Rev. Martyn
McGeown
(slightly
modified from an article first published in the Protestant Reformed Theological
Journal)
CONTENTS
I. Introduction
II. Early Puritan Preparationists
III. Other Puritan Writers
IV. Other Theologians
V. Objections to This Doctrine
VI. Appeals to Scripture Considered
VII. Conclusion
Preparatory grace is a notion which crept into the
theology of many of the Puritans. Although the Puritans insisted that man is
totally depraved and unable to contribute anything to his salvation, “as early
as 1570” some English theologians began to teach that the sinner “might somehow
dispose himself for saving grace.”1 By this they meant,
generally (with some variation), that an unregenerate sinner could prepare
himself for the grace of regeneration by a serious consideration of his sins in
the light of God’s law. By careful self-examination, the sinner could and ought
to stir himself up to loathe his own sinfulness and to desire mercy and, by a
judicious use of means (especially attendance upon the preaching of the
gospel), he could put himself in the position of being a likely candidate for
the new birth. Most of the Puritans who advocated such views insisted
that God prepares the sinner in this way. They were loath to
suggest that man can do this unaided by the Spirit. However,
they also taught that this preparatory grace was often present in reprobates so
that preparation for regeneration did not necessarily lead to salvation in the
end.
II. Early Puritan Preparationists
A.
William Perkins (1558-1602)
William Perkins, although he was an ardent double
predestinarian, was one of the earliest of the Puritans to be infected with
this idea of preparationism. He taught that the Holy Spirit by the ministry of
the gospel (and especially the law) prepares a sinner for regeneration.
Perkins’ massive work, The Cases of Conscience was published
posthumously in 1606. In a chapter entitled, “What Must a Man Do That He May
Come Into God’s Favour And Be Saved?” Perkins writes that God usually guides
the sinner through several stages before regeneration takes place:
God gives man
the outward means of salvation, especially the ministry of the word, and with
it he sends some outward or inward cross to break and subdue the
stubbornness of our nature that it may be made pliable to the
will of God … this done, God brings a man to a consideration of the
Law … he makes a man particularly to see and know his own peculiar and proper
sins whereby he offends God … he smites the heart with a legal fear … he makes
him to fear punishment and hell and to despair of salvation in regard of
anything in himself.2
Perkins therefore taught that before regeneration
the stubbornness of the sinner’s nature is subdued, his will is made pliable to
God’s will, and the dead sinner is made to see and experience the extent of his
depravity. He then comes under a legal fear so that he despairs of salvation.
However, insisted Perkins, these actions upon the sinner’s nature, emotions and
will are not necessarily fruits of regeneration, for, he adds “these four
actions are indeed no fruits of grace, for a reprobate may go thus far.” They
are only “works of preparations going before grace.”3
Perkins did not teach that these preparatory steps
are carried out by man, but by God, or with God’s assistance. Perkins was
prevented from “flirting with any concept of meritorious preparation for
conversion on the part of man”4 by his decretal theology. Man
could not produce these good things in himself, but the outcome of such good
things did depend in part on man. If both the elect and the reprobate are the
recipients of such common works of the Spirit, which do not necessarily issue
in salvation, the implication is that man has a role to play. He must be
careful not to suppress such works in him. An unregenerate man has a fully
functioning will but his will has been corrupted. Therefore Perkins insisted
that regeneration affects the goodness of man’s will, not the
faculty of willing itself:
Regeneration does not
change the operations of the human faculties themselves, but only ‘the goodness
thereof,’ because the former remains unaltered while the latter was lost in the
Fall. Insofar as the human faculties are concerned, therefore, one may speak of
preparation for conversion … insofar as the goodness of the will is concerned,
however … the sinner may never prepare himself for conversion as the will
itself is in need of being ‘born again.’5
Again to the question,
‘whether the natural corrupted will can in any way prepare and dispose
itself to his own conversion and justification,’ Perkins replies: ‘… But the
certain truth is, that the will cannot.’6
Perkins distinguished between different preparatory
works. He did this by subdividing such operations into the “beginnings of
preparation” and the “beginnings of compunction.” The former he called “the
ministry of the law.” These beginnings of preparation, according to Perkins,
are not gracious. They are common operations of the Spirit, which give no
indication of whether God intends to save the sinner or not. Pangs of
conscience, fear of punishment, horror over one’s sins and deep conviction
could be merely foretastes of hell, not evidence of the grace of God working
within the heart. On the other hand, the beginnings of compunction are
gracious and lead to true conversion. The reprobate partake of the former, but
only the elect of the latter works. This dichotomy “served not only to
safeguard divine monergism in salvation, but also to allow for man’s active
participation, however under the ministry of the law.”7 Man could
participate, but only as far as the law of God is concerned. By a careful
consideration of the law of God he could bring himself to see his own
guilt and misery under sin and in this way prepare himself to desire mercy. These
works of preparation which “bring under, tame and subdue the stubbornness of
man’s nature, without making any change at all” include “accusations of the
conscience … fears and terrors arising thence … and the apprehending of God’s
anger against sin.”8 However, adds Perkins,
although they go before
to prepare a sinner for his conversion following, yet they are no graces of
God, but fruits both of the law, being the ministry of death, as also of an
accusing conscience.9
Perkins,
then, believed that God “universally invites the sinner to ‘prepare,’ and then
he particularly enables the elect to ‘compose.’”10
In
another work, A Grain of Mustard
Seed or the Least Measure of Grace That Is Or Can Be Effectual To Salvation,
Perkins urges the sinner to “labour to see and feel thy spiritual poverty” and
“labour to be displeased with thyself.”11 If a man has “some little feeling of
his wants [i.e. what he lacks], some weak and faint desire, some small
obedience,” writes Perkins, “he must not let this spark of grace go out.” He
gave this warning in a section of the same work entitled, “The Foresaid
Beginnings of Grace Are Counterfeit Unless They Increase.”12
Of all the advocates of preparatory
grace among the Puritans, Perkins sought most to minister to the troubled
consciences of believers. Notwithstanding Perkins’ good intentions, it must be
acknowledged that his doctrine did tend to distress the consciences of the weak.
