Section 11.

SECTION 11.

Zelotes’ last objection against a reconciliation with Honestus — In answer to it, the reconciler shows, by various illustrations, that the Scriptures do not contradict themselves in holding forth first and second causes — Primary and subordinate motives; and that the connection of free grace with free will is properly illustrated by the Scriptural emblem of a marriage; this relation exactly representing the conjunction and opposition of the two Gospel axioms, together with the pre-eminence of free grace, and the subordination of free will.

IF you compare the prejudice of Zelotes against Honestus to a strong castle, the objections which fortify that castle may be compared to the rivers which were supposed to surround Pluto’s palace. Six of them we have already crossed; one more obstructs our way to the reconciliation, and, like Phlegethon, it warmly runs in the following lines: — OBJECTION VII. “When King Joram said to Jehu, ‘Is it peace:’ Jehu answered, ‘What peace, so long as the whoredoms of thy mother Jezebel are so many?’ And what peace can I make with Honestus and you, so long as you adulterate the Gospel, by what you call the evangelical marriage, and what I call the monstrous mixture of free grace and free will? I cannot, in conscience, take one step toward a reconciliation, unless you call make appear that, upon your conciliating plan, the dignity of free grace is properly secured. But, as this is impossible, I can only look upon your Scripture Scales as a new attempt to set one part of the Scripture against the other, and to give infidels more room to say that the Bible is full of contradictions.”

ANSWER. Exceedingly sorry should I be, if the Scripture Scales had this unhappy tendency. To remove your groundless fears in this respect, and to prevent the hasty triumph of infidels, permit me,

(1.) To show that what at first sight seems a contradiction in the scriptures which compose my Scales, appears, upon due consideration, to be only just subordination of second causes to the first, or the proper union of inferior motives with leading ones. And,

(2.) To prove what Zelotes calls “a monstrous mixture of free grace and free will,” is their important concurrence, which the Scriptures frequently represent to us under the significant emblem of a marriage. Plain illustrations will throw more light upon the subject than deep arguments; I shall therefore use the former, because they are within the reach of every body, and because Zelotes cannot set them aside under pretence that they are “metaphysical.”

I. May we not, on different occasions, use with propriety words which seem contradictory, and which nevertheless agree perfectly together? For instance: with respect to the doctrine of first and second causes, and of primary and secondary means, may I not say, “I ploughed my field this year,” because I ordered it to be ploughed? May I not say, on another occasion, “Such a farmer ploughed it alone,” because no other farmer shared in his toil? May I not, the next moment, point at his team, and say, “These horses ploughed all my field alone,” if I want to intimate that no other horses were employed in that business? And yet, may I not by and by show Zelotes a new constructed plough, and say, “That light plough ploughed all my field?” Would it be right in Zelotes or Lorenzo to charge me with shuffling, or with self contradiction, for these different assertions? If this illustration do not sufficiently strike the reader, I ask, May not a clergyman, without a shadow of prevarication, say, on different occasions, I hold my living through Divine permission; through the lord chancellor’s presentation; through a liberal education; through my subscriptions; through the bishop’s institution, &c? May not all these expressions be true, and proper on different occasions? And may not these causes, means, and qualifications, concur together, and be all essential in their places? Once more: speaking of a barge that sails up the river, may I not, without contradicting myself, say one moment, The wind alone (in opposition to the tide) brings her up? And if the next moment I add, Her sails alone (in opposition to oars or haling lines) bring her up against the stream, would it be right to infer that I exclude the tackling of the vessel, the rudder, and the steersman from being necessary in their places? Such, however, is the inference of Zelotes. For while Honestus thinks him an enthusiast, for supposing that absolutely nothing but wind and sail [grace and faith] is requisite to spiritual navigation, Zelotes thinks that Honestus is hardly fit to be a cabin boy in the ship of the Church, because he lays a particular stress on the right management of the tackling and rudder; and both will perhaps look upon me as a trimmer, because, in order to reconcile them, I assert that the wind and sails, the masts and yards, the rigging and the rudder, the compass and pilot, have each their proper use and office. II. With respect to primary and secondary motives, may I not say that Christ humbled himself to the death of the cross, out of obedience to his Father; out of compassionate love for a lost world; that he might put away sin by the sacrifice of himself; that whosoever believeth in him should not perish; that the Scriptures might be fulfilled; that he might leave us an example of humble patience; that through death he might destroy the prince of darkness; and that he might see the fruit of the travail of his soul, obtain the joy that was set before him, and be satisfied? Would Zelotes show himself a judicious divine, if he intimated that these motives are incompatible and contradictory? May not a variety of motives sweetly concur to the same end? May you not, for example, relieve your indigent neighbour, out of fear lest you should meet the fate of the inexorable rich man in hell? Out of pity for a fellow creature in distress? Out of regard for him as a fellow Christian? Out of a desire to maintain a good conscience, and to keep the commandments? Out of gratitude, love, and obedience to Christ? That the worthy name by which we are called Christians may not be blasphemed? That your neighbour may be edified? That you may show your love to God? That you may declare your faith in Christ? That you may lay up treasure in heaven? That, like a faithful steward, you may deliver up your accounts with joy? That you may receive the reward of the inheritance? That you may be justified by your works as a believer in the great day, &c? May not all these motives, like the various steps of Jacob’s mysterious ladder, perfectly agree together? And if a good work “comes up for a memorial before God,” winged with all these Scriptural motives, is it not likely to be more acceptable than one which ascends supported only by one or two such motives?

