A treatise on regeneration

Contents

CHAPTEK I.

PAGE

Preliminary. Definition of regeneration — Greatness of the change effected in regeneration — Proper signification of the term — Instances of its use by profane writers — Prevalent errors concerning regeneration — Scriptural views of regeneration.. 7

Chapter I. Preliminary

Regeneration is a radical and permanent change in the soul ; effected instantaneously ; indispensably necessary to every human being; wrought efficiently by the almighty power of God the Holy Spirit, but instrumentally by the incorruptible seed of the word of God ; and producing a rich variety of spiritual fruits, which are so many tokens and evidences that the change, in any given case, has been experienced. The doctrine of the new birth is fundamental in the Christian system. It is proposed, in the following pages, to open and confirm this doctrine, as set forth in the several particulars embraced in the foregoing proposition.

A glorious spiritual change sometimes takes place in the soul of man.

This change is called in the Bible a regeneration ; a new birth ; a new creation ; a new heart ; a resurrection ; the conversion of a heart of stone into a heart of flesh ; a quickening or revivifying of souls dead in trespasses and sins ; a clothing of dry bones with flesh and infusion of life into the dead forms thus produced. These are strong terms. They have a mighty meaning. They indicate the completeness and thoroughness of the change expressed by them. It is a change so complete, so thorough, that men only begin to love God on passing through it, having before been wholly alienated from him. The state before the change is one of sin and spiritual death ; the state after the change is one of holiness and spiritual life. The former is the agitation of the troubled ocean, casting up mire and dirt ; the latter is calmness, peace, and joy.

The Greek word, rendered by our translators regeneration, denotes an alteration of state, by which a person is brought into a wholly new and reformed condition. The change indicated by the term is, in every case, a change for the better. Cicero calls his restoration from exile a regeneration. Josephus gives the same name to the restoration of the Jewish land after the captivity. In Roman law, the manumission of a slave was termed his regeneration. When the Israelites spoke of the renunciation of a false religion and the adoption of the true in its place, they called the change thus effected a new birth. A Gentile, converted from paganism to Judaism, was regarded by the Jews as one new born, a child just beginning to live. In general, the word denotes an introduction into a

PRELIMINARY. 9

new, improved, and more happy state. Theologically, it signifies a complete renovation of heart and life, a moral revolution in the man, in his judgments, emotions, principles, aims, and conduct ; insomuch that his opposite states — the old and the new — are characterized by words, which express no other states in the human soul.

Very erroneous notions are often entertained on this subject. By some, the new birth is supposed to consist in a mere persuasion of the truth, the belief of an orthodox creed. Others place it in baptism, ascribing a mysterious efficacy to a mere outward ceremony ; a ceremony, it is true, of Divine institution, and having a high significance and value ; but, at the same time, deriving its importance from the fact that it is a sign, seal, and instrument of grace, not grace itself, nor the necessary or invariable channel of its communication. Others, again, regard it as consisting in an outward reformation of the life, the mere practice of the duties of relative morality, from whatever motive these duties may spring, by whatever rule they may be controlled, and to whatever end they may be directed. Other theories, still, represent as regeneration a visible profession of religion, or some improvement resulting from the use of reason, or such a mere intellectual perception of moral truth, as renders virtue in some degree attractive, and vice proportionably repulsive, to the natural understanding. These are grave errors. Their only tendency is to benumb the spiritual faculties, to cloud the spiritual perceptions, and to lull the soul into a deadly spiritual slumber.

Regeneration, according to the scriptural representation of it, is a very different thing from all this. Neither orthodoxy, nor baptism, nor morality, nor outward reformation, nor the improvement of reason, nor a visible profession, nor any degree of light to which the natural understanding may attain, answers to the conception of the new birth, as it lay in the minds of prophets and apostles. The change indicated by this term is real, not nominal ; radical, not superficial ; internal and spiritual, rather than outward and carnal ; in a word, it is a change of the subject, and not of the name only. To be born again signifies nothing less than the infusion of a new principle of spiritual life into the soul, whereby it becomes both inclined and enabled to perform spiritual actions, acceptable unto God. It signifies a re-impression of the Divine image upon the soul; the soul itself remaining the same in its essence, but becoming radically changed in its qualities, desires, and objects.

Chapter II. Nature Of Regeneration

Regeneration implies conviction of sin, a Divine illumination of the understanding, a renovation of the will, a rectification of the affections, and a sanctification of the body itself.

