Ch. iii, §1. God has " unchanRcably ordained whatso- ever comes to pass ; yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or coiitiiifrency of secoud causes taken away, t)iit rather established."
Ch. V, 5 2. "Although, in rehuiou to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the tiist cause, all things come to pass immutably, yet, by the same providence, he ordereth them to fall out according to the nature of secoud causes, either ueoessarily, freely, or coutiui;eutly."
Ch. is, 5 1. "God hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty, that it is neither forced nor by any abso- lute necessity of nature determined to good or evil."
This doctrine Calvinists have always maintained, and they have never held any other doctrines which, in their belief, were inconsistent with this fundamental doctrine of himian freedom.
In former times Calvinistic theologians, while main- taining the freedom of man as a responsible moral agent, have generally felt impelled to set over against the fact of freedom the equally certain facts of man's moral de- pravity, and consequent voluntary aversion and moral inability to fulfill those obligations which spring out of our relation to God. This has been sharply emphasized ill opposition to Pelagian error. But more recently, in consequence of the prevalence of pantheistic and mate- rialistic modes of thought, which are alike fatalistic, Calvinists generally have been impelled to unite with their Wesleyan brethren in emphasizing the rational and moral self-determining power of the human soul which they had always held. This primary truth is the only and the efficient solvent alike of materialism and of pantheism in all their forms. It is the citadel of faith, the4ast tenable stronghold in defence of super- natural religion. We therefore not only hold to the freedom of the human soul in willing sincerely and in good faith, but we regard it as fundamental and essen- tial, the truth of all others to be* held aloft and vindi- cated at the present day.
That Calvinistic theologians as a class have always maintained the freedom of the human soul as the sole cause of its own volitions is so conspicuously true that such innpartial, learned, and able critics as Sir AVilliam Hamilton {Discussions, Appendix I, A ; and note on p. 402 of collected Woj-ks of Dugald Stetvaj-t), Dugald Stew- art {Dissertatio7i on the Progress of Philosophy'), and Sir James Mackintosh (Note O to his Preliminary Disser- tation) have affirmed that the doctrine of the will main- tained by Jonathan Edwards is irreconcilabh' incon- sistent with the doctrines of Augustine and Calvin, and the system they taught. In direct contradiction to this opinion, Edwards and Chalmers have held that the par- ticular theory of liberty which thej' maintained — which has been absurdly misrepresented by its title of "philo- sophical necessity"- — is essential to the logical defence of the Calvinistic sj'stem. Principal William Cumiingham, in his article " Calvinism and the Doctrine of Philosoph- ical Necessity," in his Reformers and the Theology of the 7?(^o?-mfl/io?!, has incontrovertibly proved that both these opposite opinions, as to the relation of the Calvinistic system of theology to special theories of the freedom of the will, are false; and that neither the theorj' taught by Edwards, nor the theory of self-determination taught by Evangelical Arminians, or any other theory of the will which can be consistently held by Wesleyans, is excluded by the logic of Calvinism.
II. Opposition to Pelagianism. — Pelagians hold that the essence of free-will involves an absolutely uncondi- tioned power of choice between good and evil, and that tills power is inalienable from human nature and essen- tial to responsible agency ; that the moral agencj' of a man at any one moment cannot determine nor limit his moral agency at any other moment, but that he must possess, whatever his conduct, throughout his en- tire existence, full ability to will and to do all that God has any right to require of him ; that moral character, whether good or bad, can be rationally predicated only of acts of the will, and not of any permanent states of the will or of the affections. Hence Pelagians deny — ]. That Adam was created with a holy character ante- cedent to his own morally unbiassed action. 2. They deny that Adam was the representative head of the hu- man race, and that, in consequence of his apostasy, his own nature or that of his posterity became morally de- praved. 3. They deny that man's will is ever morally impotent, or unable to meet all the obligations resting upon him. 4. That the will of sinful man is dependent upon supernatural assistance, or that it can be effectual- ly influenced by such grace without prejudice to its freedom or responsibility. 6. Socinians, the only coiv
WILL, CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE 993 WILL, CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE
sistent Pelagians, hold that ceriainty is absolutely in- consistent with liberty, and that, consequently, God can- not foreknow the future free acts of men, or other con- tingent events.
Calvinists are, of course, prevented by their religious faitli from agreeing with the above positions of tlie Pe- lagians as to the conditions of free agency. They hold that man was created with a positive holy character, yet able to obey or disobey. That man's moral nature has been since the fall totally corrupt, indisposed and disabled to obey God's holy law. That the influence of divine grace, prevenient and co-operative, exercised in regeneration and sanctitication, instead of limiting the liberty of the human will, re-establishes and rein- vigorates it.