Zelotes frequently admits but of two causes of our salvation, and recommends but one motive of good works. The two causes of eternal salvation, which he generally confines himself to, are Christ and faith: and, what is most astonishing, Solifidian as he is, he sometimes gives up even faith itself: for if he reads that “faith was imputed to Abraham for righteousness,” he tells you that faith is to be taken objectively for Christ and his good works; which is just as reasonable as if I said that when Sir Isaac Newton speaks of the eye and of a telescope, he intends that these words should be taken objectively, and should mean the sun and the moon. Again: as Zelotes frequently admits but one cause of salvation, that is, Christ’s righteousness, so he often admits but one motive of sincere obedience, and that is, the love of Christ known by name. Hence he gives you to understand that all the good works of those who never heard of Christ are nothing but splendid sins. To avoid his mistake, we need only admit a variety of causes and motives: and to steer clear of the error of Honestus, we need only pay to the Redeemer the so justly deserved honour of being, in conjunction with his Father and Spirit, the grand original cause, and as he is the Lamb slain, the one properly meritorious cause of our salvation; representing a grateful love to him as the noblest and most powerful motive to obedience, where the Christian Gospel is preached. In following this reasonable and catholic method, we discover the harmony of the Scriptures; we reconcile the opposite texts which fill the Scripture Scales; and far from giving room to infidels to say that the Bible is full of contradictions, we show the wonderful agreement of a variety of passages, which, upon the narrow plans of Zelotes and Honestus, are really inconsistent, if not altogether contradictory.

III. With respect to the two Gospel axioms and their basis, FREE GRACE and FREE WILL, contrary as they seem to each other, they agree as well as a thousand harmonious contrasts around us. If Zelotes consider the natural world in a favourable light, he will see nothing but opposition in harmony. Midnight darkness, when it is reconciled with the blaze of noon, crowns our hills with the mild, the delightful light of the rising or setting sun. When sultry summers and frozen winters meet half way, they yield the flowers of the spring and the fruits of autumn. If the warming beams of the sun act in conjunction with cooling showers, the earth opens her fruitful bosom, and crowns our fields with a plenteous harvest. Reflect upon your animal frame: how does it subsist? Is it not by a proper union of opposite things, fluids and solids? And by a just temperature, of contrary things, cold and heat? Consider your whole self: are you not made of a thinking soul, and of an organized body? Of spirit and matter? Thus two things, which are exactly the reverse of each other, by harmonizing together, form man, who is the wonder of the natural world: just as the Son of God, united to the son of Mary, forms Christ, who is the wonder of the spiritual world. I readily confess that the connection of the two Gospel axioms, like that of matter and spirit, is a deep mystery. But as it would be absurd to infer that man is an imaginary being, because we cannot explain how thought and reason can be connected with flesh and blood: so would it be unreasonable to suppose that the coalition of free grace with free will is a chimera in divinity, because we cannot exactly describe how they are coupled. We are, however, indebted to St. Paul for a most striking emblem of the essential opposition and wonderful union that subsist between the two axioms, or (which comes to be the same thing) between the Redeemer and the redeemed — between free grace and free will.