How shall I know if the works of the Spirit I perceive to be in me are fruits
of “preparation” or “compunction”? If a reprobate can go a certain distance
along this preparatory path, how may I know that I am not a reprobate, fooling
myself into believing that I am on the narrow way, when I could very well still
be on the broad way which leads to destruction (Matt. 7:13)? It was not
Perkins’ desire to distress the weak, but to awaken the presumptuous out of his
carnal security. He, therefore, sought to encourage the sinner who found the
smallest sign of grace in himself to be of good courage. Perkins writes that “the
will to become regenerate … is the effect and testimony of regeneration begun.”13 If a man can but desire regeneration he shows by this that he is already born again
and is in a gracious condition. However, above we have seen that Perkins fails
to apply this principle with consistency, for “some weak and faint desire, some
small obedience” may, if the spark of grace be allowed to go out, be evidence
only of “counterfeit grace.” It must be conceded that this is better than some
later theologians, who, as we shall see, taught that a sinner can earnestly
desire regeneration and yet remain unregenerate and perish. Others urged
sinners to pray to God for the grace of regeneration, but offered them little
hope that their prayers would be answered. Perkins, in contrast, taught (albeit
inconsistently) that the desires which a man has for faith may be viewed as the
first signs of regeneration:
Mark
then … though as yet thou want [i.e. lack] firm and lively grace, yet art thou
not altogether void of grace, if thou canst unfeignedly desire it. Thy desire
is the seed, conception or bud of that which thou wantest. “If any man thirst,
let him come to me and drink.”14
This certainly serves to neutralize
some, although not all, of the poison contained in Perkins’ doctrine of
preparatory grace. It offers the sinner some hope but at the same time leaves
the sinner doubting his spiritual status.
B. William Ames (1586-1633)
William
Ames was a student of Perkins and, having emigrated to the Netherlands from
England, became an advisor to the Synod of Dordt (1618-1619). Ames, too,
emphasized the law’s role in preparing the sinner for saving grace. John
Eusden, the editor of a recent translation of Ames’ The
Marro0w of Theology, provides some historical background. According
to Ames, writes Eusden, “man’s paramount task [in salvation] was to make
himself spiritually ready.”15 He could do this by repenting, by
confessing, by offering “his unsure, ambivalent will to God in prayer that it
might be informed and enlightened” and by “expos[ing] himself to the law and
the prophets.”16 Ames distinguished two kinds of repentance.
One, found also in the unregenerate, “precedes faith in order of nature, as a
preparing and disposing cause” and consists of terrors of conscience and
anxiety caused by the law. The other which follows faith and depends on it “turns
man away effectively and genuinely from sin.”17 Only in the former sense can an
unregenerate man repent, insists Ames. However, in practice it becomes
difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between these two kinds of
repentance.
In
his famous work, Conscience
With The Power and Cases Thereof,
Ames explains the stages necessary for “pulling a man out of the state of sin”
and “into a state of grace.” In a chapter entitled, “How The Sinner Ought to
Prepare Himself to Conversion,” he writes,
… it is first of all required that a man
seriously looks into the law of God and make examination of his life … it is
required … a conviction of conscience … a despair of salvation … a true
humiliation of heart which consists of grief and fear because of sin … to put a
man in a state of grace it is required that there be such an apprehension upon
the gospel as whereby a man judges it possible that his sins should be forgiven
… an earnest desire to obtain that mercy which in Scripture is called a
spiritual hunger or thirst18
All
of this, it ought to be emphasized, occurs before regeneration. The natural man can attain to
this, and these preparatory actions may bear no saving fruit in the end.
Ames,
writes Eusden, opposed the Remonstrants because he was disturbed by their
anthropocentrism. He was unhappy with their “failure to give the sovereignty
and working power of God a primary place in theology.”19 However, continues Eusden, “Ames, almost
alone in the orthodox party, found that the Remonstrant insistence on man’s
response in the drama of salvation was a
needed corrective for Reformed theology.”20 Because of this Ames believed there was
much that man could do to “prepare himself” for conversion, although in the
final analysis conversion remained the work of God. He differed from “straight-arrow,
orthodox theologians as Franciscus Gomarus (1563-1641) and Johannes Maccovius
(1588-1644)” and was not “completely orthodox” in the matter of predestination.21 In this, Ames departed from the orthodox
position. He did not
follow the prevailing orthodox line and
hold that man can do little or nothing. Maccovius, for example, insisted that
man in his fallen state was incapable of preparing for faith and conversion.
Any steps which led to faith were associated with God’s regeneration and could
not be connected with man’s efforts at salvation.22
Although
it would be unjust to group Ames with the Arminians—he very clearly opposed
them23—Ames’ position is a dangerous concession to the Arminian
errors of resistible grace and partial depravity. We can be thankful that Ames’
views were not incorporated into the Canons
of Dordt. Sadly the
leaven of Amesian preparationism would influence generations of theologians as
his Marrow became required reading in the major
theological schools in England, the European continent and America.24
C. Richard Sibbes (1577-1635)
Richard
Sibbes, writes Pettit, was much concerned with the work of the Spirit. He
preached a lot on the subject, but “with a minimum of concern for the rigors of
dogma.”25 He spoke in the service of “spiritual
warmth.” In his sermons he sought to create a concern in his hearers for a
change of heart. The purpose of theology is to “warm the heart” not impart
“cold, scholastic, dogmatic” truth, he maintained.26 Sibbes, differing from Perkins, makes no
distinction between preparation and compunction. “Reprobates,” he maintained, “might
immediately respond to the Spirit and so desire grace without excessive preliminary
restraint.”27
What
is necessary is that the sinner does not resist the Spirit’s work in creating
holy desires in him. The “sweet motions” of the Spirit may be resisted, claims
Sibbes. Those who obey the promptings of the Spirit and “turn towards God in
obedience will receive the full benefits of the Spirit; those who resist are
lost.”28 For example, there are those who “will cast
water themselves upon those sparks which Christ labours to kindle in then,
because they will not be troubled with the light of them.”29 Others resist the knocking of the Holy
Spirit:
The Holy Ghost hath often knocked at their
hearts, as willing to have kindled some holy desires in them. How else can they
be said to resist the Holy Ghost, but that the Spirit was readier to draw them
to a further degree of goodness than stood with their own wills?30
The
sense in which the reprobate “resist the Holy Ghost” needs to be clarified.
