SECT. IV.

Command and Obligation to Obedience, consistent with moral Inability to obey. ¹³¹¹³¹    The subject of “obligation to obedience,” or moral obligation, though expressed in the title of this section, is not professedly handled by our author, either here or in any other part of the work. His professed object in this place is to prove that obligation to obey commands is not weakened by moral inability. But though this conclusion is established by many considerations, yet the nature and grounds of obligation are not pointed out, which might afford evidence WHY moral obligation is consistent with moral inability? The subject is confessedly profound; but, perhaps, the following series of remarks may contribute in some degree to assist our inquiries and to bring them to a satisfactory conclusion. 1. Obligation, if we regard the term, is a binding power, or an irresistible force; but, in reference to morality and voluntary actions, obligation is expressive of a hypothetical indispensable connexion between an antecedent and a consequent; or between an end proposed, and the means of obtaining it. Thus, if a moral agent would attain the end, he is obliged or bound indispensably, to use the required means. And, on the contrary, if a moral agent adopt a different antecedent form what is required, not only he shall not attain to the proposed consequent, but another consequent is to follow, indispensably connected with the antecedent actually adopted, by a necessity of consequences. Therefore, 1. The consequent or the end, which is proposed by the moral Governor, is always a supposed good; for it would be unworthy of a governor wise and good to propose any other, especially as the antecedent prescribed and required is indispensably connected with it. But if the connexion be broken by the free agent, by the adoption of an antecedent naturally connected with a different consequent, he then becomes naturally obliged, or forced, to sustain a proportionable evil. 2. In the system of moral government, it is the prerogative of the supreme Governor to propose the consequent of the indispensable connexion; and it is the part of the moral agent, who in the act of choice is left free, to choose the antecedent, which the governor has objectively furnished, and indispensably required. To this choice his is morally or hypothetically bound, yet is naturally free; and if the required choice be made, the good follows; but if not, the corresponding evil follows. For instance; if the forgiveness of sin be the consequent proposed, and repentance the antecedent required: the agent is morally bound to repent, but naturally free. If, however, he break through the moral bond, which is done by abusing his natural freedom, or continuing his wrong choice, forgiveness does not follow, but he stands exposed to the natural and threatened consequence of that wrong choice, or impenitence. 3. Hence it is obvious, that in the system of Providence, and the execution of all decretive designs, it is the prerogative of the Sovereign of the universe to establish the chain of all antecedents, and the consequents follow from the nature of things: but in the system of moral government, it is equally obvious, the reverse takes place; for here the supreme Governor proposes, and establishes objectively, the chain of consequents, while the moral agent, or the obligee, establishes optionally the antecedents; and as the actual choice of an antecedent is, such will be the actual consequence. When the moral agent chooses that antecedent which is required, or which is conformable to rectitude, the proposed consequent is obtained by the nature of things; but when that which is not required, or is not conformable to rectitude, is chosen for an antecedent, the evil consequence flows from the same nature of things, that is from the essence of eternal truth. 4. Required antecedents are either a state of mind, or voluntary actions; according as the particular consequent proposed may be. For example, if happiness be the end or consequent proposed, holiness, or a holy state of mind, is the mean, or antecedent required. If we would see the Lord, we must be holy, or pure in heart, by a new birth unto righteousness. If justification be the end proposed, believing is a mean required. For to us righteousness shall be imputed, IF we believe. If a subsequent favourable treatment of the obligee be the end proposed; obedience, or conformity to rule, is the mean required. 5. When an agent is said to be obliged in or by any thing or consideration, that thing or consideration in or by which he is obliged, is to be considered as the consequent proposed; and the state or act leading to it is the antecedent required. To be obliged in conscience, in duty, in law, in honour &c., expresses the end to be obtained by a certain state or conduct as the mean or antecedent required. Thus for instance, if conscience be satisfied, if duty be discharged, if law be conformed to, or if honour be secured, the required antecedent means must be adopted, or such acts must be performed. 6. If the required antecedents be not performed, it is manifest that the free agent has voluntarily established other antecedents, and the injurious consequents of these last flow (as before observed) from the nature of things; which consequents will be similar or dissimilar to those proposed by the supreme Governor, in proportion, as the antecedent established voluntarily by the agent, is similar or dissimilar to what was required. Hence we may see the true standard and measure of guilt, and of the different gradations of praise or blame. 