tlie convictions of conscience or the precepts of the moral law. That a man is in such a state that he uniformly prefers and chooses evil instead of good, as do the fallen angels, is no more inconsistent with his free mural agency than his being in such a state as that he pre- fers and chooses good with the same uniformity that the holy angels do.
Inability not mere Disinclination.
3. The inability of sinners, according to the above statement of the doctrine, is not mere disinclination or aversion to what is good. This disinclination exists, but it is not the ultimate fact. There must be some cause or reason for it. As God and Christ are infinitely lovely, the fact that sinners do not love them is not accounted for by saying that they are not inclined to delight in infinite excellence. That is only stating the same thing in different words. If a man does not perceive the beauty of a work of art, or of a Hteraiy production, it is no solution of the fact to say that he has no inclination for such forms of beauty. Why is it that what is beautiful m itself, and in the judgment of all competent judges, is without form or comeliness in his eyes ? Why is it that the supreme excellence of God, and all that makes Christ the chief among ten thousand and the one altogether lovely in the sight of saints and angels, awaken no corresponding feelings in the unre- newed heart? The inability of the sinner, therefore, neither con- sists in his disinclination to good nor does it arise exclusively from that source.
It Arises from the Want of Spiritual Discernment.
4. According to the Scriptures and to the standards of doctrine aK)ve quoted, it consists in the want of power rightly to discern spiritual things, and the consequent want of all right affections to- ward them. And this want of power of spiritual discernment arises from the corruption of our whole nature, by which the reason or understanding is blinded, and the taste and feelings are perverted. And as this state of mind is innate, as it is a state or condition of our nature, it lies below the will, and is beyond its power, controlling both our affections and our volitions. It is indeed a familiar fact of experience that a man's judgments as to what is true or false, right or wrong, are in many cases determined by his interests or feelings. Some have, in their philosophy, generalized this fact into a law, and teach that as to all aesthetic and moral subjects the judgments and apprehensions of the understanding are determined by the state of the feelings. In applying this law to the matters
262 PART II. Ch. VIII. — Sm.
of religion they insist that the affections only are the subject of moral corruption, and that if these be purified or renewed, the understanding then apprehends and judges rightly as a matter of course. It would be easy to show that this, as a philosophical theory, is altogether unsatisfactory. The affections suppose an object. They can be excited only in view of an object. If we love we must love something. Love is complacency and delight in the thing loved, and of necessity supposes the apprehension of it as good and desirable. It is cleai'ly impossible that we should love God unless we apprehend his nature and perfections ; and therefore to call love into exercise it is necessary that the mind should appre- hend God as He really is. Otherwise the affection would be neither rational nor holy. This, however, is of subordinate moment. The philosopli}^ of one man has no authority for other men. It is only the philosophy of the Bible, that which is assumed or presupposed in the doctrinal statements of the Word of God, to which we are called upon unhesitatingly to submit. Everywhere in the Scriptures it is asserted or assumed that the feelings follow the understanding ; that the illumination of the mind in the due apprehension of spiritual objects is the necessary preliminary condition of all right feeling and conduct. We must know God in order to love Him. This is distinctly asserted by the Apostle in 1 Cor. ii. 14. He there says, (1.) That the natural or unrenewed man does not receive the things of the Spirit. (2.) The reason why he does not receive them is declared to be that they are foolishness unto him, or that he cannot know them. (3.) And the reason why he cannot know them is that they are spiritually discerned. It is ignorance, the want of discernment of the beauty, excellence, and suitableness of the things of the Spirit (^i. e., of the truths which the Spirit has revealed), that is the reason or cause of unbelief. So also in Eph. iv. 18, he says, The heathen (unconverted men) are " alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance that is in them." Hence his frequent prayers for the illumination of his readers ; and the su])|)lication of the Psalmist that his eyes might be o[)ened. Hence, also, true conversion is said to be effected by a revelation. Paul was instantaneously changed from a persecutor to a worshipper of Christ, when it pleased God to reveal his Son in him. Those who perish are lost because the god of this world has blinded their eyes so that they fail to see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. It is in accordance with this principle that knowledge is essential to holiness, that true religion and life everlasting are said to consist in the knowledge of God (John xvii. 3) ; and that men are said to be