Benoni Stinson's Third Speech
on His Second Proposition
STINSON'S THIRD SPEECH
ON THE SECOND PROPOSITION.
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen:--I rise to close my part of the discussion on this proposition; and I must acknowledge myself bewildered. He spoke of my misfortune, or of my needing a little eye salve of divine grace. I acknowledge the necessity of more grace.
[HUME.--So do I.]
I ask for more light, but with the little light I have I will try to trace him. The first point he makes distinctly is that sinners are damned for unbelief. He claims that, I suppose, as regular Baptist doctrine. He then tells us positively that there are no sinners that can believe, and he quoted scripture to prove it. I can not follow him in detail and give you my understanding of those passages he quotes; but he told us that sinners are damned for unbelief, and that there are those that can not believe. He told us so yesterday. He told us that God never did require an impossibility of man. Put these ideas together: "Could not believe--damned for not believing," and what can you make of it? Yet God never requires an impossibility. They are his own ideas. But he makes this point by a personal appeal in his own behalf. He tell us he can not believe the doctrine I advocate. Mark the expression: can not believe. I suppose he means to be understood that he can not believe ALL. Surely I advocate doctrines that he does believe. He can't believe the doctrine I advocate, and therefore he appeals to the congregation not to condemn him, for it is impossible for him to believe, and he ought not to be condemned for not doing that which he can not do. He appeals to you not to condemn him, and then tells us that God damns the sinner for not believing when the sinner can not believe. These are the points he has made; and, I say, put them together; let him try to reconcile them; it is for him to do so and not for me. I have but little time to crowd in proof, and perhaps I shall find myself lost; but the point in the proposition is that man possesses the power to "choose eternal life." I do not know that I could more clearly demonstrate this than by proving that eternal life had been chosen. There was once an axiom put up over a philosopher's door, which says that "what had been done by man could be done by man again." If men have already chosen eternal life, I say, if we prove this a fact, we shall not only sustain the first part of the proposition, but it will prove, also, that men may yet choose eternal life. I shall first quote from Luke x, 42: "And Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her." I suppose that means eternal life. I understand this to be the choice she made. This fact proves she could make it, and that it was possible. This I regard as direct evidence. Mark, the controversy is not whether a certain class of men can choose eternal life; not whether Esau or Ishmael could choose eternal life; but whether man, as a moral agent, under the volition of the will, can choose eternal life. I undertake to say that Mary was a moral agent, and did choose eternal life. I will quote from Matthew xvi, 24: "If any man will come after me let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me." I argue that this declaration implies the power of choosing to follow Christ. If the power to choose that course had not existed there would be no will consulted. But the will being introduced proves it to be free; consequently Christ says: "If any man will come after me let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me." I will now quote from Rom. x, 8, 9: "But what saith it? the word is nigh thee even in thy mouth and in thy heart; that is, the word of faith. which we preach: that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." Here Paul is speaking to men that had been heathens, and he supposes them to possess the power that I claim for all as moral agents, capable of investigation. He tells them God has brought the economy of salvation directly to them, supposing them to have the power of confessing, of believing and choosing Jesus Christ, and being saved. I make another point here, which is this: that to exercise faith in Christ presupposes the fact of our having chosen Christ. No man will question the fairness of this supposition, for no man or woman ever did believe in Christ without first having chosen him. If I show that we can believe in Christ, will it not be (at least indirectly) showing that we can choose Christ? Jesus says, "With the heart man believeth;" and as my worthy friend has given me a rule to go by, that God never commands us to do a thing that is impossible, therefore, when God commands us to believe the thing can be done. Then, if man has the power to believe in Christ, he has the power, in connection with it, to choose Christ. I might introduce a sufficient number of scripture proofs to consume the balance of my half hour. I prefer rather to briefly review the ground I have gone over, as I have not opportunity to reply to his next speech. The first point is that man is a moral agent, endowed with the volition of free will, and is capable of choosing or refusing eternal life. Now, if I have successfully proved the first, the second follows as a matter of course. I proved by argument that God made man a moral agent. My worthy opponent never answered that argument. I not only proved it, but made an appeal to the intelligence of the audience --not for evidence; I did not call upon you for testimony; I merely presented the truth to your consciences, and I now ask you to investigate it. I now appeal to the conscience of every Christian under the sound of my voice; not that the doctrine needs to be supported by your evidence, but I make it to show that my argument has been in harmony with the workings of the Spirit of God upon the hearts of believers in regeneration. If the spirit of Christianity contradicted the doctrine I have advocated, I should disbelieve the doctrine.
The next point I wish to make is this: Before your sins were pardoned, did you feel the effects of the blood of Christ in cleansing you from sin, or did you not choose to be a Christian? I make the appeal to every man who has ever felt convicted for sin. Did you not only choose to be a Christian, but did not you wish and pray that you might become a Christian? Is not this so? Does it meet the experience of all? Then all that are saved choose Christ. I take this for granted, or else they make Christ their own, contrary to their will and choice. One of these positions must be true: either they choose Christ or they are forcibly made Christ's. If you did anxiously pray for and wish to be a Christian, then it argues that you had they power of examining the two sides of the question, and of choosing eternal life and escaping eternal death. Moses said: "I set before you life and death, blessings and cursings; choose life that you may live." Did Moses mean eternal life, or did he set before them temporal life and death? If Moses should come flying down as he did on the mount, and I should ask him to let me introduce the words, "eternal life," in connection with his command, I think he would permit it. Jesus says: "Ye love darkness rather than light." This shows that light and darkness, or life and death, had been presented to them. Are we to argue that the exertion of the voluntary powers would not have enabled then to choose life and immortality, or are we to suppose that God gives us more power to do wrong than to do right? According to this, the sinner has the power of choosing darkness and unbelief; to chose the road to damnation. That he has all his powers in one direction, but has no power to choose life and the road to heaven. Christ calls this the king's highway. Yet the sinner has no power of choosing to become a traveler on the king's highway. We argue that God, by the death of his Son, made a general atonement, and removed the curse that was on the race by Adam's sin, withdrew the flaming sword that guarded the tree of life, and now introduces a system of salvation adapted to all men condemned for their own transgressions, and calls upon them to choose the life that is presented to them, without money and without price. We do not claim that man is commanded to do anything to save himself. We do not claim that he is commanded to put forth a solitary energy. But we suppose that eternal life is OFFERED, and that he has the power is choose it. This my brother is pleased to deny; to deny to the poor condemned sinner the power of choosing, when God has introduced salvation, and offered eternal life to him; and yet he has no power of choosing or accepting it. We think the proposition is sustained by evidence, and we claim it to be sustained by reason and common sense. It will go before the world. We have a faithful reporter. It will become a matter of history, to be read by the generations now and those yet unborn, who will read our arguments and our reasoning, and who will determine whether man has the power of choosing eternal life. I might say accepting eternal life, which is almost the same thing. The word accepting has but little difference of meaning, and I would say that the power of accepting argues the power of choosing. This we claim to have established, and leave you to determine. Let me wind up by supposing I have established the proposition, and I now ask and appeal to every unconverted sinner to choose eternal life and be saved for ever more.
(Time expired.)
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