Part 2, Chapter 05
CHAPTER V. THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN CONVERSION. The gracious call of the gospel of Christ is universal, addressed to sinners of mankind as such, and to all men alike, and is a result and evidence of God’s philanthropy (Titus 3:4), or love to men, and earnest desire that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. This is further confirmed by that awakening, enlightening, and convincing work of the Spirit that accompanies the proclamation of the gospel. But all do not believe in Jesus as offered in the gospel; and many who experience convictions wrought by the Spirit of God, resist and stifle these and become hardened in impenitence and sin; while others are brought to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.
What is the cause of the difference? In the case of those who continue in sin, this result must be ascribed entirely to themselves. All that God does tends to lead them to repentance, He has sent a Saviour who is both able and willing to save them; He sincerely invites and urges them to come to Him that they may have life; He awakens them by His Spirit to a sense of their sin and misery, and pricks them in their consciences and hearts. If they will not turn to Him, it is because their weak self-love and guilty pride hinder them; not because God puts any obstacles in their way; and if God is said sometimes to harden their hearts, He does so because of their wilful unbelief, and that simply by leaving them to themselves as they desire; He endures in great long-suffering vessels of wrath fitted, by themselves, for destruction; and they become hardened under the very means that God uses to soften others. This simply means, that God does not interfere with the laws of our mental and moral nature, according to which impressions disregarded become more and more feeble, while actions repeated become habits, and habits indulged acquire the strength and persistency of a second nature. But on the other hand, when men are led to faith in Christ, this is not due to their own will, but to the grace of God. So the Bible uniformly represents it; and so all earnest Christians have practically acknowledged. The will is indeed exercised in the act of faith and repentance; it is a voluntary act by which the soul turns from sin and trusts in Jesus Christ as the Saviour of sinners. But this act it is moved and enabled to perform by the influence of the grace of God. Jesus asserts in the most emphatic manner the absolute necessity of being born from above in order to enter or even see the kingdom of God (John 3:3, John 3:5, John 3:7-8); and Paul describes those who believe as having been dead in sins, and as quickened to a new life by a power as great as that which raised Christ from the dead (Ephesians 2:1-10).
James 1:18 describes them as brought forth of God’s will by the word of truth; Peter (1 Peter 1:23), as begotten again of incorruptible seed by the word of God; and John, as begotten of God (1 John 2:29
Christian experience seems to show that this is done in connection with very different forms of consciousness in different cases. Sometimes the great change seems to be sudden and abrupt, as in the conversion of Paul; sometimes, while there has been a long and gradual preparation for it, the change at the last is decisive and clearly marked, as in the case of Augustine; while in other instances the process may be so steady and gradual that no distinct transition can be marked at all. Yet in all cases it is found, that the purpose and will of the Christian life has to contend against opposing and downward tendencies in the soul, — tendencies which we can see, either in an earlier stage of the same life, or in other lives, have unresisted sway, and draw men down to utter selfishness and worldliness. These downward tendencies prevail wherever men are left to themselves without the elevating influence of the grace of God in Christ; and they sometimes overcome even the moral influence of that grace, and the convictions awakened by the Holy Spirit in connection with the gospel of Christ. The presence of these downward tendencies, even in the souls of those who have from their earliest days of conscious life been seeking God, and can trace no definite beginning of religion in their hearts, convinces them, that however early they have come to strive upwards, it has been not of themselves, but by God’s drawing that they have done so. Scripture teaches that God can and does sometimes bestow His Holy Spirit on men from their very birth; but even when there is reason to think He has done so, there is evidence that the goodness that begins so early is due, not to their own nature, but to God’s grace. In these cases, the grace of God is most clearly seen to be, as theologians have called it, prevenient, i.e. going before any efforts of man after goodness, and really calling these into exercise. But this is not less true in all cases. The renewal of the soul cannot be traced to any uniform antecedent on the part of man. Sometimes indeed it may seem to be the result of earnest desire and strenuous effort after holiness or peace of mind; but in many other cases, it is effected where there has been no such previous desire, and sinners are arrested in the full course of worldliness and vice. Sometimes, again, it may seem as if the very force and earnestness of character, that makes some men plunge recklessly into evil, was a preparation for their being as earnest and thoroughgoing in good, when once the call of Christ is presented to them. But there are many, on the other hand, whose very failing has been weakness and indecision of purpose, but who have been laid hold of by the power of the gospel and made decided and earnest in faith. In like manner, a profoundly emotional nature, like that of Augustine, may sometimes appear to explain why a man is converted; but there are many other cases of conversion, in which nothing of that kind can be traced. This is a great encouragement to all who are earnestly desirous to have the life of Christ in them, but may be in doubt or anxiety whether what they experience is really the renewing work of the Spirit, and may fear that they are not earnest enough, or not susceptible enough, or have not enough depth of spiritual nature, to be really converted and bcrn again. It is reassuring to know, that the new birth does not depend on any such conditions, but on the free grace of God, who is often found of those who seek Him not, but never allows any to seek Him in vain. He shows His sovereignty, not in the way of denying the gracious influence of His Spirit to any who desire it, but in bestowing it on many who desire it not, or even strongly oppose it; while in other cases, he leaves to their own devices those who obstinately resist that work of His Spirit that is common to all. The general rule of the bestowal of His grace is that they who seek shall find: it is never less than that; but oftentimes it is much more, and they who seek not are found of God, and even those whose selfish and worldly will is strongly set against Him are often arrested in their downward course, awakened to serious thought, and turned to God.
