural language,
one of which means a natural impossibility, and the
other respects an event possible, in respect to the
capacity of the agent, but prevented by a perverse
choice; then to deny this distinction, and condense
both, by an arbitrary assertion, into a natural im
possibility, is to beg the question in dispute — to
do violence to the laws of exposition, and substi
tute assertion for argument. Yet this, so far as I
am apprised, is the course which has been adop
ted to disprove the natural ability of man to obey.
Those passages which mean aversion and obsti
nacy in sin, and the certainty of his perdition, with
out the special grace of God, are assumed to mean a
natural impossibility. The terms 'cannot and un
able,' which have no reference to his capacity as a
free agent, and respect only and wholly his charac
ter and obstinacy as a sinner, are quoted, unexplained
and unproved, in respect to their assumed meaning;
and, merely by the reiteration of unexplained sound,
the doctrine of moral inability is attempted to be
battered down, and that of a natural inability to be
established. But who does not see that I have an

NATURAL ABILITY. 89
The Bible speaks of inability as the aversion of the will to God.
equal right to assume the meaning of moral inability
as the only meaning of the term, and, by the power
of reiterated assertion, to beat down my adversary, as
he has to battle me with unexplained words, taken for
granted, by force of mere assertion; and that both of
us, in doing so, would violate the laws of philology
and correct controversy? As soon as the meaning
of the texts, applied to man and quoted to prove his
natural inability, are explained, it appears that they
respect his character as a sinner, and not his consti
tution as a free agent, and are nothing to the purpose
to prove what they are quoted to prove. If they
mean a moral inability, the mere voluntary aversion
of a free agent to obey the gospel, then they do not
mean or teach the natural impossibility of believing,
and the moral inability of the sinner may be per
fectly consistent with the natural ability of the free
agent. With this lamp in our hand, all becomes clear.
Whenever the Bible speaks of inability in moral
things, it speaks of the sin of the will, its aversation
to good. Yet where has Dr. Wilson, in the whole
course of his argument in support of his charges
against me, ever once defined the term ' cannot?'
where has he recognized this obvious distinction, and
the manner of its application? He has insisted on a
a single~meaning of the term, which meaning he
assumes, and then denies all right of explanation. As
soon as the word is explained, he is gone. These
words, like all other words, are to be tried by the
principles of exposition, by the established usus lo-

90 NATURAL ABILITY.
Words used with different significations — illustration.
quendi, and not by their sound on the tympanum of
the ear; or else Jesus Christ might as well have
spoken Greek to men who understood nothing but
English. Take an illustration on this subject: Sup
pose an assault was committed; the case is carried
into court, where the assault is admitted, and the
only question arising, is a question of damages. A
witness appears and is asked, Did you see this
assault? Yes, I saw A strike B. How hard did he
strike him? I don't know; I can't exactly tell how
hard; A was a very nervous man. 'Oh!' cries the
lawyer in favor of A, ' if he was a very nervous man,
he must have been too feeble to hurt him much.'
Another witness is introduced and asked, How hard
did A strike B? I can't exactly tell, he says.
What sort of a man was A? Oh! he was a very
stout, brawny man ; a very nervous, athletic man.
' Then,' says the attorney on the other side, ' if he
was a nervous man, no doubt he must have hurt my
client exceedingly, and he is entitled to heavy dama
ges.' On this a dispute arises as to the testimony,-and
it turns on the meaning of the word ' nervous} One
of the attorneys brings into court Webster's Diction
ary, and shows that nervous means, of weak nerve,
feeble: and there- he stops. Would this settle the
question? Would this determine the meaning of the
testimony? Just so with the word inability. It has
two meanings, according as it is applied. It may
either mean a total want of power, or a total want of
inclination. 4. The subject, and the circumstances of the

NATURAL ABILITY. 91
Natural impossibility of obedience in a free agent, a contradiction.
case, forbid the construction of a natural impos
sibility, as relating to man in the case of duty;
because the subject is admitted to be a free agent,
and free agency is known and defined, and by the
Confession itself is admitted to be, the capacity of
choice, with power of contrary choice. A free
agent to whom spiritual obedience is a natural im
possibility, is a contradiction. By the laws of expo
sition, I am entitled to all the collateral evidence
which can be thrown upon the meaning of the
Confession, from the several sources of expository
knowledge already enumerated, and which I will not
here recapitulate. Dr. Wilson insists that man is
able to do nothing^-but nothing is a slender founda
tion on which to rest the justice of the Eternal
Throne, in condemning men to everlasting punish
ment, and feeble indeed would be God's gripe upon
the conscience. But it will be easy to show that the
strongest passages relied on to prove natural inabil
ity, are forbidden to be interpreted in that sense, by
the established laws of exposition. For example, it
is said, John vi. 44: 'No man can come unto me,
except the Father which hath sent me draw him.'
The nature of the inability here declared, is indicated
by the kind of drawing which is to overcome it.
This is taught in the verse immediately following,
and elsewhere in the Bible. ' It is written in the
prophets, they shall be taught of God: every man,
therefore, that hath read and hath learned of the
Father cometh unto me.' The drawing of the Father,
then, without which no man can come, according to

92 NATURAL ABILITY.
Impediment to obedience overcome by moral means, not by force.
prophetic exposition, quoted and sanctioned by our
Redeemer, is in being ' taught of God,' in reading and
learning of the Father, and this is precisely the doc
trine of our Confession. ' God maketh the reading,
but especially the preaching of his word, an effec
tual means of convincing and converting sinners.'
' I draw them by the cords of love and with the
bands of a man.' That is the drawing: with the
bands of a man, not by the attraction of gravity.
Suppose the planets should stop in their course,
would God, do you think, attempt to overcome the
vis intertia. of matter by the ' reading, and especially
the preaching of his word?' Would he send the ten
commandments to start them? or would he 'draw
them with cords of love and the bands of a man,' to
move onward in their orbits? Yet the Confession,
and the Catechism, and the Bible, all as certainly
teach that the impediment to be overcome is over
come by moral means : by the truth, by the word of
God, by the reading, and especially the preaching of
his word, made effectual by the Holy Spirit. It can
not, therefore, be any natural inability; any such ina
bility as renders believing a natural impossibility,
which is removed in regeneration. But it is said, ' the
carnal mind is enmity against God,' and that this is
an involuntary condition of mind. But is it a natural
impossibility for any enemy to be reconciled to him?
The text does not say that fallen man cannot be re
conciled to God; but it says that the carnal mind can
not be subject to the law: 'It is not subject to the
law of God, neither indeed can be.' Carnality can

NATURAL ABILITY. 93
The Bible expressly teaches man's ability to obey the gospel.
never be so modified as to become obedience. Again,
the ' natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit
of God, neither can he know them, because they are
spiritually discerned. Does this mean that an un
converted man can have no just intellectual concep
tions of the gospel, of truth, and duty, in order to
his obeying it? How then can he be any more to
blame than the heathen, who have never heard of
Christ? And what better condition are men in, with
the Bible, which they cannot understand, than the
heathen are with no Bible at all? But if by receiving
and knowing be meant, a willing reception and an
experimental knowledge, which is a common use of
the terms, then the text teaches simply, that until the
heart is changed, there can be no experimental reli
gion in the soul; that a holy, heart is indispensable,
not to intellectual perception, but to spiritual dis
cernment, to christian experience.
5. The Bible not only does not teach the natural
inability of man to obey the gospel, but it teaches
directly the contrary. The moral law itself bounds
the requisition of love by the strength of the sub
ject. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God — with
what? — with all thy heart, and with all thy soul,
and with all thy mind; — and with what else? —
with all thy strength. But if heart, and soul, and
mind, and strength, constitute no strength — how
is he bound by such a command as this? In the
same manner, constitutional powers, bearing such a
relation to obedience as constitutes obligation, are
recognized in the Bible. See Isaiah v. 1, 2, 3, 4,
9

94 NATURAL ABILITY.
Parables of the vineyard, and the talents.
Was there nothing in the soil and culture of this vine
yard which rendered fruit, in respect to the soil, a
natural possibility? But the vineyard was the house
of Israel, the owner was God, and the fruit demanded
was evangelical obedience : and God, the owner, de
cided that what he had done, rendered obedience prac
ticable, and punishment just. He calls upon the
common sense and common justice of the universe
to judge between him and his vineyard. He asks
whether he had not done that for his vineyard which
laid a just foundation for it to bring forth good, in
stead of wild grapes, and declares that the 'bringing
forth of wild grapes was a thing enormous; and goes
on to pronounce judgment upon his vineyard.
So in the parable of the talents. The owner com
mitted a certain portion of his money to every man
according to his several ability. These servants again,
represent the Jewish nation. The talents represent
gospel privileges; the improvement to be made be
lieving — and the misimprovement sloth and unbe
lief. The trust was graduated in proportion to the
ability of each man. There was ability therefore, and
the servant who improved his trust, received a reward.
But the servant who made excuses, pleaded his nat
ural inability: I knew that thou wert a hard master,
reaping where thou hadst not sown, and gathering
where thou hadst not strewed; (worse than the task
masters of Egypt;) and I was afraid. I dared not
undertake to do anything with my talent. I thought
the safest way would be to hide it, and run no risk.
But his Lord said to him — Thou wicked and slothful

NATURAL ABILITY. 95
Ability, the ground and measure of obligation.
servant, thou knewest that I was a tyrant, demanding
the improvement of gifts not bestowed. How couldst
thou suppose, then, that I would not exact the im
provement of what was given? Why didst thou not
put my money to the exchangers ? and then I should
have received my own with usury. Do I demand
effects without causes? Take him away, thrust him
into outer darkness: he has libelled his Maker, he has
slandered his God.
6. The broad principle is laid down in the Bible,
that ability is the ground and measure of obligation.
According to that which a man hath, and not accord
ing to that which he hath not; to whom much is given,
of him shall much be required; but to whom little is
given, of him shall little be required, is the language
ofthe equitable Ruler of the world. But if ability is
not needful to obligation, why observe this rule?
why not reverse it? Why not require little of him
to whom much is given, and much from him to whom
little is given? Present this principle to any man but
an idiot, and see what he will say to such a proceed
ing. There is not a human being whose sense of
justice would not revolt from it. And shall man be
more just than God? Nor is the principle of gradua
ting responsibility by ability, a limited rule of the
divine government, applicable only in particular
cases; the rule is general; it is universal; it applies to
every free agent in the universe.
7. The manner in which all excuses are treated in
Scripture, which are founded on the plea of inability,
confirms our exposition. There were impenitent sin-

96 NATURAL ABILITY.
The Bible treats excuses in a manner which confirms the doctrine.
ners of old, who plead a natural inability of obedience.
In the time of the prophet Jeremiah, there were those
who alledged that God's decrees created the unavoid
able necessity of sinning. They said they could not
help it. But God, by his prophet, instead of conced
ing the doctrine, repelled it with indignation.
'Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot pro
fit. Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and
swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk
after other gods whom ye know not; And come and
stand before me in this house, which is called by my
name, and say, We are delivered to do all these
abominations?' Jer. vii. 8, 9, 10.
Does God approve of men's reasoning, when they
say, God has decreed it, and God executes his de
crees, and a resistless fate moves us on to evil. Far
from it. In what stronger language could the Lord
speak to hardened and impudent men, who laid their
sins at ! his door? Now the fall itself was some
how comprehended in God's decrees; and if it be
true that the fall took away all man's natural ability,
wherein were those Jews wrong? Their excuse was
that their sins were produced by the fatality of God's
decrees. They were delivered to do all these abom
inations. Their fathers had eaten sour grapes and
the children's teeth were set on edge. By the sin of
Adam they had lost all free agency, and therefore
they were not to blame; all was just as God would
have it; an inexorable fate drove them on, and how
could they resist the Almighty? But if God did
indeed require spiritual obedience from men who lay

NATURAL ABILITY. 97
A free agent able to choose either way, life or death.
in a state of natural impotency, how is it that he
frowned so indignantly, when they pleaded their im
potence in bar of judgment?
Again, in Ezekiel, xxxiii. 10, we have the following
language: 'Therefore, O thou son of man, speak unto the
house of Israel, Thus ye speak, saying, If our trans
gressions and our sins be on us, and we pine away in
them, how should we then live?'
Now, suppose they had been born blind, and God
had commanded them to see, and they had replied,
Our blindness and darkness sits heavily upon us, and
we pine away in it, and it is impossible for us to see,
how then can we escape thy displeasure? Would
God in such a case have answered:
'I have no pleasure in your blindness, which it is
impossible for you to remove. As- 1 live, saith the
Lord God, I have no pleasure in your blindness, there
fore open your eyes and see ye?'
Does God call men to turn, when a natural impos
sibility lies in the way, and punish them forever, for
not turning? That is not like God. Shall not the
Judge of all the earth do right? The representations
of the Bible attach obligation and accountability to a
free agent as being able to choose both ways; as hav
ing ability to choose life, or to choose death. For
whatis written in Deut. xxx. 11 — 20:
'See, I have set before thee this day life and good,
and death and evil ; In that I command thee this day
to love the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, and
to keep his commandments and his statutes and his
9*

98 NATURAL ABILITY.
Natural power essential to obedience as well as disobedience.
judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply. I
call heaven and earth to record this day against you,
that I have set before you life and death, blessing and
cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy
seed may live : That thou mayest love the Lord thy
God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that
thou mayest cleave unto him.
If it be said that men are free to evil and accounta
ble for doing wrong, I answer, if God commanded
men to sin, that might suffice; but if he commands
them to stop sinning, and they have no free agency
to do it, and it is a natural impossibility to stop, how
does free agency to do what is forbidden create ob
ligation to abstain and do what is commanded, when
they have no power? Besides, could they not sin
without ability to sin? How then can they obey with
out ability to obey? And if they have free agency to
obey, that is just what I am contending for. For
they can no more obey without natural power, than
they can sin without natural power. If man, as a
free agent, has not natural power to obey, then com
mands, and exhortations, and entreaties, and expos
tulations might as well be addressed to men without
the five senses; commanding them on pain of eternal
death to see, hear, feel, taste, and smell. This argu
ment was used by Pelagius and Arminius; and in
the forms they urged it, was easily answered; they
brought it forward to prove not only that man is nat
urally able to obey God, but to prove that he actually
does obey the gospel without special grace, that his
will is under no bias from the fall, and that his moral

NATURAL ABILITY. 99
God, not the author of sin.
ability is so unperverted, that it is sufficient without
regeneration, to do all that God has commanded.
Augustine maintained that the will was entirely
struck out of balance; Pelagius on the contrary
maintained, that it remained in delightful equilibrio,
and consequently that no grace of God was needed
to determine it to a right choice, insisting that de
pendence on grace to change the will was inconsist
ent with commands and -exhortations, &c. But
Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and all the reformers fully
admit the ability of man as a free agent, and deny
that his moral inability and dependency as a sinner,
supersede obligation, invitation, and command. The
natural ability of man is a point which has never been
controverted by the church at large, and generally only
by heretics. The orthodox portion of the church of
God never has questioned it; and denied only moral
ability, L e. a right disposition or will, in opposition
to the Arminian and Pelagian heresies.
XV. The Scriptures and our Confession both teach,
that God is not the author of sin — that he neither cre
ates it, nor devises plans, nor adapts means, to break
the force of his own laws and administration, so as
purposely to prevent obedience and produce sin, as
the natural and necessary result of his own power
and agency. You may search the word and works
of God with a microscope, and you cannot find any
such thing as a plan tending to prevent obedience
and to produce sin. You may light up ten thou
sand suns and search every cavern and deep recess
of nature, and you can find no such thing. In

100 NATURAL ABILITY.
The whole tendency of God's government is to prevent sin.
the development of his character, law, gospel, and
providence, he has produced powerful means of
drawing his subjects to obedience, unobstructed by
any counteracting influences designed to prevent
obedience and produce sin. He has given no law
against the moral law, and affords no motives to dis
obedience, and administers no providence to defeat
the administration which corroborates the powers of
law. All the tendencies of his government, law, gos
pel, and providential administration, are self-consist
ent and in unison. God tempteth not any man,
neither can he be tempted of evil. The whole ten
dency of his government in the hands of the Media
tor is, to lead the ruined rebel to break off his sins by
repentance, and not to induce him to persist in them.
God is not the author of sin. It comes against the
whole moral influence of his glorious character, law,
gospel, and government. Nor in its existence in
fallen man, ' is violence offered to the will of the crea
tures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second
causes taken away, but rather established.'
Of course I reject all theories of the origin or con
tinuance of evil, which make God the author of sin. —
The Gnostic that he placed man in contact with
sinful matter, to be unavoidably corrupted — or the
Manichean, that it is a part of the created substance
ofthe soul — or that it is a created instinct of our nature,
perverting the will by the power of a constitutional
necessity — or that all agency in creatures is impossible,
and therefore, that God creates sinful and holy exer
cises, by a direct efficiency in such quantities and pro-

NATURAL ABILITY. 101
Man capable of choice, with power of contrary election.
portions as please him. I hold, with the Confession,
the doctrine of free agency, before and since the fall,
sufficient, while upheld, to make holiness obligatory,
and account for sin without supposing God to be its
author, in a way which would make him contradict
himself, and oppose his own laws and government,
and do violence to the will of the creatures, and de
stroy the liberty of choice, determining it to evil, by
an absolute necessity of nature. To the system of
free agency, then, which teaches that to fallen man
' no ability of any kind' exists to obey the gospel, or
is required to constitute a perfect obligation to do so,
and a just desert of eternal punishment for not obey
ing; I oppose the testimony of the whole orthodox
church, and that of the Bible.
XVI. Finally. The Confession of Faith teaches
plainly and unanswerably, the free agency and natu
ral ability of man, as capable of choice, with the
power of contrary election.
In confirmation of this position, I refer to the Con
fession, chap. ix. sec. 1.
' God hath endued the will of man with. that natural
liberty, that it is neither forced, nor by any absolute
necessity of nature, determined, to good or evil.'
Now if this declaration has respect to man, as a
race, if the term man, as here employed, is generic,
including Adam and all his posterity, then the pas
sage quoted settles the question. The whole turns
on — what is the meaning of the word man ? Because,
if it means man as fallen, if it means Adam's poster
ity, my opponent is gone — the ground is swept

102 NATURAL ABILITY.
The term ' man' used in a generic sense.
from under him. He must prove that man means
Adam, and Adam only, and Adam before the fall, or
else the Confession is against him. Now, what is
the subject of the chapter to which this section
belongs? It respects free will; i. e. free will in the
theological sense of that phrase, as the doctrine was
discussed between Augustine and Pelagius, a consid
erable time since the fall, and has respect to man in
the generic sense. That this is so, is plain, from the
scriptural references, quoted in support of the posi
tions taken. If the declarations of the chapter had
respect solely to Adam, the scriptural references
would be to Adam; but these references, do not
refer to him, but do refer to his fallen posterity.
They drive the nail, and clinch it. See what they
are: 'But every man is tempted, when he is drawn
away of his own lust, and enticed.' James i. 14.
' I call heaven and earth to record this day against
you, that I have set before you life and death, bles
sing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both thou
and thy seed may live.' Deut. xxx. 19.
These are the scriptural proofs, selected and ad
duced by the Assembly of Divines, as exhibiting the
scripture authority on which the declarations in the
chapter are made: and what are they? Listen to
them: ' God hath endued the will of man with that natu
ral liberty, that it is neither forced, nor by any
absolute necessity of nature determined, to good or
evil.' Confess, of Faith, ix. 1.

NATURAL ABILITY. 103
Man in a state of innocency had power to do good o.r evil.
If this means Adam, all I say is, that they use very
bad grammar, and have made a most wonderful mis
take in the references quoted. To say that the will
of Adam before the fall, is neither forced nor deter
mined by necessity, is nonsense, and makes the
second section tautology.
The first, if it refers to Adam in innocency, says
he had natural liberty of will, and was not forced
or determined by necessity to choose good or evil;
and the second section repeats the same thing; that
man in his state of innocency had freedom and power
to do good or evil.
I take the question as settled then, that ' man' here
means man as a race, and that ' will' here means the
will of man as a race; and it is what I hold, and
what all the church hold; and it is the fair meaning of
the Confession. What follows in the next section,
with respect to man in a state of innocency, is a
confirmation and an illustration of the doctrine as
thus explained.
' Man, in his state of innocency, had freedom and
power to will and to do that which is good and well
pleasing to God; but yet mutably, so that he might
fall from it:' (Confess, of Faith, ix. 2.) i. e. his free
agency included the natural power of choosing right
or of choosing wrong.
Adam had the natural ability to stand, and he had
it in a state of balanced power, in which he was ca
pable of choosing, and liable to choose either way.
Then comes section the third, which contains a
description of the change induced by the fall, a

104 NATURAL ABILITY.
The fall changed the will, not the constitutional powers.
change which respected the will of man, not his con
stitutional powers;* a change in the voluntary use of
his will.
' Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly
lost'— Lost! what? The natural liberty of his will, so
that it is now- forced and determined by an abso
lute necessity to good or evil? Not a word of it. It
was not that; it was something else .he lost: and
thereupon turns the question between us. The Con
fession says:
' Lost all ability of will to any spiritual good
accompanying salvation; so, as a natural man, being
altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin, is
not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or
to prepare himself thereunto.'
He lost ' all ability of will.' Does this mean that,
in respect to the power of choice, his will fell into a
state of natural inability? Not at all. He had the
power of choice as much as ever. But he had lost
all moral ability, that is, inclination to choose what
was good. His will was altogether averse from it.
He was altogether unwilling. He fell into an ina
bility of will, i. e. into a state of obstinate unwilling
ness. This is the common use of terms until this day.
Moral inability means not impossibility, but it means
unwillingness. Man became ' dead.' But how? Not
by the annihilation of his natural powers, not dead in
respect to the natural liberty of his will, but dead in sin •>
so as not to be able, by his own strength (of will) to con
vert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto.' I say

NATURAL ABILITY. 105

The words, ' able' and ' strength,' employed in a moral sense only.
' Amen! — this is my doctrine. The word 'able,' and
the word 'strength,' are both employed in a moral
sense, and in a moral sense only; and thus interpre
ted, the Confession is perfectly consistent with itself.
The fourth section of this chapter is a corrobora
tion ofthe same position:
' When God converts the sinner, and translates him
into, the state of grace, he freeth him from his natu
ral bondage under sin, and by his grace alone, enables
him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually
good; yet so as that, by reason of his remaining cor
ruption, he doth not perfectly nor only4 will that
which is good, but doth also will that which is evil.'
Frees him from what? From his free agency?
from the constitutional powers of his being? No.
Frees him from his bondage under sin, i. e. from his
bias to evil, from his moral inability. And how is he
freed? The Confession says it is by grace. Won
derful grace it would be, to restore his natural powers!
One would think this was more like justice than grace.
But it is argued, that if this bondage means mere
obstinacy of will, man would not need divine aid.
Indeed, so far is this from being true, that no crea
ture does need divine aid so much as a free agent
obstinately bent upon evil. My children were free
agents, but they needed aid, to secure the perform
ance of such duties as they were naturally able, but as
fallen creatures disinclined to perform. None possess
such a power of resistance, as a free agent under moral
inability or aversion to good. It is a bias which he
himself never will take away. God must deliver him ;
10

106 NATURAL ABILITY.
Confession of Faith on the decrees of God.
and every thing short of divine aid, is short of his ne
cessity. Men are sometimes fully sensible of this. I.
have heard of a man, under the power of the habit of
intemperance, who cried out to his friends, Help
me ! help me ! wake me up ! save me, or I fall ! The
love of liquor had not destroyed his natural ability.
But he felt that his moral ability — his ability of will
to resist temptation — was gone. The distinction is
plain and easy; and it is one that we can all under
stand in the every day affairs of life. If we see
our friends in danger of being overcome by evil habit,
we brace them against its power; we perceive their
moral inability, and we bring them all the aid in our
power. The phrase, ' to incline and enable,' is just
as consistent with a moral inability as it is with a
natural. Our natural bondage is that into which we
are born by nature. Our constitutional bias to evil
is called original sin. And it is grace, and grace
alone, that enables a man to resist and overcome it.
This I believe; this I hold; this I have felt. We shall
be inclined to good alone, only when we reach the
state of glory.
This reasoning is corroborated by the doctrine of
the Confession, in respect io God's decrees.
'God from all eternity did, by the most wise and
holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchange
ably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as
thereby neither is God the author of sin, "nor is vio
lence offered to the will of the creature, nor is the
liberty or contingency of second causes taken away,
but rather established,'

NATURAL ABILITY. 107
No violence done to the will by the decrees of God.
Here are two points of doctrine laid down. First,
that by the decrees of God no violence is done to
the will of the creature: its natural liberty is not
invaded or destroyed. It is not in God's decree that
it should be forced or divested of its natural power,
but the contrary.
There is nothing in God's whole plan that amounts
to the destruction of the natural liberty of the will.
Now if I can show that on the contrary, his decrees
confirm it, why then, I carry my exposition. But
what says the chapter?
' God from all eternity, did freely and unchangeably
ordain whatsoever comes to pass.'
That God did ordain the fall, and all its connec
tions and consequences, cannot then be denied. But
how were these ordained? The Confession tells us
how: It was, ' so that no violence is offered to the -will
of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of
second causes taken away, but rather established.'
Here it is disclosed that the natural liberty of the
will is not destroyed by the fall, but rather established;
instead of taking away free agency, and the capacity
of choice, God decreed to establish it. Whatever has
been the wreck and ruin produced by the fall, the
free agency originally conferred upon man, has not
been knocked away. Therefore it was, that I pressed
this book to my heart, because it assures me, that the
righteous Governor of the world, has done no vio
lence to these powers and faculties of man, on which
his government rests.

