Christ has

experience of all truly regenerated persons. various methods of dealing with men, in preparing them for his spiritual kingdom; and yet they all enter the kingdom by the same narrow gate · conversion or regeneration. And of what are they sensible in conversion? What kind of a change is it, so far as their consciousness extends? Have any new faculties been imparted? Have they been physically wrought over into some other kind of creatures? Have they been sensible of any constraint upon the free and regular exercise of their natural powers? Nothing of all this. But they are conscious, in some way, of giving their hearts to God; of yielding, in some form, to the motives and influences of the gospel. They are conscious, now, of freely, spontaneously loving God, of submitting to God, of turning away from former sins, and putting their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. They feel that they have experienced a great and glorious change; but it has been a change (so far as their consciousness can reach) in the free exercises of their own minds and hearts; a change in the affections from sin to holiness; a change from the love of self and the world, to the love of God, and the things of his kingdom. Such is the change which they have experienced, and the consciousness of it leads them to hope that they have truly passed from death unto life. The view of regeneration here exhibited is thought to be one of great practical importance, more especially to ministers. In the belief of it, the minister of Christ may go to his fellow men on the subject of religion, as he would on any other important subject, and instruct, and warn, and endeavor to persuade them, feeling that the point urged was one in which they were to be active, and in reference to which persuasion was pertinent and necessary. Thus, obviously, the apostles addressed their hearers. "Repent and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out." "Repent ye and believe the gospel." They felt no more embarrassment in calling sinners to repentance than in calling Christians to the performance of any spiritual duty.

But let the other view be taken. Let it be settled in a

minister's mind that the sinner is passive in regeneration; that a change must be wrought in him, in which he is to have no active concern, before he can perform any spiritual duty; and what can such a minister say to impenitent men on the great subject of the soul's salvation. He may pity them, and pray for them. He may direct them to pray and use means with such hearts as they have, and wait for a change. But he cannot urge them to immediate repentance, or to the direct performance of any spiritual duty. Or if he does address them in exhortations such as these, it will be with a secret feeling that his exhortations are inconsistent with his belief; and in such a state of mind they will lack heart and earnestness, and will not be likely to do much good.

In this view, we are constrained to regard the doctrine of passive regeneration as one calculated to strip the gospel minister of his armor, and to clog and embarrass him in his master's work; at the same time, it is calculated to fill the mouths of sinners with excuses and objections, and furnish them with new refuges of lies, under cover of which they may sleep themselves into perdition.

It is painful to look back a generation or two, and see how good men have been hampered with this notion of passive regeneration, and what strange and unscriptural directions, under the influence of it, have been given to the impenitent. The following passage, addressed to sinners, is from Boston's "Four-fold State":

"Though you cannot recover yourselves, nor take hold of the saving help offered to you in the gospel, yet, even by the power of nature, you may use the outward and ordinary means, whereby Christ communicates the benefits of redemption to ruined sinners, who are utterly unable to recover themselves out of the state of sin and wrath. You may and can, if you please, do many things that would set you in a fair way for help from the Lord Jesus Christ. Though you cannot cure yourselves, yet you may come to the pool, where many such diseased persons as you are have been cured. And though you have none to put you VOL. XIX. No. 75.

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into the pool, yet you may lie at the side of it; and who knows but the Lord may return and leave a blessing behind him?"

So Mr. Willison, in his "Sacramental Directory," says to impenitent souls, and says it with a view to their coming to the Lord's table: "Stir up yourselves to take hold of Christ, when he is so near, and in your offer. Strive earnestly, while there is an ark prepared, and a window opened in the side of it, and the hand of mercy is put forth to pull in shelterless doves that can find no rest elsewhere. Strive to come near, by the wings of faith; make your nest beside the hole's mouth; be not found hovering without, lest the flood wash you away, and ye perish miserably. Try, O poor soul, if you can get a grip of Christ, especially upon a sacramental occasion, when you are nearer to him than at other times. You must not sit still, and do nothing, but use all means in your power: Hoist up the sails, then, and wait for the gales."

