Efficacious Grace — Book II
efficacious grace, book ii This manuscript, probably started after 1746, is long octavo in size. It is composed of fan paper and a salvaged prayer bid stitched into a rectangular cover of coarse brown paper. Edwards himself inscribed the cover “N. II,” with the title “Moral Agency,” and then, as with the first book, changed it to “Efficacious Grace” after he had used entries to write Freedom of the Will. Vertical lines drawn through some entries indicate parts of the notebook that were used when composing the treatise. Edwards also removed some pages that had been wholly used. The present pagination is as follows: 5–6, 17–18, 23–24, 35–38, 43–44, 47–50, 61–68, 71–74, and 93–99. The lacunae are indicated in this edition by line spaces and bracketed ellipses.
Selected entries from this notebook were printed in Miscellaneous Observations (1793) as §§ 21–28 (pp. 201–07), and subsequently reprinted in the Worcester rev. ed., 2,559–62, §§ 22–29. Both these editions reflect the transcription of Edwards, Jr., including occasional additions for transitions and clarity, as well as some outright word changes. In this book, Edwards, Jr., wrote “Tr. *” in the margin beside selected entries to indicate that they had been or were to be transcribed.
efficacious grace, book ii Assistance.1According to their principles, God gives men virtue, holiness, a new heart to will and to do, etc. no otherwise than [men]2 give one another virtue, a new heart, etc. Nor so much as men do, according to our notion of virtue: for according to our notions, those acts that necessarily follow from what precedes what men do, or any other, may be virtue notwithstanding, but not according to theirs.
If 3 a state of freedom of the will consists in a state of indifference, then it consists in a state of inaction in not acting at all; because for the will to be in a state of indifference, and for it to be in a state of inactivity, are the same thing. To be in a state of indifference is to be without choice, and that is to be without willing.
’Tis unreasonable to suppose that the acts of the will are events that come to pass without a cause, on this account, viz. that so many events of this sort come to pass, that they come to pass in a course, that there are in all men such events—viz. acts of the will—continually arising throughout their whole existence. Such events—i.e. some acts of the will or other— are ready on all occasions, as they need ’em, to guide and govern all their external actions without failure. How should this be, if there be no cause? Is it not strange that so many events of this sort come to pass without a cause, and in such a course, and no other sort of events in the whole creation are ever seen to come to pass without a cause. [. . .]
[. . .] destroy4 all the moral evil or blameworthiness of determining wrong, even in those great cases: for why, if a man’s will must be in equilibrio, full as likely to go preponderate the wrong way as the right, so that the event must be a perfect contingence, why is he to blame that he happens to choose wrong? If he was not to blame for being in such a state wherein he was as likely to choose wrong as right, then he is no more to blame for choosing wrong than right: for according to the laws of chance or contingence, in such a case he will choose wrong as often as right.
Define the meaning of the phrase, natural notions.
To show from the Scriptures how evident it is that man’s virtue is from god; that those acts of the will wherein virtue consists are from him; that that in Phil. [2:13], “God worketh in you both to will and to do of his own good pleasure,” etc. don’t have respect to the virtuous acts of will; and that [God] is certainly the author, exerter, etc. of virtuous acts in another manner than he is of vicious acts. With reference to what is said, pp. 36– 40 of my book on free will.5
If 6 the liberty of the will consists in a power to suspend the prosecution of any desire in order to further consideration, then all virtue consists in the act of the will determining that suspension.
Indifference. If every act of the will be induced by some motive, then it will follow that every act of the will is necessary. [. . .]
[. . .] God7 the Author of sin. ’Tis evident that God may be the orderer of sin for a good and important end, and yet punish that sin severely; that he so orders [is evident] by Matt. 18:7, “It must needs be that offenses or scandals come; but woe to that man by whom they come!”
“It must needs be.” In the original, “it is”: it is a matter that is very needful or of great importance.
In the context it is said, “It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.” Difference between the secret and revealed will of god.
[. . .] of 8 liberty, to be in a such a state that he shall be driven by chance, or anything else, to that which at the same time he looks upon as a thing
5. Not a reference to Freedom of the Will nor to the notebook entitled “Of Free Will,” but rather to another MS book that is no longer extant.
prejudicial to him. (See Locke, p. 215, vol. 1.)9 This is not liberty according to our natural notions of liberty. And on the other hand, if we suppose that the will is necessarily dependent on and connected with any kind of view of the understanding, that destroys all liberty, according to the Arminian notion of liberty: for that supposes the determinations of the will to be necessary, being necessarily dependent on and connected with something without the will itself and prior to its own determinations.
