its operations ; just as in the natural world God gives sight to the blind, and then light bv which to see, and objects to be seen, and guides and sustains all the exei"i;ises of the power of vision wliich He has bestowed. (3.) That the nature of the influence by which regeneration, which must precede all holy exercises, is produced, prechules the possibility of preparation or cooperation on tlie part of the sinner. Some effects are produced by natural causes, others by the simple volition or immediate efficiency of God. To this latter class belong creation, miracles, and regenerati(m. (4.) Hence the effect produced is called a new creature, a resurrection, a new birth. These representations are designed to teach the utter impo- tence and entire dependence of the sinner. Salvation is not of him that wills nor of him who runs, but of God Avho showeth mercy, and who works in us to will and to do according to his own good pleasure. These are all points to be more fully discussed hert^after. It is enough in this argument to say that the doctrines of the Bible concerning the absolute necessity of grace, or the supernatural influence of the Spirit, and of the nature and effects of that influ- ence, ai-e entirely inconsistent with the doctrine that the sinner is able of himself to ])erforui any holy act.
The Argument from Experience.
5. This is a practical question. What a man is able to do is best determined not by a priori reasoning, or by logical deductions from the nature of his faculties, but by putting his ability to the test. The thing to be done is to turn from sin to holiness ; to love God perfectly and our neighbour as ourselves ; to perform every duty without defect or omission, and keep ourselves from all sin of thought, word, or deed, of heart or life. Can any man do this ? Does any man need argument to convince him that he cannot do it? He knows two things as clearly and as surely as he knows his own existence : first, that he is bound to be morally perfect, to keep all God's commands, to have all right feelings in constant exercise as the occasion calls for them, and to avoid all sin in feeling as well as in act ; and, secondly, that he can no more do this than he can raise the dead. The metaphysician may endeavour to prove to the people that there is no external world, that matter is thought; and the metaphysician may believe it, but the people, whose faith is determined by the instincts and divinely constituted laws of their nature, will retain their own intuitive convictions. In like manner the metaphysical theologian may tell sinners that they can regen- erate themselves, can repent and believe, and love God perfectly,
272 PART II. ch. vni. — sin.
and the theologian may, by a fiojure of speech, be said to believe it; but the poor sinners know that it is not true. They have tried a thousand times, and would give a thousand worlds could they accompHsh the work, and make themselves saints and heirs of glory by a volition, or by tiie exercise of their own powers, whether transient or protracted.
It is universally admitted, because a universal fact of conscious- ness, that tlie feelings and affections are not under the control of the will. No man can love what is hateful to him, or hate what he delights in, by any exercise of his self-determining power. Hence the [ihilosophers, with Kant, pronounce the command to love, an absurdity, as sceptics declare the command to believe, absurd. But the foolishness of men is the wisdom of God. It is riglit that we should be required to love God and believe his Word, whether the exercise of love and faith be under the control of our will or not. The only way by which this argument from the common conscious- ness of men can be evaded, is by denying that feeling has any moral character ; or by assuming that the demands of the law are accommodated to the ability of the agent. If he cannot love holiness, he is not bound to love it. If he cannot believe all the gospel, he is required to believe only what he can believe, what he can see to be true in the light of his own reason. Both tliese assumptions, however, are contrary to the intuitive convictions of all men, and to the express declarations of the Word of God. All men know tliat moral character attaches to feelings as well as to purposes or volitions ; that benevolence as a feeling is right and malice as a feeling is wrong. They know with equal certainty that the demands of right are immutable, that the law of God cannot lower itself to the measure of the power of fallen creatures. It demands of them nothing that exceeds the limitations of their nature as creatures; but it does require the full and constant, and therefore perfect, exercise of those powers in the service of God and in accord- ance with his will. And this is precisely what every fallen rational human being is fully persuaded he cannot do. The conviction of inability, therefore, is as universal and as indestructible as the belief of existence, and all the sophisms of metaphysical theologians are as impotent as the subtleties of the idealist or pantheist. Any man or set of men, any system of philosophy or of theology which attempts to stem the great stream of human consciousness is certain to he swept down into the abyss of oblivion or destruction.