LECTURE XLIX.

GRACIOUS ABILITY.

I. I WILL SHOW WHAT THOSE WHO USE THIS PHRASEOLOGY MEAN BY A GRACIOUS ABILITY.

II. THAT THE DOCTRINE OF A GRACIOUS ABILITY AS HELD BY THOSE WHO MAINTAIN IT IS AN ABSURDITY.

III. IN WHAT SENSE OF THE TERMS A GRACIOUS ABILITY

IS POSSIBLE.

Grace is unmerited favor. Its exercise consists in bestowing that which without a violation of justice might be withholden.

Ability to obey God, as we have seen, is the possession of power adequate to the performance of that which is required. If, then, the terms are used in the proper sense, by a gracious ability must be intended that the power which men at present possess to obey the commands of God, is a gift of grace relatively to the command; that is, the bestowment of power adequate to the performance of the thing required, is a matter of grace as opposed to justice. But let us enter upon an inquiry into the sense in which this language is used.

İ. I WILL SHOW WHAT IS INTENDED BY THE TERM GRACIOUS ABILITY.

1. The abettors of this scheme hold that by the first sin of Adam, he, together with all his posterity, lost all natural power and all ability of every kind to obey God; that therefore they were, as a race, wholly unable to obey the moral law, or to render to God any acceptable service whatever; that is, that they became as a consequence of the sin of Adam, wholly unable to use the powers of nature in any other way than to sin. They were able to sin or to disobey God, but entirely unable to obey him; that they did not lose all power to act, but that they had power to act only in one direction, that is, in opposition to the will and law of God. By a gracious ability they intend, that in consequence of the atonement of Christ, God has graciously restored to man ability to accept the terms of mercy, or to fulfil the conditions of acceptance with God-in other words, that by the gracious aid

of the Holy Spirit which, upon condition of the atonement, God has given to every member of the human family, all men are endowed with a gracious ability to obey God. By a gracious ability is intended, then, that ability or power to obey God, which all men now possess, not by virtue of their own nature or constitutional powers, but by virtue of the indwelling and gracious influence of the Holy Spirit, gratuitously bestowed upon man, in consequence and upon condition of the atonement of Christ. The inability or total loss of natural and of all power to obey God into which men as a race fell by the first sin of Adam, they call original sin, &c., perhaps more strictly, this inability is a consequence of that original sin into which man fell; which original sin itself consisted in the total corruption of man's whole nature. They hold that by the atonement Christ made satisfaction for original sin in such a sense that the inability resulting from it is removed, and that now men are by gracious aid able to obey and accept the terms of salvation. That is, they are able to repent and believe the gospel. In short they are able by virtue of this gracious ability to do their duty or to obey God. This, if I understand these theologians, is a fair statement of their doctrine of gracious ability. This brings us,

II. TO SHOW THAT THE DOCTRINE OF A GRACIOUS ABIL ITY AS HELD BY THOSE WHO MAINTAIN IT, IS AN ABSURDITY.

The question is not whether as a matter of fact men ever do obey God without the gracious influence of the Holy Spirit. I hold that they do not. So the fact of the Holy Spirit's gracious influence being exerted in every case of human obedience, is not a question in debate between those who maintain and those who deny the doctrine of gracious ability in the sense above explained. The question in debate is not whether men do, in any case, use the powers of nature in the manner that God requires without the gracious influence of the Holy Spirit, but whether they are naturally able so to use them. Is the fact that they never do so use them without a divine gracious influence to be ascribed to absolute inability, or to the fact that from the beginning they universally and voluntarily consecrate their powers to the gratification of self, and that, therefore they will not, unless they are divinely persuaded, by the gracious influence of the Holy Spirit, in any case, turn and consecrate their powers to the service of God? If this doctrine of natural inability and of gracious ability be true, it inevitably follows:

1. That but for the atonement of Christ, and the consequent bestowment of a gracious ability, no one of Adam's race could ever have been capable of sinning. For in this case the whole race would have been and remained wholly destitute of any kind or degree of ability to obey God. Consequently they could not have been subjects of moral government, and of course their actions could have had no moral character. It is a first-truth of reason, a truth every where and by all men necessarily assumed in their practical judgments, that a subject of moral government must be a moral agent, or that moral agency is a necessary condition of any one's being a subject of moral government. And in the practical judgment of men, it matters not at all whether a being ever was a moral agent, or not. If by any means whatever he has ceased to be a moral agent, men universally and necessarily assume that it is impossible for him to be a subject of moral government any more than a horse can be such a subject. Suppose he has by his own fault made himself an idiot or a lunatic; all men know absolutely and in their practical judgment assume, that in this state he is not, and can not be a subject of moral government. They know that in this state, moral character can not justly be predicated of his actions. His guilt in thus depriving himself of moral agency may be exceeding great, and, as was said on a former occasion, his guilt in thus depriving himself of moral agency may equal the sum of all the default of which it is the cause, but be a moral agent, be under moral obligation in this state of dementation or insanity, he can not. This is a first-truth of reason, irresistibly and universally assumed by all men. If, therefore, Adam's posterity had by their own personal act cast away and deprived themselves of all ability to obey God, in this state they would have ceased to be moral agents, and consequently they could have sinned no more. But the case under consideration is not the one just supposed, but is one where moral agency was not cast away by the agent himself. It is one where moral agency was never and never could have been possessed. In the case under consideration, Adam's posterity, had he ever had any, would never have possessed any power to obey God or to do any thing acceptable to him. Consequently they never could have sustained to God the relation of subjects of his moral government. Of course they never could have had moral character; right or wrong, in a moral sense, never could have been predicated of their actions.

