Of FREE-WILL: tranflated from SEBASTIAN CASTELLIO'S Dialogues, between Lewis and Frederic.

Will now fhew you what things God wills without any condition, and what conditionally.

Thofe

general Promises are without any condition; The feed of the woman fhall bruife the ferpent's head: All flesh fhall no more be cut off by the waters of a flood: In thy feed fhall the nations of the earth be blaffed. These things are unconditionally promised, and depend upon God alone. But when God promiles, either to individuals or to a people, things which cannot be unless they do their part, he promises with a condition, which if man does not perform, God transfers his promife to another: fo that the promife of God is always true: but it is VOL. V. Bbb

not

not always received by man. He had promised the Ifraelites that he would bring them into Canaan: but because of their difobedience, he transferred the promise to their children. And afterwards, although their's were the covenants and the promifes, yet he rejected them, and received the Gentiles in their ftead: the promise of God remaining firm on his part, though changed on the part of man. And know this, that eternal falvation is promised to no man without a condition. For thus faith the Lord, (Ezek. xxxiii. 13,) When I fay unto the righteous, that he shall furely live, if he trust to his own righteoufnefs, and commit iniquity, all his righteoufnefs fhall not be remembered, but for his iniquity that he hath committed he shall die. This befel Saul, to whom God had promifed a kingdom for ever but he loft it through his disobedience. The fame might have befallen David, who therefore fo earneftly befought God, not to take his Holy Spirit from him. For he well knew, (what St. Paul afterwards taught) They were cut off through unbelief. And unless thou abideft in faith, thou atfo fhalt be cut off. Again, thus faith God, If the wicked will turn from all his fins, and do that which is lawful and right; (and this he may do, feeing God willeth not the death of a finner, but rather that he should turn and live,) he shall not die. You have in Ezekiel, the general fentence. And you have inftances on both fides. When God fays to a man, Thou fhalt live. He defigns he should, he writes his name in the book of life, and the man has reason to rejoice therein. But if he turns back to fin, God fays, I will blot his name out of my book. Again. If God fays to a man, Thou shalt die, he defigns he fhould, and writes his name in the book of death. And the man has reafon to lament, as Hezekiah did. But yet, if he repents in time, he shall live.

To fum up the whole. God created man both with a will, and with liberty. Man by finning loft his liberty, or power of doing good but his will he did not lofe. But as being depraved, he either willed evil, or willed the good which he

could

out any

could not perform. God who is rich in mercy towards all, determined to restore him by his Spirit: and that, in the fame manner wherein he was deftroyed, that as he was ruined by chufing evil, fo he might by chufing good be restored to his former ftate. And this restoration, which began presently after Adam's fin, is perfected by Chrift, who will heal all his fickness. And as through Adam we were born in fin, withfault of our own, (for we could not fin, before we had a being) which fin we afterwards willingly obeyed: fo we are through Chrift, the fecond Adam, born again, without any merit of our own. And through the new nature then given us we may willingly obey, God giving us both the will and the power freely. Thofe who will not obey, perish by their own fault. Indeed a man can no more give himself falvation, than he that is not, can beget himself. But we may destroy ourselves, as he may kill himfelf that is now alive.

Lewis. But pray explain this.

How does God give us both the will and the power freely? Does not this contradict what you faid before? He therefore gives us the power, because otherwife we have no power. But if he gives us the will, does it not follow, that till then we have no will? Whereas a will. How does he then Fred. God does not give a one manner; but he leads

you

faid juft now, that we had supply what we have already? man all things together, nor in them to the end by degrees, and by various means. And in doing this, he does not take away what he has once given, but he adds them to what is wanting.

Take an inftance. Chrift, when he healed the man that was born blind, did not give him new feet, to go to the pool of Siloam. Neither new ears to hear, as he had these already from God. Likewife he did not give him other eyes; but opened the blind eyes which he had. In like manner, when he healed the dumb, he did not give them a new tongue, but loofed that which they had. The fame thing he did with the deaf, not giving them new ears, but enabling those they had

to hear. So when he cured him that had a withered hand, he did not give him another hand, but reftored that which was withered. The fame method he takes in healing the foul. He does not create another foul: but reflores it to his Spirit which had been separated from it by fin, that this Spirit may fo animate the foul, as the foul animates the body. Mean time he does not alter those things which are left entire to the foul: but what is imperfect, he perfects; what is corrupted, he corrects; what is wanting, he fupplies; and thus reflores man to the image of God: accordingly the power of hearing, feeing, fmelling, tafting, feeling, he does not create new, but uses that which is already, and commands man fo to do. Neither does he create another Reafon in man, or fcruple to appeal to the judgment of Reason.

Yet this fhould be obferved, that just as Reafon relieves the weakness of the fenfes, (being as it were, the fense of the fenses) fo the Spirit relieves the weakness of Reason, being as it were the Reafon of Reafon. The eye judges the horse which is afar off, to be as fmall as a crow. But reafon, being taught by experience, judges him to be larger than a man. The eyes looking in a glass, judge there are men, houfes, trees: but reafon judges, there is nothing but fhadows. It is the fame in divine things. They are either too remote or too fine to be difcerned by human reason. The fpirit relieves this infirmity, and judges far otherwife of them than reafon would : though it fill allows reafon to be the judge of those shadowy reprefentation as Reafon itfelf allows the eyes to judge, not of the things themfelves, but of the reprefentations that are feen in the glafs.

We may fay the fame of the Memory. God does not create a new memory in the foul: but it is the fame faculty in him that is born again, as it was before. The fame I fay of the Will. If Chrift found no fuch faculty in a man, which it was his pleasure he should have, he muft neceffarily create a will in him. But as man has awill already, Chrift ufes it. If it is

evil, he makes it good: if he finds any thing good in it already, (as he certainly did in St. Paul, who was zealous for God, though not according to knowledge) he fhews the man, that what he purfues as good, is not fo. And when he has fhewn him what is truly good, he likewife gives him power to attain it.

Certainly therefore, it is God that worketh in men, both to will and to do. For before they knew Chrift, being evil, they did not will good. Or if they willed good in general, yet they did not will Chrift, the true good: as St. Paul before he knew Chrift, though he willed good in general, yet did not will Chrift. Therefore God both wrought in them, to will the true good, and gave them the power to do it. Now whatever good is in man, from nature or from the Father and the Son, it is all the gift of God, who worketh all in all, and is the giver of every good gift.

[To be continued.]

8.

SERMON X.

On GENESIS i. 31.

[Concluded from page 346.]

N the fecond day God encompaffed the terraqueous globe with that noble appendage, the Atmosphere, confifting chiefly of Air, but replete with earthly particles of various kinds, and with huge volumes of water, fometimes invifible, fometimes vifible, buoyed up with that ethereal fire, a particle of which cleaves to every particle of air. By this the water was divided into innumerable drops, which de

scending,