In the new birth the soul is convinced of sin. To that change in the moral state of the soul, that renovation of its faculties in which the new birth consists, such conviction of sin is indispensably necessary. This conviction the Holy Spirit works in the mind, when he so clears the soul's vision as to enable it to see the guilt of sin, and when he gives to the sinner a realizing apprehension of the wrath of God as the just desert of sin. The special means used by the Spirit to convince of sin and misery, is the Divine law ; for by the law is the knowledge of sin. By a view of the holy commandments of the law, the sinner is convinced of the evil nature of sin ; he sees it to be " exceeding sinful/ ' By a view of the fearful threat enings of the law, he is convinced of the guilt of sin;

he sees that it " deserves God's wrath and curse, both in this life and that which is to come."

But this conviction is not uniform in all, nor produced in a uniform manner. In some, it is a sudden, intense, and overwhelming sense of sin, darted into the soul, as it were, from the point of a fiery arrow. In others, it is the gradual result of reading, meditation, and prayer ; and is more subdued and calm in its tone. Sometimes, the Spirit gives the sinner a view of the fountain of sin in his heart; at other times, he shows him some particular sin in all its varied and horrible aggravations, or he draws up a whole catalogue of these, and sets them in dread array before him. In one case, this law-work is very short ; the sinner scarcely knows what legal terrors are ; for, simultaneously with the view of his ruin, is the view of the recovery; he no sooner sees his sins than he sees the all-sufficient righteousness of Christ, and sweetly embraces it as the refuge of his soul ; he is healed almost as soon as he is wounded ; he feels the smart and instantly looks to Christ for relief. In another case, a terrible light is let into the sinner's mind ; he sees his heart to be a sink of corruptions, full of loathsome lusts and horrid enmity against God, a very chamber of imagery, filled with all manner of abominable idols ; he is pierced through and through with a sense of his awful guilt ; he cries out in the bitterness of his anguish, " What shall I do?" and he lies for days, or weeks, or even months and years, under the most distressing apprehension of the Divine wrath, before he is cheered with a view of the Divine mercy in the pardon of his sins. But whatever be the gentleness or the power cf the Spirit's operation, and whatever the method he takes in dealing with the soul in reference to its eternal interests, in all cases where a saving work is wrought, conviction of sin must be of such strength as to humble the sinner, to make him feel his need of Christ and his salvation, to cause him to fall down at the foot of the cross in lowly confession of his guilt, and to bring him to the resolution to forsake his sins and cast himself on the sovereign mercy of God for pardon and eternal life.

But, while we maintain that regeneration presupposes a sense of sin and of our liability to the just displeasure of God, we must guard against the error of supposing that conviction of sin, dread of punishment, anxiety for deliverance, outward reformation, attendance on the external means of grace, sorrow for sin springing from a fear of its consequences, or any similar exercises and works constitute a condition of welcome in coming to Christ, or a qualification warranting us to come. It would follow from such a view, that the invitations of the gospel are addressed only to awakened and anxious sinners. Few things could tend more directly or strongly to foster the natural pride of the human heart than such a doctrine, since it must necessarily' teach men to look upon themselves as the favourites 2 of heaven, while yet they are in a state of unbelief and rebellion against God. This was the error of the Remonstrants of Holland, against which the Synod of Dort lifted up its voice ; a grave and dangerous error, well calculated to drown in perdition the souls of those who receive it.

But, on the other hand, it is no less an error that any sinner will apply to Christ without seeing and feeling his need of him. It is one thing to hold that conviction of sin is necessary as a warrant to apply to the Saviour, and quite another to plead for it as necessary, in the very nature of things, to a compliance with the warrant, which the sinner has independently of such conviction. The consciousness of disease is not necessary in order that one may have the right to apply to a physician ; yet no man will apply for a cure without a conviction that he is sick. Just so with the sinner. He may come and welcome to Christ at any time ; but sinners never will come, till conviction of sin, a sense of their spiritual malady, drives them to him. So the Bible represents the matter. It assigns, as the reason why Christ is rejected by the bulk of mankind, the fact that they are whole in their own eyes, and therefore think they need no physician. Hence it follows that to be convinced of sin is a necessary prerequisite to our applying to Christ ; such conviction, however, not being of the nature of a warrant entitling us to come to him, but rather a powerful motive constraining us to come.

In the new birth the understanding is savingly enlightened in the truth.