108 NATURAL ABILITY.
Decrees — Contingency — Dr. Twiss.
But I am happy on this subject, in being able to
adduce an authority altogether above my own. What
did the Assembly of Divines mean by this word con
tingency? The celebrated Dr. Twiss, who was their
prolocutor or moderator, must be high authority on
that question. He says:
' Whereas we see some things come to pass neces
sarily, some contingently, so God hath ordained that
all things shall come to pass: but necessary things
necessarily, and contingent things contingently, that
is, avoidably and with a possibility of not coming to
pass. For every university scholar knows this to be
the notion of contingency.' — Chr. Spec. vol. vii. No.
1. p. 165.
Dr. Twiss is speaking of natural and moral events,
the only events which exist in the universe; and he
says that God decreed that all things should come to
pass; that natural events should come to pass neces
sarily; and that moral events, which are acts of will,
and which he calls ' contingent things,' shall come to
pass contingently; which he explains to mean avoid
ably and with a natural possibility of not coming to
pass. He is speaking of the moral world, and he
says that in the natural world all is necessary as
opposed to choice; but that in the moral world all is
free, as opposed to coercion, or natural necessity, or
inability of choice; and that every act of will, though
certain in respect to the decree, is yet free and unco
erced in respect to the manner of its coming to pass,
and as to any natural necessity, always avoidable —
not avoided, but according to the very nature of free

NATURAL ABILITY. 109
How God executes his decrees — Con. of Faith— Shorter Catechism.
agency, always avoidable, in accordance with the
language of the Confession, ch. ix. sec. 1. [quoted
above.] Now we shall show how God executes his decrees;
and what says the Confession on this point? (See
ch. v. sec. 2:)
'Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and
decree of God, the first cause, all things come to pass
immutably and infallibly; yet, by the same provi
dence, he ordereth them to fall out according to the
nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or
contingently:' i. e. the volitions ofthe mind come to
pass freely, and as opposed to any natural necessity,
avoidably. The account given of the actual effects ofthe fall,
is a still further confirmation of our exposition; ch.
vi. sec. 2:
' By this sin, they fell from their original righteous
ness, and communion with God, and so became dead
in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties and
parts of soul and body.'
Also Shorter Catechism, Ques. and Ans. 17, 18:
Q. Into what estate did the fall bring mankind?
A. Tne f"au brought mankind into a slate of sin
and misery ?
Q,. Wherein consists the sinfulness of that estate
whereinto man fell ?
A. ' The sinfulness of that estate whereinto man
fell, consists in the guilt of Adam's first sin, the want
of original righteousness, and the corruption of his
whole nature, which is commonly called Original Sin;
10*

110 NATURAL ABILITY.
Natural powers perverted by the fall, not destroyed.
together with all actual transgressions which proceed
from it.
If man lost the natural power of right choice, this
answer should have been changed, and we ought to
have been told, that the fall brought mankind into a
state of natural impotency. But it says no such
thing. It says it brought him into a state of sin.
What! Can a man sin without being a free agent?
The effects here stated are, the loss of holiness and
the corruption of his nature. But surely the cor
ruption of nature is not the annihilation of nature;
his nature must, still exist in order to be corrupt.
What then is its corruption? It is deatin sin, not
the death of its natural powers. There is no de
struction of the agents. But there is a perversion
of those powers which do constitute their agency.
So much for the testimony of the Confession of
Faith. I said that in expounding a written instrument we
are always to consider the attributes of the subject
concerning which it speaks; that its language is to be
expounded, in reference to the nature of the thing.
The Confession teaches that man was endowed with
a natural liberty of choice, and has suffered no per
version but that which consists in a wrong exercise
of his will. Its natural liberty remains, but in regard
to moral liberty, i. e. an unbiased will, the balance is
struck wrong.
Such are my views of the natural ability of fallen
man, and my evidence that they are just.
It is the ability of an intelligent, accountable agent

NATURAL ABILITY. Ill
Fatality the only alternative of natural inability.
for the exercise of his own powers under law, and in
the view of motives, and with a sense of obligation
and just liability to reward and punishment. Nothing
short of this distinguishes man from animals, or dust and
ashes. If some such power be not real, no difference
can be pointed out between free agency and fatality,
and no reason assigned why God should govern man
by moral laws, and hold him accountable rather than
any other of the products of his power and natural
government. I say, therefore, with Tertullian —
'A law would not have been imposed on a person
who had not in his power the obedience due to the law;
nor again would transgression have been threatened
with death, if the contempt also of the law were not
placed to the account of man's free will.
' He who should be found to be good or bad by
necessity, and not voluntarily, could not with justice
receive the retribution either of good or evil.' p. 64.

MORAL INABILITY.

I now proceed to explain the doctrine of Man's
Moral Inability, as understood in every age by the
orthodox church, and as taught in the Confession of
Faith and the Bible, and as I hold and teach it.
I am aware that the doctrine of a moral inability,
as distinguished, from natural impossibility, is regarded
by some as a fiction of the imagination, or a mere
metaphysical subtility, of no practical utility; while
all its tendencies are powerfully to the territories of
dangerous error. But when the nature and evidence
of moral inability shall have been stated, it will ap
pear, as I hope, to such persons, that they have not, as
Edwards says, 'well considered the matter;' and that
there is a distinction between natural impossibility
and a moral inability, palpable and salutary, without
denying the dependence of man for effectual calling
on the special influence of the Holy Ghost, or imply
ing the doctrine of self-regeneration and salvation
without an atonement by the deeds of the law.
By natural inability I understand, that which an
agent, though ever so willing, cannot do from defect
of capacity; and by moral inability, that which his
capacity as ai\ agent renders possible and makes
obligatory, and which is prevented only by his own

114 MORAL INABILITY.
The bias ofthe will to evil never overcome by natural ability.
uncoerced choice, including in the term not only
single consecutive volition, but that general and
abiding decision of the mind for God or against him
— which constitutes holy or unholy character, and
includes, what Edwards denominates, 'the will and
affections of the soul,' and Turretin, 'a habit of cor
rupt will.'
This voluntary hindrance of spiritual obedience is
called inability, in accordance, as I shall show, with
the uniform use of speech in all the languages of men,
applying the terms cannot, unable, &c. to whatever
is prevented by the slightest disinclination, up to the
most terrible obstinacy of will. In reference to spir
itual obedience, it is called inability, also, I have no
doubt, from the great' and universal difficulty expe-
perienced by man in changing from a wrong to a
right decision of mind in respect to God and duty, as
well as from the absolute certainty that without the
Holy Ghost, the obstinacy of the human will, will
produce its deadly results with a certainty equal to
the connexion between natural causes and their ef
fect, though not in the same manner, or with the
same results as to accountability and desert of punish
ment. It is called in the Creeds of the Reformation,
and in our own Confession, inability of will — because
spiritual obedience is prevented only by the perverse
action of the will; and to indicate that free agency
and natural ability never avail in fallen man, to over
come the bias of his will to evil, under the combined
influence of original and actual sin; that with the
ability to choose right, resulting from free agency and

MORAL INABILITY. 115
Moral inability of man distinct from natural ability.
creating obligation, he actually chooses wrong, and
only wrong, until renewed by the Holy Ghost.
It is called a moral inability also in the language of
Turretin. 1. 'Objectively, because it has respect to moral
duties. 2. As to its origin, because it is brought on
one's self; which arises from voluntary corruption,
voluntarily acquired by the sin of man. 3. As to its
CHARACTER, (fORMALITER,) BECAUSE THAT IS VOLUNTARY
AND CULPABLE WHICH IS FOUNDED IN A HABIT OF CORRUPT
WILL.' By all this I understand Turretin to mean, that the
moral inability of man is a reality — is distinct from
a natural impossibility, and is called moral, because
it respects the aversion of mind to the performance
of spiritual duties, brought upon the race, by the vol
untary transgression of Adam, and eventuating in a
habit of corrupt will. To all of which I subscribe.
It is in this sense that the term moral inability is
used by Edwards — 'We are said to be naturally una
ble to do a thing which we cannot do if we will, be
cause what is commonly called nature, does not allow
of it.
' Moral inability is the want of inclination, or, a
contrary inclination.'
This impotency of will to good, according to the
Bible and our Confession, and the received doctrines
of the church — includes the constitutional bias to
actual sin, produced in all men by the fall, anterior
to intelligent, voluntary action, which, though it
destroys not that natural liberty with which God

116 MORAL INABILITY.
Native bias to sin never changed but by the Holy Spirit.
hath endowed the will, nor forces, nor determines
it by any necessity of nature to the choice of evil
instead of good — does, nevertheless evince, that
mankind are, as Edwards says — 'under the influ
ence of a prevailing, effectual tendency to that sin
and wickedness, which imply their utter and eternal
ruin.' To this bias isadded in fallen adult man, that ter-
riffic decision of the mind in favor of the world and
against God, which never changes, but under the
special influence of the Spirit in our effectual calling.
To which may be added, the formidable, accumu
lating influence of habit, which, though it forces not
the will, or determines its perverse obstinacy by any
necessity of nature, does yet in accordance with the
known laws of perverted mind, powerfully corrobo
rate the perverting influences of both original and
actual sin, by impairing the moral sensibilities of the
soul, and the power of motive to good, while it fear
fully augments the temptations to evil, and facilitates
the liability, and diminishes the resistance to a com
pliance. This is the view of the subject which is recognized
in our Confession, and taught in the Bible, and held
forth in the creeds and standard orthodox works of
every age, as the received doctrine of the church.
In my preaching, I have not been accustomed to
employ the terms natural and moral inability, because
they are the technical terms of theological controver
sy, around which prejudice has gathered odium and
mistake. But in the present case I have no other

MORAL INABILITY. 117
Love of sin, no evidence of its natural and unavoidable necessity.
alternative, because it is on these technical terms that
the whole controversy turns.
I say, then, that our Confession, while it teaches
unanswerably the free agency and natural ability of
man to choose right as well as wrong, teaches witfi
equal clearness his moral inability as consisting in a
settled aversion of will to all spiritual obedience, until
called efficaciously by the word and Spirit of God.
1. There is no necessity for interpreting the terms
of the Confession, as applied to fallen man, to mean
the natural impossibility of obedience.
The various phrases expressing inability, are by
common use in all languages applied to express
whatever is prevented voluntarily, either by slight
disinclination, or the most powerful, immutable de
cision of the mind. We use the terms cannot, unable,
&c. continually to express whatever for the slightest
reasons we do not find it convenient or feel inclined
to do, and where no natural impossibility exists or is
thought of. As there is, therefore, no necessity to
interpret the terms inability, and unable, as applied
to fallen man, as teaching the natural impossibility of
obedience — so also from the established use of the
terms in all languages, there is no authority for doing it.
The decision and permanence of sinful preference,
affords no evidence of its natural and unavoidable
necessity. Edwards has shown that certainty and uniformity
of right or wrong action does not decide the manner
of it as being voluntary or coerced.
He shows, in accordance with our Confession, that
11

118 MORAL INABILITY.
Moral impotency not inconsistent with other doctrines of the Bible.
God is free in his decrees and their execution, as
opposed to the coercion of fate; and that Christ, though
his character and life were foretold and certain, and.he
went as it was written of him, acted nevertheless with
en tire and uncoerced voluntariness. On the same prin
ciple Nebuchadnezzar and Judas, and sinners given up
of God, though their conduct may be certain as a mat
ter of fact, is not certain by a coerced necessity, but
in the highest sense free and accountable, and such
throughout are the implications of the Confession and
the Bible. Because the moral inability of man there
fore, is as immutable to all motive and human effort,
as the effects of natural causes, it does not follow
that jt is made certain and immutable by a natural
necessity. The doctrine of the moral impotency of man is not
inconsistent with any other of the doctrines of the
Bible. It is not inconsistent with the doctrine of our entire
and absolute dependence for regeneration on the
special influence of the Holy Spirit; for, while it
includes a natural ability of obedience, as the ground
of obligation, it teaches the certainty of its obstinate
perversion, creating in point of fact a necessity ofthe
Holy Ghost to renew, as real and as great as if the
impediment were a natural impossibility. It no more
implies self regeneration, than if the work ofthe Spirit
in subduing the will, consisted in creating new
faculties; the influence of the Spirit to make man
willing being just as indispensable to his salvation, as
if it were indispensable to make him naturally able.

MORAL INABILITY. 119
Difficulty of choosing right, arising from moral impotency.
Nor does that abilijy to obey, whose exercise is pre
vented by choice, imply that it is an easy matter for
man to repent and turn to God, in and of himself;
for every thing which is possible as a matter of duty
is not therefore easy. I agree therefore with Turre
tin ' that man, laboring under such an inability,
is falsely said to be able, if he wishes,' — implying that
a sinner's wishes may change a heart fully set on
evil.- 'For though the phrase may to some extent
be tolerated, understood concerning the natural pow
er of willing, which, in whatever condition we may
be, is never taken away from us; yet it cannot be
admitted when we speak of the moral disposition of
the will to good, not only to willing but to willing
rightly.' For, though in respect to the possibility
and corresponding obligation there can be no excuse;
nevertheless in- respect to the difficulty, nothing
which the mind can lawfully be commanded to do,
can be more difficult. It is difficult to resist the ori-
ainal bias of the mind to actual sin; difficult to relin-
quish the chief good located on earth, and set our
affections on things above; and difficult to reverse
the long accumulating tendency of the habitual in
dulgence of our evil way. The Bible, therefore,
represents it though a reasonable, yet a difficult thing
for a lost sinner to save himself; so difficult that none
do it, and that God, in doing it, makes glorious dis
plays both of power and grace; and every sinner and
every saint, in working out his salvation, finds the
scriptural representation true. The inattentive find
it difficult to resolve upon immediate attention; and

120 MORAL INABILITY.
The Confession teaches an inability other than a natural one.
difficult to fix their attention when they have done
it. The stupid find it difficult to awaken themselves
to feel and realize anything: and the awakened find it
difficult to see and feel their sins, and the great evil of
sin; and when convinced of sin, difficult to repent
and come to Christ. And when the sinner is con
verted, it is so difficult to maintain a spiritual frame
and holy resolutions, and watchfulness, and prayer,
and perseverance, that, for all that is past, and all
that is to come, he says, by the grace of God, I am
what I am.
The terms of the Confession preclude the inter
pretation of a natural impossibility, as their only
meaning, and cannot be so interpreted, without
making the Confession contradict itself.
According to a well established rule of interpreta
tion, no instrument is to be so explained as to make it
contradict itself, without necessity, and when it is
just as easy to harmonize all its parts, by adopting
a different interpretation. Now if I have not proved
that the Confession, as I interpret it, is sustained
by other collateral arguments in addition to that
which I have drawn from the Bible, then I shall
despair of ever successfully expounding a document
in the world. I never have seen so much light
thrown on any one point of exposition before. Does
not the Confession speak of inability other than a
natural one ? Does it not teach expressly ' the natu
ral liberty of the will' in fallen man to choose good
or evil, uncoerced by fate or necessity? And after all
is it a natural liberty that means nothing, and can do

MORAL INABILITY. 121
Original corruption implies active aversion, not fatal necessity.
nothing? Does ' inability of will' mean a natural im
possibility of exercising that 'natural liberty of the
will' in the choice of good ; and that it is coerced by
a natural necessity to the preference of evil? Does
the Confession contradict itself? We are not at
liberty, then, to make it in one set of terms deny an
ability, which it has asserted in another. And when it
declares in appropriate phraseology the natural liberty
of the will, it cannot mean to contradict in its account
of moral impotency what it had before asserted with
respect to its ability to choose, as opposed to fate.
I may be able in one sense, and unable in another.
The Confession, in fact, interprets itself. (And this, I
suppose, is what Dr. Wilson means, when he says,
we must receive the language of the Confession with
out any explanation.) I agree with him, that on
many points it needs no explanation. It guards
against its own perversion, and its language is such as
I should think it almost impossible to misunderstand.
Let us see what is the language which it holds in
chap. 6, sec. 4.
'From this original corruption, whereby we are
utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all
good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all
actual transgressions.'
Here is active aversion, not fatal necessity. The
man is indisposed, he is disabled by being indisposed.
But it has been said, that if a man needs help, it must
be a natural inability under which he lies. This I
deny. A man who lies under a moral inability needs
aid as really as if were naturally unable; and the aid he
11*

122 MORAL INABILITY.
Loss of liberty of will does not mean loss of free agency.
needs is such as God alone can bring him. What
Christian does not pray that God would help him?
But does he mean that he has no strength of any
sort? Not at all. He is afraid to trust his own heart.
He prays for moral aid, fpr moral ability, for strength
of purpose. Surely we are all agreed in this. We
believe alike — for we pray alike. New School and Old
School all confess, when they get before God, their
impotency of will to good, and pray for help to will and
to do. I have put off my coat, how shall I put it on?
We feel this impotency; and what we feel, God sees;
and that which he sees he has testified.
Chapter ix. on Free Will.
'Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly
lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompa
nying salvation; so as a natural man, being altogether
averse from that good, and dead in sin, is not able,
by his own strength, to convert himself, or to pre
pare himself thereunto.'
When it says that man has lost all ability of will,
it does not mean that he has lost all free agency. It
does not mean, that he is not able, as a free agent,
and bound to do that which is right, but that he has
lost all will to do it. My soul! do I not believe this?
Did I not feel it when God convinced me of sin? Full
well did I feel it. Did I not fall at the footstool and
tell the Lord that I was gone, that I was ruined and
helpless, and never should come back to him, unless
he put forth his hand to deliver me? If I ever preached
any truth to dying men, with all my heart and with
all my soul, it is the truth of man's total depravity

MORAL INABILITY. 123
Man remains utterly averse to all good until God quickens him.
and inability; that his condition is desperate, and
never will he turn and live, unless God shall look
down from heaven and have mercy upon him. This
is my doctrine; and it it is the doctrine of the Con
fession, which says, we are averse from all good.
This language suits me. There is no catch in this,
no quibble; I mean what I say; I fully and heartily
believe that man is utterly averse to all good; that
he is dead; dead in law and dead in sin — under the
curse of God, and so will ever remain, until God
quickens him by his Spirit and grace.
But let us see what the Confession says in sec. 4,
chap. 9.
' When God converts a sinner, and translates him
into the state of grace, he freeth him from his natural
bondage under sin, and by his grace alone enables
him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually
good; yet so as that, by reason of his remaining cor
ruption, he doth not perfectly nor only will that
which is good, but doth also will that which is evil.'
'Enable' here does not imply that there is any
natural inability. It means, inclines him to will.
The Confession is orthodox; it says that no mere
man is able, without divine aid, to keep God's com
mandments. That is my faith. I admit, however,
that this was the spot at which I once stumbled,
when, as I said, I was unable fully to embrace the
Confession of Faith. I saw a difficulty here. I be
lieved the Confession to mean just as Dr. Wilson
now insists that it does mean; and in that sense I
never could receive it. But on reflection, and with

124 MORAL INABILITY. •
Effectual calling — divine illumination.
those collateral lights which I have mentioned, I
now understand it to speak the very truth, and I
embrace it accordingly. I believe in the moral ina
bility which it here declares; and I believe that
moral inability to obey the law perfectly, will con
tinue until the christian reaches his home in heaven.
But now let us hear what the Confession says upon
effectual calling. I quote from chap. x. sec. 1.
'All those whom God hath predestinated unto life,
and those only, he is pleased, in his appointed and
accepted time, effectually to call by his word and
Spirit, out of that state of sin and death in which
they are by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus
Christ; enlightening their minds spiritually and sav
ingly to understand the things of God ; taking away
their heart of stone, and giving unto them an heart of
flesh; renewing their wills, and by his almighty power
determining them to that which is good; and effectu
ally drawing them to Jesus Christ: yet so as they
come most freely, being made willing by his grace.'
This enlightening I hold to be a divine illumination,
and such as the Spirit of God alone can give. The
phrase ' heart of stone,' which is employed in one of
the texts cited as proof, is a metaphor; and so is the
'heart of flesh;' and this I believe is the only passage
in the whole Bible where the term 'flesh' is employed
to signify anything good. A heart of flesh manifestly
means tenderness, susceptibility — in other words, a
willing heart. Renewing the ' will,' that is, turning
the will into a new direction. It is God who turns it.
The sinner left to himself never will turn. But in

MORAL INABILITY. 125
Regeneration the most stupendous work of Almighty power.
conversion God does not make a free agent. He turns
a free agent. I am perfectly aware that some very
good men suppose and assert, that the men of the
new school (though that, by the by, is one of the
most undefined of all designations; the term is like
fog, it has no substance and no definite limits, but
floats about in a sort of palpable obscure) hold to self-
regeneration; and that the influence of the Holy
Spirit is not necessary in turning a sinner from dark
ness to light. No man <?ver heard me teach such a
doctrine. I have taught directly the reverse, and
have put the doctrine of man's absolute dependence
into as strong terms "as I knew how to employ. If
there are any stronger, I shall be glad to get hold of
them. All who are in the habit of hearing me, know
perfectly that the total depravity of man and his de
pendence on the power and help of the Spirit of God
has been the great end of all my preaching ; and asi well
know has been, under God, the power of my preaching.
I think, and always have thought, that the display of
divine Omnipotence in converting rebel minds is
greater by far than any exhibition of it, which ever
has been made in the material world. And for an
obvious reason; because mind has more power of re
sistance than matter. Some men seem to think, that
if God does a thing by instrumentality, no opportuni
ty is left for God to show his own great power. I
think far otherwise. To me the truth seems weak
enough in itself to leave ample space for the display
of Omnipotence in making it effectual. I think that
the act of God in regeneration, is the most stupendous

MORAL INABILITY.

Moral inability taught by the fathers — Clement — Origen.
manifestation of omnipotent energy that has ever been
made by the Almighty. Nor do I ever expect to see
anything in God's works that will rival the solemn
majesty of that greatest of all his operations, which,
silent as the spheres, moves on in its resistless strength,
making the hearts of rebels yield before it.
The next point in the confirmation of my exposi
tion of the doctrine of the Confession, touching the
moral impotency of man, is to show, that what it af
firms on that subject, has been the doctrine of the
church of God in all ages. And I shall now attempt
to show that the fathers, while they held free will, in
opposition to necessity and blind fate, nevertheless
taught the moral inability of man, and his dependence
on the Holy Spirit, just as I teach it. The first au
thority I shall produce on this point is that of Clement
of Alexandria.
' Since some men are without faith and others con
tentious, all do not obtain the perfection of good.
Nor is it possible to obtain it without our own exer
tion. The whole, however, does not depend upon
our own will; for instance — our future destiny; for
we are saved by grace, not indeed without good
works.' — Scotfs Tomline, vol. 2, p. 56.
Clement teaches in this passage man's natural
ability and his moral inability with equal clearness.
Origen. — 'The virtue of a rational creature is
mixed, arising from his own free will, and the divine
power conspiring with him who chooses that which
is good. But there is need of our own free will, and
of divine cooperation which does not depend upon

MORAL INABILITY. 127
Moral inability — Gregory Nazianzen — Jerome.
our will, not only to become good and virtuous, but
also after we become so, that we may persevere in
virtue.' p. 82.
I quoted him before, and showed that he was
strong on the doctrine of free will, as opposed to fate.
What I have now quoted may be considered as a
good commentary upon the text: — It is God that
worketh in you both to will and to do of his good
pleasure. Gregory Nazianzen. — 'A right will stands in need
of assistance from God; or rather the very desire of
what is right is something divine, and the gift of the
mercy of God. For we have need both of power
over ourselves and of salvation from God. Therefore,
says he, it is not of him that willeth, that is, not of
him only that willeth, nor of him only that runneth,
but of God that showeth. Since the will itself is
from God, he with reason attributes every thing to
God, However much you run, however much you
contend, you stand in need of him who gives the
crown.' Gregory says that God is the author of faith — that
he is the beginning of good in the soul; yet he is
equally explicit on the doctrine of free will as oppos
ed to fatalism. He holds that man has need of all
that free agency can do, and all that grace performs
beside. Jerome. — 'For the freedom of the will is so to be
reserved, that the grace of the Giver may excel in all
things, according to the saying of the prophet, except
the Lord build the house, their labor is but lost that

MORAL INABILITY.

Moral inability — Theodoret.

build it. Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman
waketh but in vain. It is not of him that willeth,
nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth
mercy.' p. 146.
He declares, then, that though man is a free agent,
yet regeneration is not the effect of his agency, but
of God's free grace : as the preservation of a city is
not the result of the watchman's care, but of God's
unsleeping providence. Unless the Lord keep the
city, the watchman waketh but in vain.
Theodoret. — ' Neither the grace of the Spirit is suf
ficient for those who have unwillingness; nor, on the
other hand, can willingness, without this grace, col
lect the riches of virtue.' p. 290.
Here we see that while the grace of the Spirit does
not supersede the necessity of earnest attention and
striving on the part of man, yet that no strivings of
man will ever issue in a saving result, without
Almighty grace. And grace is not to be expected
while a man wilfully indulges in sloth and sleep, and
puts forth no effort for his own deliverance.
But, before adducing quotations further, I would
remark :
1 . That every one of these confessions recognizes
the liberty of the will, as free from coercion.
2. They all uniformly ascribe its perverse action
to the effect of the fall, in biasing, yet not in coercing
the will.
3. They all teach expressly that the bondage is
the influence of this evil bias, and not a natural
necessity of sinning; and taken together, they make

MORAL INABILITY.

