ART. I. Review of the Character of Oliver Cromwell, 385 THE CHRISTIAN SPECTATOR. QUARTERLY---No. I. MARCH, 1829. ART. I.-REVIEW OF SPRING ON THE MEANS OF REGENE RATION. A Dissertation on the Means of Regeneration. By GARDINER SPRING, Pastor of the Brick Presbyterian Church in the City of New-York. New-York: John P. Haven; 1827. 8vo. pp. 50. It was a high eulogy of the gospel, authorized by its ef fects in the apostolic age, that it is the power of God unto salvation and it is an inquiry of deep interest, whether there be any method of preaching this gospel, which, by its actual results, would still invest it with the same exalted character. We venture to say, that there is real occasion for this inquiry, at least in one respect, on the part of the ministry of reconciliation; if not for fault-finding in regard to much of the preaching that passes for the exactest orthodoxy. Not that in the preaching to which we refer, the doctrines which constitute the substantial elements of the gospel are not taught,-not that there is not truth enough exhibited to create weighty obligation to obey it,-not that the preaching adverted to does not result in the conversion of some who hear it,--not, in a word, that there is not great good done by this preaching;-but rather that it is marred by an imperfection by which it ought not to be marred, and that there is another method of exhibiting the substantial truths of the same gospel, in which it would become still more illustriously the power of God unto salvation. When we compare the circumstances and effects of apostolic preaching, with those of the preaching of the present age, and see, as we think we do, the superior advantages, and yet the inferior success of the preachers in these days of light, we look with concern for the cause of this difference in results; and we think we find it, in some degree, in the differ ent method in which the same gospel is now preached. We think that there is one impression of vital importance to the success of the gospel, which is not made on the minds of men by the preaching of the one, which was distinctly and strongly made by the preaching of the other; and to speak specifically, we think the gospel is not now, as it was by apostles, brought before the human mind in the character and relations of a cause which is to produce an immediate effect. It is extensively true that preachers do not preach, and hearers do not hear the gospel with such an impression of its efficacy. The sword of the Spirit is used under the conviction that God in his sovreignty has withdrawn from it its etherial temper, and the anticipation of its powerlessness, by palsying the hand that wields it, becomes the means of its own fulfilment. Actual events which should prove the gospel to be a cause of immediate influence on the minds of men, would be looked at with the amazement due only to the distant wonders of a miraculous age; and we hardly know of an annunciation from the pulpit that would be more startling to many, for its supposed extravagance, than that every sinner may become, and is authorized to believe that he may become, a Christian on the spot. Instead of looking for actual facts in accordance with such a declaration; instead of hearing the gospel as a cause whose benign influence may be realized in the immediate transformation of the human character, carnal security sits secure as at a safe distance from its power, and the most sanguine expectations of Christian love, under the most powerful preaching, are, that some one of its fortunate hearers may possibly be awakened. The everlasting gospel is preached from Sabbath to Sabbath, a cause perfectly fitted by divine wisdom to secure the transformation of human character is employed, and though faith may faintly hope that the preaching will show its power in the remote effects of future months or years, yet the balance of probability, in the more common estimation, is as a thousand to one, that it will prove as water spilt on the ground. Thus the work of the preacher has, in the view of multitudes, little more connexion with any appropriate effects of the gospel which he preaches, than to stand over the graves of the dead and call them to life, could be supposed to have with the general resurrection at the last day. And dull work it is, and dull work it must be, so to preach and so to hear the gospel. We know indeed that the obligation of immediate repentance is not denied: by many it is clearly and powerfully inculcated; and right and indispensable it is that this should be done. We know that when it is forcibly urged home upon the conscience, it produces an agitation which tends to countervail all the causes of sloth and inaction. But then, no one performs his duty the more for being told that it ought to be done, while the conviction is also forced on the mind, that it will not be done. The conviction of the present practicability of duty, is indispensable to the present performance of duty; and no pressure of obligation is sufficient to counteract the paralyzing persuasion of the utter