30. It is unnecessary to say that few disputes in theology have been so eagerly conducted, so extensively ramified, as those which relate to the free will of man, and his capacity of turning himself towards God. In this place nothing more will be expected than a brief statement of the principal question, doing no injustice by a tone of partiality to either side. All shades of opinion, as it seems, may be reduced to two, which have long divided and will long divide the Christian world. According to one of these, the corrupt nature of man is incapable of exerting any power towards a state of acceptance with God, or even of willing it with an earnest desire, until excited by preventing (præveniens) grace; which grace is vouchsafed to some only, and is called free, because God is not limited by any respect of those persons to whom he accords this gift. Whether those who are thus called by the influence of the Spirit, are so irresistibly impelled to it, that their perseverance in the faith and good works which are the fruits of their election, may surely be relied upon, or, on the other hand, may either at first obdurately resist the divine impulses, or finally swerve from their state of grace, is another question, upon which those who agree in the principal doctrine have been at variance. It is also controverted among those who belong to this class of theologians, whether the election thus freely made out of mankind depends upon an eternal decree of predestination, or upon a sentence of God following the fall of man. And a third difference relates to the condition of man after he has been aroused by the Spirit from a state of entire alienation from God; some holding that the completion as well as commencement of the work of conversion is wholly owing to the divine influence, while others maintain a co-operation of the will, so that the salvation of a sinner may, in some degree, be ascribed to himself. But the essential principle of all whom we reckon in this category of divines is the necessity of preventing grace, or, in other words, that it is not in the power of man to do any act, in the first instance, towards his own salvation. This, in some or other of its modifications, used to be deemed the orthodox scheme of doctrine; it was established in the Latin church by the influence of Augustin, it was generally held by the schoolmen, by most of the early reformers, and seems to be inculcated by the decrees of the council of Trent, as much as by the articles of the church of England. In a loose and modern acceptation of the word, it often goes by the name of Calvinism, which may perhaps be less improper, if we do not use the term in an exclusive sense, but, if it is meant to imply a particular relation to Calvin, leads to controversial chicane, and a misstatement of the historical part of the question. |Semi-pelagian hypothesis.|