They resist Him as they resist the
preaching (Acts 7:51).
They resist Him by opposing preaching and persecuting preachers, but the inward
gracious works of the Spirit in the heart are irresistible and particular to
the elect. The inward works of the Spirit in the heart of the reprobate are not
gracious. They harden the wicked in their sins.
Others
refuse to entertain the “gracious motions” of the Spirit:
The Holy Ghost is given to them that obey,
to them that do not resist the Spirit of God. For in the ministry of the Gospel
the Spirit is given in some degree to reprobates … they have the gracious
motions offered them, but they do not obey them. Therefore the Spirit seizeth
not upon them … the Spirit is given to them that obey the sweet motions of it.31
Sibbes
exhorts the sinner to “entertain” the blessed messengers of the Spirit; to “labour
to subject [himself] to” the Spirit of Christ; to become aware of his sin and
misery so that he becomes a bruised reed.32 Sibbes’ work, A
Bruised Reed, deals with, among other things, the subject
of spiritual preparation. This bruising of the Spirit is something with which
the sinner can co-operate. We must, “join with God in bruising ourselves” and “lay
siege to the hardness of our own hearts.”33 To prepare for salvation the sinner is
supposed to make his own heart tender so that it is more open to yielding to
the Spirit.34 Sibbes appeals to the example of King
Josiah who was commended for having a tender heart (II Chron. 34:27), but we
must insist that Josiah was already a believer. God had already
regenerated the king. That explains why he responded to
the discovery of the law with heart-felt sorrow over his sins and the sins of
the nation. This was no self-preparation of an unregenerate sinner but
obedience by a child of God.
Sibbes’
doctrine savours too much of Arminianism with its resistible grace. We can
certainly agree with Pettit who writes that “of all the preparationists Sibbes
was by far the most extreme in terms of the abilities he assigned to natural
man.”35
III. Other
Puritan Writers
Although
Perkins, Ames and Sibbes are the Puritans who wrote most extensively on the
subject of preparationism, other Puritans make reference to the idea of
preparatory processes in their writing and preaching.
John
Owen (1616-1683) addresses the subject in the third volume of his Works in a section entitled, “Works of the Holy
Spirit Preparatory Unto Regeneration.” Owen writes:
Ordinarily there are certain previous and
preparatory works, or workings in and upon the souls of men, that are
antecedent and dispositive unto it [i.e. regeneration]. But yet regeneration
doth not consist in them, nor can it be educed out of them.36
Owen
explains that he means by this only a “material disposition” and “not such
[motions] as contain grace of the same nature as regeneration itself,”
employing the figure of wood: “Wood by dryness and a due composure is made fit
and ready to admit of firing.”37 In a similar way, then, the sinner’s heart
is prepared (dried out) so that the Spirit can ignite it in regeneration.
In
an obvious reference to Owen, Abraham Kuyper takes issue with this
illustration:
Even the representation still maintained by
some of our best theologians, that preparatory grace is like the drying of wet
wood, so that the spark can more easily ignite it, we can not adopt … The
disposition of our souls is immaterial. Whatever it may be, omnipotent grace
can kindle it.38
Owen
clarifies what he means by this preparatory work. He writes of certain things “required
of us by way of duty in order unto our regeneration.”39 These are outward actions such as being
physically present where the gospel is preached, and diligently concentrating
on the Word preached and receiving it as the truth of God.40 The sinner may, through a diligent
attendance on the means, be enlightened in some sense by the truth he hears,
may be affected emotionally or intellectually by it, may be convicted of his
sins, and may even undergo some reformation of character. These, writes Owen,
are “good, useful and material preparations unto regeneration” but do not
necessarily lead to it.41 Those who refuse to apply themselves in the
use of means or who do not “sincerely improve” what they have received in these
preliminary steps deserve to perish, and often do perish.42 Such “faint not merely for want of strength
to proceed, but, by a free act of their own wills, they refuse the grace which
is farther tendered unto them in the gospel.”43
Other
Puritans, by the advice they give to the unconverted, show that they believe
that the unregenerate can indeed desire salvation. By this they mean more than
the fact that the unregenerate can desire to escape hell. No serious-minded
unbeliever, who believes in the existence of a place called hell, wants to go
there. That does not mean that the natural man desires the spiritual blessings
of salvation.
Thomas
Manton (1620-1677) counsels the sinner to pray for grace but gives him no
guarantee of success:
There is a great uncertainty, yet pray; it
is God’s usual way to meet with them that seek him … God is not engaged, but
who knows what importunity may do? He may, and He may not, give grace; but
usually He doth. It is God’s usual way to bless industry, and yet all they that
labour have not an absolute certainty of success.44
What
a desperately gloomy message is this! How different from Christ’s promise: “Ask,
and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be
opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh
findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened” (Matt. 7:7-8).