uselessness of effort. Under the influence of such a persuasion, no motive can reach the mind with its moving power, and unless there be some bright hour or moment in the sinner's probation, when he believes that what God now demands, may now be done, it never will be done. The opposite conviction is, that it will not now be done; and the belief that this is certain, though consistent with the obligation of duty, is fatal to every effort requisite to the present performance of duty. And such we think is the actual belief adopted and acted upon by great numbers. The conviction which we say is indispensable, never takes a thorough hold of the mind. No time ever arrives in which the duty of turning to God is regarded as one of present practicability, and present urgency, none in which there is any moving influence which sets the man to the business of turning to God, as a work now on hand, and now to be accomplished. However easy sinners may account the performance of the duty, when they shall be ready to devote to it the requisite time, in a protracted, gradual, well-directed process of preparation, yet the present thorough surrender of the heart to God is esteemed by multitudes as wholly without the limits of all actual occurrences; and in instances fearfully numerous, continuance in sin and death in sin, is the infallible consequence. In proof of some great dissimilarity between the mode of preaching the gospel in the apostlic age and at the present day, we ask whence the undeniable fact, of the straight-onward unembarrassed call to repentance by apostles, contrasted with the conscious hesitation and embarrassment in uttering the same unqualified message, on the part of many a modern preacher? Why, in the one case, do we find the open broad announcement of duty, just as if the preacher intended and expected that men should perform it; and why, in the other, is this annunciation always modified and always weakened by other doctrinal associations, just as if the preacher was afraid that men would do their duty at once? Why no objections from a cavilling world about doing nothing, and waiting God's time under an apostolic summons to duty; and yet scarcely any thing else heard on this subject from many in our day, but the inconsistency and folly of attempting any thing in the work of their salvation? We ask also, whence all this discussion about using the means of regeneration by sinners, of which, in the form and design of it, we find no trace either in the preaching or writings of apostles; and whence this palpable departure from their mode of preaching the gospel to sinners, by telling them how to repent, instead of telling them outright to repent, and making them feel that this is now to be done?-We are not saying that there is no necessity for some philosophical analyses and explanations on this subject, for the purpose of meeting cavils and objections to doctrines according to godliness. But we are constrained to ask, who has created this necessity? And why did not apostles encounter the same embarrassments and objections from those to whom they preached? We believe the true answer to these inquiries is to be found in some peculiarity in the mode of preaching the same gospel in these latter days; a peculiarity which so falls in with the tendency of the human mind to avoid the pressure of present obligation, as to result in the anti-apostlic impression on the ininds of many, that nothing is to be done in the work of conversion, but quietly to wait for a divine influence as the first moving cause of all doings, which are not worse than useless. We further believe that under this impression, a multitude of the ungodly in this land of gospel light are sleeping away their probation. There is too, we think, when the gospel becomes effectual in the conversion of sinners in our age, compared with similar instances in the apostolic age, a dissimilarity in its effects, which evinces a dissimilarity in the manner of their production. Why was it that, under the preaching of Peter to the multitude on the day of Pentecost, "WHEN they heard this, they were pricked in the heart," and that ON THE SAME DAY, there were added unto the disciples about three thousand souls? Why was it that Paul and Silas had scarcely told the trembling jailor, what he must do to be saved, before they recog nised him as a convert to the faith,' baptizing him and all his, straightway? 'Why were the Saviour's calls so immediately listened to? Why, in following him, did they leave all and leave it at once-leave as it were, by one decisive purpose of obedience to a present call, the dead to bury their dead? And why we may ask does the inspired narrative of the effects of the gospel exhibit it as uniformly, if effectual at all, of such sudden and powerful efficacy upon its listening hearers?-so much so, that the design of this record of facts is most obviously to make the appalling impression, that he who once turns away from these messages of grace, has no ground of hope that he shall ever embrace them. Did the young ruler, lovely as he |