Mr. Ebenezer Erskine, in his sermon on the " Assurance of Faith," says: "Let us store our minds with the pure and precious truths of God, and acquaint ourselves with those things which are to be believed. And having thus laid in the seed into the soil of our hearts, let us look heavenward, and wait for a shower of the Spirit's influences. They that offered sacrifices of old, though they could not make fire come down from heaven and consume the victim, yet they could fetch the bullock out of the stall, or the lamb out of the fold; they could bind it with cords to the horns of the altar; they could gather sticks and lay in proper fuel; and, having done their part, they could look up to heaven for the celestial fire to set all on a flame together. In like manner, I say, do what is incumbent on you; gather your sticks, lay in the proper fuel, and store your minds with the materials of faith, which you are daily reading or hearing in the

word."

We can hardly conceive of instructions to impenitent souls more directly at variance with the gospel, than those which have been here introduced. Yet these were the

instructions of eminent Christian teachers, gifted and godly men, whose minds had been warped from the simplicity of faith by the then commonly received dogmas of natural inability and passive regeneration. And it is mainly owing to the efforts of Hopkinsians, that like instructions are not given to sinners now. The whole subject of means and of directions to be given to the impenitent was very fully discussed, from fifty to a hundred years ago, by Hopkins, Bellamy, Spring of Newburyport, Emmons, and several others, who passed under the general name of Hopkinsians. In the year 1761, Dr. Mayhew, of Boston, published a volume of sermons, in which he endeavored to show that there are promises in scripture to the doings of the unregenerate. Dr. Hopkins replied to these sermons. This brought him into. controversy, not directly with Dr. Mayhew, but with several Calvinistic ministers, as Mr. Mills of Ripton, Conn., Mr. Hart of Saybrook, and Dr. Hemmenway of Wells, Me. In 1784, Dr. Spring, of Newburyport, published his “Dialogue on Duty," in which he strenuously controverted a sermon by Dr. Tappan, afterwards Hollis Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, on the same subject. Dr. Tappan maintained that "persons in a state of unrenewed nature may perform some things," such as attending on the means of grace, "which are their duty, or which, in some respects, are truly right." This Dr. Spring denied; not meaning to deny that it is the duty of all men, whether saints or sinners, to attend upon the means of grace. But then, they must attend with right affections, and from right motives. They must read and hear the gospel right; must pray right; must perform every duty in such a spirit and manner as God has required and will accept. In other words, it is the duty of all men to submit to God, to become new creatures, and to use the means of grace in the only way in which it is possible for a sinner to use them, by yielding to them at once, and giving the heart to God. It was by discussions such as these, on the part of Hopkinsians, that the subject of regeneration, and the means of it, were rescued from previous perversions, and brought out into the clear light of the gospel.

PERSEVERANCE.

The views of Hopkinsians as to the nature of sin and of regeneration lead to some peculiarities of statement in regard to perseverance. If regeneration is a passive change, in which the subject of it receives a new nature, a something which he had no power of any kind to secure, and, when once secured, which he cannot lose; then his perseverance becomes a natural necessity. He cannot fall away, if he would. He is in no danger of final apostasy, and needs no warnings or exhortations to preserve him from it.

But such, obviously, is not the scriptural view of Christian perseverance, nor is it the view taken by Hopkinsian writers. They believe assuredly that the true Christian will persevere. He will endure to the end, and be finally saved. This is secured by declarations and promises which can never fail. But then how shall he persevere, and why? Not because he cannot possibly fall away, and is in no danger of it; but because, by the grace of God, he will be kept, and kept in the free and active exercise of his own intellectual and moral powers. His perseverance, at every step, is an active perseverance; a holding on, and a pressing on, in the divine life, a growing up in a meetness for the heavenly world.

But if this is the scriptural idea of perseverance, then the Christian needs motives to induce him to persevere, and just such motives as are set before him in the gospel. How is he to persevere actively, but under the influence of motives such as these? He needs to be plied with injunctions, exhortations, persuasions, warnings. He needs to be told of the necessity of an active, patient, unfailing perseverance. He must endure to the end, if he would be saved. He must be faithful unto death, if he would inherit a crown of life. He needs to be told, not only of the sin and guilt of a final apostasy, but of its terrible consequences. "If any man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered." If the righteous man turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and persist in it, he shall surely die." He needs warnings more awful even than