304
XXI. Regeneration the Work of God.
“The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the Lord hath even made both of
them.”—Prov.xx. 12.
“The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the Lord hath even made both of them.” This
testimony of the Holy Spirit contains the whole mystery of regeneration.
An unregenerate person is deaf and blind; not only as a stock or block, but worse. For
neither stock nor block is corrupt or ruined, but an unregenerate person is wholly dead and
a prey to the most fearful dissolution.
This rigid, uncompromising, and absolute confession must be our starting-point in this
discussion, else we shall fail to understand the claims of regeneration. This is the reason
why every heresy that has conceded in one way or other that man has a share, most generally
a lion’s share, in the work of redemption, has always begun by calling in question the nature
of sin. “Undoubtedly,” they said, “sin is very bad—a terrible and abominable evil; but there
is surely some remnant of good in man. That noble, virtuous, and amiable being, man, can
not be dead in trespasses and sin. That may be true of some scoundrel or knave behind the
bars, or of robbers and unscrupulous murderers; but really, it can not be applied to our
honorable ladies and gentlemen, to our lovely girls, roguish boys, and attractive children.
These are not prone to hate God and their neighbors, but disposed, with all their heart, to
love all men, and render unto God the reverence due unto Him.”
Therefore away with all ambiguity in this matter! This method of smoothing over un-
palatable truths, now so much in vogue among the affable people, we can not indorse. Our
confession is, and ever shall be, that by nature man is dead in trespasses and sin, lying under
the curse, ripe for the just judgment of God, and still ripening for an eternal condemnation.
305
Surely his being, as man, is unimpaired; wherefore we protest against the presentation that
the sinner is in this respect as a stock or block. No; as man he is unimpaired, his being is
intact; but his nature is corrupt, and in that corrupt nature he is dead.
We compare him to the body of a person who has died of an ordinary disease. Such a
body retains all the members of the human organism intact. There is the eye with its muscles,
and the ear with its organs of hearing; in the post-mortem examination heart, spleen, liver,
and kidneys appear to be perfectly normal. A dead body may sometimes appear so natural
that one is tempted to say: “He is not dead, but sleeping.” And yet, however perfect and
natural, its nature is corrupt with the corruption of death. And the same is true of the sinner.
His being remains intact and whole, containing all that which constitutes a man; but his
nature is corrupt, yea, so corrupt that he is dead; not only apparently, but actually dead;
dead in all the variations which can be played upon the term “dead.”
XXI. Regeneration the Work of God.
XXI. Regeneration the Work of God.
