CONCERNING EFFICACIOUS GRACE.
§ 1. it is manifest that the Scripture supposes, that if ever men are turned from sin, God must undertake it, and he must be the doer of it; that it is his doing that must determine the matter; that all that others can do, will avail nothing, without his agency. This is manifest by such texts as these: Jer. xxxi. 18, 19. “Turn thou me, and I shall be turned; Thou art the Lord my God. Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh,” &c. Lam. v. 21. “Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned.”
§2. According to Dr. Whitby’s notion of the assistance of the Spirit, the Spirit of God does nothing in the hearts or minds of men beyond the power of the devil; nothing but what the devil can do; and nothing showing any greater power in any respect, than the devil shows and exercises in his temptations. For he supposes that all that the Spirit of God does, is to bring moral motives and inducements to mind, and set them before the understanding, &c. It is possible that God may infuse grace, in some instances, into the minds of such persons as are striving to obtain it in the other way, though they may not observe it, and may not know that it is not obtained by gradual acquisition. But if a man has indeed sought it only in that way, and with as much dependence on himself, and with as much neglect of God in his endeavours and prayers, as such a doctrine naturally leads to, it is not very likely that he should obtain saving grace by the efficacious, mighty power of God. It is most likely that God should bestow this gift in a way of earnest attention to divine truth, and the use of the means of grace, with reflection on one’s own sinfulness, and in a way of being more and more convinced of sinfulness, and total corruption and need of the divine power to restore the heart, to infuse goodness, and of becoming more and more sensible of one’s own impotence, and helplessness and inability to obtain goodness by his own strength. And if a man has obtained no other virtue, than what seems to have been wholly in that gradual and insensible way that might be expected from use and custom, in the exercise of his own strength, he has reason to think, however bright his attainments may seem to be, that he has no saving virtue.
§ 3. Great part of the gospel is denied by those who deny pure efficacious grace. They deny that wherein actual salvation and the application of redemption mainly consists; and how unlikely are such to be successful in their endeavours after actual salvation!
Turnbull’s explanation of Philip. ii. 12, 13. “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his own good pleasure,” is this, (Christian Philosophy, p. 96, 97.) “Give all diligence to work out your salvation; for it is God, the Creator of all things, who, by giving you, of his good pleasure, the power of willing and doing, with a sense of right and wrong, and reason to guide and direct you, hath visibly made it your end so to do. Your frame shows, that to prepare yourselves for great moral happiness, arising from a well cultivated and improved mind, suitably placed, is your end appointed to you by your Creator. Consider, therefore, that by neglecting this your duty, this your interest, you contemn and oppose the good will of God towards you, and his design in creating you.”
§ 4. If we look through all the examples we have of conversion in Scripture, the conversion of the apostle Paul, and of the Corinthians, (“Such were some of you, but ye are washed, 1 ” &c.) and all others that the apostles write to, how far were they from this gradual way of conversion, by contracted habits, and by such culture as Turn-bull speaks of! Turnbull, in his Christian Philosophy, p. 470. seems to think, that the sudden conversions that were in the apostles’ days, were instances of their miraculous power, as in these words, “They appealed to the works they wrought, to the samples they gave of their power to foretell future events; their power to cure instantaneously all diseases of the body; their power to cure, in the same extraordinary manner, all diseases of the mind, or to convert bad into good dispositions; their power to bestow gifts and blessings of all sorts, bodily and spiritual.” See again to the like purpose, p. 472.
Now I would inquire, whether those who thus had the diseases of their minds cured, and their had converted into good dispositions, had any virtue; or whether those good dispositions of theirs were virtues, or any thing praiseworthy; and whether, when they were thus converted, they became good men and the heirs of salvation? As Turnbull himself allows, all that are not good men, were called the children of the devil in Scripture; and he asserts that nothing is virtue, but what is obtained by our own culture; that no habit is virtuous, but a contracted one, one that is owing to ourselves, our own diligence, &c.; and also holds, that none are good men but the virtuous; none others are the heirs of future happiness.