How this is done consistently with the freedom of their will, is indeed a profound mystery. When we consider the statements of Scripture describing the work of the Holy Spirit in conversion as a new creation, a quickening and raising from the dead, a begetting again; and when we observe how the most vehement and persistent opponents of Christianity have often been transformed into sincere and fervent believers, we cannot doubt that the Holy Spirit does exert a power which changes the natural current of the affections, and overcomes the obstinacy of the evil heart. Yet no violence is done to the will of those who are thus converted: their chcice is not coerced by irresistible force; nor is their reason overpowered by uncontrollable passion, they have the full exercise of all their faculties; and they repent and accept Christ as their Saviour and Lord freely and willingly. The renewing work of the Spirit of God is in a region beneath the sphere of consciousness; and so it must ever remain hidden in itself, though it is made clearly manifest by its results. We know that we are subject to many influences of which we have no consciousness or direct knowledge. We inherit certain characters from our parents; we are affected by the unconscious influence of friends, of society, of the spirit of the times; some of these causes may transform our habits and course of conduct; and we may be quite sensible of the change that has taken place, though we cannot explain it; we feel that it has not been due to our own will, while yet it has done no violence to our freedom. These are indeed merely analogies; and we cannot but regard the influence of the Spirit of God as more deep and lasting than any of these earthly and human influences; but when we see that the freedom of the soul is not infringed by any of these, powerful as they are, we may have less difficulty in believing that the soul may be turned to God by an almighty influence of His Spirit, while yet it turns freely, being made willing by His grace.
We speak of the influence of the Spirit in conversion as almighty; and we are warranted to do so by the way in which it is spoken of in Scripture, and by the very fact that the Holy Spirit is divine. But we must remember that this work is not in the material, but in the moral sphere; and therefore the omnipotence we ascribe to it is not that of physical force but of moral and spiritual influence. The power by which a sinner is turned from the world to God is not of the same kind as that by which the Red Sea was divided or Jordan turned back before Israel: it is not merely the divine will working on nature: it is the power of truth working on the mind, of duty affecting the conscience, and above all of infinite grace, melting and moving the heart. The certain and effectual working of it is expressed in such utterances as these: “ Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life” (John 6:68); “The love of Christ constraineth us “ (2 Corinthians 5:14). Thus, while it is certainlyeffectual, it is not harsh, violent, or overbearing; but sweet, gentle, and loving: it is, as Augustine called it, “ victorious delight; “as the Synod of Dort described it, “ most powerful and at the same time most sweet; “ or as Dr. Chalmers put it, “ the expulsive power of a new affection.” The terms regeneration and conversion, which are both used for this work of the Spirit, ought in strict accuracy to be distinguished; and some important practical ends are served by the distinction. Sometimes indeed they may be used interchangeably.
Thus Jesus said on one occasion (Matthew 18:3), “ Except ye turn (or be converted), and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven; “ and on another occasion (John 3:3), “ Except a man be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God; “ and the meaning is substantially the same. But from the use of the word conversion, and its cognate verb in other places, we find that it is equivalent to repentance and faith. In Acts 3:19 conversion is enjoined along with repentance, cither as a fuller description of what repentance means, or as the change of conduct that follows the change of mind; and in Acts 15:3 the conversion of the Gentiles is used to describe their faith in Christ (Acts 13:48; Acts 14:23, Acts 14:27). In the same sense the word is employed in Matthew 13:15; John 12:40; and Acts 28:27.