Harmony ofthe Protestant Confessions. Early reformers.
out a clear and consistent account of the natural
ability of man, as a free agent and. of his moral
inability as a sinner, by reason of the bias of his will,
as occasioned by the fall. If you shut your eyes
and try their meaning only by your ear, you will
hear it abundantly asserted, that man hath no liberty
at all to desire good, and can of himself do nothing;
but if you compare their own language with itself,
you will perceive that they insist on the natural
liberty of the will, which means natural ability, and
teach only the impotence which results from the will
itself, as biased and perverted by the fall, and that the
distinction of man's natural ability as a free agent,
and his impotency through the perversity of his will,
runs through all the creeds, and is as plainly recog
nized in them as it is in our own Confession. It is
this habit of interpreting by sound, which demands a
running exposition, or I should need lo say nothing
in exposition of the quotations from the former of the
creeds. HARMONY OF THE PROTESTANT CONFESSIONS.
The doctrines of the early reformers in Europe
were misunderstood by the Catholics, against whom
they contended, who maintained that they were all a
set of schismatics; that they were perpetually jang
ling among each other, so that no two of them could
agree; and on this alledged fact, they strengthened
the great argument of their church as to the necessity
of having some head on earth to the visible church,
whose decisions might settle controversies and give
12

130 MORAL INABILITY.
Confession of Helvetia. Man's inability, moral and voluntary,
uniformity to the faith. To meet this argument and
repel it, the reformers got up this book, which is
entitled, The harmony ofthe Confessions: the design
of which was to show, by collating the Confessions
of different evangelical churches, that the representa
tion of their enemies was false; and that, in all funda
mental points of faith, they were fully agreed.
From this book, I am about to show what the Pro
testant churches, just come out ofthe fiery furnace of
Papal persecution, held on the subject of the moral
inability of man. I have already shown what was
the opinion of the fathers. I shall now show that of
the reformers. And I begin with the Confession of
Helvetia. Confession of Helvetia. — ' And we take sin to be
that natural corruption of man, derived or spread
from those our first parents unto us all, through
which we being drowned in evil concupiscences, and
clean turned away from God, but prone to all evil, full
of all wickedness, distrust, contempt, and hatred of
God, can do no good to ourselves, no not so much as
think of any.' p. 58.
Here we see that man's inability does not consist
in any want of understanding or conscience, or any
other attribute or power of a free agent; but that it
is the effect of that which is moral and voluntary; that
it arises from the evil concupiscence of a corrupt
nature, the willful unbelief of a wicked heart. Men
cannot do whatis good. Why? Because they have
a moral inability to do it. Who can bring a clean
thing out of an unclean? Again:

MORAL INABILITY. 131
Free agency does not prevent sin, nor ensure obedience.
' We are to consider, what man was after his fall.
His understanding indeed was not taken from him,
neither was he deprived of will, and altogether
changed into a stone or stock. Nevertheless, these
things are so altered in man, that they are not able
to do now, that which they could not do before his
fall. For his understanding is darkened, and his will^
which before was free, is now become a servile will:
for it serveth sin, not nilling, but willing: for it is
called a will, and not a nilling. Therefore, as touch
ing evil or sin, man does evil, not compelled either by
God or the Devil, but of his own accord; and in this
respect he hath a most free will.' p. 60.
The fall is here said not to have deprived man of
free agency; not to have turned him into a stock ox
a stone; but that his free agency, as it did not suffice
to keep him from sinning, does not suffice to raise
him from the ruins of the fall. Again, let us listen to
the same Confession.
'The regenerate, in the choice and working of
that which is good, do not only work passively, but
actively. For they are moved of God, that them
selves may do that which they do. And Augustine
doth truly alledge that saying, that God is said to be
our helper. For no man can be helped, but he, that
doth somewhat. The Manichees did bereave man of
all action, and made him like a stone and a block.
p. 62.
Here we find that no man is helped by grace as a
mere passive impotent machine ; that he acts in work
ing out his salvation; and that God helps him as a

132 MORAL INABILITY.

French Confession. Confession of Belgia.
free agent, and not as a mass of lead. A piece of lead
cannot be helped to rise. It may be lifted. But it
cannot be helped. And for the simple reason, that
it hath no agency of its own to be helped.
The French Confession. — 'Also, though he be en
dued with will, whereby he is moved to this or that,
yet insomuch as that is altogether captivated under sin,
it hath no liberty at all to desire good, as of itself, but
such as it hath received by grace and ofthe gift of God.
We believe that all the offspring of Adam is infected
with this contagion, which we call original sin, that
is, a stain spreading itself by propagation, and not by
imitation only, as the Pelagians thought, all whose
errors we do detest. Neither do we think it neces
sary to search, how this sin may be derived from one
unto another. For it is sufficient that those things
which God gave unto Adam, were not given to him
alone, but to all his posterity: and therefore we in
his person being deprived of all those good gifts, are
fallen into all this misery and curse.' pp. 68, 89.
This Confession begins with the natural liberty of
will to choose this way or that, and asserts only its
moral impotence, as swayed by this bias of our con
stitution as affected by the fall.
'Confession of Belgia. — Therefore whatever things
are taught, as touching man's free will, [i. e. unbiased
will,] we do worthily reject them, seeing that man is
the servant of sin, neither can he do any thing of him
self, but as it is given him from heaven : for who is so
bold as to brag that he is able to perform whatever
he listeth, when as Christ himself saith, no man can

MORAL INABILITY. 133
Augsburgh Confession. — Sinner morally dead, notin natural powers.
come unto me except my Father which hath sent me do
draw him ?'
From the context of this verse, and the Catechism,
it appears, that this drawing is accomplished by
divine teaching, the reading and preaching of the
word, made effectual by his Spirit. '
The Augsburgh Confession. — ' And this corruption
of man's nature comprehendeth both the defect of
original justice, integrity, or obedience, and also con
cupiscence. This defect is horrible blindness, and
disobedience, that is, to wit, to want that light and
knowledge of God, which should have been in our
nature being perfect, and to want that uprightness,
that is, that perpetual obedience, that true, pure, and
chief love of God, and those other gifts of perfect
nature, p. 71.
We have seen that Luther, the author of this Con
fession, teaches the natural ability of man, as a free
agent — that all actual sin is voluntary: and every
term employed here implies a moral, not a natural de-.
feet, the want of holiness, and the power of evil desire.
All these witnesses of the truth hold to the free
dom of the will as opposed to coercion or necessity,
but deny its right inclination: and thus, while they
justify God's requirements, they throw the sinner at
the feet of sovereign grace. There he lies dead, hope
lessly dead, not in body, not in natural power; but
dead in sins, dead morally, dead in hatred to God,
dead in unbelief, dead in willful and obstinate disobe
dience. And this distinction, once rightly appre
hended and firmly fixed in the mind, is equal to twenty
12*

134 MORAL INABILITY.
Difference between natural and moral inability.

thousand candles lighted up and carried through- the
Bible. The demand, however, is often made — what differ
ence does it make whether the inability of the sinner
is natural or moral, since the certainty of his destruc
tion without the Holy Ghost is just as great in one
case as the other? and of what consequence is an
ability never exerted, and a power that is never em
ployed? It might as well be said that muscular power un-
exerted, is as if it were not; that intellect perverted,
is the same as idiocy; and conscience seared, is the
same as if none had been given; that bread rejected
to starvation, is the same as inevitable famine— as to
say, that the voluntary perversion of all the competent
powers of free agency, is the same thing as their non
existence. Does it amount to the same thing, whether a man
cannot be temperate, or can be and will not? cannot
be honest, or can be and will not? A man as a free
agent, may indeed make his own destruction as cer
tain as if he could not help it. But does it make no
difference as to his character and desert, whether he
perishes from the natural impossibility of being saved,
or from a voluntary obstinacy in rejecting salvation?
And does it amount to the same thing, in respect to
the character of God, and the equity of his govern
ment, whether sinners fall under the operation of its
penalties from a natural impossibility of laying hold
on the provision for escaping them by a timely repen
tance, or by a voluntary obstinacy in despising the
riches of his goodness? Provided a man, as a matter

MORAL INABILITY. 135
Difference between the natural and moral government of God.
of certainty, will die at a given time— does it amount
to the same thing, whether he was killed unavoidably
or committed suicide? was thrust off a precipice
against his will, or threw himself off? was poisoned
unwittingly, or purposely poisoned himself? was as
sassinated by the dagger of another, or thrust a dag
ger into his own bosom ?
The difference between ability and inability in
the subject, is the difference between the natural and
moral government of God; in one of which his power,
and wisdom, and goodness, are displayed in the su
perintendence of animals and instincts — in the other, in
the administration of law, and the government of the
immortal mind — in which his justice, and the rich
ness of his goodness, and the exceeding greatness of
his mercy are to shine forever. But does it make no
difference, whether his justice is illustrated in pun
ishing the impotent, or the unwilling? and his mercy
in forgiving the nonperformance of impossibilities?
or the wilful disobedience of reasonable requirements?
It makes the difference between fatalism and free
agency — -confounding tbe pretension of the atheist to
a temporary animalism, and compelling him to trem
ble under the responsibilities of an everlasting ac
countability, guilt and punishment.
It stops the pestilent breath of sceptics and cavil
lers, by which thousands of youthful minds are per
verted — reasoning minds perplexed: — pious minds
distressed — and dissolute minds comforted with the
hope of impunity in sin — because God is just, and sin
is unavoidable.

136 MORAL INABILITY.
Calvinism. Antinomianism. Infidelity.
It takes away one of the most prevalent tempta
tions to the infidelity and atheism of the present day.
In reading the works of atheists and infidels, and
in attending to the objections of perverted minds,
the exciting and exasperating cause seems to be, the
supposition of accountability, associated with a con
stitutional, involuntary, unavoidable impotency. It
is the belief that the Bible and the Calvinistic Con
fessions attach accountability and punishment to a
natural impotency, which provokes and sustains
three-fourths of the atheism and infidelity of our
nation. They would admit the equity of a govern
ment, requiring according to what a man hath — but
are provoked and enraged at the supposed injustice
of punishment, unconnected with the possibility of
obedience in the subject, and understanding, and
being assured by masters in Israel, that the Bible and
our Confession teach this, they turn and rend the Bible.
The distinction between natural and moral inability,
counteracts the antinomian perversions of the Cal
vinistic system. Through all periods of the church
since the reformation, there have been antinomian
Calvinists, and eras of outbreaking antinomian
ultraism; and it has arisen from giving to the de
crees of God and their execution, the force of irre
sistible causes, and to man the action of a passive
machine; and though in some it has stopped in the
frozen regions of intellectual formality and presump
tuous reliance on God's efficiency, without human
instrumentality — in the less intellectual and more
heated and fanatical, it has degenerated not unfre-

MORAL INABILITY. 137
Difference between ancient and modern antinomianism.
quently into the most reckless licentiousness. So
the same opinions operated among the Jews, as we
learn by the terrible, interrogations of the prophet —
'Will ye lie, and steal, and commit adultery, and
swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and come
into this house which is called by my name, and say
we are delivered to do all these abominations ? We
have no power over ourselves. We do but obey the
irresistible laws of our nature. We are delivered by
the constitution God has given us, to do all these
things.' The only difference between these ancient
and modern licentious antinomians is, that the ancient
denied accountability entirely; while the latter attach
it to fatality, and bring in the grace of God to de
liver from a natural impotency. All these obliqui
ties of abused Calvinism have been pushed out, as I
believe, by the system of a supposed fatality of will
to evil.
The one is the occasion of great perplexity and
suffering to the pious, and not unfrequently to chris
tian ministers. They submit to it as very right, be
cause God does it. But it is a dark and painful sub
ject — they are embarrassed with it in their preaching,
and still more embarrassed in their attempts to meet
and answer the objections it creates, and at times
are excruciated with its bearings on their common
sense and feelings*
These different theories manifest their different
results in preaching. The one tends to the earnest
inculcation of immediate, spiritual obedience, after
the example of prophets, apostles,, and the whole

138 MORAL INABILITY.
Confession of Faith misunderstood and misrepresented.
Bible. The other to the substitution of unregenerate
prayers and strivings, with promises of gracious aid;
instead of commanding and entreating all men every
where to repent and fly to the Savior, by the wrath
of God abiding on them, and the terrors of the Lord
coming on them.
The different effects of our Confession, when ex
pounded, as teaching a real free agency, or a real
fatality, cannot be concealed or denied. By very
large portions of the community, the construction
of natural inability in our Creed, is supposed to teach
fatality, associated with accountability, environing
our church with the most rancorous hostility and
immoveable prejudice, and raising up between our
selves and other denominations an impassable barrier,
and giving them motive and opportunity to impede
and annoy us. The most successful means employed
againt our church in many places, have been the
printing and circulation of pur Confession, as a text
book for comment. They do, indeed, misunderstand
and misinterpret its meaning, but perhaps honestly,
inasmuch as they are sustained by the exposition of
some of the ministers of our own church — and should
the highest judicature of our church pronounce the
exposition correct, it would no doubt greatly facilitate
their labor.
In addition to the Christian fathers and the Protes
tant Confessions, on the subject of moral inability, I
refer to every one of the authorities I have quoted,
to Luther, Calvin, Turretine, Witherspoon, Edwards,
Bellamy, Hopkins, Dwight, Spring (father and son,)

MORAL INABILITY. 139
Dr. Greene's and Dr. Witherspoon's views of moral inability.
Wilson of Philadelphia, Woods, Tyler and Dr.
Matthews, as teaching the moral inability of man
as consisting in an uncoerced voluntary aversion
to spiritual obedience, not merely in consecutive
volition, but in a permanent character, which is
voluntary and culpable, because, as Turretine says,
' founded in a habit of corrupt will.' I close the quo
tations with Dr. Greene's account of moral inability.
He says —
' I conclude the present lecture with a quotation
from Dr. Witherspoon, in which my own views of
the topic before us are correctly expressed — " As to
the inability of man to recover himself by his own
power, though I would never attempt to establish a
metaphysical system of necessity, of which infidels
avail themselves in opposition to all religion, nor pre
sume to explain the influence of the Creator on the
creature; yet nothing is more plain, from scripture,
or better supported by daily experience, than that
man by nature is in fact incapable of recovery, with
out the power of God specially interposed. I will
not call it a necessity arising from the irresistible
laws of nature. I see it is not a necessity of the
same kind as constraint; but I see it an impossibility,
such as the sinner never does overcome." ' — Christ.
Advocate, 1831; p. 349.
If there be any doubt of Dr. Witherspoon's and
Dr. Greene's meaning, the following exposition of
Witherspoon himself may throw some light on the
subject. In this passage, Witherspoon, speaking the ap-

140 MORAL INABILITY.'
Inability only moral, and lies in aversion of the heart to God.
proved sentiments of Dr. Greene, disclaims the infi
del system of natural necessity, asserts an incapacity
in man to recover himself to holiness without the
power of God — not, however arising from the irre
sistible laws of nature, riot a necessity of the same
kind as constraint, but such an impossibility as the
sinner never does overcome. This is correct, and is a
good statement of natural ability and moral inability.
' Since mention has been made of perfect conformity
to the will of God, or perfect obedience to his law, as
the duty of man, which is indeed the foundation of
this whole doctrine, I think it necessary to observe,
that some deny this to be properly required of man,
as his duty in the .present fallen state, because he is
not able to perform it. But such do not seem to
attend either to the meaning of perfect obedience, or
to the nature or cause of this inability. Perfect
obedience is obedience by any creature, to the ut
most extent of his natural powers. Even in a state
of innocence, the holy dispositions of Adam would
not have been equal in strength and activity to those
of creatures of a higher rank : but surely to love God,
who is infinitely amiable, with all the heart, and above
all, to consecrate all his powers and faculties, without
exception, and without intermission, to God's service,
must be undeniably the duty of every intelligent crea
ture. And what sort of inability are we under to
pay this? Our natural faculties are surely as fit for
the service of God as for any baser purpose: the ina
bility IS ONLY MORAL, AND LIES WHOLLY IN THE AVERSION
OF OUR HEARTS FROM SUCH EMPLOYMENT. Does this then

MORAL INABILITY. 141
Man by nature incapable of recovery without the power of God.
take away the guilt ? Must God relax his law because
we are not willing to obey it? Consult even modern
philosophers; and such of them as allow there is any
such thing as vice, will tell you, that it lies in evil or
misplaced affections. Will then that which is ill in
itself excuse its fruits from any degree of guilt or
blame? The truth is, notwithstanding the loud
charge of licentiousness upon the truths of the gos
pel, there is no other system that ever I perused,
which preserves the obligations ofthe law of God in
its strength: the most part of them, when thoroughly
examined, just amount to this, that men are bound,
and that it is right and meet and fit that they should
be as good and as holy as they themselves incline.'
— Witherspoon, vol. 1, p. 45.
This is all which any one, from Justin Martyr to
this day, has taught, concerning man's natural ability:
viz. that he is able to obey, in respect to any hind
rance arising from the irresistible laws of nature,
including necessity of sinning of the same kind as
constraint. Yet nothing is better supported from
scripture, than that man by nature is in fact incapa
ble of recovery, without the power of God specially
interposed, though not 'an impossibility such as the
sinner cannot, but such as he never does over
come;' for, as Howe says, 'notwithstanding the
soul's capabilities, its moral incapacity, I mean its
wicked aversation from God, is such as none but God
himself can overcome. Now if all these writers,
including Dr. Greene, 'disclaim,' as he does, 'any
metaphysical system of necessity of which infidels
13

142 MORAL INABILITY.
The whole orthodox church united in the doctrine of natural ability.
avail themselves in opposition to all religion, — any
necessity of persisting in actual sin, arising from the
irresistible laws of nature ; and only insist that by the
fall such an aversation of man's will from God has
been occasioned as constitutes such an impossibility
as the sinner never does overcome: I think it must
be admitted that the whole orthodox church have been,
and are, singularly united in the doctrine of man's
natural ability of uncoerced will, and in his moral
impotency, by reason of a biased and perverted will.
I subjoin a few examples of natural and moral inabi
lity, as the terms are familiarly employed in the Bible.
Natural Inability. — ' Thou canst not see my
face and live.' Moses desired the full orbed vision
of the glory of God; but he is answered that it would
destroy his life, his natural powers could not sus
tain the overpowering manifestation. David said of
his child, after its death, ' can I bring him back again?'
and Solomon, ' can a man take fire in his bosom, and
his clothes not be burned?' And God demands, ' can
any hide himself that I shall not see him ?' ' The
Chaldeans answered, there is not a man upon the
earth that can show the king's matter — tell his
dream and its interpretation.' ' They which would
pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass
to us that would come from thence.' These are evi
dently specimens of natural inability, which no
willingness or effort on the part of the agent could
surmount. Let us now look at the same terms as implying
inability from disinclination or contrary choice —
• aversation of will.'

MORAL INABILITY. 143

Bible distinction between natural and moral inability — examples.
' With God all things are possible :' i. e. his natural
power is equal to any act which is not in its own nature
an impossibility. 'God who cannot lie' — 'by two immu
table things in which it was impossible for God to lie.'
Is God's omnipotence so limited that for want of power
he could not utter falsehood? Is it not the infinite
aversion of his holiness which constitutes the inabil
ity? ' The strength of Israel will not lie. Your
new moons, and Sabbaths, and calling of assemblies,
I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn
meeting.' The cannot is explained to mean his aver
sion to hypocrisy in worship: therefore it follows,
' when ye make many prayers / will not hear.'
It is said of our Savior, that ' he must needs go
through Samaria.' Was he compelled to go through
Samaria; or did he simply, for sufficient reasons,
choose to go that way ?
'He could not do mighty works there, because of
their unbelief.' Did the unbelief of man overpower
divine omnipotence, so that Christ had no ability to
work miracles; or did it furnish to his divine wisdom
such reasons against it as made him prefer not to do
it, expressed by the phrase could not, i. e. chose not
to do it?
'Can the children of the bride chamber fast while
the bridegroom is with them?' Doubtless they pos
sess the natural ability. But the meaning is, will
they choose to do it? Can they — i. e. will they?
' Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of?' It was
the cup of suffering and of ignominy; and he meant
not whether they could feel pain, and persecution,

144 MORAL INABILITY.
Bible distinction between natural and moral inability — examples.
and shame, (for he told them that they should,) but
whether they were willing, and believed that they
should continue willing to suffer with him — ' can ye,'
i. e. are you and shall you be willing?
' If it be possible, let this cup pass from me.' Did
our Savior doubt whether God had the power to
deliver him instantly from suffering? He knew he
could do it; and only, as man, was not certain
whether the agony he had already suffered might
suffice, or the expiation demanded more. The
phrase, if it be possible, means therefore, if it be wise
and seem good in thy sight — if thou art satisfied and
willing, let this cup pass, &c. ; but if otherwise, not
my will, but thy will be done. ' Lord, if thou wilt,
thou canst make me clean:' i. e. thou canst do it, if
thou art willing, implying as in the case before, that
he could not cleanse him, if unwilling, calling unwil
lingness inability.
'This is a hard saying — who can hear it?' This
means not that a sinner has no power to hear the
humbling doctrine of total depravity? but, who, as
we say, can bear it, i. e. be willing — be pleased with
it? From that time, many of his disciples went
back, and walked no more with him. It was those
that could not hear such sayings.
' Ye cannot drink of the cup of the Lord, and the
cup of Devils.' The natural ability of man qualifies
him to sit at either table ; but, while he prefers the
table of Christ, he cannot, will not prefer the table of
devils. ' The carnal mind is enmity against God, not sub-

MORAL INABILITY. 145
Bible distinction between natural and moral inability — examples.
ject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. If
this means a natural inability, how does regeneration
help the matter, as it includes the creation of no new
natural powers or faculties? But if it means that the
carnal mind is one which, by its friendship for the
world, is at enmity with God, then it is plain that
the mind which prefers the creature to God, cannot
at the same time prefer God to the creature, though
the hindrance is not natural, but the inability of the
will — a moral inability- — a duty prevented by a con
trary choice.
' And Joshua said, Ye cannot serve the Lord, for he
is a holy God.' The people understood him to say,
that they had no moral ability — no heart to serve him,
because they were so sinful. But they replied, ' Nay,
but we will serve the Lord' — we have the ability, be
cause we have the will.
'How can ye believe who receive honor one of an
other, and seek not the honor that cometh from God?'
i. e. how can you believe, who prefer the praise of
man more than the praise of God? who voluntarily
set at naught Jesus Christ?
' The natural man cannot know the things of the
kingdom of God;' but why can he not? what hinders?
Ans. ' If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them who
are lost, in whom the God of this world hath blinded
the hearts of them that believe not.' 'No man can
come unto me except the Father draw him' — i. e. by
his hearing and being taught of God — making the
reading, and especially the preaching of his word, the
means of his effectual calling by his Spirit.
13*

146 MORAL INABILITY.
This distinction not confined to the Bible, but universal.
These examples, to which thousands might be ad
ded, decide that the Scriptures of the Old and New
Testament, given by inspiration of God, do maintain
the distinction between things whose existence is
perverted for want of sufficient capacity in the agent,
and things which lie within the limits of his capacity,
and are only prevented by his choice — and that both
are expressed by the terms cannot, impossible, unable,
&c. — leaving it to the nature and connections of the
subject to indicate the peculiar meaning — and never,
except in theological controversy, or the cavillings
of sinners, leading to any mistake.
I have said that this use of the terms cannot, una
ble, &c. to indicate those things which men are able to
perform, but do not choose to do, is not a phraseology
peculiar to the Bible, but is a mode of speaking, into
which the universal mind of man in all nations, ages,
and languages has fallen — from the familiarity of con
versational and business dialect, up to the most la
bored efforts of argument and eloquence.
I ask my neighbor, who is on a sick bed, are you
able to walk? and he replies, I am not. When re
stored to health, I inquire of him, can you assist me
in my business to-day? and he replies, I cannot. I
should be glad to oblige you, but my own business
compels me to go another way — or in the language
of the gospel, 'I must needs attend to my own mat
ters.' How often when a man is provoked at the
conduct of his neighbor, do we hear the indignant
exclamation, 'it is too bad — I cannot bear it.' And
how common is it to say of a man, strongly prejudiced

MORAL INABILITY. 147
Examples from theological writers — Edwards and Buck.
by interest or passion — rhe cannot hear, cannot see,
cannot understand — and of the miser, when the cry
of the widow and the fatherless assails him— -he can
not give. Gold is his god, and his heart is made of
stone. The following examples from Edwards, and Buck,
and a few other writers of eminence, will suffice both
to illustrate the nature of the distinction between
natural and moral inability, and the usus loquendi of
theological, political, and literary authors.
Edwards. — ' To give some instances of this moral
inability— a woman of great honor and chastity, may
have a moral inability to prostitute herself to her
slave. A child of great love and duty, may be una
ble to be willing to kill his father. A drunkard, un
der such and such circumstances, may be unable to
forbear taking of strong drink. A very malicious man
may be unable to exert benevolent acts to an enemy,
or to desire his prosperity; yea, some may be so under
the power of a vile disposition, that they may be un
able to love those who are most worthy of their
esteem and affection. A strong habit of virtue, and
a great degree of holiness, may cause a moral inability
to lovewickedness in general, may render a man un
able to take complacence in wicked persons or things;
or to choose a wicked life, and prefer it to a virtuous
life. And on the other hand, a great degree of habit
ual wickedness may lay a man under an inability to
love and choose holiness; and render him utterly un
able to love an infinitely holy being, or to choose and
cleave to him as his chief good.'

