ledge of God in Christ, unto his real efficiency and operation. And these things in part direct us towards an apprehension of that work of the Holy Spirit upon the minds of men in their conversion unto God whereby their depravation is cured, and without which it will not so be. By this means, and no otherwise, do we who were "darkness" become "light in the Lord," or come to know God in Christ savingly, looking into and discerning spiritual things with a proper intuitive sight, whereby all the other faculties of our souls are guided and influenced unto the obedience of faith.

(2.) It is principally with respect unto the will and its depravation by nature that we are said to be dead in sin. And herein is seated that peculiar obstinacy, whence it is that no unregenerate person doth or can answer his own convictions, or walk up unto his light in obedience. For the will may be considered two ways:first, As a rational, vital faculty of our souls; secondly, As a free principle,1 freedom being of its essence or nature. This, therefore, in our conversion to God, is renewed by the Holy Ghost, and that by an effectual implantation in it of a principle of spiritual life and holiness in the room of that original righteousness which it lost by the fall. That he doth so is proved by all the testimonies before insisted on:-First, This is its renovation as it is a rational, vital faculty; and of this vivification see before. Secondly, As it is a free principle, it is determined unto its acts in this case by the powerful operation of the Holy Ghost, without the least impeachment of its liberty or freedom; as hath been declared. And that this is so might be fully evinced, as by others so by the ensuing arguments; for if the Holy Ghost do not work immediately and effectually upon the will, producing and creating in it a principle of faith and obedience, infallibly determining it in its free acts, then is all the glory of our conversion to be ascribed unto ourselves, and we make ourselves therein, by the obediential actings of our own free will, to differ from others who do not so comply with the grace of God; which is denied by the apostle, 1 Cor. iv. 7. Neither can any purpose of God concerning the conversion of any one soul be certain and determinate, seeing after he hath done all that is to be done, or can be done towards it, the will, remaining undetermined, may not be converted, contrary to those testimonies of our Saviour, Matt. xi. 25, 26; John vi. 37; Rom. viii. 29. Neither can there be an original infallibility in the promises of God made to Jesus Christ concerning the multitudes that should believe in him, seeing it is possible no one may so do, if it depend on the undetermined liberty of their wills whether they will or no. And then, also, must salvation of necessity

"Libertas sine gratia nihil

lxxxix.

est nisi contumacia, non libertas."-August. Epist.

be" of him that willeth, and of him that runneth," and not "of God, that showeth mercy on whom he will have mercy," contrary to the apostle, Rom. ix. 15, 16. And the whole efficacy of the grace of God is made thereby to depend on the wills of men; which is not consistent with our being the "workmanship of God, created in Christ Jesus unto good works," Eph. ii. 10. Nor, on this supposition, do men know what they pray for, when they pray for their own or other men's conversion to God; as hath been before declared. There is, therefore, necessary such a work of the Holy Spirit upon our wills as may cure and take away the depravation of them before described, freeing us from the state of spiritual death, causing us to live unto God, and determining them in and unto the acts of faith and obedience. And this he doth whilst and as he makes us new creatures, quickens us who are dead in trespasses and sins, gives us a new heart and puts a new spirit within us, writes his law in our hearts, that we may do the mind of God and walk in his ways, worketh in us to will and to do, making them who were unwilling and obstinate to become willing and obedient, and that freely and of choice.

(3.) In like manner a prevailing love is implanted upon the affections by the Spirit of grace, causing the soul with delight and complacency to cleave to God and his ways. This removes and takes away the enmity before described, with the effects of it: Deut. xxx. 6, "The LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live." This circumcision of the heart consists in the "putting off the body of the sins of the flesh," as the apostle speaks, Col. ii. 11. He "crucifies the flesh, with the affections and lusts" thereof. Some men are inclined to think that all the depravation of our nature consists in that of the sensitive part of the soul, or our affections; the vanity and folly of which opinion hath been before discovered. Yet it is not denied but that the affections are signally depraved, so that by them principally the mind and will do act those lusts that are peculiarly seated in them, or by them do act according to their perverse and corrupt inclinations, Gal. v. 24; James i. 14, 15. Wherefore, in the circumcision of our hearts, wherein the flesh, with the lusts, affections, and deeds thereof, is crucified by the Spirit, he takes from them their enmity, carnal prejudices, and depraved inclinations, really though not absolutely and perfectly; and instead of them he fills us with holy spiritual love, joy, fear, and delight, not changing the being of our affections, but sanctifying and guiding them by the principle of saving light and knowledge before described, and uniting them unto their proper object in a due manner.