See what Mr. Robe says of fatalists in his letter of March 22, 1746, p. 3.1
Concerning God’s being determined to choose what is best, see Mr. Locke, p. 216, vol. 1.2 God’s liberty.
Only asking the question whether it be in our power to will or not to will, suggests and seems to suppose something false. Common sense. [. . .]
[. . .] Here3 possibly introduce the discourse about mysteries.4
Whatever our opinions are, and how greatly soever we may differ, this is needful to guide us and to unite us. ’Tis the spirit of truth and the spirit of union. How might our uniting thus in prayer happily tend to a further union.
226 Efficacious Grace, Book II
9. John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. In Four Books . . . The Seventh Edition, With Large Additions (2 vols. London, 1714). JE refers to Bk. 1, ch. XXI, “Of Power,” § 48, entitled “To be determined by our own Judgment, is not Restraint to Liberty.” Locke writes: “This is so far from being a Restraint or Diminution of Freedom, that it is the very Improvement and Benefit of it; ’tis not an Abridgement, ’tis the End and Use of our Liberty; and the farther we are removed from such a Determination, the nearer we are to Misery and Slavery. A perfect Indifferency in the Mind, not determinable by its last Judgment of the Good or Evil, that is thought to attend its Choice, would be so far from being an Advantage and Excellency of any intellectual nature, that it would be as great an Imperfection, as the Want of Indifferency to act, or not to act, ’till determined by the Will, would be an Imperfection on the other side.”
1. The whereabouts of this letter, if it still exists, is not known. 2. Locke, Essay, 1, 216, § 49: “If it were fit for such poor finite Creatures as we are, to pronounce what infinite Wisdom and Goodness could do, I think, we might say, that God himself cannot chuse what is not Good; the Freedom of the Almighty hinders not his being determined by what is best.”
Buy or borrow of Dr. Johnson or Mr. Sergeant, dr. clark’sposthumous sermons, which Dr. Johnson speaks of as explaining all texts relating to God’s decree of predestination.5
Though6 it be true that the foregoing reasoning in some respects is metaphysical, yet ’tis not scholastic metaphysics, nor do they depend upon any nice, abstract and abstruse points in metaphysics. ’Tis no great degree of niceness nor abstraction or metaphysics needful to determine that a thing is not before it is, and therefore can’t be the cause of itself, etc.; nor is there any great degree of abstruse speculation in these things.
Definition. Alting says none of the orthodox say that freedom from coaction is alone sufficient to constitute a man free, but also a freedom from physical necessity (Theologica Elenctica, p. 358 at top and 360 at bottom; see natural necessity explained, p. 360 at bottom, p. 364, ¶ 4).7
Scriptures. Prov. 21:1, “The heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord, as the river of water: he turneth it whithersoever it pleaseth him.”
This shows that the Arminian notion of liberty of will is inconsistent with the Scripture notion of God’s providence and government of the world, Jer. 31:18, “Turn me, and I shall be turned.”
Necessity8not inconsistent with punishment. Matt. 18:7, “It must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh!” I Cor. 11:19, “There must be heresies among you, that they that are approved may be made manifest.” Yet heresy is spoken of as a punishable evil in Timothy and Titus, and Matt. 23 and 24.
Matt. 7:18, “A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruits, neither can a corrupt tree being forth good fruit.” Let us understand this how we will, it destroys the Arminian notion of liberty and virtue and vice: for if [it] means only a great difficulty, then so much the less liberty, and therefore so much the less virtue or vice; and the preceding verse would be false,
Efficacious Grace, Book II 227
5. JE makes the same reference in the Gazetteer Notebook. Dr. Samuel Johnson was the Anglican missionary at Stratford, Conn., and Rev. John Sergeant the Congregational missionary at Stockbridge, Mass. The work in question is Samuel Clarke, Sermons on the Following Subjects (10 vols. London, 1731–32), and the specific sermon is in vol. 4, pp. 271–95, “Of the Number of Those That Shall Be Saved” (on Rev. 3:4).
