IS TRUTH AN INSTRUMENT IN REGENERATION?

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N speaking of the truth as an instrument of regeneration, obviously we refer to "religious truth," the "gospel." "I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believes." I certainly do not refer to Christ, who is the truth personified, as he said, "I am the truth." I wish to prove just this, that God in the person of the Holy Spirit does regenerate the souls of men without the employment of religious truth as an instrument. I use the term regenerate in its technical and restricted sense, as I understand Dr. Phelps to say in his New Birth: "Regeneration, the divine act, is evidenced to consciousness only by conversion, the human change."

Once more, Paul says the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. Salvation is rather the process of saving men than the act of saving. Regeneration is an act, a "divine act." Salvation is a process divisible into many parts. It embraces conviction of sin, regeneration by the Spirit, and the subsequent development of the regenerate soul or sanctification, the perfecting of the saint, and the final reception of the Christian at the court of heaven.

That religious truth, the gospel, is an instrument of salvation I grant, of course. I would say more, "God never dispenses with truth" in the salvation of men so far as we know, it being

understood that I affirm nothing here with respect to the salvation of infant children. "The law of the Lord is perfect, convérting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes." "Sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth."

With the question, therefore, of the instrumentality of truth in salvation, I have nothing whatever to do in this article. I will simply confine myself to the subject as stated. What regeneration is I have perhaps stated sufficiently clearly above. It is a simple act of God by which a human soul is changed from evil to good. It is not a complex act, divisible into parts and stages, to perform which an indefinite amount of time is employed. It is one creative act, by which a soul that was dead is made alive. As Christ stood over the grave of Lazarus, and "cried with a loud voice, Lazarus come forth, and he came," so now the Spirit speaks new life into the dead in trespasses and sins, and they live. The previous taking away of the stone had nothing to do with the simple act of reinvigorating the dead body of Lazarus, nor was the subsequent work of loosing him and letting him go a part of the act of imparting life. There are several steps in this process. Those standing by took away the stone from the sepulchre, Jesus cried "Lazarus come forth," and simultaneously, by the fiat of his own almighty power, he thrilled the putrefying body with vigor and life. Then the overjoyed sisters and friends removed his grave-clothes and let him go. The act of Christ is not complex. It is not mediate, no instrument whatever is employed.

We look from this act of Christ to the work of bringing to life those who are dead in sin, and very properly inquire, is there no analogy between the regeneration of a soul and the revivifying of a dead body. We do not forget that the operations in the two instances will have many points of dissimilarity. One is bringing to life a dead body, and the other is bringing to life a dead soul. Dr. Phelps says, "God performs an act of sovereign power in every change of character from sin to holiness;" and further, "we portray this unspeakable change as a resurrection. We cry out in despair, 'Who shall deliver us from the body of this death?' But our despair must be eternal, if we have no other hope than such an act of Deity as the raising of Lazarus." All of which I heartily endorse. Regeneration is an act of sovereign power, a creative act, but it differs from the raising of Lazarus from the dead. There is one particular, however, in which these two acts are similar, and similar to all other creative acts of God, so far as I can conceive of God's mode of working. He simply speaks and it is done. He did not apply restoratives to the

body of Lazarus, nor use an electro-magnetic instrument. Neither does he, so far as I am able to understand the mode of working, in the simple primary act of "changing the heart," use truth as an electrifying instrument. That he uses truth for the previous conviction and the subsequent edifying, I do not for a moment doubt. But what service truth can render I do not clearly see, since to be effective it must be believed, and it cannot be believed because "the natural man receiveth not the things of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot know them because they are spiritually judged." The gospel to him is utterly distasteful. He spurns it from him. "The carnal mind is enmity against God, for it does not submit itself to the law of God, neither indeed can it." Truth can have no effect upon him whatever. He is senseless to its appeals, for he is dead in trespasses and sins. If this be an accurate photograph of man's natural heart, how, I ask, can he be regenerated by the instrumentality of truth? A well-known writer says:

It is not sufficient to open the eyelids of a blind person, to pour the full blaze of light upon his face. You must remove the impediment of vision or form the organ anew. It is not sufficient to tell the slave that his condition is wretched and degraded, and to awaken his natural desire for liberty; but you must break his fetters and rescue him from the power of his oppressor. The situation of the sinner is more hopeless than that of this man; for he is a willing slave, he hugs his chains, he thinks himself already free, and despises the liberty which the gospel offers as the most grievous bondage.