148 MORAL" INABILITY.
Examples from political and literary authors — Bacon — Johnson.
Buck. Natural Inability. Moral Inability.
' Cain could not have killed ' Cain could not have killed
Abel, if Cain had been the Abel, if Cain feared God, and
weakest, and Abel aware of loved his brother.
him. Potiphar's wife could not re-
Jacob could not rejoice in Jo- joice in it, if she continued un-
seph's exaltation before he heard der it.
of it. Had that woman been a very
The woman mentioned in 2d affectionate mother, she could not
Kings vi. 29, could not kill her have killed her own son in a time
neighbor's son and eat him, when of plenty, as she did in a time of
he was hid, and she could not find ' famine.
him. If a dutiful, affectionate son
Hazael could not have smoth- had been waiting on Benhadad
ered Benhadad, if he had not in Hazael's stead, he could not
been suffered to enter his cham- have smothered him, as Hazael
ber.' did.'
There is hardly an author of repute, from the time
of Alfred to the present day — whether a poet, a his
torian, an essayist, or a metaphysician, who does not
afford abundant examples of such use of the word
cannot. I select a few from known and classical
authors. Lord Bacon. — 'A man's person hath many relations
which he cannot put off. A man cannot speak to his
wife, but as a husband; to his son, but as a father; to
his enemy, but upon terms.' p. 186.
Dr. Johnson.— In apologising for the omission of
many business terms, his Dictionary says — 'I could
not visit caverns to learn the miner's language, nor
take a voyage to perfect my skill in the dialect of
navigation, nor visit warehouses of merchants, and
shops of artificers, to gain the names of wares, tools,
and operations of which no mention is made in books.'
Again, moral and natural inability are brought to
gether in one sentence:

MORAL INABILITY. 149
Examples from Shakspeare, Burke, Webster.
' There never can be wanting some who will con
sider that a whole life cannot be spent on syntax and
etymology, and that even a whole life would not be
sufficient.' Shakspeare — who is as noted for using language
as men in every situation use it, as he is for delinea
tion of character — lPray, I cannot.
Tho' inclination be as sharp as will,
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent ;
And, like a man to double business bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
And both neglect.'
' But O, what form of prayer
Can serve my turn ? Forgive me my foul murd er !
That cannot be ; since I am still possessed
Of those effects for which I did the murder,
My crown, mine own ambition and my queen.'
Hamlet, Scene 2, Act 3.
Burke. — ' I cannot remove the eternal barrier s of
creation.' This was a physical impossibility. But is
the following,occurringjust before in the same speech,
physically impossible? 'I cannot insult and ridicule
the feelings of millions of my fellow creatures, as Sir
Edward Coke insulted one excellent individual (Sir
Walter Raleigh) at the bar.' Speech on Conciliation
with America.
Webster. — ' This court, then, does not admit the
doctrine, that a legislature can repeal statutes creat
ing private corporations. If it cannot repeal them
altogether, of course it cannot repeal any part of
them, or impair them, or essentially alter them with
out the consent of the corporators.' But if the court
had chosen to be unjust, could they not do this? Was
it physically impossible?

150 MORAL INABILITY.
Examples from Hamilton, Story.
So in the same speech he says in still stronger lan
guage — ' In the very nature of things, a charter can
not be forced upon any body ; no one can be compelled
to accept a grant.'
But is it literally impossible for one to be compelled
by suitable power ?
So a few lines after — ' It cannot be pretended that
the legislature, as successor to the king in this part
of his prerogative, has any power to revoke, vacate,
or alter this charter.' But if one chose to pretend
this, could he not? — Webster's Speech in case Dart
mouth College vs. William H. Woodward.
Alexander Hamilton. — 'It cannot be affirmed, that
a duration of four years, or any other limited dura
tion, would completely answer the end proposed.' —
Federalist,^io. 61.
Surely he knew that it could be affirmed, if any
chose to.
Judge Story. — 'Had the faculties of man been
competent to the framing of a system of government
which would leave nothing to implication, it cannot
be doubted, that the effort would have been made by
the powers of our Constitution.' — Com. on Constitu
tion, (abridged) p. 147.
It certainly could not, reasonably, but would it be
out ofthe power of mind, to do so?
But it is said, if men, as free agents, are in reality
able to obey the gospel — how does it happen, that '
under such a pressure of motive, no one of the human
race should ever have done it? and suppose we could
not tell, and should admit that it is wonderful, as

MORAL INABILITY. 151
Sinful nature of man prevents his obedience to the gospel.
God does — would it follow, that the reason is the nat
ural impossibility of evangelical obedience? How
could it be wonderful, that men do not of themselves
obey the gospel, if the reason of it is that it is a nat
ural impossibility? Is it wonderful, that men do not
create worlds, or uphold or govern the universe? and
why should the nonperformance of one impossibility
be more wonderful than another? Can there be no
uniformity of character without a coercive necessity
producing it? Is not God of one mind, immutable,
yet free? Are not the angels free who kept their
first estate? And are not the fallen angels, though
immutably wicked, as voluntary in their opposition
to God, as the holy angels are voluntary in their obe
dience? As to the uniform disobedience of fallen man
until renewed by the Holy Ghost, we have only to
say, it is a matter of fact, well authenticated, that
free agents do so — that it is a part of the terriffic
nature of sinful man to baffle all motives, and be vol
untarily but unchangeably wicked — persevering in
rebellion, amid commands, prohibitions, promises, and
threatenings, and the entreaties of the holy universe,
and the weepings and wailings of the damned.

ORIGINAL SIN.

There is no subject in theology on. which it is
more difficult to speak with clearness and accuracy,
than concerning the effects of the fall on the posterity
of Adam, and the condition of the human mind be
fore it arrives at the point of developing its intel
lectual and moral powers in actual sin. Nor is it
wonderful, because neither intuition nor philosophy,
nor personal communion with infant mind, makes us
acquainted with its attributes. For this reason,
when I have spoken on the subject, I have confined
myself uniformly to the facts in the case revealed in
the Bible, and discarded pertinaciously all theorizing.
What the precise errors are, which I am supposed
to hold, I do not know; but from the evidence relied
on, and the general course of the argument, it would
seem that I am supposed to hold the Pelagian doc
trine on the subject; that I deny that Adam was the
federal head and representative of his race; that the
covenant was made not only with Adam, but also
with his posterity; that the guilt of his sin was im
puted to them; that there is any such thing as native
depravity; or that infants are depraved. That on
the contrary, I hold and teach, that infants are inno-
14

154 ORIGINAL SIN.

Error of faith denied. Circumstantial evidence.
cent, and as pure as Adam before the fall; and that
each one stands or falls for himself, as he rises to per
sonal accountability; and that there is no such thing
as original sin, descending from Adam by ordinary
generation; and that original sin is not sin, or in any
sense deserving of God's wrath and curse.
Now every one of these assumed errors of my faith,
I deny to be my faith. They ascribe to me opinions
which I have never held or taught, and, as I shall
show, there is no evidence that I ever taught one
of them.
There is no more evidence of my holding or teach
ing the doctrines of Pelagius on original sin, than
there is of my holding the doctrine of Mahomet, or the
Brahmins, or the Pope. And though I doubt not that
my direct evidence will be satisfactory, I will not
omit that which is collateral and circumstantial.
My religious education was superintended by pious
Calvinists of blessed memory; and was as orthodox
as the Assembly's Catechism, committed to memory,
could make it. My convictions of sin were in ac
cordance with my educational belief, and were deep
and distressing, to the cutting off of all self-righteous
hope from native excellence, or acceptable obedience
in any action, social, civil, or religious, and laid me
low in an agony of self despair, at the footstool of
mercy, as unholy, totally depraved, justly condemned,
and hopeless of regeneration and pardon but through
the infinite sovereign mercy of God, through the
merits of Christ. And the change which led me
to hope, and has sustained me in my ministry, and

ORIGINAL SIN. 155

Theological education — authors studied.

holds up my hopes of heaven, was,, I full well know,
' not of blood, nor of the will of man, nor of the will
of the flesh, but of God;' so that if I am a Pelagian
now, in my faith, few men can be more inexcusable
in obliterating the teachings of a pious education, or
the teachings of God's holy Spirit in my own distress
ing experience. But I have not gone back. I remem
ber the horrid pit, and have also in fresh recollection
the wormwood and the gall ; and it is knowing the
terrors of the Lord, and the love of Christ in my de
liverance from them, which, if I am not deceived,
have sustained and animated me in the work of
the ministry. My theological education was un
der Dwight; and the authors which contributed to
form and settle my faith, were Edwards, Bellamy,
Witherspoon, Dwight, and Fuller. With such
favorite authors for my guide, I have perceived in
myself no retrocession from my early convic
tions. The doctrines which have constituted the
body and power of my preaching, so far as it has
had any, have been — the doctrine of God's decrees,
the fall, the native and total depravity of man, elec
tion, effectual calling, or regeneration by the special
influence of the Holy Spirit, justification by the merits
of Christ through faith, and the perseverance of the
saints; doctrines not commonly, 1 believe, found in
alliance with Pelagian notions of native excellence
and regeneration by moral suasion : and my preaching,
if Pelagians or Unitarians have claimed me, has never
seemed to satisfy them, or the results of it to corres
pond with what they claimed to be the proper fruits

156 ORIGINAL SIN.

Antinomianism and Pelagianism, both avoided.
of correct preaching; they have been the results of
Calvinistic preaching, in convictions of sin and appa
rent conversions to God; such as Pelagians ridicule
and denounce as fanaticism, instead of the fruits of
the Spirit.
I have never been ultra Calvinistic, pushing my
opinions towards antinomian fatality; nor have I at
all more leaned to the doctrine of Pelagain free will
and human self sufficiency; and in doctrine I am
what I ever have been, having gained only the
more accurate and comprehensive knowledge which
use and study afford, and the facilities of presenting
to every man his portion in due season, as the re
sult of experience. All this however is nothing against
positive evidence of defection. But no such evidence
has been produced. The chief evidence relied on,
is contained in my sermon on the native character of
man. But that sermon was not designed to teach, and
does not teach professedly, the doctrine of original sin.
It has no direct respect to that doctrine. There is
not a word in the sermon designed to state, explain,
prove, or apply, that doctrine. The subject of the
sermon is, the total depravity of adult man, and
affords not the least evidence of what my opinions
are on the subject of original sin. By the laws of
interpretation, therefore, you are not permitted to
travel out of the record, and apply to infants and
original sin, the language I have held with express
and exclusive reference to the total depravity of
adult man. It was occasioned by a local exigency in
my congregation, the restiveness of a man of talents

ORIGINAL SIN. 157

Analysis of sermon on native character of man — title.
and learning under the preaching of the doctrine of
total depravity, especially in its denial of the native
virtues and acceptable doings of unregenerate men.
It was Pelagianism, in substance, that rose up against
me, and the sermon was purposely constructed so
as by explaining and proving the doctrine of total
depravity, to put it down. The correctness of this
representation, will be sustained by an analysis of
the sermon.
ANALYSIS OF THE SERMON ON THE NATIVE CHARACTER OF MAN.
Its title precludes any reference to original sin; it
is, the native character of man; meaning, of course,
not his native constitution, but the character which
all men first form who come up to personal action.
Native, as applied to character, is sanctioned by cor
rect theological use, and means the character which
all men first sustain, in the exercise of their own pow
ers, under the perverting influence of the fall.
The text has exclusive regard to adults, to regene
rated man: 'Whosoever loveth is born of God.'
It is regarded in its exposition as holy love — the
fulfilling of the law — the principle of evangelical obe
dience — religion — does not belong to men by nature
— is never a quality of his heart by natural birth, and
is the result of a special divine interposition which
makes him a child of God. Both the text and intro
duction, therefore, respect regeneration in adult man.
It is the object of the sermon to prove, that man is
not religious by nature — meaning by man, the race;
and by 'not religious by nature,' that there is nothing
14*

158 ORIGINAL SIN.

Analysis of sermon on native character of man — argument.
in the constitution of adult man, of which religion is
ever the result, without a change of heart by the
special influence of the Holy Ghost.. The proof in
every particular respects evidently and only adult
man and actual sin.
Universal experience evinces that the supreme
love of the world constitutes the first character of
man. All men are conscious that they set their
affections first supremely on the world, and not on
God. Awakened sinners discover that they have
no true love to God, and christians can look back to
the time when evidently they had none.
The history of the world is inconsistent with
the supposition of native religion — its idolatry, its
animalism, gluttony, intemperance, and lust — its
wars, frauds, violence, and blood — love to God and
man in the hearts of all by nature, could not have
made such a history as that of our world has been.
The Bible affords no testimony to the piety of man
by nature — says nothing good of the human heart-
not a syllable.
It ascribes to the heart of man by nature a charac
ter inconsistent with religion — evil only, deceitful,
fully set on evil, desperately wicked, full of madness.
The scriptural account of childhood shows, that
man is not born religious. Every imagination of
the heart is evil from his youth — the wicked are es
tranged from the womb — no religion born with them.
AU the generic descriptions of the race are such as
preclude religion as the native character of man..
Man is the generic of the race. But what is man

ORIGINAL SIN. 159

Analysis of sermon on native char, of man — reversal of argument.
that he should be clean? or the son of man that he
should be righteous?
The world is another generic, term characteristic
of the race. But it is a world which hated Christ,
and whose friendship is enmity with God.
The flesh is another. But the carnal mind is en
mity against God.
The whole world is divided into classes, and all men
are described as holy or unholy, righteous or wicked.
But never as righteous first, but always as wicked
first, and as becoming righteous by the power of the
Spirit. It was while we were enemies that Christ died for
us ; and it is only by being reconciled, that we be
come religious.
It is the direct testimony of the omniscient God,
that all have gone out of the way — become vile —
none that do good, no not one.
The alledged universal necessity of a change to
qualify men for heaven, is proof that they have no
religion. The reversal of this argument shows its force. If
the first accountable character of man is a religious
character, this entire body of evidence must be re
versed. All men must be conscious of supreme love
to God in early life ; and conviction of sin and a mor
al renovation must be confined to those who have
lost their religion; while the great body of christians
must be supposed to be such without the conscious
ness of any change. At the same time the history of
the world must be found to be a history of the fruits

160 ORIGINAL SIN.

Analysis of sermon on native char, of man — reversal of argument.
of piety — idolatry itself being only an aberration of
religious affection in the fast friends of God, emulous
to please their heavenly Father! It should, moreover,
be found written upon the unerring page, 'Every im
agination of man's heart is good from his youth. The
children of men have not gone out of the way. There
is none who doth not understand and seek God, and do
good, no, not one. The heart of the sons of men is full
of goodness, out of which proceed holy thoughts, benev
olent deeds, chastity, truth, and reverence for God.
What, therefore, is man, that he should be wicked? or
he that is born of a woman, that he should not be re
ligious? How lovely and pure is man, who drinketh
in righteousness like water. This is the approbation,
that darkness is come into the world, and men have
loved light more than darkness, because their deeds
are good. The whole world lieth in righteousness.
He [Christ] was in the world and the world knew
him. O righteous Father, the world hath known thee.
The friendship of the world is friendship with God.
If the world hath loved you, ye know that it loved
me before it loved you. Be ye, therefore, conformed
to the world, and be ye not transformed by any re
newing of your mind. My Spirit shall always strive
with man because he is spirit. For that which is born
of the flesh is spirit. Marvel not that I say unto you
ye must not be born again. For the works of the
flesh are love, joy, peace, faith; and the fruits of the
Spirit are love, joy, peace, faith. In me, that is, in
my flesh, dwelleth every good thing. Jesus Christ
came to seek and to save those who were net lost;

ORIGINAL SIN. 161

Analysis of sermon on native character of man — inferences.
and he died not for his eninies — not the just for the
unjust, but for his righteous friends. The gospel de
mands of men no new character; and all the doctrines
of the Bible imply the early and universal piety of the
human family.'
All the inferences from the doctrine as thus proved,
refer to man as an adult subject of the government of
God. 1. This discussion discloses the nature of depravity
in unrenewed man — it consists in the want of love to
God, and loving the creature more than God; in covet
ousness, which is idolatry, having other gods before
him. 2. The depravity of adult man is voluntary, as op
posed to a coercive necessity of sinful choice.
3. It is positive. Not merely the want of love to
God, but actual transgression against God. Active
enmity. 4. It is great, as committed against a being of in
finite excellence — a violation of infinite obligation,
against the most powerful motives in the most aggra
vating circumstances, and with unparalleled obstinacy
of determination.
5. The depravity of man implied in the absence of
religion is entire — fallen adult man is totally depraved.
6. It illustrates the nature and necessity of regen
eration, as being the commencement of holy love to
God in the soul; its absence, death in sin; its presence,
by the power of the Spirit, a resurrection from the
dead. It is a change perceptible by its effects, and
instantaneous in its commencement. There is a mo-

162 ORIGINAL SIN.

¦ Sermon, where written.: circumstances which occasioned it.
ment when, he who loved the world more than God,
gives it up, and gives his heart to God — a time when
the metanoia comes to pass.
This is my Pelagian sermon. A sermon on total
adult depravity, and its nature as voluntary, consist
ing in enmity to God, selfishness, pride, covetous
ness, idolatry, impenitence, and unbelief.
The only alledged evidence of its Pelagianism is
contained in what is said about the voluntariness of
actual sin in adult man, as opposed to a supposed
created instinct, or the direct efficiency of God, pro
ducing actual sin by an irresistible and fatal necessity;
But from the text, subject, argument, and inferences
of the discourse, it is undeniable that it has reference
only to actual sin and total depravity, and has no
direct reference to original sin at all. It was
written in Connecticut, anterior to the controversies
which now agitate the church. It was demanded
to encounter and resist the most specious Pelagian
argument against the total depravity of man, which
I have ever seen. It was deduced from the various
noble and amiable traits of human constitution and
conduct which survive the fall, and are always
urged as matter of fact exceptions to the doctrine of
total depravity. Such as taste and admiration of
moral fitness; approbation of truth and justice; con
stitutional kindness and sympathy, and compassion;
the natural affections, which unite the family in all
their tenderness and power; the amiable constitutional
temperaments which survive the fall; honor and hon
esty in dealings, and liberality, as opposed to covetous-

ORIGINAL SIN. 163

Sermon written against Pelagianism.

ness and miserly meanness; correct moralty; power
of conscience ; public spirit; patriotism; great useful
ness, accompanied by a copious retinue of good works.
The argument against total depravity was written,
and read, and commented on with great ability, and in
a manner which compelled me to provide the antidote.
With an especial view, then, to meet and refute these
Pelagian matter of fact exceptions, to the doctrine of
total adult depravity, I constructed the sermon which
is now adduced in evidence against me, on the sub
ject of original sin. I began with the position that
unrenewed men have no true religion, because that
was a point conceded; and having established it, as I
believed, I proceeded to draw the inferences which, as
I supposed, cut up by the roots these Pelagian virtues
as having any claim to be considered valid exceptions
to the doctrine of total depravity; leaving in its full
force the evidence that in adult man there dwelleth no
good thing, and that every imagination of his heart is
evil only continually. Now, that this sermon, written
on purpose to put down the Pelagian exceptions to
total depravity, should be, years after, in another and
distant department of the church, quoted and admit
ted as proof of my Pelagianism, would be an anom
aly of mental obliquity and injustice, which I am sure
cannot find a place in the judicatures of the Presby
terian church. Even had it contained in the ardor of
argument expressions not sufficiently guarded, aud '
which by possibility might be interpreted to mean her
esy, no court, in the unbiased exercise of Christian
candor, would permit them to be turned aside from the

164 ORIGINAL SIN.

Not the object ofthe sermon to prove the doctrine of original sin.
main design and governing argument of the discourse.
Much less where, though it was not the object of
the sermon to establish the doctrine of original sin, it
does so by proving two of the fundamental doctrines
always relied on by the orthodox church, and by
Edwards in particular, to prove the doctrine of origi
nal sin — I mean the doctrine of total depravity and
the doctrine of regeneration. One of the main argu
ments of Edwards to prove original sin, is, the uni
versality and entireness of actual sin: from which he
infers that, anterior to actual agency, there is in all
men, as a consequence of our federal alliance with
Adam, some common cause, ground, or reason of
universal and total actual depravity, which he calls
' the influence of a prevailing, effectual tendency in
the nature of man,' to actual sin. And thus I prove
the doctrine of original sin; incidentally, indeed, but
really, by proving the actual, universal, total deprav
ity of man. There must be, and there is, in man,
something which is the ground and reason that the
will of fallen man does from the beginning act wrong
— something anterior to voluntary action. To say
that all men sin actually, and entirely, and univer
sally, and for ever, until renewed by the Holy Ghost,
and that against the strongest possible motives, mere
ly because they are free agents, and are able to do
.so; and that there is in'their nature as affected by the
fall, no cause or reason of the certainty ; is absurd. It
is to ascribe the most stupendous concurrence of per
verted action in all the adult millions of mankind to
nothing. The thing to be accounted for is the phe-

ORIGINAL SIN. 165

Edwards against Arminian theory of self-determination.
nomenon of an entire series of universal actual sin;
and to ascribe the universal and entire obliquity of
the human will to the simple ability of choosing
wrong, is to ascribe the moral obliquity of a lost
world to nothing.
This was the point ofthe controversy in Edwards
on the will, against the Arminian theory of self-
determination. The free agency claimed by the Ar
minian was one which excluded not only force and
absolute necessity of nature from deciding the will,
but denied the existence of any internal constitution,
or objective influence of motive, as connected with
our constitutional susceptibilities, in securing the ex
istence or determining the moral qualities of choice.
Edwards affirmed that there must be, and is, ante
rior to the exercise of free agency, some constitution
of the agent and relevancy of motive, as the ground
and reason of the certainty of choice, though not a
coercive cause; and his antagonists deny that there
is any cause, ground, or reason of the certainty of
choice, holy or unholy, in or out of man, anterior to
its existence — assuming the necessity of a perfect
indifference of will in all cases immediately anterior
to volition, and the actual uncertainty of choice, as
affected by any cause or reason anterior to its exis
tence; and the necessity to its freedom and account
ability, that in every case it should be the simple,
uninfluenced energy of the mind itself. And what
(Edwards attempts to prove, and does prove, in his
treatise on the will and on original sin, is, that to
choice of any kind there is in the agent some consti-
15

166 ORIGINAL SIN.

Edwards' views corroborated 1>y our Confess, and standard writers.
tution which is the ground or reason that motives
become, not indeed the coercive causes, but the cer
tain occasions of volition ; and that, in man, before
the fall, there was a constitution, which was the
ground and reason of the unperverted exercise of his
will and affections in loving and obeying God; and
that by the fall a change was affected in the nature
of man anterior to voluntary action, which is the
cause or reason of the universal certainty of the
perversion ofthe will and affections of fallen man; and
that the antecedents of perfect actual holiness and
entire actual sin are properly denominated, with ref
erence to those certain results in action, a holy or an
unholy nature : only guarding, as our Confession does,
alike against the Antinomian fatality of will hy force,
and the Arminian self-determination, without any
antecedent constitutional cause, ground, or reason,
within or without.
These views, as held by Edwards, and corrobora
ted by our own Confession and the standard writers
of our church, comprehend the doctrine which I have
always believed and preached; and never have I
knowingly and intentionally, at any time expressed
a sentiment, verbally or in writing, to the contrary.
The falseness and folly of the common notion of
the self-determination of the mind by its own energy
of will, without any cause or occasion even, is suffi
ciently manifest, in its opposition to the possibility of
moral government on the part of God, or the possi1
bility of praise or blame on the part of man: for
moral government is the government of a lawgiver,

ORIGINAL SIN. 167

Theory of self-determination opposed to the government of God.
influencing the will and conduct of subjects by the
influence of laws, rewards, punishments, and admin
istration. But if nothing may approach the mind
in the form of influence, having any tendency to
destroy the dignified indifference of the will, or se
cure the certainty or probability even of volition,
then, though self-government might exist, the gov
ernment of God could not; and nothing but the most
perfect anarchy could exist as the accidental, un
caused, and unoccasioned action of millions of inde
pendent minds, acting without any cause, ground, or
reason, Indeed it would render choice itself impos
sible, as it supposes a mind without susceptibility or
desire of any thing, or one thing more than another,
— a condition of mind precluding the possibility .of
choice, which always implies excited desire, and a
prospect of some gratification, and without which
man would be less capable of choice than a snail or an
oyster: and even if he could choose, without desire,
reason, or motive, the offspring of such a nondescript,
mental anomaly, would be no more praise or blame
worthy, than the motions of a pendulum or the tick
ings of a watch — uncertain of being till they come
into being, and coming without any cause," ground,
or reason — bubbles from the bottom of the muddy
lake might as well be regarded as accountable and
worthy of praise or blame as the volitions of men.
I adopt, therefore, with approbation, the language
of Professor Hodge, in his Commentary on Romans.
' Of all the facts ascertained by the history of the
world, it would seem to be among the plainest, that

168 ORIGINAL SIN.

Professor Hodge's views of original sin adopted.
men are born destitute of a disposition to seek their
chief good in God,, and with a disposition to make
self-gratification the great end of theif being. Even
reason, conscience, natural affection, are less univer
sal characteristics of our fallen race. For there are
idiots and moral monsters often to be met with; but
for a child of Adam, uninfluenced by the special
grace of God, to delight in his Maker, as the portion
of his soul, from the first dawn of his moral being, is
absolutely without example among all the thousands
of millions of men who have inhabited our world. If
experience can establish any thing, it establishes the
truth of the scriptural declaration, " that which is
born of the flesh is flesh.'-' It would seem no less
plain, that this cannot be the original and normal
state of man; that human nature is not now what it
was when it proceeded from the hand of God. Every
thing else which God has made answers the end of its
being; but human nature, since the fall, has uniformly
worked badly ; in no one instance has it spontane
ously turned to God as its chief good. It cannot, be
believed that God thus made man ; that there has been
no perversion of his faculties; no loss of some original
and guiding disposition or tendency of his mind. It
cannot be credited that men are now what Adam was,
when he first opened his eyes on the wonders of cre
ation and the glories of God. Reason, scripture, and
experience, therefore, all concur in support of the
common doctrine of the Christian world, that the
race fell in Adam, lost their original rectitude, and
became prone to evil as the sparks to fly upward.'

