Читать книгу An Appeal to the People in Behalf of Their Rights as Authorized Interpreters of the Bible - Catharine Esther Beecher - Страница 10

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The next question is, in what does that great change consist which is called regeneration, and which is indispensable to salvation from eternal woe?

The old school Calvinists say it is a new nature created by God which naturally acts right, in place of a depraved nature which naturally acts wrong and only wrong. With this new nature man has power to obey God acceptably, and without it he has no power of any kind.

The new school Calvinists say that regeneration is a change of the depraved nature of man by God, attended by a choice or ruling purpose to obey God in all things made by man himself. They teach also that man can and ought to make this choice without any help from God in changing his depraved nature, and yet, owing to this evil nature, he never will do so till God changes it. Meantime God points out no certain way of obtaining this indispensable aid from him.1

The Arminians teach that regeneration consists either in the implanting of a new nature by baptism, and [pg 010] the use of other means of grace, or in the restoration of God's Spirit which was withdrawn from man on account of Adam's sin, and in some degree restored by Christ's death.