If the true Church is a mystical body composed of all the souls whose submissive free will yields to free grace, and exerts itself in due subordination to our loving Redeemer; does it not follow that free grace exactly answers to Christ, and holy free will to God’s holy Church? “Now,” says the apostle, “the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the Church: husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the Church: a man shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh: this is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church;” and upon the preceding observation I take the liberty to add: — This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning FREE GRACE and FREE WILL. If marriage is a Divine institution, honourable among all men, and typical of spiritual mysteries: if Isaiah says, “Thy Maker is thy husband:” if Hosea writes, “In that day, says Jehovah, thou shalt call me ISHI;” that is, MY HUSBAND: if St. Paul says to the Corinthians, “I have espoused you as a chaste virgin to one HUSBAND, even Christ:” and if he tells the Romans that they “are become dead to the law, that they should be married to another, even to HIM who is raised from the dead, that they should bring forth fruit unto God:” if the sacred writers, I say, frequently use that emblematical way of speech, may I not reverently tread in their steps, and in the fear of God warily run the parallel between the conjugal tie and the mystical union of free grace and free will? And, —

(1.) “If the husband is the head of the wife,” as says St. Paul; or her lord, as St. Peter intimates; is not free grace the head and lord of free will? Has it not the pre-eminence in all things?

(2.) If the bridegroom makes his address to the bride first, without forcing or binding her with cords of necessity, does not free grace also seek free will first, without forcing it, and chaining it down with necessitating, Turkish decrees?

(3.) If the mutual, unnecessitated, voluntary consent of the bridegroom and of the bride, is the very essence of marriage; may I not say that the mutual, unnecessitated, voluntary consent of free grace and free will makes the marriage between Christ and the willing souls, whom St. John calls “the bride,” and “the Lamb’s wife?”

(4.) The husband owes no obedience to his wife, but the wife owes all reasonable obedience to her husband. And does not the parallel hold here also? Must not free will humbly and obediently submit to free grace, as Sarah did to Abraham, calling him lord?

(5.) The man is to “give honour to his wife, as to the weaker vessel:” and does not free grace do so to free will, its inferior? Is not its condescending language, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock: open to me, my sister, my love,” &c. Yea, does not free grace, like St. Paul, “become all things [but sin and wantonness] to all men, that by any means it may gain the free will of some?”

(6.) “If the unbelieving wife departs, let her depart,” says St. Paul. And if unbelieving free will is bent upon eloping from free grace, may it not do it? Is it locked up as the sultanas are in Turkey? Although incarnate free grace compassionately mourned over the obstinate free will of the Jews, did it dragoon them into compliance? Was not its language, “I would and ye would not?” f57 “Thou hast been weary of me, O Israel. My people would none of me; so I gave them up to their own hearts’ lust, and they walked in their own counsel:” doing, as a nation, what Judas was judicially permitted to do as an individual.

(7.) In case of adultery is it not lawful for the husband to put away his wife? And may not free grace repudiate free will for the same reason? When the free will of Judas had long carried on an adulterous commerce with mammon; and when he refused to return, did not our Lord put him away, giving him a bill of divorce, together with the fatal sop? And far from detaining him by fulsome Calvinian caresses, did he not publicly say, “Wo to that man! What thou doest, do quickly. Remember Lot’s wife?”