7. Having considered the nature of moral obligation, let us now advert to the subject of it. This inquiry has more immediately for its object the qualifications of the moral agent, or those considerations whereby he stands obliged, in contradistinction to those beings in the universe that are not moral agents. An attentive and long-continued investigation of the subject has taught us, that they are included in these three particulars: (1.) A natural capacity of moral enjoyment. (2.) A sufficiency of suitable means. And (3.) A freedom form compulsion in the choice of means.—Whatever being is possessed of these qualifications is morally obliged; for he has a suitable ability to establish his own antecedents as required, in order that the proposed consequents may follow. 8. The first qualification is a natural capacity of moral enjoyments. This belongs to no being that is not a free agent; but to every being who is so, it inseparably belongs. This, more than any superior degree of reason, (however great, and however forcible the influence from that superiority.) constitutes the chief and most essential difference between men and brutes. That such a capacity is an indispensably requisite qualification, is clear. For free agency necessarily implies, a consequent moral advantage, or a natural good to be morally enjoyed, either explicitly proposed by the moral Governor, or fairly implied in the system of moral government; but this could not be proposed if there were no capacity of enjoyment as now stated. And this consequent advantage may properly be called the perpetual enjoyment of God, the chief good; because the chief end of all subordinate enjoyments, as well as of all obedience, and the sum total of all happiness, is the conscious enjoyment of divine favour and excellence. 9. The second qualification is a sufficiency of suitable means. This is indispensably requisite; for to require an end while the means are our of the agent’s reach, or physically out of his power, and that under the forfeiture of the governor’s displeasure, is of the very essence of in justice. But the divine Governor is “a God of truth, and without in iniquity: just and right is he.” And that these means ought to be sufficient and suitable in their own nature to attain the end, in other words, that the antecedents required to be adopted by the agent, are infallibly connected with the proposed consequent, is equally plain, for the same reason that there should be any means at all. For means in themselves insufficient and unsuitable have no true connexion with the end proposed; even as a law in itself bad, has morally no obliging power. 10. The third qualification is a freedom from constraint and compulsion in the choice of means, or in the voluntary establishment of antecedents. By “constraint” and “compulsion” we mean a physical interference with the free agent in his act of choice, in such a sense, as that the choice would not be the genuine effect of the motive; or, that the nature of the fruit should not correspond with the nature of the tree; but some extraneous force interposing would make the nature of the volition to be different form the nature of the mind or disposition, which other wise would be its immediate cause. 11. Divine influence is admitted to be requisite, in order to prepare the state of the mind for a right choice, even as a good tree is requisite for the good fruit; but this is no interference with the act of choice itself, nor has it the least tendency to break the connexion between motive and choice, or between the mind and its volition.—Such influence, indeed, forms one glorious link of the decretive chain, which the sovereign Governor has established as so many antecedents; and a right choice, in a free agent thus divinely influenced, or formed anew, is the unrestrained and unimpelled effect which follows by a necessity of consequence. In other words, no bad choice can possibly follow, but by a failure in the cause, the mind or disposition itself. 12. On this principle it is, that the sovereign Being himself never errs in his choice. The source from which the act of choice proceeds is perfectly good, (an infinitely holy nature,) and the connexion between this cause and the effect, which is a right choice, is infallibly and in the nature of things necessarily secure. Hence it is that we never admit, or suspect, an error in his choice, however great his freedom; and hence we have a firm ground of confidence, that the Judge of the whole earth will do right. 13. The three qualifications mentioned belong to man as a free agent; but we must not confound this idea with that of a subject of moral government. An infant may be the subject of government, both human and divine; but cannot be, properly speaking, a free agent. Hence it follows that the first of the qualifications mentioned alone is essential to constitute a subject of moral government, in a the most extensive sense of the term; but in order to constitute that class of subjects who are also free agents, the other two are essential. 14. When these three qualifications are found in any free agent, nothing more is requisite to constitute moral obligation. An end is proposed—means firmly connected with that end are afforded, and required to be used - these means are physically in the power of the agent - who is also free from all constraint and compulsion in his act of choice. If these qualifications are not sufficient morally to oblige, we are fully persuaded nothing can be sufficient.—As to the notion, that moral ability is necessary to constitute moral obligation, which is maintained alike by many Arminians and most Antinomians, )for extremes will sometimes meet,) our author abundantly demonstrates its futility and absurd contradictions.—W.

