Twisse:

5. Austin professes lib. 1, De Gen. Contr. Manich. cap. 3. “That all men may believe if they will,” and justifies it in his Retractations. But if the will of man be corrupt, and averse from believing. We justly say, such a man cannot believe as our Savior says, “How can you believe that receive honor one of another, and seek not the honor that comes from God,” Joh. 5:44, yet this is an impotency moral only, which is to be distinguished from impotency natural. For notwithstanding this, it may be truly said, “All men may believe if they will” and herein consists the natural liberty of the will. The moral liberty consists, rather in a sanctified inclination unto that which is good, whereby it is freed from the power of sin and Satan; and then in a power to do good if they will, and not otherwise. But I never find that Arminians do distinguish these.

William Twisse, The Riches of God’s Love, (Oxford: Printed by L.L and H.H. Printers to the University, for Tho. Robinson, 1653), 1:1.72. [That is, Book 1, Part 1, page 72] [Some minor reformatting; some spelling modified, and underlining mine.]

To be continued . . .

[Note: Ironically, the Second Helvetic Consensus (1675), authored by Heidegger, Turretin and Gernler, if taken absolutely, condemns the first president or chairman of the Westminster Assembley not only on the grounds of his affirmation of Hypothetical Universalism but also for his affirmation of the classic moral-natural distinction, which Twisse sources in Augustine, no less.]

Manton:

(3.) Impotency and weakness, which lies in the willfulness and hardness of their hearts. Our non posse is non velle. Our inability lies in our unwillingness: Ps. Iviii. 4, 5, “They are like to the deaf adder, that stops her ear, which will not hearken to the charmer, charming never so wisely.” Mat. xxiii. 37, “How often would I have gathered thy children together as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and ye would not?” Luke xix. 14, “His citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over us.” Now what more proper cure for all these evils than the word of God? Teaching is the proper means to cure ignorance, for men have a natural understanding. Warning of danger and mindfulness of duty is the proper means to cure slightness. And to remove their impotency (which lies in their obstinacy and willfulness), there is no such means as to beseech them with constant persuasions. The impotence is rather moral than natural. We do not use to reason men out of bare natural impotency, to bid a lame man walk, or a blind man see, or bid a dead man live; but to make men willing of the good which they rejected or neglected; in short, to inform the judgment, awaken the conscience, persuade the will: yet it is true the bare means will not do it without God’s concurrence, the evidence and demonstration of the Spirit; but it is an encouragement to use these means, because they are fitted to the end, and God would not appoint us means which should be altogether in vain.

Thomas Manton, “Sermons Upon 1 Peter 1:23,” in, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1873), 21:332. [Some spelling modernized; italics original; and underlining mine.]

[Credit to Tony for the find.]

Hodge:

16. What distinction is intended by the theological terms, natural and moral ability? By natural ability was intended the possession, on the part of every responsible moral agent, whether holy or unholy, of all the natural faculties, as reason, conscience, free will, requisite to enable him to obey God s law. If any of these were absent, the agent would not be responsible.†

By moral ability was intended that inherent moral condition of these faculties, that righteous disposition of heart, requisite to the performance of duty.

Although these terms have been often used by orthodox writers in a sense which to them expressed the truth, yet they have often been abused, and are not desirable. It is evidently an abuse of the word to say that sinners are naturally able, but morally unable, to obey the law; for that can be no ability which leaves the sinner, as the Scriptures declare, utterly unable either to think, feel, or act aright. Besides, the word “natural,” in the phrase “natural ability,” is used in an unusual sense, as opposite to moral; while in the usual sense of that word it is declared in Scripture that man is by nature, i.e., naturally, a child of wrath.

[† Edwards on the Will, part L, sect. 4.]

A.A. Hodge, Outlines of Theology (London: T. Nelson and Sons, 1877), 272. [Footnote included.]

[comments below]

Shedd:

1) In the Westminster statement, the disability or inability is connected with the disposition and inclination of the will. Man is “indisposed to all spiritual good, and inclined to all [spiritual] evil.” It follows from this, that the cause and seat of the inability in question is in the action and state of the voluntary faculty. It is moral or willing inability.

Nam servit voluntas peccato, non nolens sed volens. Etenim voluntas non noluntas dicitur. Second Helvetic Confession, IX.

In denominating it “moral” inability, it is not meant that it arises merely from habit, or that it is not “natural” in any sense of the word nature. A man is sometimes said to be morally unable to do a thing, when it is very difficult for him to do it by reason of an acquired habit, but not really impossible. This is not the sense of the word “moral” when applied to the sinner’s inability to holiness. He is really and in the full sense of the word impotent. And the cause of this impotence is not a habit of doing evil which he has formed in his individual life, but a natural disposition which he has inherited from Adam. The term “moral,” therefore, when applied to human inability denotes that it is voluntary, in distinction from created. Man’s impotence to good does not arise from the agency of God in creation, but from the agency of man in apostasy.

Whether, therefore, it can ever be called “natural” inability, will depend upon the meaning given to the term “nature.”

(a) If “nature” means that which is created by God, there is no natural inability to good in fallen man. But if “nature” means “natural disposition,” or “natural inclination,” there is a “natural” inability to good in fallen man.

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