OF FREE-WILL AS PREPARING FOR CONVERSION. 127
is the understanding of true knowledge, that " the natural man re- ceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God ; they are foolishness unto him," 1 Cor. ii. 14. [He is] nothing but confounded and amazed at spiritual things; and, if he doth not mock, can do nothing but wonder, and say, "What meaneth this?" Acts ii. 12, 13. Secondly, we are not only blind in our understandings, but captives also to sin in our wills, Luke iv. 18; whereby "we are servants of sin," John viii. 34 ; " free" only in our obedience to that tyrant, Rom. vi. 20. Yea, thirdly, all our affections are wholly corrupted, for " every imagina- tion of the thoughts of the heart of man is only evil continually," Gen. vi. 5. While we are " in the flesh, the motions of sin do work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death," Rom. vii. 5.
These are the endowments of our nature, these are the prepara- tions of our hearts for the grace of God, which we have within our- selves. Nay, —
Secondly, There is not only an impotency but an enmity in cor- rupted nature to any thing spiritually good : The things that are of God are " foolishness unto a natural man," 1 Cor. ii. 1 4. And there is nothing that men do more hate and contemn than that which they account as folly. They mock at it as a ridiculous drunkenness, Acts ii. 13. And would to God our days yielded us not too evident proofs of that universal opposition that is between light and dark- ness, Christ and Belial, nature and giace, — that we could not see every day the prodigious issues of this inbred corruption swelling over all bounds, and breaking forth into a contempt of the gospel and all ways of godliness ! So true it is that " the carnal mind is enmity against God: it is not subject to the law of God, neither in- deed can be," Rom. viii. 7. So that, —
Thirdly, As a natural man, by the strength of his own free-will, neither knoweth nor willeth, so it is utterly impossible he should do any thing pleasing unto God. " Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then can he do good," Jer. xiii. 23. " An evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit." " Without faith it is impos- sible to please God," Heb. xi. 6 ; and " that is not of ourselves, it is the gift of God," Eph. ii. 8. So that though Almighty God, according to the unsearchableness of his wisdom, worketh divers ways and in sundiy manners, for the translating of his chosen ones from the power of darkness into his marvellous light, — calling some powerfully in the midst of their march in the way of ungodliness, as he did Paul, — preparing others by outward means and helps of common restraining gTace, moralizing nature before it be begotten anew by the immortal seed of the word, — yet this is certain, that all good in this kind is from his free grace; there is nothing in ourselves, as of ourselves, but sin. Yea, and all those previous dispositions wherewith our hearts are
128 A DISPLAY OF ARMINIANISM.
prepared, by virtue of common grace, do not at all enable us to con- cur, by any vital operation, with that powerful, blessed, renewing grace of regeneration whereby we become the sons of God. Neither is there any disposition unto gi'ace so remote as that possibly it can proceed from a mere faculty of nature, for every such disposition must be of the same order with the form that is to be introduced ; but nature, in respect of grace, is a thing of an inferior alloy, between which there is no proportion. A good use of gifts may have a pro- mise of an addition of more, provided it be in the same kind. There is no rule, law, or promise that should make gi'ace due upon the good use of natural endowments. But you will say, here I quite overthrow free-will, which before I seemed to grant. To which I answer, that in regard of that object concerning which now we treat, a natural man hath no such thing as free-will at all, if you take it for a power of doing that which is good and well-pleasing unto God in things spiritual, for an ability of preparing our hearts unto faith and calling upon God, as our church article speaks, a home-bred self-sufficiency, preceding the change of our wills by the almighty grace of God, whereby any good should be said to dwell in us; and we utterly deny that there is any such thing in the world. The will, though in itself radically free, yet in respect of the term or object to which in this regard it should tend, is corrupted, inthralled, and under a miserable bondage ; tied to such a necessity of sinning in general, that though unregenerate men are not restrained to this or that sin in particular, yet for the main they can do nothing but sin. All their actions wherein there is any morality are attended with iniquity : " An evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit ;" even " the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord." These things being thus cleared from the Scripture, the former Arminian positions will of themselves fall to the ground, having no foundation but their own authority ; for any pretence of proof they make none from the word of God. The first two I considered in the last chap- ter, and now add only concerning the third, — that the sole cause why the gospel is sent unto some and not unto others is, not any dignity, worth, or desert of it in them to whom it is sent, more than in the rest that are suffered to remain in the shadow of death, but only the sole good pleasure of God, that it may be a subservient means for the execution of his decree of election: " I have mucJi people in this city," Acts xviii. 20; "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight," Matt. xi. 25, 26. So that the Arminian opposition to the truth of the gospel in this particular is clearly manifest: —