Joseph
Alleine (1634-1668) in his Alarm
to the Unconverted makes appeals to the unconverted sinner
which reveal how much power he ascribes to the sinner’s preparations. Sinner,
he exhorts,
labour to get a thorough sight and lively
sense and feeling of your sins … strive to affect your heart with a deep sense
of your present misery … strike in with the Spirit when He begins to work upon
your heart.45
He
adds, “Christ offers to help … God offers to enlighten your mind … God invites
you to be made clean, and entreats you to yield to Him … let Him do for you,
and in you, what you cannot do for yourselves.”46
William
Guthrie (1620-1665), whose The
Christian’s Great Interest was highly esteemed by John Owen, is less
insistent on preparationism, although he also makes room for it in his theological
system. He concedes that “we are not to speak of it … as if none might lay
claim to God’s favour who have not had this preparatory work.”47 Sadly, Guthrie cuts the throat of assurance
with comments such as these:
It will be hard to give sure essential
differences between the preparatory work on those in whom afterwards Christ is
formed, and those legal stirrings which are sometimes in reprobates.48
I shall offer some things which rarely shall be found in the stirrings of
reprobates, and which are ordinarily found in that law-work which hath a
gracious issue.49
That
one qualifying word “rarely” speaks volumes. Guthrie cannot offer the anxious
soul any infallible mark of regeneration because those marks can also be found
(albeit rarely) in reprobates. What advice does Guthrie offer to the
unconverted? In words very similar to Alleine, he writes, “work up your heart
to be pleased with and close with that offer [of the gospel], and say to God
expressly that you do accept of that offer.”50 Guthrie expostulates with objectors thus:
Or will any say, you cannot close with
Christ? what is this you cannot do? Can you not hunger for Him, nor look to
Him, nor be pleased with that salvation, nor open your mouth that He may fill
it? Do not difficult the way to heaven, for it derogates much from all He hath
done.51
So,
we see, that Guthrie believed that the unregenerate sinner could make himself
be pleased with the gospel “offer,” could hunger after Christ and could
therefore “close with” the Saviour. However, such a sinner, pleased with
Christ, and hungering after Him, may nevertheless perish.
Thomas
Shepard (1605-1649), founder of Harvard University, differentiates between
various kinds of grace. Reprobates may receive various graces but never attain
to saving grace. A thorough law-work is essential: “When the Lord sows saving
desires indeed, he ever sows them in a broken heart, which is thoroughly
broken.”52 Hypocrites can be partakers of “awakening
grace,” “enlightening grace” and “affecting grace” but never, writes Shepard,
“sanctifying grace.”53 A man may profess to “hate sin,” “close
with the Lord Jesus,” “love the people of God,” “seek the glory of God” and be
deceived. One wonders how a sinner in Shepard’s congregation could ever know
that he is truly converted, for Shepard writes of such people “though they hate
sin, yet it is unsoundly.”54
An
unsound conversion, claims Shepard, can be traced to humiliation under the law
which was not sufficiently thorough:
Be sure your wound at first for sin be deep
enough; for all the error in a man’s faith and sanctification, it springs from
that first error of his humiliation; if a man’s humiliation be false, and weak,
and little, his faith is light, and his sanctification counterfeit.55
IV. Other
Theologians
Dutch
Reformed divine, Wilhelmus à Brakel (1635-1711) reveals a belief in
preparationism. He speaks of “preparatory convictions”56 and urges the unconverted to entertain hope
because God “grants [them] conviction and a desire for repentance and
salvation.”57 His advice is to attend diligently on the
means. “You have reason to hope … Wait, therefore, for the least movement of
the Spirit, respond to it, and be careful you do not resist it.”58 However, such a desire, granted to some of
the unconverted who use the means of grace, does not guarantee salvation. It is
not a sign of regeneration, but may lead to it.
Presbyterian
theologian, William G. T. Shedd (1820-1894) ascribes regeneration itself to the
Holy Spirit but allows man to have some “agency … in the work of conviction which
is preparatory or antecedent” to the new birth.59 Shedd wants to be careful in distinguishing
the Augustinian/Calvinistic idea of preparation from the Semi-Pelagian/Arminian/Synergistic
version. The Calvinist, writes Shedd, means by it “conviction of sin, guilt and
helplessness.” The Arminian “denotes some faint desires and beginnings of
holiness in the natural man.”60 This preparation, then, is not a “part of regeneration,
but something prior and antecedent to it.”61 Shedd next appeals to “common or prevenient
grace.” The sinner, writes Shedd, “moved and assisted” by this grace is able to
perform certain duties. Shedd lists some of these common grace-assisted duties:
“reading and hearing … serious application of the mind … conviction …
illumination in regard to the requirements of the law … distress of conscience
and … reformation of the outward life.”62 This is God’s normal mode of operation,
except in infants:
Man gains spiritual life in an instant,
though he may have had days and months of a foregoing experience of conviction
and spiritual death. This is the ordinary divine method.63
Furthermore,
Shedd insists that the unregenerate have the “duty and privilege” to pray for
the “convicting and regenerating Spirit.”64 His proof is Luke 11:13. He reasons that
since the Father has promised to give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him,
when the unregenerate pray for the Holy Spirit of regeneration God will grant that
request (or, to be more exact, “might possibly” grant it). But Christ is not
teaching that the unregenerate can ask for the Holy Spirit. He is teaching that believers
can be assured that God
will grant them His grace and Holy Spirit, which they need
to live a sanctified life. The teaching of Luke 11:13 and similar passages is
summarized in Lord’s Day 45 (Q. & A. 116) of the Heidelberg Catechism: “God will give His grace and Holy Spirit
to those who with sincere desires continually ask them of Him and, and are
thankful for them.” Shedd then appeals to Ezekiel 36 and Joel 2 and claims that
the ground for such a prayer is that the Holy Spirit is “promised generally
under the Gospel”! If Shedd means by this that God promises every unregenerate
person regenerating grace we stand amazed, since the promises in the prophets
are particular and certain. God promises to give His people, and them only, a
new heart. The unregenerate are required to pray for regeneration, writes Shedd:
No man has any warrant or encouragement to
pray either for conversion or for sanctification, before he has prayed for
regeneration. 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 (Ps. 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 … [the sinner]
must endeavour 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 prepared for regenerating grace. “Such opinions,” writes
Shedd, “must be given up and scriptural views must be adopted before the Holy
Spirit will create a new heart.”69 Even that may not be enough. If the “orthodox
truth is held in unrighteousness” that attitude must be changed too, so the
sinner is better prepared.70 After all that preparation, the sinner
having become a “serious anxious inquirer”71 and one who is “endeavouring
to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ”72 it is only “in the highest degree probable”
for him, using common grace, to be saved.73 Where is the comfort in that?