It being so much insisted on by Arminian writers, that necessity is inconsistent with law or command, and particularly, that it is absurd to suppose God by his command 48 should require that of men which they are unable to do; not allowing in this case for any difference between natural and moral Inability; I would therefore now particularly consider this matter.—And for greater clearness I would distinctly lay down the following things.

I. The Will itself, and not only those actions which are the effects of the Will, is the proper object of Precept or Command. That is, such a state or acts of men’s Wills, are in many cases properly required of them by Commands; and not only those alterations in the state of their bodies or minds that are the consequences of volition. This is most manifest; for it is the soul only that is properly and directly the subject of Precepts or Commands; that only being capable of receiving or perceiving Commands. The motions or state of the body are matter of Command, only as they are subject to the soul, and connected with its acts. But now the soul has no other faculty whereby it can, in the most direct and proper sense, consent, yield to, or comply with any Command, but the faculty of the Will; and it is by this faculty only, that the soul can directly disobey, or refuse compliance: for the very notions of consenting, yielding, accepting, complying, refusing, rejecting, &c. are, according to the meaning of the terms, nothing but certain acts of the Will. Obedience, in the primary nature of it, is the submitting and yielding of the Will of one, to the Will of another. Disobedience is the not consenting, not complying of the Will of the commanded, to the manifested Will of the commander. Other acts that are not the acts of the Will, as certain motions of the body and alterations in the soul, are Obedience or Disobedience only indirectly, as they are connected with the state or actions of the Will, according to an established law of nature. So that it is manifest, the Will itself may be required: and the being of a good Will is the most proper, direct, and immediate subject of Command; and if this cannot be prescribed or required by Command or Precept, nothing can; for other things can be required no otherwise than as they depend upon, and are the fruits of a good Will.

Corol. 1. If there be several acts of the Will, or a series of acts, one following another, and one the effect of another, the first and determining act is properly the subject of Command, and not only the consequent acts, which are dependent upon it. Yea, this more especially is that to which Command or Precept has a proper respect; because it is this act that determines the whole affair: in this act the Obedience or Disobedience lies, in a peculiar manner; the consequent acts being all governed and determined by 49 it. This governing act must be the proper object of Precept, or none.

Corol. 2. It also follows, from what has been observed, that if there be any act, or exertion of the soul, prior to all free acts of choice in the case, directing and determining what the acts of the Will shall be; that act of the soul cannot properly be subject to any Command or Precept, in any respect whatsoever, either directly or indirectly, immediately or remotely. Such acts cannot be subject to Commands directly, because they are no acts of the Will; being by the supposition prior to all acts of the Will, determining and giving rise to all its acts: they not being acts of the Will, there can be in them no consent to or compliance with any Command. Neither can they be subject to Command or Precept indirectly or remotely; for they are not so much as the effects or consequences of the Will, being prior to all its acts. So that if there be any Obedience in that original act of the soul, determining all volitions, it is an act of Obedience wherein the Will has no concern at all; it preceding every act of Will. And therefore, if the soul either obeys or disobeys in this act, it is wholly involuntarily; there is no willing Obedience or rebellion, no compliance or opposition of the Will in the affair: and what sort of Obedience or rebellion is this?

And thus the Arminian notion of the freedom of the Will consisting in the soul’s determining its own acts of Will, instead of being essential to moral agency, and to men being the subjects of moral government, is utterly inconsistent with it. For if the soul determines all its acts of Will, it is therein subject to no Command or moral government, as has been now observed; because its original determining act is no act of Will or choice, it being prior, by the supposition, to every act of Will. And the soul cannot be the subject of Command in the act of the Will itself, which depends on the foregoing determining act, and is determined by it; inasmuch as this is necessary, being the necessary consequence and effect of that prior determining act, which is not voluntary. Nor can the man be the subject of Command or government in his external actions; because these are all necessary, being the necessary effects of the acts of the Will themselves. So that mankind, according to this scheme, are subjects of Command or moral government in nothing at all; and all their moral agency is entirely excluded, and no room is left for virtue or vice in the world.