Further, it is not limited to the first acts of faith and repentance, by which one becomes a Christian, though it is more frequently used of them; but is also employed for the restoration of a backslider (Luke 22:32; James 5:19-20). Thus it describes a moral change in which man is conscious and active, though he is also moved by the Spirit of God, and one that must be continued, and may often be renewed in the course of the Christian life.
Regeneration, on the other hand, is never identified with the conscious acts of faith and repentance; but is distinguished from faith as its cause (John 1:12-13; John 15:1). So too the good works that are the fruits of faith and repentance are described by Paul as proceeding from the act of God quickening the soul that had been dead in sin (Ephesians 2:4-10).
Conversion is thus the act of the new spiritual life, more especially its first act or beginning; but regeneration is the implanting of the new life by God; and so it is also called a quickening, or making alive, a raising from the dead, a new creation, the giving a new heart. This comes first in the order of nature, though in time both may be contemporaneous. If we take Paul’s figure of a resurrection, and compare the quickening of the dead soul to Jesus’ raising Lazarus from the grave; regeneration corresponds to the supernatural act by which life was imparted to the dead body, and conversion to his coming out of the tomb in the exercise of that restored life. Both alike were connected with the voice of Jesus, when He cried with a loud voice, “ Lazarus, come forth; “ and thus regeneration and conversion are associated with the call of the gospel to sinners to believe and repent; but just as that voice would have had no power to raise the dead had it not been uttered by Him whom the Father heareth always, and who is Himself the resurrection and the life; so the gospel call cannot of itself turn men to God, unless it come not in word only, but in power, and in the Holy Spirit (1 Thessalonians 1:5). The connection of the call of the gospel with conversion is easily seen, just as the connection of Lazarus’ coming forth with Jesus’ voice. When once the dead man was made alive, his coming out of the tomb was but the natural response to the Saviour’s call; and so if there be spiritual life, it is the most natural thing in the world, that the gracious invitations of God’s word should call forth faith and repentance. But how the loud voice of Jesus was accompanied with the restoration of life to the dead man, so that his ear heard it and his limbs obeyed it, who can explain, save that Jesus’ prayer was equivalent to the prophet’s invocation, “ Come from the four winds; O breath, and breathe upon these slain that they may live “? (Ezekiel 37:9). So in addressing the spiritually dead the wisdom of God is able to say, “ Turn ye at my reproof: Behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you; I will make known my words unto you” (Proverbs 1:23).
Hence we see why conversion may be repeated, while regeneration is never so spoken of, but as a change effected once for all.
Eternal life can only be once communicated; but the activity of life may be renewed and called forth again and again, as often as it has fallen into sloth. The call may need to be addressed to a real Christian who has become careless, “Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon thee” (Ephesians 5:1-33). There is life presupposed here, it is a sleeper in a field of the dead, where “ thousands have sunk on the ground overpowered, the weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.” If he be not awakened, and his eyes enlightened, he may sleep the sleep of death; but he is called to awake and arise from among the dead. So a disciple of Christ may need to be called to repent and do the first works. So Peter, after his denial of his Lord, needed to be converted, but not to be born again; for Jesus prayed for him that his faith fail not (Luke 22:32). That faith which had been given him not by flesh and blood but by the Father in heaven (Matthew 16:17), which enabled him to cleave to Jesus when many turned back (John 6:68), also made his heart melt at the look of Jesus (Luke 22:61), and brought him back to the Saviour in penitent love, when Judas turned away in despair.
