Hence also we pray God to alarm the conscience of sinners. So also we learn from Scripture and experience that the conscience needs purging “from dead works,” for the very object that we may be able “to serve God with filial fear;” we learn also that we may have “defiled consciences,” “weak consciences,” “seared consciences,” &c. And here let it be noticed, that whether we understand these passages as applying to the regenerate or unregenerate, to derived depravity or contracted depravity, the argument against the objector will in every case apply with resistless force, viz. it shows that this faculty of the soul may become so disordered as to have its original healthy action impaired, and that in this case nothing can give it its original sensibility and strength but the God who made it. If sin does disorder the conscience, it disordered Adam’s: and if he begat children in his own moral likeness, then his posterity had a similar conscience. And therefore it is necessary that, as by the offence of the first Adam sin abounded, so by the obedience of the second, grace may abound in a way directly to meet the evil.
Let us next examine the will. Are we not conscious that this also is weak? How repeatedly does the awakened sinner resolve and fail! until he becomes deeply impressed that he is “without strength!” He tries to keep the law, but cannot; for he finds that “the carnal mind is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” Hear his complaint! and that we may be sure of taking a genuine case, let us select a Bible experience from Rom. vii; “I am carnal, sold under sin.” (How much liberty to serve God has a bond slave to sin?) “That which I do I allow not; for what I would do that I do not, but what I hate that do I.” “To will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good, I find not,” &c. (See through the chapter.) Hear him finally exclaim, in self despair, “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Why, Saul of Tarsus! are you not conscious that you have understanding, conscience, and will? Why make such an exclamation? Who shall deliver you? Deliver yourself. No! such philosophy and such theology were not known to this writer, neither as a penitent sinner, nor as an inspired apostle. “I thank God, through Jesus Christ my Lord.”—“The law of the spirit of life, in Christ Jesus, hath made me free from the law [the controlling power] of sin and death.”
Should any one say that the apostle was not describing his conversion here, but his experience as a Christian believer, I reply: If any thing, that would make the passage so much the stronger for my present purpose; for “if these things are done in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?” If a saint—one who has been washed and renewed—finds nevertheless that his will is so weak as to need the continued grace of God to enable him to do the things that he would, much more is this true of the unrenewed sinner. If this account of the apostle’s experience means any thing, it is as express a contradiction of the doctrine, that we have natural strength to serve God, as could be put into words. And I am bold to say that this is the experience of all Christians. And it presents an argument against the doctrine of natural ability which no metaphysical reasoning can overthrow—not indeed an argument to prove that we have not understanding, conscience, and will; but to show that, having these in a disordered and debilitated state, grace is indispensable to aid them, in order to an efficient holy choice. How often soever the judgment may be brought to a preference of the Divine law, it will as often be carried away by the strength of the unholy passions until it is delivered by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are conscious therefore that we have not natural power to keep the Divine law.
3. But it is objected again, “that the Scriptures require us to use our natural faculties in the service of God;” and hence the inference is, that these faculties are adequate to this service.
It is certainly no objection to our doctrine, that the Scriptures, dealing with man as he is, require him to use his natural powers to serve God. With what other powers should he serve him? I again repeat that the question is not, whether we have mental faculties, nor whether man may or can serve God with these faculties, but simply whether the command to obey is given independently of the considerations of grace. We say it is not; and in proof refer to the Scriptures, which give a promise corresponding with every command, and assurances of gracious aid suited to every duty—all of which most explicitly imply, not only man’s need, but also the ground on which the command is predicated. And with this idea agrees the alleged condemnation, so often presented in the Scriptures: “This is the condemnation, that light has come into the world, and men have loved darkness.” “He that believeth not is condemned already.” “But they grieved his Holy Spirit, therefore he is turned to be their enemy.” “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation.” These, and many other passages, show that the turning point of guilt and condemnation is not so much the abuse of natural powers, as the neglect and abuse of grace bestowed.
This point may be illustrated by Christ’s healing the withered hand. He commanded the man to stretch it forth. What was the ground of that command, and what was implied in it? The ground of it was, that aid would be given him to do it; otherwise the command to stretch forth a palsied limb would have been unreasonable. And yet it was understood that the man was to have no new muscles, or nerves, or bones, to accomplish this with; but he was to use those he had, assisted, as they would be, by the gracious power of God. So man, it is true, is commanded to use his natural powers in obeying God; but not without Divine aid, the promise of which is always either expressed or implied in the command.
4. “The Scriptures ascribe no other inability to man to obey God, but that which consists in or results from the perversion of those faculties which constitute him a moral agent.”
It is true, the Scriptures blame man for his inability—for inability they certainly ascribe to him, and why? Because where sin abounded grace has much more abounded. That sinners are perverse and unprepared for holy obedience up to this hour is undoubtedly their own fault, for grace has been beforehand with them. It met them at the very threshold of their moral agency, with every thing necessary to meet their case. It has dug about the fruitless fig tree. It has laid the foundation to say justly, “What more could I have done for my vineyard?” If the sinner has rejected all this, and has increased his depravity by actual transgression, then indeed is he justly chargeable for all his embarrassments and moral weakness, for he has voluntarily assumed to himself the responsibility of his native depravity, and he has added to this the accumulated guilt of his repeated sins.
5. It is farther objected, with a good deal of confidence, that Arminians, after all, make man’s natural power the ground and measure of his guilt, since “no part of his free agency arises from furnished grace, but it consists simply inability to use or abuse that grace, and of course in an ability distinct from, and not produced by the grace.”
Let us see, however, if there is not some sophistry covered up here. Arminians do not mean that man’s ability to use grace is independent of, and separate from the grace itself. They say that man’s powers are directly assisted by grace, so that through this assistance they have ability or strength in those powers which before they had not, to make a right choice. To talk of ability to use gracious ability, in any other sense, would be absurd. It would be like talking of strength to use strength—of being able to be able. This absurdity, however, appears to me justly chargeable upon the natural ability theory, taken in connection with the Scripture account of this matter. The Scriptures instruct us to look to God for strength; that he gives us “power to become the children of God;” that he “strengthens with might in the inner man, that we may be able,” &c. This theory, however, tells us that we have an ability back of this; an ability on which our responsibility turns, and by means of which we can become partakers of the grace of the Gospel. This is certainly to represent the Divine Being as taking measures to make ability able, and adding power to make adequate strength sufficiently strong.—Such is the work of supererogation which this theory charges upon the Gospel, for which its advocates alone are answerable; but let them not, without better ground, attempt to involve us in such an absurdity. But the strongest objections, in the opinion of those who differ from us, are yet to come. They are of a doctrinal, rather than of a philosophical character, and are therefore more tangible, and will, for this reason, perhaps, be more interesting to the generality of readers. Let us have patience, then, to follow them out.