assistance of the Divine mercy. But if they would soberly examine the subject there treated by Paul, they would not so inconsiderately pervert this passage. I know that they can allege the suffrages of Origen and Jerome in defence of their exposition; and in opposition to them, I could produce that of Augustine. But their opinions are of no importance to us, if we can ascertain what was the meaning of Paul. He is there teaching, that salvation is provided for them alone, whom the Lord favours with his mercy; but that ruin and perdition await all those whom he hath not chosen. He had shewn by the example of Pharaoh, the condition of the reprobate; and had confirmed the certainty of gratuitous election by the testimony of Moses: "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy." His conclusion is, that "it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy." If this be understood to imply that our will and endeavour are not sufficient, because they are not equal to so great a work, Paul has expressed himself with great impropriety. Away therefore with these sophisms: "It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth," therefore there is some willing and some running. For the meaning of Paul is more simple, It is neither our willing nor our running, which procures for us a way of salvation, but solely the mercy of God. For he expresses here the same sentiment as he does to Titus, when he says, "that the kindness and love of God towards man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy." (p) The very persons, who argue that Paul, in denying that it is of him that willeth or of him that runneth, implies that there is some willing and some running, would not allow me to use the same mode of reasoning, that we have done some good works, because Paul denies that we have obtained the favour of God by any works which we have done. But if they perceive a flaw in this argumentation, let them open their eyes, and they will perceive a similar fallacy in their own. For the argument on which Augustine rests the dispute is unanswerable: "If it be said, that it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, merely because neither our willing nor our (p) Tit. iii. 4, 5. running is sufficient; it may on the contrary be retorted, that it is not of the mercy of God, because that does not act alone." (q) The latter position being absurd, Augustine justly concludes the meaning of this passage to be, that there is no good will in man, unless it be prepared by the Lord; not that we ought not to will and to run, but because God worketh in us both the one and the other. With similar want of judgment, some pervert this declaration of Paul, "We are labourers together with God;" (r), which without doubt is restricted solely to ministers; who are denominated "workers with him," not that they contribute any thing of themselves, but because God makes use of their agency, after he has qualified them and furnished them with the necessary talents. XVIII. They produce a passage from Ecclesiasticus, which is well known to be a book of doubtful authority. But though we should not reject it, which nevertheless if we chose we might justly do, what testimony does it afford in support of free-will? The writer says, that man, as soon as he was created, was left in the power of his own will; that, precepts were given to him, which if he kept, he should always be kept by them; that he had life and death, good and evil, set before him; and that whatever he desired, would be given him. (s) Let it be granted, that man at his creation was endowed with a power of choosing life or death. What if we reply, that he has lost it? I certainly do not intend to contradict Solomon, who asserts that "God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions." (t) But man by his degeneracy having shipwrecked both himself and all his excellencies, whatever is attributed to his primitive state, it does not immediately follow that it belongs to his vitiated and degenerated nature. Therefore I reply, not only to them, but also to Ecclesiasticus himself, whoever he be: If you design to teach man to seek within himself a power to attain salvation, your authority is not se great in our estimation as to obtain even the smallest degree of credit, in opposition to the undoubted word of God. But if you only aim to repress the malignity of the flesh, which vainly attempts to vindicate itself by transferring its crimes to (9) Epist. 107, ad Vital. (r) 1 Cor. iii. 9. God; and you therefore reply, that man was originally endued with rectitude, from which it is evident that he was the cause of his own ruin, I readily assent to it; provided we also agree in this, that through his own guilt he is now despoiled of those ornaments with which God invested him at the beginning; and so unite in confessing, that in his present situation he needs not an advocate, but a physician. XIX. But there is nothing which our adversaries have more frequently in their mouths, than the parable of Christ concerning the traveller, who was left by robbers in the road half dead. (u) I know it is the common opinion of almost all writers, that the calamity of the human race is represented under the type of this traveller. Hence they argue, that man is not so mutilated by the violence of sin and the devil, but that he still retains some reliques of his former excellencies, since he is said to have been left only half dead; for what