6. JE drew a vertical line through the next two paragraphs. 7. Henricus Alting, a Dutch theologian, wrote Theologica Elenctica nova: sive, systema elencticum in inclytâ Academia Groningæ and Omlandiæ publicis prælectionibus propositum (Amsterdam, 1654).
which says, “Every good tree bringeth [forth] good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.”
Rom. 8:6–9, with the design of the Apostle in that place, overthrows Arminian notions of liberty, virtue and vice.
Efficacious Grace. Show from Scripture that God gives such assistance to virtue and virtuous acts as to be properly a determining assis[tance], so as to determine the effect; which is inconsistent with the Arminian notion of liberty. The Scripture shows that his influence in the case is such that he is the cause of the effect; he causes it to be. Which shows that his influence determines the matter, whether it shall be or not; otherwise, innumerable expressions of Scripture are exceeding improper and quite without a meaning.
Preface.9 I don’t use the term “Arminian” because I choose to give odious names to any sect or part, but for distinction’s sake, and to avoid circumlocutions.
Self-determining power, held by our adversaries in general, Alting, p. 365, near top.1
Arminians in general hold liberty of will consisting in indifference. See Alting, from p.360, but most expressly concerning the Remonstrants, p. 370, near the top.2
If we allow something can begin to be without a cause, we can be certain of nothing but our own present ideas and consciousness, not the least because ’tis a peculiar sort of effect, such an effect as a volition. If we once allow this sort of effect as such, how do we know but that many other sort of effects may?
’Tis not the kind of effect that makes the absurdity; ’tis things common to all sorts of effects, viz. that they are not self-existent, not necessary in their own nature. This is common to all things that begin to be. All effects do begin to be.
We could not know that there is a God. Though there be in the nature of things a foundation of the knowledge of the being of God, without this [there is] not a proper proof: for all proofs of existence are either from causes to effects, or from effects to causes. Yet [. . .]
[. . .] all3 that they have said and so pretend, then all of conscience falls to the ground and all is answered in a few words.
The main strength of the argument in those that write in so overbearing and contemptuous a manner lies in this: “I am wiser than you, and you are a fool and blockhead in comparison of me.”
Necessity is a word that ever has a relation to opposition. Consider it any otherwise than with relation to opposition, and it differs nothing from certainty, or a true and real connection of one thing with another, or of some predicate with some subject.
Inability, as the word is vulgarly used, is evermore a relative term, carrying in it a relation to an endeavor.
The word impossible is a relative term that has relation to power exerted in order to bring a thing to pass. The word irresistible is a word that has relation to resistance.
To show how the Arminian notion of assistance much more exposes to enthusiasm, and is much nearer to it than what we hold.
The scripture expressions are exceeding unhappy for their scheme.
Another4 late author that has made a great noise (Taylor on original sin, 2nd ed., p. 180): “Adam could not be originally created in righteousness and true holiness; because he must choose to be righteous before he could be righteous; and therefore he must exist, he must be created, yea, he must exercise thought and reflection before he was righteous.”5
[. . .]
[. . .] Love to God. If a man does first choose to love God before he actually loves him, yet there is no virtue in that choice, unless the choice be from some good principle or disposition, or unless there be the exercise of some good principle in the choice. If a man chooses to love God, but not at all from love to him, but wholly from love to something else, then it is no virtue to love; there is no virtue at all in such a choice. If a man chooses to have regard to some good object or end not at all from love to any good object or end, surely (according to all the natural notions we have of virtue) there is no virtue in such a choice. It is not agreeable to any of the natural notions of mankind, that a good principle or disposition is virtuous because that disposition flows from and is the effect of his choice; but on the contrary, that a choice is virtuous because it flows from or is the exercise of a good principle or disposition.
