to it. It is plain from this, as from other considerations, that it was not added: for if it was added, then it was either conquered in the temptation, or it was withdrawn prior to it. I do not know what a conquered Holy Ghost can mean; and if it was withdrawn prior to the temptation, then its withdrawal would constitute him a different creature from that to which the temptation law had been given.
Luther’s misapprehension has much to do with a mistake about the Spirit’s actings. He seems to have thought, as many now do, that there might be a sort of fast and loose playing of the Spirit. The Spirit, when given, acts in earnest and efficaciously. — If Luther were to ask, Does he always act efficaciously in the Lord’s called people, now? I would answer that the cases are not parallel. We have the Spirit not as our own, and in our Adam-selves, but in Christ. When we fall, it is not ‘the Spirit conquered,’ but the Spirit not energizing: which could not have happened to Adam. Luther’s expressions are ambiguous as to the period when the Spirit was withdrawn, whether before, or after the temptation. In a former note (Part iii. Sect. 18. note t) I have dealt with him as representing it to have been withdrawn before the temptation. A careful comparison of the several passages in which he refers to it leads me to conclude that he supposed it was not withdrawn till after the sin had been committed.
But now, being simply a creature, and therefore mutable, he was liable to fall by temptation. Accountability implies account to be rendered; account implies trial; trial implies the presence of that in the tried substance which may be turned to evil. Was this not precisely Adam’s state and constitution? ‘Good,’ ‘very good,’ as he came out of the hands of his Creator, his good might be made evil. Those appetites and passions the appendages of his will, which in his creation and until evil was suggested from without, were pure. They were fixed on fit objects, and acted in purity; but they were liable to be turned to other objects, and thus to become evil. Desire for knowledge, desire for pleasant food, taking pleasure in what is beautiful to the eye — all of which were sound and pure in creation — might thus,
by suggestions thrown in, become evil, just as infectious fever, or the serpent’s bite, poisons healthful blood. If no evil were suggested, there would continue only good. The suggestion, by being entertained, mars them.
Then, God was debtor to Adam, to withhold temptation from him; or to minister super-creation aid, fortified as he was by creation endowments, to keep him from falling; or to heal his wounds, and restore soundness and peace to him, when he had freely fallen?
[←499]
Tam acutâ disputatione. A sharp, keen, refined distinction: something like what is ascribed to the “word of God” (Heb 4.12) “piercing even to dividing asunder the soul and spirit, and the joints and marrow.” Disp. ‘the act of disputing,’ or ‘the debate held.’
[←500]
Simpliciter credere. ‘Simply,’ as opposed to arguments and investigations. Faith receives implicitly what God explicitly declares.
[←501]
Balbatiendo . Properly, to ‘lisp, stammer, or stutter.’ There seems to be some allusion to 2Cor 11: “Would to God that you could bear with me a little in my folly: and indeed bear with me.” “I speak as a fool.” “I speak foolishly.”
[←502]
Self is their idol, to the dethronement of God. Their own interests and gratification are sought, not God’s. Phi 2.21.
[←503]
Illo malè, istis benè. More literally, ‘he does well with, and he does ill with.’ Azit cum must be understood.
[←504]
This is very much like saying, ‘does good because he is good, and is good because he is good.’ It is too much like the ‘ipse dixit’ of the Pythagoreans.
[←505]
What Luther’s explanation amounts to, about the mystery of God’s agency in the wicked, as given in his folly, is that, 1. They are still real existences. 2. They are still God’s creatures. 3. He works all things in them, even as he does in all his creatures. 4. He works in them according to their nature: that hence he does all their evil in them, but does no evil himself. All this is true; but it is baldly told, and lacks opening, confirmation, and some additions. He ought to show us how man came to be what he is, consistent with God’s voluntarily contracted obligations to him; he ought to show us the nature and manner of his agency in the wicked; he ought to show us how God, consistent with himself, ordained and wrought the fall, and continues wicked man in being — indeed, works wickedness by him, instead of destroying him and putting an end to the reign of evil. — I say he should have shown these things because, though he talks of ‘silliness’ and ‘foolishness,’ and ‘babbling’ (Libet ineptire, stultescere, et balbutiendo tentare ), it is plain that he means a serious and sober solution to the difficulty.
Then, with respect to the FIRST of these showings, man, as we have seen in a former note (Sect. 10. note z ) had a constitution imparted, and a state assigned to him, in which trial was implied, and in which he ought to have overcome temptation. There was no dereliction of the Creator’s engagements, no withdrawal of any possession or privilege, no gainsaying discession or addition, with respect to God’s previous announcements, either in the operation of the fall, or in the inflictions which followed it. The mutability of the creature, as simple creature — the accountability of moral creature — and the distinct source (not creation, but super-creation) of the Spirit’s internal energizings — unveil a just God; that is, one who leaves nothing undone which he had freely bound himself to do, and does nothing which he should not do.
Then, with respect to the SECOND of these showings, Luther compares God’s agency in the wicked to a drover driving on a lame horse (he does not mean it irreverently); this excites the idea of physical rather than moral influence: but the truth is, God acts in the wicked as in the righteous, by setting, or causing to be set, such considerations before the will, as constrain it to choose his will. This is moral necessity; such a will so addressed cannot choose differently.
Then, with respect to the THIRD of these showings, God’s most gracious and everlasting design of making himself known to, and enjoyed by, certain creatures of his hands, according to what He really is, affords the ample and adequate reason for all that complex yet simple system of operation by which he has been dealing with man from the creation to this hour, and will continue to deal with him to and throughout eternity: — with man, his great manifester, not only in the blessed human person of the Lord Jesus Christ (see Part ii. Sect. 8. note r), but also in every individual substance of the whole human race; which is made to manifest itself, so that he may manifest himself by his dealings with it.
A sight like this justifies wisdom to her children: and, although these considerations may seem to apply themselves exclusively to God’s dealings with the wicked; or at farthest, with men; they will require but little extension, to comprehend all creatures. Evil has been introduced into the creation of God, and is not destroyed, but continues therein, and shall so continue, unto God’s glory: because without it he could not be manifested as what he is — the union and concentration of all moral excellency — the truth, the love, the power, the wisdom — the good one. And what is this ‘evil,’ which has thus come into, and thus abides in God’s world? A person as we are apt to account it, having scriptural authority for so speaking of it; but thinking so of it, too often to our hurt? Hear what a venerable confessor of the Church has to say about it:
‘I now began to understand, that every creature of your hand is in its nature good, and that universal nature is justly called on to praise the Lord for his goodness. (Psa 148) The evil which I sought after has no positive existence; were it a substance, it would be good, because every thing individually, as well as all things collectively, is good. Evil appeared to be a lack of agreement in some parts to others. My opinion of the two independent principles, in order to account for the origin of evil, was without foundation (see above, Sect. 9. note v ). Evil is not a thing to be created; let good things only forsake their just place, office and order, and then, though till be good in their nature, evil, which is only a privative, abounds and pro duces positive misery. I asked what was iniquity, and I found it to be no substance, but a perversity of the will, Avhich de clines from you, the supreme substance, to lower things, and casts away its internal excellencies, and swells with pride externally.’ (Augustine’s Confessions, in Miln. Eccl. Hist. vol. ii. p. 342)
If it is true, then, that the creature, as creature, is essentially mutable (what Augustine, and the schoolmen after him, applies to the now corrupted state of the human will being equally applicable to the will of man [see Part iii. Sect. 1
] — to the will of every moral creature — in its essence; viz. that it is vertible); if