Dutch
theologian, Herman Witsius (1636-1708) treats preparationism in The
Economy of the Covenants. Witsius does not believe that a man can
prepare himself for regeneration. Since the unregenerate are evil trees, they
cannot produce good fruit (Matt. 7:18). Therefore “unless a person can be thought
to prepare himself for grace by sin” preparationism cannot be admitted.74 Preparationism, insists Witsius, is a
semi-Pelagian doctrine. The semi-Pelagians taught that a sinner can come to
grace
… by asking, seeking, knocking; and that,
in some at least, before they are born again, there is a kind of repentance,
together with a sorrow for sin … a beginning of faith, and an initial love of
God, and a desire of grace.75
That
certainly sounds like the teaching of some of the theologians which we have
considered above. Witsius takes issue with the view of Perkins. Concerning his
view he writes:
But
we really think they argue more accurately, who make these, and the like things
in the Elect, to be preparations to the further and more perfect operations of
a more noble and plentiful spirit, and so not preparations for regeneration,
but the fruits and effects of the first regeneration.76
Witsius
concedes that operations of the Spirit may occur in the reprobate, but they are
“no preparations for regeneration” either by their intrinsic nature or by God’s
design, but these operations in the reprobate are “consistent with spiritual
death” and the reprobate, being deceived by these “actings which counterfeit
spiritual life, are the more hardened in a real death.”77 Witsius’
conclusion, having carefully differentiated between regeneration in the broader
and narrower senses, is to reject any means for preparing a sinner for the new
birth. “They are not preparations for the first regeneration, but effects of
it,” because death is no preparation for life.78
There is a sense in which Witsius believes that the
Lord, by His providential dealings with the elect before their conversion,
“prepares” them for their future spiritual life. He “preserves them from base
and scandalous crimes” and they are kept from the sin against the Holy Ghost.
Such sinners may have grown up in an ecclesiastical environment so that “many
evident principles of divine truth are understood by the natural mind” which
serve the believer after he has been regenerated.79 None of these “dispose man for regeneration”
but they are providential works of God, whereby, even before their
regeneration, God works all things for the good of His elect. This is the same
kind of preparatory grace to which Abraham Kuyper refers. The unregenerate
elect are “the subject of divine labour, care and protection” even during their
godless life before their conversion, according to Kuyper.80 Having said all this, Witsius too, like the
Puritans, urges the one who will not “profanely despise his salvation” to
attend the means of grace, for there is a “brighter hope” for the one who
listens to the preaching and cries to God for converting grace, than for the
one who neglects the church altogether.81
V.
Objections to this Doctrine
We
repudiate preparationism as foreign to Scripture and the Reformed confessions.
Although there is much to admire in the Puritans, on this issue we must part
company.
A. The Unregenerate Do Not
Hunger After Righteousness
The
Scriptures teach that spiritual hunger will always be satisfied. There is no
sinner who has ever hungered after righteousness who will go away empty into
that place where he will not have as much as a drop of water to cool his tongue
(Luke 16:24). Jesus promises as much in the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are
they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness.” Why? Because there is a
good chance, a fair possibility, a high probability, but no guarantee that they
may be filled? No, the sweetness contained in the beatitude is this: “For they shall be filled” (Matt. 5:6). Preparationists
take this sweet morsel of bread and cast it to the dogs (Matt. 15:26). Indeed,
the point of this beatitude is that the one who is hungering and thirsting is
blessed, that is, already
regenerate. Such a hungering after mercy is not (contra Ames) a preparation for
regeneration but evidence of it. The Canons
of Dordt deny that the unregenerate “can yet hunger
and thirst after righteousness and life, and offer the sacrifice of a contrite
and broken spirit, which is pleasing to God.” Instead, as the Fathers at Dordt
insisted, “to hunger and thirst after deliverance from misery and after life,
and to offer unto God the sacrifice of a broken spirit, is peculiar to the
regenerate and those that are called blessed (Canons III/IV:R:4),” quoting Matthew 5:6.
The
unregenerate have no
hunger for spiritual things. They see the bread of
life as loathsome. They drink iniquity greedily like water (Job 15:16) but the
water of life does not appeal to them. God does the wicked no injustice by not
feeding them with the bread of life, because they have no desire for it. God
creates, and satisfies, a desire for righteousness in the elect alone.
B. The Unregenerate Will Is
Not Pliable to God’s Will
Furthermore,
the Scriptures do not teach (contra Perkins) that the reprobate have wills made
“pliable” to the will of God. The will of man is totally depraved. Without
regeneration, the sinner cannot will or even will
to will spiritual good. The Bible speaks of two
kinds of men, and only two: the natural (unregenerate) and the spiritual
(regenerate) man. There is no intermediate stage between these two states. I
Corinthians 2:14 teaches that the natural man “receiveth not” spiritual things
because he cannot know them. The carnal mind of the natural
man is “enmity” against God. It cannot be subject to the law of God (Rom. 8:7). Of
the one who does evil (the natural, unregenerate man), Christ says that he “hateth
the light” and does not come to the light (John 3:20). The natural man does not
understand, does not seek after God and does not do anything good (Rom.
3:11-12). The will before regeneration is powerless.
