The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 316

THE SINNER TO BE WROUGHT UPON

276 is

But goodness is not the lack, Loss indicates that which ought to be, but Evil never ought to be, hence never can be a

the lack, the default of goodness.

the default of evil.

which

is

lacking.

But regarding goodness the question is different, viz., whether goodness as an extraneous and independent element was added to the soul, so that it might be said, " Here is the soul, and there is lack.

goodness." light, so is

And this can not be. As a ray goodness without a person from

is

unthinkable without

whom

it

proceeds.

tempted Flacius Illiricus to teach that originally man was essentially righteous. Of course he was wrong. What he wanted to attribute to man can be attributed to God alone. Goodness is goodness. God is goodness. Goodness is God. In God being and goodness are one. There is and can be no difference between the two, for God is perfectly good in all respects; hence the faintest separation between God and goodness is utterly un-

And

this

thinkable.

God

a simple Being; not as Professor Doedes interprets on the Confession, as tho in God there can be no distinction in perso7is, but that in God there can be no distinction But this is not of essence, as between Himself and His attributes. so in man. We are not simple, and can not be, in the same sense. On the contrary, our being remains, tho all our attributes are changed or modified. A man can be good and ought to be, but without goodness he remains a man his nature becomes comapt, but his being remains the same. Man's being is either deceitful or truthful, not because his soul is inoculated with the matter of falsehood or of truth, but by a Inherent goodness has no modification of the quality of his being.

alone

is

in his criticism

;

reference to our being, but only to the mantier of a joyous or sorrowful expression of countenance

its existence. is

As

not the result of

an external application, but of inward joy or sorrow, so is the soul either good or bad according to the manner of its standing before God.

And

goodness was Adam's direct inheritance from God. God alone is the overflowing Fountain of all grace Adam never wrought a particle of good of himself on the ground of which he this

;

might have claimed a reward. the covenant of works. tion to sinless

Adam

life was promised him not by virtue of the conditions of

Eternal

as a prize or inherent element, but

Just as strongly as

of the conditions of the

we oppose

the applica-

Covenant of Grace, as

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