CHAPTER IV. The Operation of God in the Hearts of Men. IT has now, I apprehend, been sufficiently proved, that man is so enslaved by sin, as to be of his own nature incapable of an effort or even an aspiration towards that which is good. We have also laid down a distinction between co-action and necessity, from which it appears that while he sins necessarily, he nevertheless sins voluntarily. But since, while he is devoted to the servitude of the devil, he seems to be actuated by his will, rather than by his own, it remains for us to explain the nature of both kinds of influence. There is also this question to be resolved, whether any thing is to be attributed to God in evil actions, in which the Scripture intimates that some influence of his is concerned. Augustine somewhere compares the human will to a horse, obedient to the direction of his rider: and God and the devil he compares to riders. “If God rides it, he, like a sober and skilful rider, manages it in a graceful manner: stimulates its tardiness; restrains its immoderate celerity; represses its wantonness and wildness; tames its perverseness, and conducts it into the right way. But if the devil has taken possession of it, he, like a foolish and wanton rider, forces it through pathless places, hurries it into ditches, drives it down over precipices, and excites it to obstinacy and ferocity." With this similitude, as no better occurs, we will at present be content. When the will of a natural man is said to be subject to the power of the devil, so as to be directed by it, the meaning is, not that it resists and is compelled to a reluctant submission, as masters compel slaves to an unwilling performance of their commands; but that being fascinated by the fallacies of Satan, it necessarily submits itself to all his directions. For those whom the Lord does not favour with the government of his Spirit, he abandons in righteous judg ment to the influence of Satan. Wherefore the Apostle says, that "the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not," who are destined to destruction, "lest the light of the gospel should shine unto them." () And in ano er place, that he "worketh in the children of disobedience." (m) The blinding of the wicked, and all those enormities which attend it, are called the works of Satan;. the cause of which must nevertheless be sought only in the human will, from which proceeds the root of evil, and in which rests the foundation of the kingdom of Satan, that is, sin. II. Very different in such instances is the method of the divine operation. And that we may have a clearer view of it, let us take as an example the calamity which holy Job suffered from the Chaldeans. (n) The Chaldeans massacred his shepherds, and committed hostile depredations on his flock. Now the wickedness of their procedure is evident; yet in these transactions Satan was not unconcerned; for with him the history states the whole affair to have originated. But Job himself recognises in it the work of the Lord, whom he asserts to have taken from him those things of which he had been plundered by the Chaldeans. How can we refer the same action to God, to Satan, and to man, as being each the author of it, without either excusing Satan by associating him with God, or making God the author of evil. Very easily, if we examine, first, the end for which the action was designed, and secondly, the manner in which it was effected. The design of the Lord is to exercise the patience of his servant by adversity; Satan endeavours to drive him to despair: the Chaldeans, in defiance of law and justice, desire to enrich themselves by the property of another. So great a diversity of design makes a great distinction in the action. There is no less difference in the manner. The Lord permits his servant to be afflicted by Satan: the Chaldeans, whom he commissions to execute his purpose, he permits and resigns to the impulses of Satan: Satan, with his envenomed stings, instigates the minds of the Chaldeans, otherwise very depraved, to perpetrate the crime: they furiously rush into the act of injustice, and overwhelm themselves in criminality. Satan therefore is properly said to work in the reprobate, in whom he exercises his dominion; that is, the kingdom of iniquity. God also is said to work in (2) 2 Cor. iv. 4. (m) Eph. ii. 2. (n) Job i. a way proper to himself, because Satan, being the instrument of his wrath, turns himself hither and thither at his appointment and command, to execute his righteous judgments. Here I allude not to the universal influence of God, by which all creatures are sustained, and from which they derive an ability to perform whatever they do. I speak only of that special influence which appears in every particular act. We see then that the same action is without absurdity ascribed to God, to Satan, and to man: but the variety in the end and in the manner, causes the righteousness of God to shine without the least blemish, and the iniquity of Satan and of man to betray itself to its own disgrace. III. The fathers are sometimes too scrupulous on this subject, and afraid of a simple confession of the truth, lest they should afford an occasion to impiety to speak irreverently and reproachfully of the works of God. Though I highly approve this sobriety, yet I think we are in no danger, if we simply maintain what the Scripture delivers. Even Augustine at one time was not free from this scrupulosity; as when he says that hardening and blinding belong