Boultbee on Article X: Of Free-Will

3. The ninth Article of 1552, *of free will,’ consisted of the latter half only of the present tenth Article. The opening clause was added in 1562, and is thought to have been de- rived from the Wurtemberg Confession of 1552, and the latter clause from Augustine *De Gratia’ (Hardwick, chap. vi.). In the Articles of 1552 this Article was followed by another, dealing with the same subject, which is here subjoined:

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’ Of Grace.

• The grace of Christy or the Holy Ghost by Him given, doth take away the stony heart and giveth a heart of flesh. And although those that have no will to good things He maketh them to will, and those that would evil things He inaketh them not to will the same ; yet, nevertheless, He en- forceth not the wilL And, therefore, no man when he sinneth can excuse himself, as not worthy to be blamed or con- demned, by alleging that he sinned unwillingly or by com- pulsion.*

The fetalist views held by some of the Anabaptists were, no doubt, the object at which that Article of 1552 was aimed. The Anabaptist excesses were less formidable ten years later ; moreover, the doctrine of irresistible grace main- tamed by many of the Elizabethan divines probably ren- di^red it desirable to strike out the Article in question.

The Pbincipal Topics op Article X.

1. Fallen man cannot of himself turn to Grod.

2. The prevenient or preventing grace of God is needM before our works can please God.

3. This prevenient grace gives us * the good will.’

4. The cooperating grace is needftd after the good will has been received.

The scriptural proof of this Article shoidd be grouped round these main propositions.

Observations on Article X.

The question of the Freedom of Man’s Will is involved in philosophical as well as theological difficulties. All philo- sophical schools of thought — ^pre-Christian, Christian, and un- believing — have discussed the various branches of this question. They have debated how far man is a voluntary agent, or the slave of circumstances, or in bondage to his own natural pro- pensities, or the creature of the education to which he has been subjected.

Hence the difficulties belonging to the subject must not be deemed as peculiarly affecting its religious aspect. Whether the Christian solution be accepted or not, no thoughtful man can charge the difficulties on Christianity.

The limits of man’s free will were debated before Christi- anity existed, and are now discussed outside its pale.

Hence also the histoiy of the doctrine is too voluminous for our purpose.

The earlier Fathers, especially in their apologetic works, frequently touched on this doctrine. Their main object in such passages was to vindicate the holiness of God, lest He should be made the author of sin; or to repudiate the fatalism of most heathen systems, in order to uphold man’s responsibility. They therefore frequently asserted the free will of man, but without discussing its limits or its relation to the doctrines of grace.

The Pelagian controversy first brought out all the points at issue between Christians on this subject into prominent relief. Pelagius, holding that each man was bom imtainted by Adam’s j&ll, consistently maintained that he coidd rise to (rod by his own efforts.

The semi-Pelagians held that man was Billen and needed cooperating grace, but they did not teach the absolute necessity of prevenient grace for turning to God.

Augustine wrote at much length on all points of this contro- versy, in close accordance with the terms of our present Article. One of his treatises is entitled * De libero arbitrio.’

The schoolmen discussed this doctrine, Thomas Aquinas taking the Augustinian view. Duns Scotus approximating rather to semi-Pelagianism.

In the age of the Reformation the question of free will was much debated. All orthodox branches of the Reformation were at first strongly attached to Augustine’s doctrines, rejected the notion of the freedom of the will, and denied cooperation on the part of man in the work of conversion.*

The Council of Trent, in this as in other doctrines,

• Fop authorities on this point see Hagenbach’s * Hist, of Doctrines/ §248.

endeavoured to mediate between Scotists and Thomists, Fran- ciscans and Dominicans. It enacted the following canon (Session VI. canon 4) :

’ Whosoever shall say that the free will of man, moved and excited by God, does not at all cooperate with God when exciting and calling, that thus he may dispose and prepare himself for obtaining the grace of justification, and that he cannot dissent though he wills it, but, like something inanimate, does nothing at all, and holds himself merely passive, let him be anathema.’

Also (Session VI. canon 5) : ’ Whosoever shall say that the free will of man was lost and extinguished after Adam’s sin, or that it is a thing of name merely, or a name without a thing, in short, a figment introduced into the Church by Satan, let him be anathema.’

Since the Eeformation, the Augustinian views have been for the most part discouraged in the Church of Kome. The dominant Jesuit theology has been of a semi-Pelagian cast. In the Reformed Churches, whenever the great predestinarian controversy has been revived, the question of man’s free will, of which it is a part, has necessarily been prominent. It was so in the sevefiteenth century, when the Puritans, who were usually strong predestinarians, frequently called their oppo- nents /rec-M;t7Z«r5 as a term of reproach.

