This Section teaches the great fundamental truth of consciousness and revelation, which renders moral government possible ; that man, in virtue of his creation, is endowed with an inalienable faculty of self-determination, the power of acting or not acting, and of acting in the way which the man himself, upon the whole view of the case, desires at the time. There are only three generically different views upon this subject possible :

1st. That which regards the actions of men as caused directly by outward circumstances and occasions, under the same great law of necessity which governs the movements of all material agents.

2d. That affected by the Arminians and others, which regards the will in man, or his bare faculty of volition, as possessing a mysterious f^apacity of self-determination, irrespective of all the judgments of the understanding and the affections of the heart and the entire state of the man's soul at the time.

3d. That which is taught in this Section — namely, that the human soul, including all its instincts, ideas, judp^ments. aft'ections and tendencies, has the power of self-decision ; that is, the soul decides in every case as, upon the whole, it pleases.

That the first-stated view is not true is proved — (1.) From the universal consciousness of men with respect to their OAvn action, and observation of the action of other men. We are all conscious of possessing the power of determining our own action irrespective of any or of all external influences. In every case of deliberate choice we are conscious that we might have chosen the opposite if we had wished to do so, all outward circumstances remaining unchanged. We see that all material substances act only as they are acted upon, and in the same conditions invariably act in the same way. But, on the other hand, we see that our fellow-men, like ourselves, possess, without exception, the power of originating action, and that, if they i)lease, they act very variously under the same circumstances. Circumstances, including the sum total of conditions and relations, control the action of all material agents, while )ersonal agents control circumstances. (2.) The same is proved by the fact that man is held responsible alike by his own conscience and by God for his own action. This evidently could not be the case if his action was caused by circumstances, and not freely by the man Jiimself.

That the second view, which supposes that a man possesses the j)ower to choose without respect to his judgments or inclinations, is not true; and that the ihird view, which sup[)Oses that a man possesses the

inalienable faculty of choosing as upon the whole he judges right or desirable, is true, are proved —

(1.) From the consideration that while we are conscious in every deliberate act of choice that we might have chosen otherwise, all the external conditions being the same, we always feel that our choice was determined by the sum-total of our views, feelings and tendencies at the time. A man freely choos£§wiiaLJj£-Jfl^xlts^to choogg. He would not choose freely if he chose in any other way. But his desire in the premises is determined by his whole intellectual and emotional state at the^time.

(2.) It is plain that if the human will decided in any given case in opposition to all the views of the reasoja and all the desires of the heart, however free the will might be, the man would be a most pitiful slave to a mere irrational and immoral power of willing.

(3.) All men judge that the rational and. m,Qral character of any act results from the purpose or desire^ the internal statQ of mind or heart, which prom})ted the act. If the man wills in any given case in opposition to all his judgments and to all his inclinations of every kind, his act in that case would obviously be neither rational nor moral, and the man himself, in respect to that act, would be neither free nor responsible.

(4.) If the human soul had the power to ac^t thus irrespective of its entire interior intellectual ami emotional condition at the time, su(.'h action could neither be foreseen nor controlled by God, nor influenced by men, and such exercise of volitional power would be absolutely fortuitous. It would sustain no certain relation to the character of the agent. Christ taught, in opposition to

19*

this, that human action is determined by the character of the agent as certainly as the nature of the fruit is determined by the nature of the tree from which it springs ; and that the only way to change the character of the action is to change the pc. manent character or moral tendency and habit of tlic heart of the agent. Matt. vii. 16-20; xii. 33-35.

The human will is not a distinct agent, but only a power of tlie rational soul. It is essential to a soul to have a moral * Adam Gib on Liberty and Necessity ; Contemplations, p. 484.

dlsjMsition, good or bad, or a mixture of both ; and, according to what is the prevailing moral disposition of the soul, must be the moral actings of the will. Hence there is a great diflPerence in regard to the freedom of the will in the different states of man. In the state of innocence, the natural inclination of man's will was only to good ; but it was liable to change through the power of temptation, and therefore free to choose evil. In his natural cornipt state, man freely chooses evil, without any compulsion or constraint on his will ; and he cannot do otherwise, being under the bondage of sin. In the state of grace, he has a free will partly to good and partly to evil. In this state there is a mixture of two opposite moral dispositions, and as sometimes the one, and sometimes the other, prevails, so the will sometimes chooses that which is good, and sometimes that which is evil. In the state of glory, the blessed freely choose what is good ; and, being confirmed in a state of perfect holiness, they can only will what is good.

The important truth laid down in the third section concerning man's inability, in his fallen state, to will or do that which is spiritually good, claims some further notice. It has been opposed by various sects. The Pelagians maintained " that mankind are capable of repentance and amendment, and of arriving to the highest degrees of piety and virtue by the use of their natural faculties and powers." The SemiPelagians, though they allowed that assisting grace is necessary to enable a man to continui in a course of religious duties, yet they held " that inward preventing grace was not necessary to form in the soul the first beginnings of true repentance and amendment ; that every man was capable of producing these by the mere power of his natural faculties ; as also of exercising faith in Christ, and forming the purposes of a holy and sincere obedience." * The Arminians, in words, ascribe the conversion of the sinner to the grace of God ; yet they ultimately resolve it into the free-will of man. In opposition to these various forms of error, our Confession asserts that man, in his natural cornipt state, " has lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation," and that " a natural man is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto." This may be confirmed, — 1. By the representations given in Scripture of the natural condition of mankind sinners. They are said to be " dead in trespasses and sins ;" to be not only blind, but " darkness" itself ; to be " the servants of sin ;" to be " enemies of God," who are not, and cannot be, subject to his law. — * Mosheim, cent, v., p. 2, ch. 5.

118 CONFESSION OF FAITH. []ciIAP. X.

Eph. ii. 1, V. 8 ; Rom. vi. 17 ; Col. i. 21 ; Roin. viii. 7. 2. The Scripture contains explicit declarations of man's inability to exercise faith in Christ, or to do anything spiritually good — John vi. 44, xv. 5. 3. God claims the conversion of sinners as his own work, which he promises to accomplish. — Ezek. xi. 19, 20, xxxvi. 26, 27; Jer. xxxi. 33, 4. The conversion of sinners is uniformly ascribed to the efficacy of divine grace. — Acts xvi. 14 ; 1 Thess. i. 5. 5. The conversion of the soul is described in Scripture by such figurative terms as imply that it is a divine work. It is called a creation, — Eph. ii. 10; a resurrection, — John v. 21; a new birth, — John i. 13. 6. If the sinner could convert himself, then he would have something of which he might boast — something which he

had not received 1 Cor. i. 29, 30, iv. 7. 7. The increase

of Chiistians in faith and holiness is spoken of as the work of God ; which must more strongly imply that the fii'st beginnings of it is to be ascribed to hira. — Phil. i. 6, ii. 13; Heb. xiii. 20, 21. We only add, that man's incapacity of willing or doing that which is spiritually good, being a moral inability^ is not inconsistent with his responsibility.