deliver the money to the creditor; and that the prince who pardons his condemned subject, upon condition that he will plead his pardon, is not to have the sole glory of that pardoning mercy. "And the true consequence from this is," saith Dr. Claget, "that the glory of God's grace wholly depends upon the sullenness and obstinacy of men, and that the only way to advance it, is by a stout opposition and spiteful resistance of it." Part 2. p. 208.

IX. OBJECTION TWENTY-FIFTH. Lastly, it is objected, "that the opinion which makes the grace of God resistible, leaves it uncertain whether any one will be converted by it, or not."

ANSWER FIRST. To this I answer, that it leaves it as uncertain whether any one will be unconverted, or not; and surely, that opinion which affords this encouragement to all, that God, notwithstanding their fall, will afford means sufficient to convert them, if they do not neglect and refuse to use them, is much to be preferred before that which tells them he hath from eternity passed an act of preterition on them, and by that excluded them out of the number of the elect, that is, of them who only shall be saved.

ANSWER SECOND. A man may, notwithstanding this opinion, be infallibly certain, otherwise, that many will be found true converts at the last, because he knows that many have already died in the fear of God, and in the faith of Christ, and because the holy scriptures do assure us that 'some shall arise to everlasting life, and receive the end of their faith in the salvation of their souls.'

ANSWER THIRD. To say that "it is barely possible in the nature of the thing that none may be converted," hath no inconvenience in it, because it tends not to hinder any man's endeavours after his conversion, any more than the like possibility,--that no man may thrive by his industry, or grow rich by his trading, or have a safe voyage at sea, or a plentiful crop by sowing, or health by taking physick,-hinders men from doing any of these actions. It is no imputation upon divine wisdom, that God himself complains he had given his law to the Jews in vain; nor did St. Paul conceive it any defect in the grace of God, that it might be received in vain by the churches of Corinth, (2 Cor. vi. 1,) of Galatia, (chapter iii. 4,) and of Thessalonica, (1 Thess. iii. 5,) and, by parity of reason, by all other churches. It is possible, that no one subject may obey the laws of his superior, because they have free

will, and may do evil under the strongest obligations to do well; but should the world be left therefore without human laws, or be governed by irresistible force, or not at all? Nay, rather that freedom which includes a bare possibility that all may disobey, proves the wisdom and justice of governing mankind by laws attended with moral inducements to obedience. Whereas if we suppose men to be under a necessity either of doing what is required, or of doing the contrary, it is very hard to understand how governing them by moral means should be wise in the former case, or just in the latter.

Discourse LV.

OF THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL OF MAN.

The State of the Question.

CHAP. I.

FOR the due stating of this question concerning the liberty or freedom of the will of man, let it be noted,

I. That the state of man in this world, is a state of trial or probation; as will be evident,

First. From all those places in which God is said to exercise his dispensations towards his people, to prove them whether they would walk in his ways,' or not; as in those words, I will rain bread from heaven, to prove them whether they will walk in my ways, or not.' (Exodus xvi. 4.) That is, whether the constant provisions I make for them, will induce them to continue stedfast in my service. When they were terrified at the dreadful sights, and the voice they heard at the giving of the law, Moses speaks to them thus, fear not, for God is come to prove you,' (chapter xx. 20,) (that is, to try whether you will be true to the promise made chapter xix. 8, viz. 'all that the Lord hath spoken we will do') and that his fear may be before your faces that you

sin not.' And so in many other places, which will hereafter be considered.

Secondly. From all those places in which God is said to try men. Thus St. Paul speaks of 'the trial of men's works by fire,' (1 Cor. iii. 18,) of the trial of the Macedonians by afflictions. (2 Cor. viii. 7.)-St. James saith, that the trial of our faith, by temptations, worketh patience.' (Chap. i. 3.)—St. Peter, that 'the trial of our faith (by manifold temptations, if we continue stedfast in it,) will be found to our praise, honour, and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ;' (1 Peter i. 7,) and speaketh of a 'fiery trial which was come to try them. (Chapter iv. 12.) Our Blessed Lord saith to the church of Smyrna, behold the devil will cast some of you into prison that he may try you,' (Rev. ii. 10,) and prophesies of an hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world to try them that dwell upon the earth;' to omit many places of like nature in the Old Testament, viz. Psalm lxvi. 12. Jer. ix. 7. Dan. xi. 35. xii. 10. Zach. xiii. 9.

Thirdly. From all the promises and threats recorded in the scripture, to engage all men to repent and turn to God; for no such thing is or can reasonably be offered to them who are already in a fixed state either of happiness or misery; and it is contrary even to the nature of those motives to be offered to them, who neither can be induced by the hopes of promises, or fears of sufferings, to change their present state.

