head and manhood of Christ, become perfectly consistent with each other, by considering that Christ was both God and man; and a similar principle, namely, that the grace of God co-operates with the Free-will of men, can alone reconcile the numerous texts, both preceptive and declaratory, which relate to human conduct, and which separately assert the divine and human agency.

"The concurrence of God and man, says Archbishop Bramhall, in producing the act of our believing or conversion to God, is so evident in Holy Scripture, that it is vanity and lost labour to oppose it. If God did not concur, the Scripture would not say, It is God that worketh in us, both the will and the deed. If man did not concur, the Scripture would not say, Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. If our repentance were. God's work alone, God would not say to man, Turn ye unto me with all your heart: And if repentance were man's work alone, we had no need to pray, Turn us, O Lord, and we shall be turned. We are commanded to repent and to believe: In vain are commandments given to them, who cannot at all concur to the acting of that which is commanded. Faith and repentance are proposed unto us, as conditions to obtain blessedness and avoid destruction. If thou shalt confess with thy mouth, and believe

with

with thy heart, thou shalt be saved. And, Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. To propose impossible conditions, which they, to whom they are proposed, have no power either to accept or refuse, is a mere mockery. Our unbelief and impenitence is imputed to us as our own fault, Because of unbelief thou wert broken off; and, After thy hardness and impenitent heart, thou treasurest up unto thyself wrath. Their unbelief and impenitence were not their own faults, if they neither had power to concur with the grace of God to the production of faith and repentance; nor yet to refuse the grace of God. The Holy Scripture doth teach us, that God doth help us in. doing works of piety; The Lord is my helper, and, The Spirit helpeth our infirmities. If we did not co-operate at all, God could not be said to help us. There is, therefore, there must be, cooperation. Neither doth this concurrence or cooperation of man, at all, entrench upon the power or honour of God, because this very liberty to co-operate is his gift, and this manner of acting his own institution. These words, Behold, I stand at the door, and knock, are not understood only of the minister's outward knocking at the door of the ear with persuasive words, but much more of God Almighty's knocking at the door of the heart, by his preventing grace. To what end doth he knock to have it opened, if he him

self

self had shut it by an irresistible decree? God first knocks at the door of our hearts by his preventing grace, without which we have no desire to open unto Christ. And then he helps us by his adjuvant or assistant grace, that we may be able to open. Yet the very name of God's adjuvant, or assistant, or helping grace, doth admonish us, that there is something for us to do on our parts; that is, to open, to consent, to concur. Why should our co-operation seem so strange, which the Apostle doth assert so positively? We are labourers together with God. And, I laboured more abundantly than they all; yet not I (that is, not I alone) but the grace of God which was with me (g).”

The exclusive consideration of particular texts of Scripture, without adverting to others which take a different view of the subject, coupled with the baneful principle of believing no doctrine which is incomprehensible (h), seems to have been the source of most of the errors which have prevailed in the Christian world. Thus, a person, in reading the New Testament, finds many

(g) P. 800.

passages

(h) What Augustine says of Eunomius's disbelief of the divinity of Christ, is very generally true of other heretics and their opinions, qui cum non potuisset intelligere, nec credere voluisset, Unigenitum Dei verbum, per quod ficta sunt omnia, Filium esse Dei natura, hoc est, de substantia Patris genitum.-V. 8. p. 993.

was man.

passages in which the manhood of Christ is asserted, and from them he concludes that Christ By dwelling upon these passages, the idea of the manhood of Christ becomes so deeply fixed in his mind, that he refuses to admit any opinion which he fancies to be incompatible with it. He feels himself unable to comprehend how the same person could be both God and man; and being convinced that Christ was man, he infers that he was not God; and thus he falls into the Socinian error, of Christ being a mere man. Another person, in reading the New Testament, is first struck with the passages which assert the Godhead of Christ, and which are at least as numerous and as clear as those which assert his manhood; and by a similar process he infers that Christ was God only; and thus falls into the Sabellian or Patripassian errors, of Christ being God the Father, and of God the Father having suffered upon the Cross. It is the same with respect to divine and human agency: one person observes, in a variety of passages of the New Testament, the redemption of man attributed to the merits of Christ and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit; and hence he concludes that divine grace is necessary to salvation: he dwells upon this as a settled and uncontrovertible point, and being unable to comprehend how the Holy Ghost and man can co-operate, he infers that man has

no concern whatever in working out his salvation (i); and that the thoughts, words, and works of those who shall be saved, are the necessary and irresistible effects of divine grace: this is the error of Calvinists. Another person, in reading the New Testament, observes repeated commands to believe in Christ, and numberless exhortations to the practice of the personal and social duties; hence he concludes, that belief in Christ, and moral virtue, are necessary to salvation; and being unable to comprehend how the Spirit of God can influence the Free-will of men, or how the worthiness of Christ can atone for the unworthiness of men, he rejects the doctrines of divine agency and of Christ's meritorious death, and relies solely for salvation upon that faith and those works, which are the effect of his own reflection and exertions.

This is ano

ther

(i) "There is in the language made use of to explain the doctrine of grace, something liable to be abused by ignorant or crafty men. We say, that of ourselves we can do nothing; whence they conclude, that we have nothing to do. We say, that it is the grace of God which enables us to do every thing; from whence they conclude, that every thing must be left to the grace of God, and that we need only work ourselves into a strong persuasion that God is at work for us, and may sit still ourselves. And this persuasion, which is generally mere enthusiasm, they dignify with the name of Christian Faith."-Sherlock, v. 2. p. 80.