Chapter XV (continued, part 2)
Not a Change of Substance
4. It is not, however, according to the Church doctrine, any change in the substance of the soul. This is rejected universally as Manicheism, and as inconsistent with the nature of sin and holiness. It is, indeed, often assumed that there is nothing in the soul but its substance and its acts; and, therefore, if regeneration be not a change in the acts, it must be a change of the substance of the soul. This assumption, however, is not only arbitrary, but it is also opposed to the intimate convictions of all men. That is, of all men in their normal state, when not speculating or theorizing. That such is the common judgment of
men has already been proved under the heads of original righteousness and original sin. Every one recognizes, in the first place, that such constitutional principles as parental love, the social affections, a sense of justice, pity, etc., are immanent states of the soul which can be resolved neither into its essence nor acts. So also acquired habits are similar permanent and immanent states which are not acts, much less modifications or changes of the essence. The same is true of dispositions, amiable and unamiable. The refinement of taste and feeling due to education and culture, is not a change in the essence of the mind. It cannot reasonably be denied that a state of mind produced by culture, may be produced by the volition of God. What is true in every other department of our inner life, is true of our moral and religious nature. Besides those acts and states which reveal themselves in the consciousness, there are abiding states, dispositions, principles, or habits, as they are indifferently called, which constitute character and give it stability, and are the proximate, determining cause why our voluntary exercises and conscious states are what they are. This is what the Bible calls the heart, which has the same relation to all our acts that the nature of a tree, as good or bad, has to the character of its fruit. A good tree is known to be good if its fruit be good. But the goodness of the fruit does not constitute or determine the goodness of the tree, but the reverse. In like manner, it is not good acts which make the man good; the goodness of the man determines the character of his acts.
It is a New Life
5. While denying that regeneration is a change either in the essence or acts of the soul, evangelical Christians declare it to be, in the language of Scripture, "a quickening," a ζωοποιεῖν, a communication of a new principle of life. It is hard, perhaps impossible, to define what life is. Yet every man is familiar with its manifestations. He sees and knows the difference between death and life, between a dead and living plant or animal. And, therefore, when the Bible tells us that in regeneration God imparts a new form of life to the soul, the language is as intelligible as human language can be in relation to such a
subject. We know that when a man is dead as to the body he neither sees, feels, nor acts. The objects adapted to impress the senses of the living make no impression upon him. They awaken no corresponding feeling, and they call forth no activity. The dead are insensible and powerless. When the Scriptures declare that men are spiritually dead they do not deny to them physical, intellectual, social, or moral life. They admit that the objects of sense, the truths of reason, our social relations and moral obligations, are more or less adequately apprehended; these do not fail to awaken feeling and to excite to action. But there is a higher class of objects than these, what the Bible calls "The things of God," "The things of the Spirit," "The things pertaining to salvation." These things, although intellectually apprehended as presented to our cognitive faculties, are not spiritually discerned by the unrenewed man. A beautiful object in nature or art may be duly apprehended as an object of vision by an uncultivated man, who has no perception of its æsthetic excellence, and no corresponding feeling of delight in its contemplation. So it is with the unrenewed man. He may have an intellectual knowledge of the facts and doctrines of the Bible, but no spiritual discernment of their excellence, and no delight in them. The same Christ, as portrayed in the Scriptures, is to one man without form or comeliness that we should desire Him; to another He is the chief among ten thousand and the one altogether lovely; "God manifest in the flesh," whom it is impossible not to adore, love, and obey.
This new life, therefore, manifests itself in new views of God, of Christ, of sin, of holiness, of the world, of the gospel, and of the life to come; in short, of all those truths which God has revealed as necessary to salvation. This spiritual illumination is so important and so necessary and such an immediate effect of regeneration, that spiritual knowledge is not only represented in the Bible as the end of regeneration (Col. 3:10; 1 Tim. 2:4), but the whole of conversion (which is the effect of regeneration) is summed up in knowledge. Paul describes his conversion as consisting in Christ's being revealed to Him (Gal. 1:16); and the Scriptures make all religion, and even eternal life, to be a form of knowledge. Paul renounced everything for
the excellency of the knowledge of Christ (Phil. 3:8), and our Lord says that the knowledge of Himself and of the Father is eternal life. (John 17:3). The whole process of salvation is described as a translation from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. There is no wonder, therefore, that the ancients called regeneration a φωτισμός, an illumination. If a man born blind were suddenly restored to sight, such a flood of knowledge and delight would flow in upon him, through the organ of vision, that he might well think that all living consisted in seeing. So the New Testament writers represent the change consequent on regeneration, the opening the eyes on the certainty, glory, and excellence of divine things, and especially of the revelation of God in the person of his Son, as comprehending almost everything which pertains to spiritual life. Inseparably connected with this knowledge and included in it, is faith, in all the forms and exercises in which spiritual truths are its objects. Delight in the things thus revealed is the necessary consequence of spiritual illumination; and with delight come satisfaction and peace, elevation above the world, or spiritual mindedness, and such a sense of the importance of the things not seen and eternal, that all the energies of the renewed soul are (or, it is acknowledged, they should be) devoted to securing them for ourselves and others.