Which6 shows the falseness of the Arminian notion that liberty of will, in their sense of it, is essential to and the foundation of all virtue; and that nothing can be virtuous but what flows from the will’s own determination of itself.7
See scriptures in Alting, De Libero Arbitrio.8
Of the charge of enthusiasm. Dr. Whitby’s notion of the assistance of the Spirit is of the same sort with inspiration, whereas that which I suppose is the true notion, is entirely different. Consequently their notion is much more enthusiastical, does much rather agree with and much more expose to pernicious enthusiasm than our’s. Hence we find the grossest enthusiasts, such as Quakers and others, are generally Arminians in the doctrines of free will, etc.9
If1 any suppose that our being destitute of such and such good habits in itself, such as proper and suitable degrees of love to God, love to holiness, love to mankind, love to the Word of God, love to Christ, love to enemies, hatred of sin, meekness, patience, heavenly-mindedness, loving Christ above father and mother, wife and children, proper humility towards God, etc.: I say, if any suppose that a being void of these proper habits is not in itself sin, and of the proper nature of vice and blameable-
230 Efficacious Grace, Book II
6. JE drew a vertical line through the next two paragraphs. 7. In a different ink JE wrote and then deleted: “see N. 4. p. 51,” a reference to a fourth book on the subject of moral agency, apparently no longer extant. JE also refers to this fourth book in “Sacrament Bk. I,” which he used to draft An Humble Inquiry.
8. Possibly a separate work from Theologica Elenctica, as above, or a part of it. 9. Whitby, Discourse, III, “Of Sufficient and Effectual, Common and Special Grace,” ch. 1, § 6, where he argues that God raises “Ideas” in our minds. He writes (p. 229): “These Ideas being thus raised up in us by God alone, . . . we should have had none of these good Effects produced in us. . . . [A]s they help us in the Consideration of, and our Endeavours and Inclinations to perform our Duty and resist Temptations, they may be stiled assisting Grace.”
ness, but only our not using such endeavors to obtain them, as men can do by common assistance before they have these habits, I will undertake to demonstrate that they take away 999 thousandth parts of what the Scripture represents as the sin and wickedness of the world, yea, of that which is so accounted by the common sense of mankind, yea, no sin at all. For according to this, it will follow that sin don’t consist at all in being void, or the negation, of any good habit, but only in not using endeavors to obtain it; and by fully equal reason, that virtue don’t at all consist in any good habit, but only in the endeavors used to obtain it; and so then, still by the same reason, it will still follow that vice or sin don’t consist at all in any ill habit or disposition, but only in those free acts that were the occasion of ’em. And this will follow from their doctrine of free will and virtue and vice consisting only in the exercise of free will: for the exercise of free will don’t consist in the being of habits and dispositions, evil or good, or in the being destitute of ’em; but only in the free acts [. . .]
[. . .] it2 had no cause without itself, it could not have made itself at first to be otherwise, because it did not make itself at all; and therefore if it be wholly without a cause, it must be necessary. That must be necessary that is not dependent on no free act, but that which is without any cause cannot be dependent on any free act, because it is dependent on nothing, and so can have no moral good or evil in it, according to their own principles: for according to their principles, nothing that is necessary has any moral good or evil in it.
’Tis exceeding manifest, and according to the common and natural notions of all mankind, that moral evil consists in a certain deformity in the nature of the thing itself that is morally evil, and not in the deformity of something else that is diverse from the very thing itself being its cause. That thing in which the deformity is, in that thing, and in that only, is the moral evil. If it be wholly in the effect, then the moral evil is only in the effect. If it be in the cause only, then the cause only is morally evil, and the effect not at all. Hence it will follow that the moral good and evil of the inclinations and acts of the mind, don’t essentially consist in their origin, and so not in their having their spring from such an exercise of free selfdetermination in the will, as they suppose; but in the deformity3 inherent in those very acts and inclination themselves that are morally evil.4
Scripture Expressions are everywhere exceeding contrary to their scheme, according to all use of language in the world in these days. But then they have their refuge here: they say the ancient figures of speech are exceeding diverse from ours, and that we in this distant age can’t judge at all of the true force of expressions used so long ago but by a skill in antiquity, and being versed in ancient history, and critically skilled in the ancient languages—never considering that the Scriptures are written for us in these ages, on whom the ends of the world are come, yea, were designed chiefly for the later age of the world, in which they shall have their chief and, comparatively, almost all their effect; and they were written for God’s people in these ages, of whom at least 99 in an hundred must be supposed incapable of such knowledge by their circumstances and education, and 999 in a thousand of God’s people that hitherto have been saved by the Scriptures.
’Tis easy to refine and criticize any book to death.
