ny more. It is the highest degree of
freedom and Christian perfection when, in the life to come, our will to
remain in union with God is elevated to immutability of so willing.
Again, though Satan cannot but sin, yet he is not coerced to sin. Thus
too, of his own powers, natural man is able only to resist grace, yet
there is no compulsion involved. The fact, therefore, that natural man
cannot but sin and resist grace does not warrant the inference that he
is compelled to sin; nor does the fact that natural man is not coerced
to resist prove that he is able also to assent to grace. The fact, said
Flacius, that the wicked _willingly_ will, think, and do only what
pleases Satan does not prove an ability to will in the opposite
spiritual direction, but merely reveals the terrible extent of Satan's
tyrannical power over natural man. (Luthardt 224. 231.) According to
Flacius the will always wills willingly when it wills and what it wills.
In brief: The categories "coercion" and "compulsion" cannot be applied
to the will. This, however, does not imply that God is not able to
create or restore a good will without coercion or compulsion. There was
no coercion or compulsion involved when God, creating Adam, Eve, and the
angels, endowed them with a good will. Nor is there any such thing as
coercion or compulsion when God, in conversion, bestows faith and a good
will upon man.

In his statements on the freedom of the will, Flacius merely repeated
what Luther had written before him, in _De Servo Arbitrio:_ "For if it
is not we, but God alone, who works salvation in us, then nothing that
we do previous to His work, whether we will or not, is salutary. But
when I say, 'by necessity,' I do not mean by coercion, but, as they say
by the necessity of immutability, not by necessity of coercion, _i.e._,
man, destitute of the Spirit of God, does not sin perforce, as though
seized by the neck [stretched upon the rack] nor unwillingly, as a thief
or robber is led to his punishment but spontaneously and willingly. And
by his own strength he cannot omit, restrain, or change this desire or
willingness to sin, but continues to will it and to find pleasure in it.
For even if he is compelled by force, outwardly to do something else,
within, the will nevertheless remains averse, and rages against him who
compels or resists it. For if it were changed and willingly yielded to
force, it would not be angry. And this we call the necessity of
immutability,