power of the truth, nor to that of the rational subject in whom the effect is produced. It is due to the power of God over and above the power of the second causes concerned. The effects of grace, or fruits of the Spirit, are above the sphere of the natural they belong to the supernatural. The mere power of truth, ar- gument, motive, persuasion, or eloquence cannot produce repent- ance, faith, or holiness of heart and life. Nor can these effects be produced by the power of the will, or by all the resources of man, however protracted or skilful in their application. They are the gifts of God, the fruits of the Spirit. Paul may plant and Apollos water, but it is God who gives the increase.
In this latter sense of the word supernatural, the cooperation of second causes is not excluded. When Christ opened the eyes of the blind no second cause interposed between his volition and the effect. But men work out their own salvation, while it is God who worketh in them to will and to do, according to hia own good pleasure. In the work of regeneration, the soul is pas- sive. It cannot cooperate in the communication of spiritual life. But in conversion, repentance, faith, and growth in grace, all its powers are called into exercise. As, however, the effects pro- duced transcend the efficiency of our fallen nature, and are due to the agency of the Spirit, sanctification does not cease to be supernatural, or a work of grace, because the soul is active and cooperating in the process.
Proof of its Supernatural Character.
That sanctification is a supernatural work in the sense above stated is proved, —
1. From the fact that it is constantly referred to God as its author. It is referred to God absolutely, or to the Father, as in 1 Thessalonians v. 23, " The very God of peace sanctify you wholly." Hebrews xiii. 20, 21, " The God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus .... make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight." It is also referred to the Son, as in Titus ii. 14, He " gave himself for us, that he might .... purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works." Ephesians v. 25, He " loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing ; but that it should be holy and without blemish." Predominantly sanctifica-
216 PART III. Ch. XVIII. — SANCTIFICATION.
tion is referred to the Holy Spirit, as his peculiar work in the economy of redemption. Hence He is called the Spirit of all grace ; the Spirit of joy, of peace, of love, of faith, and of adoption. All Christian graces are set forth as fruits of the Spirit. We are said to be born of the Spirit, and by Him to be enlightened, taught, led, and cleansed. We are said to be in the Spirit, to live, to walk, and to rejoice in the Spirit. The Spirit dwells in the people of God, and is the abiding source of all the actings of that spiritual life which He implants in the soul. The Bible teaches that the Son and Spirit are in the Holy Trinity subordi- nate to the Father, as to their mode of subsistence and operation, although the same in substance, and equal in power and glory. Hence it is that the same work is often attributed to the Father, to the Son, and to the Spirit ; and as the Father and Son operate through the Spirit, the effects due to the agency of God are re- ferred specially to the Holy Ghost.
This reference of sanctification to God proves it to be a super- natural work, because the insufficiency of second causes to pro- duce the effect is declared to be the ground of this reference. It is because men cannot cleanse or heal themselves, that they are declared to be cleansed and healed by God. It is because rites, ceremonies, sacraments, truth, and moral suasion, cannot bring the soul back to God, that it is said to be transformed, by the renewing of the mind, through the power of the Spirit, into the image of God. We are, therefore, declared to be God's work- manship, created unto good works. And it is not we that live, but Christ that liveth in us.
All Holy Exercises referred to the Spirit as their Author.
2. This reference of sanctification to God as its author, the more decisively proves the supernatural character of the work, because the reference is not merely general, as when the wind and rain, and the production of vegetable and animal life, are referred to his universal providential agency. The reference is special. The effect is one which the Scriptures recognize as not within the sphere of second causes, and therefore ascribe to God. They recognize the free agency of man ; they acknowledge and treat him as a moral and rational being ; they admit the adaptation of of truth to convince the understanding, and of the motives pre- sented to determine the will and to control the affections, and nevertheless they teach that these secondary causes and influences are utterly ineffectual to the conversion and sanctification of the