“But Abimelech had not come near her: and he said, ‘Lord, wilt thou slay also a righteous nation?… in the integrity of my heart and innocency of my hands have I done this.’ And God said unto him… ‘Yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart; for I also withheld thee from sinning against Me.”
Gen. 20:4-6
“An high look, and a proud heart, and the plowing of the wicked, is sin.”
Prov. 21:4
“As it is written, ‘There is none righteous, no, not one.'”
Rom. 3:10
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Subsections
Common Grace
Contra Utter Depravity
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Order of Contents
Articles 4
Westminster
Quotes 4
Civil Righteousness
Latin 5
Biblio 1
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Articles
1600’s
Turretin, Francis – Institutes, ed. James Dennison, Jr. (Presbytreian & Reformed)
vol. 1
10th Topic, 5. ‘Whether the virtues of the heathen were good works from which the power of free will to good can be inferred. We deny against the papists.’ 683
vol. 2
15th Topic, Calling & Faith
Question 3, ‘Is sufficient, subjective and internal grace given to each and every one? We deny against the Romanists, Socinians and Arminians’, pp. 510-17
Question 5, ‘Whether in the first moment of conversion man is merely passive or whether his will cooperates in some measure with the grace of God. The former we affirm and deny the latter against all Synergists’, pp. 542-46
17th Topic, Sanctification & Good Works
Question 4, ‘What is required that a work may be truly good? Are the works of the righteous such? We affirm.’, pp. 706-10
Question 5, ‘Is there a merit of congruity or condignity? Do good works merit eternal life? We deny against the Romanists.’, pp. 710-24
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Westminster
Confession of Faith
ch. 9, ‘Of Free Will’
“I. God hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty, that is neither forced, nor by any absolute necessity of nature determined, to good or evil.[a]
[a] Matt. 17:12. James 1:14. Deut. 30:19
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III. Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation;[d] so as a natural man, being altogether averse from that good,[e] and dead in sin,[f] is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto.[g]
[d] Rom. 5:6. Rom 8:7. John 15:5
[e] Rom. 3:10,12
[f] Eph. 2:1,5. Col. 2:13
[g] John 6:44,65. Eph. 2:2-5. 1 Cor. 2:14. Tit. 3:3-5
IV. When God converts a sinner, and translates him into the state of grace, he freeth him from his natural bondage under sin,[h] and by his grace alone, enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good;[i] yet so as that, by reason of his remaining corruption, he doth not perfectly nor only will that which is good, but doth also will that which is evil.[k]
[h] Col. 1:13. John 8:34,36
[i] Phil. 2:13. Rom. 6:18,22
[k] Gal. 5:17. Rom. 7:15,18,19,21,23“
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ch. 10, ‘Of Effectual Calling’
“II. This effectual call is of God’s free and special grace alone, not from any thing at all foreseen in man;[i] who is altogether passive therein, until, being quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit,[k] he is thereby enabled to answer this call, and to embrace the grace offered and conveyed in it.[l]
[i] 2 Tim. 1:9. Tit. 3:4,5. Eph. 2:4,5,8,9. Rom. 9:11
[k] 1 Cor. 2:14. Rom. 8:7. Eph. 2:5
[l] John 6:37. Ezek. 36:27. John 5:25
III. Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit,[m] who worketh when, and where, and how he pleaseth.[n] So also are all other elect persons, who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the word.[o]
[m] Luke 18:15,16 and Acts 2:38,39 and John 3:3,5 and 1 John 5:12 and Rom. 8:9. [Compared together.]
