OPINIONS CONCERNING THE APPLICATION OF THE REMEDY. 533

CHAPTER VIII.

OPINIONS CONCERNING THE APPLICATION OF THE REMEDY.

As it is unquestionably the doctrine of Scripture, that none partake of the salvation which the Gospel was given to afford, but those who repent and believe, we are entitled to say that the remedy offered in the Gospel is connected with a certain character of mind. The extent of the remedy being thus limited in so far that it reaches only to persons of that character, I employ the phrase, The Application of the Remedy, in order to express the production of that character; and I consider systems as differing from one another in respect of the application of the remedy, when they differ as to the manner in which the character is produced.

From the distinguishing features of the Socinian system, it will be perceived that, as it denies several of those fundamental principles on which the Arminians and Calvinists agree, it cannot be compared with them in respect to the application of the remedy. The Socinians adopt that doctrine which was introduced by Pelagius about the beginning of the fifth century, that the moral powers of human nature are not in the least injured by the sin of our first parents, but that all the children of Adam are as able to yield a perfect obedience to the commands of God as he was at his creation. They admit that men may be led, by the strength of passion, by unfavourable circumstances, and by imitation, into such sins as separate them from the favour of God, and render it difficult for them to return to the obedience of his laws; but they hold that this difficulty never amounts to a moral impossibility; and that at what time soever a sinner forsakes his transgressions, he is forgiven, not upon account of what Christ did, but from the essential goodness of the divine nature. They acknowledge that the Gospel gives to a sinful world more gracious and more effectual assistance in returning to their duty, than ever was afforded before; but they consider this assistance as arising solely from the clear revelation there given of the nature and the will of God, from the example there proposed, and from the hope of eternal life, that gift of God which is peculiar to this religion. By its doctrines and its promises, it presents to the human mind the strongest motives to obedience. All, therefore, who live in a Christian country, enjoy an outward assistance in the discharge of their duty, of very great value; and those who receive the Gospel as the word of God, feel the power of it in their hearts. This inward power, the influence of the doctrine of Christ upon the mind, the Socinians understand to be, in many places of the New Testament, the whole import of these expressions,

"the Spirit of God," the "Spirit of life," the "Spirit of the Lord." For as they deny that the Spirit is a person distinct from the Father and the Son, they are obliged to consider all the expressions from which the Trinitarians infer the personality of the Spirit, as figures, or circumlocutions; and when it is said, "we walk after the Spiritthe Spirit of life makes us free-where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty-ye are washed and sanctified by the Spirit of our God," they find it easy to evade the argument which these and numberless phrases of the same kind are supposed to contain, by understanding the meaning of the sacred writers to be no more than this, that the influence of the doctrine and promises of the Gospel upon the mind, when they are firmly believed and cordially embraced, produces such effects.

From these fundamental principles of the Socinian system it follows, that the application of the remedy is conceived in that system to be purely the work of man; that, as even without the advantages which the Gospel affords, he may, in every situation, by the mere use of his natural powers, do what is of itself sufficient to deliver him from the evils of sin, so his improving the assistance communicated by the Christian revelation, in such a manner as to attain the character connected with the enjoyment of its blessings, arises not in any degree from the agency of a superior being upon his mind, but is an exercise of his own power depending wholly upon himself. It is one of those future contingencies which the Socinians suppose to be withdrawn from the divine foresight; and predestination according to them is nothing more than the purpose of calling both Jews and Gentiles to the knowledge of the truth, and the hope of eternal life by Jesus Christ-a purpose which God from the beginning formed, without knowing whether the execution of this purpose would have the effect of bringing any individual to heaven. Neither the extent nor the application of the remedy entered into his decree; but God did all that he proposed to do by giving the revelation, leaving to men to make use of it as they thought fit, and to receive such reward and such punishment as they shall appear to him to deserve.

