conversionand sanctification, the light enters. For since quickening is an unaided act of God
in us, independent of the Word, and frequently separated from the second stage, conversion,
by an interval of many days, there is nothing to prevent God from performing His work
even in the babe, and the apparent conflict dissolves into beautiful harmony. Moreover, as
soon as I regard my still unconverted children as not yet regenerate, their training must run
in the direction of a questionable Methodism.^14 What is the use of the call so long as I suppose
and know: “This ear can not yet hear”?
Touching the question concerning. “faith,” we are fully prepared to apply the same
distinction to this matter. You have only to discriminate between the organ or the faculty
of faith, the Power to exercisefaith, and the working of faith. The first of these three, viz., the
faculty of faith, is implanted in the first stage of regeneration—i.e.,in quickening; the power
of faith is imparted in the second stage of regeneration—i.e.,in conversion; and the working
of faith is wrought in the third stage—i.e.,in sanctification. Hence if faith is wrought only
by the hearing of the Word, the preaching of the Word does not create the faculty of faith.
Look only at what our fathers confessed at Dort: “He who works in man both to will
321and to do produces both the will to believe and the act of believing also” (Third and Fourth
Heads of Doctrine, article 14).
Or to express it still more strongly: when the Word is preached, I know it; and when I
hear it and believe it, I know whence this working of faith comes. But the implanting of the
faith-faculty is an entirely different thing; for of this the Lord Jesus says: “Thou hearest the
sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh; and whither it goeth”;^15 and as the wind,
so is also the regeneration of man.
14 See the author’s explanation of Methodism in section 5 of the Preface.
15 [John iii. 8]
XXIII. Regeneration and Faith.