From what hath been spoken in this third argument, it is evident

that the Holy Spirit, designing the regeneration or conversion of the souls of men, worketh therein effectually, powerfully, and irresistibly; which was proposed unto confirmation.

From the whole it appears that our regeneration is a work of the Spirit of God, and that not any act of our own, which is only so, is intended thereby.' I say it is not so our own as by outward helps and assistance to be educed out of the principles of our natures. And herein is the Scripture express; for, mentioning this work directly with respect unto its cause, and the manner of its operation in the effecting of it, it assigns it positively unto God or his Spirit: 1 Pet. i. 3, "God, according to his abundant mercy, hath begotten us again." James i. 18, "Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth." John iii. 5, 6, 8, "Born of the Spirit." 1 John iii. 9, "Born of God." And, on the other hand, it excludes the will of man from any active interest herein; I mean, as to the first beginning of it: 1 Pet. i. 23, "Born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever." John i. 13, "Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." See Matt. xvi. 17; Tit. iii. 5; Eph. ii. 9, 10. It is, therefore, incumbent on them who plead for the active interest of the will of man in regeneration to produce some testimonies of Scripture where it is assigned unto it, as the effect unto its proper cause. Where is it said that a man is born again or begotten anew by himself? And if it be granted,-as it must be so, unless violence be offered not only to the Scripture but to reason and common sense,-that whatever be our duty and power herein, yet these expressions must denote an act of God, and not ours, the substance of what we contend for is granted, as we shall be ready at any time to demonstrate. It is true, God doth command us to circumcise our hearts and to make them new: but he doth therein declare our duty, not our power; for himself promiseth to work in us what he requireth of us. And that power which we have and do exercise in the progress of this work, in sanctification and holiness, proceeds from the infused principle which we receive

1 "Quis istis corda mutavit, nisi qui finxit singillatim corda eorum? Quis hujus rigoris duritiem ad obediendi mollivit affectum, nisi qui potens est de lapidibus Abrahæ filios excitare?"-Prosp. ad Rufin. de Lib. Arbit.

“Ploremus coram Domino qui fecit nos et homines et salvos. Nam si ille nos fecit homines, nos autem ipsi nos fecimus salvos, aliquid illo melius fecimus. Melior enim est salvus homo quam quilibet homo. Si ergo te Deus fecit hominem et tu te fecisti

bonum hominem, quod tu fecisti melius est. Noli te extollere super Deum, . . . confitere illi qui fecit te, quia nemo recreat nisi qui creat, nemo reficit nisi qui fecit." -August. de Verb. Apost. Serm. x.

"Nemo quisquam hominum sive ad cogitandum, sive ad operandum quodcunque bonum potest esse idoneus; nisi qui fuerit munere gratuito divinæ opitulationis adjutus; ab ipso namque est initium bonæ voluntatis, ab ipso facultas boni operis, ab ipso perseverantia bonæ conversationis."-Fulgent. lib. i. ad Monim.

in our regeneration; for all which ends we ought to pray for Him, according to the example of holy men of old.1

CHAPTER VI.

THE MANNER OF CONVERSION EXPLAINED IN THE

INSTANCE OF AUGUSTINE."

The outward means and manner of conversion to God, or regeneration, with the degrees of spiritual operations on the minds of men and their effects, exemplified in the conversion of Augustine, as the account is given thereof by himself.

