The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 378

—

3f(ftb

Cbapter.

CALLING AND REPENTANCE.

XXVIL The

Calling of the Regenerate.

"Whom He did

predestinate,

Rom.

also called."

them He

viii. 30.

In order to hear, the sinner, deaf by nature, must receive hearing ears.

"

He

that hath ears let

him hear what the

Spirit saith unto

the churches."

But by nature the sinner does not belong to these favored ones. This is a daily experience. Of two clerks in the same office, one obeys the call and the other rejects it; not because he despises it, but because he does not hear God's call in it. Hence God's quickening act antedates the sinner's hearing, and thus he becomes able to hear the Word. The quickening, the implanting of the faith-faculty, and the uniting of the soul to Christ, apparently three acts, are in reality

but one grace.

act,

together constituting (objectively) the so-called yfr^/

In the operation of this grace the sinner

is

perfectly passive

which does not involve the slightest operation, yielding, or even non-resistance on his part. In fact, the sinner, being dead in trespasses and sins, is under this first grace like a soulless, motionless body, with all the passive properties belonging to a corpse. This fact can not be stated with And It is an absolute passivity. sufficient force and emphasis.

and

indifferent; the subject of an action

every effort or inclination to claim for the sinner the minutest cooperation in this

first

grace destroys the Gospel, severs the artery

of the Christian confession,

and

is

not only heretical, but anti-

Scriptural in the highest sense.

This

is

the point where the sign-post is erected,

where the roads

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