Saith he, "So far as exhortations are means to produce these acts, they must be moral; for moral causes are not capable of producing natural or physical effects."
But if Mr Goodwin think that, in this controversy, ''physical" and "necessary," as applied to effects, are laohvmiiovvra, he is heavenly wide. " Physical" denotes only their being " necessary," a manner of being as to some of them which have physically a being. The term " na- tural" is ambiguous, and sometimes used in the one sense, sometimes in the other; sometimes it denotes that which is only, sometimes that which is in such a kind. By a physical effect, we understand an effect with respect to its real existency ; as by a moral effect, an effect in respect of its regularity. And now, why may not a moral cause have an influence, in its own kind, to the production of a physical effect; I mean, an influence suited to its own nature and manner of opera- tion, by the way of motive and persuasion? What would you think of him that should persuade you to lift your hand above your head to try how high you could reach, or whether your arm were not out of joint?
Secondly, It hath been sufficiently showed before, that with these exhortations, which work as appointed means, moralhj God exerteth an effectual power for the real production of that whereunto the ex- hortation tends; dealing thus with our whole souls suitably to the nature of all their faculties, as every one of them is fitted and suited to be wrought upon for the accomplishment of the end he aims nc,
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450 DOCTRINE OF THE SAINTS' PERSEVEKANCE. [CHAP.
and in the manner that he intends. Briefly, to every act of the will as an act, in genere entis, there is required a really operative and physical concurrence of the providential power of God, in its own order as the first cause ; to every act as good or gracious, the ope- rative concurrence and influence of the Spirit of grace; — which yet hinders not but that by exhortations men may be provoked and stirred uj) to the performance of acts as such, and to the performance of them as good and gracious.
This being not the direct controversy in hand, I do but touch upon it. Concerning that which follows, I should perhaps say we have found anguem in herha; but being so toothless and stingless as it is to any that in the least attend to it, it may be only termed the pad in the straw.^ " Physical and moral" are taken to be terms, it seems, equipollent to " necessary and not necessary;" which is such a "wrest- ing of the terms themselves and their known use as men shall not likely meet withal. Hence is it that acts physical and necessaiy are the same. Every act of the most free agent under heaven, yea, in hea- ven or earth, is in its own nature and being physical. Acts also are moral, that is, good or evil, consequently in order of nature to their existence (of which "necessary" or "not necessary" are the adjunct manner), in reference to the rule or law whereunto their conformity is required. How " moral" and "not necessary" come to be terms of the same import Mr Goodwin will declare perhaps hereafter, when he shall have leisure to teach as much new philosophy as he hath al- ready done divinity. In the meantime, we deny that any influence from God on the wills of men doth make any act of them necessary as to the manner of its production. And so this first argument for the inconsistency of the use of exhortations, with the real efficiency of the grace and Spirit of God is concluded.
That which follows in this section to the end is a pretended answer to an objection of our author's own framing, being only intro- duced to give farther advantage to express himself against any real efficiency of the Spirit or grace of God in the hearts or on the wills of men. Not to insist upon his darkening the discourse in hand, from his miserable confounding of those terms "physical" and "mo- ral," formerly discovered, I shall, as near as I can, close with his aim in it, for the more clear consideration thereof: —
First, he ttlls us, " That the operation of God on the will of man is, in respect of its proceeding from him, physical ; but in respect of its nature and substance, it is properly moral."
1. But first, If a man should ask Mr Goodwin what he intends by this " operation of God on the will of man," to the end intended, I fear he would be very hard put to it to instance in any particular. It is
' A plivase explained by Ilalliwell to mean "something wi-ong, a screw loose;" but he gives no account of its origin. — Ed.
XII.] OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE REFUTED. 451
sufficiently evident he acknowledgeth none in this kind but what consists in the exhortations of the word.
2. Having told us before that "phj^sical" is as much as "neces- sary," and " moral" as "not necessary," how comes it about that the same operation of God, the same act of his power, is become in seve- ral regards physical and moral, — that is, necessary and not neces- sary ? Is Mr Goodwin reconciled to the assertion that the same thing may be said to be necessary and not necessary in sundry respects?