We find also that the necessity of regeneration is asserted in far more absolute terms than that of conversion. “ Except a man be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” “ Except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Ye must be born again “ (John 3:3, John 5:7); “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature “ (2 Corinthians 5:17); “ If ye know that He is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is begotten of Him” (1 John 2:29). These statements are unlimited, applying to all, every, any man. There is no such absolute statement of the necessity of conversion. Jesus indeed says, addressing men who showed evidence of sin and selfishness, “ Except ye turn and become as little children, ye shall in nowise enter the kingdom of heaven “ (Matthew 18:3); and the prophet cries to his ungodly people, “ Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die? “(Ezekiel 33:11); but all such sayings have reference to those to whom they are addressed, and do not necessarily imply that every one of mankind must pass through a conscious process of conversion. On the contrary, it was prophesied of John the Baptist, “he shall be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb; “ and his spiritual growth is described as unmarked by any decisive change; “ the child grew and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the desert until the day of his showing unto Israel” (Luke 1:15, Luke 1:80). To be filled with the Holy Spirit can hardly denote anything less than regeneration; and thus it seems to be taught that this vital change may take place even in infancy. This is confirmed by Jesus’ saying of little children, “ Of such is the kingdom of God “ (Mark 10:14 and parallels), 1 when that is taken along with His statement that except one be born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
If regeneration be a creative act of divine power on the soul, the occurrence of it in infancy implies no contradiction, but only the same mystery as is involved in the communication to infants of mental and moral capacities and powers that are afterwards brought forth into actual exercise; whereas conversion, faith, and repentance cannot be ascribed to infants without doing violence to psychological truth. The history and experience of many who have been brought up under Christian influences confirm this; for in such cases there is often no decisive change, such as conversion commonly is; though there is real evidence of a God- ward
1 Some good interpreters indeed understand “such” to mean men of a childlike spirit; but it is more accordant with the general use of the word and the scope of the context, to understand it of actual children. When it is said the kingdom is of such, the meaning is not necessarily that these are all its members, but only that it includes these; as when Jesus says of those persecuted for righteousness’ sake, “ theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (
Christ is ever presented in the New Testament as the revealer and representative of God to us, so that the exercise of soul by which we are brought into a right religious state is sometimes viewed as having God, and sometimes Christ for its object; but we are always to understand that in reality it is directed to both, through Christ to God. If Jesus asks us to believe in him, it is because He doeth the works of God, and the Father is in Him and He in the Father; if He calls us to repent and turn from sin to God, it is because the kingdom of God is at hand in virtue of His appearing. The two exercises of faith and repentance are not separate things, of which one may take place without the other, or one at one time and the other at another; they are inseparably connected as acts of the sours conversion or reconciliation to God; though for certain purposes they need to be distinguished and considered separately. Together they give a complete view of the great change by which a man from being an enemy to God, as he is by nature, comes to be at peace with Him as his God and Father. In one aspect of it that is a change of character and conduct, from the practice of sin to that of holiness, and this is what is called repentance, i.e. a change of mind. This has relation more especially to God, as the lawgiver and moral judge of all the earth; and implies a sense of the evil of sin in His sight, and a turning from it. But this would not be possible, unless we were assured that God, though holy, is also merciful, and ready to receive sinners to His fellowship, and grant them forgiveness and favour. This assurance we have in the gospel, which declares that God pardons sinners for Christ’s sake; and therefore our coming to Him must be in reliance on Christ as our Mediator, or on God through Christ. This is what is meant by faith in the New Testament, where it is spoken of as the means of our salvation. It is not, as has too often been thought, the belief of a doctrine or set of doctrines, however true and important these may be, nor the acceptance of a new view about God, and His relation to man, and His love and purposes for man; but a childlike trust in God and Christ. No doubt Jesus and His apostles did call upon men to believe the gospel which they proclaimed, and that implied in many cases the acceptance of truths that had not been known before, and sometimes the giving up false theories and even whole systems of belief. But they called for much more than that: they called on men to have trust or confidence in God as gracious, merciful, and loving, and in Jesus as the Son of God who had come to save the world by His death; and they never speak of any one being saved by faith where there is not such personal trust in God and Christ. So it was in the case of the centurion of Capernaum (Matthew 8:5-11); of the harlot in Simon’s house (Luke 7:44-50); of the palsied man and his friends (Mark 2:5-6), and others who believed during our Lord’s earthly ministry: so too in the case of those who were converted on the day of Pentecost and afterwards by the preaching of the disciples of Jesus. The amount of knowledge that these various converts possessed, and the doctrines that they believed, must have been very different in different cases, sometimes more and sometimes less; what was common to them all was their trust in Christ as revealing the grace and love of God, and through Him in God. This trust in God we can also see is the same as that which is so often expressed in the Old Testament, especially in the Psalms, as the essence of Israel’s religion; and the only difference is that in the New Testament God is revealed as in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them; whereas in earlier times all that was distinctly revealed was, that God is merciful and gracious, and that there is forgiveness with Him.