ORIGINAL SIN.

Original sin implied in the sermon on native character of man.
But in addition to this argumentative implication of
original- sin, I do, in the very passage claimed to
deny it, expressly allude to and recognize its .exis
tence, as a reality, only limiting its action as Edwards
and our Confession do, as not forcing the will, or by
any absolute necessity of nature, determining it to
evil. I say:
' Whatever effect, therefore, the fall of man may
have had on his race, it has not had the effect to ren
der it impossible for man to love God religiously;
and whatever may be the early constitution of man,
there is nothing in it, and nothing withheld from it
which renders [actual] disobedience unavoidable, and
[actual] obedience impossible.'
Finally, the language of the paragraph, interpreted
by the laws of just exposition, does not teach or im
ply a denial of the doctrine of original sin.
I have already shown that my sermon on the
native character of man, was not designed to have
any reference to original sin ; that it spake only of
the present, actual condition of adult mind; and that
the question how a man came into such a state, was
not so much as touched; thati was teaching the exis
tence of total depravity against a wily and practised
antagonist, with the sole view of cutting up his
false Pelagian positions, and proving total depravity
and the necessity of regeneration.
To comprehend fully the import of my language,
it must be understood that there were two philoso
phical theories in respect to the cause of adult actual
depravity, the one holding it to be a moral instinct,
15*

170 ORIGINAL SIN.

Two philosophical theories respecting adult actual depravity.
a created faculty of the soul, as really as any other
faculty which controlled the will according to its
moral nature, as the helm governs the ship, and upon
which the will could no more act, than the ship can
act on the helm. The other a philosophy which dis
cards this instinctive, involuntary moral taste, and
substitutes the direct efficiency of God, for the crea
tion of all exercises and acts of choice, good and bad.
These philosophical theories were prevalent long
before this controversy arose. The question con
cerning original sin, was not discussed in my congre
gation; touching that question, all was as quiet as the
sleep of infancy. The question was as to the volun
tariness of the depravity of adult man. Keep this in
remembrance, and then the import of the sermon
cannot be misunderstood. After proving that the
depravity of man is very great, I proceed to say
that it is voluntary; and this doctrine I advance in
opposition to the philosophy which represents man's
actual sin, Ms actual, total depravity, as being the
necessary, coercive result of a moral instinct, or of
divine efficiency. The question was, whether the
selfishness and enmity against God, and worldliness
and pride, which obstructed evangelical obedience,
in adult man, and made regeneration by the Spirit
indispensable, was a state of mind produced and
continued by a coercive necessity; and, in accord
ance with the Bible and the Confession of Faith,
and the whol6 orthodox church, I say — no! — but,
' that God has endued the will of fallen man with
that natural liberty, that it is neither forced, nor by

ORIGINAL SIN. 171

All actual sin is voluntary — Dr. Green.

any absolute necessity of nature determined to good
or evil.' It is this nature of adult man, in a state of
personal accountability, and active depravity that I
am speaking pf, as the subject and whole argument
of the sermon show, in every sentence and word
of the page quoted; and it is of this total, actual
depravity of man, which makes regeneration by the
Spirit necessary, that I say it cannot be the product
of ' an unavoidable necessity;'' and it is of actual holi
ness and sin that I am speaking, when I say, that to a
holy or a sinful nature, perception, understanding,
conscience, and choice are indispensable. And is this
heresy? Does any one believe that personal ac
countability, and actual sin, and holiness, can exist
without perception, understanding, conscience, and
choice ; and that the Bible and the Confession of Faith
teach it?
Dr. Green says, 'the parties in this controversy are
agreed that all actual sin is voluntary, and therefore
criminal and inexcusable.' — Ch. Adv. 1831, p. 348.
Social, representative liability, and a just desert
of punishment in that sense, is a possibility and a
reality; but a social liability, and personal demerit,
are quite different things ; and if it shall be made to
appear that the Bible and the Confession do teach
the possibility of personal actual sin, without the
existence of the faculties of perception, understand
ing, conscience, and choice, it will, as I believe,
be regarded by the. whole church of God as a new
discovery. I call this actual depravity of man native, in accord-

172 ORIGINAL SIN.

Original sin one of the causes which prevent Submission to God.
ance with the language of the Bible and the most
approved theological writers, to indicate its univer
sality, as what all men come to by nature, i. e. by
the operation and influence of that change produced
in the nature of man by the fall— to mark its posi-
tiveness, as including actual enmity, selfishness, pride,
and idolatry, instead of a mere want of conformity to
the law of God— and especially to designate its perma
nence as compared to successive acts of choice, and
especially its fearful immutability to all finite pow
er. The scriptures speak of the permanence and
immutability of man's actual depravity — as a heart
full of madness and of evil — fully set to do evil; and
Turretin calls it a ' voluntary and culpable habit of
will;' and Edwards says: ' By a general and habitual
moral inability, I mean an inability in the heart to all
exercises or acts of will of that nature or kind,
through a fixed and habitual inclination, or an ha
bitual or stated defect, or want of a certain kind of
inclination.' Now, not only has all I have said on the page ob
jected to, a reference to the actual sin of adult man,
as the ground ofthe necessity of regeneration, but it is
all so guarded and tied down, and related to the sub
ject of actual sin, that it can by no possibility be torn
away from it, and attached to the subject of original
sin. For, in the very statements I make about the
the voluntary nature of which I am speaking, I allude
to the fall and original sin, and admit and include its
existence among the causes which fortify adult man
against submission to God, as I have more fully done

ORIGINAL SIN. 173

Distinction between actual and original sin.
in my exposition of the moral inability of man in
this discussion, only making the reservation which
the Confession makes — that original sin does not
force the will to actual sin, nor by any absolute
necessity of nature, determine it to evil so as that
God is the author of sin, #or violence offered to the
will of the creatures; or the liberty or contingency
of second causes (the power of choosing life or death)
taken away, but is rather established.
The declarations, that there is a time when actual
sin commences, and that the first sin is voluntary, un
coerced, inexcusable, and might have been and ought
to have been avoided as really as any of the actual
sins that followed it, will not I apprehend alarm any
large proportion of the church. The distinction be
tween original and actual sin has been universal in
the orthodox church, and the more common opinion,
as I suppose; has always been that actual sin does
not commence from the womb, and that the time
when social liability is succeeded by personal demerit
for actual transgression, is not and cannot be exactly
known to any but the eye of God. What I have
asserted is, that whenever personal accountability
does commence, the sinner is a free agent, and inex
cusable for his first as really as for any other actual sin.
I perceive that what I wrote ten years ago, with
my eye wholly on the subject of man's nature as an
actual sinner and totally depraved, read by a person
at the present time, in a state of alarm and excitement
about the Pelagian heresy, on the subject of original
sin, might, if not read with great care and attention,

174 ORIGINAL SIN.

Sermon on original sin — quotations.

be liable to be misunderstood, as denying that de
pravity of nature which is peculiar to original sin:
but the moment the laws of candid, correct interpre
tation, are applied, the possibility of such an interpre
tation is precluded, and the true limit, meaning and
intent of my language is made apparent. For it can
not be that a sermon professedly against the pelagian
notions of virtue and good works in man, as excep
tions to the do'ctrine of total depravity, and contain
ing a formal and labored argument in defence of that
doctrine, and inferring from it the necessity of regen
eration, and an anti-Pelagian instantaneous regenera
tion by the special influence of the Holy Spirit, should
be found intentionally teaching the very doctrine it set
out to oppose, and opposing the very doctrine it was
constructed to establish. '
Were any evidence beside the internal evidence of
the discourse itself necessary, it is contained in a
sermon written about the same time that this sermon
on Native Character was written, and written profes
sedly on original sin. The following are my com
ments on several passages in Romans v.
'For as by one man's disobedience many were made
sinners.' Adam was created holy and placed in a state
of probation — the consequences of which were to
extend not only to himself, but to his posterity. If
he continued holy, they would be born holy. If he
became a sinner, his children would be born depraved.
In the hour of temptation he fell and lost for a world,
the inheritance of life, and entailed upon it the sad
inheritance of depravity and wo.

ORIGINAL SIN. 175

Lecture on the fall and its consequences — quotations.
'For if by one man's offence death reigned by one,'1
how did death reign by one man's offence, if the
depravity of his race was not the consequence of
his sin? If his posterity are born holy, (innocent,)
and become sinners by their own act, uninfluenced
by what Adam did, then death enters the world not
by one man, but by every man. ^
'And so death has passed upon all men, for that all
have sinned.' Passed upon infants possessing a de
praved nature, though they had not committed actual
sin. They, as well as adults, are subjected to pain
and death. They, as really as adults, need a Savior,
and a change of heart by the Holy Ghost, to fit them
for heaven.
' The judgment was by one man to condemnation,'
i. e. the sin of one man, and one single act of sin sub
jected his posterity to a depraved nature as the con
sequence. I give these quotations to show, that though when
writing on the total actual depravity of man, my ex
pressions may have misled some to understand me as
denying original sin; I did, at the same period, when
writing professedly on that subject- — recognize the
doctrine fully and strongly, and at the time was nev
er, to my knowledge, misunderstood.
What follows, is from my Lecture on the Fall and
its Consequences, delivered in Boston and Cincinnati.
'By the appointment of God, the character and
destiny of man was inseparably connected with the
conduct of Adam. He was in such a sense the fed
eral head and representative of his posterity— that

176 ORIGINAL SIN.

The author's views of original sin.

according to God's appointment called a covenant,
had Adam continued holy, his posterity would have
continued holy, as his disobedience has drawn after
it the defection of the race. The universal bias of
man to evil is denominated a depraved nature, on
account of its universal tendencies to actual sin.'
Here I might stop ; for I am under no obligation
to volunteer statements of my opinions, in respect
to the subjects on which I am accused. My errors
are to be shown by evidence; and I say that, in this
case, the evidence has utterly failed; and I might,
therefore, repel the charge of heresy, as not estab
lished. But I have no secrets on this subject, nor in
respect to any of the religious opinions which I hold.
At my time of life, and especially under the circumstan
ces in which I am placed, both as pastor of a flock,
and an instructer of the rising ministry of the church,
I have no right to any secret opinions. I scorn con
cealment, and therefore I will declare with all open
ness, the things which I do believe. The presbytery
shall not suspect me of being a heretic. If I am a
heretic, they shall know it. You shall have in respect
to my views of original sin, the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth.
1. As to the federal or representative character of
Adam, and the covenant with him and his posterity.
I have, through my whole public life, believed and
taught, that the constitution and character of his en-
tire-posterity, as perverted or unperverted, depended
on his obedience or defection; and that he was in this
respect, and by God's appointment, constitutionally

ORIGINAL SIN. 177

Dr. Bishop on Social Liabilities.

the covenant head and representative of his race.
And that, in this view, all mankind descending from
him, by ordinary generation, sinned in him, and fell
with him in his first transgression: that is, their char
acter and destiny were decided by his deed.
For a more ample expression of my views, I sub
mit the remarks of Dr. Bishop, President ofthe Miami
University, on the subject of Social Liabilities, the
best name that was ever devised for the idea. A name
which, I hope, we shall all remember and fix in our
minds, as it is calculated to avoid much error which
has arisen from the use of other phraseology. In re
spect to the book from which I am about to quote, I
heartily thank that great and good man, for having
condensed so much truth into so small a compass;
and I do believe that the simple substitution of this
technic, 'social liability,' would carry us all out of the
swamp together. For we in fact think, and ought to
speak, the same thing. After illustrating the social
liabilities of men, for the conduct of others in the
family, in commercial relations, and as parts of a na
tion, and as social and moral beings affected by the
nameless influences of the christian example and
deeds of our fellow-men, he proceeds to say :
' 1 . That every man is by his very nature, intimate
ly connected, in a great variety of ways, with thou
sands of his fellow-men, whom he has never seen; and
that the conduct and the character of a single indi
vidual may have an extensive and a lasting influence
upon millions of his fellow-men, though far removed
from him, both as to time and place.
16

178 ORIGINAL SIN.

Social liabilities classed under two general heads.
' 2. That these liabilities may be classed under two
general heads, viz: — Natural and Positive. The son
inherits a diseased or a healthy body, and, in many
eases, also an intellectual or moral character; and
generation after generation sustains the character of
their ancestors, by what may be called a natural in
fluence. Like produces and continues like. But in
commercial and political transactions, lasting and im
portant liabilities are created and continued by posi
tive arrangements.
'3. That, in all cases of social liabilities, individual
and representative responsibility, are always kept
distinct. Nor is it, in the most of cases, a very diffi
cult thing to have a clear and distinct conception of
these two distinct responsibilities.
' Every citizen of these United States, who thinks
at all, must feel that himself and his children, and his
children's children, are deeply interested in the con
duct and character of the president of the United
States, for the time being. An able and virtuous
president, with an able and wise and faithful cabinet,
must be a great blessing to the millions, both the born
and unborn, on both sides of the Atlantic. And, on
the other hand, a weak and a wicked president, and
cabinet, must be the occasion of inconceivable in
conveniences, and real privations and sufferings, to
countless millions, both of the present and succeeding
generations. But yet no man ever thought of attrib
uting to himself, or to his children, the personal wis
dom, or intellectual ability, or inflexible integrity,
which has marked the character of any distinguished

ORIGINAL SIN. 179

Executive of TJ. S. Terms guilty and innocent used differently.
executive officer; nor, on the other hand, has he ever
thought of being charged individually, or of having
his children charged individually, with the weakness,
or wickedness of a bad executive officer. He, and
his children, and his neighbors, and their children, feel
and acknowledge, that they are personally and deeply
involved in the consequences of the official acts of
these men, whether these consequences are of a ben
eficial or a hurtful tendency; but, at the same time, '
individual and personal merit and demerit, and indi
vidual and personal responsibility, are clearly under
stood, and never, for a moment, merged in social and
representative transactions.
'From a view of the above facts it follows —
'4. That the terms guilty ahd innocent, must with
every thinking man, be used in a different sense, when
they are applied to responsibilities incurred by the
conduct of another, from that in which they are used
when they are applied to personal conduct. In the
former application, guilty can only mean liability to
suffer punishment, and innocent to be not liable. But
in the latter application, they mean, having violated,
or having not violated, some moral or positive com
mandment. In the one case, the terms apply to a
personal act, and to personal character; but in the
other, they only mark the nature and the consequences
of a certain act or acts, as these consequences are felt
by another person.
' 5. In every case of social liability, unity is recog
nized, The individuals concerned may be millions, or
only two, and they may be in every other respect

180 ORIGINAL SIN.

The principle applied to the relation of Adam to his posterity.

and bearing, distinct and separate; but in the particu
lar case in which liability applies, they are in law,
only one moral person.
' The father and son, the ancestor, and the descen
dant, have only one common nature, or one common
right. In commercial transactions, the company is
one, though composed of many individuals; and the
nation, acting by the constituted authorities, with all
her other varieties, and differences, while a nation,
continues one and indivisible.'
And here let me say, that this principle is recog
nized in the relation of Adam to his posterity, and of
theirs to him, so that the effects in penal evil, while
they blasted him, blasted them also.
There is, in my apprehension, something of this
constitutional social liability pervading the whole
moral universe, and inseparable from the nature of
mind and moral government, and the effects of temp
tation, character, and example. It is probable, that ,
rational beings, constituted as they are, cannot be
brought together, so that the action of one shall not
in some degree affect the character of others. Wheth
er it was a positive appointment merely, or whether
it was an inevitable effect flowing from the nature of
things, or which is more probable, the united result
of both; such was the constitution established by God,
between Adam and his seed; so that if Adam should
stand, all his children would retain their integrity;
but if he should fall, they would fall with him. And
we may well apply to the fall of our1 first parents the

ORIGINAL SIN. 181

Adam the federal head — imputation^personal identity.
affecting language of Mark Anthony over Cesar's
body: ' 0 what a fall was there my countrymen !
Then you, and I, and all of us fell down.'
The constitution was equally certain both ways;
and in this respect it was just and equal. If, then, it
be asked, whether I hold that Adam was the federal
head of his posterity? I answer, certainly he was;
because that which he did, decided what was to be
the character and conduct of all his posterity. If the
inquiry is made, whether I admit the' imputation of
Adam's sin? If imputation be understood, to mean,
that Adam's posterity were present ini him, and thus
sinned in him, I answer, No;- and Dr. Wilson answers,
No. And here we are agreed. For if mankind were
present in Adam, and in that sense sinned in him,
who does not see that their sin was actual, not origi
nal? personal, and not derived, or transmitted, or
propagated? '¦ Again, if by original sin be meant, that Adam's
personal qualities were transferred to his posterity,
(a theory which like the other had once its day,) I
replyy that I do not and cannot believe any such
thing; neither does Dr. Wilson believe it. And here
let me say, that all the alarm and all the odium which
has been excited in relation to the divines of New
England, have arisen from two things: their opposi
tion to the notion of personal identity with Adam;
and their denial of the transfer of his moral qualities
to his .posterity.. But neither of these things is involv
ed in. the charges preferred against me by Dr. Wilson.
16*'

182 ORIGINAL SIN.

True doctrine of original sin. Meaning of the word guilt.
What, then, is the- true doctrine of original sin? It
is the obnoxiousness of Adam's posterity to the penal
consequences of his transgression; to all that came in
that stream of evils which his offence let in upon the
world. The same change of constitution, of nature
and character, which was wrought in him by his
transgression, appears in them through all their gen
erations. This liability, this exposedness to punish
ment is in the Confession called 'Guilt;' but that
word, as then used, conveyed theologically, a differ
ent meaning from what is now usually attached to
the term. By guilt, we now understand the desert
of punishment for personal sin; but this is not the
sense of the word in the Confession of Faith; there
it means liability to penal evil in consequence of
Adam's sin. This was another of the spots where I
stumbled once at the language of the Confession. I
could not consent to the punishment in my person
of the guilt of Adam's sin as if it were my own. To
that I do not now consent. That, I now believe the
Confession of Faith does not teach ; but I cordially
receive it as teaching that Adam was our represen
tative, and that on his breaking God's righteous cov
enant with him as such, the curse, which fell like a
thunder bolt and struck the offender, struck with
him all his posterity, struck all the animal world,
struck the ground on which he stood, and the whole
world in which he dwelt.
'Earth felt the wound.'
This social liability is illustrated in the fall of an
gels. The influence of one master spirit drew away

ORIGINAL SIN. 183

Consequences of Adam's sin.

(as it would seem from some passages in Scripture)
one third part of the heavenly host. Let sedition and
revolt take place in a nation; who gets it up? does
the entire mass of the nation rise spontaneously and
simultaneously by one common impulse? No. Some)
leading mind first fires the train ; and though one half
the population may ultimately perish under the reac
tion of the government, their death is to be traced up
to one master spirit as the mover and promoter of
the whole commotion. Let us never forget the max
im — it is worthy to be written in letters of gold, ' in
dividual and representative responsibility are always
to be kept distinct.' I adopt this language of Dr.
Bishop, and lay it in as an exposition of my own
views, with respect to the character of Adam, to guilt
as imputed, and to punishment as, the consequence
of our social relations. I have always adopted the
language of Edwards, as correctly stating the truth
on this subject.
'In consequence of Adam's sin, all mankind do
constantly, in all ages, without fail in any one in
stance, run into the moral evil, which is, in effect,
their own utter and eternal perdition, and a total
privation of God's favor, and suffering of his ven
geance and wrath.'
So that the real doctrine is not that Adam's posteri
ty were one in personal identity, or personally guilty,
by a transfer of sinful moral qualities or actions; but
simply that a part of the curse of the law fell on the
posterity of Adam, as really as on himself; and the
punishment was the loss of original righteousness,

184 ORIGINAL SIN.

Change wrought in the constitution of human nature by the fall.
which would have been their inheritance had Adam
obeyed, and that change of the constitution of human
nature, from which results the certainty of entire ac
tual sin. Now what the particular change was, which
furnished the ground of this absolute certainty, that
all mankind would run into sin, I do not profess to
understand. Paul, in the fifth chapter to the Romans,
states the facts of the case, in the imputation of a
nature spoiled, and under such an effectual bias, that
as soon as the mind acts, it acts wrong. This is all
that I can say touching original sin. All is confusion
and darkness beyond this. I have no light and pre
tend to no knowledge. ' And surely there is no heresy
in ignorance. I always believed in original sin, and that
Adam was the federal head of his posterity, and al-
thoughlhave notused generally that particular phrase,
I believe as much in the truth it is intended to convey,
as any man in the church. I believe that God made a
covenant with Adam ; that the effects of his fall reached
all his posterity and produced in them such a change,
that the human mind which before willed right, thence
forward was sure to will wrong; that in consequence
of the change which took place in Adam himself, the
bias to holiness, which, had Adam stood, would have
been the blessed inheritance of all his children, was
utterly lost, so that they now inherit a corrupt na
ture. I have always called it so. I have expressly
denominated it a depraved nature. I believe they
inherit this not as actual personal sin — that it comes
upon them, not as a punishment of their personal
sin, but as a political evil would come upon the

ORIGINAL SIN. 185

Imputation — Views of Turretin.

people of the United States from the evil conduct of
their chief magistrate. In a word, that we share the
character of our progenitor, and all the deplorable
effects of his transgression.
The following additional quotations will show that
these views are the received doctrines of the church:
' Turretin,' as quoted by Hodge on Romans, ' (Theol.
Elench. Ojuaest. IX. p. 678,) says: " Imputation is
either of something foreign to us, or of something
properly our own. Sometimes that is imputed to us
which is personally ours; in which sense God imputes
to sinners their transgressions. Sometimes that is
imputed which is without us, and not performed by
ourselves; thus the righteousness of Christ is said
to be imputed to us, and our sins are imputed to him,
although he has neither sin in himself, nor we righte
ousness. Here we speak of the latter kind of impu
tation, not of the former, because we are treating of
a sin committed by Adam, not by us." The ground
of this imputation is the union between Adam and
his posterity. This union is not a mysterious identity
of person, but, 1. " Natural, as he is the father, and
we are the children. 2. Political and forensic, as he
was the representative head and chief of the whole
human race. The foundation, therefore, of imputa
tion is not only the natural connection which exists
between us and Adam, since, in that case, all his sins
might be imputed to us, but mainly the moral and
federal, in virtue of which God entered into covenant
with him as our head." Again, " We are constituted
sinners in Adam in the same way in which we are
constituted righteous in Christ." '

186 ORIGINAL SIN.

Imputation — Views of Tuckney, Owen.

' Tuckney (Praelectiones, p. 234:) " We are count
ed righteous through Christ in the same manner that
we are counted guilty through Adam. The latter is
by imputation, therefore, also the former." "We are
not so foolish or blasphemous as to say, or even to
think, that the imputed righteousness of Christ makes
us formally and subjectively righteous." '
' Owen (in his work on Justification, p. 236,) says:
"Things which are not our own originally, inherently,
may yet be imputed to us, ex justitia, by the rule of
righteousness. And this may be done upon a double
relation unto those whose they are, 1. Federal.
2. Natural. Things done by one may be imputed
unto others, propter relationem foederalem, because
of a covenant relation between them. So the sin of
Adam was imputed to all his posterity. And the
ground hereof is, that we stood in the same covenant
with him who was our head and representative."
On p. 242, he says, " This imputation (of Christ's
righteousness) is not the transmission Or transfusion
of the righteousness of another into them which are
to be justified, that they should become perfectly
and inherently righteous thereby. For it is impos
sible that the righteousness of one should be trans
fused into another, to become his subjectively and
inherently." Again, p. 307 : "As we are made guilty
by Adam's actual sin, which is not inherent in us,
but only imputed to us; so are we made righteous by
the righteousness of Christ, which is not inherent in
us, but only imputed to us." On page 468, he says:
" Nothing is intended by the imputation of sin unto

ORIGINAL SIN. 187

Imputation — Views of Knapp, Zachariae, Bretschneider.
any, but the rendering them justly obnoxious unto the
punishment due unto that sin. As the not imputing
of sin is the freeing of men from being subject or lia
ble to punishment." It is one of his standing decla
rations, " To be alienae culpae reus, (i. e, to be guilty of
another's crime) makes no man a sinner." '
' Knapp (in his lectures on theology, sect. 76) says,
in stating what the doctrine of imputation is, " God's
imputing the sin of our first parents to their descend
ants amounts to this: God punishes the descendants
on account of the sin of their first 1 parents." This
he gives as a mere historical statement of the nature
of the doctrine, and the form in which its advocates
maintained it.'
'Zachariae (Bib. Theologie, Vol. II. p. 394, says:
" If God allows the punishment which Adam incurred
to come on all his descendants, he imputes his sin to
them all. And in this sense Paul maintains that the
sin of Adam is imputed to all, because the punishment
of the one offence of Adam has come upon all." '
' Bretschneider, when stating the doctrine of the
reformers, as presented in the various creeds pub
lished under their authority, says, that they regarded
justification, which includes the idea of imputation,
as a forensic or judicial act of God, by which the rela
tion of man to God, and not the man himself was
changed. And imputation of righteousness they des
cribed as " That judgment of God, according to which
he treats us as though we had not sinned but had
fulfilled the law, or as though the righteousness of
Christ was ours." This view of justification they

188 ORIGINAL SIN.

Imputation — Views of Professors of Princeton Seminary.
constantly maintained in opposition to the Papists,
who regarded it as a moral change consisting in what
they called the infusion of righteousness.'
I shall now show that this is the view entertained
by the professors of the Princeton Seminary.
' What we deny, therefore, is, first, that this doc
trine involves any mysterious union with Adam, any
confusion of our identity with his, so that his act was
properly and personally our act; and secondly, that
the moral turpitude of that sin was transferred from
him to us; we deny the possibility of any such trans
fer. These are the two ideas which the Spectator
and others consider as necessarily involved in the
doctrine of imputation, and for rejecting which they
represent us as having abandoned the old doctrine on
the subject.'
' The words guilt and punishment are those partic
ularly referred to. The former we had defined to
be liability or exposedness to punishment. We did
not mean to say that the word never included the
idea of moral turpitude or criminality. We were
speaking of its theological usage. It is very possible
that a word may have one sense in common life, and
another somewhat modified in particular sciences.'
'Punishment according to our views, is an evil
inflicted on a person, in the execution of a judicial
sentence, on account of sin. That the word is used
in this sense, for evils thus inflicted on one person
for the offence of another, cannot be denied. It
would be easy to fill a volume with examples of this
usage.' Biblical Repertory, pp. 346, 440, 441.