So that the Arminian scheme, and not that of the Calvinists, is utterly inconsistent with moral government, and with all use of laws, precepts, prohibitions, promises, or threatenings. Neither is there any way whatsoever to make their principles consist with these things. For if it be said, that there is no prior determining act of the soul, preceding the acts of the Will, but that volitions are events that come to pass by pure accident, without any determining cause, this is most palpably inconsistent with all use of laws and precepts; for nothing is more plain than that laws can be of no use to direct and regulate perfect accident: which, by the supposition of its being pure accident, is in no case regulated by any thing preceding; but happens, this way or that, perfectly by chance, without any cause or rule. The perfect uselessness of laws and precepts also follows from the Arminian notion of indifference, as essential to that liberty, which is requisite to virtue or vice. For the end of laws is to bind to one side; and the end of Commands is to turn the Will one way: and therefore they are of no use, unless they turn or bias the Will that way. But if liberty consists in indifference, then their biassing the Will one way only, destroys liberty; as it puts the Will out of equilibrium. So that the will, having a bias, through the influence of binding law, laid upon it, is not wholly left to itself, to determine itself which way it will, without influence from without.

II. Having shown that the Will itself, especially in those acts which are original, leading and determining in any case, is the proper subject of Precept and Command—and not only those alterations in the body, &c. which are the effects of the Will—I now proceed, in the second place, to observe, that the very opposition or defect of the Will itself, in its original and determining act in the case, to a thing proposed or commanded, or its failing of compliance, implies a moral inability to that thing: or, in other words, whenever a Command requires a certain state or act of the Will, and the person commanded, notwithstanding the Command and the circumstances under which it is exhibited, still finds his Will opposite or wanting, in that, belonging to its state or acts, which is original and determining in the affair, that man is morally unable to obey that Command.

This is manifest from what was observed in the first part concerning the nature of moral Inability, as distinguished from natural: where it was observed, that a man may then be said to be morally unable to do a thing, when he is under the influence or prevalence of a contrary inclination, or has a want of inclination, under such circumstances and views. It is also evident, from what has been before proved, that the Will is always, and in every individual act, necessarily determined by the strongest motive; ¹³²¹³²    Our author does not mean by “motive,” the object presented to the mind according to its intrinsic worth; but he takes into the account also the state of the mind itself, in reference to that object, according to which will be the appearance of it. Therefore, strictly speaking, the motive, as he has intimated at the commencement of this work, denotes the object as it stands in the view of the mind. If we do not maintain this distinction, the dispute will soon degenerate into a confused logomachy; and we should be forced, in defending this position—that the will is “necessarily determined by the strongest motive”—to adopt this, the most absurd of all conclusions, that the will of every man in the present state always chooses what is really best, or never errs in its elections. Whereas the world is full of errors and delusions; things the most excellent in themselves, are commonly rejected, and others the most worthless are preferred. But this could not happen, except on this principle, that the reality of worth differs, in those instances, from the appearance of it. In such cases, the difference is not in the object, but in the mind, when the choice takes place. For instance; suppose the blessed God in his true character as revealed in the Scriptures, the chief and an unchangeable good, be proposed to the contemplation of a wicked man, and his will rejects that good. Now, as the mind is incapable of rejecting a good, or of choosing an evil, as such; it is plain, that the proper and immediate cause of difference between the reality and the appearance of good, is in the state of the mind. Here lies the essence of an erroneous choice,—the will preferring an object which is apparently but not really preferable. Hence it follows irrefragably, that the state of the mind is the true and proper source of a right and wrong choice. This is it that influences the appearance of an object, so as to stand in the apprehension and practical judgement of the mind as worse or better than it really is. Therefore, the true state of the mind and the real state of the object of choice, united, are the genuine parents of the objective appearance in the mind, morally considered, or according to the qualities of good and evil; and this offspring—objective appearance— is what our author calls “the strongest motive.”—W. and so is always unable to go against the motive, which, all things considered, has now the greatest strength and advantage to move the Will.—But not further to insist on these things, the truth of the position now laid down, viz. that when the Will is opposite to, or failing of a compliance with, a thing, in its original determination or act, it is not able to comply, appears by the consideration of these two things.

1. The Will in the time of that diverse or opposite leading act or inclination, and when actually under its influence, is not able to exert itself to the contrary, to make an alteration, in order to a compliance. The inclination is unable to change itself; and that for this plain reason, that it is unable to incline to change itself. Present choice cannot at present choose to be otherwise: for that would be at present to choose something diverse from what is at present chosen. If the Will, all things now considered, inclines or chooses to go that way, then it cannot choose, all things now considered, to go the other way, and so cannot choose to be made to go the other way. To suppose that the mind is now sincerely inclined to change itself to a different inclination, is to suppose the mind is now truly inclined otherwise than it is now inclined. The Will may oppose some future remote act that it is exposed to, but not its own present act.

