Chapter 22: The Necessity of Divine Teaching being. He knows, by experience, what love is, for he has exercised love towards different objects. And he can, therefore, form or comprehend the idea of love, so far as to see the reasonableness of the requirement. He can understand the foundation and the force of moral obligation, and see, in some measure, the extent of his obligation to love God.
So, likewise, he can see that he is a sinner, and that he cannot be saved by his own works.
He has broken the law, so that the law can never justify him. He can see, that if he is ever saved, he must be justified through mere mercy, by an act of pardon.
I might go through the whole circle of theology, and show that the human understanding is capable of knowing it, in the abstract, as a system of propositions, to be received and believed, on evidence, like any other science. I do not mean to be understood as saying, that unaided reason can attain any available knowledge of the things of religion, or any such knowledge as will be effectual to produce a sanctifying change.
II. I am to show wherein our knowledge of the things of religion is necessarily defective, without the aids of the Holy Spirit.
In other words, I am to show what our knowledge of the gospel lacks, to make it available to salvation.
And here it is necessary to distinguish between knowledge which might be available to one that was himself disposed to love and obey God; and what will be available, in fact, to a sinner, who is wholly indisposed to holiness. It is easy to see that one who is disposed to do right would be influenced to duty by a far less amount of illumination, or a far less clear and vivid view of motives, than one who is disposed to do wrong. What we are now inquiring after respects the matter of fact, in this world. Whether the knowledge attainable by our present faculties would be available to influence us to do right, were there no sin in the world, is more than I can say. As a matter of fact, the knowledge which Adam had when in a state of innocency did not avail to influence him to do right. But we are now speaking of things as they are in this world, and to show what is the reason that men, as sinners, can have no available knowledge of divine things; no such knowledge as will, as a matter of fact, influence them to love and serve God.
Knowledge, to avail anything towards effecting its object, must be such as will influence the mind. The will must be controlled. And to do this, the mind must have such a view of things as to excite emotion, corresponding to the object in view. Mere intellect never will move the soul to act. A pure scientific abstraction of the intellect, that does not touch the feelings, or excite any emotion, is wholly unavailable to move the will. It is so every where.
It would be so in heaven. You must bring the mind under a degree of excitement, to influence the will in any case. In the case of sinners, to influence sinners to love God, you must have a great degree of light, such as will powerfully excite the mind, and produce strong emotions.
The reasons for obedience must be made to appear with great strength and vividness, so as