ORIGINAL SIN. 189

Imputation — Views of Hodge.

Hodge on Romans: 'The doctrine of imputation
is clearly taught in this passage. This doctrine does
not include the idea of a mysterious identity of Adam
and his race; nor that of a transfer of the moral tur-
' pitude of his sin to his descendants. It does not teach
that his offence was personally or properly the sin
of all men, or that his act was, in any mysterious
sense, the act of his posterity. Neither does it imply,
in reference to the righteousness of • Christ, that bis
righteousness becomes personally and inherently
ours, or that his moral excellence is in any way trans
ferred from him to believers. The sin of Adam,
therefore, is no ground to us of remorse; and the
righteousness of Christ is no ground of self-compla
cency in those to whom it is imputed. This doctrine
merely teaches, that in virtue ofthe union, represen
tative and natural, between Adam and his posterity,
his sin is the ground of their condemnation, that is,
of their subjection to penal evils; and that in virtue
of the union between Christ and his people, his right
eousness is the ground of their justification.' p. 221 .
'Whatever evil the scriptures represent as coming
upon us on account of Adam, they regard as penal;
they call it death, which is the general term by which
any penal evil is expressed.
*- It is not however the doctrine of the scriptures,
nor of the reformed churches, nor of our standards,
that the corruption of nature of which they speak, is
any depravation of the soul, or an essential attribute,
or the infusion of any positive evil. " Original sin,"
as the confessions ofthe reformers maintain, "is not
17

190 ORIGINAL SIN.

Imputation — General Assembly in case of Mr.'Balch.
the substance of man, neither his soul nor body; nor
is it any thing infused into his nature by Satan, as
poison is mixed with wine; it is not an essential attri
bute, but an accident, i. e. something which does not
exist of itself, an incidental quality,. &c." Bret
schneider, Vol. II. p. 30. These confessions teach
that original righteousness, as a punishment of Adam's
sin, was lost, and by that defect the tendency to sin,
or corrupt disposition, or corruption of nature, is
occasioned. Though they speak of original sin as
being, first, negative, i. e. the loss of righteousness;
and, secondly, positive, or porruption of nature; yet
by the latter, they state, is to be understood, not the
infusion of any thing in itself sinful, but an actual
tendency or disposition to evil resulting from the loss
of righteousness.' pp. 229, 230.
'We derive from Adam a nature destitute of any
native tendency to the love and service of God; and
since the soul, from its nature, is filled, as it were,
with susceptibilities; dispositions, or tendencies to
certain modes of .acting, or to objects out of itself, if
destitute of the governing tendency or disposition to
holiness and God, it has, of course, a tendency to self-
gratification and sin.' p. 231.
I now refer to a judicial decision of the General
Assembly, in the case of Mr. Balch.
' The transferring of personal sin Or righteousness
has never been held by Calvinistic divines, nor by
any person in our church as far as is known to us.
But, with regard to his (Mr. B.'s) doctrine of original
sin, it is to be observed, that he is erroneous in rep
resenting personal corruption as not derived from

ORIGINAL SIN. 191

Imputation — Views of Dr. .Wilson.

Adam ; making Adam's sin to be imputed to his pos
terity in consequence of a corrupt nature already pos
sessed, and derived from, we know not what; thus in
effect setting aside the idea of Adam's being the fed
eral head or representative of his descendants, and
the whole doctrine of the covenant of "works.' — As
sembly's Digest, p. 130.
My next authority is Dr. Wilson himself.
' Let us guard here against some mistakes. The
doctrine of a union of representation does not involve
in it the idea of personal identity. It does not mean
that Adam and his posterity are the same identical
persons. It does not mean that his .act was properly
and personally their act. Nor does it mean that the
moral turpitude of Adam's sin was transferred to his
descendants. The transfer of moral character makes
no part ofthe doctrine of imputation.'
And now, according to the just and true intent of
the term's, as indicated by the established laws of ex
position, and confirmed by the standard writers of
our church, acquiesced in and corroborated by her
highest judicature, I believe and teach, that ' Adam,
being the root of all mankind, the guilt of his sin was
imputed, and the same death in sin, and corrupted
nature conveyed to all his posterity, descending from
him by ordinary generation:' that from ' this original
corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disa
bled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly in-
clined.to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions;
and that the covenant being made with Adam, not
only for himself but for his posterity, all mankind
descending from him by ordinary generation, sinned

192 ORIGINAL SIN.

Infanta the subjects of original sin.

in him and fell with him in his first transgression ;' that
'the. sinfulness of that estate whereinto man fell,
consists in the guilt of Adam's first sin, the want of
original righteousness, and the corruption of his whole
nature, which is commonly called original sin, to
gether with all actual transgressions which proceed
from it; and that by the fall of our first parents 'all
mankind lost communion with God, are under his
wrath and curse, and so made liable to all the mise
ries of this life, to death itself, and to the pains of
hell forever.'.
I believe also, and always have believed and taught,
that infants are the subjects of original sin, and as
distinguished from actual sin, consisting in the 'influ
ence of a prevailing effectual tendency in their na
ture' to actual sin; and that on account of this preva
lent tendency, it is, in the Bible, the Confession, and
the common language of men, justly denominated a
depraved nature; and that being thus depraved, and
considered in their social liabilities as one with Adam,
they no more than adults could be saved without an
atonement and the special influence 'of the Holy
Spirit in regeneration, to overcome and remove this
bias to evil of original corruption, and secure the un
perverted exercise of their voluntary powers in spir
itual obedience, and ultimately be prepared for per
fect conformity to the will of God in heaven. I
scarce ever attended the funeral of an infant without
an express recognition of these views upon infant
depravity, and the atonement and regeneration as
the only ground of hope that they are saved.
I close this discussion in respect to original sin,

ORIGINAL SIN. 1 193

Epitome of the author's views on original sin.
with the following concise epitome of my own views,
which, as I understand and believe, have been and
are the received doctrines of the church of God, in
every age:
1. Original sin is the effect of Adam's sin upon the
constitution of his race, in consequence of his being
their federal head and representative by a divine ap
pointment or covenant.
2. It does not consist in the sinfulness of matter,
according to the Gnostics, or in the sinfulness of the
soul's essence, according to the Manicheans: but
3. It consists in the perversion of those constitu
tional powers and susceptibilities, which in Adam be
fore the fall eventuated in actual and perfect obedi
ence, and which in their perverted condition by the
fall, eventuate in- actual and total depravity.
4. It is in its nature involuntary; and yet, though
certain ahd universal in its influence to pervert the
will and affections, does neither force the will, nor by
an absolute necessity of nature determine it to evil,
or impair obligation, or excuse actual sin. It de
scends from. Adam, By natural generation, through
all the race.
. It is a bias or tendency of nature to actual sin,
Which baffles all motives and all influence short of
Omnipotence, to prevent its eventuation in total, act
ual depravity, or to restore the perverted will and
affections to holy obedience.
It is this bias to evil, the effect of the fall, which,
though impaired by regeneration, is not annihilated,
but remains in the regenerate, which, combined with
17*

194 f ORIGINAL SIN.

No evidence to sustain the charge of heresy.
the habits of aetuaLsin, constitutes the law in the mem
bers yt arring against the law of the mind, preventing,
until the soul at death is made meet for heaven, the un-
biased and unperverted exercise of the will and affec
tions, in perfect accordance with the moral law.
' .- It is denominated by Edwards, and justly, an ex
ceedingly evil and depraved nature, as being in all its
tendencies and all its actual results, adverse to the
law; and on the ground of our alliance with Adam,
our federal head, and our social liability, deserves
God's wrath and curse, in all that comes to pass in
perverted constitution, choice and character, includ
ing the evils of 'the life that now is, death itself, and
the pains of hell forever.
Sueh, on the subject of original sin, are the views
which I have always held and taught since I have
been in the ministry; nor has any evidence been pro
duced, that I have ever at any time believed or taught
the contrary. The entire evidence relied on, is a mis
apprehension and misinterpretation of the passage ad
duced from my sermon ; and there is now no evidence,
not a syllable of evidence, to sustain the charge. Should
it be inquired, why I did not explain my views on
original sin, and the misconceptions of my discourse,
to Dr. Wilson, as I have now done, and save our
selves and the church the affliction and annoyance
of such a controversy; I answer, that I often assured
Dr. Wilson that he misunderstood my views and
communications on that subject, and requested him,
respectfully and earnestly, three or four times, to
permit me to make the requisite ' explanations^ and
was as often refused.

TOTAL-DEPRAVITY.

On this subject my doctrine, and the evidence
relied on for its/support, are sufficiently manifest in
the epitome which I have given of my sermon on the
Native Character of Man. >
It includes the absence of all holiness — the want
of conformity unto, and the actual transgression of,
the law of God.
It is universal — there being not a mere man of all
the millions of Adam's posterity that hath lived and
not sinned.
It is entire—every imagination of the thoughts of
the heart being evil only — there being none that do
good, no not one.
It is positive — as including the actual preference of
the creature to the Creator, which is enmity against
God. It is voluntary-^-though occasioned by original sin,
the will is not forced, nor by any necessity deter
mined to good or evil. But though voluntary, with
the possibility of turning to God, it is spontaneously
immutable to any motive, but the word of God made
effectual by his Spirit. »
It was this view of total depravity excluding all

196 TOTAL DEPRAVITY.
Total depravity fully taught and preached by the author.
native Virtue from the heart, motives, words, and
deeds of man, which produced the reaction that
occasioned the sermon on the native character of
man. I taught with the Confession, that 'works done by
unregenerate men, although, for the matter of them,
they may be things which God commands, and of
good use both to themselves and others ; yet because
they proceed not from a heart purified by faith; nor
are done in a right manner, according to the word;
nor to a right end, the glory of God; they are there
fore sinful, and cannot please God, or make a man
meet to receive grace from God. And yet their
neglect of them is more sinful, and displeasing unto
God.' It is a doctrine which, in various forms I have ex
plained, and proved, and preached, and applied, more
than any other, as being especially theone by which
the commandment comes and sin revives..

REGENERATION— OR EFFECTUAL
CALLING.

In respect to this doctrine I am not apprised, pre
cisely, what is the form of error which I am supposed
to hold. But if it be the Pelagian, as I conclude from
the analogy of my supposed heresy, on the subject of
original sin, it must be that 1 deny that regeneration
is a radical change of character, and only an improve
ment of the good principles of our nature by moral
culture. That it is in any special sense a work of
God, and only as he has provided the instruction and
motives which, by their natural influence and human
endeavor, produce religion— and that, of course, re
generation is a gradual and not an instantaneous
change. To all such apprehensions I reply, that nothing can
be more contrary to the entire course of my faith and
teaching on the subject, as all the churches know
which have been successively under my pastoral
care, and all men who have attended my ministry
with sufficient constancy, to receive the image and
body of my preaching. There is no subject beside
the kindred one of total depravity, which I have
dwelt upon with such copiousness of explanation,

198 REGENERATION.

Topics embraced in the doctrine.

proofs, and earnest application — line upon line — in
season and out of season, as on the subject of regene
ration — insomuch, that my stated hearers would as
soon think of suspecting me of atheism as of Pelagi
anism, on the subject of regeneration.
That I have not been fully understood on a single
point, I perceive; but that I shall be understood, and
understood as teaching the doctrine in accordance
with the Bible, and the Confession, and the generally
received opinion of the orthodox church, I have a
comfortable hope.
I am aware that a man's simple professions, when
under suspicion of heresy, are but a poor defence
against the amplifications of imagination and fear,
especially when divisions, and tumults, and swellings
exist — there may be for a season little to choose be
tween being suspected of heresy, and being guilty of
it. Instead, therefore, of making mere declarations
of my belief, I shall state and illustrate my views on
the several topics belonging to the subject of regen
eration, as I have been accustomed to state them in
my discourses, from the pulpit, and in my lectures to
the students under my care. These topics are —
1. The nature;
2. The efficient cause;
3, The effectual means ; and
4. The necessity of regeneration.
1. The nature of regeneration. — By this I mean
the nature of the change which is produced in the
subject by the Spirit of God. This, according to my
understanding of the Bible, is correctly disclosed in

REGENERATION. 199
Nature of the change effected in regeneration.
the doctrine of effectual calling as taught in the Con
fession of Faith and Catechisms, as including 'the
enlightening of the minds of men spiritually and sav
ingly to understand the things of God, taking away
their heart of stone, and giving a heart of flesh- — re
newing their wills and determining them to that which
is good, and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ
— yet so as they come freely, being made willing by
his grace — in his accepted time, inviting and drawing
them to Jesus Christ by his word and spirit — so as
they (although in themselves dead in sin) are hereby
made willing and able truly to answer>his call, and to
accept and embrace the grace offered and conveyed
therein;' or as the Shorter Catechism teaches, more
concisely and with no less correctness:
'Effectual calling is the work of God's Spirit,
whereby, convincing us of our sin and misery, en
lightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and
renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us
to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered us in the gos
pel.' The substance of what is taught by this various
phraseology is, that a change is effected in regenera
tion ih respect to man's chief end, in turning from the
supreme love of self, to the supreme love of God —
from gratifying and exalting self, to gratifying and
exalting God — a giving up and turning from the
world in all its pomp and vanities as the chief good,
and returning to God as the chosen portion of the
soul — withdrawing the affections from things below,
and setting them on things above — ceasing to lay up

200 REGENERATION.

The Holy Spirit the author of regeneration.
our treasure on earth, and laying it up in heaven —
and so grieving for and hating our past sins, as that
we turn from them all to God, purposing and endeav
oring to walk with God in all the ways of new obe
dience. This, it will not, I think, be doubted, comprehends
correctly the moral change which takes place in re
generation. The author Or efficient cause of regeneration
is God. By efficient cause I mean that power with
out which all other influence is vain, and by which
means otherwise impotent are made effectual. The
power then, which in all cases is the immediate ante
cedent and effectual cause of regeneration, is the spe
cial influence of the Holy Spirit. It is called the
Holy Spirit, not by way of any preeminent personal
excellence, but as the divine agent to whom is com
mitted the work of commencing and perfecting holi
ness in the hearts of men.
That God is the efficient cause of regeneration, is
plainly taught in the text, and throughout the Bible,
in the various forms of metaphor, direct testimony,
and multiplied implications. Is moral pollution in
the way—' I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and
ye shall be clean.' Is stupidity and insensibility the
impediment to be removed — ' I will take away the
stony heart and give a heart of flesh.' Is the condi
tion of man represented by the battle field, a capa
cious valley whitened with bones — it is God who
says unto these bones, ' Behold I will cause breath
to enter into you, and ye shall live.' Is it the help-

REGENERATION. 201

Power of God in regeneration, supernatural.
lessness of infancy abandoned in the open field, with
no eye to pity or arm to save — it is God who ' passes
by and bids us live.' Is it darkness which impedes
our salvation — it is ' God who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, who shines in our hearts.'
Is death the calamity, a resurrection is the remedy —
' You hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses
and sins, and raised us up to sit together in heavenly
places in Christ.' Is it the annihilation of spiritual
life, regeneration is a new creation — 4 created anew
in Christ Jesus unto good works.' Is it the old man
who makes resistance to the claims of God — the re
generated are said to be ' born again, not of blood,'
i. e. not by natural descent, ' nor of the will of the
flesh,' the striving and efforts of sinners to save them
selves, 'nor ofthe will o-f man,' the efforts of men to
save their fellow men,' but of God; whosoever loveth
is born of god.'
The power of God concerned in regeneration is
supernatural. It is so, 1. as compared with the
power of any created agent, man or angel.
2. It is supernatural, as above the power of any
law of nature, or natural efficacy of truth or motive,
in the ordinary operation of cause and effect, na
tural or moral.
3. It is supernatural, as distinguished from the
stated operations of divine power, which are con
cerned in upholding all things and guiding them in the
stated order of cause and effect, to their results, as
earth, and air, and rain, and sunshine produce vege
tation, and cause harvests to wave in the field.
18

202 REGENERATION.

Redemption limited by unerring wisdom, not by impotency.
4. It is supernatural, as being an interposition
to accomplish unfailingly a change in the will and
affections of men, which never takes place without
it. And —
5. It is supernatural, as it is an act of God's al
mighty power — as really so as the creation of worlds,
or the resurrection of the dead.
The question has been started, whether God is able
to regenerate any more than he does. Unquestion
ably so far as sufficient power is concerned, he is able
to subdue all things to himself. The limitation in
respect to the application of redemption, is not one
of impotency, but a limitation of the unerring wisdom
and infinite benevolence of God — the limitation of
doing always, and only in the administration of grace
that which seemeth good in his sight, and is right and
best. The discriminations of his justice and grace are
voluntary. So far as his power is concerned, he is as
able to subdue the wills of rebels as to control the ele
ments. In his moral kingdom, he is as truly the
Lord God omnipotent, working all things accordingto
the counsel of his will, as he is in the government
of the natural universe. He has placed nothing
which he has made beyond the reach of his power;
and he has made nothing which he cannot and does
not govern, according to the counsel of his own will.
The power of God in regeneration is represented as
among the greatest displays of his Omnipotence ever
made, or to be made, in the history of the universe.
When this feir creation rose fresh in beauty 'from the
hand of God, the morning stars sang together, and all

REGENERATION. 203

Regeneration instantaneous, not progressive.
the sons of God shouted for joy; but sweeter songs
will celebrate, and louder shouts attend the consumma
tion of redemption, by the power of God's Spirit; and
such brighter glories of God, and higher illustrations
of his power, will be manifested to principalities and
powers by the church, as will cause the light of his
glory in physical creation to go out and be forgotten,
as the stars fade and are lost amid the splendors of
the sun. It is the united glory of God's power and
goodness, in redemption, and not the wonders of phy
sical creation, which inspire and perpetuate for ever
around his throne, the voice of praise, as the sound of
many waters and mighty ithunderings, to Him who
loved us, and died for us, and washed us in his blood,
and made us kings and priests unto God.
The effect of this divine interposition is instanta
neous — in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. It
¦must be instantaneous from the nature of the case.
If man is an idolater, there must be a time when he
gives the idol up for God; if an enemy, there must be
a time when he becomes reconciled; if without holy
love, there must be a time when it begins to warm
the heart.
The graces ofthe Spirit admit not of a progressive
creation — love or enmity, penitence or impenitence,
faith or unbelief, are the only positive conditions of
the human mind. There is no state between them.
There is and can be no such thing as love, or repen
tance, or faith, half formed, and progressive to a
completion. There are persons, however, of some seriousness,

204 REGENERATION.

Progressive regeneration fallacious and dangerous.
who seem desirous to approximate to evangelical
belief on the subject of regeneration — who admit the
necessity of a change in human character, in some
degree like that which we have described, only it is
not wholly new, but the result ofthe progressive cul
ture of the human powers by divine aid; and since
on both sides, we believe, they say, in the necessity
holiness, what difference does il make whether it
comes from old principles or new, or whether the'
work is instantaneous or progressive.
Whatever might be thought beforehand, the differ
ence in experience between a belief in instantaneous or
progressive regeneration, is manifest and great. The
latter assumes fallacious and dangerous views of hu
man nature, as including some seed of virtue, or prin
ciple of light and life, which needs only cultivation to
bring it up to the maturity of holiness; is associated
also with false views of holiness, as consisting in
some nondescript, mystical goodness, which grows
imperceptibly under culture, as the harvest rises
under rain and sunshine.
It legitimates as virtues, efficacious to save, all
those grounds of fallacious hope which I have already
named, — quelling fear, preventing a sense of sin, and
creating hope built upon the sand.
It produces likewise and fosters, and makes obsti
nate, a self-righteous and self-complacent, self-justify
ing spirit, while it creates hostility to the fundamen
tal doctrines of the gospel — the entire depravity of
man, the necessity of a radical change of character,
and acquiescence in the discriminations of divine

REGENERATION. 205

Effectual means of regeneration, the word of God.
justice and mercy, in the punishment or renovation
and pardon of sinful men.
And, worst of all, its tendency on communities,
is to cause prejudice and virulent hostility not only
against the doctrines of the Bible, but against revela
tion itself, and to produce ultimately scepticism and
rank infidelity, and scoffing at the Bible and the work
of the Spirit.
The effectual means of regeneration is the
word of god. By effectual means, I understand the
means which God employs and renders efficient in
producing the change. That 'he accomplishes the
change by his mighty power associated with means,
is the unequivocal testimony of the Bible and the
Confession of Faith. Chosen to salvation, the Elect
of God are, through sanctification of the Spirit and
belief of the truth whereunto he called them by the
Gospel} The Gospel is denominated ' the power of
God and the wisdom of God unto salvation.' ' The
law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.' ' The
word of God is quick and powerful.' 'The seed is
the word.' 'Being born again, not of corruptible
seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God; — and
this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto
you.' ' Ye shall know fhe truth, and the truth shall
make you free.' ' Sanctify them through thy truth.
Thy word is truth.' 'Seeing ye have purified your
souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit.' ' They
shall be taught of God.' ' I drew them with the >
cords of love.' ' No man can come unto me, except
the Father which hath sent me draw him.' 'Every
18*

206 REGENERATION.

Efficiency of God and instrumentality of his word united.
one, therefore, which hath heard and learned of the
Father, cometh unto me.'
This is only a small portion of the phraseology
of the Bible which associates God's efficiency with
his word", in regeneration. That such instrumental
ity should, in direct terms, and by every variety of
metaphor, be associated with the power of God in
regeneration, if in fact no such instrumentality is
employed, cannot be assumed without shaking the
foundation of all confidence in the teaching of the
Bible.' Exposition may as well be abandoned; for
nothing, in that case, can be taught by language,
which theory and imagination might not explain
away. We might as well deny that God is the
efficient cause, as that truth is the ' effectual means' of
regeneration. But there is no necessity for deny
ing either, and no authority for stripping either class
of texts of their natural and obvious import, to mean
nothing. What would be thought of the expositor
who should insist, that because men. are begotten
again by the word, therefore the power of God is not
concerned in regeneration, and that it is all a matter
of moral suasion and human endeavor? But why
should the efficiency of God defraud the word of its
alledged instrumentality, or the instrumentality ofthe
word exclude the power of God ? Is the union of both
impossible? It cannot be impossible, because, un
questionably, in the government of the natural world,
God's almightiness is associated with the instrumen
tality of natural causes, and may be just as possibly,

REGENERATION. 207
Not revealed that God regenerates without means.
if God pleases, in the moral world, associated with
the instrumentality of moral causes.
To what purpose are laws and institutions and
the preaching of the gospel, if God does nothing and
can do nothing by their instrumentality? Are laws
and institutions, and the ministry of reconciliation,
only the empty attendant symbols of God's power?
Does it correspond with the usage of revealed lan
guage, to ascribe instrumentality to the impotent
signals and attendants of God's agency? Is it ever
said that God inflicted the plagues of Egypt by Aa
ron's rod, or threw down the walls of Jericho by rams'
horns? The analogy of scriptural use forbids the
ascription of instrumental agency to the mere sym
bols of the 'presence and power of God. Nor have
I 'been able to find any declaration in the Bible, that
God regenerates by his own almighty power, without
any instrumental agency. The scriptures teach
abundantly, that God is the author of regeneration,
and that it is the instantaneous effect of his omnipo
tence applied with a direct design to produce it;
but the fact that he does it, and that it is an illustri
ous act of omnipotence, does not decide how he
does it, much less that he does it by power. only,
without means; while all the passages which speak
oi the instrumentality of the word, prove that he
does not regenerate by omnipotence alone, but by
power associated with the reading and especially %he
preaching of the word.
With this view of the subject correspond all
the implications of the Bible. If the gospel pos-

208 REGENERATION.

The word and Spirit united in effectual calling.
1 i ¦  '  —
sesses no adaptation to secure in any way, as a
means in the hand of God, the renovation of the
heart, whence the transcendant excellence and im
portance attached to it, and the high" perniciousness
and criminality of error, and why is the mighty pow
er of God manifest only in alliance with revelation?
Is the truth of God' a mere arbitrary association of
particular opinions with particular acts of God's pow
er? It cannot be. The testimony of the Bible is
express the other way.
There is, however, in our church, no need of con
troversy on the subject, and no room for it.
It is not claimed that God regenerates by the truth
without an interposition of the exceeding greatness
of his own power — and without denying the Con
fession and Catechisms, it cannot be denied that,
what is accomplished in effectual calling, is accom
plished by his word and Spirit.
That Gdd is able by his direct immediate power to
approach the mind in every faculty, and to touch all
the springs of action and affection, I have never
denied or doubted. And that he is able by the direct
interposition of his power, so to rectify the mind of
man as disordered by the fall, as that the consequence
would be the immediate, unperverted exercise of the
will and affections in obedience, is just as evident as
that God can create minds in such a condition that
they will in these respects go right from the begin
ning — and that in this manner, he does retrieve the
consequences of the fall, in respect to those who die
in infancy, would seem to be as evident, as that he

