change, no amount of sophistry can obscure their convincing light, if our moral nature be aroused. The same is true also of the Bible. It is the Word of God. It contains internal evidence of being his Word. All that is necessary to produce an irresistible conviction of its truth is that the veil which sin and the God of this world have spread over the mind, should be removed. This is done, at least sufficiently to admit light enough to produce conviction, whenever the moral elements of our nature assume their legitimate power. Hence it is a matter of common observation that a man passes suddenly from a state of scepticism to one of firm belief, without any arguments being addressed to his understanding, but simply by a change in his inward moral state. When, as the Bible expresses it, "the eyes of the heart" are thus opened, he can no more doubt the truths perceived, than he can doubt the evidence of his senses.

In the second place, with this conviction of the truths of religion is connected an experience of their power. They produce to a greater or less degree an effect upon the feelings appropriate to their nature; a conviction of sin, the clear perception that what the Bible and the conscience teach of our guilt and pollution, produces self-condemnation, remorse, and self-abhorrence. These are natural, as distinguished from gracious affections. They are experienced often by the unrenewed and the wicked. A sense of God's justice necessarily produces a fearful looking for of judgment. Those who sin, the Apostle says, know the righteous judgment of God, that they who do such things are worthy of death. (Rom. i. 32.) The attending conviction of entire helplessness; of the soul's utter inability either to make expiation for its guilt, or to destroy the inward power of sin, and wash away its defilement, tends to produce absolute despair. No human suffering is more intolerable than that which is often experienced even in this life from these sources. "Heu me miserum et nimis miserum! nimis enim miserum, quem torquet conscientia sua quam fugere non potest nimis enim miserum quem exspectat damnatio sua, quam vitare non potest! Nimis est infelix, qui sibi ipsi est horribilis ; nimis infelicior, cui mors æterna erit sensibilis. Nimis ærumnosus, quem terrent continui de sua infelicitate horrores." 1

It is also natural and according to experience, that the promise of the Gospel, and the exhibition of the plan of salvation, contained in the Scriptures, which commend themselves to the enlight

1 Augustine, De Contritione Cordis, Works, edit. Benedictines, Paris, 1837, vol. vi. appendix, p. 1376, c.

ened conscience, should often appear not only as true but as suited to the condition of the awakened sinner. Hence he receives the Word with joy. He believes with a faith founded on this moral evidence of the truth. This faith continues as long as the state of mind by which it is produced continues. When that changes, and the sinner relapses into his wonted state of insensibility, his faith disappears. To this class of persons our Saviour refers when He speaks of those who receive the Word in stony places or among thorns. Of such examples of temporary faith there are numerous instances given in the Scriptures, and they are constantly occurring within our daily observation.

In the third place, the state of mind induced by these common operations of the Spirit, often leads to reformation, and to an externally religious life. The sense of the truth and importance of the doctrines of the Bible constrains men often to great strictness of conduct and to assiduous attention to religious duties.

The experiences detailed above are included in the "law work " of which the older theologians were accustomed to speak as generally preceding regeneration and the exercise of saving faith in Christ. They often occur before genuine conversion, and perhaps more frequently attend it; but nevertheless they are in many cases neither accompanied nor followed by a real change of heart. They may be often renewed, and yet those who are their subjects return to their normal state of unconcern and worldliness.

No strictness of inward scrutiny, no microscopic examination or delicacy of analysis, can enable an observer, and rarely the man himself, to distinguish these religious exercises from those of the truly regenerated. The words by which they are described both in the Scriptures and in ordinary Christian discourse, are the same. Unrenewed men in the Bible are said to repent, to believe, to be partakers of the Holy Ghost, and to taste the good Word of God, and the powers of the world to come. Human language is not adequate to express all the soul's experiences. The same word must always represent in one case, or in one man's experience, what it does not in the experience of another. That there is a specific difference between the exercises due to common grace, and those experienced by the true children of God, is certain. But that difference does not reveal itself to the consciousness, or at least, certainly not to the eye of an observer. "By their fruits ye shall know them." This is the test given by our Lord. It is only when these experiences issue in a holy life, that their distinctive character is known.

As to the nature of the Spirit's work, which He exercises, in a greater or less degree, on the minds of all men, the words of our Lord admonish us to speak with caution. "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." (John iii. 8.) This teaches that the mode of the Spirit's operation whether in regeneration or in conviction, is inscrutable. If we cannot understand how our souls act on our bodies, or how evil spirits act on our minds, the one being a familiar fact of consciousness, and the other a clear fact of revelation, it cannot be considered strange that we should not understand how the Holy Spirit acts on the minds of men. There are certain statements of the Bible, however, which throw some light on this subject. In the first place, the Scriptures speak of God's reasoning with men; of his teaching them and that inwardly by his Spirit; of his guiding or leading them; and of his convincing, reproving, and persuading them. These modes of representation would seem to indicate "a moral suasion;" an operation in accordance with the ordinary laws of mind, consisting in the presentation of truth and urging of motives. In the second place, so far as appears, this common influence of the Spirit is never exercised except through the truth. In the third place, the moral and religious effects ascribed to it never rise above, so to speak, the natural operations of the mind. The knowledge, the faith, the conviction, the remorse, the sorrow, and the joy, which the Spirit is said to produce by these common operations, are all natural affections or exercises; such as one man may measurably awaken in the minds of other men. In the fourth place, these common influences of the Spirit are all capable of being effectually resisted. In all these respects this common grace is distinguished from the efficacious operation of the Spirit to which the Scriptures ascribe the regeneration of the soul. The great truth, however, that concerns us is that the Spirit of God is present with every human mind, restraining from evil and exciting to good; and that to his presence and influence we are indebted for all the order, decorum, and virtue, as well as the regard for religion and its ordinances, which exist in the world. And consequently that the greatest calamity that can befall an individual, a church, or a people, is that God should take his Holy Spirit from them. And as this is a judgment which, according to the Scriptures, does often come upon individuals, churches, and people, we should above all things dread lest we should grieve the Spirit or quench his influences. This is done by

resistance, by indulgence in sin, and especially, by denying his agency and speaking evil of his work. "Whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of Man it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come." xii. 32.)

