Chapter 10. Of Effectual Calling

Chapter 10. Of Effectual Calling

I. All those whom God hath predestinated unto life, and those only, he is pleased, in his appointed and accepted time, effectually to call,²²³ by his Word and Spirit,²²⁴ out of that state of sin and death, in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ;²²⁵ enlightening their minds, spiritually and savingly, to understand the things of God;²²⁶ taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them an heart of flesh;²²⁷ renewing their wills, and by his almighty power determining them to that which is good,²²⁸ and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ;²²⁹ yet so as they come most freely, being made willing by his grace.²³⁰

II. This effectual call is of God's

free and special grace alone, not from any thing at all foreseen in man;²³¹ who is altogether passive therein, until, being quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit,²³² he is thereby enabled to answer this call, and to embrace the grace offered and conveyed in it.²³³

III. Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit,²³⁴ who worketh when, and where, and how he pleaseth.²³⁵ So also are all other elect persons, who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word.²³⁶

IV. Others, not elected, although they may be called by the ministry of the Word,²³⁷ and may have some common operations of the Spirit,²³⁸ yet they never truly come unto²³⁹ Christ, and therefore can not be saved:²⁴⁰ much less can men, not professing the Christian religion, be saved in any other way whatsoever, be they never so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of nature and the law of that religion they do profess;²⁴¹ and to assert and maintain that they may is

very pernicious, and to be detested.²⁴²