The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

When the new birth takes place, it is invariably wrought by the Holy
Spirit. This proposition sounds like a truism. Theoretically, all Christians,
with any pretensions to the name Evangelical, would accept it, and yet,
practically, it is constantly ignored. Let our faith rest on this, that whether
with means or without means, the Holy Spirit is the author of regeneration,
simply and absolutely; that the human being can accomplish no part of it
whatever. It is not man's own work, it is not the work of his mind, of his
heart, of his will, but it is God's work in his mind, in his heart, in his will.
The power of an adult human being in the matter of his regeneration is
absolutely negative. He can resist, he can thwart, he can harden himself,
but in and of himself he cannot yield, or consent, or make his heart tender.
The adult is as helpless positively, in the power of producing his own
regeneration, as the infant is. The adult can, indeed, go, and must go to the
preached word, and can and must go to the Bible: he can use the means,
and with them conjoin fervent prayer; but it is the Spirit of God who
regenerates the man through the means, not the man who regenerates
himself, either through the means or apart from them. The adult, indeed,
with the means, may either resist the Holy Spirit or cease to resist. He may
refuse to let Him work, or he may suffer Him to work. The difference in
the course pursued here makes the difference of result between two adults,
one of whom becomes regenerate, and the other does not. It is not that the
one regenerates himself, and the other refuses to regenerate himself. It is,
that one suffers the Holy Spirit to regenerate him through the Word, and
the other refuses to permit Him. But even this negative power is derived
from the presence of grace and of its means, for a man to whom the Word
is set forth is ipso facto not in a condition of pure nature. Even in the low
realm of mere nature there are not wanting analogies to this spiritual fact.
Man has, for example, physically no self-nourishing power. The nutritive
property of food exerts itself on him. The food itself is the medium or
means of nutrition. Man receives the food outwardly, and the mysterious
power of nutrition exerts itself through the food thus