Having glanced at the historical aspect of the questions at issue in this Article, we turn to more explanatory matter. We have to deal with metaphysical ideas— -the will and its liberty. We have happily some admirably clear comments of Hooker to guide us.* * Man, in perfection of his nature, being made according to the likeness of his Maker, re- sembleth Him also in the manner of working; so that what- soever we work as men, the same we do wittingly work and freely ; neither are we, according to the manner of natural agents, any way so tied but that it is in our power to leave the things we do undone… Choice there is not, unless the thing which we take be so in our power that we might have

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refused and left it. If fire consume the stubble, it chooseth not so to do, because the nature thereof is such that it can do no other. To choose is to will one thing before another; and to will is to bend our souls to the having or doing of that which they see to be good. Goodness is seen with the eye of the understanding, and the light of that eye is reason. So that two principal fountains there are of human action, Know- ledge and Will; which Will, in things tending towards any end, is termed Choice.’ Concerning Knowledge, ‘Behold (saith Moses), I have set before you this day good and evil, life and death.’ Concerning Will, he addeth immediately, * Choose life; that is to say, the things that tend to life, them choose… The object of Appetite is whatsoever sensible good may be wished for ; the object of Will is that good which Reason doth lead us to seek. Affections, as joy, and grief, and fear, and anger, with such like, being, as it were, the sundry ferms and fashions of Appetite, can neither rise at the conceit of a thing indifferent, nor yet choose but rise at the sight of some things. Wherefore it is not altogether in our power whether we will be stirred with Affections or no : whereas Actions which issue from the disposition of the Will are in the power thereof to be performed or stayed. Finally, Appetite is the Will’s solicitor, and Will is Appetite’s controller; what we covet according to the one, by the other we often reject; neither is there any other desire termed properly Will but that where Reason and understanding, or the show of Reason, prescribeth the thing desired.’

Hooker proceeds with a discussion of the numerous causes which pervert, enfeeble, and misguide the Will, making it in so many things subservient to the Appetites. But we have quoted enough for our present purpose.

The Will being thus that in us which has the power of determination to do or not to do any mental or corporal act, the question next before us is this : How far is it, in our pre- sent condition, actually free ? How far is the Will in a state of Liberty or Necessity, as the two opposite ideas of its condition are usually styled?

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It is probably a mode of expteman liable to misapprehen- sion to make our statements turn much on the freedom or bondage of the WilL Our Article does not so word it.

Our Will exercises its power of choice according to the tastes, feelings, knowledge, and, in a word, apprehension of what is desirable to, and relished by, the human nature of which it is the determining principle. If, therefore, the nature be angelic, the Will determines accordingly. If the nature be corrupt, and in whatever degree it is so, the Will determines and leads the life and thoughts corruptly.

This state, indeed, may be called one of bondage, and is so called in Scripture; but it is not so as being one of blind necessity, but as of inevitable consequence from a depraved condition.

The debate therefore seems more properly to belong to Art. IX., and to result from different views of man’s inherent corruption since the fall. And indeed this Article will, on perusal, appear to be a necessary supplement to Art. IX., defin- ing more precisely the helpless condition of fallen man.

The Eoman doctrine of original sin as a state of privation only would naturally lead to the Tridentine assertions that man cooperates with grace in preparing himself for justifica- tion. On this the remarks of Calvin* are remarkably clear : * We certainly obey God with a will, but it is with a will which He has formed in us. Those, therefore, who ascribe any pro- per movement to free will, apart from the grace of God, do nothing else than rend the Holy Spirit. Paul declares, not that a faculty of willing is given to us, but that the will itself is formed in us.’ (Phil. ii. 13.)

Finally, Delitzsch* thus lays down the distinction of which we have treated :

• Since the fall, man is free to choose, and for that reason is accoimtable … He is free to choose, in so far as no fo- reign will can irresistibly constrain him to will against his own will. He is not free, in so far us within his own personality

’ ‘Antidote to Council of Trent.’ Tracts, rol. iii. p. 47. 2 * Bibl. Psychology,’ p. 193.

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the sin which has been allowed by himself rules and enslaves his will.’

Li the practical work of the ministry a scholastic mode of treating this subject would be usually either unintelligible or repulsive. Yet a fairly accurate illustration of the meaning of this Article may be presented in a popidar manner in this way. An appeal may be made grounded on the failure of good resolutions, and the utter breakdown of result from nume- rous wishes to serve God. The reason may be traced to the will, the determining power, remaining with its old bias. And this brings us to the very root of the matter, the absolute necessity for conversion.

It is an obvious but not an unnecessary caution to give, that before treating on this subject it should be carefully con- sidered what is meant by the will, and in what respect either liberty or bondage is predicated of it.

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