(3.) Great power and efficacy is added hereunto from the manage- ment of these motives in the j^reacAm^jr of the word. Herein with some the rhetorical faculty of them by whom it is dispensed is of
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306 THE NATURE, CAUSES, AND MEANS [BOOK III.
great consideration ; for hereby are tliey able to prevail very much on the minds of men. Being acquainted with the inclinations and dispositions of all sorts of persons, the nature of their affections and prejudices, with the topics or kinds and heads of arguments meet to affect thein and prevail with them, as also the ways of insinuating persuasive motives into their minds, they express the whole in words elegant, proper, expressive, and suited to allure, draw, and engage them unto the ways and duties proposed unto them.^ Herein do some place the principal use and efficacy of the ministry in the dis- pensation of the word; with me it is of no consideration, for our apostle rejects it utterly from any place in his ministry: 1 Cor, ii. 4. " My speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power." Some of late have put in faint and weak exceptions unto the latter clause, as thougli not an evidence of the powerful presence of the Spirit of God in the dispensation of the gosjael were intended therein, but the jDower of working miracles, contrary to the whole scope of the place and consent of the best expositors; but that, by the first clause, the persuasive art of human oratory is excluded from use and efficacy in the preaching of the gospel, none as yet hath had the impudence to deny. But let this also be esteemed to be as useful and effica- cious in this work, as to the end of preaching in the conversion of the souls of men, as any can imagine, it shall be granted; only I shall take leave to resolve the efficacy of preaching into two other causes : —
[1.] The institution of God. He hath appointed the preaching of the word to be the means, the only outward ordinary means, for the conversion of the souls of men, 1 Cor. i. 1 7-20 ; Mark xvi. 15, 16; Eorn. i. 16. And the power or efficacy of any thing that is used unto an end in spiritual matters depends solely on its divine ap- pointment unto that end.
[2.] The especial gifts that the Spirit of God doth furnish the preachers of the gospel withal, to enable them unto an effectual dis- charge of their work, Eph. iv. 1 1-1 3, whereof we shall treat after- ward. All the power, therefore, that these things are accompanied withal is resolved into the sovereignty of God ; for he hath chosen this way of preaching for this end, and he bestows these gifts on whom he pleaseth. From these things it is that the persuasive "mo- tives which the word abounds withal unto conversion, or turning to God from sin, have that peculiar efficacy on the minds of men which is proper unto them.
^ T/ TO opiXo;, lav ihffvvhro; [iXv o Xoyog, xaKofivStre; oi o rpocToi ; ii f^lv yafi <ro(piffTOv 'hiia.ffx.aXiiov j) ri IxxXri^'ia., ihyXcarria.; ?iv o xaipo;. 'ETtiih 0£ rpocTo))/ ayaiv xai xaf^oipopia 70 "PT p 0X14 fj.lv ov, xa.) 'prpoa'Ooxloi. ohpocvaiv to •prpoffdoxuf/.ivov, //.ri yXvTtToi, t^yiTiir^a, dXX' o Tio^raj. —
Atliauas. de Semeute.
CHAP, v.] ^ OF REGENERATION. S07
(4.) We do not therefore, in this case, suppose that the motives of the iL'ord are left unto a mere natural operation, with respect unto the ability of them by whom it is dispensed, but, moreover, that it is blessed of God, and accomimnied luiih the 'poiuer of the Holy Sph-it, for the j)roducing of its effect and end upon the souls of men. Only, the operation of the Holy Ghost on the minds and wills of men in and by these means is supposed to extend no farther but unto motives, arguments, reasons, and considerations, proposed unto the mind, so to influence the will and the affections. Hence his ojie- ration is herein moral, and so metaphorical, not real, proper, and physical.
Now, concerning this whole work I affirm these two things : —
1. That the Holy Spirit doth make use of it in the regeneration or conversion of all that are adult, and that either immediately in and by the preaching of it, or by some other application of light and truth unto the mind derived from the word ; for by the reasons, mo- tives, and persuasive arguments which the word affords are our minds affected, and our souls wrought upon in our conversion unto God, whence it becomes our reasonable obedience. And there are none ordinarily converted, but they are able to give some account by what considerations they were prevailed on thereunto. But, —
2. We say that the whole work, or the tvhole of the ivork of the Holy Ghost in our conversion, doth not consist herein; but there is a real ph^^sical work, whereby he infuseth a gracious principle of spiritual life into all that are effectually converted and really rege- nerated, and without which there is no deliverance from the state of sin and death which we have described; which, among others, may be proved by the ensuing arguments.