[n] John 3:8
[o] 1 John 5:12. Acts 4:12“
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ch. 14, ‘Of Saving Faith’
“I. The grace of faith, whereby the elect are enabled to believe to the saving of their souls,[a] is the work of the Spirit of Christ in their hearts,[b] and is ordinarily wrought by the ministry of the word:[c] by which also, and by the administration of the sacraments, and prayer, it is increased and strengthened.[d]
[a] Heb. 10:39
[b] 2 Cor. 4:13. Eph. 1:17-19. Eph. 2:8
[c] Rom. 10:14,17
[d] 1 Pet. 2:2. Acts 20:32. Rom. 4:11. Luke 17:5. Rom. 1:16,17“
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ch. 16, ‘Of Good Works’ (See the whole chapter)
“VII. Works done by unregenerate men, although, for the matter of them, they may be things which God commands, and of good use both to themselves and others;[y] yet, because they proceed not from a heart purified by faith;[z] nor are done in a right manner, according to the word;[a] nor to a right end, the glory of God;[b] they are therefore sinful, and cannot please God, or make a man meet to receive grace from God.[c] And yet their neglect of them is more sinful, and displeasing unto God.[d]
[y] 2 Kings 10:30,31. 1 Kings 21:27,29. Phil. 1:15,16,18
[z] Gen. 4:5 with Heb. 11:4. Heb. 11:6
[a] 1 Cor. 13:3. Isa. 1:12
[b] Matt. 6:2,5,16
[c] Hag. 2:14. Tit. 1:15. Amos 5:21,22. Hosea 1:4. Rom. 9:16. Tit. 3:5
[d] Ps. 14:4. Ps. 36:3. Job 21:14,15. Matt. 25:41-43,45. Matt. 23:23“
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Quotes
Order of
Ursinus
Polanus
Rutherford
Holtzfus
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1500’s
Zachary Ursinus
The Sum of Christian Religion: Delivered… in his Lectures upon the Catechism… tr. Henrie Parrie (Oxford, 1587), Of Sin, 3. How many kinds of sin there are, 5. Sinful in itself or Not, pp. 94-95
“Things commanded, in the unregenerate are sins, because although the actions and doings of those things are commanded, yet the person, from whom those actions proceed, pleases not God, neither is reconciled unto God. Further, that which the unregenerate do, they do it not to that end, whereunto they ought, that is, to the glory of God, neither is their action grounded of faith. For they know not whether or no they have God favorable to them, or whether that be pleasing unto Him which they do.
But these conditions and circumstances are necessarily required to a good work: for it suffices not to do good works after a civil manner. Those civil works indeed are good, as they proceed from God: but as they are in unregenerate men, they are evil: even as it is sin, when a wicked man gives alms: because it proceeds not from the love of God and therefore not from faith, neither is referred unto God’s glory.
But yet those things which men do being forbidden in the Law of God are of themselves and properly sins, because the nature or definition of sin doth properly agree unto them: which is, that they are done against the express commandment of God. And therefore in the Scripture things which are so done of men, are ever called evil, but never good.
But those things which are commanded of God, when they are done by the unregenerate, or in hypocrisy, they are so discommended, as yet nevertheless they are counted and praised for good: and that not only in respect of God, who is the efficient of those things in men, in respect of whom all the actions of the wicked are just: but also in respect of the men themselves by whom they are done, so that they also are said to have done well, as 1 Kings 21, ‘Seest thou how Ahab is humbled before me? Because he submits himself before Me, I will not bring that evil in his days. And 2 Kn. 10, ‘The Lord said unto Jehu: Behold, because thou hast diligently executed that which was right in my eyes etc.”
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1600’s
Amandus Polanus
‘Theological Theses on the Choice of Man’, pt. 1 & 2 (Basel: Waldkirchius, 1597) trans. at Obedientia Mortis Christi Latin
“19. In this life they [powers of human choice] avail nothing without the help of God, whether general or special.
20. General help is called the general motion of divine providence by which all things are governed and preserved. Acts 17:28; Heb. 1:3.
21. Special help is called the particular grace that moves, strengthens, and advances unto action.
22. And this is either apart from regenerating grace, by which God distributes moral gifts and moral virtues to whom he wills, even to the reprobate (1 Cor. 12), or it is joined with regenerating grace, that is, the saving grace of Christ, of which it is said in Jn. 15:5 and 1 Cor. 15:10.
23. I say that the powers of human choice (vires humani arbitrii) avail nothing in themselves, neither in earthly matters nor in heavenly matters.
24. I call earthly matters those things which pertain only to earthly life.
25. And these are either natural or moral.
26. Natural things are called those which are common to all living beings, such as eating, drinking, sleeping, walking, procreating, etc.
27. Moral things are called political or civil matters which pertain to establishing and preserving human life, household management, society, and the commonwealth—such as buying, selling, administering justice, serving in the military, cultivating peace, governing a family, learning the sciences and arts whether liberal or mechanical, etc.
