But perhaps it may be asked here, Is not the sinner, in the performance of these conditions, partly converted? I answer, This again depends entirely upon what you mean by conversion. If by conversion you understand the whole of the preparatory work of awakening and seeking, as well as the change of the heart—then of course you would say he is partly converted. If you mean by conversion only a change of views and a consequent change of purpose, by which the sinner determines to seek, that he may find the pearl of great price—the blessing of a new heart and of forgiveness, then you would say he is wholly converted. But if you mean, by conversion, the change of heart itself, the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, then not only is not the work done, but it is not begun. The way of the Lord is prepared and the renewal will follow.
Thus the objections that have been thought so formidable against the doctrine of conditional regeneration are found, on a closer inspection, to be more in appearance than in reality. They receive their influence, as objections, rather from their indefiniteness and the ambiguity of terms, than from any intrinsic force.
There is, however, one form more in which an objection may be urged in a general way against the ideas of the new birth here advanced. And as I wish fearlessly and candidly to state and meet, if possible, every difficulty, it will be necessary to touch upon this. It may be urged that “the only exercises that can be claimed as conditions of regeneration on Bible grounds are repentance and faith; for ‘repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ’ are laid at the foundation of all Gospel requirements. Whenever the awakened sinner came to the apostles to know what he should do to be saved, they always met him with, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.’ Whenever the apostles went out to preach the Gospel, they preached ‘every where that men should repent.’” “But,” continues the objector, “if repentance and faith are the only duties or exercises which can be claimed as conditions, it is evident there are no such conditions; for repentance and faith, so far from being conditions of regeneration, are either the new birth itself, or are Christian graces, implying the new birth.”
The premises, in the above objection, will not be denied. Repentance and faith are supposed to be the Gospel conditions of regeneration. But it is denied that these are necessarily regeneration itself, or that they imply regeneration in any other sense, than as antecedents to it. There are, it is acknowledged, a repentance and a faith that are Christian graces, and imply the new birth. This is the faith that “is the substance of things hoped for.” It is that principle of spiritual life which the Christian has in his soul when he can say, “The life that I now live I live by faith in the Son of God.” This is that repentance, also, which keeps the soul continually at the foot of the cross, and leads it constantly to feel,
“Every moment, Lord, I need
The merit of thy death.”
But because repentance and faith are the necessary characteristics of the Christian, and because they are the more perfect as the Christian character ripens, it does not therefore follow that there are no repentance and faith conditional to the new birth. The very fact that repentance and faith were urged by Christ and his apostles, as the initiatory step to salvation, proves the opposite of this. They do not say, Repent and believe the Gospel, and this is salvation, but, “Repent and believe, and ye shall (on this condition) be saved.” And surely it is unnecessary to prove here that salvation in the New Testament generally means a meetness for heaven or holiness. Our blessed Saviour was called Jesus, because he saved his people from their sins.
Beside, it may well be argued, that faith and repentance are acts of the mind, and cannot therefore be considered as the new birth itself, unless the mind converts itself, especially since they are enjoined duties, and must therefore be voluntary acts. It is no where said that God repents and believes for us; but it is expressly and repeatedly taught, that God renews us.—Repentance and faith, then, are our work, but regeneration is his. I know it is said in one place, Acts v, 31, that Christ was exalted “to give repentance to Israel.” But the act itself of repentance cannot be said to be given. This would be an absurdity. How can any one give me a mental act? Hence Dr. Doddridge, although a Calvinist, very candidly and very justly remarks, on this passage, that “to give repentance signifies to give place, or room for repentance,” to sustain which interpretation he quotes Josephus and others who use the phrase in this sense. If then repentance and faith are enjoined upon us, as our duties, and if they are every where spoken of as prerequisites in the work of salvation, and as preparatory steps and conditions to the process of holiness, how can it be otherwise than that these are antecedent, in the order of nature, to regeneration?
It may farther be argued, in support of this view of faith and repentance, that no sin can be forgiven until repented of —repentance therefore must precede remission of sins. This I suppose Calvinists allow, but they say that, in the order of nature, the heart is renewed before sin is forgiven—and that repentance, therefore, which is either the new birth itself, or the immediate fruit of it, is a condition of justification, but not of regeneration. If this be correct, then the soul is made holy before it is forgiven. But St. Paul informs us, Romans iv, 5, that God through faith “justifieth the ungodly.” If then there be any antecedence in the order of the two parts of the work of grace, we must suppose that justification has the precedence, and that regeneration follows, and hence repentance and faith precede regeneration. Indeed I cannot see why repentance is not as necessary to remove the sin of the heart as to forgive the sin of the life. If God will not forgive sin without repentance, will he renew the heart without it? Has he any where promised this? If not, but if, on the contrary, he every where seems to have suspended the working out of our salvation in us, upon our repentance, then may we safely conclude—nay, then we must necessarily believe that we repent in order to be renewed. The same may be said of faith. Faith in fact seems to be the exclusive channel through which every gracious effect is produced upon the mind. The sinner cannot be awakened without faith, for it precedes every judgment in favour of truth, and every motion of moral feeling, and of course every favourable concurrence of the will. The sinner never could throw himself upon the Divine mercy, never would embrace Christ as his Saviour, until he believed. Hence the Scriptures lay such great stress upon faith, and make it the grand, and indeed the only immediate condition of the work of grace upon the heart. Repentance is a condition only remotely, in order to justifying faith; agreeable to the teaching of Christ, “And ye, when ye had heard, afterward repented not that ye might believe on him.” But faith is necessary immediately, as that mental state directly antecedent to the giving up of the soul into the hands of Divine mercy. And shall we still be told that faith is not the condition of regeneration? The order of the work seems to be—1. A degree of faith in order to repentance. 2. Repentance, in order to such an increase of faith as will lead the soul to throw itself upon Christ.—3. The giving up of the soul to Christ as the only ground of hope. 4. The change of heart by the efficient operation of the Holy Spirit.—Now on whichever of these four stages of the process, except the first, the objector lays his finger and says, That is not a condition of regeneration, for it is regeneration itself, it will be seen that that very part is conditional. If, for instance, he fix on the second stage, and contend that that is regeneration, which I call repentance in order to regenerating faith; even that would be conditional regeneration, for it is preceded by faith—and so of all that follow. And surely no one will pretend that what I call the first stage, the faith which precedes awakening and remorse of conscience, and the exciting alternations of fear and hope in the anxious and inquiring sinner, is regeneration. And if this first degree of faith is not the change, then it is utterly inconsistent to talk of unconditional regeneration, for this faith stands at the head of all that follows—it is a mental act necessarily preparatory to the whole work. And as we shall presently see, it is an act that depends upon the agency of the will. Hence we are brought again to our conclusion, that the change called the new birth is effected by the Holy Spirit, on the ground of certain conditional acts of him who is the subject of the change.
“But the very nature of repentance and of faith, the very definition of the two mental states expressed by these terms,” it is said, “proves that a person, to possess them, must be regenerate; or at any rate, that these states cannot be conditions of regeneration, to be performed by the sinner.” Let us attend for a moment to this objection in detail.