This system, which, as I said before attempts to get rid of difficulties by degrading the character of the Supreme Being, and excluding some of the first principles of religion, does not fall within a comparative view of the different systems of predestination; and there remain to be considered only two opinions concerning what I call the application of the remedy, which we distinguish by the names of Arminian and Calvinistic. Of each of these opinions I shall give a fair statement; by which I mean, that I shall endeavour to show in what manner the Arminian opinion is separated from Socinian principles by those who hold it, and in what light the Calvinistic opinion is represented by those who appear to understand best the grounds upon which it may be defended; and from this fair statement I shall proceed to canvass the difficulties, formerly mentioned, which adhere to these two systems of predestination.

The Arminians and Calvinists differ as to the measure of that injury which the moral powers of human nature received from the trans

* A Deo habemus quod homines sumus, a nobis ipsis quod justi.-Pelagius.

gression of our first parents: but they agree in acknowledging that man has fallen from his original rectitude; that there is an universal corruption of the whole race, the influence of which extends to the understanding, the will, and the affections; that in this state no man is of himself capable of giving any uniform and effectual resistance to temptation, of extricating himself from the dominion of sin, or of attaining, by the exercise of his own powers, the character which is connected with a full participation of the blessings of the Gospel. They agree that the Father of spirits can act upon the minds of men so as to administer a remedy to this corruption, and to recover them to the practice of virtue; and they think it probable, even from the light of nature, that he will exert his divine power, and employ that various access which his continual presence with his creatures gives him, in accomplishing this gracious purpose. They find the hope of this expressed, as a dictate of reason, in many passages of heathen writers; they find it inspiring all the prayers for divine assistance which occur both in the Old and in the New Testament; and they find it confirmed by many promises, which good men under the dispensation of the law embraced, but the complete fulfilment of which was looked for as one of the peculiar characters of that better dispensation which the law announced. When they read these words of Jeremiah, quoted in the Epistle to the Hebrews, x. 16, 17, "This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them: and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more," -they conceive the prophet and the apostle to have understood, that with the pardon of sin-that blessing which was typified by the sacrifices of the law, but is truly obtained by the sacrifice of the cross,there is conjoined under the Gospel an influence exerted by the Almighty upon the hearts and the minds of Christians; and that these two taken together make up the character and the excellency of that better covenant which came in place of the first. The Arminians and Calvinists agree farther, that the Holy Ghost is a person distinct from the Father and the Son; that he is a divine person; and that he bears a part in accomplishing the salvation of mankind; that he inspired the prophets, who from the beginning of the world spake of this salvation, and cherished the expectation of it in the breasts of pious men; that having been given without measure to the man Christ Jesus, he descended, in fulfilment of his promise at the day of Pentecost, upon his apostles, and endowed them with those extraordinary powers which were necessary for the successful publication of the Gospel; that he continues to be the fountain of all spiritual influence the distributor of those gifts to men which Jesus Christ received; and that the Father in all ages, upon account of the intercession of the Son, gives the Holy Spirit to his children. The Arminians and the Calvinists agree, that by the distribution of these gifts, the Holy Ghost exercises the office of the Sanctifier and Comforter of Christians; that he opens their understandings; that he renews them in the spirit of their minds; that he inclines their hearts to obey the truth; that he helps their infirmities; that all the graces in which they abound are the fruits of the Spirit; and that as many as are the children of God are led by the Spirit of God. They agree farther in

expressing these influences of the Spirit by the word Grace. The Socinians contend that this use of the word is not warranted by Scripture; that the word in general signifies favour; that it is applied in a variety of meanings; but that as there is no unequivocal instance of the sacred writers employing this word to express an influence exerted by God upon the mind, all that is said in the systems of theology about grace is founded upon a perversion of Scripture. To the Arminians and Calvinists, on the other hand, it appears that there are passages in the New Testament, where the sense requires that the word be understood with the meaning which they affix to it. Of this kind are Heb. iv. 16, 1 Cor. xv. 10. The controversy about the Scripture meaning of the word grace is not of much importance. Although in this, as in many other instances, the Scriptures may have been quoted and applied more from a regard to the sound than to the sense, and although the word grace may have been often understood to mean an influence upon the mind, when the sacred writers were speaking of the favour of God in general, or of the dispensation of the Gospel, which, being the brightest display of his favour to man, is often called the Grace of God, yet this does not afford any kind of argument against the reality of what is termed in theological language, grace, or even against the propriety of that use of the word. For it matters little what words are employed upon any subject, provided the sense affixed to them be clearly defined; and if there is various evidence in Scripture, as the Arminians and Calvinists agree in believing, that the Spirit of God does act immediately upon the mind of man, there is no word by which an influence so fraught with blessings can be more fitly marked than by the general word o‹. grace; even although the passages, where the sacred writers have applied the word in that sense, were more equivocal than they really are.

