Pray, when you drink wine, do you drink it willingly, or unwillingly? Lewis. Willingly. Fred. Are you compelled thereto, or not? Lewis. I am not. I feel a temptation from pleafure; yet I can drink or let it alone. Fred. You have then a Free will, and power to drink or not. Lewis. I have, if I may judge from what I feel. Fred. You certainly may. But when afterwards your head aches, do you chuse it fhould? Lewis. No indeed. Fred. You chufe then that it fhould not ache, but you cannot help it. Lewis. So it is. Fred. You have then the will to help it, but not the power. Lewis. True. Fred. Therefore you feel your Will is free, both in things that are, and things that are not in your own. power. Lewis. I do feel it. Fred. Certainly you do; for what is fo free as the Will? What is fo good or fo evil, fo hard or fo eafy, which you may not will? Let us make the experiment. Here I am. I fay, my will is free. Bid me rife; I rife: bid me ftand; I ftand: bid me fpeak; I fpeak: bid me be filent; I am fo. And all these things, I will do, not only at my own choice, but at yours alfo. Again, bid me rife; I will not rife: bid me ftand; I will not ftand: bid me be filent; I will fpeak. All these things are at my own choice. But this liberty I have, not from myfelf, but from God who created me thus. I will fay more. Bid me do what I cannot do. I anfwer, I am willing to do it, but am not able. Yet my Will herein is abfolutely free: I can will this way or that way: I can chufe black or white, hot or cold, which I could not do, unless my Will were free. Otherwife I could not will what I pleafed of two contraries, but one of the two only; as a heavy body cannot move upward or downward, but must move downward. Let any fhew me if they can, that Adam before he finned, yea or Chrift himfelf, (whom furely none can deny to have had Free-will,) could have had a greater Freedom than this. Lewis. But perhaps fome will fay, Still your Will is not free for your Understanding is moved by Duty, Profit, or Pleasure, and one or other of thefe draw your Will to itself; and it cannot be otherwife. Fred. This is only fhewing the motive, not the fervitude of the will: for motives do not force, or lay us under a neceffity. When good men ferve. God, they have motives to it; yet their Will is then moft free. Otherwife Chrift himself had not been free. For he was moved by feveral caufes to ferve the Father. He was moved by compaffion to heal the fick: yet he was free in the highest degree. Lewis. They confefs, the Will of man is free in things indifferent, but deny it to be free to any thing good. For it can And he will nothing but evil: feeing all men are finners. that committeth fin is the fervant of fin. Fred. Likewife he that worketh righteousness is the fervant of righteoufnefs. Is he therefore enslaved to it? Nothing lefs: if we allow the will of Chrift to have been free, who certainly was a servant of righteoufnefs. Your footman, Lewis, ferves you. But is his Will therefore enflaved? Yea, it is his Will, which commands him to ferve you. So that the will even of a fervant is free, whether he chufes to serve you always, or to change his master. So he that ferves fin ferves it freely, whether he chufes to ferve it always, or to change his mafter. But if his will is enslaved, because he wills only fin, You must fay, God's will is enflaved, because he wills only righteoufnefs. All this I have faid on fuppofition that all men can by nature will nothing but evil. But even if it were fo, their Will would be no more enflaved, than if they could will nothing but good. But I cannot allow, that men can will nothing but evil. There are two things which invite men to know and then love God. One is, the vifible work of God, wherein his invifible things are feen, even his eternal Power and Godhead. The other is, the Law of God, that is, whatever is contained in the Law of Mofes, the Prophets, and the Gofpel. For the fum of both the Law and the Gospel is, To love God with all our heart, and our neighbour as ourfelves. Now not only the Scripture, but the very frame of nature (by the preventing grace which is given to every man) invites those who have not the Scripture, to reverence God, and love their neighbour. To fhew this by clear examples. I fuppofe you will allow, that among those who are without the law there are two kinds of men; fome good and others bad. Take Camillus and Catiline. By what name fhall we diftinguish these? Or will you call them both alike, wicked men? Lewis. Į dare not; there was a wide difference between them, Fred. What difference? Lewis. Catiline was of an evil difpofition, fond of murder, rapine, and