Scripture man's lost condition, and the imperfection of his best works, in forcible language. But the style is popular, and does not enter into theological distinctions.

cry of

Let the

We are

There is also a striking passage in Hooker's 'Discourse of Justification' (sec. 7). It does not speak expressly of the sinfulness of concupiscence, but, if it be not sin, the language has no force and the ideas are not true: If our hands did never offer violence to our brethren, a bloody thought doth prove us murderers before Him: if we had never opened our mouth to utter any scandalous, offensive, or hurtful word, the our secret cogitations is heard in the ears of God. holiest and best things which we do be considered. never better affected to God than when we pray; yet, when we pray, how are our affections many times distracted! How little reverence do we show unto the grand majesty of God, unto whom we speak! How little remorse of our own miseries! How little taste of the sweet influences of His tender mercies do we feel! ... The best things which we do have somewhat in them to be pardoned. How, then, can we do anything meritorious or worthy to be rewarded?... We see how far we are from the perfect righteousness of the law; the little fruit which we have in holiness, it is, God knoweth, corrupt and unsound; we put no confidence at all in it, we challenge nothing in the world for it, we dare not call God to reckoning as if we had Him in our debt-books; our continual suit to Him is, and must be, to bear with our infirmities and pardon our offences.'

1. The Latin text, as compared with the English, presents no peculiarity requiring special comment.

2. The student will have noticed that the word Adam is Latinized-either thus, Adamus, Adami, as in Article IX.; or Adam, Adæ, as in this Article.

3. The ninth Article of 1552, 'of free will,' consisted of the latter half only of the present tenth Article. The opening clause was added in 1562, and is thought to have been derived from the Wurtemberg Confession of 1552, and the latter clause from Augustine 'De Gratia' (Hardwick, chap. vi.). In the Articles of 1552 this Article was followed by another, dealing with the same subject, which is here subjoined:

'Of Grace.

"The grace of Christ, or the Holy Ghost by Him given, doth take away the stony heart and giveth a heart of flesh. And although those that have no will to good things He maketh them to will, and those that would evil things He maketh them not to will the same; yet, nevertheless, He enforceth not the will. And, therefore, no man when he sinneth can excuse himself, as not worthy to be blamed or condemned, by alleging that he sinned unwillingly or by compulsion.'

The fatalist views held by some of the Anabaptists were, no doubt, the object at which that Article of 1552 was aimed. The Anabaptist excesses were less formidable ten years later; moreover, the doctrine of irresistible grace maintained by many of the Elizabethan divines probably rendered it desirable to strike out the Article in question.

THE PRINCIPAL TOPICS OF ARTICLE X.

1. Fallen man cannot of himself turn to God.

2. The prevenient or preventing grace of God is needful before our works can please God.

3. This prevenient grace gives us the good will.'

4. The cooperating grace is needful after the good will has been received.

The scriptural proof of this Article should be grouped round these main propositions.

OBSERVATIONS ON ARTICLE X.

The question of the Freedom of Man's Will is involved in philosophical as well as theological difficulties. All philosophical schools of thought-pre-Christian, Christian, and unbelieving-have discussed the various branches of this question. They have debated how far man is a voluntary agent, or the slave of circumstances, or in bondage to his own natural propensities, or the creature of the education to which he has been subjected.

Hence the difficulties belonging to the subject must not be deemed as peculiarly affecting its religious aspect. Whether the Christian solution be accepted or not, no thoughtful man can charge the difficulties on Christianity.

The limits of man's free will were debated before Christianity existed, and are now discussed outside its pale.

Hence also the history of the doctrine is too voluminous for our purpose.

The earlier Fathers, especially in their apologetic works, frequently touched on this doctrine. Their main object in such passages was to vindicate the holiness of God, lest He should be made the author of sin; or to repudiate the fatalism of most heathen systems, in order to uphold man's responsibility. They therefore frequently asserted the free will of man, but without discussing its limits or its relation to the doctrines of grace.

The Pelagian controversy first brought out all the points at issue between Christians on this subject into prominent relief. Pelagius, holding that each man was born untainted by Adam's fall, consistently maintained that he could rise to God by his own efforts.

The semi-Pelagians held that man was fallen and needed coöperating grace, but they did not teach the absolute necessity of prevenient grace for turning to God.

Augustine wrote at much length on all points of this controversy, in close accordance with the terms of our present Article. One of his treatises is entitled 'De libero arbitrio.'

The schoolmen discussed this doctrine, Thomas Aquinas taking the Augustinian view, Duns Scotus approximating rather to semi-Pelagianism.

In the age of the Reformation the question of free will was much debated. All orthodox branches of the Reformation were at first strongly attached to Augustine's doctrines, rejected the notion of the freedom of the will, and denied coöperation on the part of man in the work of conversion.1

The Council of Trent, in this as in other doctrines, For authorities on this point see Hagenbach's Hist. of Doctrines,' § 248.

endeavoured to mediate between Scotists and Thomists, Franciscans and Dominicans. It enacted the following canon (Session VI. canon 4):

6

Whosoever shall say that the free will of man, moved and excited by God, does not at all coöperate with God when exciting and calling, that thus he may dispose and prepare himself for obtaining the grace of justification, and that he cannot dissent though he wills it, but, like something inanimate, does nothing at all, and holds himself merely passive, let him be anathema.'

Also (Session VI. canon 5): 'Whosoever shall say that the free will of man was lost and extinguished after Adam's sin, or that it is a thing of name merely, or a name without a thing, in short, a figment introduced into the Church by Satan, let him be anathema.'

Since the Reformation, the Augustinian views have been for the most part discouraged in the Church of Rome. The dominant Jesuit theology has been of a semi-Pelagian cast. In the Reformed Churches, whenever the great predestinarian controversy has been revived, the question of man's free will, of which it is a part, has necessarily been prominent. It was so in the seventeenth century, when the Puritans, who were usually strong predestinarians, frequently called their opponents free-willers as a term of reproach.

Having glanced at the historical aspect of the questions at issue in this Article, we turn to more explanatory matter. We have to deal with metaphysical ideas the will and its liberty. We have happily some admirably clear comments of Hooker to guide us. 'Man, in perfection of his nature, being made according to the likeness of his Maker, resembleth Him also in the manner of working; so that whatsoever we work as men, the same we do wittingly work and freely; neither are we, according to the manner of natural agents, any way so tied but that it is in our power to leave the things we do undone... Choice there is not, unless the thing which we take be so in our power that we might have · Ecc. Pol.' i. 7.