2. Nevertheless, Christian theologians of all schools have ever deduced from Scripture that man, originally at least, possessed free will in the common sense of the term, whether they admit that he stUl retains it to any extent or not. And, indeed, even apart from what is im- plied in the narrative of the Fall and all subse- quent express statements (e.g. Ec 7*", Ro 1-'"^-), this alone is compatible with the Scripture doctrine of God as at once the all-powerful and all-wise and the perfectly good Creator. Man's fallen con- dition must be due to his own fault. For some good reason God suffered man to be tempted, but He intended th.at the temptation should be, as it might have been, withstood. Sufficient light had been granted to man to enable him to discern the true good, and power to choose it ; yet he chose evil.
It is worthy of note that even those who have been most ready to silence criticism of the morality of the action which is attributed to God in theories of the method and scope of redemption, by alleging that these are matter of Divine revelation, and by declaring that God's ways are not to be submitted to a human tribunal, have yet themselves asserted, and sought to convince men of, the justice of man's punishment on the ground that in Adam he brought It upon himself.
But we must go a step further. The attempt to satisfy the sense of human justice, significant as it is when made in the quarters just indicated, must break down so long as it is supi>oscd that men lost their moral freedom totally by the first fall, and therewith all hope of salvation except in so far as they should be visited by irresistilde grace, which to some, and even the majority of the race, woulii never come at all. The Bible, we are bold to atfirni, does not support such a position. It is true that it speaks of man as enslaved by sin, as unable to accomplish his own deliverance, as dependent ujion God at every step for salvation, and even for the first motions towards good (Eph 2'-°-*, Ro 3'-'*, Tit 3*-«, Jn 6"- "). But the strongest statements to this efl'ect, even if they stood alone, could not fairly be made to mean that nothing depends on the con- sent, or resistance, of man's own will to the work of God in and upon him. And by the sacred
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writers who insist most emphatically on man's helplessness by himself, as well as in other parts of Scripture, it is plainly declared, or assumed, that he is responsible for being compliant (Jn 1"- 5* and 6", Ph 2'-), and in more general terms for his temper of mind and conduct, and that he will be punished or rewarded on ordinary principles of justice (Ro 2'-" 3"-=i, .In 7"); in short, that each man bom into the world is put to a probation si ill, however the conditions of his trial may be aliected by the failures and successes of all who have gone before. So that the tragic interest and solemnity of the story of Adam's fall lies not only in the thought of what was lost for the human race from the beginning of its history, but also in its being the type of a conflict between good and evil which IS perpetually renewed in the soul of every man.
It is less than the truth to say, as many do, that the recognition accorded in Scrijiture to the prin- ciple of man's moral freedom on the one hand, and its doctrine of grace on the other, present an in- soluble antinoni}', and that those who accept the authority of the Bible nmst accept both, though with a sense that they cannot be reconciled. This is certainly a wiser attitude than that of those wlio virtually deny the one in the interests of the other. It must, however, be admitted on reflexion that the sacred writers themselves do not seem to be conscious of any contradiction ; and we cannot but infer that if to us there seems to be one it is largely of our own maUiiig, through the ellect upon our minds of later controversies and the tratlitions they have left. The real difliculties in connexion with the conception of the freedom of the will are not, in point of fact, raised through the endeavour to combine in one view those moral and .spiritual truths regarding Divine grace and human responsi- bility to which the Bible bears testimony, nor could they naturally have been indicated there. We gather from its teaching that the Spirit of God IS the source of all moral and spiritual good, that Divine grace must be present with and must precede all rightful action of the human wUl, that this grace is bestowed in some measure upon all, and always with the design of leading on to salva- tion ; but that it rests with man to respond to the Divine love, to yield to the Divine promptings.
Confusion and error have probably bi-en intro- duced into the subjects disputed by Augustinians, Calvinists, and Pelagians, more through the too narrow nutiim of Divine grace in whicii all alike shared — as though it were to lie traced only in de- finite Christian faith and its special fruits, and in the godly of Israel under the Old Dispensation — than from any other cause. Hence the Calvinist ha.s been led to make a distinction between an ' eflcctual ' giace granted in certain cases, and an operation of God's Spirit in other cases which has no saving purpo.se, and to regard the signs of moral and spiritual life in a multitude of instances as wholly illusory. Hence also, on the other hand, the Pelagian lias supposed man to be capable of many kinds of good apart from God. Nowhere does the mistake to which reference has been made ajiijcar more clearly as the initial source of error than in the doctrine of certain schoolmen that grace was to be deserved de cont/ruo, the authors of which theory evidently aimed at |irescnting tliat which they regarded as the truth lu I'elagianism in the form in which it would bo least open to attack. l''or here it was supposed that tliough man could not be finally saved without grace, yet by a character and a course of conduct, in shapmg and inspiring which grace had had no part, he could win it. Tlie diflerent opinions here referred to are unscriptural, baseless, and profoundly irre- ligious. In contrast with all alike we would place