2. It must follow from this doctrine of natural inability that mankind lost their freedom or the liberty of the human will in the first sin of Adam; that both Adam himself, and all his posterity would and could have sustained to God only the relation of necessary as opposed to free agents, had not God bestowed upon them a gracious ability.

We have seen in a former lecture that natural ability to obey God and the freedom or liberty of will are identical. We have abundantly seen that moral law and moral obligation respect strictly, only acts of will; that hence, all obedience to God consists strictly in acts of will; that power to will in conformity with the requirements of God, is natural ability to obey him; that freedom or liberty of will consists in the power or ability to will in conformity or disconformity to the will or law of God; that, therefore, freedom or liberty of will and natural ability to obey God are identical. Thus we see that if man lost his natural ability to obey God in the first sin of Adam, he lost the freedom of his will, and thenceforth must forever have remained a necessary agent but for the gracious re-bestowment of ability or freedom of will.

But that either Adam or his posterity lost their freedom or free agency by the first sin of Adam, is not only a sheer, but an absurd assumption. To be sure Adam fell into a state of total alienation from the law of God, and lapsed into a state of supreme selfishness. His posterity have unanimously fol lowed his example. He and they have become dead in trespasses and sins. Now that this death in sin either consists in or implies the loss of free agency, is the very thing to be proved by them. But this can not be proved. I have so fully discussed the subject of human moral depravity or sinfulness on a former occasion as to render it unnecessary to enlarge upon this subject here.

3. Again, if it be true, as these theologians affirm, that men have only a gracious ability to obey God and that this gracious ability consists in the presence and gracious agency of the Holy Spirit, it follows that when the Holy Spirit is withdrawn from man, he is no longer a free agent, and from that moment he is incapable of moral action, and of course can sin no more. Hence should he live any number of years af ter this withdrawal, neither sin nor holiness, virtue nor vice, praise nor blame worthiness could be predicated of his conduct. The same will and must be true of all his future eternity.

4. If the doctrine in question be true, it follows that from the moment of the withdrawal of the gracious influence of

the Holy Spirit, man is no longer a subject of moral obligation. It is from that moment absurd and abusive to require the performance of any duty of him. Nay to conceive of him as being any longer a subject of duty; to think or speak of duty as belonging to him, is as absurd as to think or speak of the duty of a mere machine. He has, from the moment of the withholding of a gracious ability, ceased to be a free and become a necessary agent, having power to act but in one direction. Such a being can by no possibility be capable of sin or holiness. Suppose he still possesses power to act contrary to the letter of the law of God: what then? This action can have no moral character, because, act in some way he must, and he can act in no other way. It is nonsense to affirm that such action can be sinful in the sense of blameworthy. To affirm that it can, is to contradict a first-truth of reason. Sinners, then, who have quenched the Holy Spirit, and from whom He is wholly withdrawn, are no longer to be blamed for their enmity against God, and for all their opposition to him. They are, according to this doctrine, as free from blame as are the motions of a mere machine.

5. Again, if the doctrine in question be true, there is no reason to believe that the angels that fell from their allegiance to God ever sinned but once. If Adam lost his free agency by the fall, or by his first sin, there can be no doubt that the angels did so too. If a gracious ability had not been bestowed upon Adam, it is certain, according to the doctrine in question, that he never could have been the subject of moral obligation from the moment of his first sin, and consequently could never again have sinned. The same must be true of devils. If by their first sin they fell into the condition of necessary agents, having lost their free agency, they have never sinned since. That is, moral character can not have been predicable of their conduct since that event, unless a gracious ability has been bestowed upon them. That this has been done cannot with even a show of reason be pretended. The devils, then, according to this doctrine, are not now to blame for all they do to oppose God and to ruin souls. Upon the supposition in question, they cannot help it, and you might as well blame the winds and the waves for the evil which they sometimes do, as blame Satan for what he does.

6. If this doctrine be true, there is not and never will be any. sin in hell, for the plain reason that there are no moral agents there. They are necessary agents, unless it be true that the Holy Spirit and a gracious ability be continued there. This is