Since God is revealed by Christ, not only as merciful and gracious, but also as holy, and hating sin with a perfect hatred, even while He loves and forgives sinners; and since Jesus’ work was to save His people from their sins; that trust in God that responds to this gospel must be accompanied with a desire, or at least a willingness, to be delivered from sin; and that implies a real sorrow and hatred of sin, a confession of it to God, and a desire and effort after the holiness that He loves and requires. This is what is denoted by repentance in the New Testament; yl where it means, not merely regret for a past act of wrong, but a change of mind. It is most simply and beautifully depicted by our Lord in the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32), from which we may learn the most essential points about it. We see there that it implies an entire change of life and conduct, as well as a frank confession of sin. The undutiful son returns from the far country, where he had spent his substance in riotous living, and desires henceforth to live with and obey his father, while he frankly confesses his sin and unworthiness, and attempts no excuse for his conduct. But the change is much deeper than the outward conduct; he has now evidently a quite different state of feeling towards his father from that which he had before. Hence it is said of him at the turning-point of his career,ilhe came to himself,” as if he had been beside himself, or out of his right mind before. This change, too, is connected with faith; for it was the feeling of trust in his father’s love and kindness that encouraged him to return, otherwise a conviction Ot sin might only have driven him to despair. Such was its effect on Judas, even when it moved him to confess and forsake his sin; but while Jesus spoke of the evil of sin, and warned men of its terrible consequences, He at the same time encouraged them to trust in God’s mercy, and it was the very purpose of this parable to exhibit that mercy.
We can see therefore how that coming to God through Christ, which implies both faith and repentance, is really a decisive moral change in the soul; and how it may truly be said, that the sinner who repents, “ was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found.” The faith by which we are saved is thus no mere intellectual act or head work; it implies the consent of the heart, as well as the assent of the mind, to the saving work of Christ; and cannot be conceived as remaining a mere unpractical belief in the soul, but must be active in the way of repentance, love, and holiness. This is the sort of faith of which Paul makes so much; of which he says, not only that we are justified by it, without works of law; but that it unites us to Christ, makes us children of God, and works by love. This great change, which is a matter of real experience in the case of multitudes, is ever ascribed in Scripture, not to any effort, or industry, or goodness of men, but to God, calling us by His grace in the gospel, and also by the power of His Spirit working secretly in our hearts, inclining and enabling us to comply with the call. This makes us new creatures, animated by a new principle or motive, which is faith working by love, or love as the effect of faith. This constitutes as great a difference among men morally as the presence of animal life does between the living and the lifeless in the physical world. This seems to be implied in the scriptural representations of the saving change as a new life, being begotten of God, a new creation, being raised from the dead, and the like. These are too numerous and uniform to be explained as mere figures of speech, though clearly they are not to be taken literally, but as indicating a true analogy. Just as animated matter is moved not only by mechanical laws but by those of life; and just as rational creatures are guided not merely by laws of animal life and instinct, but by those of reason and conscience; so those who are turned to God in Christ are animated by a principle of divine love, to which unconverted men are strangers. This may to a certain extent be verified by observation, not indeed in individual cases, the discrimination of which eludes our scrutiny, but in general, wherever the distinction between Christians and non- Christians can be seen on a large scale. The entire absence of love to God in the Christian sense implies a state which may be as truly described as being destitute of spiritual life as a crystal is destitute of animal life, or a dog is destitute of intellectual life. There is indeed this difference, that such a state in man is an abnormal and degraded state, and so also one from which he may and should be raised; and therefore, especially since it implies the possession of intellectual as well as animal life, it may also be considered as a state of disease, as it is sometimes called in Scripture. But that it implies as great a difference as that which separates the living from the lifeless in the lower kingdoms of nature, may be seen by considering the moral character of the motives that must animate those destitute of love to God. These may be various, and must be judged each for itself, as love of self, or of earthly things, natural affection, friendship, patriotism, or philanthropy. They may be divided in general into those that are selfish, and those that are unselfish yet ungodly. As to the former there is little difficulty. There are and have always been men who have no higher motive than selfishness, and no higher aim than self-interest in some form or other more or less refined. Of all such we need have no hesitation in saying that they are destitute of what is really a higher kind of life, the life of godliness, such a life as Jesus lived. Whether their ruling passion be love of pleasure, or of wealth, or of power, or of honour; and in whatever way it may be pursued, whether so as to lead to unbridled indulgence of appetite and passion, or to a hypocritical pretence of virtue, or to a really sober, honest, and industrious life; still if it is only self that is had in view in all this, there is a part of human nature that is utterly insensible and inactive in such men; and as to it they are really dead. Some philosophers have attempted to explain human nature on the assumption that there are no principles or motives in it which are not at bottom selfregarding; and there have been many men of the world who have acted on this principle, holding that every man has his price, and that there is no such thing as disinterested virtue. But the policy of such worldlings has ever been defeated by Christian principle, and the philosophy that underlies it is shallow and onesided.
