The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 328

—

;

XVIII.

What

It Is

Not. •'

We are

His workmanship."

Ephes. u.

lo.

In the preceding article we contended that there is preparatory In opposition to the contemporary deism of the Methodists,* truth in all the Reformed churches ought to confess this excellent

grace.

should not be abused to reestablish the sinner's free will, as the Pelagians did, and the Arrainians after them, and as the Ethicals do now, tho differently.

its

But

length and breadth.

The Methodist * sinner until

He

it

errs in saying that

God does not

care for the

suddenly arrests him in his sinful way.

Nor may

tolerate the opposite error, the denial of regeneration, the new starting-point in the life of the sinner, which would make the whole

we

work

an awakening of dormant and suppressed no gradual transition conversion is not merely

of conversion but

energies.

There

is

;

suppressed the healing of disease, or an uprising of what had been least of all, the arousing of dormant energies.

As regards

his

first birth,

the child of

God was

dead,

and can be

brought to life only by a second birth as real as the first. GenerIn the nattxre of ally the person so favored is not conscious of it.

man is unconscious of his first birth. Consciousness comes with the years. And the same applies to regeneration, of

the case,

only

and which he was unconscious until the time of his conversion that may be ten or twenty years. The grounds upon which the Church confesses that a large maBaptism are many indeed; jority of men are born again be/ore holy ;

wherefore, in Baptism,

it

addresses the infants of believers as being

regenerate.

the Semi-Pelagians of all times and shades, and They lower the Ethicals of the present time, teach concerning this? grace. preparatory of sort a the first act of God in the sinners to

And what do

* See section

5

m

Preface.

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