FREE WILL
When we shall see the dead rise from the grave by their own power, then may we
expect to see ungodly sinners of their own free will turning to Christ. ME505
Despite all the doctrines which proud free-will has manufactured, there has never
been found from Adam’s day until now a single instance in which the sinner first
sought his God. God must first seek him. TN10
According to the freewill scheme the Lord intends good, but he must wait like a
lackey on his own creature to know what his intention is; God willeth good and
would do it, but he cannot, because he has an unwilling man who will not have God’s
good thing carried into effect. What do ye, sirs, but drag the eternal from his throne,
and lift up into it that fallen creature, man; for man, according to that theory, nods,
and his nod is destiny. 442.185
Free-will doctrine—what does it? It magnifies man into God; it declares God’s
purposes a nullity, since they cannot be carried out unless men are willing. It makes
God’s will a waiting servant to the will of man, and the whole covenant of grace
dependent upon human action. Denying election on the ground of injustice it holds
God to be a debtor to sinners, so that if he gives grace to one he is bound to do so to
all. It teaches that the blood of Christ was shed equally for all men, and since some
are lost, this doctrine ascribes the difference to man’s own will, thus making the
atonement itself a powerless thing until the will of man gives it efficacy. 502.187
It seems inexplicable to me that those who claim free will so very boldly for man,
should not also allow some free will to God. 762.412
Whatever may be said about freewill as a theory, it is never found as a matter of fact
that any man, left to himself, ever woos his God, or pines after friendship with his
Maker. 1707.111
“Oh,” says one, “but men are free agents.” I never thought that they were not,
although I am not sure that it is much to their gain that they are. The glorious
privilege of the freedom of the will has been terribly overrated: it is a dangerous
heritage which has already lost us Paradise, and will lose us all hope of heaven
unless the mighty grace of God shall interpose. 1805.565
“Well,” saith one, “have not men a free-will?” Certainly, and the wonder is that free
grace does not violate it, and yet the purpose of God is accomplished. Free-will alone
ruins men; but free-will guided by free grace is another matter. 1919.503
I never yet knew anybody repent who gloried in his power to repent; I never yet knew
a man heart-broken for sin who boasted that he could break his own heart when
and where he pleased. 2050.591
That is the sternest blow against free-will of which I know; what a free-willer can
make out of that text, I cannot tell. He says that any man can come to Christ, yet
Christ said to some, “Ye will not come to me;” and both observation and experience
prove that this is still true. Never yet did a soul come to Christ till first Christ came
to it. 2880.197
There is no greater mockery than to call a sinner a free man. Show me a convict
toiling in the chain gang, and call him a free man if you will; point out to me the
galley slave chained to the oar, and smarting under the taskmaster’s lash whenever
he pauses to draw breath, and call him a free man if you will; but never call a sinner
a free man, even in his will, so long as he is the slave of his own corruptions. In our
natural state, we wore chains, not upon our limbs, but upon our hearts, fetters that
bound us, and kept us from God, from rest, from peace, from holiness, from anything
like freedom of heart and conscience and will. The iron entered into our soul; and
there is no slavery as terrible as that. As there is no freedom like the freedom of the
spirit, so is there no slavery that is at all comparable to the bondage of the heart. 3240.110