§ 4. Efficacious Grace.

(Matt.

Besides those operations of the Spirit, which in a greater or less degree are common to all men, the Scriptures teach that the covenant of redemption secures the Spirit's certainly efficacious influence for all those who have been given to the Son as his inheri

tance.

Why called Efficacious.

This grace is called efficacious not simply ab eventu. According to one view the same influence at one time, or exerted on one person, produces a saving effect; and at other times, or upon other persons, fails of such effect. In the one case it is called efficacious, and in the other not. This is not what Augustinians mean by the term. By the Semi-Pelagians, the Romanists, and the Arminians, that influence of the Spirit which is exerted on the minds of all men is called "sufficient grace." By the two former it is held to be sufficient to enable the sinner to do that which will either merit or secure larger degrees of grace which, if duly improved, will issue in salvation. The Arminians admit that the fall of our race has rendered all men utterly unable, of themselves, to do anything truly acceptable in the sight of God. But they hold that this inability, arising out of the present state of human nature, is removed by the influence of the Spirit given to all. This is called “gracious ability"; that is, an ability due to the grace, or the supernatural influence of the Spirit granted to all men. On both these points the language of the Remonstrant Declaration or Confession is explicit. It is there said, “Man has not saving faith from himself, neither is he regenerated or converted by the force of his own free will; since, in the state of sin, he is not able of and by himself to think, will, or do any good thing, any good thing that is saving in its nature, particularly conversion and saving faith. But it is necessary that he be regenerated, and wholly renewed by God in Christ, through the truth of the gospel and the added energy of the Holy Spirit, in intellect, affections, will, and all his faculties, so that he may be able rightly to perceive, meditate upon, will, and accomplish that which is a saving good." On the point

1 Confessio Remonstrantium, xvii. 5; Episcopii Opera, edit. Rotterdam, 1665, vol. ii. pp. 88,

of sufficient grace the Declaration says: "Although there is the greatest diversity in the degrees in which grace is bestowed in accordance with the divine will, yet the Holy Ghost confers, or at least is ready to confer, upon all and each to whom the word of faith is ordinarily preached, as much grace as is sufficient for generating faith and carrying forward their conversion in its successive stages. Thus sufficient grace for faith and conversion is allotted not only to those who actually believe and are converted, but also to those who do not actually believe and are not in fact converted." 1 In the Apology for the Remonstrance, it is said, "The Remonstrants asserted that the servitude to sin, to which men (per naturæ conditionem) in their natural state, are subject, has no place in a state of grace. For they hold that God gives sufficient grace to all who are called, so that they can be freed from that servitude, and at the same time they have liberty of will to remain in it if they choose." In the Apology it is expressly stated, "Gratia efficax vocatur . . . . ab eventu," which is said to mean, " Ut statuatur gratia habere ex se sufficientem vim, ad producendum consensum in voluntate, sed, quia vis illa partialis est, non posse exire in actum sine coöperante liberæ voluntatis humanæ, ac proinde, ut effectum habeat, pendere a libera voluntate." Limborch teaches the same doctrine. "Sufficiens vocatio, quando per coöperationem liberi arbitrii sortitur suum effectum, vocatur efficax."

Augustinians of course admit that common grace is in one sense sufficient. It is sufficient to render men inexcusable for their im

89, of second set. "Homo itaque salvificam fidem non habet ex seipso; neque ex arbitrii sui liberi viribus regeneratur, aut convertitur: quandoquidem in statu peccati nihil boni, quod quidem salutare bonum sit (cujusmodi imprimis est conversio et fides salvifica), ex seipso, vel a seipso, vel cogitare potest, nedum velle, aut facere: sed necesse est, ut a Deo, in Christo, per verbum evangelii, eique adjunctam Spiritus Sancti virtutem regeneretur, atque totus renovetur; puta intellectu, affectibus, voluntate, omnibusque viribus; ut salutaria bona recte possit intelligere, meditari, velle, ac perficere."

1 Confessio Remonstrantium, xvii. 8; p. 89, a, of second set. "Etsi vero maxima est gratiæ disparitas, pro liberrima scilicet voluntatis divinæ dispensatione: tamen Spiritus Sanetus omnibus et singulis, quibus verbum fidei ordinarie prædicatur, tantum gratiæ confert, aut saltem conferre paratus est, quantum ad fidem ingenerandum, et ad promovendum suis gradibus salutarem ipsorum conversionem sufficit. Itaque gratia sufficiens ad fidem et conversionem non tantum iis obtingit, qui actu credunt et convertuntur: sed etiam iis, qui actu ipso non credunt, nec reipsa convertuntur."

2 Apologia pro Confessione Remonstrantium, cap. vi.; ut supra, p. 144, b, of second set. "Remonstrantes asserunt necessitatem sive servitutem istam peccati, cui homines, per naturæ conditionem subjecti sunt, locum non habere sub statu gratiæ. Nam statuunt, vocatis omnibus gratiam sufficientem a Deo concedi, ita ut possint a servitute illa liberari, et simul manere in iis voluntatis libertatem, ut possint eidem servituti manere subjecti, si velint." 8 Ibid. cap. xvii. iii.; p. 191, b, of second set.

4 Theologia Christiana, IV. xii. 8, edit. Amsterdam, 1715, p. 352, b.