It is more difficult to judge of lives animated by motives that are not selfish, and yet not distinctly Christian or even religious.
Such are the family affections, friendship, patriotism, philanthropy. The family affections may indeed be merely instinctive, and in some cases may even be selfish, when a man loves his family as a part of himself, or for his own gratification and pride; but they may be, and often are, in the highest degree unselfish. Still more does the love of friends, of one’s country, or of men as such, possess a disinterested character, and raise those who are ruled by such motives to a higher life than that of the mere selfish worldling. Yet these unselfish motives may, no less than the selfish ones, prompt to acts of falsehood, wrong, or cruelty, when they are not combined with a regard for righteousness and morality.
Such was the case with some of the best of the ancient Greeks and Romans, whose patriotism, though sincere and disinterested, was unscrupulous, and not ruled by any high principle. In such cases, must we not say, that the want of regard to right for its own sake shows that, though not dead to the sympathetic feelings, they have their moral nature destroyed or undeveloped, and so have no life in fellowship with God, who is revealed in the moral sense of man, even more directly than in the phenomena of nature?
When, however, unselfish motives are accompanied with regard for truth and right, and men are found seeking to live for their families, their friends, their country, or their fellow-men, in accordance with virtue, or when they have been making virtue itself their great aim, even though they have no clear knowledge of the living and true God, and no conscious love to Him, we cannot say that such are destitute of spiritual life; but should rather say that they really are living to God, though they know it not, if they are indeed living for that moral goodness which is the essential character of God. For in so far as they regard and pursue true virtue, they are seeking that which is the will and the nature of God, whether they know it or not. Such cases there may have been among the heathen, and we know of Socrates and Epictetus; but history shows them to be very rare apart from Christianity, for it is hard to attain to a real love of moral goodness in all its extent, except through the revelation of it in the character of God in Jesus Christ. The Bible view is, that the love of God is the love of goodness y to seek God is to seek goodness (Psalms 97:10; Amos 5:4-15; Zephaniah 2:3; Isaiah 4:6-7; 1 John 5:3): and so we can understand how the knowledge and love of God is eternal life; and they who have it are born of God (John 17:3; John 12:29; John 4:7-8). One who is destitute of regard for moral goodness, however he may be endowed with prudence, benevolence, or patriotism, is as to one all-important part of his nature, practically dead. It may, however, be said that the love of goodness does not necessarily imply the love of God, and that there may be a want of love to God, where there is not that moral and spiritual death, which is involved in the want of love to goodness: and examples may be found in Buddha, and in some of the modern agnostic or atheistic philosophers, who have a high sense and regard for moral excellence, to show that ignorance or denial of God does not necessarily imply the absence of the highest life of the soul. But to this it may be replied, that when sincere lovers of goodness have denied or ignored a personal God, this has been due to an extreme reaction against an immoral heathen mythology, as in the case of Buddha and some Greek philosophers, or to some distorted view of the phenomena of the universe, by which men have been hindered from seeing them to be the work of a perfectly good Being. But if there really is such a Being, then the love of goodness is the love of His character, even in those who unhappily may not be able to believe His existence. Thus Paul, while he describes the heathen as alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them (Ephesians 4:18), yet recognises those who built an altar to an unknown God as worshipping unknowing the true God (Acts 17:23); and those who do the things of the law of God as showing the work of the law written in their hearts (Romans 2:14-15).
We are not therefore entitled to deny, that there may be real spiritual life outside the pale of those who have received the revelation of God’s grace, and in men who know not the living God. The occurrence of some such cases illustrates the power and sovereignty of the Spirit of God, who can, where it seems good to Him, change men’s hearts even without the ordinary means. But it is a simple historical fact, that nowhere have purity, love, and truth been generally loved and diffused in any community, except where the doctrines of Christianity have been preached. Only there has the Spirit of God been poured out on all flesh, because the actual knowledge of God, as revealed in Christ crucified, is the only thing that can bring home to the mass of men the love of God, which is the moving spring of the new life. But the Spirit of God did work on many under the Old Testament, and doubtless on many also in heathendom, though these were but scattered lights, and could effect no general reformation.