For us Christians the freedom of the will is absolutely settled by Him
Who says, "Whosoever will let him come."
If you are sometimes troubled by certain passages in Scripture which
seem to imply that God's predestination overrides man's will, remember,
that whenever we are considering any question which concerns both God's
nature and man's nature, difficulty must arise, from the very fact that
our finite mind can only comprehend, and that but imperfectly, man's
side of the transaction. Things which now seem incompatible, such as
prayer and law; miracle and, what we are pleased to call, nature; God's
foreknowledge and man's free-will in the light of eternity will be seen
as only complementary parts of one divine whole.
Remember too that you must take the general bearing of Scripture; not
isolated passages in which, for the necessity of the argument, one side
is strongly emphasised. The Apostle who, thinking of the boundless power
of God's grace, says, "So then it is not of him that willeth nor of him
that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy" (Rom. ix. 16) is the one
who says "He willeth that all men should be saved" (1 Tim. ii. 4).
The love by which the Father gave up His Son; the life and death of that
Son; the ministry of God the Holy Ghost; the whole dispensation of the
Catholic Church, form one great tender appeal to the free-will of man.
Your free-will, my free-will, before which is placed the tremendous
responsibility of choosing or rejecting.
And now from the broad thought of will, at its highest point, occupied
with eternal choices and spiritual decisions, we turn to will as the
governing power in our lives.
It is, to a certain extent, self in action, for before even the
slightest movement of any part of the body, there must have gone,
automatically and unconsciously, an act of will.
Before every deliberate action there takes place a discussion, which
ultimately decides the attitude of the will, that is your final purpose.
Put quite simply, the _motives_ determine the _will_, and are
themselves decided by the _principles_ at the back of them.
Let us make this plain by an illustration. It is pouring with rain, you
are sitting cosily over the fire with an interesting book. The thought
comes into your mind, I ought to go and see my sick friend. Then follows
the deliberation: the flesh says, "To-morrow will do just as well." The
spirit says, "No, it won't; you may both be dead to-morrow." The fles
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