civil discord from his youth. In Camillus were juft the contrary tempers. Fred. But what is contrary to evil is good. Therefore Camillus willed that which is good: for certainly it is good to will peace, and to abhor murder, rapine, and difcord. Lewis. But our friends anfwer, He was a natural man, and therefore nothing in him was good, Fred. If fo, let us place him in the fame rank with Catiline, and afcribe the fame vices to him, and say that all natural men, as well as him, are villains, traitors, hypocrites, guilty of all vices, and that there is no difference at all between the Catilines, and the Camillus'. Lewis. Nay, the difference is great and undeniable. Fred. Then we must say, that Camillus, though a natural man, yet willed that which is good. I fay Willed: although I allow, his power was small. And yet he performed more good than Catiline did; Catiline himself being the judge. But let us come to Scripture-examples. Abimelech faid to God, who threatened him for taking Sarah, (Gen. xx. 5,) In the integrity of my heart, and innocency of my hands have I done this. And God accepts of the plea. He afterwards expoftulates with Ifaac, because he had called his wife Rebeckah his fifter, (Gen. xxvi. 10.) One of the people might lightly have lien with thy wife, and thou wouldeft have brought guiltine's guilliness upon us. See, how he abhors adultery! And if he thus abhorred evil, he certainly had a Will to good. What fhall we fay of the Queen of Sheba, who came fo far, to hear the wisdom of Solomon? Shall we fay, that fhe willed nothing but evil, when our Lord himfelf commends her defire of inftruction? But the plainest place of all is that of the Apostle, (Rom. ii. 14, 15,) When the Gentiles who have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, thefe not having the law are a law unto themselves, who shew the work of the law written in their hearts. Now I pray could they do the things contained in the law, if they could will nothing but evil? When they praise virtue, and blame and punish vice, do not they shew a will to good, and an averfion to evil? Otherwife they would praise vice, and blame and punish virtue. What shall we say of Cornelius the Centurion, who before he was a Chriftian worshipped God and prayed, fo that his prayers and his alms came up for a memorial before God. We must not therefore fay, that men till they are converted will nothing but evil. From these Reasons and Examples I think it evident, that man has a Will, flexible either way, fo that he may will either good or evil, and that not from himself, but from God his Creator. Having now fhewn, what man can will by virtue of the nature which God has given him, it remains to fhew, what he actually does will. Now I allow, moft men will evil; but a few (as we have fhewn) will good. And even those who now will evil, need not continue fo to do. As no wild olive-tree is so bad, but it may be amended by being ingrafted into a good olive, fo no man is so bad, but he may become good, by being grafted into Chrift, [To be continued.] SERMON **** ******** SERMO O N IX. On GENESIS iii. 19. [Concluded from page 236.] 3. AND How admirably well has the wife Creator, fecured the execution of this fentence on all the offspring of Adam! It is true, He was pleafed to make one exception, from this general rule, in a very early age of the world, in favour of an eminently righteous man. So we read (Gen. v. 23, 24,) After Enoch had walked with God, three hundred, fixty and five years, he was not; for God took him. He exempted him from the fentence paffed upon all flesh, and took him alive into heaven. Many ages after he was pleafed to make a fecond exception; ordering the prophet Elijah to be taken up into heaven, in a chariot of fire very probably by a convoy of Angels, affuming that appearance. And it is not unlikely, that he saw good to make a third exception, in the perfon of the beloved Difciple. There is tranfmitted to us a particular account of the Apofle John's old age. But we have not any account of his death, and not the leaft intimation concerning it. Hence we may reasonably fuppofe, that he did not die, but that after he had finifhed his courfe, and walked with God for about a hundred years, the Lord took him as he did Enoch: not in fo open and confpicuous a manner, as he did the prophet Elijah. 4. But fetting thefe rare inflances afide, who has been able in the course of near fix thoufand years, to evade the execution of this fentence, paffed on Adam and all his pofterity? Be men ever fo great Masters of the Art of Healing, can they prevent or heal the gradual decays of nature? Can all their boafted |