(8.) Can the husband, or the wife, have children alone? Can free grace do human good works without human free will? Did not our Lord speak a self-evident truth, when he declared, “Without me ye can do nothing?” And did not St. Paul set his seal to it when he said, “We are not sufficient, of ourselves, to think any thing [morally good] as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God. Not I, [alone or principally] but the grace of God, which was with me?” And, morally speaking, what can Christ do as the husband of the Church, without her concurrence? What beside atoning, inviting, pre-engaging, and drawing? Do we not read, that he could not do many works among the people of Nazareth, because of their unbelief? And for want of co-operation or concurrence in sinners, does he not complain, “I have laboured in vain: I have spent my strength for naught: all the day long I stretched forth my hands, and no man regarded?” LASTLY: may I not observe that as the procreation of children is the most important consequence of marriage; so the production of “the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ,” is the most important consequence of the harmonious opposition of free grace and free will, when they are joined together in that evangelical marriage, which the Scripture calls “faith working by love?”

Should Zelotes object here that “some good people produce all the fruits of righteousness, and do all the good works which St. Paul expects from believers, though they will hear of nothing but free grace, and perpetually decry their own good works:” I reply, that there are such persons is granted: nor are they less conspicuous for their unreasonableness, than for their piety. They may rank for consistency with a woman, who is excessively fond of her husband, and peevish with every body else, especially with her own children. Her constant language is, “My husband is all in all in the house; he does every thing: I am absolutely nobody, I am worse than any body, I am a monster, I bring forth nothing but monsters: my best productions are dung, dross, and filthy rags,” &c, &c. A friend of her husband, tired to hear such speeches day by day, ventures to set her right by the following questions: — “Pray, madam, if your husband is all in all in the house, is he his own wife? If he does all that is done under your roof, did he get drunk the other day when your footman did so? Does he bear his own children, and give them suck? If you are absolutely nobody, who is the mother of the fine boy that hangs at your breast? And if that child is a mere f58 monster, why do you dishonour your husband by fathering a monster upon him?” While she blushes and says,” I hate controversy, I cannot bear carnal reasonings,” &c, I close this parallel between marriage, and the evangelical union of free grace and free will, by some remarks, which, I hope, will reconcile Zelotes and Honestus to the harmonious opposition of the seemingly contrary doctrines of grace and justice, of faith and works, of free grace and free will, which answer to the two Gospel axioms, and are balanced in the two Scripture Scales. Union without opposition is dull and insipid. You are acquainted with the pleasures of friendship: you would gladly go miles to shake hands with an intimate friend; but why did you never feel any pleasure in shaking your left hand with your right, and in returning the friendly civility? Is it not because the joining of your own hands would be expressive of a union without proper opposition; of a union without sufficient room to display the mutual endearments of one free will in harmony with another? For what I have all along called free grace, is nothing but God’s gracious free will, to which the obedient free will of believers humbly submits itself. Why can you have no satisfaction in going to the fire, when a fever inflames your blood; or in drinking a cooling draught, when you are benumbed with cold? Is it not because in either case the pleasure ceases, or rather becomes pain, for want of proper opposition?

Is not opposition without union the very ground of infernal wo? When opposition amounts to downright contrariety, does it not end in fierce, destructive discord? And does not this discord produce the horrid concert which our Lord describes by “weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth,” the genuine expressions of sorrow, anguish, and despair? On the other hand, is not opposition in union the very soul of celestial joys? And should I take too much liberty with the deep things of God, if I ventured upon the following query: — Is it not from the eternal, mysterious, ineffable opposition of Father and Son, in eternal, mysterious, ineffable union with each other, that the eternal love and joy of the Spirit proceeds to accomplish the mystery of the Divine unity, and form the very heaven of heaven?

But if that question appear too bold, or too deep, I drop it, and, keeping within earthly bounds, I ask, Does not experience convince us that the most perfect concerts are those in which a number of instruments, soft as the flute, and strong as the bassoon, high sounding as the clarion, and deep toned as the kettle drum, properly agree with tenor, counter tenor, bass, and treble voices? Is it not then that the combined effects of slow and quick vibrations, high and low notes, sharp and flat tones solemn and cheerful accents, grave and shrill, melting and rousing, gentle and terrible sounds, by their harmonizing oppositions, alternately brace and dilate our auditory nerves; or delightfully soothe and alarm, lull and ravish our musical powers? Such, and far more glorious, is the Gospel concert of free grace and free will: a sweetly awful concert this, in which prohibitions and commands, cautions and exhortations, alluring promises and fearful threatenings, gentle offers of mercy and terrible denunciations of vengeance, have all their proper places.

