The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 385

:

THE COMING OF THE CALLED

345

But as long as there is no love for God, there is nothing. For mere willingness to do something for God, even to bear great sacrifices, and to be very pious and benevolent, except it spring from the right motive, is in its deepest ground nothing but a despising of God. However beautiful the veneering, all these apparently good works are inwardly cankered, sin-eaten, and decayed. Love alone imparts the real flavor to the sacrifice. Wherefore the holy apostle declares so sternly and sharply " Tho you give your body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth you nothing." To perform good works in order to be saved, or to oblige God, or to make one's own piety lofty and conspicuous, is a growth from the old root and at the most but a semblance of love. To cherish true love for God is to be constrained by love to yield one's ego with all that it is and has, and to let God be God again. And the ordinary, the general, the outward call never has such effect it is incapable of producing it. Wherefore we leave the ordinary call and return to the call which is particular, wonderful, inward, and effectual; which ad:

;

(2

all, but exclusively to the elect. This call, which is spoken of as" heavenly" (Heb. iii. Tim. i. 9), as " being without repentance " (Rom. xi. 29),

to

God' s purpose" (Rom.

dresses itself not to

Lord"

viii. 28), is

"from above

i),

as "holy"

is "

according

in Christ

J esus our

and does not have its starting-point in the preaching. He that calls by it is God, not the minister. And this call goes forth by the means of two agencies, one coming to man from without and the other from within. Both these agencies are effectual, and the call has accomplished its purpose and the sinner has come to repentance as soon as their workings meet and unite (Phil.

iii.

14),

in the center of his being.

Hence we deny that the regenerate, hearing the preached Word, will come of himself. We do not thus understand their cooperation. If the inward call is sufficient, how is it that the regenerate can sometimes hear the preaching without arising, unrepentant, refusing to let Christ give him light? But we confess that the call of the regenerate is twofold: from without by the preached Word, and from within by the exhortation and conviction of the Holy Spirit. Hence the work of the Holy Spirit in the calling is twofold The first work is, as He comes with the Word: the Word which Is inspired, prepared, committed to writing, and preserved by Him-

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