If God is truly unwilling that there should be any moral evil in the world in this sense, why don’t he cause there to be less moral evil than there is? If it be answered, as it [has] respect to such kind of objections, that though God is unwilling there should be moral evil, yet he won’t infringe on man’s liberty or destroy his moral agency to prevent [it]: but then I ask, If this be all, why does God cause there to be so much less at some times than in some certain times, wherein God causes virtue gloriously to prevail? and other times are spoken of and promised, wherein it shall prevail yet vastly more, and this is spoken of as of God’s effecting, and is abundantly so spoken of [and] promised as what God would do and none should hinder, etc.?
The Arminian principles denying the efficacious determining grace of God as the cause of man’s virtue and piety, are wholly inconsistent with the promises and prophecies of the future flourishing of religion and virtue in the world, and never can be made consistent therewith. This flourishing of religion is spoken of as what God would effect, made the matter of his abundant promise, spoken of as his glorious work, the work of his almighty power, what he would effect and none should hinder, what he would effect against all opposition, removing and overcoming the wickedness of men, etc.
Efficacious Grace. That efficient that so produces as to determine the effect, that only is properly said to give it, to procure, and this only can properly promise it, and to this the chief thanks and glory is due; that only is the proper fountain and author of it. Indeed, to determine an effect without positive efficient, only by permission, as God determines sin, he is not properly the author.
Dr. Stebbing says, p. 104, “So much grace as is necessary to lead us to that obedience which is indispensably required in order to salvation, God will give to everyone who humbly and devoutly prays to him for it. For this is the condition, and the only condition, prescribed by our Savior, Luke 11:9–10, 13, where the promise of the Spirit is made.”5Here humility and devotion is mentioned as the condition of that obedience which [is] indispensably required in order to salvation. Here, by that obedience that is required in order to salvation, must be meant either, first, that sort of virtue and obedience that is requisite; or second, perseverance in it. If he means that sort of virtue that is requisite in order to salvation, then I would [ask], What sort of humility and devotion is that to which God has promised that grace necessary to their obtaining that virtue that is the condition of salvation? Must it not be real, sincere humility and devotion? Surely, if God has promised so great a gift to any humility and devotion, it must be to that which is sincere and upright, because that which is not sincere is nothing; ’tis hypocritical, a mere show of that which is really wanting, and it would be very unreasonable to suppose that God promises such infinite benefits to that which he has often declared is abominable to him and only provokes him the more. But if it be true, sincere, upright humility and devotion, ’tis unreasonable to suppose that God makes this the condition of that grace necessary to his obtaining that kind of virtue that is requisite to salvation, because he has that kind of virtue already. The Scripture everywhere speaks of uprightness and sincerity of heart as that virtue that is saving. He that sincerely asks for grace to obey, has that sincerity and uprightness of heart that is exercised in sincere obedience: for he that sincerely asks this, is sincerely willing to obey, and sincerely desirous of obeying. Or if, second, the Doctor by that obedience that is indispensably required in order to salvation, means perseverance in sincere virtue, and this be promised to devoutly and sincerely asking it, then hereby must be meant either final perseverance in this sincere asking,6 or a certain limited continuance in thus asking. If it be a final perseverance in asking, the condition of grace to lead us to persevering saving virtue is, as before, the condition of itself: for persevering sincerity is the condition of obtaining persevering sincerity. If it be only once asking, or asking a limited number of times, or a limited continuance in asking, this is contrary to the Arminian doctrine about perseverance: for it supposes a person in this life on a past condition to be already, before the end of the day of his probation, so confirmed in obedience, that ’tis impossible for him to fall away.
When7 we argue with the papists and demonstrate clearly the falseness of their doctrine of transubstantiation from that, that the same body cannot be in many places at the same time, that it implies a contradiction because ’tis inconsistent with the notion of identity and diversity [. . .]
[. . .] and8 need no satisfaction to atone for our failure, nor can we need Christ to procure a mild dispensation for us. (See what is said in my discourse on justification on this head.)9
Danger of these Arminian Notions. Because it tends greatly to prevent convictions of sin. See of what necessity it is that men should be convinced of sin, sermon on Matt. 9:2, Dir. 1.1
Not2 only do not the fundamental dictates of reason and common sense oblige us to find out some interpretation of scripture agreeable to the Arminian notions, but if that were so, that all the texts relating to those things seemed most plainly to be on their side and there were no texts that had so much as any look on the contrary, it would be the greatest difficulty in the world in the Scripture, vastly greater than any that ever yet were found in it or objected against it.
