Dr. Taylor agreed with the advocates of the " Exercise Scheme," that there is nothing in the soul but the agent and his actions ; but he differed from them by holding that man and not God is the independent author of human actions. He held that when God and the world is held up before the mind regeneration consists in an act of the sinner in choosing God as his chief good, thus confounding regeneration and conversion. The Holy Spirit, in some unknown way, assists in restraining the active operation
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of the natural, selfish principle which prefers the world as its chief good. " A mind thus detached from the world as its su- preme good instantly chooses God for its portion, under the im- pulse of that inherent desire for happiness, without which no object could ever he regarded as good, as either desirable or lovely." This original motive to that choice of God which is regeneration is merely natural, and neither morally good nor bad. Thus, 1st. Eegeneration is man's own act. 2d. The Holy Spirit helps man, (1.) by suspending the controlling power of his sin- ful, selfish disposition ; (2.) by presenting to his mind in the clear light of truth the superiority of God as an object of choice. 3d. Then the sinner chooses God as his chief good under the convic- tion of his understanding, and from a motive of natural, though not sinful, self-love, which is to be distinguished from selfishness, which is of the essence of sin. — See Christian Spectator, Decem- ber, 1829, pp. 693, 694, etc.
7. What is the common doctrine held by evangelical Chris- tians ?
1st. That there are in the soul, besides its several faculties, habits, or dispositions, of which some are innate and others are acquired, which lay the foundation for the soul's exercising its faculties in some particular way. Thus we intuitively judge a man's moral disposition to be permanently evil when we see him habitually acting sinfully, or to be permanently good when we see him habitually acting righteously.
2d. These dispositions are anterior to moral action, and deter- mine its character as good or evil.
3d. In creation God made the disposition of Adam's heart holy.
4th. In the new creation God recreates the governing disposi- tion of the regenerated man's heart holy.
It is, therefore, properly called a "regeneration," a "new creation," a " new birth."
8. When it is said that regeneration consists in giving a new heart, or in implanting a new principle or disposition, what is meant by the terms "heart," "principle," or "disposition ?"
President Edwards says, " By a principle of nature in this
346 REGENERATION.
place; I mean that foundation which is laid in nature, either old or new, for any particular kind or manner of exercise of the facul- ties of the soul. So this new ' spiritual sense' is not a new faculty of understanding, "but it is a new foundation laid in the nature of the soul for a new kind of exercise of the same faculty of understanding. So that new holy disposition of heart that at- tends this new sense is not a new faculty of will, but a founda- tion laid in the nature of the soul for a new kind of exercise of the same faculty of will." — Edwards on Keligious Affections, Pt. III. sec. 1.
The term " heart/' signifying that prevailing moral disposition that determines the volitions and actions, is the phrase most commonly used in Scripture, Matt, xii., 33, 35 ; xv., 19 ; Luke vL, 43, 45.
9. How may it he shown that this view of regeneration does not represent it as involving any change in the essence of the soul f
This charge is brought against the orthodox doctrine by all those who deny that there is any thing in the soul but its consti- tutional faculties and their exercises. They hence argue that if any thing be changed except the mere exercises of the soul, its fundamental constitution would be physically altered. In oppo- sition to this, we argue that we have precisely the same evidence for the existence of a permanent moral quality or disjoosition in- herent in the will, as the reason why a good man acts habitually righteously, or a bad man viciously, that we have for the exist- ence of the invisible soul itself, or of any of its faculties as the reason why a man acts at all, or why his actions are such as thought, emotion, volition. It is not possible for us to conceive of the choice being produced in us by the Holy Spirit in more than three ways. " First, by his direct agency in producing the choice, in which case it would be no act of ours. Second, by ad- dressing such motives to our constitutional and natural principles of self-love as would induce us to make the choice, in which case there would be no morality in the act. Or, thirdly, by producing such a relish for the divine character, that the soul as spontane- ously and immediately rejoices in Grod as its portion as it rejoices in the perception of beauty."
" If our Maker can endow us, not only with the general sus-