OF FEEE-WILL. 117
unto it than it was ever capable of. As it now standeth, according to my formerly-proposed method, I shall show, — first, what inhred native virtue they ascribe unto it, and with how absolute a dominion and sovereignty over all our actions they endow it ; secondly, what power they say it hath in preparing us for the grace of God ; thirdly, how effectually operative it is in receiving the said grace, and with how little help thereof it accomplisheth the great work of our con- version ; — all briefly, with so many observations as shall suffice to dis- cover their proud errors in each particular.
^ " Herein," saith Arminius, " consisteth the liberty of the will, that all things required to enable it to will any thing being accomplished, it still remains indifferent to will or not" And all of them at the synod: ^" There is," say they, '-'accompanying the will of man an inseparable property, which we call liberty, from whence the will is termed a power, which, when all things pre-required as necessary to operation are fulfilled, may will any thing, or not will it;" that is, our free-wills have such an absolute and uncontrollable power in the territory of all human actions, that no influence of God's providence, no certainty of his decree, no unchangeableness of his purpose, can sway it at all in its free determinations, or have any power with his highness to cause him to will or resolve on any such act as God by him intendeth to produce. Take an instance in the great work of our conversion. ^" All unregenerate men," saith Arminius, "have, by virtue of their free-will, a power of resisting the Holy Spirit, of rejecting the offered grace of God, of contemning the counsel of God concerning themselves, of refusing the gospel of grace, of not opening the heart to him that knocketh." What a stout idol is this, whom neither the Holy Spirit, the grace and counsel of God, the calling of the gospel, the knocking at the door of the heart, can move at all, or in the least measure prevail against him ! Woe be unto us, then, if when God calls us our free-will be not in good temper, and well dis- posed to hearken unto him ! for it seems there is no dealing with it by any other ways, though powerful and almighty. *" For grant," saith Corvinus, " all the operations of grace which God can use in our conversion, yet conversion remaineth so in our own free power
1 " Libertas Arbitrii consistit in eo, quod homo, positis omnibus requisitis ad volen- dura, indiiferens tamen sit, ad volendum vel nolendum, hoc vel illud." — Armin. Art. Perpend., p. 11.
2 " Voluntatem comitatur propiietas qusedam inseparabilis, quam libei'tatem voca- mus ; a qua voluntas dicitur potentia, qu^ positis omnibus prserequisitis ad agendum necessariis, potest velle et nolle, aut velle et non velle." — Eemon. in Act. Synod, p. 16.
* " Omnes irregeniti habeut Lib. Arbit. et potentiam Spiritui Sancto resistendi, gratiam Dei oblatam repudiaudi, consilium Dei adversus se contemnendi, evangelium gratia; repudiandi, ei qui cor pulsat non aperiendi." — Armin. Artie. Perpend.
* " Positis omnibus operationibus gratige, quibus Deus in conversione nostri uti pos- sit, manet tamen conversio ita in nostra potestate libera, ut possimu? non converti ; hoc est, nosmct ipsos converterc vel non convertere." — Corv. ad l!>og., p. 263.
118 A DISPLAY OF ARMINIANISJL
that we can be not converted ; that is, we can either turn or not turn ourselves;" — where the idol plainly challengeth the Lord to work his utmost, and tells him that after he hath so done he will do Avhat he please. His infallible prescience, his powerful predeteiTni- nation, the moral efficacy of the gospel, the infusion of grace, the effectual operation of the Holy Spirit, all are nothing, not at all available in helping or furthering our independent wills in their pro- ceedings. Well, then, in what estate will you have the idol placed? ^ " In such a one wherein he may be suffered to sin, or to do well, at his pleasure," as the same author intimates. It seems, then, as to sin, so nothing is required for him to be able to do good but God's per- mission? No! For the Kemonstrants^ (as they speak of them- selves) " do always suppose a free power of obeying or not obey- ing, as well in those who do obey as in those who do not obey;" — that he that is obedient may therefore be counted obedient, be- cause he obeyeth when he could not obey, and so on the con- trary:" where all the praise of our obedience, whereby we are made to differ from others, is ascribed to ourselves alone, and that free power that is in us. Now, this they mean not of any one act of obedience, but of faith itself, and the whole consummation thereof ^"For if a man should say, that every man in the world hath a power of believing if he will, and of attaining salvation, and that this power is settled in his nature, what argument have you to confute him?" saith Arminius triumphantly to Perkins; where the sophistical innovator as plainly confounds grace and nature as ever did Pelagius. That, then, which the Arminians claim here in behalf of their free-will is, an absolute independence on God's providence in doing any thing, and of his grace in doing that which is good, — a self-sufficiency in all its operations, a plenary in- differency of doing what we will, this or that, as being neither de- termined to the one nor inclined to the other by any overruling influence from heaven. So that the good acts of our wills have no dependence on God's providence as they are acts, nor on his grace as they are good ; but in both regards proceed from such a principle within us as is no way moved by any superior agent. Now, the first of these we deny unto our wills, because they are created ; and the second, because they are corrupted. Their creation hinders them from doing any thing of themselves without the assistance of