Corollary. Moral perfections of God don’t oblige us to find out other interpretations of Scripture.
corol. Hence all the late glorying, all the talk about Calvinistical principles with such a contemptuous air, is for nothing. There has been no
7. JE drew a vertical line through the following paragraph. 8. JE drew a vertical line through the remainder of the following paragraph. 9. See Justification by Faith Alone, in Works, 19. 1. This sermon is not extant. 2. JE drew a vertical line through the next four paragraphs. For a parallel with the following paragraph, see Works, 1, 439.
sort of cause for it. The whole earth may, without arrogance or vanity, be challenged to make their principles consistent with common sense. These holy and plain doctrines that that omniscient God, our Maker, has plainly and abundantly taught us, have been trampled upon for a long time with great assurance, triumph and contempt, been treated as the meanest badge of ignorance, superstition and folly, not worthy of a place among men of common sense, to be stifled out of the world. ’Tis not men, poor Calvinists, but Jehovah that has been trampled upon.
To say it is metaphysics is no more a just answer to or solution of an argument, than to say the argument is in Latin or French. Does it show the reasoning not to be conclusive, because ’tis reasoning belongs to such a science, than if a man should tell his opponents that his reasonings were not good because he made use of such a language? Plain reason and demonstration is plain reason and demonstration, whatever science any supposes to belong to, as much as well as in whatever language it is spoken The question is not whether what is said be metaphysics or physics, logic or mathematics, Latin, French, English, Greek or Mohawk, but whether the reasoning be good and the arguments indeed conclusive.3
Their vast pretenses to an accurate and clear view of the scope and design of the sacred penmen, and a critical knowledge of the originals, will prove forever vain and insufficient to help them against such clear Scripture evidence.
Their4magisterial, contemptuous, sovereign, assured, overbearing, insulting, overlooking [airs].
Obj. The Deists are many of ’em fatalists.
Common Sense. ’Tis not the dictate of common sense, that such a sort of liberty as consists either in things coming to pass accidentally and without any cause, is necessary in order to blame or praise. The coming to pass of a thing without any cause or reason is contrary to common sense. Nor should such a liberty as consists in the will’s being the cause of its own acts, or determining and so causing its own determination, or choosing and so causing its own choice: for such a notion of liberty is what men commonly have no notion of, none but some that have darkened their own minds with study and words, confounding their own thoughts. The common notion of liberty is that a man can [. . .]
[. . .] nor5 can the volitions that immediately spring out of such a state of indifference be virtuous, because, by the supposition, they are not determined by any antecedent choice of ours, and our choice is not the cause of them: and thus virtue again is excluded out of the world.
Scriptures. I desire it may be shown, if it can, that ever any terms that are fuller and stronger are used, or used more frequently and in greater variety, to signify God’s being the author, efficient and bestower of any kind of benefit, than in the bestowment of true virtue or goodness of heart: whether concerning the deliverance out of Egypt, or the manna that was rained down from heaven, or the bestowment of the blessings of Canaan, or saving Noah and his family in the Ark; or the raising any from the dead, or Christ’s giving health to the sick, or sight to the blind, or bread to the hungry in the wilderness, or anything else whatsoever; or the giving being to mankind in their creation, giving reason to them and their other natural faculties, giving them life and breath, the giving them the beautiful form of their bodies, the giving them life at the general resurrection, the giving them their glory and happiness in heaven; the giving prophets and the Word of God by the prophets and others, the giving the means of grace and salvation, the giving Christ and providing means of salvation in him.
Yea, I know of no one thing in Scripture wherein such significant strong expressions are used, or so great a variety, or one half so often, as the bestowment of this benefit of true goodness and piety of heart.
After particularly taking notice of a great variety of scripture expressions signifying God to be the determining cause of true goodness of heart, to add: “But, after all, we must be faced down in it with vast confidence, that the Scriptures do not imply any more than only exhibiting means of instruction, leaving the determining and proper causing of the effect wholly with man as the only proper, efficient and determining cause; and the current of Scripture is all against us, and that is because we don’t understand language, and are bigots and fools for imagining any such thing as though the Scripture said anything of that nature, and because the divines on our side don’t understand Greek, and don’t lay the
Scripture before ’em to mind the scope of Scripture, don’t mind the connection,” etc., etc.