REGENERATION. 209

A question not of pbssible or impossible, but of fact.
saves them at all. That he is able, also, if it seemed
good in his sight, to reveal the truth and manifest
himself savingly to the heathen, is as plain as that
he could reveal the same truths to holy men of old,
and make them effectual through a written word
and established ordinances. Nor is it denied or
doubted, in respect to possibility, that God, if it
seemed wisest and best under the gospel, might make
such manifestations Of himself to the souls of men,
attended by such energy of his almighty power, as
would call them unfailingly into his kingdom.
The question, as we have said, is not a question of
possible or impossible, but a question of fact, as, to the
manner in which God does actually call effectually
sinners into his kingdom — a question of wisdom and
goodness in doing what is best in the best manner.
I have no sympathy for the opinion that it depends
on sinners whether they be regenerated or not in the
day of his power — or that God does all he can, and
leaves the event of submission or not to rebel man —
and that sinners make1 themselves to differ, and are
in fact the self-determining authors of their own re
generation. The passages quoted to prove such an
assertion are misunderstood and perverted.
The texts — 'What could I have done more for my
vineyard that I have not done in it,' and 'he could
not do many mighty works there, because of their
unbelief,' and other kindred passages, do not teach
that God is ever efficaciously resisted by any sinner
whom he attempts to subdue, or that there is any
sinner on earth so stubborn and obstinate, that God

210 REGENERATION.

The ordinary method, not extreme cases.

could not reconcile him if it seemed good in his sight.
The limitation is of God's unerring wisdom — and
the cannot the same as when it is said he cannot
deny himself, or cannot lie, or where God himself
says — 'though Moses and Samuel stood before me,
yet. my mind could not be towards this people.'
The question, also, has respect not to extreme
cases, but to the ordinary methods of his sovereign
power in saving men; and here the Bible and Con
fession are express, that regeneration is accomplish
ed by the word and Spirit of God.
Most assuredly it is the grammatical import and
obvious meaning, and no doubt the true intent of our
Confession and Catechisms, that what God accom
plishes in effectual calling, he accomplishes by his
word and Spirit — effectually calls * by. his word and)
Spirit' out of that state of sin and death in which
men are by nature. By his word and Spirit enlight
ening their minds savingly to understand the things
of God. By his word and Spirit taking away the
heart of stone, and giving a heart of flesh. By his
word and Spirit and almighty power renewing their
wills, and determining them to that which, is good.
By his word and Spirit inviting and drawing sinners
to Christ, yet so as they come most freely, being
made willing by his grace. The Spirit of God maketh
the reading and especially the preaching of the word,
an effectual mean of convincing of sin and convert
ing sinners, and building them up in holiness and
comfort through faith unto salvation.' How can
that be an effectual mean of conversion which does

REGENERATION. 211

The 'word' embraces all GodTias revealed.
nothing, and only attends the display of God's om
nipotence? '
Is it demanded how God can make the word effec
tual by his Spirit in regeneration? I am not sure
that the Bible, or the creeds, or standard writers,
have explained exactly how the Spirit regenerates
by the word, or that I shall be able to do justice to
the representations which they have made. It is
evident, however, that by ' the word' and ' the
truth,' is meant the whole revelation which God has
made to man: including all the truths, motives, and
ordinances of the Bible, and all the illustrative and
corroborating influence of his providential govern
ment; comprehending the being, the attributes, j;he
character, and the eternal counsel and law of God — •
the fall and total depravity of man — the develop
ments of the Trinity, and plan of redemption by
Jesus Christ; including his divine person, mediation,
atonement, and the terms upon which justification and
eternal life are offered, and the ordinances and means
of commending these overtures of mercy to the con
sciences and hearts of men; including also the Spirit,
his divine person, and work of revelation, illumina
tion, and restraint, awakening and convincing, con
verting and sanctifying sinful men, to make them
meet for heaven; and also the mingled influence
of majesty and condescension, justice and mercy,
and all the promises and threatenings, and hopes and
fears attendant upon the discriminations of grace and
justice— of death, and judgment, and eternity, associ-

212 REGENERATION.

The thing to be accomplished in regeneration.
ated with heaven and hell, according to the characters ,
formed and the deeds done in the bedy.
Now, it is admitted by all orthodox creeds and
writers, that there is a work preparatory and conse
quential to regeneration, which the Spirit doris ac
complish by the instrumentality of the word. It is
called before regeneration, common grace ; and after,
sanctification. Nor is it difficult to see the adaptation
of the word to the requisite preparatory work. The
thing to be accomplished in regeneration is the restor
ation of the vagrant will and affections from the crea
ture to the Creator — the turning from broken cisterns
to God, the fountain of good. To accomplish this,
the character and law of God need to be understood,
• the sinner's attention arrested, his sensibilities quick
ened, his conscience invigorated, and his sins set in
order before him by the coming of the commandment ;
and it is easy to see how the word is powerful in its
adaptation after regeneration, to sanctify and fit believ
ers for heaven. The psalmist celebrates it as 'right,
rejoicing the heart'— ' pure, enlightening the eyes;'
and our Saviour, in his intercessory prayer, for his
disciples and people in all ages, prays, ' sanctify them
through thy truth, thy word is truth.'
The only question is, whether God, by his Spirit,
makes the word as effectual to regenerate, as he does
to prepare the way, and to sanctify after regenera
tion. And is it a thing intuitively impossible that
God, according to the language of our Confession
and catechisms, should be ' pleased, in his appointed
and accepted time, effectually to call the predestinated

REGENERATION. 213

Effectual calling by the word and Spirit.

by his word and Spirit, out of a state of sin and death,
in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation
by Jesus Christ; by his word and Spirit, enlightening
their minds spiritually and savingly, to understand the
things of God, taking away their heart of stone, and
giving unto them a heart of flesh; renewing their
wills, and by his almighty power determining to that
which is good, and effectually drawing them to
Christ, yet so as they come freely, being made willing
by his grace ; in his accepted time, inviting and draw
ing them to Christ by his word and Spirit. The Spirit
of God making the reading, but especially the preach
ing of the word an effectual mean of convincing and
converting sinners, and of building them up in holi
ness and comfort, through faith unto salvation?' Our
standards, you perceive, are unequivocal in the de
claration, that regeneration itself, as well as conviction
and sanctification, is accomplished by the word and
Spirit of God. It ascribes expressly the same instru
mentality to the word, in regeneration, which it as
cribes to it in conviction and sanctification. This, so
far as I can judge, has been the prevalent doctrine of
the church of God, in every age. Indeed it was one
of the points of earnest controversy between Papist
and Protestant, the one mistifying about the internal
word, as a pretext for the sequestration of the Bible,
the other asserting its instrumentality. Should the
question be pressed, how the Spirit makes the word
effectual in regeneration, the answer is:
Not by the truth and motives of the word, as God
employs natural causes to produce their effects. It
19

214 REGENERATION.

Effectual calling by the word and Spirit.

is said expressly in our Confession, that he does not
force the will, or determine it to good by any abso
lute necessity of nature, but that he doth persuade
and enable men to embrace Jesus Christ freely of
fered to them in the Gospel.
The mind is not a material substance, nor the
means of its unperverted action natural causes; and
to clothe the word, in the hand of the Spirit, with
the power of a natural cause, from imagery bor
rowed from the natural world, is to materialize both
the word and the soul. The heart is not literally a
stone, nor the word of God a sword, or fire, or
hammer, to break, or melt the stony heart. The
meaning is that the Spirit somehow, by the word,
both wounds and heals the soul, not as he would
wound the body by a spear, and heal it by surgical
application; but he does it by an instrumentality
which may be fitly represented by such metaphori
cal analogies.
The Bible contains precisely that balanced exhibi
tion of God — of the riches of his goodness — his majes
ty and his condescension — his love and his justice —
his mercy, and his inexorable decision to punish the
incorrigible — his long suffering and sudden vengeance
— and so exhibits the glorious and dreadful discrimi
nations of his justice and his grace, as makes it as
perfect in its adaptation when brought home to the
mind and heart to induce submission, as the com
mandment when commended by the Spirit, is to
produce conviction, or the same exhibition made real
by divine illumination to sanctify the believer; but

REGENERATION. 215

Effectual calling by the word and Spirit.

sin has darkened the mind, and the god of this world,
and the sinner's own deceitful heart of enmity keeps
out this exhibition as a matter of living reality — so that
the natural man understandeth not by his own or any
human endeavor the things of the kingdom of God.
But as the Spirit commends the law to the sinner's
conscience in conviction of sin as man cannot, and sanc
tifies by the truth his regenerated people, so ' all those
whom God hath predestinated unto life, and those
only, he is pleased, in his appointed and accepted
time, effectually to call, by his word and Spirit, out
of that state of sin and death, in which they are by
nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ; en
lightening their minds spiritually and savingly, to un
derstand the things of God, taking away their heart
of stone, and giving unto them a heart of flesh; re
newing their wills, and by his almighty power deter
mining them to that which is good; and effectually
drawing them to Jesus Christ; yet so as they come
most freely, being made willing by his grace.' It is
all dark to the sinner, and mournful, and terrible, till
the Spirit makes the gospel a reality instinct with life.
Nor is it the lettei — the simple naked truth as a
mere matter of intellectual perception, which be
comes effectual even in the hand of God. Facts and
propositions do not contain and exhibit the whole
truth contained in the Bible. It is a depository of di
vine feeling. From which flows the copious tide
of God's love and hatred— his compassion and his
justice — his mercy and his wrath — the meltings of
his heart — the terrors of his power, and the energy

216 REGENERATION.

Effectual calling by the word and Spirit.

of his will. All the reality of divine feeling is ex
pressed in the Bible ; but the natural man understand
eth it not — he reads the letter only which killeth. But
it is the Spirit which giveth life — ' the words that
I speak unto you they are spirit and they are life,
manifesting the truth and reality of divine feeling to
the soul. While the sinner reads with darkened mind
the sacred page, the Spirit makes it luminous, and
quick, and powerful — it is as if written upon transpa
rencies with invisible ink — unseen and unfelt, till the
illumination of the Spirit throws it out- in letters of fire.
Then the heavens illuminated declare the glory of
God — and the inspired page shines with overpower
ing splendor. Both these united manifestations of
the works and word of God, are celebrated in the
19th Psalm.
'The heavens declare the glory of God, and the
firmament sheweth his handy-work. Day unto day
uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth know
ledge. Tnere is no speech nor language where their
voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through
all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.
In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun; which
is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and
rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going
forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit
unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the
heat thereof. The law of the Lord is perfect, con
verting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure,
making wise the simple: the statutes of the Lord are
right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the
Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.'

REGENERATION. 217

Instrumentality of the word — Augustin.

In accordance with these views of the proper in
strumentality of the word in regeneration, is the tes
timony of Augustin, as quoted by Knapp.
'With respect to the manner in which saving
grace operates, Augustin believed, that in the case
of those who enjoy revelation, grace commonly acts
by means of the word, or the divine doctrine, but
sometimes directly; because God is not confined to
the use of means. On this point there was great
logomachy.' Knapp's Theology, vol. II. p. 457.
To the same purpose is the exposition by Calvin,
of Hebrews iv. 12. — 'For the word of God is quick,
and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword,
piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit,
and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the
thoughts and intents of the heart}
'It is to be observed, that the apostle is here
speaking of the word of God which is brought to us
by the ministry of men. For these imaginations are
silly and even pernicious, to wit, that the internal
word indeed is efficacious, but that the word which
proceeds from the mouth of man is dead and destitute
of all effect. I confess, truly, that its efficacy does
not proceed from the tongue of man, nor reside in
the word itself, but that it is owing entirely to the
Holy Spirit; nevertheless this is no objection to the
idea that the Spirit puts forth his power in the preach
ed word. For God, since he does not speak by him
self, but by men, sedulously insists on this, lest his
doctrine should be received contemptuously, because
men are its ministers. Thus Paul, when he calls the
19*

218 REGENERATION.

Instrumentality ofthe word — Calvin.

gospel the power of God, (Rom. i. 16.,) purposely
dignifies his preaching with this title, because he saw
that it had been slandered by some and despised by
others. Moreover, when he calls the. word living,
its relation to men is to be understood, as appears
more clearly in the second epithet; for he shows
what this life is, when he then calls it efficacious: for
it is the design of the apostle to show what the use
of the word is in respect to us.' The words render
ed living and efficacious in the above paragraph, are
in the English version translated quick and powerful.
The following is the comment of Calvin on Ro
mans x. 17. — 'So then faith cometh by hearing, and
hearing by the word of God. '
'This is a remarkable passage concerning the effi
cacy of preaching, since it testifies that faith proceeds
from it. He indeed confessed just before, that it ac
complished no good by itself: but where it pleases
the Lord to work, this is the instrument of his power.
God by the voice of man .acts efficaciously, and by his
ministry creates faith in us. In this manner that
Papal phantasm of implicit faith, which seperates
faith from the word, falls to the ground.'
The Synod of Dort is unequivocal also in the doc
trine of effectual calling by the word and Spirit.
' What, therefore, neither the light of nature nor
the law could do, that God performs by the power of
the Holy Spirit, through the word, or the ministry
of reconciliation ; which is the gospel concerning the
Messiah, by which it hath pleased God to save be
lievers, as well under the Old as under the New Tes
tament.' Scott's Synod of Dort, p. 137.

REGENERATION. 219

Instrumentality of the word— Synod of Dort.
' But in like manner, as by the fall man does not
cease to be man, endowed with intellect and will,
neither hath sin, which has pervaded the whole hu
man race, taken away the nature of the human
species, but it hath depraved and spiritually stained
it; so even this divine grace of regeneration does
not act upon men like stocks and trees, nor take
away the proprieties- (or properties, proprietates)
of his will, or violently compel it while unwilling;
but it spiritually quickens, (or vivifies,) heals, cor
rects, and sweetly, and at the same time, powerfully
inclines it: so that whereas before it was wholly gov
erned by the rebellion and resistance of the flesh,
now, prompt and sincere obedience of the Spirit
may begin to reign.' Ibid. p. 141.
' But in the same manner as the omnipotent opera
tion of God, whereby he produces and supports our
natural life, doth not exclude, but require the use of
means, by which God in his infinite wisdom and
goodness sees fit to exercise this his power: so this
fore-mentioned supernatural power of God by which
he regenerates us, in no wise excludes, or sets aside
the use of the gospel, which the most wise God hath
ordained as the seed of regeneration and the food of
the soul. Wherefore, as the apostles, and those
teachers who followed them, have piously instructed
the people, concerning this grace of God, in order to
his glory and to the keeping down of all pride; in the
mean time neither have they neglected (being admon
ished by the holy gospel) to keep them under the
exercise ofthe word, the sacraments, and discipline:

REGENERATION.

Instrumentality of the word — Witsius.

so then, be it far from us, that teachers or learners in
the church should presume to tempt God, by separa
ting those things, which God, of his own good plea
sure, would have most closely united together. For
grace is conferred through admonitions, and the more
promptly we do our duty, the more illustrious the
benefit of God, who worketh in us, is wont to be,
and the most rightly doth his work proceed. To
whom alone, all the glory, both of the means and
their beneficial fruits and efficacy, is due for everlast
ing. Amen.' Ibid. p. 142.
Witsius — a standard writer in the church, says —
'Regeneration is that supernatural act of God where
by a new and divine life is infused into the elect —
persons spiritually dead — and that from the incorrup
tible seed of the word of God made fruitful by the
infinite power of the Spirit.'
Witherspoon — one of the best standard writers in
our church, and whose treatise on regeneration is
the best written and the most judicious, scriptural,.
copious, accurate, and experimental dissertation
upon that subject in the English language, speak
ing of the nature of regeneration, says — ' As, there
fore, the change is properly of a moral or spiritual
nature, it seems to me properly and directly to
consist in these two things, 1. That our supreme
and chief end be to serve and glorify God, and that
every other aim be subordinate to this. 2. That the
soul rest in God as its chief happiness, and habitually
prefer his favor to every other enjoyment.' p. 137.
The following passages imply the associated influ
ence of means:

REGENERATION. 221

Instrumentality of the word— Witherspoon.

' The deplorable, and naturally helpless state of
sinners, doth not hinder exhortations to them in
scripture; and therefore, takes not away their obli
gation to duty. See an address, where the strongest
metaphors are retained, the exhortation given in these
very terms, and the foundation of the duty plainly
pointed out. " Wherefore he saith, awake thou that
sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall
give thee light." From which it is very plain, that
the moral inability under which sinners now lie, as a
consequence of the fall, is not of such a nature as to
take away the guilt of sin, the propriety of exhorta
tions to duty, or the necessity of endeavors after
recovery. 'But what shall we say? Alas! the very subject
we are now speaking of, affords a new proof of the
blindness, prejudice, and obstinacy of sinners. They
are self-condemned; for they do not act the same
part in similar cases. The affairs of the present life
are not managed in so preposterous a manner. He
that ploughs his ground, and throws in his seed, can
not so much as unite one grain to the clod; nay, he is
not able to conceive how it is done. He cannot
carry on, nay, he cannot so much as begin one single
step of this wonderful process toward the subsequent
crop; the mortification of the seed, the resurrection
ofthe blade, and gradual increase, till it come to per
fect maturity. Is it, therefore, reasonable, that he
should say, I for my part can do nothing. It is, first
and last, an effect of divine power and energy. And
God can as easily raise a crop without sowing as

222 REGENERATION.

Instrumentality of the word — Owen.

with it, in a single instant, and in any place, as in a
long time, by the mutual influence of soil and season;
I will therefore spare myself the hardship of toil and
labor, and wait with patience, till I see what he will
be pleased to send. Would this be madness? Would
it be universally reputed so? And would it not be
equal madness to turn the grace of God into licen
tiousness? Believe it, the warning is equally rea
sonable and equally necessary, in spiritual as in tem
porary things.' pp. 134, 135.
The authority of Owen is among the best of ortho
dox authorities. His language is as follows:
' We grant that in the work of regeneration, the
Holy Spirit towards those that are adult, doth make
use of the word, both the law and the gospel, and
the ministry of the church, in the dispensation of it,
as the ordinary means thereof; yea, this is ordinarily
the whole external means that is made use of in this
work, and an efficacy proper unto it, it is accom
panied withal.'
' The power which the Holy Ghost puts forth in
our regeneration, is such in its acting or exercise, as
our minds, wills, and affections, are suited to be
wrought upon, and to be affected by it, according to
their natures, and natural operations. " Turn thou
me, and I shall be turned; draw me, and I shall run
after thee." He doth neither act in them any other
wise than they themselves are meet to be moved and
move, to be acted and act, according to their own
nature, power, and ability. He draws us with " the
cords of a man." And the work itself is expressed by

REGENERATION. 223

Instrumentality of the word — Owen.

persuading, " God persuade Japhet;" and alluring,. " I
will allure her into the wilderness and speak com
fortably:" for as it is certainly effectual, so it carries
no more repugnancy unto our faculties, than a pre
valent persuasion doth. So that he doth not, in our
regeneration, possess the mind with any enthusiasti-
cal impressions; nor acteth absolutely upon us as he
did in extraordinary prophetical inspirations of old,
where the minds and organs of the bodies of men
WERE MERELY PASSIVE INSTRUMENTS, MOVED BY HIM
ABOVE THEIR OWN NATURAL CAPACITY AND ACTIVITY, NOT
ONLY AS TO THE PRINCIPLE OF WORKING, BUT AS TO THE
MANNER OF OPERATION.
' He therefore offers no violence or compulsion
unto the will. This that faculty is not naturally
capable to give admission unto. If it be compelled,
it is destroyed.' Owen's Works, vol. 2, p. 371.
Howe is equally express on this subject, he
sayS — 'And whereas, therefore, in this work there
is a communication and participation of the divine
nature, this is signified to be his divine power. If you
look to 2 Peter i. verses 3, 4, compared, "According
as his divine power hath given us all things appertain
ing to life and godliness, through the knowledge of
him that hath called us to glory and virtue; whereby
are given to us exceeding great and precious pro
mises; that by these you might be partakers of the
divine nature." Here is a divine nature to be com
municated and imparted in this great and glorious
work. How is it to be communicated? It is true it
must be by apt and suitable means; to wit, by the

224 REGENERATION.

Instrumentality of the word — Howe.

great and precious promises given us in the gospel.
But it must be by the exertion too of a divine power.
Though God do work suitably to an intelligent na
ture when he works upon such subjects, yet he works
also suitably to himself, " according as his divine pow
er hath given us all things pertaining to life and god
liness," or to the godly life ; in order to the ingenera-
ting the godly life his divine power hath given us by
the exceeding great and precious promises, a divine
nature. The instrumentality and subserviency of
these "exceeding great and precious promises," is
greatly to be considered, God working herein suita
bly to the nature of an intelligent subject. Here is
a change to be wrought in his nature — a nature that
is corrupt, depraved, averse from God, alienated from
the divine life; this nature is now to be attempered
to God, made suitable to him, made prepense and in
clined towards him. This might be done, it is true,
by an immediate exertion of almighty power, without
any more ado. But God will work upon men suita
bly to the nature of man. And what course doth he
therefore take ? He gives " exceeding great and pre
cious promises," and in them he declares his own
good will, that he might win theirs. In order to the
ingenerating grace in them, he reveals grace to them
by these great and precious promises. And what is
grace in us? Truly grace in us is goodwill towards
God, or good nature towards God; which can never
be without a transformation of our vicious, corrupt
nature. It will never incline towards God, or be
prepense towards God, till he make it so by a trans-

REGENERATION. 225

Instrumentality of the word — Howe.

forming power. But how doth he make it so? By
discovering his kindness and goodness to them in
"exceeding great and precious promises," satisfying
and persuading their hearts ; I mean nothing but kind
ness towards you, why should you be unkind towards
me? I am full of goodwill towards you, will you re
quite it with perpetual illwill, and everlasting enmity
towards me ? Thus the " exceeding great and precious
promises" are insturments to the communicating a
divine nature to us, though that divine nature be
ingenerated by a mighty power. God doth work
at the rate of omnipotency in the matter, by the ex
ertion of almighty power; but yet suitably to our na
ture, so as to express his mind, and kind design, and
goodwill, by the exceeding great and precious prom
ises contained in the gospel.
'And if it were not so, he might as well make use
of any other means as the gospel, to work upon souls
by. But the gospel is the word of his grace.'
There would seem to be the same evidence of in
strumental action of the word as employed by the
Spirit, which attends and evidences the direct effica
cy of natural causes. How do we learn the existence
and power of natural causes? We see not power
itself, and infer it only from the uniformity with which
the effect follows the the application of the cause.
It never exists without it, and always attends its
application. But the same evidence of instrumental
influence attends the ministration of the word of God.
As a general fact, no spiritual life commences in its
absence, and always in some form of association with
20

REGENERATION.

Manner of operation unrevealed.

its presence — and whatever may be the theory of
ministers on the subject, they all pray at the close
of their sermons, that God would make his word
effectual — clothe it with power — make it quick and
powerful. The fire and the hammer to break, and
melt, and purify the heart.
Is the question still repeated, how does God make
the word effectual in regeneration by his Spirit?
That question belongs not to me, but to the Lord of
the Bible; and has been long since asked of him, and
answered by him. Nicodemus saith unto him, ' How
can these things be?' And the answer was, 'The
wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound
thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whitlier
it goeth : so is every one that is born ofthe Spirit}
Does it seem to any to be impossible that God
should savingly enlighten by his word and Spirit? and
make ' the reading and especially the preaching of his
word, an effectual mean of conviction and conver
sion?' It should be remembered, that many things are
possible with God, which seem impossible to men.
That our philosophy is not the counsel of his will, ac
cording to which he worketh all things — nor our ca
pacity of comprehension the limit of God's almighty
power. Where the lamp of our reason goes out, and
far beyond what eye hath seen, or heart conceived —
he holds on his eternal way in the great deep, and
amid clouds and darkness, impenetrable to created
mind. But in this unexploredand deep darkness — that
he does a thing is the highest possible evidence of its
rectitude — and that he has said a thing, the highest

REGENERATION. 227

Why Divine power necessary.

possible evidence of its truth. On the ground, then,
of divine declaration we rest our confidence, that
God can make his word and Spirit an effectual means
of the conviction and conversion of sinners.
IV. Why is the power of God necessary to regen
eration? why may not argument and motive prevail
on men to turn to God?
The power of God is not necessary because the
will of man is forced, or by any absolute necessity of
nature determined to evil. But it is necessary, be
cause the bias to actual sin occasioned by the fall is
such, as eventuates in a perverse decision of the will
and affections, in respect to the chief good, inducing
the preference of the creature to the Creator; and
because, when this perverse decision is once made,
the heart is fully set and incorrigible to all motive,
and immutable in its way — to which is to be added,
the power of habit resulting from the repetition of
evil desire, and purpose, and gratification; and though
altogether, they force not the will, nor decide it
wrong by an absolute necessity of nature, or cancel
obligation, or afford excuse; they do, nevertheless,
render all means and efforts abortive, which are not
made effectual by the special influence of the Holy
Spirit. During this aberration of the will and affections
from God, there is nothing remaining to man which,
by any possible culture, can become religion.
No emotions of the sublime, in view of the majesty
of God, which become adoration: no admiration of
the adaptation of his character and laws to good re-

REGENERATION.

