These passages appear to teach that this sin consists in the malicious rejection of the blood of Christ, and of the testimony of the Holy Ghost against evidence and conviction. It is called the sin against the Holy Ghost because he is immediately present in the heart of the sinner, and his testimony and influence is directly rejected and contemptuously resisted. It is unpardon- able, not because its guilt transcends the merit of Christ, or the state of the sinner transcends the renewing power of the Holy Ghost, but because it consists in the final rejection of these, and because at this limit God has sovereignly staid his grace.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE DOCTRINE OF THE WILL AND OF HUMAN INABILITY.
1. Is free-agency an inalienable attribute of the human soul, or has it been lost by sin ?
Like conscience, free agency is an essential and indestructible element of human nature, and in every case necessary to moral accountability. Even devils and lost souls are as free, i. e., vol- untary in their sin, as saints in their holiness. — See below, ques- tion 4. For a definition of the essential elements of free agency, see above, Chap. XIV., question 6.
2. What are the different senses in which the word will is used ?
For a full answer see above, Chap. XIV., question 3.
3. When is a man said to be free in willing ?
When he wills in conformity with his prevailing dispositions or desires at the time, all things considered, in the view his un- derstanding takes of the case.
A man, therefore, always is free in willing, and can never will otherwise than as free, because the volition, or executive action of the will is always determined by the man's subjective state of desire or aversion, and therefore is always free.
4. Do not the Scriptures, however, speak of man's being un- der the bondage of corruption, and his liberty as lost ?
As above shown, a man is always free in every responsible volition, as much when he chooses, in violation of the law of God and conscience, as in conformity to it. In the case of unfallen creatures, and of regenerated men, however, the permanent state of the will, the voluntary affections and desires (in Scripture Ian-
DEFINITION OF MOTIVE. 261
guage, the heart), are conformed to the light of reason and the law of conscience within, and to the law of God, in its objective revelation. There are no conflicting principles then within the soul, and the law of God, instead of coercing the will by its com- mands and threatenings, is spontaneously obeyed. This is " the liberty of the sons of God ;" and the law becomes the " royal law of liberty" when the law in the heart of the subject perfectly corresponds with the law of the moral Governor.
In the case of fallen men and angels, on the other hand, the reason and conscience, and God's law, are opposed by the govern- ing dispositions of the will, and the agent, although free, because he wills as he chooses, is said to be in bondage to an evil nature, and " the servant of sin," because he is impelled by his corrupt dispositions to choose that which he sees and feels to be wrong and injurious, and because the threatenings of God's law tend to coerce his will through fear. — See below, questions 13 and 17.
5. What are the two senses in which the word motive, as in- fluencing the ivill, is used ?
1st. A motive to act may be something outside the soul itself , as the value of money, the wishes of a friend, the wisdom or folly, the right or the wrong of any act in itself considered, or the ap- petites and impulses of the body. In this sense it is evident that the man does not always act according to the motive. What may attract one man may repel another, or a man may repel the attraction of an outward motive by the superior force of some consideration drawn from within the soul itself. So that the dictum is true, " The man makes the motive, and not the mo- tive the man."
2d. A motive to act may be the state of the man's own mind, as desire or aversion in view of the outward object, or motive in the first sense. This internal motive evidently must sway the volition, and as clearly it can not in the least interfere with the perfect freedom of the man in willing, since the internal motive is only the man himself desiring, or the reverse, according to his own disposition or character.
6. May there not he several conflicting desires, or internal motives, in the mind at the same time, and in such a case how is the will decided ?
262 FREE AGENCY.