not to the operation but to the prescience of God. But these subtleties are inconsistent with numerous expressions of the Scripture, which evidently import some intervention of God beyond mere foreknowledge. And Augustine himself, in his fifth book against Julian, contends very largely, that sins proceed not only from the permission or the prescience, but from the power of God, in order that former sins may thereby be punished. So also what they advance concerning permission is too weak to be supported. God is very frequently said to blind and harden the reprobate, and to turn, incline, and influence their hearts, as I have elsewhere more fully stated. But it affords no explification of the nature of this influence to resort to prescience or permission. We answer therefore that it operates in two ways. For, since when his light is removed nothing remains but darkness and blindness; since when his Spirit is withdrawn our hearts harden into stones; since when his direction ceases they are warped into obliquity; he is properly said to blind, harden, and incline those, whom he deprives of the power of seeing, obeying, and acting aright. The second way, which is much ! more consistent with strict propriety of language, is, when for the execution of his judgments, he by means of Satan, the minister of his wrath, directs their counsels to what he pleases, and excites their wills and strengthens their efforts. Thus when Moses relates that Sihon the king would not grant a free passage to the people, because God had "hardened his spirit, and made his heart obstinate," he immediately subjoins the end of God's design: "That he might deliver him into thy hand." () Since God willed his destruction, the obduration of his heart therefore was the divine preparation for his ruin. IV. The following expressions seem to relate to the former method: "He removeth away the speech of the trusty, and taketh away the understanding of the aged. He taketh away the heart of the chief people of the earth, and causeth them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way." (p) Again: "O Lord, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear?" (q) For these passages rather indicate what God makes men by deserting them, than shew how he performs his operations within them. But there are other testimonies, which go farther; as those which relate to the hardening of Pharaoh: "I will harden his (Pharaoh's) heart, that he shall not let the people go." (r) Afterwards the Lord says, "I have hardened his heart." (s) Did he harden it by not mollifying it? That is true; but he did somewhat more, for he delivered his heart to Satan to be confirmed in obstinacy; whence he had before said, "I will harden his heart." The people march out of Egypt; the inhabitants of the country meet them in a hostile manner; by whom were they excited? Moses expressly declared to the people, that it was the Lord who had hardened their hearts. (t) The Psalmist reciting the same history, says, "He turned their heart to hate his people." (v) Now it cannot be said that they fell in consequence of being neglected by the counsel of God. For if they are "hardened" and "turned," they are positively (0) Deut. ii. 30. VOL. I. (p) Job xii. 20, 24. 2 T (9) Isaiah Ixiii. 17. inclined to that point. Besides, whenever it hath pleased him to punish the transgressions of his people, how hath he executed his work by means of the reprobate? In such a manner that any one may see, that the efficacy of the action proceeded from him, and that they were only the ministers of his will. Wherefore he threatened sometimes that he would call them forth by hissing, (w) sometimes that he would use them as a net (x) to entangle, sometimes as a hammer (y) to strike the people of Israel. But he particularly declared himself to be operative in them, when he called Sennacherib an axe (z) which was both directed and driven by his hand. Augustine somewhere makes the following correct distinction: "that they sin, proceeds from themselves; that in sinning they perform this or that particular action, is from the power of God, who divideth the darkness according to his pleasure." V. Now that the ministry of Satan is concerned in instigating the reprobate, whenever the Lord directs them hither or thither by his providence, may be sufficiently proved even from one passage. For it is frequently asserted in Samuel that an evil spirit from the Lord either agitated or quitted Saul. (a) To refer this to the Holy Spirit were impious. An impure spirit therefore is said to be from God, because it acts according to his command and by his power, being rather an instrument in the performance of the action, than itself the author of it. We must add also what is advanced by Paul, that "God shall send strong delusion, that they who believed not the truth should believe a lie." (b) Yet there is always a wide difference, even in the same work, between the operation of God and the attempts of Satan and wicked men. He makes the evil instruments, which he has in his hand, and can turn as he pleases, to be subservient to his justice. They, as they are evil, produce the iniquity which the depravity of their nature hath conceived. The other arguments, which tend to vindicate the majesty of God from every calumny, and to obviate the cavils of the impious, have already been ad (w) Isaiah v. 26. vii. 18. (y) Jer. 1. 23. (a) 1 Sam. xvi. 14. xviii. 19. xix. 10. (x) Ezek. xii. 13. xvii. 29. (b) 2 Thess. ii. 11, 12. |