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of a creature upon the creator, that it cannot act. No creature can be a cause. There is no efficiency in second causes. Then, of course, the first cause must produce all effects. God creates everything, even volitions. In the soul there are only acts or ex- ercises. Regeneration, therefore, is an act or volition created by God ; or, it is the name given to the commencement of a new series of exercises which are holy instead of sinful.
Professor Finney assumes that plenary ability is essential to moral agency ; that a man, so far as his internal life is con- cerned, has power only over his choices and volitions ; all, there- fore, for which he is responsible, all that constitutes moral char- acter, must fall under the category of choice, the selection of an ultimate end. Assuming, moreover, that happiness is the only absolute good, all sin consists in the undue pursuit of our own happiness, and all virtue in benevolence or the purpose to seek the happiness of being. Regeneration, therefore, consists in the change of the purpose to seek our own happiness, for the purpose to seek as our ultimate end the happiness of the universe.
Dr. Taylor, agreeing with Professor Finney on the nature of free agency, and in the doctrine that happiness is the chief good, holds with him that all sin and holiness consist in voluntary ac- tion. But assuming that self-love, as distinguished from selfish- ness, is the motive in all rational moral action, he makes regen- eration to consist in the choice of God as the source of our own happiness.
All these speculations are outside of the Bible. They have no authority or value which they do not derive from their inherent truth, and any man is at liberty to dispute them, if they do not commend themselves to his own reason and conscience. But be- sides the purely philosophical character of these views, it would be easy to show, not only that they have no valid ground on which to rest, but also that they are inconsistent with the teach- ings of Scripture and with genuine Christian experience. This will be attempted when the Scriptural account of regeneration comes to be considered.
Regeneration not a change in any one 'Faculty of the Soul. Regeneration does not consist in a change in any one of the faculties of the soul, whether the sensibility, or the will, or the intellect. According to some theologians, the feelings, or heart, in the restricted sense of that word, is the exclusive seat of orig- inal sin. Hereditary corruption, in other words, is made to con-
10 PART IH. Ch. XV. — REGENERATION.
gist in the aversion of the heart from divine things, and a prefer- ence for the things of the world. The end to be accomplished in regeneration, therefore, is simply to correct this aversion. The understanding, it is urged, so far as moral and religious truth is concerned, apprehends aright and appreciates what is loved ; and in like manner, in the same sphere, we believe what we appre- hend as right and good. If, therefore, the feelings are made what they ought to be, all the other operations of the mind, or inner man, will be right. This theory is founded in part upon a mistaken view of the meaning of the word " heart " as used in the Scriptures. In a multitude of cases, and in all cases where regeneration is spoken of, it means the whole soul ; that is, it includes the intellect, will, and the conscience as well as the affections. Hence the Bible speaks of the eyes, of the thoughts, of the purposes, of the devices, as well as of the feelings or affec- tions of the heart. In Scriptural language, therefore, a " new heart " does not mean simply a new state of feeling, but a radi- cal change in the state of the whole soul or interior man. Be- sides, this theory overlooks what the Bible constantly assumes : the unity of our inward life. The Scriptures do not contemplate the intellect, the will, and the affections, as independent, separa- ble elements of a composite whole. These faculties are only different forms of activity in one and the same subsistence. No exercise of the affections can occur without an exercise of the intellect, and, if the object be moral or religious, without includ- ing a correspondent exercise of our moral nature.
Regeneration not merely Illumination, Another and antagonistic theory equally one-sided, is that the intellect only is in fault, and that regeneration resolves itself into Hlumination. This view is far more plausible than the preced- ing. The Bible makes eternal life to consist in knowledge ; sin- fulness is blindness, or darkness; the transition from a state of sin to a state of holiness is a translation from darkness into light; men are said to be renewed unto knowledge, i. e., knowledge is the effect of regeneration ; conversion is said to be effected by the revelation of Christ; the rejection of Him as the Son of God and Saviour of men is referred to the fact that the eyes of those who believe not are blinded by the god of this world. These Scriptural representations prove much. They prove that knowledge is essential to all holy exercises; that truth, as the object of knowledge, is of vital importance, and that error