The Canons
of Dordt describe God’s work of regeneration thus:
He opens the closed and softens the
hardened heart, and circumcises that which was uncircumcised; infuses new
qualities into the will, which, though heretofore dead, He quickens; from being
evil, disobedient, and refractory, He renders it good, obedient, and pliable; actuates and strengthens it, that like a
good tree, it may bring forth the fruits of good actions (III/IV:11).
The
only pliable will is the regenerate will. No unregenerate man has “a small
obedience” or “faint desires.” In no sense is the will “subdued” so that in
some small way it wills good. No unregenerate man desires repentance, longs to
believe in Christ, earnestly seeks after God or is pleased with the gospel.
Every unregenerate man, without exception, abhors Christ, repudiates repentance,
and finds the gospel “foolishness” (I Cor. 1:18). Only God by a mighty work of
grace, which He works in His elect alone, can change that.
A
small beginning of obedience is present only in the regenerate (Heidelberg Catechism, Q. & A. 114). Faith, even if it is as
small as a mustard seed or is mixed with much unbelief is a sign of
regeneration, not grace-induced seeking in the unregenerate (Matt. 17:20; Mark
9:24). Seeking is only something the regenerate can do, because all seekers
without exception (of whom there are none by nature; Rom. 3:11) are promised
that they shall find (Matt. 7:7; Luke 11:10).
C. Preparationism Makes Grace
Common and Resistible
The
preparationists speak of “enlightening grace,” “awakening grace” and “affecting
grace,” in addition to saving grace. The reprobate, claim the preparationists,
are frequently partakers of these types of “common grace” but because they do
not “improve” the grace they justly perish. The Scriptures know of only one
grace: saving, particular, efficacious grace. The grace of Scripture is
irresistible.
D. Preparationism Complicates
Conversion
Abraham
Kuyper complains of those who teach that “certain moods and dispositions must
be prepared in the sinner before God can quicken him.”82 The preparationist would object to the word
“can” and substitute “will,” but the principle is basically the same. Kuyper
argues that God can impart the new life of Christ to the most hardened sinner “devoid
of every predisposition.”83 Presumably, no Puritan would disagree with
that. None would want to limit the omnipotence of God. But the Puritans
represent the sinner as a long time under the “lash of the law.”84 A long, arduous work of conviction of sin
is necessary for most people to be regenerated and converted. This is not the
way Scripture depicts conversion. Where was the prolonged conviction of sin in
the Samaritan woman (John 4), in Zacchaeus, in the publican (Luke 19), in those
converted on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2), in the Apostle Paul (Acts 9) or in
the Philippian jailor (Acts 16)? In each of those conversions the Spirit
convicted of sin, and granted repentance from sin, but there is no indication
in Scripture that sinners lie for weeks, months, even years, under the terrors
of conscience. Yet, this seems to be the sine
qua non in the Puritan doctrine of conversion.
Thus, Shedd writes, “the Holy Spirit does not ordinarily regenerate a man until
he is a convicted man, until … he has become conscious of his need of
regenerating grace.”85 Surely, if he is a convicted man, he is
already regenerated. If he desires regeneration, he has been born again. No
unregenerate person desires regeneration. The Canons
of Dordt (I:16) do not lay so many obstacles before
the sinner. There are those in the church who attend the means of grace, and
who do not “strongly feel” the evidence of grace in them that they desire to
feel. They ought not despair. The Canons are not speaking of the unregenerate, in
which there is no “living faith,” “peace of conscience,” “earnest endeavour
after filial obedience” (Canons I:16), but of those in whom these graces
operate but are not “strongly felt.” The Canons assume such to be regenerate because they
show the signs of being spiritually alive. With true pastoral warmth the Canons encourage the trembling child of God:
Much less cause to be terrified by the
doctrine of reprobation have they who, though they seriously desire to be
turned to God, to please Him only, and to be delivered from the body of death,
cannot yet reach that measure of holiness and faith to which they aspire; since
a merciful God has promised that He will not quench the smoking flax, nor break
the bruised reed (I:16).
If
God has begun the work of salvation in a sinner (evidenced by a hatred of sin,
and a desire after holiness), he will bring it to completion (Phil. 1:6). The
bruised reed of Matthew 12:20 is simply the child of God who is broken-hearted
over his sins, who is “poor in spirit” (Matt. 5:3), who “mourns” over his sins
(Matt. 5:4) and who “hungers” after righteousness (Matt. 5:6). None of those
spiritual characteristics are ever found in an unregenerate person. God will
not snuff out that smoking flax, although much imperfection (smoke) remains in
him.
E. Preparationism Destroys
Assurance and Breeds Despair
The
doctrine of preparationism is desperately depressing. It robs the child of God
of his assurance. As Pettit states it,
if contrition and humiliation are not in
themselves signs of grace … how can one ever have assurance of faith? Far from
being a comfortable doctrine, it was bound to lead to despair.86
It
must lead there. Do I have sorrow over my sins? Do I earnestly seek after
Christ? Do I hunger and thirst after righteousness? Do I have a deep sense of
my sin and a desire for deliverance? Do I believe in Jesus Christ and trust in
Him alone for my righteousness? All of the above may be merely signs of “preparatory
grace;” not regeneration itself. Reprobates may come that far.
Do
I feel my need for salvation and am I earnestly seeking to be found in Christ
(Phil. 3:9)? If so, the Scriptures assure me that I am regenerate. The
preparationists put obstacles in my way. Perhaps I am not humbled enough.