Scriptures. Perhaps it will be said that every one of those scriptures6
may bear another interpretation, found out by careful and critical examination. But alas, is that the way of the Most High’s instructing mankind, to use such a multitude of expressions in different languages and various different ages, all [which]7 in their natural and most common acceptation in all languages, nations and ages, must undoubtedly be understood in this sense, yea, that the whole thread and current of all that God says, according to use of the speech of mankind, tends to lead to such an understanding, and so unavoidably leads his people in all ages into such an understanding, but yet means no such thing: but [God] intended that the true meaning should not be found out but only by such a use of criticism as might possibly allow of a strange, unusual and surprising meaning?
Efficacious Grace. Scripture. Instead of persons being the determining causes and efficients of their own virtue and piety, after all the moral means God uses with them, let us suppose some third person between God and the subject of this gift to be in the very same manner the sovereignly determining cause and efficient of this or any other benefit that we receive: that he had power to bestow virtue on us, or cause us to be the subject of it, just in the same manner as Arminians suppose we ourselves have power to be the causes of our being the subjects of virtue; and our being the subjects of the benefit depended on this third person’s free will, just in the same manner as now they suppose our having that bene- fit, virtue, depends on our own free will; and that God used moral means with that third person to bestow that benefit on us, just in the same manner that he uses moral means to persuade us to cause virtue in us, and the moral means had the like tendency to operate on their will as ours: but finally it was left entirely to their free will to be the sole determining cause whether we should have the benefit without any such influence on his will as in the least to injure his sovereignly arbitrary disposal and perfectly free self-determination, and it should be left contingent whether he would bestow it or no, and in these circumstances, this third person should happen to determine in our favor and bestow the benefit. Now I ask, would it be proper to ascribe the matter so wholly to God in such strong terms or in such a great variety, to ascribe it so entirely to him as his gift, to pray to him beforehand for it, to give him thanks, give him all the glory, etc.? On the contrary, would not this determining cause, whose arbitrary, self-determined, self-possessed, sovereign will decides the matter, be properly looked upon as the main cause, vastly the most proper cause, the truest author and bestower of the benefit? Would not he be as it were all in the cause? Would not the glory properly belong to him on whose pleasure the determination of the matter properly depended?
Notes
1. “II” is JE’s original designation on the cover; a later hand inscribed in pencil “11.” 2. JE, Jr.’s insert. 3. JE drew a vertical line through the next two paragraphs. 4. JE drew a vertical line through the next two paragraphs.
6. JE drew a vertical line through the next two paragraphs. 7. JE drew a vertical line through the next five paragraphs. 8. JE drew a vertical line through the following paragraph, which he directs to be moved to a page that is now missing. Thus the passage has been retained in its original place, with a bracketed ellipsis.
3. JE drew a vertical line through the next two paragraphs. 4. See “Controversies” Notebook, MS pp. 190–99, 267–72, 297–98.
8. JE drew a vertical line through this paragraph.
9. JE drew a vertical line through the next seven paragraphs. 1. See above, n. 7. 2. See above, n. 7.
3. JE drew a vertical line through the next five paragraphs. 4. JE drew a vertical line through this paragraph. 5. Taylor, Scripture-Doctrine of Original Sin (London, 1740; 2nd ed. London, 1741), p. 180.
1. JE drew a vertical line through the next paragraph.
2. JE drew a vertical line through the next two paragraphs. 3. MS: “deformity of.” 4. JE deletes: “if we suppose that moral Evil consists in the origin of it as arising from a free determination as its Cause that is to drive more wholly to exclude moral evil as tis to drive it back in infinitum for if so the moral Evil of the.”
5. Stebbing, Discourse on the Operations of the Holy Spirit, p. 104. 6. MS: “perseverance in sincere vertue & a devoutly asking of it humbly this be promised to devoutly & sincerely asking it if by then hereby must be meant either devoutly & sincerely asking it once or for a certain num number of a certain limited continu or final perseverance in in this sincere asking.”
3. For a parallel, see Works, 1, 423. 4. JE drew a vertical line through the next three paragraphs.
5. JE drew a vertical line through the remainder of this paragraph.
6. JE, Jr., inserts: “which are thought to prove efficacious grace.” “Those scriptures” may refer to the catalog of texts in “Efficacious Grace, Bk. III.”
7. JE, Jr.’s insert.