Grace and Free Will
CHAPTER 43.
GOD OPERATES ON MEN’S HEARTS:
TO INCLINE THEIR WILLS HOWEVER HE PLEASES
From these statements of the inspired word, and from similar passages which it would take too long to quote in full, I think it is sufficiently clear that God works in the hearts of men to incline their wills however He wills, whether to good deeds according to His mercy, or to evil deeds after their own deserts—His own judgment being sometimes manifest, sometimes secret, but always righteous. This ought to be the fixed and immoveable conviction of your heart, that there is no unrighteousness with God. Therefore, whenever you read in the Scriptures of Truth, that men are led aside, or that their hearts are blunted and hardened by God, never doubt that some ill deserts of their own have first occurred, so that they justly suffer these things. Thus you will not run counter to that proverb of Solomon: “The foolishness of a man perverts his ways, yet he blames God in his heart.”Prov 19.3 Grace, however, is not bestowed according to men’s deserts; “otherwise grace would no longer be grace.”Rom 11.6 For grace is so designated because it is given gratuitously. Now if God is able, either through the agency of angels (whether good ones or evil), or in any other way whatsoever, to operate in the hearts even of the wicked, in return for their deserts—whose wickedness was not made by God, but was either derived originally from Adam, or increased by their own will—what is there to wonder at if, through the Holy Spirit, God works good in the hearts of the elect, having worked it that their hearts become good instead of evil?