stand, will, nor do
that which is spiritually right, good, and pleasing to God. Man is
converted to God and to all that is "thoroughly good" only by the grace
and power of God. It is God's pleasure to work in every man in order
that he may will and do that which is good. The reason why this is not
accomplished in all men is, because many wilfully resist the work of
God's grace, despise the means of conversion, and thus, by their own
stubborn and evil wills, frustrate the good and gracious will of God.
Man has a _free_ will; for he does the evil and rejects the good freely
and without constraint, without any compulsion on the part of God.
Furthermore, in external matters, which reason comprehends, man also has
a free will, in a measure. The will of a regenerate Christian is set
free, inasmuch as he is able to will that which is pleasing to God, by
faith in Jesus Christ, although, in this world, he is not able perfectly
to do that which is good. Falckner says: "I conceive this doctrine of
free will as follows: All the good which I will and do I ascribe to the
grace of God in Christ and to the working of His good Spirit within me,
render thanks to Him for it, and watch that I may traffic with the pound
of grace, Luke 19, which I have received, in order that more may be
given unto me, and that I may receive grace for grace out of the fulness
of grace in Jesus Christ. John 1, 16. On the contrary, all the evil
which I will and do I ascribe to my own evil will alone, which
maliciously deviates from God and His gracious will, and becomes one
with the will of the devil, the world, and sinful flesh. And I am
persuaded that if only my own will does not dishonestly, wilfully, and
stubbornly resist the converting gracious will of God, He, by His
Spirit, will bend and turn it toward that which is good, and, for the
sake of Christ's perfect obedience, will not regard, nor impute unto me,
the obstinacy cleaving to me by nature." In the introduction of the
book, which was written in the Dutch language, Falckner unequivocally
professes adherence to the Symbols of the Lutheran Church, the
confession of his fathers, "which confession and faith," he says, "by
the grace of God and the convincing testimony of His Word and Spirit,
also dwell in me, and shall continue to dwell in me until my last,
blessed end." (91 ff.)

JOSHUA KOCHERTHAL.

22. Palatinates in Quassaic, East and West Camp.--Wearying of the
afflictions which the Thirty Years'