As among all the doctrines of the gospel, there is none opposed with more violence and subtlety than that concerning our regeneration by the immediate, powerful, effectual operation of the Holy Spirit of grace; so there is not scarce any thing more despised or scorned by many in the world than that any should profess that there hath been such a work of God upon themselves, or on any occasion declare aught of the way and manner whereby it was wrought. The very mentioning hereof is grown a derision among some that call themselves Christians; and to plead an interest or concern in this grace is to forfeit all a man's reputation with many who would be thought wise, and boast themselves to be rational. Neither is this a practice taken up of late, in these declining times of the world, but seems to have been started and followed from

1 "Jam divini amor Numinis, Patris omnipotentis prolisque beatissimæ sancta communicatio; omnipotens Paraclete Spiritus; morentium consolator clementissime, jam cordis mei penetralibus potenti illabere virtute, et tenebrosa quæque laris neglecti latibula, corusci luminis fulgore pius habitator lætifica, tuique roris abundantia, longo ariditatis marcentia squalore, visitando fecunda."

2 After a youth spent in vicious excess, Augustine was converted to the faith of the gospel, and admitted into the church by Ambrose at Milan, A.D. 387. Ten years afterwards he wrote his "Confessions," in thirteen books; of which ten are occupied with a detail of his sinful conduct in carly life, the circumstances of his conversion, and his personal history up to the period of his mother's death, while the remaining three are devoted to an exposition of the Mosaic account of creation. The work is altogether of an unique and extraordinary character, a direct address to the Deity, sustained with considerable skill and occasionally in strains of animated devotion, abounding in the most humble confession of the sins of the author's youth, and marked everywhere with the vigour of genius. As a faithful and minute record of the internal workings of his heart, these "Confessions" of Augustine are of great service in illustrating the nature of the spiritual change implied in conversion. It is on this account Owen draws from them so largely in this chapter. Milner, for similar purposes, has embodied the substance of them in his "History of the Church."

The quotations made by Owen have been compared with Bruder's edition of the "Confessions" (1837). In some instances these quotations are translated by Owen, but wherever a formal translation is not supplied, the reader may understand that the substance of what is quoted is given immediately afterwards in our author's own words. -ED.

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days of old,-possibly from the beginning; yea, the enmity of Cain against Abel was but a branch of this proud and perverse inclination. The instance of Ishmael in the Scripture is representative of all such as, under an outward profession of the true religion, did or do scoff at those who, being, as Isaac, children of the promise, do profess and evidence an interest in the internal power of it, which they are unacquainted withal. And the same practice may be traced in succeeding ages. Hence, holy Austin, entering upon the confession of his greater sins, designing thereby to magnify the glory and efficacy of the grace of God in his conversion, provides against this scorn of men, which he knew he should meet withal. "Irrideant," saith he, "me arrogantes et nondum salubriter prostrati et elisi a te, Deus meus, ego tamen confitear tibi dedecora mea, in laude tua,' Confess. lib. iv. cap. 1;—" Let arrogant men deride or scorn me, who were never savingly cast down nor broken in pieces by thee, my God, yet I will [rather, let me] confess my own shame, unto thy praise.” Let none be offended with these expressions, of being "savingly or wholesomely cast down and broken of God;" for, in the judgment of this great person, they are not fanatical. We may not, therefore, think it strange if the same truth, the same practice, and profession of it, do still meet with the same entertainment. Let them deride and scorn it who were never humbled savingly, nor broken with a sense of sin, nor relieved by grace; the holy work of God's Spirit is to be owned, and the truth to be avowed as it is in Jesus.

Of the original depravation of our nature we have treated so far as is needful unto our present purpose; yet some things must be added concerning the effects of that depravation, which will conduce unto the right understanding of the way and manner whereby the Spirit of God proceedeth for the healing and removal of it, which we have now under especial consideration. And we may observe,

First, That the corrupt principle of sin, the native habitual inclination that is in us unto evil, worketh early in our natures, and for the most part preventeth all the actings of grace in us. Though some may be sanctified in or from the womb, yet in order of nature this native corruption hath first place in them; for a clean thing cannot be brought out of an unclean, but "that which is born of the flesh is flesh:" Ps. lviii. 3, "The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies." It is to no purpose to say that he speaks of wicked men,—that is, such who are habitually and profligately so; for, whatever any man may afterward run into by a course of sin, all men are morally alike from the womb, and it is an aggravation of the wickedness of men that it begins so early, and holds on an uninterrupted course. Children