Elberfeld, October 23, 1861
Elberfeld, October 23, 1861
Very dear brother,
I had a little lost sight of an
important subject of your last letter solely through the multitude of my
occupations. This fresh breaking out of the doctrine of free will promotes the
doctrine of the natural man’s pretension not to be entirely lost, for that is
really what it amounts to. All men who have never been deeply convinced of sin,
all persons with whom this conviction is based upon gross and outward sins,
believe more or less in free will You know that it is the dogma of the
Wesleyans, of all reasoners, of all philosophers. But this idea completely
changes all the idea of Christianity and entirely perverts it.
If Christ has come to save that
which is lost, free will has no longer any place. Not that God hinders man from
receiving Christ — far from it. But even when God employs all possible motives,
everything which is capable of influencing the heart of man, it only serves to
demonstrate that man will have none of it, that his heart is so corrupted and
his will so decided not to submit to God (whatever may be the truth of the
devil’s encouraging him in sin) that nothing can induce him to receive the Lord
and to abandon sin. If, by liberty of man, it is meant that no one obliges him
to reject the Lord, this liberty exists fully. But if it is meant that, because
of the dominion of sin to which he is a slave, and willingly a slave, he cannot
escape from his state and choose good (while acknowledging that it is good, and
approving it) then he has no liberty whatever. He is not subject to the law,
neither indeed can be; so that those who are "in the flesh cannot please
God."
And here is where we touch more
closely upon the bottom of the question. Is it the old man that is changed, instructed,
and sanctified? or do we receive, in order to be saved, a new nature? The
universal character of the unbelief of these times is not the formal denying of
Christianity, as heretofore, or the rejection of Christ openly, but is the
receiving Him as a person, it will be even said divine, inspired (but as a
matter of degree), who re-establishes man in his position of a child of God.
Where Wesleyans are taught of God, faith makes them feel that without Christ
they are lost, and that it is a question of salvation. Only their fright with
regard to pure grace, their desire to gain men, a mixture of charity and of the
spirit of man, in a word, their confidence in their own powers, makes them have
a confused teaching and not recognize the total fall of man.
For myself, I see in the Word,
and I recognize in myself, the total ruin of man. I see that the cross is the
end of all the means that God had employed for gaining the heart of man, and
therefore proves that the tiling was impossible. God has exhausted all His
resources, and man has shown that he is wicked, without remedy, and the cross
of Christ condemns man — sin in the flesh. But this condemnation having been
manifested in another’s having undergone it, it is the absolute salvation of
those who believe; for condemnation, the judgment of sin, is behind us; life
was the issue of it in the resurrection. We are dead to sin, and alive to God
in Jesus Christ our Lord. Redemption, the very word, loses its force when one
entertains these ideas of the old man. It becomes an improvement, a practical
deliverance from a moral state, riot a redeeming by the accomplished work of
another person. Christianity teaches the death of the old man and his just
condemnation, then redemption accomplished by Christ, and a new life, eternal
life, come down from heaven in His person, and which is communicated to
us when Christ enters us by the word. Arminianism, or rather Pelagianism,
pretends that man can choose and that thus the old man is improved by the thing
it has accepted. The first step is made without grace, and it is the first step
which costs truly in this case. I believe we ought to hold to the words but,
philosophically and morally speaking, free will is a false and absurd theory.
Free will is a state of sin. Man ought not to have to choose, as being outside
good, Why is he in this state? He ought not to have a will, any choice to make.
He ought to obey and enjoy in peace. If he ought to choose good, then he has
not got it yet. He is without what is good in himself, anyway, since he has not
made his decision. But, in fact, man is disposed to follow that which is evil.
What cruelty to propose a duty to man who has already turned to evil! Moreover,
philosophically speaking, he must be indifferent; otherwise he has already chosen
as to his will — he must then be absolutely indifferent. But if he is
absolutely indifferent, what is to decide his choice? A creature must have a
motive; but he has none, since he is indifferent; if he is not, he has chosen.
Finally, it is not at all thus:
man has a conscience; but he has a will and lusts, and they lead him. Man was
free in Paradise, but then he enjoyed what was good. He used his free choice,
and therefore he is a sinner. To leave him to his free choice, now that he is
disposed to do evil, would be a cruelty. God has presented the choice to him,
but it was to convince the conscience of the fact that in no case did man want
either good or God.
I have been somewhat oppressed
with sleep while writing to you, but I think you will understand me. That
people should believe that God loves the world — this is very well; but that
they should not believe that man is in himself wicked, without remedy (and in
spite of the remedy), is very bad. One does not know oneself and one does not
know God.
. . .The Lord is coming, dear
brother; the time for the world is departing. What a blessing if my God find us
watching and thinking only of one thing — the One of whom He thinks — Jesus our
precious Saviour. Salute the brethren.
Your very affectionate brother,
J. N. Darby
FRAGMENT:It is not my mind at
work on God’s truth it is God’s truth at work on my mind. If you have the
unction from the Holy One, you need to look to God to have His truth so brought
home to you. A person may be holding truth himself, instead of having it as a
girdle round him. There is all the difference possible in our grasping at
truth, and truth holding as.
The more Christ is objectively
our portion and occupation, the more shall we resemble Him subjectively.