becomes of the remaining portion of life, unless there remain some rectitude both of reason and will? In the first place, what could they say, if I refuse to admit, their allegory? For there is no doubt but that this interpretation invented by the Fathers is foreign to the genuine sense of our Lord's discourse. Allegories ought to be extended no further than they are supported by the authority of Scripture, for they are far from affording of themselves a sufficient foundation for any doctrines. Nor is there any want of arguments by which, if I chose, I could completely confute this erroneous notion: for the word of God does not leave man in the possession of a portion of life, but teaches, that as far as respects happiness of life, he is wholly dead. Paul, when speaking of our redemption, says, not that we were recovered when half dead, but that "even when we were dead, we were raised up." He calls not on the half dead, but on those who are in the grave, sleeping the sleep of death, to receive the illumination of Christ. (v) And the Lord himself speaks in a similar manner, when he says, that "the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live." (w) With what face can they oppose this slight allusion against so many positive ex(z) Luke x. 30. (v) Eph. ii. 5. v. 14. (w) John v. 25. pressions? Yet let this allegory even be admitted as a clear testimony; what will it enable them to extort from us? Man, they will say, is but half dead, therefore he has some faculty remaining entire. I grant that he has a mind capable of understanding, though it attains not to heavenly and spiritual wisdom; he has some idea of virtue; he has some sense of the Deity, though he acquires not the true knowledge of God. But what is to be concluded from all this. It certainly does not disprove the assertion of Augustine, which has received the general approbation of the schools: That man since his fall has been deprived of the gratuitous talents on which salvation depends; that the natural ones are corrupted and polluted. Let us hold this then as an undoubted truth which no opposition can ever shake; that the mind of man is so completely alienated from the righteousness of God, that it conceives, desires, and undertakes every thing that is impious, perverse, base, impure, and flagitious: that his heart is so thoroughly infected by the poison of sin, that it cannot produce any thing but what is corrupt; and that if at any time men do any thing apparently good, yet the mind always remains involved in hypocrisy and fallacious obliquity, and the heart enslaved by its inward perverseness. m CHAPTER VI. Redemption for lost Man to be sought in Christ. THE whole human race having perished in the person of Adam, our original excellence and dignity, which we have noticed, so far from being advantageous to us, only involves us in greater ignominy, till God, who does not acknowledge the pollution and corruption of man by sin to be his work, appears as a Redeemer in the person of his only begotten Son. Therefore since we are fallen from life into death, all that knowledge of God as a Creator, of which we have been treating, would be useless, unless it were succeeded by faith exhibiting God to us as a Father in Christ. This indeed was the genuine order of nature, that the fabric of the world should be a school in which we might learn piety, and thence be conducted to eternal life and perfect felicity. But since the fall, whithersoever we turn our eyes, the curse of God meets us on every side, which, whilst it seizes innocent creatures and involves them in our guilt, must necessarily overwhelm our souls with despair. For though God is pleased still to manifest his paternal kindness to us in various ways, yet we cannot, from a contemplation of the world, conclude that he is our Father, when our conscience disturbs us within, and convinces us that our sins afford a just reason why God should abandon us, and no longer esteem us as his children. We are also chargeable with stupidity and ingratitude; for our minds, being blinded, do not perceive the truth; and all our senses being corrupted, we wickedly defraud God of his glory. We must therefore subscribe to the declaration of Paul: "For after that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." (x) What he denominates the wisdom of God, is this magnificent theatre of heaven and earth, which is replete with innumerable miracles, and from the contemplation of which we ought wisely to acquire the knowledge of God. But because we have made so little improvement in this way, he recals us to the faith of Christ, which is despised by unbelievers on account of its apparent folly. Wherefore, though the preaching of the cross is not agreeable to human reason, we ought nevertheless to embrace it with all humility, if we desire to return to God our Creator, from whom we have been alienated, and to have him to reassume the character of our Father. Since the fall of the first man, no knowledge of God, without the Mediator, has been available to salvation. For Christ speaks not of his own time only, but comprehends all ages, when he says that "this is life eternal, to know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." (y) And this aggravates the stupidity of those who set open the gate of heaven to all unbelievers and profane persons, without the grace of Christ, whom the Scripture universally represents as the only door of entrance into salvation, |