079. I. Probation A Reasonable Economy.

I. Probation A Reasonable Economy. This proposition is not intended for universal and perpetual application. It is true in application to primitive man. Possibly a primitive state might be so perfect as neither to require nor admit any testing law. Such will be the state of confirmed blessedness. Probably no primitive state is such. Certainly that of man was not. For him trial was naturally incident to duty. Obedience, however, was easily within his power, and a moral obligation, while a law of duty was the imperative requirement of his moral constitution and relations. With the truth of these facts, the primitive probation was a reasonable economy. The facts require a fuller and more orderly statement.

1. Trial as Naturally Incident to Duty.—The fact of such trial arose from the constitution of primitive man. With a holy nature, there were yet in him susceptibilities to temptation. In temptation there is an impulse in the sensibilities adverse to the law of duty. This is true even where it finds no response in the personal consciousness. Yet, in the measure of it, such impulse is a trial to obedience. Such trial was naturally incident to duty in primitive man. The proof of it is in a primitive constitution with sensibilities which might be the means of temptation; also in the actuality of such temptation. These facts are entirely consistent with the primitive holiness which we have maintained. In such a state primitive man began his moral life. The only way to confirmed blessedness was through a temporary obedience. But obedience requires a law of duty; and, with the natural incidence of trial and the possibility of failure, such a law must be a testing law. It thus appears that a probationary economy was the only one at all suited to the state of primitive man.

2. Complete Ability for Obedience.—Ability for obedience is a rational requirement under a testing law of duty. The question of such ability in primitive man needs no elaborate discussion, and the mere statement of relative facts will suffice. The reality of such ability lies in the rectitude of his moral nature as originally constituted. “With susceptibility to temptation through the sensibilities, his spontaneous disposition was yet toward the good and averse to the evil. In this there was strength for obedience. Nor can we rationally think of any divine imposition of duty in this case above the ability of fulfillment. When responsibility with moral inability is maintained, it must be on the ground of a responsible forfeiture of moral ability. There was no such forfeiture in the case of man when duty was originally imposed upon him. God was at once the author of both his nature and the law of his probation, and therefore could not impose any duty which should transcend his strength of obedience. Further, this strength is fully manifest in view of the special test of obedience divinely instituted. If the moral constitution of primitive man was what the Scriptures warrant us to think it, the fulfillment of that duty was easily within his power.

3. Obedience a Reasonable Requirement.—As the subject of such munificent endowments, the recipient of so rich an estate and a provisory heirship to eternal blessedness, primitive man owed the consecration of all his powers in holy obedience and love to the Author of all his good. Every principle of reason and duty so determines. With the deepest emphasis, therefore, does every such principle determine the obligation of the probationary duty imposed upon him.

4. Moral Necessity for a Law of Duty.—With far less unreason might we object to the creation of man as a moral being than to his probationary trial under a law of duty. As morally constituted and related, with the obligations of holy obedience and love, and with the possibilities of both good and evil action, a law of duty was for him an imperative requirement.

If we now combine the four facts presented under the head of this section it must be clear that for primitive man probation was a reasonable economy.