This is one of the forms in which the Bible sets forth the doctrine of regeneration. It is raising the soul dead in sin to spiritual life. And this spiritual life unfolds or manifests itself just as any other form of life, in all the exercises appropriate to its nature.
It is a New Birth
The same doctrine on this subject is taught in other words when regeneration is declared to be a new birth. At birth the child enters upon a new state of existence. Birth is not its own act. It is born. It comes from a state of darkness, in which the objects adapted to its nature cannot act on it or awaken its activities. As soon as it comes into the world all its faculties are awakened; it sees, feels, and hears,
and gradually unfolds all its faculties as a rational and moral, as well as physical being. The Scriptures teach that it is thus in regeneration. The soul enters upon a new state. It is introduced into a new world. A whole class of objects before unknown or unappreciated are revealed to it, and exercise upon it their appropriate influence. The "things of the Spirit" become the chief objects of desire and pursuit, and all the energies of the new-born soul are directed towards the spiritual, as distinguished from the seen and temporal. This representation is in accordance with the evangelical doctrine on this subject. It is not consistent with any of the false theories of regeneration, which regard regeneration as the sinner's own act; as a mere change of purpose; or as a gradual process of moral culture.
A New Heart
Another mode in which this doctrine is set forth is found in those passages in which God is represented as giving his people a new heart. The heart in Scripture is that which thinks, feels, wills, and acts. It is the soul; the self. A new heart is, therefore, a new self, a new man. It implies a change of the whole character. It is a new nature. Out of the heart proceed all conscious, voluntary, moral exercises. A change of heart, therefore, is a change which precedes these exercises and determines their character. A new heart is to a man what goodness is to the tree in the parable of our Lord.
In regeneration, therefore, there is a new life communicated to the soul; the man is the subject of a new birth; he receives a new nature or new heart, and becomes a new creature. As the change is neither in the substance nor in the mere exercises of the soul, it is in those immanent dispositions, principles, tastes, or habits which underlie all conscious exercises, and determine the character of the man and of all his acts.
The whole Soul the Subject of this change
6. According to the evangelical doctrine the whole soul is the subject of regeneration. It is neither the intellect to the exclusion of the feelings, nor the feelings to the exclusion of the intellect; nor is it the will alone, either in its wider or in its more limited sense, that is the subject of the change in question. This is evident,—
(1.) Because the soul is a unit, and is so recognized in Scripture. Its faculties are not so dissociated that one can be good and another bad, one saved and another lost, one active in the sphere of morals and religion and the others inactive. In every such exercise the intelligence, the feelings, the will, and the conscience, or moral consciousness, are of necessity involved.
(2.) In the description of this work all the faculties of the soul are represented as affected. The mind is illuminated, the eyes of the understanding are opened; the heart is renewed; the will is conquered, or, the man is made willing.
(3.) When Lazarus was restored to life, it was not one member of the body, or one faculty that received the vivifying influence. It was not the heart that was set in motion, the brain and lungs being restored by its action. It was the whole man that was made alive. And it is the whole soul that is regenerated.
(4.) This is further evident from the effects ascribed to regeneration. These effects are not confined to any one department of our nature. Regeneration secures right knowledge as well as right feeling; and right feeling is not the effect of right knowledge, nor is right knowledge the effect of right feeling. The two are the inseparable effects of a work which affects the whole soul.
(5.) When our Lord teaches that the tree must be made good in order that the fruit should be good, it was not any one part of the tree which must be changed, but the whole tree. In like manner it is the soul, in the centre and unity of its life, that is the subject of that lifegiving power of the Holy Ghost, by which it becomes a new creature.