Now man is brought down to the gates of hell, as a rebellious worm; and now [by a proper transition] he is exalted to the heaven of heavens, as the friend of God. Now Christ hangs on an ignominious cross; and now he fills the everlasting throne: one day as a Saviour and a prophet, he gives grace, he offers glory; he calls, he entreats, he weeps, he bleeds, he dies: another day, as a rewarder and a king, he revives and triumphs; he absolves or condemns; he opens and shuts both hell and heaven. The treble in this doctrinal concert appears enthusiastic jar to prejudiced Honestus; and the bass passes for heretical discord with heated Zelotes: but an unbiassed Protestant “knows the joyful sound” of free grace; the solemn sound of free will; and the alarming sound of just wrath; and admitting each in his concert, he makes Scriptural melody to his Priest and Lawgiver — to his Redeemer and his Judge. As for the merry tune of Antinomian free grace, mixed with the reprobating roar of Calvinian free wrath, it grates upon him, it grieves his soul, it diffuses chillness through his veins, it carries horror to his very heart.

While a divine combines evangelically, and uses properly the two Gospel axioms, you may compare him to a musician who skilfully tunes, and wisely uses all the strings of his instrument. But when Zelotes and Honestus discard one of the evangelical axioms, they resemble a harper who peevishly cuts half the strings of his harp, and ridiculously confines himself to using only the other half. Or, to return to the Scripture simile of a marriage: when an unprejudiced evangelist solemnizes the doctrinal marriage which I contend for, he pays a proper regard to the bridegroom and to the bride; he considers both free grace and free will. Therefore when he sees Honestus perform all the ceremony with free will only, he is as much surprised as if he saw a clergyman take a gold ring from the right hand of a woman, put it on the fourth finger of her left hand, and gravely try to marry her to herself. And when he sees Zelotes transact all the business with free grace alone, he is not less astonished than if he saw a minister take a single man’s right hand, put it into his left hand, and render himself ridiculous by pronouncing over him a solemn nuptial blessing. If Zelotes be still afraid that upon the plan of an evangelical marriage between free grace and free will, the transcendent dignity of God’s grace is not properly secured; and that human agency will absolutely claim the incommunicable honours due to Divine favour; I shall guard the preceding pages by some remarks, which will, I hope, remove Zelotes’ groundless fears, and give Honestus a seasonable caution.

God’s gracious dispensations toward man, (or which comes to the same,) the dealings of free grace with free will, are frequently represented in Scripture under the emblem of gracious covenants. Now covenants which are made between the Creator and his creatures; between the Supreme Being, who is absolutely independent, because he wants nothing; and inferior beings, who are entirely dependent upon him, because they want all things; such gracious covenants, I say, always imply a matchless condescension on the part of the Creator, and an inconceivable obligation on the part of his creatures. Therefore, according to the doctrine enforced in these sheets, free grace, which shines by its own eternal lustre, without receiving any thing from free will, can never, in point of dignity, be confounded with free will; because free will borrows all its power and excellence from free grace; just as the moon borrows all her light and glory from the sun.

We infer, therefore, that as the moon acts in conjunction with, and due subordination to the sun in the natural world, without supplanting or rivalling the sun: so free will may act in conjunction with, and due subordination to free grace in the spiritual world, without rivalling, much more without supplanting free grace. And hence it appears that Zelotes’ fears lest our doctrine should pour contempt on the glory of free grace, are as groundless as the panic of the ancient Persians, who, when they saw the moon passing between the earth and the sun, imagined that the great luminaries which rule the day and the night were actually fighting for the mastery; and absurdly dreaded that the strife would end in the total extinction of the solar light.

