The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 348

:

REGENERATION

3o8

tion are wholly out of the question regarding the

unborn son of

Zacharias; and the thousands of infants of believing parents, of

whom

at

Dort

it

was

correctly confessed that they

posed to have died in the Lord,

i.e.,

may

be sup-

being born again; and regard-

ing those regenerated before Baptism but converted later in

For

life.

examine regeneration (in its and not in an adult, in whom it neces-

this reason it is so necessary to

limited sense) in an infant, sarily includes conversion.

The following reasoning can not be disputed 1.

All men, infants included, are born dead in trespasses and

sins. 2.

Of these infants many die before they come

to self-conscious-

ness. 3.

Of these gathered flowers the Church confesses that many

are saved. 4.

Being dead

in sin, they

can not be saved without being born

again. 5.

Hence regeneration does actually take place

in persons that

are not self-conscious.

These statements being indisputable, it is evident, therefore, and character of regeneration can be determined most correctly by examining it in these still unconscious persons. Such an unborn infant is totally ignorant of human language it has no ideas, has never heard the Gospel preached, can not receive Hence moral influence is instruction, warning, or exhortation. out of the question and this convinces us that regeneration is not that the nature

;

;

a moral, but a metaphysical act of God, just as tion of the soul of an unborn child, of the mother.

which

is

much

as the crea-

effected independently

God regenerates a man wholly without

his fore-

knowledge.

What it

is that constitutes the act of regeneration can not be told. Himself tells us so, for He says: "The wind bloweth where Jesus thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell it listeth, and it cometh and whither it goeth so is every one that is bom whence ;

of the Spirit."

And, therefore,

it

is

befitting to investigate this

mystery with the utmost discretion. Even in the natural kingdom the mystery of life and its origin is almost entirely beyond our knowledge. The most learned physician is entirely ignorant concerning the manner in which a human life comes into existence.

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