LECTURE VI.

REGENERATION SUPERNATURAL.

PSALM cx. 3.

THY PEOPLE SHALL BE WILLING IN THE DAY OF THY POWER.

THIS promise to Christ respecting his future kingdom is very emphatic. It can scarcely be tortured into any other meaning than that his power should be effectually exerted to render his people willing to submit to his empire; not indirectly by presenting to their view his miracles and the destruction of his enemies, and leaving the event to the casual operation of their self-determining power, but by a conquest of their wills or hearts through the efficacious influence of his Spirit.

In the last lecture it was proved that regeneration is an instantaneous change, from exclusive attachment to the creature, from supreme selfishness, from enmity against God, to universal love which fixes the heart supremely on him; that there is no previous abatement of the enmity or approximation towards a right temper, the heart being at one moment in full possession of its native selfishness and opposition, at the next moment in possession of a principle of supreme love to God,-acquiring thus in an in

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stant a temper which it never possessed before. Here is a phenomenon wholly unlike any other revolution in the moral or social world. How is it to be accounted for? Is it produced by the self-determining power of the human will, or by the power of God? If by God, is it brought about according to the stated operations of nature, or in a supernatural way? If in a supernatural way, is it done on account of any thing previously performed by the sinner, or in any sense by his co-operation? These three questions will form the plan of the present lec

ture.

I. Is this change produced by the self-determining power of the human will, or by the power of God? Not by the self-determining power of the will or heart, (both are included in the term as here used,) for the very last act of the will or heart before the change was entirely hostile to God, and the first right act evinces the change to be past. The will was an enemy in the last act before the act of love. Does then the foe instantly create the friend? Does an effort of enmity instantly produce love? Whenever did darkness create light, or death life? Is it credible that the will, while fully opposed to God, should contrive and accomplish so holy and so vast a change in a moment? None will pretend it. No man in his senses ever pleaded for the self-determining power who allowed the change to be so sudden and so great.* But I ask again, what could possibly have induced the will all at once to make so great and new an effort? Motives? But the same motives had been resisted for years, and were firmly_resisted in the very last act before the change. Now that the will should steadily resist all motives from the beginning, and all at once yield in an instant, without any new inducement, without any previous consent of its own;-that love should start up out of enmity in a moment, uncaused but by itself, is altogether incredible, and never was and never will be believed by any rational mind. The moment regeneration is proved to be an instantaneous change from unabated enmity to supreme love, the argument for the self-determining power is forever ruined.

Nor will any relief be found by seeking an ally for the will in the understanding. Universal experience proves that the understanding cannot control, much less create, the affections. If it could every man would be sure to do as well as he knows how. If it could the enmity of the natural heart would be chargeable only to ignorance, and then the enmity would not be directed against the true God, but against a false image of God which it is every man's duty to hate. These faculties of the mind have indeed some control over each other, but by no means enough to support such an hypothesis. Their empires are very distinct, and divide a man as it were against himself. In its turn the understanding will not submit to the heart. Whoever set himself down to any mental effort, for instance to write a composition, without feeling the uncertainty whether his intellect would obey his wishes? The will has to stand and solicit, and is often held in suspense whether its suit will be favoured or denied. Could the heart control the understanding, who would not at once make himself a Newton? And it is only an equal law of nature that the understanding should not control the heart. If it could who would not speedily rid himself of many uncomfortable passions? If it could which of you would not become a Christian at once?

The theory of the self-determining power being thus set aside, those systems which have been built upon it sink of course. These systems may all be reduced to three; the Pelagian, Arminian, and SemiArminian. I will spend a moment in spreading these out by the side of the Calvinistic doctrine, that you may distinctly see in what points they differ.

The Pelagian theory is, that God does no more than present motives to the mind by the external light of truth: to these the will in the exercise of its self-determining power yields or refuses to yield, and the good man alone makes himself to differ from others who possess equal means of information. This system wholly sets aside the influences of the divine Spirit.

The Arminian theory is precisely the same, only it acknowledges the enlightening influence of the Spirit as an auxiliary in setting motives before the mind. To these motives the will, in the exercise of its self-determining power, yields or refuses to yield, and the good man alone makes himself to differ from others who enjoy common grace.

The Semi-Arminian theory differs from the latter only in name and in a greater confusion of language. According to this system God affords a portion of spiritual aid, producing something more than light, and something less than holiness. If that aid is improved he will afford more, and so on till the change is complete. This undefinable influence between an enlightening and a sanctifying one, the mind, though utterly destitute of "true holiness," is capable of improving so as to meet with divine approbation, and in reward to receive more; but it is capable, by the self-determining power of the will which that influence does not control, of misimproving the grace and so losing the effect. God really does more for one than another, because one has better improved his grace, though with an unholy heart; but he would do as much for one as another

if all would improve alike. The real difference is made, not by discriminating grace, but by one's improving divine influence better than another, through the self-determining power of the will which that influence did not control. This theory rests its weight on three columns; the self-determining power, progressive regeneration, and the dogma that God approves of unholy deeds; all which I persuade myself have been proved to be but shadows.

But

Men go through life the dupes of names. I beg to know what can be meant by an influence which produces something more than light, and something less than holiness? Does it enlarge the understanding? Does it strengthen the memory? And ifit did what then? What has an enlargement of natural powers to do with a change of heart? Satan in natural powers surpasses any saint on earth. But of a moral tendency what other influence can there be, than that which informs the conscience or improves the heart? in other words, than that which enlightens or sanctifies? Do you say it is an influence which would lead to holiness if the will did not resist? what other can that be than an enlightening influence? Come fix a miscropic eye on this single point. What influence can you conceive of between that which presents motives to the will, leaving it unconstrained, and that which bends the will by constraining power?* Do you say there may be a pressure of power which the will resists? But upon your principle what right has power to encroach upon the freedom of the will by undertaking to compel it? If I have no right to bring a man by force to the house of God, I have no right to exert the least muscular strength upon him, or to assail him in any other way than by motives. But who knows that such a pressure is made if no effect follows? Who can be conscious