28. Heavenly matters are those things which pertain to the heavenly and spiritual life in the kingdom of Christ, such as believing in God, calling upon God, doing the will of God, fulfilling the commandments of God, etc. These are also called spiritual matters, matters pertaining to salvation, pious, Christian, and religious matters.
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38. After the fall, choice, both regenerate and unregenerate, can choose and accomplish no natural things without the general help of God.
39. Much less is it able to choose and pursue political matters without the general help of God.
40. Indeed, it cannot desire and pursue moral virtues, disciplines, and arts without the special help of God, who in his goodness bends the will and supplies strength.”
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Samuel Rutherford
Lex Rex... (1644; Edinburgh: Ogle, 1843), p. 30
“It is true that people, through corruption of nature, are averse to submit to governors ‘for conscience sake, as unto the Lord,’ because the natural man, remaining in the state of nature, can do nothing that is truly good, but it is false that men have no active moral power to submit to superiors, but only a passive capacity to be governed.
He [John Maxwell] quite contradicts himself; for he said before (ch. 4, p. 49) that there is an ‘innate fear and reverence in the hearts of all men naturally, even in heathens, toward their sovereign;’ yea, as we have a natural moral active power to love our parents and superiors (though it be not evangelically, or legally in God’s court, good) and so to obey their commandments, only we are averse to penal laws of superiors. But this proves no way that we have only by nature a passive capacity to government; for heathens have, by instinct of nature, both made laws morally good, submitted to them, and set kings and judges over them, which clearly proves that men have an active power of government by nature.
Yea, what difference makes the Prelate betwixt men and beasts? for beasts have a capacity to be governed, even lions and tigers; but here is the matter, if men have any natural power of government, the Popish Prelate would have it, with his brethren the Jesuits and Arminians, to be not natural, but done by the help of universal grace; for so do they confound nature and grace. But it is certain our power to submit to rulers and kings, as to rectors, and guides, and fathers, is natural;”
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1700’s
Barthold Holtzfus
‘Theological Dissertation on the Free Will of Man’ trans. AI by Nosferatu (Frankfurt: Zeitler, 1707), ch. 2, pp. 20-22 Latin Holtzfus was a German reformed divine.
ҤV. As to liberty itself; there remained in the will of lapsed man:
1. Immunity from the necessity of coaction, or external violence, by reason of elicited acts.
2. Immunity from internal physical necessity.
3. The liberty of exercise or of contradiction, which is between willing or not willing; loving or not loving; acting or not acting.
4. The liberty of specification, by which the will, from two or more things or species which can be recalled to the sphere of doable things in the state of corruption, can choose one and neglect another.
§VI. The objects which pertain to the sphere of doable things in the state of reigning corruption, before conversion, are all those things which are subject to the senses and to natural reason, and do not surpass human grasp. And they are:
1. Actions merely natural and animal, e.g., to eat, to drink, to be awake, to sleep, to be moved from a place, to rest.
2. The inventions or apprehensions of sciences and arts, concerning which see Calvin, Institutes, bk. 2, ch. 2, §14.
3. Civil and economic actions, such as to care for a family and the commonwealth, and in them to do or omit one’s duty.
4. Moral actions of the natural order, and those which pertain to common ethics, Rom. 2:14-15…
Hence the virtues of the gentiles, produced by the general aid of God, as to their substance, are true moral virtues of the natural order, consisting of the same internal form, object, means and acts; although by reason of their mode, adjuncts, circumstances, and also their end, they often had notable defects, in respect of which Augustine calls them, by a broad signification, ‘sins’, although elsewhere he commends the virtues of the gentiles, as in Of the Spirit & the Letter, ch. 27; Epistle 99 to Evodius; also Epistle 130; and the book, On the Grace of Christ, ch. 24. See Dn. D. Samuel Strimesius, Praxiologia Apodictica, ch. 7, §5; D. Johann Fabricius, Systema Theologicum, locus 3, aphorism 2, p. 277.
Nor does the passage Rom. 14:23 stand in the way, for there Paul by ‘faith’ does not understand saving faith, but the dictate of conscience, by which something is judged to be licit or illicit.
