there subsists what may be fitly compared to a chord in every moral creature, which may be so touched as to yield a jarring note, and by its vibration to produce discord throughout the whole instrument; if this chord, which is not in itself evil, may be so touched by that which is not evil neither, but good (is not self-love such a chord, and is not the sense of God’s incomparable excellency, or the intimation of superiority in some other like creature of God’s, or the suggestion of some flaw, blemish, or deficiency in the creature itself — each of which should only excite humility, submission, and gratitude — such a touch?). Can we have any difficulty in conceiving how Satan was with drawn from his uprightness, when as he was yet only good, and nothing but good was to be heard and seen around him? I am not ignorant that some would divert us altogether from contemplations of this kind: but why are we told so much about the devil, if we are to have no thoughts about his history and origin? We are taught that pride was his condemnation (1Tim 3.6); “that he was a murderer from the beginning, and did not abide in the truth” (Joh 8.44); “that he did not keep his first estate, but left his own habitation” (Jude 6); “that there was war in heaven.” (Rev 12.7) — I am aware, that these words, in their connection, are to be understood prophetically; but there was a foundation for the allusion. Who would be ashamed to meditate and explore what God has revealed to his own justification (Rom 3.4) and to our furtherance and joy of faith? (Phi 1.25)
[←506]
That is, Satan does not operate independently of God’s omnipotent will. – WHG
[←507]
Vitiated: impaired; ruined in character.
[←508]
The wheels of God’s omnipotent providence (see Eze 1.15-21) carry the evil as well as the good along with them in their goings: and this is unto God’s glory; but is it also unto salvation? — This is Luther’s defective view.
[←509]
Luther’s account of ‘hardening’ is, 1. God actuates the wicked as well as the rest of his creatures, according to their nature. 2. Satan is unresisted and undisturbed in them. 3. They can only will evil. 4. God thwarts them by word, or deed, or both. All this is correct; but it is not the whole of the matter; neither does he put the several parts of the machinery together, cleverly; neither does he show an end. (See Sect. 11. note h ). All these things are of God, through God, and to God. (Rom 11.36) The natural man has been brought into the state in which he is, of, through, and to him. And what is that state? An earthly, sensual, devilish soul (Jas 3.16), possessed by the devil; to whom it was given up, as a prey, in the day of apostasy. Luther distinguishes the moving and driving, or seizing and moving of God, from his word and work. It is a fine image which he draws of God giving motion to ‘all creatures.’ But if this idea is examined, it will be found to amount to no more than that God keeps all his creatures in a state of being which is according to their nature; and that the wicked are therefore, by the necessity of their nature, kept by him in a state of activity, and not allowed to be torpid, or as Luther facetiously expresses it, to have a holiday. Particular actings of God, then, upon this substance of the human soul, such and so related, are what he expresses by God’s thwarting word and work. But this thwarting word and work extends only to the outside of the man;
forìs offert — forìs objicit. All this while, Satan’s is an agency with which, as it respects others, God does not interfere: he is no agent, no minister of His. You might almost judge from his language in some places (contradicted, it is true, by others), that he accounted Satan a sort of independent chief.
Now, the root of the matter lies here, if I am not mistaken. Satan is an agent and minister of God. (See Job 1.11; 1Kng 22.19-23; 1Chr 21.1. Compare 2Sam 24.1; Zec 3.1-3.) Nor can I understand the expressions so repeatedly applied to the case of Pharaoh, “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart;” nor “Whom he will, he hardens;” nor “God has given them the spirit of slumber,” nor “You have hid these things from the wise and prudent,” and the like — without recurring to this agency. This obviously meets their full and express import, while nothing else, or nothing less, does. And what is the effect of this agency but such as has been already ascribed to the operation of God? (See note h , as before) Hereby ‘He sets, or causes to be set, such considerations before the mind of His free-agent, as morally constrain him to choose what He has willed. It might be added that he causes such to be withheld — for Satan throws dust into men’s eyes; hinders them from seeing, as well as causes them to see wrongly. What is there that can give peace under the realizing consciousness of his being and agency, but the assurance that he is in truth only this agent of God for good, and nothing but good, for his chosen?
God’s hardening, therefore, I define generally to be ‘that special operation of God upon the reprobate soul, by which, through the agency of Satan (whose Lord and rider he is), combined with his own outward dispensations of word and work, he shuts and seals it up in its own native blindness, aversion and enmity towards himself. There have been however, and doubtless are, certain special and splendid examples of this operation, each having its minuter peculiarities, while the same essential nature pervades all. — Pharaoh is one of these. — Indeed the whole history of the Exodus is one of the most luminous displays which the Lord God has ever made, of the design he is pursuing and accomplishing in having and dealing with creatures — second only to the marvellous and complicated history of the Lord’s death: for which it was also appointed; for which it has also been recorded.
[←510]
Explode: to show a theory or claim to be baseless.
[←511]
“Let my people go that they may serve me,” is a good demand; but it is directly contrary to Pharaoh’s will, its course and propensity. (See the preceding note.) — Luther makes this act of God negative except as it respects God’s general and particular operations in his providence. He does not change the will; he keeps his moral creature in being; he thwarts his inclinations. — What is Satan, meanwhile; and what does he do?
[←512]
Nulla est causa, nec ratio. Cau. is the correlative of effect; ‘what gives origin to this will;’ rat. is ‘the principle, rate, method, and design of its operations;’ which supposes some extrinsic standard. There is no such source or standard for God’s will: no cause which produces it; no rightness which it exemplifies.
[←513]
The defects of Luther’s theology are strongly manifested in this paragraph. He has no answer to give, where a satisfactory one is at hand: God continues to move the wicked, because it is for his glory that they should go on to act, just as they are. For the same cause he ordained and brought about, or as Luther speaks, permitted Adam’s fall. — God does not create wicked men. (See above, Sect. 10. note z .) It is strange that he should use the word ‘creare,’ as applied to our generation from Adam. — ‘When a thing is made up of particles which all existed before, but that very thing, so constituted of pre-existing particles, had no existence before — when it refers to a substance produced in the ordinary course of nature by an internal principle, but is set to work by and received from some external agent or cause, and it works by insensible ways which we do not perceive — this we call generation.’ Locke’s Essay, vol. i. chap, xxvi. sect. 2.
God’s will is cause and reason to itself. But he has a reason for all he does; and this reason, so far as respects his actings with which we have to deal, is resolvable into self-manifestation. (See former notes.) — As to these and like questions, which Luther judges it improper to ask, the whole matter is this: Does the word of God furnish an answer to them, or not? If it does, then we are bound to entertain them and supply the true answer. How much better than to leave the caviller strong in his unanswered cavils! And what is the result? A known God instead of an unknown God; a God whom we revere, admire, and delight in, when we would otherwise only tremble and shudder before him!
[←514]
Artibus petitus. Pet. ‘made the subject of attack; whether by violence, stratagem, or supplication;’ it probably alludes here to some magical incantations by which sorcerers pretended to darken the sun! — See Hor. Epod. v. xvii.
[←515]
The word lenitas, which occurs so frequently in this passage, properly denotes ‘softness,’ ‘gentleness,’ ‘kindness,’ as opposed to ‘roughness,’ ‘harshness,’ ‘severity;’ and it seems most aptly to express that forbearance or indulgence with which the Lord God suffers long, and is kind.
[←516]
“Now I tell you before it comes (Judas’ treachery), so that when it has come to pass, you may believe that I am He.” “And now I have told you before it came to