- Hence conversion merges itself in sanctification. This is also a divine act, and not
human; not a growing toward Christ, but an absorbing of His life through the roots of faith.
In children of twelve or thirteen deceased soon after conversion, sanctification does not
appear. Yet they partake of it just as much as adults. Sanctification has a twofold meaning:
first, sanctification which as Christ’s finished work is given and imputed to all the elect; and
second, sanctification which from Christ is gradually wrought in the converted and manifested
according to times and circumstances. These are not twosanctifications, but one; just as we
speak sometimes of the rain that accumulates in the clouds above and then comes down in
drops on the thirsty fields below. - Sanctification is finished and closed in the complete redemption at the time of death.
In the severing of body and soul divine grace completes the dying to sin. Hence in death a
work of grace is performed which imparts to the work of regeneration its fullest unfolding.
If until then, considering ourselves out of Christ, we are still lost in ourselves and lying in
the midst of death, the article of death ends all this. Then faith is turned into sight, sin’s ex-
citement is disarmed, and we are forever beyond its reach.
Lastly, our glorification in the last day, when the inward bliss will be manifest in outward
glory, and by an act of omnipotent grace the soul will be reunited with its glorified body,
and be placed in such heavenly glory as becomes the state of perfect felicity.
This shows how the operations of grace are riveted together as the links of a chain. The
work of grace must begin withquickening the dead. Once implanted, the still slumbering
life must be awakened by the call. Thus awakened, man finds himself in a new life, i.e., he
knows himself justified. Being justified, he lets the new life result in conversion. Conversion
flows into sanctification. Sanctification receives its keystone through the severing of sin in
death. And in the last day, glorification completes the work of divine grace in our entire
person.
298Hence it follows that that which succeeds is contained in that which precedes. A regen-
erate deceased infant died to sin in death just as surely as the man with hoary head and
fourscore years. There can be no first without including the second and last. Hence the entire
work of grace might be represented as one birth for heaven, one continued regeneration to
be completed in the last day.
Wherefore there may be persons ignorant of these stages, which are as indispensable
as milestones to the surveyor; but they may never be made to oppress the souls of the simple.
He who breathes deeply unconscious of his lungs is often the healthiest.
Touching the question whether the Scripture gives reference to this arrangement over
the old, we refer to the word of Jesus: “Except a man be born of water and the Spirit he can
not see the kingdom of God” (John iii. 5); from which we infer that Jesus dates every operation
of grace from regeneration. First life, and then the activity of life.
XIX. Old and New Terminology