state of sin and death which we have described; which among others may be proved by the ensuing arguments. The principal arguments in this case will ensue in our proofs from the Scriptures, that there is a real, physical work of the Spirit on the souls of men in their regeneration. That all He doth, consisteth not in this moral suasion, the ensuing reasons do sufficiently evince." 1 It is too obvious to need remark that the word physical is used antithetically to moral. Any influence of the Spirit that is not simply moral by the way of argument and persuasion, is called physical. The word, perhaps, is as appropriate as any other; if there be a necessity for any discriminating epithet in the case. All that is important is, on the one hand, the negation that the work of regeneration is effected by the moral power of the truth in the hands of the Spirit; and, upon the other, the affirmation that there is a direct exercise of almighty power in giving a new principle of life to the soul. This doctrine both in what it denies and in what it affirms, is not peculiar to the older theologians. The modern German divines, each in the language of his peculiar philosophy, recognize that apart from the change in the state of the soul which takes place in the sphere of consciousness, and which is produced by God through the truth, there is a communication by his direct efficiency of a new form of life. This is sometimes called the life of Christ; sometimes the person of Christ; sometimes his substance; sometimes his divine-human nature, etc. They teach that man is passive in regeneration, but active in repentance.2 "Man is every moment unspeakably more than lies in consciousness," says Ebrard.3 This is true, and it should teach us that there is much pertaining to our internal life, which it is impossible for us to analyze and explain. Efficacious Grace Irresistible. 5. It will of course be admitted that, if efficacious grace is the exercise of almighty power it is irresistible. That common grace, or that influence of the Spirit which is granted more or less to all men is often effectually resisted, is of course admitted. That the true believer often grieves and quenches the Holy Spirit, is also no doubt true. And in short that all those influences which are in their nature moral, exerted through the truth, are capable of 1 IIvevμatoλoyia, or a Discourse concerning the Holy Spirit, book III. v. 18, 19, edit. London, 1674, p. 261. 2 See Ebrard, Dogmatik, 111. i. 2, § 447; edit. Königsberg, 1852, vol. ii. p. 328. 3 Ibid. § 444, vol. ii. p. 319. being opposed, is also beyond dispute. But if the special work of regeneration, in the narrow sense of that word, be the effect of almighty power, then it cannot be resisted, any more than the act of creation. The effect follows immediately on the will of God, as when He said let there be light, and light was. The Soul passive in Regeneration. 6. It follows, further, from the same premises, that the soul is passive in regeneration. It is the subject, and not the agent of the change. The soul coöperates, or, is active in what precedes and in what follows the change, but the change itself is something experienced, and not something done. The blind and the lame who came to Christ, may have undergone much labour in getting into his presence, and they joyfully exerted the new power imparted to them, but they were entirely passive in the moment of healing. They in no way coöperated in the production of that effect. The same must be true in regeneration, if regeneration be the effect of almighty power as much as the opening the eyes of the blind or the unstopping by a word the ears of the deaf. Regeneration Instantaneous. 7. Regeneration, according to this view of the case, must be instantaneous. There is no middle state between life and death. If regeneration be a making alive those before dead, then it must be as instantaneous as the quickening of Lazarus. Those who regard it as a protracted process, either include in it all the states and exercises which attend upon conversion; or they adopt the theory that regeneration is the result of moral suasion. If the work of omnipotence, an effect of a mere volition on the part of God, it is of necessity instantaneous. God bids the sinner live ; and he is alive, instinct with a new and a divine life. An Act of Sovereign Grace. 8. It follows, also, that regeneration is an act of sovereign grace. If a tree must be made good before the fruit is good; the goodness of the fruit cannot be the reason which determines him who has the power to change the tree from bad to good. So if works spiritually good are the fruits of regeneration, then they cannot be the ground on which God exerts his life-giving power. If, therefore, the Scriptures teach the doctrine of efficacious grace in the Augustinian sense of those terms, then they teach that regenera tion is a sovereign gift. It cannot be granted on the sight or fore sight of anything good in the subjects of this saving change. None of those whom Christ healed, pretended to seek the exercise of his almighty power in their behalf on the ground of their peculiar goodness, much less did they dream of referring the restoration of their sight or health to any coöperation of their own with his omnipotence. § 5. Proof of the Doctrine. Common Consent. 1. The first argument in proof of the Augustinian doctrine of efficacious grace, is drawn from common consent. All the great truths of the Bible are impressed on the convictions of the people of God; and find expression in unmistakable language. This is done in despite of the theologians, who often ignore or reject these truths in their formal teachings. There are in fact but two views on this subject. According to the one, regeneration is the effect of the mighty power of God; according to the other, it is the result of moral suasion. This latter may be understood to be nothing more than what the moral truths of the Bible are in virtue of their nature adapted to produce on the minds of men. Or, it may characterize the nature of the Spirit's influence as analogous to that by which one man convinces or persuades another. It is from its nature one which may be effectually resisted. All those, therefore, who hold to this theory of moral suasion, in either of its forms, teach that this influence is effectual or not, according to the determination of the subject. One