Perhaps I have not experienced enough conviction. Perhaps I hate my sins, but
only “unsoundly.” The preparationists depict unregenerate sinners lying at the
feet of Jesus, pleading with Him to regenerate them. Although the probability
is high that such sinners will be saved (a greater possibility than those who
completely neglect the means of grace), yet they offer no guarantee:
Yet all were told, at the same time, that
no matter how much they prepared, no matter how thoroughly they searched
beneath the surface of human appearances, God’s mercy could be denied in the
end. The prepared heart, while a necessary prerequisite to the conversion
experience, was no guarantee of salvation.87
Christ,
however, teaches that “him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out” (John
6:37). He promises rest (not a possibility of rest) to those who “labour and
are heavy laden” (Matt. 11:28), because the spiritual heaviness has been worked
in them by the Holy Spirit. There are no heavy-laden, thirsty, willing sinners
who will fail to receive the salvation which they seek. There are no sinners
trying to come to Christ who fail to reach Him.
In
New England, where preparationism was popular, candidates for church membership
were required to “give detailed accounts of their conversion experience.”88 Candidates would have to relate how they
were under deep conviction of sin for a prolonged period. This, not a credible
profession of faith in the truth of God’s word, with a godly walk, was the
qualification for church membership. This became an impossible burden, for not
all (especially those who grew up in the church) have such a dramatic
conversion experience which they can relate to the elders. So concerned were
the Puritan preparationists, especially in New England, to keep hypocrites out
of the church that they endangered the wheat while trying to pull out the tares
(Matt. 13:29).
VI. Appeals
to Scripture Considered
Surprisingly,
the preparationist theologians do not make many appeals to Scripture in their
writings on this subject. If we examine the instances where men are said to
prepare their hearts to seek the Lord, we see that in all such cases the person
in question was already a believer. For example, Jehoshaphat (II Chron. 19:3),
Ezra (Ezra 7:10) and Job (Job 11:13) prepared their hearts. There is no
question that a believer can prepare his heart to seek God.
In other cases men are commanded to prepare their hearts (I Sam. 7:3). That
does not indicate that they have the ability or the inclination of themselves
to comply with such a command. The overwhelming evidence of Scripture is that
man is dead in sins and unable to produce one good desire. One final appeal is
made to Luke 1:17, “And he [i.e. John the Baptist] shall go before him … to
make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” This text does not teach
preparatory grace, but simply that God had prepared a people for Himself whom
He would save in the fullness of time when Christ would come. John the Baptist
would prepare the way for the Messiah’s coming.
VII.
Conclusion
We
must insist, with Scripture and the Reformed Confessions, that man is
powerless. He cannot prepare himself to receive Christ, he cannot desire Christ
and he cannot seek Christ. We must oppose any doctrine, no matter how venerable
its advocates may have been, which posits any other species of grace than
sovereign, irresistible, particular grace, rooted in election, and earned for
the elect on the cross. If there is a grace of God for the reprobate, then it
must have its origin outside of election and it must not have been purchased on
the cross. But that cannot be! Preparatory grace is, therefore, a deadly
compromise, not only of total depravity, but also of sovereign election and
reprobation and of limited atonement.
Furthermore,
since preparatory grace is allegedly resisted and rendered ineffective by the
reprobate, the doctrines of irresistible grace and perseverance of the saints
are compromised. Any doctrine which endangers these cardinal truths must be
rejected by Reformed Christians root and branch. We reject the convoluted
theology of those who invent new categories and qualifications which change the
very definition of grace. A “grace” which does not bring salvation is not grace
at all (Titus 2:11). We therefore reject Thomas Shepard’s “awakening,” “enlightening,”
or “affecting” grace. There can be, prior to regeneration, no gracious work in
the unregenerate for the simple reason that regeneration is the first work of
grace. It ought to be obvious that there can be no work prior to the first
work.
In
addition, it is intolerable cruelty to demand of people a dramatic conversion
experience before they can be assured of their salvation. Such obstacles may
not be placed before believers who grew up in the church, who were taught to
pray on their mother’s knee, who were catechised and who therefore do not know
a time when they did not believe in Jesus Christ. To demand of such that they
describe a dramatic conversion experience before they are allowed to confess their
faith is to grieve Christ’s little ones. Nor may it be demanded on the mission
field. It is enough when a person simply believes in Christ and shows evidence
of that in a godly walk. To insist that every soul comes to Christ by means of
a long and arduous process of conviction of sin (which is supposedly due to
preparatory grace) is not biblical. It leads to doubting and lack of assurance.
It makes true believers afraid to make confession of faith and come to the Lord’s
Supper. True conversion is a life-long process where the child of God daily
turns from sin to God (repentance and faith) and experiences forgiveness at the
foot of the cross of Jesus Christ. This is the Reformed doctrine of conversion
as set forth in the Heidelberg Catechism (Lord’s Day 33).
Finally,
we call attention to the fact that the Presbyterian tradition ought to reject
preparationism on the basis of their own Confession. It is surprising that the notion of
preparatory grace became so popular among the Puritans, since many of them
helped frame the Westminster
Confession, which teaches
that “natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin, is
not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself
thereunto” (10:3).
-----------------
FOOTNOTES:
1. Norman Pettit, The Heart Prepared: Grace and Conversion
in Puritan Spiritual Life (New Haven and London: Yale
University Press, 1966), p. 3.
2. William Perkins, The Whole Treatise of the Cases of
Conscience,
Book I, Chapter V, pp. 50-51; spelling of original modernized; italics mine.
3. Perkins, Whole Treatise, Book I, Chapter V, p. 51;
italics mine.
4. Young Jae Timothy Song, Theology and Piety in the Reformed
Thought of William Perkins and John Preston (Lewiston, NY: The Edwin
Mellen Press, 1998), p. 132.
5. Song, Theology, p. 133.
6. Song, Theology, p. 134.
7. Song, Theology, pp. 136-137.
8. Song, Theology, p. 139.
9. Song, Theology, p. 139.
10. Song, Theology, p. 137.
11. William Perkins, The Courtenay Library of Reformation
Classics, vol. 3, The Work of William Perkins, Ian Breward (ed.)
(England: The Sutton Courtenay Press, 1970), p. 406.