2. As it is impossible that the Will should comply with the thing commanded, with respect to its leading act, by any act of its own, in the time of that diverse or opposite leading and original act, or after it has actually come under the influence of that determining choice or inclination; so it is impossible it should be determined to a compliance by any foregoing act; for, by the very supposition, there is no foregoing act; the opposite or noncomplying act being that act which is original and determining in the case. Therefore it must be so, that if this first determining act be found non-complying, on the proposal of the command, the mind is morally unable to obey. For to suppose it to be able to obey, is to suppose it to be able to determine and cause its first determining 50 act to be otherwise, and that it has power better to govern and regulate its first governing and regulating act, which is absurd; for it is to suppose a prior act of the Will, determining its first determining act; that is, an act prior to the first, and leading and governing the original and governing act of all; which is a contradiction.

Here if it should be said, that although the mind has not any ability to will contrary to what it does will, in the original and leading act of the Will, because there is supposed to be no prior act to determine and order it otherwise, and the Will cannot immediately change itself, because it cannot at present incline to a change; yet the mind has an ability for the present to forbear to proceed to action, and taking time for deliberation; which may be an occasion of the change of the inclination.

I answer, (1.) In this objection, that seems to be forgotten which was observed before, viz. that the determining to take the matter into consideration, is itself an act of the Will: and if this be all the act wherein the mind exercises ability and freedom, then this, by the supposition, must be all that can be commanded or required by precept. And if this act be the commanding act, then all that has been observed concerning the commanding act of the Will remains true, that the very want of it is a moral Inability to exert it, &c. (2.) We are speaking concerning the first and leading act of the Will about the affair; and if determining to deliberate, or, on the contrary, to proceed immediately without deliberating, be the first and leading act; or whether it be or no, if there be another act before it, which determines that; or whatever be the original and leading act; still the foregoing proof stands good, that the non-compliance of the leading act implies moral Inability to comply.

If it should be objected, that these things make all moral Inability equal, and suppose men morally unable to will otherwise than they actually do will, in all cases, and equally so in every instance.—In answer to this objection, I desire two things may be observed.

First, That if by being equally unable, be meant, as really unable; then, so far as the Inability is merely moral, it is true; the Will, in every instance, acts by moral necessity, and is morally unable to act otherwise, as truly and properly in one case as another; as, I humbly conceive, has been perfectly and abundantly demonstrated by what has been said in the preceding part of this essay. But yet, in some respect, the Inability may be said to be greater in some instances than others: though the man may be truly unable, (if moral Inability can truly be called Inability,) yet he may be further from being able to do some things than others. As it is in things, which men are naturally unable to do. A person, whose strength is no more than sufficient to lift the weight of one hundred pounds, is as truly and really unable to lift one hundred and one pounds, as ten thousand pounds; but yet he is further from being able to lift the latter weight than the former; and so, according to the common use of speech, has a greater Inability for it. So it is in moral Inability. A man is truly morally unable to choose contrary to a present inclination, which in the least degree prevails; or, contrary to that motive, which, all things considered, has strength and advantage now to move the Will, in the least degree, superior to all other motives in view: but yet he is further from ability to resist a very strong habit, and a violent and deeply rooted inclination, or a motive vastly exceeding all others in strength. And again, the Inability may, in some respects, be called greater in some instances than others, as it may be more general and extensive to all acts of that kind. So men may be said to be unable in a different sense, and to be further from moral ability, who have that moral Inability which is general and habitual, than they who have only that Inability which is occasional and particular. ¹³³¹³³    See this distinction of moral Inability explained in Part. Sect. IV. Thus in cases of natural Inability; he that is born blind may be said to be unable to see, in a different manner, and is, in some respects, further from being able to see, than he whose sight is hindered by a transient cloud or mist.

And besides, that which was observed in the first part of this discourse, concerning the Inability which attends a strong and settled habit, should be there remembered; viz. that a fixed habit is attended with this peculiar moral Inability, by which it is distinguished from occasional volition, namely, that endeavours to avoid future volitions of that kind, which are agreeable to such a habit, much more frequently and commonly prove vain and insufficient. For though it is impossible there should be any sincere endeavours against a present choice, yet there may be against volitions of that kind, when viewed at a distance. A person may desire and use means to prevent future exercises of a certain inclination; and, in order to it, may wish the habit might be removed; but his desires and endeavours may be ineffectual. The man may be said in some sense to be unable; yea, even as the word unable is a relative term, and has relation to ineffectual endeavours; yet not with regard to present, but remote endeavours.