This illumination of the mind is properly the first effect of the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. In the creation of the material world, the first command of the Almighty was, "Let there be light." The production of this radiant element was the primal effect of creative power. In this respect the analogy between the old creation and the new is perfect. The comparison is expressly made by the apostle in 2 Cor. iv. 6 : " God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Chris t."

In setting forth the moral state of fallen man, the Scriptures mainly insist on four particulars : the depravity of the mind, the depravity of the will, the depravity of the conscience, and the depravity of the affections ; whence result spiritual blindness, stubbornness, insensibility, and sensuality. With the first of these only are we concerned in the present chapter. All men, since the fall, are, by nature, in a condition of spiritual darkness. However wise, learned, or skilful they may be in worldly affairs, in spiritual things they are dark, blind, ignorant, and foolish, till they are " renewed in the spirit of their mind. ,, This spiritual darkness is either objective or subjective ; that is to say, it is either on the mind, arising from a want of the means of knowledge, which is the case with those who are deprived of Divine revelation ; or it is in the mind, arising from a want of ability to discern spiritual things, though outwardly revealed, which is the case with all men in the state of unregeneracy. In this respect, spiritual darkness is perfectly analogous to natural darkness ; this latter being, in like manner, outward or inward : outward when it arises from the absence of a luminous body ; inward, when it results from such a defect in the organ of vision as destroys the power of seeing.

This doctrine of a universal spiritual darkness, in unrenewed men, is very humbling, and therefore very distasteful to the natural pride of the human heart. Hence, when our Saviour, in one of his discourses, charged this blindness upon mankind, the Pharisees, with scorn and indignation, repelled the accusation with the question, u Are we blind also?" Nevertheless, it is, unequivocally, a doctrine of the Bible.

That it is one of the great functions of the Holy Spirit, in regeneration, to impart light, is clear, in the first place, from the names he bears. He is called the Spirit of knowledge, the Spirit of wisdom, the Spirit of truth, and the Spirit of revelation in the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Nor is the same thing less clear, in the second place, from many plain Scripture testimonies. The Bible account of our condition, prior to regeneration, is, that our understanding is darkened, and that we are alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance that is in us, because of the blindness of our hearts. Nay, in our unregenerate state, we are even said to be darkness itself. Solomon assures us that evil men understand not judgment ; Daniel, that none of the wicked understand ; and the evangelical historian, that the light shineth in darkness. Most illustrious and convincing is the testimony of the Apostle in 1 Cor. ii. 4 : " But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God ; for they are foolishness unto him ; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." Other like passages might be cited; but let these suffice, as the Scriptural representation of the darkness of unregeneracy.

From all this it would logically follow that, if we are ever made wise unto salvation, there must be a work of spiritual illumination wrought in our understanding ; and that, until this is accomplished, the gospel, though in itself the wisdom of God, will yet be accounted foolishness by us. And to this effect also, the testimony of Scripture is full and clear. The very purpose for which Paul was commissioned and sent forth to preach the gospel, was, he informs us, " To open men's eyes, and to turn them from darkness unto light." Accordingly, in writing to the Ephesians, he thus describes the process of their conversion : " Ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord." To the same effect he says to the Colossians, " Who (meaning, as the context shows, God the Father)

hath delivered us from the power of darkness." Again, addressing the Thessalonian converts, he says : " Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day ; we are not of the night, nor of the darkness." In like manner and to the like effect, Peter declares concerning the people of God, that they " have been called out of darkness into his marvellous light.' ' John also told the Christians of his day that he wrote unto them, because the darkness was past, and the true light now shone, adding, " Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things." Remarkable is the testimony of the Psalmist : " The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him ; and he will show them his covenant."

Thus clearly does it appear, from Scripture, that, in the words of the great Owen, " Spiritual darkness is upon all men, till God, by an almighty but effectual work of the Spirit, shine into them, or create light in them. And this darkness is that 'light within,' which some boast of in themselves and others."

