November 2007 - Protestant Reformed Churches in America

Protestant Reformed Theological Journal
Whoever, therefore, forbids an unregenerate man to pray for regenerating
grace, forbids him to pray for any and all grace. In prohibiting
him from asking God to create within him a clean heart, he prohibits
him altogether from asking for the Holy Spirit. 65
In addition we note that David petitioned God to create in
him a clean heart when he was already regenerate (Psalm 51:10).
Never in the history of the world has an unregenerate sinner asked
God for regeneration.
Shedd warns that the sinner must not be slack in this work of
conviction:
The Holy Spirit can convict a sinner without his co-operation … but
this is not to be counted upon … he [the sinner] must endeavor to
deepen … the sense of sin which has been produced in his conscience,
or he is liable to be entirely deserted by the Spirit, and left to his own
will, and be filled with his own devices. The sinner cannot co-operate
in the work of regeneration, but he can in the work of conviction.
66
However, none of this makes God a debtor. This preparation
does not make a man “deserving” of regeneration but a “suitable
subject for the exercise of God’s unmerited compassion in regenerating
grace.” 67 After seeking, desiring, preparing himself, and
praying, the sinner may find that God leaves him in his unregenerate
state. The sinner may not complain, because God is exercising
His divine prerogative of sovereignty. The sinner, therefore,
must “proceed upon a probability.” 68 In the end his desires
may be denied.
The sinner may even prepare himself for regeneration by giving
up heretical notions. If a sinner believes he is not a helpless
sinner, denies that sin deserves endless punishment, or that the
vicarious atonement is necessary, he is not, in such a state, pre-
65. Shedd, Theology, vol. 2, p. 514.
66. Shedd, Theology, vol. 2, p. 515.
67. Shedd, Theology, vol. 2, p. 516, italics added.
68. Shedd, Theology, vol. 2, p. 516.
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Vol. 41, No. 1