Ezekiel, chap. 16, gives us an account of the glory to which God advanced the Jewish Church. From a state of the greatest meanness and pollution, he raised her to the dignity and splendour described in these words: — “I sware unto thee, and entered into a marriage covenant with thee, saith the Lord God; and thou becamest mine. I clothed thee also with embroidered work; I decked thee with ornaments: thou wast exceeding beautiful: thou didst prosper into a kingdom, and thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty: for it was perfect through the comeliness which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord.” However, the Jewish Church (such is the power of free will!) abused these glorious favours, as appears from the next words: — “Thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot, saith the Lord God.” But does this adulterous ingratitude of the Jews disprove the truth of Ezekiel’s doctrine, any more than the adultery of Bathsheba disproved her being once Uriah’s lawful wife? And can any consequence be charged upon the doctrine of the evangelical marriage maintained in these sheets, which is not equally chargeable upon the above-mentioned doctrine of the prophet?

We grant that free will too frequently forgets its place, as too many persons of the inferior and weaker sex forget theirs, notwithstanding their solemn promise of dutiful obedience till death; but does this show, either that the union of indulgent free grace and dutiful free will is a heretical fancy: or that free will is really equal to free grace? If imperious free will rises against free grace, and acts the part of a Jezebel, is not free grace strong enough to reduce it by proper methods, or wise enough to give it a bill of divorcement, if such methods prove ineffectual? Does Zelotes act a becoming part when he so interferes between free grace and free will, as to turn the latter out of the Church, under pretence of siding with the former? Has he any more right to do it, than I have to turn Queen Charlotte out of England, under pretence that bloody Mary abused her royal authority? Why does Zelotes stumble at the doctrine of the evangelical marriage which I prove? And why is Lorenzo offended at the mystery of Christ’s incarnation? Is it not because they overlook the noble original of free will? If you trace the free-willing soul back to its eternal source, you will find that it proceeds from Him, who “breathed into the nostrils of Adam the breath of life,” that man might “become a living soul.” And where is the absurdity of asserting that by means of the mysteries which we call redemption and sanctification, he reunites himself to that very spirit which came from him; to that very soul which he breathed into the earthly Adam? If man’s dignity before the fall was such, that when St. Luke declares our Lord’s human generation, and comes to the highest round of the genealogical ladder, he is not afraid to say that Christ was “the son of Adam, &c, who was the son of God,” Luke 3:38, where is the absurdity of supposing that God in Christ kindly receives his son again, when that son returns to him like the free-willing, penitent prodigal? Nor need free will be proud of this unspeakable honour: for, not to mention its creation, for which it is entirely indebted to free grace, does it not owe to Divine favour all the blessings of redemption? If free grace should say to free will, “When I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thy own blood, I said unto thee, Live;” would not believing free will instantly bow to the dust, and thankfully acknowledge the undeserved mercy? Why then should Zelotes think that free will will infallibly forget its place, if it be raised to the honour of an evangelical, conjugal union with free grace? If a prince raised a filthy, condemned, dead shepherdess from the dung hill, the dungeon, and the grave; graciously advancing her to princely honours, and a seat at his feet, or by his side; does it follow that she must necessarily forget her former baseness? or that his condescension must unavoidably rob him of his native superiority? For my part, when I hear St. John say, “Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we [who submit our free will to free grace] should be called the sons of God, — the wife of the Lamb,” &c, far from being tempted to forget my wretchedness, I am excited to “fear the Lord and his goodness,” and encouraged to “perfect holiness in that fear;” for “every man who hath this faith and hope, purifieth himself, even as God is pure:” so far is he from necessarily walking in pride as a vain-glorious Pharisee; or from exalting himself as a self-deified antichrist! Beside, to all eternity the glaring truth, maintained by the apostle, will abase free will, and secure the transcendent dignity of free grace: “What hast thou, which thou hast not [more or less directly] received” of free, creating, persevering, redeeming, sanctifying, or rewarding grace? “Who hath first given to it, and it shall be recompensed to him again?” “For of him,” i.e. of God, the bottomless and shoreless ocean of free grace, “and through him, and to him, are all good things: to whom be glory, for ever. Amen!”