This work by John Gill is on Efficacious Grace, a main tenet of Calvinism, that Grace cannot be resisted by the sinner.
Introduction – Of Efficacious Grace
The celebrated writer1 chiefly attended to, has filled up above twenty pages in stating the question about the grace of God in conversion. The sum of which is, that there are some inward operations of the Spirit vouchsafed in that work; but that these only consist in representing divine truths to our understandings, and bringing them to our remembrance, and thereby raising some ideas in the brain, and making some impressions on it; which he allows to be physical, and irresistible in their production, and in which men are wholly passive; but utterly denies that any supernatural habits are infused, or that any supernatural aid is requisite to the conversion of a sinner besides the aforementioned. He observes that the word grace in scripture, always signifies the favor and goodness of God, but never any supernatural or infused habit: contrary to Rom. 5:20, 21, and 6:14, 2 Cor. 8:7, 9:8, 14, Col. 3:16, 1 Tim. 1:14, and 2 Pet. 3:18, with many others: yet owns, that the foresaid ideas raised in the brain, according to their nature, use, tendency, and effects, may be called either exciting, or restraining, or preventing, or assisting, or the subsequent of God; and may be either sufficient or efficacious, common or special. My business in the following Sections will be to prove, that the work of grace or conversion, is an internal one, wholly owing to the efficacious grace of God, and wrought in the soul by a supernatural, irresistible, and insuperable power, in the production of which man is purely passive; and to vindicate the passages of scripture made use of in proof of this doctrine, which are objected to.
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