chooses to yield, and another chooses to refuse. Every man may do either. Now, infants are confessedly incapable of moral suasion. Infants, therefore, cannot be the subjects of regeneration, if regeneration be effected by a process of rational persuasion and conviction. But, according to the faith of the Church Universal, infants may be renewed by the Holy Ghost, and must be thus born of the Spirit, in order to enter the kingdom of God. It therefore follows that the faith, the inwrought conviction of the Church, the aggregate body of God's true and professing people, is against the doctrine of moral suasion, and in favour of the doctrine that regeneration is effected by the immediate almighty power of the Spirit. There is no possibility of its operating, in the case of infants, mediately through the truth as apprehended by the reason. It is hard to see how this argument is to be evaded. Those who are consistent and sufficiently inde pendent, admit its force, and rather than give up their theory, deny the possibility of infant regeneration. But even this does not much help the matter. A place outside of the faith of the universal Church is a very unpleasant position. It is, moreover, unsafe and untenable. The whole Church, led and taught by the Spirit of Truth, cannot be wrong, and the metaphysicians and theorists alone right. The error of the Papists as to the authority of the Church as a teacher, was twofold: first, in rendering it paramount to the Scriptures; and secondly, in understanding by the Church, not the body of Christ filled by his Spirit, but the mass of unconverted wicked men gathered with the true people of God within the pale of an external organization. With them the Church consists of that external commonwealth of which the Pope is the head, and to which all belong who acknowledge his authority. It is a matter of very small moment what such a body may believe. But if we understand by the Church the aggregate of the true children of God, men renewed, guided, and taught by the Holy Spirit, then what they agree in believing, must be true. This universality of belief is a fact which admits of no rational solution, except that the doctrine thus believed is revealed in the Scriptures, and taught by the Spirit. This argument is analogous to that for the being of God founded upon the general belief of the existence of a Supreme Being among all nations. It is a philosophical maxim that "What all men believe must be true." This principle does not apply to the facts of history or science, the evidence of which is present only to the minds of the few. But it does apply to all facts, the evidence of which is contained either in the constitution of our nature or in a common external revelation. If what all men believe must be accepted as a truth revealed in the constitution of human nature, what all Christians believe must be accepted as a truth taught by the Word and the Spirit of God. The fact that there are many theoretical, speculative, or practical atheists in the world, neither invalidates nor weakens the argument for the being of God, founded upon the general convictions of men; so neither does the fact that theorists and speculative theologians deny the possibility of infant regeneration either invalidate or weaken the argument for its truth, founded on the faith of the Church Universal. But if infants may be subjects of regeneration, then the influence by which regeneration is effected is not a moral suasion, but the simple volition of Him whose will is omnip otent. Argument from Analogy. 2. A second argument, although most weighty, is nevertheless very difficult adequately to present. Happily its force does not depend on the clearness or fulness of its presentation. Every mind will apprehend it for itself. It is founded on that analogy between the external and spiritual world, between matter and mind, which pervades all our forms of thought and language, and which is assumed and sanctioned in the Word of God. We borrow from the outward and visible world all the terms by which we express our mental acts and states. We attribute sight, hearing, taste, and feeling to the mind. We speak of the understanding as dark, the heart as hard, the conscience as seared. Strength, activity, and clearness, are as truly attributes of the mind, as of material substances and agencies. Dulness and acuteness of intellect are as intelligible forms of speech, as when these characteristics are predicated of a tool. Sin is a leprosy. It is a defilement, a pollution, something to be cleansed. The soul is dead. It needs to be quickened, to be renewed, to be cleansed, to be strengthened, to be guided. The eyes of the mind must be opened, and its ears unstopped. It would be impossible that there should be such a transfer of modes of expression from the sphere of the outward and material to that of the inward and spiritual, if there were not a real analogy and intimate relation between the two. A feeble or diseased mind is scarcely more a figurative mode of speech than a feeble or diseased body. The one may be strengthened or healed as well as the other. The soul may be purified as literally as the body. Birth and the new-birth, are equally intelligible and literal forms of expression. The soul may be quickened as really as the body. Death in the one case is not more a figure of speech than it is in the other. When the body dies, it is only one form of activity that ceases; all the active properties belonging to it as matter remain. When the soul is dead, it also is entirely destitute of one form of life, while intellectual activity remains. Such being the state of the case; such being the intimate relation and analogy between the material and spiritual, and such being the consequent law of thought and language which is universal among men, and which is recognized in Scripture, we are not at liberty to explain the language of the Bible when speaking of the sinful state of men, or of the method of recovery from that state, as purely metaphorical, and make it mean much or little according to our good pleasure. Spiritual death is as real as corporeal death. The dead body is not more insensible and powerless in relation to the objects of sense, than the soul, when spiritually dead, is to the things of the Spirit. This insensibility and helplessness are precisely what the word dead in both cases is meant to express. It is |