Fourthly. From all the exhortations of the holy scripture to men, 'to watch and pray that they enter not into temptation,' and to pray they may not be led into temptation; from the supposition that men in the time of temptation may fall away,' (Luke viii. 13.) and that satan may so tempt good christians, that the labour of the apostles may be in vain among them.' (1 Thess. iii. 5.) For what is temptation but a trial of our faith, sincerity, and constancy? What is it to enter, or be led into it, but to be in danger of falling by it? And must not therefore all who are in a state of temptation, be also in a state of trial or probation? And,

Fifthly. This will be evident from the temptations of satan, who 'goes about continually seeking whom he may devour.' For to what end should he tempt, that is, endeavour to destroy them, if he knows he never can succeed in his temptations to destroy the elect? And as for others, quos ad perditionem Deus præscripsit, and who are

.

left by God infallibly to fail of salvation,' he need not do it, since God himself, according to this doctrine, hath done that work effectually to his hand. To what end should he strive to hinder the progress of the gospel, seeing according to this doctrine, it must have its effect upon the elect infallibly and unfrustrably, and upon others it can only be 'a savour of death unto death,' and an aggravation of their condemnation? To what end should he go about to hinder the conversion of any man? Must he not know his labour will be certainly in vain, where this is wrought by a divine unfrustrable operation, and is as needless where God hath decreed not to vouchsafe that operation? Now hence it follows,

II. COROLLARY. That the liberty belonging to this question, is only that of a lapsed man in a state of trial, probation, and temptation; whether he hath a freedom to chuse life or death, to answer or reject the calls and invitations of God to do, by the assistance of the grace afforded in the gospel to him, what is spiritually good as well as evil; or whether he be determined to one, having only a freedom from co-action, but not from necessity. This liberty is indeed no perfection of human nature; for it supposes us imperfect, as being subject to fall by temptation, and when we are advanced to 'the spirits of just men made perfect,' or to a fixed state of happiness, will, with our other imperfections 'be done away;' but yet it is a freedom absolutely requisite, as we conceive, to render us capable of trial or probation, and to render our actions worthy of praise or dispraise, and our persons of rewards or punishments; nor is this liberty essential to man as man, but only necessary to a man placed in a state of trial, and under the power of temptation. And therefore vain are the ensuing arguments,

(1.) That God is a free agent, and yet can have no freedom to do evil, since he is in no state of trial, nor can he be tempted to do evil. Or, (ii.) that the confirmed angels have not lost their freedom though they cannot sin; for if there was a time when they were not confirmed in goodness as now they are, they have lost that liberty, ad utrumvis,* they then had; and being thus confirmed they are not in a state of trial, nor under any temptation to do evil, nor are their actions now rewardable, since they alrea dy do enjoy the beatifick vision, and so they cannot act out of

• Te both, that is, to good and evil. ED.

respect to any future recompence, or be induced to action out of hope or fear, as in this state of trial all men are. Or, (iii.) That the devils and the damned spirits lie under no capacity of doing good, or under a necessity of doing evil, and yet do it voluntarily, their state of trial being past, and they having no farther offers of grace, and so no motive to do good; and as for any evil they are now necessitated to do, or any good they do not, they are not subject to any farther punishment, the damned spirits being only to receive at the day of judgement, according to what they have done in the body,' or in their state of trial, and the damned angels being reserved 'to the day of judgement to be punished' for what they did in a like state of trial: and if they are to suffer any thing on the account of their temptations of men to do evil, or to draw them from their obedience to the will of God, they so far lie under no necessity of doing this, but might abstain from those temptations. Excellent to this purpose are these words of Mr. Thorndike, "we say not that indifference is requisite to all freedom, but to the freedom of man alone in this state of travail and proficience, the ground of which is God's tender of a treaty, and conditions of peace and reconcilement to fallen man, together with those precepts and prohibitions, those promises and threats, those exhortations and dehortations it is enforced with. So that it is utterly impertinent to alledge here the freedom of God and angels, the freedom of saints in the world to come, the freedom of Christ's human soul, to prove that this indifference is not requisite to the freedom of man, because it is not found in that freedom which they are arrived to, to whom no covenant is tendered, no precept requisite, no exhortation useful."

And hence ariseth a necessity of saying,

Ill. First. That the freedom of the will, in this state of trial and temptation, cannot consist with a determination to one, viz. on the one hand in a determination to good only by the efficacy of divine grace, infallibly or unfrustrably inducing to that operation, or engaging men, respectu divina ordinationis certó et infallibiliter agere, in respect of the divine appointment infalli bly and certainly to act,' so that he cannot fail of acting; seeing this determining operation puts him out of a state of trial, and

Epil. part 2. p. 183.