The doctrine that regeneration is a change affecting only one of the faculties of the soul has its foundation entirely outside of the Scriptures. It is simply an inference from a particular psychological theory, and has no authority in theology.
§ 4. Objections
The same objections which are urged against other doctrines of grace are pressed against the Augustinian view of the nature of regeneration. These objections are of three classes.
Denial of Supernaturalism
1. The first class of objections are founded on the denial of Theism; or at least on the denial of the Scriptural doctrine of the relation of God to the world. It is an assumption common to most of the forms of modern philosophy that the only agency of the Supreme Being (whether personal or impersonal) is according to law. It is ordered, uniform, and in, with, and through second causes, if such causes are admitted. Everything is natural, and nothing supernatural, either in the outward world or in the sphere of things spiritual. There can be no creation "ex nihilo," no miracles, no immediate revelation, no inspiration in the church sense of that term; no supernatural work upon the heart, and therefore no regeneration in the sense of an immediate operation of almighty power on the soul. Those who depart from their principles so far as to admit the person of Christ to be supernatural in its origin contend that the supernatural in Him becomes natural, and that from Him onward the diffusion of spiritual life is by a regular process of development, as simply natural as the development of humanity from Adam through all his posterity.
This is purely a philosophical theory. It has no authority for Christians. As it is contrary to the express teaching of the Scriptures it cannot be adopted by those who recognize them as the infallible rule of faith and practice. As it contradicts the moral and religious convictions arising from the constitution of our nature, it must be
hurtful in all its tendencies, and can be adopted by those only who sacrifice to speculation their interior life.
Resting on False Psychological Theories
2. A second class of objections are founded on certain psychological theories on free agency, on the nature of the soul, and on the conditions of moral obligation. No theories on these, or any other subjects, have any authority, except those which underlie and are necessarily assumed in the facts and doctrines of the Scripture. If any theory teaches that plenary ability is essential to free agency; that God cannot control with certainty the acts of free agents without destroying their liberty; or that free acts cannot be foreseen, predicted, or foreordained, then such theory must be false if the Scriptures assert facts which imply the contrary. If a theory teaches that men are responsible only for acts of the will, under their own control, that theory must be rejected if the Bible teaches that we are responsible for states of mind over which the will has no direct power. The facts involved in the evangelical doctrine of regeneration, as stated above, contradict the theories on which the arguments of the Remonstrants, Pelagians, and others against that doctrine rest, and therefore those theories must share the fate of every doctrine which contradicts established facts. This has been demonstrated over and over in different ages of the Church. The principles involved in these objections have been discussed in the preceding pages, and need not be again considered.
Objections founded on the Divine Perfection
3. A third class of objections are drawn from the supposed inconsistency of this doctrine with the moral perfections of God. If all men are dead in sin, destitute of the power to restore themselves to life, then not only is it unjust that they should be condemned, but it is also incompatible with the divine rectitude that God should exert his almighty power in the regeneration of some, while He leaves others to perish. Justice, it is said, demands that all should have an
equal opportunity; that all should have, by nature or from grace, power to secure their own salvation. It is obvious that such objections do not bear peculiarly against the Augustinian system. They are urged by atheists against Theism. If there be a personal God of infinite power, why does He permit sin and misery to hold joint supremacy on earth; why are good and evil so unequally distributed, and why is the distribution so arbitrary?
Deists make the same objections against the divine authority of the Bible. They cannot receive it as the Word of God because it represents the Creator and Governor of the world as placing men under circumstances which secure in some way the universality of sin, and then punishing them with inexorable severity even for their idle words.
It is also plain that the different anti-Augustinian systems afford no real relief from these difficulties. Admitting that regeneration is the sinner's own act; admitting that every man has all the knowledge and all the ability necessary to secure his 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 maintain 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 providence, and by his Spirit exerts all that influence over them which should induce rational beings to repent and seek his pardoning 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 multitude which no man can number, who would otherwise have continued in their sins. With these representations of the Scriptures 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, moreover, 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 believer is a witness to him that it is of God and not of himself that he is in Christ (1 Corinthians 1:30); every believer knows that if God had left him to himself he would have continued in unbelief 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 11:26.)
The more popular and common objections that the Augustinian doctrine of regeneration leads to the neglect of the means of 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 sinfulness, 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.