[21]. See Charnock on Regeneration, Vol. II. page 70, 71.
[23]. When it is said “no man can come unto me, except the Father who hath sent me, draw him,” the negation must be understood as expressive of moral impotency, and as if it had been said “ye will not come unto me that ye might have life;” but nevertheless as direct proof of the absolute necessity of divine grace to the salvation of every person who is saved. That the aid is not merely necessary to the understanding is evident from the guilt of unregeneracy, and from the supposition of the Saviour whose reproof implies that it was the carnality of the heart which created the impotency to come unto or believe on him.
The propriety of exhortations to turn, repent, believe, and work out our own salvation, is obvious; because such impotency is chiefly an aversion of heart. When such motives are ineffectual, they prove the inveteracy of the opposition to God, and argue the greater guilt. They are no evidence that grace is unnecessary, because they have an important effect in the change of the man’s views, and pursuits, when the Spirit of God has “opened the heart” to receive the necessary impressions; and because these motives are rendered effectual by the Divine Spirit. He grants us repentance, turns us, helps our unbelief, strengthens our faith, and works in us both to will and to do of his own good pleasure.
Because it is charged upon the evil that they “resist” the grace of God, and therefore his Spirit will not always “strive” with men, it by no means follows, that the success of grace depends merely upon our yielding; as often as men yield to the strivings of the Spirit, a victory is obtained; for the carnal heart inclines to evil until subdued by him: we are “made willing in a day of his power.” Were it otherwise the glory of man’s salvation would belong to himself, at least in part; but the language of the believer is “not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name, be the glory given.” Nor is there any need to suppose man’s salvation thus imputable to himself in order that the evil may be charged with the blame of his destruction; for nothing excludes him but his own evil heart, and this is his sin.
It does not result that the man, who is thus “made willing,” is in such manner constrained as that his holiness, being the effect of compulsion, possesses no moral beauty; because he acts as freely as the evil man does; and even more so, for the latter is a slave to his preponderating evil inclinations. The believer chooses holiness, and though he has nothing to boast of before God, his good works may well justify him before men.
If it be yet objected, that this is a discouraging representation of the way of obtaining happiness; it may be answered, that it can discourage only those, who wish for happiness, at the same time that they more strongly incline to sensuality; and such ought to be discouraged in their vain expectations: but it is highly consolatory to such as prefer holiness and heaven; for it not only discovers to them, that God has wrought in them to will and to do, but that he is engaged for them, and will accomplish their salvation.
[24]. See Charnock on Regeneration, Vol. II. page 147, 148, &c.
[25]. When we speak of effectual calling’s being the work of the Spirit, the agency of the Father and Son is not excluded, since the divine power, by which all effects are produced, belongs to the divine essence, which is equally predicated of all the persons in the Godhead; but when any work is peculiarly attributed to the Spirit, this implies his personal glory’s being demonstrated thereby, agreeably to what is elsewhere called the oeconomy of the divine persons; which see farther explained in Vol. I. page 292, 293, &c.
[26]. Ενεργεια.