Secondly, It must be borne in mind, according to what was observed before, that indeed no Inability whatsoever, which is merely moral, is properly called by the name of Inability; and that in the strictest propriety of speech, a man may be said to have a thing in his power, if he has it at his election, and he cannot be said to be unable to do a thing, when he can, if he now pleases, or whenever he has a proper, direct, and immediate desire for it. As to those desires and endeavours, that may be against the exercises of a strong habit, with regard to which men may be said to be unable to avoid those exercises, they are remote desires and endeavours in two respects. First, as to time; they are never against present volitions, but only against volitions of such a kind, when viewed at a distance. Secondly, as to their nature; these opposite desires are not directly and properly against the habit and inclination itself, or the volitions in which it is exercised; for these, in themselves considered, are agreeable: but against something else that attends them, or is their consequence; the opposition of the mind is leveled entirely against this; the volitions themselves are not at all opposed directly, and for their own sake; but only indirectly and remotely, on the account of something foreign.

III. Though the opposition of the Will itself, or the very want of Will to a thing commanded, implies a moral Inability to that thing; yet, if it be, as has been already shown, that the being of a good state or act of Will, is a thing most properly required by Command; then, in some cases, such a state or act of Will may properly be required, which at present is not, and which may also be wanting after it is commanded. And therefore those things may properly be commanded, for which men have a moral Inability.

Such a state or act of the Will, may be required by Command, as does not already exist. For if that volition only may be commanded to be, which already is, there could be no use of precept: Commands in all cases would be perfectly vain and impertinent. And not only may such a Will be required, as is wanting before the Command is given, but also such as may possibly be wanting afterwards; such as the exhibition of the Command may not be effectual to produce or excite. Otherwise, no such thing as disobedience to a proper and rightful Command is possible in any case; and there is no case possible, wherein there can be a faulty disobedience. Which Arminians cannot affirm, consistently with their principle: for this makes obedience to just and proper Commands always necessary, and disobedience impossible. And so the Arminian would overthrow himself, yielding the very point we are upon, which he so strenuously denies, viz. that Law and Command are consistent with necessity.

If merely that inability will excuse disobedience, which is implied in the opposition or defect of inclination, remaining after the Command is exhibited, then wickedness always carries that in it which excuses it. By how much the more wickedness there is in a man’s heart, by so much is his inclination to evil the stronger, and by so much the more, therefore, has he of moral Inability to the good required. His moral Inability consisting in the strength of his evil inclination, is the very thing wherein his wickedness consists; and yet, according to Arminian principles, 51 it must be a thing inconsistent with wickedness; and by how much the more he has of it, by so much is he the further from wickedness.

Therefore, on the whole, it is manifest, that moral Inability alone (which consists in disinclination) never renders any thing improperly the subject matter of Precept or Command, and never can excuse any person in disobedience, or want of conformity to a command.

Natural Inability, arising from the want of natural capacity, or external hindrance, (which alone is properly called Inability,) without doubt wholly excuses, or makes a thing improperly the matter of Command. If men are excused from doing or acting any good thing, supposed to be commanded, it must be through some defect or obstacle that is not in the Will itself, but either in the capacity of understanding, or body, or outward circumstances.—Here two or three things may be observed,

1. As to spiritual acts, or any good thing in the state or imminent acts of the Will itself, or of the affections, (which are only certain modes of the exercise of the Will,) if persons are justly excused, it must be through want of capacity in the natural faculty of understanding. Thus the same spiritual duties, or holy affections and exercises of heart, cannot be required of men, as may be of angels; the capacity of understanding being so much inferior. So men cannot be required to love those amiable persons, whom they have had no opportunity to see, or hear of, or know in any way agreeable to the natural state and capacity of the human understanding. But the insufficiency of motives will not excuse; unless their being insufficient arises not from the moral state of the Will or inclination itself, but from the state of the natural understanding. The great kindness and generosity of another may be a motive insufficient to excite gratitude in the person that receives the kindness, through his vile and ungrateful temper: in this case, the insufficiency of the motive arises from the state of the Will or inclination of heart, and does not at all excuse. But if this generosity is not sufficient to excite gratitude, being unknown, there being no means of information adequate to the state and measure of the person’s faculties, this insufficiency is attended with a natural Inability, which entirely excuses it.