§VII. But to this sphere in no way pertain spiritual actions, which cannot be elicited and performed except by the Spirit of God vivifying, illuminating, acting, operating, regenerating and sanctifying in certain degrees. In respect of these, we rightly teach that the natural powers of free will are not only bound, attenuated, impeded, wounded and broken, but plainly lost, destroyed, extinguished, and null, against the Pelagians, Semi-Pelagians, Socinians, Remonstrants, Mennonites; and in part also the Greeks, Synergists and Pontificists, of whom see Bellarmine, bk. 6 of On the Loss of Grace & the State of Sin, ch. 16; Coster, Enchiridion, ch. 5, p. 190.
§VIII. Against whom we assert that unregenerate man in the state of dominant corruption, or before his conversion, has from himself no natural powers, whether in the intellect or in the will, for… keep[ing] the precepts of God, and do[ing] good works, pleasing to God and saving for himself.”
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On Civil Righteousness
Bible Verses
2 Kings 10:10-11, 28, 30-31
“Know now that there shall fall unto the earth nothing of the word of the Lord, which the Lord spake concerning the house of Ahab: for the Lord hath done that which he spake by his servant Elijah. So Jehu slew all that remained of the house of Ahab in Jezreel, and all his great men, and his kinsfolks, and his priests, until he left him none remaining… Thus Jehu destroyed Baal out of Israel…
And the Lord said unto Jehu, ‘Because thou hast done well in executing that which is right in mine eyes, and hast done unto the house of Ahab according to all that was in mine heart, thy children of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel.’ But Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel with all his heart: for he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, which made Israel to sin.”
[Compare this with Hos. 1:4 below.]
2 Chron. 25:1-2 “Amaziah… did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, but not with a perfect heart.”
Hos. 1:4 “And the Lord said unto him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel.”
Mk. 12:32-34 “And the scribe said unto Him, ‘Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but He: And to love Him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.’ And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, He said unto him, ‘Thou art not far from the kingdom of God.'”
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God may Reward it
Quote
1500’s
Thomas Cartwright
eds. Peel & Carlson, Cartwrightiana (London: Halley Stewart, 1951)
V. A Short Catechism, p. 162
“Q. Is the blessing [in the 2nd Commandment for keeping God’s commandments] only proper to the godly?
A. No, for God rewards the posterity of the wicked with outward benefits according to their outward services as appears by the succession of some [or the same].”
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3. A Reproof of Certain Schismatical Persons, p. 220
“Likewise Cyrus, an idolater, was blessed in commanding and permitting the [Mosaic] law.”
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Latin Articles
1600’s
Alsted, Johann H. – XV. ‘What is to be made of Zwingli’s error about the salvation of the noble heathens? This is a grave error.’ in Polemical Theology… (Hanau, 1620; 1627), pt. 5, class 3, p. 626
Rutherford, Samuel – ch. 7, question 11, ‘Whether the virtues of the gentiles are true virtues? We deny against the Remonstrants’ in Examination of Arminianism (1639-1643; Utrecht, 1668), pp. 346-47
Maresius, Samuel – ‘A Theological Disputation on the Virtues of the Gentiles’ in A Syllabus of Further Select Disputations, vol. 2 (Groningen, 1663), pp. 123-36
Wittich, Christopher – Exercitation 4, ‘The Varnished over Virtues of the Gentiles, or the Truth of Good Works’ in Theological Exercises (Boutesteyn, 1682), pp. 281-355
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1700’s
Vitringa, Sr., Campegius – ch. 17, ‘Of the Virtues of the Gentiles’ in The Doctrine of the Christian Religion, Summarily Described through Aphorisms, vol. 3 (d. 1723), pp. 352-57
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Bibliography
Malcom, Howard – ‘Salvation of Heathen as such’ in Theological Index… (Boston: Gould & Lincoln, 1868), pp. 406-7
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“…for Hiram was ever a lover of David… So Hiram gave Solomon cedar trees and fir trees according to all his desire… and there was peace between Hiram and Solomon; and they two made a league together.”
1 Kings 5:1, 10, 12
“That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him, though He be not far from every one of us: For in Him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also his offspring.'”
Acts 17:27-28
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