But I turn to notice other passages of Scripture, which plainly teach that by an internal operation on the mind, God prepares the individual to be benefited by truth. The Psalmist prays, "O Lord, teach me thy statutes. Deal bountifully with thy servant, that I may live and keep thy word. Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law." Paul prays for the Ephesians:

That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him; the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead.

Christ opened the understandings of the disciples, "that they might understand the Scriptures." The only legitimate interpretation that can be put upon these words is that God acts immediately upon the

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heart of man and prepares him to receive the truth. Psalmist's eyes to behold wondrous things in the law. natural and legitimate that he uses the law as an instrument to effect this? It is not the truth which opens the eyes, but a direct act of omnipotence, distinct from the influence of truth, which prepares the eyes to see the truth, and the heart to accept it. So also in the case of the Ephesians, the simple meaning of the passage is that God exerts a power in us similar to the power which he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead. In like manner Christ opened the understandings of the disciples not mediately, a slow and natural process, but immediately, by the simple act of his own almighty power.

There are other passages still which attribute to God an immediate agency in the conversion of a soul, as when he is said to "work in you both to will and to perform of his good pleasure," also, "to fulfil in us the work of faith with power," and to work in us "that which is well pleasing in his sight," to write his laws on our hearts, to take away the stony heart and give us a heart of flesh. The nature of the change here spoken of is radical and instant. It is not a softening process, which is effected by means of motives and the normal action of truth.

It is further apparent that this is the only legitimate construction which can be put upon those passages which speak of regeneration as a new birth. "Ye must be born again. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit." Unless we rob these passages of every vestige of naturalness, they teach the doctrine we hold. From the necessities of nature that which is born of the Spirit cannot be developed by the action of truth. Truth is the food upon which the soul feeds after it is born, but the soul unborn has no use for food. Unregenerate mind, I repeat, repels gospel truth by virtue of its own nature, "Ye do always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do ye;" and no holding the two in contact will force the one to imbibe the other till the nature of one or the other is changed. The truth remains always the same, but old things in the heart pass away and all things become new by the effectual working of the grace of God. grace are ye saved;" and every good thought, every holy emotion, every righteous action, is the fruit of this grace; for "we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them."

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It is not denied that the gospel affects men who hear it before the change of heart has taken place. It often times affects them in a very marked and wonderful manner, stirring up the virus of their old nature to a terrible degree. The plainer the truth is revealed to them the more bitter and intense is their hatred of it. The whole

history of Christ on earth is the history of the truth personified and thrown into a world of sin. The manner in which he was received and handled is precisely analogous to the manner in which the world receives and handles the truth of God. They despised, rejected, mocked, spit upon, and crucified the Son of God, numbering him with thieves and malefactors. Thus, and thus only, does the unregenerate mind use the truth of the gospel. But it is said that the word of God is the "sword of the spirit," and with it men are slain. Truth, therefore, is the instrument with which this is effected. True, but it is the province of the Spirit to convict men of sin as much as to regenerate the convicted sinner. Peter teaches that the obedience to the truth by which our souls are purified is "through the Spirit." Says Andrew Fuller:

Indeed, all the means, whether ordinances or providences, or whatever is rendered subservient to the sanctification and salvation of the souls of men, are under the direction of the Holy Spirit. The influence, therefore, which they have to these ends is reckoned his influence. But it does not follow from hence that the power of the gospel is in no sense to be distinguished from the power of the Holy Spirit, or that the one is always connected with the other, or that they both necessarily, and in all cases, include one and the same divine operation. The contrary of each of these positions appears to be the truth. The word of God cannot in the nature of things operate effectually till it is believed; and how is this brought about? Here is the difficulty. Belief, it may be said, in other cases is induced by evidence. This is true; and if the hearts of men were not utterly averse from the gospel, its own evidence, without any supernatural interposition, would be sufficient to render every one who heard it a believer. But they are averse; and we all know that evidence, be it ever so clear, will make but little impression upon a mind infected with prejudice. The Scriptures speak of sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth as distinct things, and as if the one was antecedent to the other. . . . It would not require more power to believe the gospel than any other system of truth, if the heart were but in harmony with it; but as it is not, it becomes necessary that a new bias of heart should be given as a preparation to knowing or embracing it. The Scriptures not only speak of knowledge as a means of promoting a holy temper of heart, but of a holy temper as the foundation of true knowledge. "I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord."

But let us turn from this aspect of the subject and look at one or two instances of regeneration given in the word of God. We are told by Dr. Phelps that the Scriptures "inform us of many instances of regeneration by means of truth, and of not one without the truth." These instances are not named or even hinted at, but it is said that