It is proper briefly to declare the nature and scope of this illumination. Its province is broad and comprehensive. It extends to the whole system of revealed truth, but has special reference to those truths which are fundamental, and of saving efficacy. Under the illuminating power of the Spirit in regeneration, the scheme of redemption and the doctrines which circle round it, are revealed to the sinner's apprehension with alight, and power, and attractive beauty, of which he was before wholly unconscious. He is enlightened in the knowledge of himself; so that he sees his guilty, wretched, and perishing condition, and so is prepared and inclined to accept the proffered boon of divine forgiveness and mercy. He is enlightened in the knowledge of God; so that he no longer looks upon him as a tyrant demanding an impossible obedience, but sees in him a tender, gracious, and loving Father, and so is prepared and inclined to return to him with love and delight, instead of fleeing from him w T ith hatred and terror. ' He is enlightened in the knowledge of Christ ; of his person, offices, and work as Media/tor, of his righteousness, as the surety of the new covenant, and of the fulness, freeness, and suitableness of his atonement, so that he sees his ability and willingness to save to the uttermost, and so is prepared and inclined to trust in him for pardon, justification, sanctifying grace, and eternal glory. This divine and saving illumination works a change in all his views. The evil of sin, the excellence of holiness, the vanity of earth, the glory of heaven, the preciousness of time, the vastness of eternity, the folly of self-indulgence, the wisdom of self-denial, the worth of the soul, the sweetness of ordinances ; in a word, all the solemn and stupendous realities of the invisible and eternal world, are seen and appreciated, in the new and divine light which streams in upon the soul.

Nevertheless, all the truth necessary to salvation, it is pertinent and perhaps not unimportant to observe here, is revealed in the written word. The appropriate work of the Spirit, in regeneration, is the removal of obstructions, which cloud the spiritual perceptions of the unrenewed man. His office resembles that of a surgeon, who removes a cataract from the natural eyes. The man upon whom this operation has been performed, had previously lived in an atmosphere of light, and had been surrounded by a profusion of exquisite beauties. But the organ of vision was diseased, obstructed, and incapable of exerting its function ; and hence all those beauties were to him as though they had not been. So it is with the soul in its unrenewed state. The Bible contains a revelation of all the doctrines to be believed, all the precepts to be obeyed, all the perils to be avoided, all the interests to be secured, all the graces to be cultivated, and all the promises which minister courage and strength in the Christian race. But there is no power of spiritual vision in a dead soul. The carnal mind is blinded by prejudice, captivated by sense, misled by the maxims of worldly policy, and cheated by the illusions of the devil. The letter of the word may have been profoundly studied, and distinct notions of truth attained by the natural understanding ; but these notions lie cold and dead in the regions of the intellect. They have not penetrated to the heart, with which, the apostle tells us, "man believeth unto righteousness." The intellect has mastered the doctrines of the Bible as mere objects of thought ; but the soul discerns not their real excellence, feels not their constraining energy, melts not under their moving appeals, and lives not by their vivifying power. In order to this, the Holy Ghost must take away the thick films of spiritual blindness, and open the eyes of the understanding to a true spiritual discernment.

The discovery of unknown truth is not the object of the Spirit's illumination. So to represent the matter would insult the Author of revelation. " The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul ;" that is, it is sufficient as an external means of conversion. There is no defect to be supplied by any further Divine communications. The perpetuity of inspiration is the proud dogma of a profane philosophy, or the corrupt gloss of a rationalizing theology, but one remove from it. The doctrine of new revealings by the Spirit belongs to the superstitions of a dark age. Let enthusiasts boast of dreams, and visions, and raptures, and revelations ; every sober-minded Christian can trace all his spiritual perceptions, and holy tempers, and devout feelings to the records of prophets and apostles, or to the words of men drawn from those inspired teachings, and in harmony with them.

In regeneration, the will is renewed in righteousness and true holiness.

The understanding is that faculty of the soul ■which thinks, compares, reasons, and judges. The function of the will is to choose or refuse. It is the will which embraces or rejects an action, or course of actions, submitted to its choice. The understanding weighs objects ; the will determines upon them.

The human will, considered as an object of philosophical inquiry, is shrouded in deep mystery ; but, if it be considered as an object of practical inquiry, few subjects are less involved in difficulty. The great question is in regard to the freedom of the will. The point in debate here relates, not to the fact of the will's freedom, for that all admit ; but to the nature and extent of its freedom. The hinge of the controversy lies in the question, whether it be essential to true freedom that the will, together with its actual choice in a given case, should be endowed with a power of contrary choice. It is here that issue is joined. The exact point is this : The will, under given circumstances, chooses a particular object. Has it the power, at that very time and under those very circumstances, to make a directly opposite choice ? And is such power of contrary choice, under conditions every way identical, essential to its freedom ?

