salvation, it remains true that few are saved, and that God does not interpose to prevent the great majority of adult men in the present state of the world perishing in their sins.
Augustinians do not deny these difficulties. They only main- tain that they are not peculiar to their system ; and they rest content with the solution of them given in the Scriptures. That solution agrees with all the facts of consciousness and experience, so far as consciousness and experience extend. The Bible teaches that man was created holy ; that by his voluntary transgression of the divine law he apostatized from God ; that in consequence of this apostasy all men come into the world in a state of spiritual death, both guilty and polluted ; that God exercises no influence to lead them into sin, but on the contrary, by his truth, his prov- idence, and by his Spirit exerts all that influence over them which should induce rational beings to repent and seek his par- doning mercy and sanctifying grace ; that all those who sincerely and faithfully seek reconciliation with God in the way of his appointment He actually saves ; that of his sovereign grace He, in the exercise of his mighty power, renews and sanctifies a mul- titude which no man can number, who would otherwise have continued in their sins. With these representations of the Scrip- tures everything within the sphere of our knowledge agrees. Consciousness and experience testify that we are an apostate race ; that all men are sinners, and, being sinners, have forfeited all claims on the favour of God ; that in continuing in sin and in rejecting the overtures of mercy men act voluntarily, following the desires of their own hearts. Every man's conscience, more- over, teaches him that he has never sought the salvation of his soul with the sincerity and perseverance with which men seek the things of the world, and yet failed in his efforts. Every man who comes short of eternal life knows that the responsibility rests upon himself. On the other hand, the experience of every be- liever is a witness to him that it is of God and not of himself that he is in Christ (1 Corinthians i. 30) ; every believer knows that if God had left him to himself he would have continued in unbe- lief and sin. Why God intervenes to save one and not another, when all are equally undeserving ; why the things of God are revealed unto babes while hidden from the wise and prudent, can only be answered in the language of our Lord, " Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight." (Matthew xi. 26.)
The more popular and common objections that the Augustinian doctrine of regeneration leads to the neglect of the means of
40 PART III. Ch. XV. — REGENERATION.
grace, " to waiting for God's time," to indifference or despair : that it is inconsistent with exhortations and commands addressed to sinners to repent and believe, and incompatible with moral responsibility, have already been repeatedly considered. It is enough to say once more that these objections are founded on the assumption that inability, even when it arises out of our own sin- fulness, is incompatible with obligation. Besides, it is the natural and actual tendency of a sense of helplessness under a burden of evil, to lead to earnest and importunate application for relief to Him who is able to afford it, and by whom it is offered.