With all these points of agreement, the difference between the Arminian and Calvinistic systems, as to the application of the remedy, is most material, because it respects the nature and the efficacy of that influence upon the mind, which in both systems is called by the name of grace. The Arminians, who believe that the death of Christ was an atonement for the sins of the whole world, which by redeeming all men from the curse put them into a situation in which they may be saved, believe, in conformity to this fundamental principle, that the death of Christ also purchased for all men means sufficient to bring them to salvation. And therefore, as they acknowledge that the corruption of human nature opposes obstacles to faith and repentance, which our natural powers are unable of themselves to surmount, they believe that the grace purchased by Christ restores all men to a situation, in which they may do those works which are well pleasing to God. This grace is called common, because it is given indifferently to all; preventing, because it comes before our own endeavours; exciting, because it stirs up our powers, naturally sluggish and averse from God. Of some measure of this grace, no man in any situation is supposed to be destitute. It accompanies the light of nature in heathen countries, as well as the preaching of the gospel in those which are Christian; and every one who improves the measure given him is thereby prepared for more. From the smallest

degrees of this grace, and the most unfavourable circumstances in which it can be given, those who are not wanting to themselves are certainly conducted to such degrees as produce faith and repentance; and all, whose minds have been regenerated by this exciting grace, receive what the Arminians call subsequent and co-operating grace; -subsequent, because it follows after conversion;-co-operating, because it concurs with human exertions in producing those moral virtues, which, having originated in that grace which is preventing, and being carried on to perfection by that which is subsequent, are fitly called the fruits of the Spirit.

As higher degrees of grace are supposed to be given in consequence of the improvement of those which were previous, the Arminians consider the efficacy of all grace as depending upon the reception which it meets with. They cannot say that it is of the nature of grace to be effectual; for although, according to their system, it be given to all with such impartiality, that he who believes had not originally a larger portion of grace than he who does not believe, yet there are many in whom it does not produce faith and repentance. It is purely, therefore, from the event that grace is to be distinguished as effectual or ineffectual; and the same grace being given to all, there is no other cause to which the difference in the event can be ascribed, than the difference in the character of those by whom it is received. As the event of the grace of God is conceived to depend upon men, it follows, according to this system, that the grace of God may be resisted, i. e. the obstacles opposed by the perverseness of the human will may be such as finally to prevent the effect of this grace. Accordingly, the Arminians find themselves obliged to give such an account of the nature of grace as admits of its being resistible. It was thus described by the first Arminians:-" Lenis suasio; nobilissimus agendi modus in conversione hominum, quæ fiat suasionibus, morali ratione consensum voluntatis producens." The English phrase answering to this description is Moral Suasion; and the meaning of the phrase is thus explained by the best Arminian writers. They conceive that all that impossibility of keeping the commandments of God, which arises from the corruption of human nature, is removed by the grace of God; and that, while the word of God proposes exhortations, warnings, and inducements, to man thus restored to the capacity of doing what is required of him, the Spirit of God opens his understanding to discern the force of these things, and is continually present with him, suggesting good thoughts, inspiring good desires, and by the most seasonable, friendly, and gentle counsel, inclining his mind to his duty. This seasonable, friendly, and gentle counsel is called moral suasion; but this counsel may be rejected; for herein, say the Arminians, consists the liberty of man, that with every possible reason before him to choose one course he may choose another, and the influence of any other being cannot be of such a kind as certainly and effectually to determine his choice, without destroying his nature. After all the assistance and direction, therefore, which he can derive from the grace of God, he may believe or he may not believe; he may return to the habitual practice of sin after he has been converted; and, by abusing those means of grace which he had formerly improved, he may in the end fail of attaining salvation.