On this question parties divide, and range themselves under different banners. There are difficulties on both sides of the question. If you affirm that the power of contrary choice is essential to the freedom of the will, the opponent of your theory instantly retorts, and, as it seems to me, with unanswerable force : " Where is the certainty, then, that in the cycles of eternity, Gabriel and Paul may not use their ability and lapse from righteousness ?" If you deny the power of contrary choice as an attribute of the will's freedom, it is urged, with equal vehemence, although, as I think, with less of logical power, that, under your system, man is but a machine, impelled by an irresistible necessity in the direction which he actually takes, and that your doctrine is identical with the fatalism of the ancient Stoics and the modern Turks. Each of these objections, which are mutually urged by the opposite parties in this controversy, becomes, in the hands of an astute and skilful dialectician, a weapon of prodigious force, whose heavy and well aimed blows it is very hard to parry.

Yet, intricate and perplexed as are the speculative aspects of this deep theme, there is no practical difficulty whatsoever attending it. Every unregenerate person knows that he is perfectly free in his wickedness. He knows that he is under no irresistible impulsion to sin. He knows that he might, if he would, act differently from what he does. Of all this he has the high evidence of consciousness. On the other hand, every regenerate person knows, by the same unimpeachable testimony of consciousness, that, in yielding himself to God, there was no force, no compulsion, no unavoidable and imperious necessity, acting upon him from without. He is conscious of entire liberty of choice. And yet it is not more certain that an insect cannot make a world, than it is that an unrenewed man, so remaining, will not choose God, and holiness, and heaven, as his portion.

The whole explanation of this phenomenon, — and it is an ample explanation, — lies in the plain and certain fact, that the choices of the will, when they relate to moral objects, are always determined by the moral state of the person choosing. The refined cannot choose the company of the vulgar. The learned cannot choose the society of the ignorant. The impure cannot choose the society of the pure, nor the pure that of the impure. The man of confirmed veracity cannot utter a lie. The perfectly honest man cannot commit a fraud. The man of true honour cannot take a bribe. All these are felt to be impossibilities. But why ? Because each w r ould contradict a permanent moral state of the chooser; would be, in effect, a denial of his moral nature. It is a law of the will, then, as fixed as the laws of gravitation, that its moral choices will ever correspond with the moral state of the chooser. Hence an unregenerate man, remaining unregenerate, will never choose holiness. True, he has the natural power to do so, if by this be meant no more than that it is the natural and proper function of the will to choose between several objects proposed to its election. But he lacks the moral power ; that is, his moral state is such that, until a radical change is effected, to choose holiness would be an absolute self-contradiction, a denial of his own nature, and therefore a flat impossibility ; the bias and impulsion of his soul being ever and only to evil, till it is changed by the grace of God. And this is just what the great Teacher affirms, when he says that " Satan cannot cast out Satan." There is an obstinate and overmastering inward determination of the fallen will to evil. The idea of depravity conquering and expelling itself is incongruous and absurd. As well might we look to see death produce life, or enmity turn itself into love, or pollution produce purity.

From all this it results that the will of man needs a renovation, such a change as will secure a reversal of its choices. To renew the will is to incline it to spiritual good as its chief aim and highest joy ; to render it conformable to the will of God ; to implant in it a new and fixed propensity to what is holy and amiable, and a new and fixed opposition to what is sinful and hateful, in the sight of God : to all which it is, both by nature and practice, totally averse. Now, the renewal of the will naturally accompanies the spiritual and supernatural illumination of the mind, as already explained; for, although slight and transient convictions of duty may issue in nothing but slight and transient resolves of amendment, yet a thorough enlightenment of the understanding in the knowledge of truth and duty, accompanied by deep and earnest convictions of duty, both inwrought in the soul by the Divine Spirit, — may and must reach and pervade the will, directing and commanding its choices.

But the Spirit's agency in the new creation is always in harmony with the nature of the subject, that is to say, it never violates the law of free agency. Hence he is said " to work in us both to will and to do." No violence is done to the will. No constraint is laid upon it. No compulsion is used towards it. Compulsion of the will is a self-contradiction. To force the will is to annihilate it, to destroy its very nature as will. Choice necessarily implies freedom. When the Lord sends the rod of his strength out of Zion, a willing people is made in the day of his power. There is an inward, secret, gracious exertion of almighty power put forth upon the will in regeneration, by which it is renewed, vivified, and enabled to act freely in its choice of God, and holiness and heaven. This is accomplished by the implantation in the soul of a principle of spiritual life and activity, whereby the will is determined to its new and heavenly actings with absolute certainty, yet without the least infringement upon its liberty. There is no change in the substance of the will, that being the same after as before regeneration; but only in its qualities and operations. God changes the corrupt nature of the will, without invading or altering its essential nature.