C74 PART n. Ch. vm. — sm.
of the Church so also it is the testimony of all history. The world furnishes no example of a self-regenerated man. No such man exists or ever has existed ; and no man ever believed himself to he regenerated by his own power. If what men can do is to be determined by what men have done, it may safely be assumed tliat no man can change his own heart, or bring himself to repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. An abihty which has never in the thousands of millions of our race accomplished the desired end, even if it existed, would not be worth contending for. There is scarcely a single doctrine of the Scriptures either more clearly taught or more abundantly confirmed by the common con- sciousness of men, whether saints or sinners, than the doctrine that fallen man is destitute of all ability to convert himself or to perform any lioly act until renewed by the almighty power of the Spirit of^God.
Ohjections.
1. The most obvious and plausible objection to this doctrine is the old one so often considered already, namely, that it is incon- sistent with moral obligation. A man, it is said, cannot be justly required to do any thing for which he has not the requisite ability. The fallacy of this objection lies in the application of this principle. It is self-evidently true in one spiiere, but utterly untrue in another. It is true that the blind cannot justly be required to see, or the deaf to hear. A child cannot be required to understand the calcu- lus, or an uneducated man to read the classics. These things be- long to tlie sphere of nature. The inability which thus limits obli- gation ai'ises out of the limitations which God has imposed on our nature. The principle in question does not apply in the sphere of morals and religion, when the inability arises not out of the limita- tion, but out of the moral corruption of our nature. Even in the sj)here of religion there is a bound set to obligation by the capacity of the agent. An infant cannot be expected or required to have the measure of holy affections which fills the souls of the just made perfect. It is only when inability arises from sin and is removed by the removal of sin, that it is consistent with continued obliga- tion. And as it has been shown from Scripture that the inability of the sinner to repent and believe,- to love God and to lead a holy life, does not arise from the limitation of his nature as a creature (as is the case with idiots or brutes) ; nor from the want of the requisite faculties or cajiacitv, but simply from the corruption of our natnre, it follows that it does not exonerate him from the obli- gation to be and to do all that God requires. This, as shown al)ove,