12. Perkins, Works, p. 405.
13. Pettit, The Heart, p. 62.
14. Pettit, The Heart, p. 63.
15. William Ames, The Marrow of Theology (Durham, NC: The Labyrinth
Press, 1983), p. 50.
16. William Ames, The Marrow, p. 50.
17. Ames, The Marrow, p. 160.
18. William Ames, Conscience With the Power and Cases
Thereof:
The English Experience: Its Record in Early Printed Books Published in
Facsimile (Amsterdam and Norwood, NJ: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum Ltd., and Walter
J. Johnson Inc., 1975), Book II, Chapter 4, pp. 8-9.
19. Ames, The Marrow, p. 7.
20. Ames, The Marrow, p. 7; italics mine.
21. Eusden hastens to add,
"It is not being suggested here that Ames was an
Arminian-within-the-gates, or a quasi-Remonstrant" (Ames, The Marrow, p. 7).
22. Ames, The Marrow, p. 50.
23. Eusden writes, quoting a
biographer of Ames, "Ames plainly deserved our saying in his honor what
the mothers of Israel once said in honor of David: ‘Other theologians have
slain their thousands, but Ames his tens of thousands!’ Ames was thought to be
something of a giant killer in theological debate" (Ames, The Marrow, p. 7).
24. Eusden notes, "For a
century and a half William Ames’s Marrow of Theology held sway as a clear,
persuasive expression of Puritan belief and practice. In England, Holland and
New England nearly all those who aspired to the Puritan way read the book. No
matter what their aspirations, undergraduates at Emmanuel College, Leyden, Harvard
and Yale had to read the Marrow in Latin as part of basic
instruction in divinity. In a burst of enthusiasm Thomas Hooker (1586?-1647) of
Hartford once recommended the Marrow and another of Ames’s works
to fellow clergymen: ‘They would make him (supposing him versed in the
Scriptures) a good divine, though he had no more books in the world’"
(Ames, The Marrow, p. 1).
25. Pettit, The Heart, p. 67.
26. Pettit, The Heart, p. 67.
27. Pettit, The Heart, p. 67.
28. Pettit, The Heart, p. 67.
29. Richard Sibbes, Works, vol. 1 (Edinburgh: Banner, repr. 1979), p.
73.
30. Richard Sibbes, Works, p. 74.
31. Pettit, The Heart, p. 67.
32. Pettit, The Heart, p. 68.
33. Pettit, The Heart, p. 68.
34. Pettit, The Heart, p. 70.
35. Pettit, The Heart, p. 73.
36. John Owen, Works, vol. 3 (Edinburgh: Banner, repr. 1966), p. 229
37. Owen, Works, vol. 3, p. 229.
38. Abraham Kuyper, The Work of the Holy Spirit (Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans, repr. 1973), p. 291.
39. Owen, Works, vol. 3, p. 229.
40. Owen, Works, vol. 3, p. 230.
41. Owen, Works, vol. 3, p. 234.
42. Owen, Works, vol. 3, p. 236.
43. Owen, Works, vol. 3, p.
236.
44. Edward Hindson (ed.), Introduction to Puritan Theology: A
Reader (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1976), p. 100.
45. Joseph Alleine, An Alarm to the Unconverted (Edinburgh: Banner, repr.
1978), p. 100.
46. Alleine, Alarm, p. 140.
47. William Guthrie, The Christian’s Great Interest (London: Banner, repr.
1969), p. 37.
48. Guthrie, Interest, p. 53.
49. Guthrie, Interest, pp. 53-54; italics mine.
50. Guthrie, Interest, p. 195.
51. Guthrie, Interest, p. 204.
52. Thomas Shepard, The Parable of the Ten Virgins (Morgan, PA: Soli Deo
Gloria, repr. 1997), p. 468.
53. Shepard, Parable, pp. 476-477.
54. Shepard, Parable, p. 481.
55. Shepard, Parable, p. 482.
56. Wilhelmus à Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, vol. 2 (Ligonier, PA:
Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1993), p. 249.
57. à Brakel, Reasonable, vol. 2, p. 258.
58. à Brakel, Reasonable, vol. 2, p. 259.
59. William G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, vol. 2 (New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons, 1891), p. 512.
60. Shedd, Theology, vol. 2, p. 512.
61. Shedd, Theology, vol. 2, p. 512.
62. Shedd, Theology, vol. 2, pp. 512-513.
63. Shedd, Theology, vol. 2, p. 512.
64. Shedd, Theology, vol. 2, p. 513.
65. Shedd, Theology, vol. 2, p. 514.
66. Shedd, Theology, vol. 2, p. 515.
67. Shedd, Theology, vol. 2, p. 516; italics
mine.
68. Shedd, Theology, vol. 2, p. 516.
69. Shedd, Theology, vol. 2, p. 518.
70. Shedd, Theology, vol. 2, p. 518.
71. Shedd, Theology, vol. 2, p. 518.
72. Shedd, Theology, vol. 2, p. 528; italics
mine.
73. Shedd, Theology, vol. 2, p. 526.
74. Herman Witsius, The Economy of the Covenants Between God
and Man Comprehending a Complete Body of
Divinity (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R
Publishing, repr. 1990), p. 361.
75. Witsius, The Economy, p. 363.
76. Witsius, The Economy, p. 363.
77. Witsius, The Economy, p. 363.
78. Witsius, The Economy, p. 365.
79. Witsius, The Economy, p. 366.
80. Kuyper, The Work, p. 284.
81. Witsius, The Economy, pp. 371-372.
82. Kuyper, The Work, pp. 290-291.
83. Kuyper, The Work, p. 291.
84. Sibbes, Works, vol. 1, p. 44.
85. Shedd, Theology, vol. 2, p. 514.
86. Pettit, The Heart Prepared, p. 19.
87. Pettit, The Heart Prepared, p. 19.
88. Pettit, The Heart Prepared, p. 160.
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