Moral Inability by J. A. Alexander

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 20, 1861

Moral Inability.

By J. A. Alexander

Will not this doctrine tend to paralyze the efforts of the sinner for salvation? And what then? The more completely his self-righteous strength is paralyzed, the better. No man can trust God and himself at once. Your self-reliance must be destroyed, or it will destroy you.

But if, by a paralysis of effort, be intended a stagnation of feeling and indifference to danger, I reply that this doctrine has no tendency to breed it. Suppose it should be suddenly announced to this assembly that a deadly malady had just appeared, and had begun to sweep off thousands in its course; and that the only possibility of safety depended on the use of a specific remedy, simple and easy in its application, and already within the reach of every individual, who had nothing to do at any moment but to use it, and infallibly secure himself against infection. And suppose that, while your minds were resting on this last assurance, it should be authoritatively contradicted, and the fact announced with evidence not to be gainsayed, that this specific and infallibly successful remedy was beyond the reach of every person present, and could only be applied by a superior power. I put it to yourselves which of these statements would produce security, and which alarm? Which would lead you to fold your hands in indolent indifference; and which would rouse you to an agonizing struggle for the means of safety? I speak as unto wise men; judge ye what I say. O my friends! if there is any cure for spiritual sloth and false security, it is a heartfelt faith in the necessity of superhuman help. The man who makes his helplessness a pretext for continuance in sin, whatever he may say, does not really believe that he is helpless. No man believes it till he knows it by experience. The firmest believers in man's plenary ability, are men whose hearts are hard through the deceitfulness of sin.—J. A. Alexander.