No principle of virtue in fallen man.

suits, or of the gospel to sustain law and recover the
lost, which produce holy complacency: no delicacy
of taste, or tenderness of sensibility, which will ex
pand and amplify into love: no pleasure in doing good
rather than evil, which, by culture, can be made
benevolence, embracing God with supreme, and
his subjects with impartial good will: no patri
otism which can be kindled into piety; and none
of the natural affections which unite in tender
ties the family, which become cords of love to
draw back the heart from the creature to God: no
amiableness and good nature, which inspire evan
gelical self-denial for Christ's sake; and no piety
which so extends beyond the sphere of the senses as
to feel for the sorrows of the soul and the woes of
eternity: no power of intellect or urgency of con
science, or fear of punishment, as ever in the order
of cause and effect eventuate in godly sorrow: nor
is there any power of institutions or of doctrine,
or argument or eloquence, which ever enlightens
savingly, the dark mind, or wakes up the pulse of
life in the dead soul. As I have said in my sermon
on the native character of man, the discourse in
which the chief evidence of my Pelagianism is sup
posed to be contained, — 'All which is admirable in
intellect, or monitory in conscience, or compre
hensive in knowledge, or refined in taste, or deli
cate in sensibility, or powerful in natural affection,
may be found in man as the result of constitution, or
the effect of intellectual and moral culture: but reli
gion is not found, except as the result of a special

REGENERATION. 229

Thoughts on creeds.

divine interposition. The temple is beautiful, but it
is a temple in ruins; — the divinity is departed, and
the fire on the altar is extinct.'
It follows, therefore, that except a man be born
again — be born from above — be born of the Spirit —
be born of God, he cannot see the kingdom of God,

A few thoughts upon creeds in general, and our
own Confession in particular, and I have done.
Creeds, it is well known, originated early, in the
assaults of error upon fundamental truth, and were
brought progressively, as collision and discrimination
elicited the truth, into the well defined systems which
we now possess.
The design was, and ever has been, to repel the
innovations of fundamental error, and unite the faith
ful in Christ Jesus in fellowship and action, for the
extension of his kingdom upon earth.
The right of men to associate for the maintenance
and propagation of truth and worship in accordance
with their understanding of the Bible, expressed in
epitomised form, cannot be denied. It defrauds none
of their rights of conscience to worship without
creeds, who choose to do so, while it is essential to
the liberty of conscience of those who desire to be
associated in this manner; of which none will be
likely to complain, but those who desire to make
their own conscience the rule of other men's judg
ments. The efficacy of creeds to maintain the
20*

230 REGENERATION.

Utility of creeds.

purity of truth and the unity of the church, has been
great. They have not, indeed, been omnipotent, in
repelling the encroachments of error, or securing en
tirely the unity ofthe church: but it follows not from
this, that they have been powerless. The question is
not, how much they have failed to accomplish, but
how much they have done, and what had been the
condition of the church, without these memorials of
anterior discussions and attamments. It must have
been to theology like the blotting out of civilization
by the northern barbarians, or the oblivion of all ex
perience with each generation, consigning the world
in religion and science to the impotency of an ever
lasting infancy.
Creeds have indeed been the occasion of contro
versy: but we might as well deplore the action ofthe
atmosphere, because thunder-storms and tornadoes
sometimes attend it. To the discussions of the refor
mation, we owe the emancipation of the world— the
rights of free enquiry— the rights of conscience — the
supreme authority of the Bible— the principles of its
exposition, and the great principles of civil and reli
gious liberty.
They were the battle begun— the conflict of mind
with brute force — which will not terminate till the
world is free.. Our own independence is the fruit
of it, and the overturnings which shake the world,
and will shake it till knowledge and science cover the
earth, are the consummation of that great conflict.
It was the creeds of the reformation, also, and the
zeal of holy men for them, which held Protestant na
tions together against the combinations of despotic

REGENERATION. 231

Utility of creeds.

force, and thus secured the permanent action of the
great principles which were developed; and they
have stood as the unity of the Spirit in the bond of
peace, to break the force of temptation to apostacy,
to strengthen in a period of declension the things that
remain, and to become rallying points and means of
a spiritual restoration. The thirty-nine articles have
held the Episcopal church through affher periods of
declension, adversity, and change; and though once
almost a dead letter, are now powerfully instrumen
tal in her glorious evangelical resurrection. So the
standards of Scotland, and Geneva, and Germany,
held their several churches like so many anchors,
while the enemy came in like a flood, but are now
the powerful means by which God is preparing to
bring back their prosperity like the waves of the
sea. In New England, where, for a little time,
the creeds fell into a partial disrepute, they are
coming into remembrance with renovated pow
er and honor. They were, during half her his
tory, established by civil and ecclesiastical law;
and through the latter half, maintained the confi
dence and affections of the orthodox churches to
an extent equal to what they have ever received any
where. And though the ministry did not subscribe
them as the condition of licensure or ordination, they
were examined closely in respect to the doctrines
and experimental religion they inculcate; and no
man with Pelagian heresies in head, or heart, could
any sooner get into the orthodox congregational
churches of New England, than he could enter the
Presbyterian church,

232 REGENERATION.

Utility of creeds.

The Shorter Catechism, from generation to gen
eration, has been taught in the families of the faith
ful, and was as uniform, and almost as venerated
an inmate as the Bible. It was the knowledge
that the doctrines of this catechism were the stan
dard doctrines of the Presbyterian church, which
made them willing to waive their denominational
peculiarities of church order, and pour their floods of
pious emigrants, and prayers and contributions into
the Presbyterian churches at the west, without lifting
a finger for a Congregational organization — a form so
dear to them, that had it been assailed on their own
territory, they would have laid life down in its defence.
They gave up their own church order, in respect to the
west, on the ground of evangelical expediency, and
their confidence in the Presbyterian church as loving
and maintaining the same doctrines as themselves. In
the twenty-five years that I have plead the cause ofthe
missions and institutions of the west, and in my last
and most successful effort, I never heard, in a single
instance the objection made, ' the money is going out
of our own church to build up another denomination.'
If it be true that there are any conspiring to change
the standards of our church, I have a right to say,
from what I know, that whoever the conspirators
may be, they are not the ministers or churches of
New England, nor those who emigrate from New
England. So far from changing or tampering with our stand
ards, we are called on by an intensity of motive to-
hold them fast.
They were not at the time of their adoption newly

REGENERATION. 233

Importance of maintaining creeds.

discovered, truths — but the collected and well bal
anced results of all the anterior discussions and la
bors of the church of God. ' They were adjusted by
men of talent, learning, and piety, and by the con
curring wisdom and candor of so many minds, as
precluded the favorite theories of any, and included
the doctrines well defined, in which, amid known
circumstantial discrepancies of opinion, they could cor
dially agree ; thus forming an imperishable monument
of unadulterated doctrine unmixed by theories, and
at an equal remove from Pelagian laxness, and anti
nomian hyper Calvinism.
The Confession itself, and Catechisms, are made
up of the most judicious, concise, and accurate deffi-
nitions and descriptions of doctrine, experience, and
practice, ever placed on record. Such as no single
mind would have formed, or many minds without that
marked providential supervision, which, in the same
age that he gave us the Bible in a translation not to
be rivalled, gave an epitome of its contents in sym
bols, which will carry down to the millennium the
comprehensive suffrage of the faithful in Christ Jesus.
What we have now chief occasion to guard against
i s, the repetition of the faults of other days, in relying
too exclusively on the letter of our creeds, to prevent
apostacy, and perpetuate the purity and power of the
church. Experience has evinced that the generations of
living m en will govern the world in spite of any pos
sible legislation of those who have passed away; and
that the only way to perpetuate creeds and constitu-

234 REGENERATION.

The means of maintaining creeds.

tions is, to perpetuate that nurture and admonition
of the Lord, which will make them as acceptable to
the coming, as they are to the existing generation.
This is the import of the Proverb, that a living
dog is better than a dead lion. It was in this respect
that our Puritan fathers committed an oversight.
The public sentiment of their day was so united and
efficient, and their laws and creeds so well ordered
and efficacious, that it seems scarcely to have occur
red to them that they should not live forever, or that
the impulse they had given to them would not carry
them down through all generations. They fell, there
fore, into an unseemly confidence in the short metre
government of the family church and commonwealth
by power, instead of the kind and winning influence
of argument and affection, and that religious and
moral culture by which God is accustomed to fashion
aright the heart. The consequence was, that their
creeds and ecclesiastical laws began to operate grad
ually upon necks and hearts unaccustomed to the
yoke, until at length away went colleges, and creeds,
and funds, and churches, and consecrated property,
by the force of laws which the living made, in con
travention of the sacred intentions of the dead.
There is a lesson which the church has been slow
to learn, and yet must learn before her unbroken en
ergies and cordial and united action can be thrown
upon the world. It is the medium between requiring
too little or too much. The mind of man is so con
structed, that exact agreement in every thing cannot
be secured by persuasion or by force. Even the

REGENERATION. 235
The effects of too much severity.
Romish church, with the world in chains and her foot
upon the neck of nations, could by no force or ter
ror prevent the free born mind from thinking, or
compel it to exact unity of speculation, and much
less can it be done now and in our nation. Ecclesias
tical authority has lost its terrors, and civil coer
cion is unknown, and original investigation is the
order of the day — proving all things, to hold fast that
which is good. The result in any communion, of
attempting a government of creeds, verbatim et liter*
atum, would be formality and debility and endless
divisions, on the one hand, and fanaticism on the oth
er. The monitory voice of experience on this sub
ject is loud and urgent. The stern exactions of the
English church drove put the puritans, whose virtues
she needed, and whose mildly administered order
might have benefitted them; while the coerced sepa
ration produced the revolution, and the eccentric
zeal of the commonwealth, and the formality, and
heresy which attended the reaction.
A similar course of urgent restriction by creeds,
and of impatient zeal bursting from it by revivals
of extravagance and excess, passed over Germany,
and prepared the way first for dead orthodoxy, and
next for rationalism. And in the same manner did
the heresy of church and state, in the time of Whit
field and the Tenants produce separations and ex
cess, which made the one fanatical, to the disgrace of
revivals, for half a century, and the other cold and
formal, till, in leaning away from zeal without know
ledge, they fell first into dead orthodoxy, which

236 REGENERATION.

The past policy of our church.

was followed next by the Pelagian, and Arian, and
Arminian heresies.
For many years, our own church has rested from
these collisions and alternations of ultra zeal. United
by the comprehensive, cordial subscription to the
doctrines of our Confession, ' as containing the sys
tem of doctrines taught in the holy scriptures,' im
plying a bona fide agreement in the fundamental
doctrines, as they have been brought out in the con
troversies of the church, and expounded in opposition
to Arian, and Unitarian, and Papal, and Pelagian
errors, but never intended or understood as express
ing an exact agreement in speculations or language
on any subject. On the contrary, those who framed
the Westminster Confession . and Catechisms, and
those who adopted them as the bond of union to our
church, differed in speculation and phraseology on
some of the same points that the sons of the church
differ' about now; but never, till recently, have they
been made the ground of formal accusations of heresy,
and regular ecclesiastical animadversion. And now
the question cannot be, whether one side or the other
shall be expelled from the church, as hypocrites and
heretics. We came in on both sides with the know
ledge of these circumstantial varieties of opinion and
language, and in every form of recognition were made
welcome, and assured ofthe protection of the church;
and on neither side can we be stigmatized or expelled,
without a breach of covenant and the action and in
justice of ex post facto laws.
The only question is, whether we will dissolve

REGENERATION. 23?

The past terms of subscription.

partnership; or attempt its continuance upon the
new conditions of exact agreement in speculation
and language on every subject, as well as on funda
mental doctrine. Whether the exposition of the
Confession which I have given, on the subject of
the natural ability of man, as a free agent, and his
moral inability, as a totally depraved sinner; of ori
ginal sin, as including federal liability to .the curse
of the law, and as operating to the production of
actual sin, not by force upon the will, or any abso
lute necessity of nature determining it to evil,
but by an effectual, universal bias to actual sin;,
and of regeneration as a change of character, pro
duced not by omnipotent action alone, but by the
immediate and infallible influence of God's word
and Spirit: whether the exposition of these doc
trines, sustained by the language of the Confession,-
and corroborated by unbroken exposition from the
primitive church to this day — confirmed in the line of
the most approved Presbyterian expositors, Calvin,
Turretin, and Witherspoon, and the great balance of
biblical critics and expositors, shall be reversed and
stigmatized as heresy; and the imprimatur of the
church be given to the doctrine that man possesses no-
ability of any kind to obey the gospel— that original
sin forces and determines the will to actual sin, by an
absolute necessity of nature— that adult total depra
vity is involuntary, and the result of a constitution
acting by the power of a natural and necessary
cause— and that regeneration is a change of the natu
ral constitution, by the direct omnipotence of the
21

238 REGENERATION.

The consequences of change.

Spirit, without any influential agency of the word of
God. Such an exposition, the church, if it seem good
to her, has the power of making; but not the right
of giving to her exposition a retrospective action,
to affect character and ecclesiastical standing, and
vested rights.
But the time hastens, as it would seem, when our
church must decide, whether the examples of past
abortive effort for exact identity in speculation and
language, with all their mournful consequences, shall
be for our warning, or for our example, and whether
the coming fifty years shall be years of sehism, and
impotency, and confusion worse confounded; or
whether, like a band of brothers, we shall move
on under the same auspices which hitherto have
concentrated in our church the energies of the East,
and the West, and the North, and the South, till
our victorious efforts, with those of other denomi
nations, who love our common Lord, shall, under
his guidance and power, terminate in the universal
victories of the latter day. And never was there a
moment when a little panic of alarm, or impatience
of feeling may turn for good or for evil, the life-
giving or destroying waters of such a flood down
through distant generations.
The consequences of new and more restricted
terms of communion are too legible in past experi
ence, and too manifest to unerring anticipation, to
need labored exposition or fervent expostulation.
And nothing assuredly could precipitate our beloved
church upon the disastrous alternative, but such an

REGENERATION. 239

The facilities of concord.

abandonment of heaven as we do not believe in; and
such a consequent infatuation of alarm and violence
of passion, as would disregard alike both argument
and expostulation, and with closed eye and deafened
ear rush upon distraction. An event which we cheer-
ingly believe his mercy will avert.
The means of our preservation are obvious and
easy. There will be, in a church so extensive as our own,
unavoidably some diversities of doctrinal phraseology
in our communications — theological provincialisms of
men alike warmhearted in their belief in the doctrin
al and experimental views of our standards. These,
as they pass from one department of the church to
another, we must not attempt to compel by force to
change the dialect by which, from maternal lips, the
truth was breathed into their infant minds, and made
effectual in their conversion, and made sacred by the
association of theological instruction.
Such sudden unclothings of thought, for new and
unaccustomed habiliments, are impossible. And yet,
patience and kindness on the part of the presby
teries and fathers of the church, will easily secure
to all the purposes of edification — an assimilation
which years of discourtesy and contention cannot
compel. We ought, indeed, to speak the same things; but this
means not the same words, but the same doctrines.
Our Confession and Catechisms were intended as
concise definitions, and not as furnishing the entire
vocabulary of words, in which their doctrines shall be

240 REGENERATION.

The facilities of concord.

preached. The Bible, itself, does not confine us to
its own phraseology; otherwise all exposition and
preaching would be superseded by the simple reading
of the Bible. And yet, where the terms of the Con
fession are grateful, and the language of a strange
dialect the occasion of misconception and fear, I would
not purposely offend or fail to edify, by finding out
acceptable words; but, as Paul would do, become all
things to all men, that if possible I might save some.
Much less would I speak slightly of our creeds, and
the phrases which time and association had rendered
dear to the people of God. But I should expect, in
return, in my own congregation, the same liberty of
speech which I accorded to others, and the same def
erence of courtesy to familiar phrases, and cherished
associations which I practised; and with a concili
atory spirit, and a small share of common sense and
good manners, the church from end to end might be
quiet from all agitation on the subject.

TRUMAN AND SMITH,
PUBLISHERS, BOOKSELLERS, AND STATIONERS,
150, MAIN-STREET, CINCINNATI,
Have a constant supply of Books in every department of Literature
and Science, at reduced prices.
SCHOOL BOOKS, in every variety and quantity, at the lowest
Eastern prices.
BIBLES of different kinds from large quarto to 32 mo. plain and
elegant. ¦All the BIBLICAL COMMENTARIES in common use,
also a variejy of HYMN BOOKS.
MISCELLANEOUS WORKS, consisting of Travels, Histories,
Biagraphies, Memoirs, &c. &c. Sic.
NEW PUBLICATIONS, on every subject of interest, regularly
received immediately after publication.
THEOLOGICAL BOOKS AND SACRED CLASSICS will
be furuished at wholesale and retail to Booksellers, Clergymen, Students
in divinity and others, at publisher's prices.
BLANK BOOKS, Slates, Slate Pencils, Copy Books, Letter,
Writing, and Printing Paper, Printing and Writing Ink, Wafers, Seal
ing Wax, and every article of Stationary.
< COUNTRY MERCHANTS and all others wanting Books and
Stationaiy, at wholesale or retail, are invited to call before purchasing
elsewhere. The following are among many valuable works printed, published
and sold by
TRUMAN AND SMITH.
DR. BEECHER'S PLEA FOR THE WEST.
Second Edition.
From the Boston Daily Courier — Edited by J. T. Buckingham.
A Plea for the West, by Lyman Beecher, D. D. — Such is the
brief title of a duodecimo volume, comprising about 200 pages, which
has recently been received here from Cincinnati. * * * It is indeed
JL Plea for the West, but it might with equal propriety, be called A Plea
foe the Republic. We have never read a more powerful display of
the dangers to which our government and all our civil, literary and reli
gious institutions are exposed, nor a more eloquent appeal to the good
sense and the patriotism ofthe people.
We know that a great portion of our citizens, immersed in the calls of
business, or occupied with the consideration of political matters of more
immediate and personal concern, view the subject treated by Dr. Beecher
with almost total indifference; and we know that there are many persons
who look upon his notions as the bitter ravings of sectarian ambition and
prejudice. Let all such persons read the argument — the unanswerable
argument in our humble opinion, and we think they will not be dis
posed to treat the subject with contempt, or the author ofthe work with
a sneer.

Truman and Smith's Publications.

From the Boston Quarterly Observer.
Dr. Beecher's Plea for the West. — This book is upon a great subject,
and is full of thrilling interest to every American. We have been struck
with the attention which it has received from intelligent editors through
out the country. * * * One thing is observable in this production ;
it is not a sectarian work. The author speaks as an American, as a
patriot, as a christian, and not as the abettor of any political sect.
* * * There are facts and arguments in this book that should be
perfectly familiar to every American citizen by whatever name, indica
tive of religious faith, he may be called.
From the St. Louis Observer.
Beecher's Plea for the West. — We do most earnestly hope that this
book will be widely circulated through the West. We could wish it ¦
were in the cabin of every one of our settlers. It is full of truth, as impor
tant as is the preservation of our dear-bought and invaluable institutions.
DR. BEECHER'S PLEA FOR COLLEGES, 1 vol. 18mo.
2nd Edition. This interesting work should be read by every American.
DR. BEECHER'S INSTRUCTIONS for Young Christians.
This interesting little volume has passed through several editions in a
short time.
PETER PARLEY'S GEOGRAPHY for Children, illustrated
by numerous Maps and Engravings — stereoiyped. More than five hun
dred thousand of this valuable little work have been sold, and it is doubt
less the best woik ofthe kind extant.
THE MALTE BRUN School Geography, illustrated by numerous
original Engravings — also, a large and valuable Atlas, containing twenty
one Maps, Charts and Tables,
SMITH'S PRODUCTIVE GRAMMAR, English Grammar
on the productive System of Instruction. By R. C. Smith, author of
'Practical and Mental Arithmetic'
THE LITTLE GRAMMAR, containing the Elementary Prin
ciples of the English Language, adapted to the capacity of the youngest
learner. — designed as an introduction to the Productive Grammar.
SMITH'S PRACTICAL AND MENTAL ARITHMETIC,
on a new plan, in which Mental Arithmetic and the use of the slate are
.combined. RAY'S LITTLE ARITHMETIC, or the Elements of Calcula
tion, on the inductive and analytical Method of Instruction. By Joseph.
Ra}', Professor of Mathematics, in the Woodward College, Cincinnati.
This valuable and cheap little work has passed through several editions,,
and it needs only to be known to be put into the hands of every beginner
in the study of arithmetic. It ,is an admirable introduction to Smith, or
any ofthe works in this department of education.
THE PICTURE PRIMER, or First Book for Young Children*
THE PICTURE READER, a Second Book for Children.
OLNEY'S GEOGRAPHY AND ATLAS, for Schools.
COMSTOCK'S NATURAL PHILOSOPHY, for Schools.
COMSTOCK'S CHEMISTRY, for Schools.
COMSTOCK'S BOTANY , for Schools.

Truman and Smith's Publications.
TO SINGERS. — A NEW MUSIC BOOK.
masons' sacred haup, ok beauties of church music:
Edited by Lowell Mason, Professor in the Boston Academy of Music,
, Author of Handel and Haydn Collection, Boston Academy's Col
lection, izc. and by his brother T. B. Mason, Professor in the Eclec
tic Academy of Music : Stereotyped in round notes.
Sold by the Principal Booksellers.
This new collection of three hundred and sixty pages, is said to be the
most interesting and useful volume of sacred music extant. In addi
tion to a great variety of Psalm and Hymn Tunes, suited to the wants
of singing schools and christian worshippers of every denomination, it
furnishes a greater number of Anthems, Set Pieces, Sentences, Solos,
Duetts, Sacred Songs, &c, than any other similar work; also a choice se
lection of scripture Sentences and Chants for the Episcopal church service.
The Introductory Rules, or Elements of Vocal Music, are on the
inductive plan, and are unusually full and complete, extending to thirty-
six pages.
No alterations will be made in the work, it being in a permanent
form; All successive editions will be perfectly alike, so that they may
be used together. It is handsomely printed ou a good, white paper,,and
bound in a neat, durable manner. From the Journal.
Masons'1 Sacred Harp, or Beauties of Church Music. — This inval
uable collection by the brothers Mason, should be in the hands of tvery
lover of Sacred Music. Professor T. B. Mason of the Eclectic Academy
of Music, is a very able musician. The senior editor, professor Lowell
Mason of the Boston Academy of Music, has long been esteemed both
in Europe and America, one ofthe ablest musicians ofthe age. He has
' been for many years president of the Boston Handel and Haydn Musi
cal Society, is auihor of the Boston Handel and Haydn Collection of
Church Music, ' a work,' said the London Harmonicon, several years
since, 'which is not surpassed by any publication ofthe kind in the
world. It is highly honorable to American talent, and shows clearly the
rapid progress of Americans in musical science.' He has since edited
'Choraf Harmony,' a collection of anthems and choruses; the 'Boston
Collection of Anthems, Choruses,' &c.(both published by the Handel and
Haydn Society;) also ' Lyra Sacia,' a collection of original and selected
anthems, sentences, chants, &c. ; the 'Choir or Union Collection,' the
'Boston Academy's Collection of Church Music,' and several other valu
able musical works. We are familiar with all of Mason's publications, and
have carefully examined the Sacred Harp. The volume is composed of
very beautiful flowing melodies, and harmonies of almost unequalled
richness. It contains the cream of his other works, and maybe justly
entitled the ' beauties of music' The tunes are admirably adapted to
the effective expression of poetry, a circumstance upon which the happi
est effect of christian psalmody depends. The work is particularly re
commended to those whose object is to suit music to the words sung, or to
make music subordinate to sentiment, and thus eminently conducive to
devotion.

Truman and Smith's Publications.
masons' sacred harp, or beauties of church music.
[see 'to singers,' &c. foregoing fage.]
From the New York Evangelist; edited by J. Leavitt, author ofthe
Christian Lyre, a collection of Psalm and Hymn Tunes.
Mason's Sacred Harp, is, what it is called in the title page; a very
i"%;select ani useful work; it is the best collection of church music-extant, for
<' congregations anywhere.
From Mr. Hamilton cf the Methodist Episcopal Church, director :of
Music in the Methodist Church, Wheeling.
We are using 'Mason's Sacred Harp,' &c. in our church. I should be
much pleased to see it in general use — the music will please and improve
the lovers of sacred song. The tunes are well suited to the different vari
ety of metres, and it is a desirable collection for churches and schools.
From the Baptist Journal.
Mason's Sacred Harp. — Having used this truly excellent and popular
collection of music, in the Baker Street Baptist Church, we are confi
dent that for elegance of taste, ease of execution, and adaptation to, pro
mote and cherish a love for sacred music, it is decidedly the best work of
the kind with which we are acquainted.
From Mr. B. S. Fobes, Teacher of Sacred Music— I am using 'Ma
son's Sacred Harp' in my several schools, and give it the preference
to any other collection of Music extant. The delightful association of
words and harmony are admirably calculated to accomplish the taste of
all singers, and particularly the learner. I would most cordially recom
mend the work to all teachers of singing, and to others interested in the
progress of music.
Mr. Billings, Teacher of Sacred Music, says— 'Mason's Sacred Harp'
is the most complete, interesting, and useful collection of Psalm and Hymn
1 unes I have ever seen. It is emphatically, sacred music. I will en
courage its general introduction.
From Mr. Thomas J. Orr, Teacher of Singing in the Methodis
Church.— I am using 'Mason's Sacred Harp,' and consider 1t supe
rior to any work I have seen.' It is admirably adapted to the use of
schools; and from the sacred character of the pieces, the purity of the
melodies, and .richness of harmony, it is preeminently calculated for the
cultivation of correct musical taste, piety in the heart, and mouldine mul-
titudesforthe church of Christ. uiuuiuing mm
From Mr. Harris, Teacher of Sacred Music, at Columbus.— 'Mason's
bacred Harp' has not an equal, and I intend introducing it into mv
schools as fast as possible. s -
PATENT NOTES. The proprietors of 'Mason's Sacred Ham'
have (contrary to the express wishes and views of the authors) prepared
™™£SOty5ed an e<,ilion of the W0fk °f 232 Pages, in PATENT
NOTES,.under the belief that it would be more acceptable to Sixers in
the west aud south, where Patent Notes are generally used.

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

3 9002 08867 781