the Lord ; and promises that if thus trained in the way in which they should go, when they are old they will not depart from it. But it is not true that regeneration is the product of culture. Men can- not be educated into Christians, as they may be trained in knowl- edge or morals. Conversion is not the result of the development of a germ of spiritual life communicated in baptism or derived by descent from pious parents. Everything is in the hands of God. As Christ when on earth healed one and another by a word, so now by his Spirit, He quickens whom He will. This fact is proved by all history. Some periods of the Church have been remarkable for these displays of his powers, while others have passed with only here and there a manifestation of his saving grace. In t; e Apos- tolic age thousands were converted ; many were daily added to the Church of such as were to be saved. Then in the Augustinian age there was a wide diffusion of the saving influences of the Spirit. Still more conspicuously was this the case at the Reforma- tion. After a long decline in Great Britain came the wonderful revival of true religion under Wesley and Whitefield. Contempo- raneously the great awakening occurred throughout this country. And thus from time to time, and in all parts of the Church, we see these evidences of the special and sovereign interventions of God. The sovereignty of these dispensations is just as manifest as that displayed in the seven years of plenty and the seven years of dearth in the time of Moses. Every pastor, almost evei'y parent, can bear witness to the same truth. They pray and labour long apparently without success; and then, often when they look not for it, comes the outpouring of the Spirit, Changes are effected in the state and character of men, which no man can produce in another; and which no man can effect in himself; changes which must be referred to the immediate agency of the Spirit of God. These are facts. They cannot be reasonably denied. They cannot be ex- plained away. They demonstrate that God acts as a sovereign in the distribution of his grace. With this fact no other scheme than the Augustinian can be reconciled. If salvation is of grace, as the Scriptures so clearly teach, then it is not of works whether actual or foreseen.
Express Declaratiojis of Scripture. 6. The Scriptures clearly assert that God has mercy on whom He will have mercy, and compassion on him on whom He will have compassion. They teach negatively, that election to sal- vation is not of works ; that it does not depend on the character or efforts of its objects ; and affirmatively, that it does depend on
346 PART III. Ch. L — the plan OF SALVATION.
God. It is referred to his good pleasure. It is declared to be of Him ; to be of grace. Passages in which these negative and affirm- ative statements are made, have already been quoted. In Rom. ix. it is said that election is " not of works, but of Him that calleth." " So then, it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy." As in the time of Elias amid the general apostasy, God said, "I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed the knee unto Baal." (1 Kings, xlx. 18.) " So then," says the Apostle, " there is a rem- nant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace." (Rom. xi. 5, 6.) So in Rom. viii. 30, it is said, "Whom He did predesti- nate, them He also called," i. e., He regenerated and sanctified. Regeneration follows predestination to life, and is the gift of God. Paul said of himself, " It pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal liis Son in me." (Gal. i. 15, 16.) To the Ephesians he says that those obtain the inheritance, who were " predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will." (Eph. i. 12.) In 2 Tim. i. 9, he says, we are saved " according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." The Apostle James, i. 18, says, " Of his own will begat He us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures." The Apostle Peter speaks of those who " stumble at the word, being disobedient : whereunto also they were appointed." (1 Pet. ii. 8.) And Jude speaks of certain men who had " crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation," (Jude 4.) This foreordination to condemnation is indeed a judicial act, as is taught in Rom. ix. 22. God condemns no man, and foreordains no man tio condemnation, except on account of his sin. But the pretention of such men, leaving them, rather than others equally guilty, to suffer the pen- alty of their sins, is distinctly declared to be a sovereign act.
The Words of Jesus.
Of all the teachers sent by God to reveal his will, no one more frequently asserts the divine sovereignty than our blessed Lord himself. He speaks of those whom the Father had "given Him." (John xvii. 2.) To these He gives eternal life. (John xvii. 2, 24.) For these He prays ; for them He sanctified Himself. (John xvii. 19.) Of them He says, it is the Father's will that He should lose none, but raise them up at the last day. (John vi. 39.)