2. As to such motions of body, or exercises and alterations of mind, which do not consist in the imminent acts or state of the Will itself—but are supposed to be required as effects of the Will, in cases wherein there is no want of a capacity of understanding—that Inability, and that only, excuses, which consists in want of connexion between them and the Will. If the Will fully complies, and the proposed effect does not prove, according to the laws of nature, to be connected with his volition, the man is perfectly excused; he has a natural Inability to the thing required. For the Will itself, as has been observed, is all that can be directly and immediately required by Command; and other things only indirectly, as connected with the Will. If therefore, there be a full compliance of Will, the person has done his duty; and if other things do not prove to be connected with his volition, that is not criminally owing to him.

3. Both these kinds of natural Inability, and all Inability that excuses, may be resolved into one thing; namely, want of natural capacity or strength; either capacity of understanding, or external strength. For when there are external defects and obstacles, they would be no obstacles, were it not for the imperfection and limitations of understanding and strength.

Corol. If things for which men have a moral Inability may properly be the matter of Precept or Command, then they may also of invitation and counsel. Commands and invitations come very much to the same thing; the difference is only circumstantial: Commands are as much a manifestation of the Will of him that speaks, as invitations, and as much testimonies of expectation of compliance. The difference between them lies in nothing that touches the affair in hand. The main difference between Command and invitation consists in the enforcement of the Will of him who commands or invites. In the latter it is his kindness, the goodness from which his Will arises: in the former it is his authority. But whatever be the ground of Will in him that speaks, or the enforcement of what he says, yet, seeing neither his Will, nor his expectation, is any more testified in the one case than the other; therefore, a person being directed by invitation, is no more an evidence of insincerity in him that directs—in manifesting either a Will or expectation which he has not—than a person being known to be morally unable to do what he is directed by command is an evidence of insincerity. So that all this grand objection of Arminians against the Inability of fallen men to exert faith in Christ, or to perform other spiritual duties, from the sincerity of God’s counsels and invitations, must be without force. ¹³⁴¹³⁴    On the subject of Sincerity or Insincerity in prohibitions, commands, counsels, invitations, and the like, in cases where God foreknows that the event will not take place by the compliance of the moral agent addressed, we may remark a few particulars in addition to our author’s reasoning: 1. The sincerity of prohibitions and commands, counsels and invitations, and the like, is foundeth—not in the event of things as good or bad, or the knowledge of events, or the purpose that secures some, or the necessity of consequence from which others flow, nor in the moral ability of the agent, but—in the very nature and tendency of the things themselves which are prohibited, commanded, or proposed, as good or evil, either intrinsically, if of a moral nature, or else relatively, if of positive appointment. Therefore, 2. Whether the event be compliance or non-compliance, the command, or invitation, &c. is perfectly sincere. For, in truth, these are neither more nor less than testimonies respecting the goodness or badness of the things in question, in the sense before mentioned, and the consequent obligations of the agent respecting them, under a forfeiture either declared or implied. Consequently, 3. Insincerity can attach to a command only on supposition that the goodness or badness of the event were the ground of the signified will, while at the same time another event, diverse from that which actually takes place, was purposed by the same will. But, 4. Strictly speaking, no events, as such, are the objects of purpose; but rather, the purpose respects the good antecedents, whereby good events, following by the necessity of consequence, are infallibly secured. Besides, 5. It is highly absurd, as must appear from the nature of law and obligation, to suppose that the sincerity of legislative or inviting will should depend on the event of compliance or non-compliance. Surely the sincerity of a lawgiver is not affected, whether all obey, or only some, or even none. Legislation is a testimony with sanctions, that the thing prohibited is evil, or the thing commanded is good, to the party. Hence, 6. The consequent, whether good or bad, is objectively established, or hypothethically proposed, by the legislator: and the antecedent is supposed to be within the reach, or, physically considered, placed within the power, of the agent. Therefore, 7. The agent’s abuse of his physical power, in reference to the antecedent, constitutes the criminality, and the right use of it constitutes the virtue, of an action. And then alone is physical power, in fact, used aright when it is the instrument of moral rectitude, or a right state of mind. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so, every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree (as such ) cannot bring forth evil fruit; neither can a corrupt tree (as such ) bring forth good fruit.—W.