Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| Even Pious and God-Fearing Men Resist Grace.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Chapter 58 [L.]—Even Pious and God-Fearing Men Resist Grace.
Observe also what remark he adds, by which he thinks that his position is confirmed: “No will,” says he, “can take away that which is proved to be inseparably implanted in nature.” Whence then comes that utterance: “So then ye cannot do the things that ye would?”1265
Whence also this: “For what good I would, that I do not; but what evil I hate, that do I?”1266
Where is that capacity which is proved to be inseparably implanted in nature? See, it is human beings who do not what they will; and it is about not sinning, certainly, that he was treating,—not about not flying, because it was men not birds, that formed his subject. Behold, it is man who does not the good which he would, but does the evil which he would not: “to will is present with him, but how to perform that which is good is not present.”1267
Where is the capacity which is proved to be inseparably implanted in nature? For whomsoever the apostle represents by himself, if he does not speak these things of his own self, he certainly represents a man by himself. By our author, however, it is maintained that our human nature actually possesses an inseparable capacity of not at all sinning. Such a statement, however, even when made by a man who knows not the effect of his words (but this ignorance is hardly attributable
to the man who suggests these statements for unwary though God-fearing men), causes the grace of Christ to be “made of none effect,”1268
| 1268 1 Cor. i. 17. Another reading has crux Christi instead of “Christi gratia,” thus closely adopting the apostle’s words.
| since it is pretended that human nature is sufficient for its own holiness and justification.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
