“Does the Spirit of God, in regeneration, produce a new principle in the heart, or only impart a new light in the understanding!”

The question, as stated by your correspondent, I consider as important, and as admitting of a satisfactory answer. Whether I shall be able to afford him satisfaction, I cannot tell; but will do the best I can towards it. If we were called to determine how or in what manner the Holy Spirit operates upon the human mind, great difficulties might attend our inquiries; but the purport of this question seems to relate, not to the modus of his operations, but to the nature of what is produced. To this I should answer, The Spirit of God in regeneration does produce a new principle in the heart, and not merely impart a new light in the understanding. The reasons for this position are as follow:—

First, That which the Holy Spirit imparts in regeneration corresponds with his own nature: it is holiness, or spirituality: “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” But mere light in the understanding, as distinguished from the bias or temper of the heart, has nothing in it spiritual or holy; it is a mere exercise of intellect, in which there is neither good nor evil. The Scriptures, it is true, make frequent mention of spiritual light, and of such light being imparted by the Spirit of God; but the terms light and knowledge, as frequently used in Scripture, are not to be understood in a literal, but in a figurative sense. As spiritual darkness, or blindness, is not a mere defect of the understanding, so spiritual light is not the mere supplying of such a defect. Each of these terms conveys a compound idea; the one of ignorance and aversion, the other of knowledge and love. Hence the former is described as blindness of the heart, and the latter as understanding with the heart. If I understand any thing of the theory of the human mind, there is a kind of action and reaction of the understanding and the affections upon each other. We are not only affected with things by our judgment concerning them, but we judge of many things as we are affected towards them. Every one feels how easy it is to believe that to be true which corresponds with our inclinations. Now, so far as the decisions of the judgment are the consequence of the temper of the heart, so far are they either virtuous or vicious. Of this kind is spiritual blindness. Men do not like to retain God in their knowledge. They desire not the knowledge of his ways. Hence ignorance, in this figurative or compound sense of the term, is threatened with the most awful judgments: “Pour out thy wrath upon the heathen that know thee not.”—Christ will come “in flaming fire to take vengeance on them that know not God.” Of this kind also is spiritual light. Hence the following language: “I will give them a heart to know me.”—“God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” This is that holy or spiritual knowledge which it is life eternal to possess; of which the natural man is destitute; which would lead us to ask for living water; and which, had the Jewish rulers possessed, “they would not have crucified the Lord of life and glory.”—“Ye neither know me my ray father,” said our Lord to the Jews: “if ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also.” The want of this knowledge was the sin of the Jews; and, as we have seen already, stands threatened with Divine judgments: but the mere want of knowledge, according to the strict and literal meaning of the term, and where it arises not from any evil bias of heart, which has induced us to slight or neglect the means, is not criminal; on the contrary, it excuses that which would otherwise be criminal. Ahimelech pleaded his ignorance of David’s supposed rebellion, before Saul; and it ought, no doubt, to have acquitted him. If the Jews had not enjoyed such means of knowledge as they did, comparatively speaking, they had not had sin.—Further, Spiritual knowledge, or knowledge according to the figurative or compound sense of the term, has the promise of eternal life; but knowledge, literally taken, as distinguished from the temper of the heart, may exist in the most wicked characters, such as Balaam and Judas; and though in itself it be neither good nor evil, yet it may be, and generally is, an occasion of greater aversion to God and religion. Thus our Lord told the Jews: “Ye have both seen and hated both me and my Father.” Thus also many among us who have long sat under the preaching of the gospel, and long been the subjects of keen conviction, feel their enmity keep pace with their knowledge; and thus, at the last judgment, sinners will see and know the equity of their punishment; so that “every mouth will be stopped, and all become guilty before God;” yet the enmity of their hearts, there is reason to think, will be thereby heightened, rather than diminished. In short, mere knowledge is in itself neither good nor evil, though it is essential to both good and evil; that is, it is essential to moral agency. If knowledge were obliterated from the mind, man would cease to be an accountable being. In every condition of existence, therefore, whether pure or depraved, he retains this, in different degrees; and will retain it for ever, whatever be his final state.

From hence I conclude that what is produced by the Holy Spirit in regeneration is something very different from mere knowledge.

Secondly, That which the Holy Spirit produces in regeneration corresponds with the nature of Divine truth; but the nature of Divine truth is such that mere light in the understanding is not sufficient to receive it. In proof of the former of these positions, I refer to the words of the apostle, in Rom. 6:17, “Ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you,” or rather, according to the marginal reading, “into which ye were delivered.”* The gospel, or the “form of doctrine” which it contains, is a mould, into which the heart, softened like melted wax, is as it were, “delivered,” or cast, and whence it receives its impression. Every mark or line of the gospel mould leaves a correspondent line in the renewed heart. Hence Christians are represented as having the “truth dwelling in them;” their hearts being a kind of counterpart to the gospel. That mere light in the understanding is not sufficient to receive the gospel will appear by considering the nature of those truths which it contains. If they were merely objects of speculation, mere light in the understanding would be sufficient to receive them; but they are of a holy nature, and therefore require a correspondent temper of heart to enter into them. The sweetness of honey might as well be known by the sight of the eye as the real glory of the gospel by the mere exercise of the intellectual faculty. Why is it that the “natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them;” but “because they are spiritually discerned?” A spiritual or holy temper of heart is that in the reception of gospel truth which a relish for poetry is in entering into the spirit of a Milton or a Young. Mere intellect is not sufficient to understand those writers; and why should it be thought unreasonable, or even mysterious, that we must possess a portion of the same spirit which governed the sacred writers in order properly to enter into their sentiments?

Thirdly, That which the Holy Spirit communicates in regeneration corresponds with the nature of Divine requirements. In other words, the same thing which is required by God as the Governor of the world is bestowed by the Holy Spirit in the application of redemption; both the one and the other is not mere light in the understanding, but a heart to love him. The language of Divine requirements is as follows:—“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and soul, and mind, and strength.” “Circumcise the foreskin of your hearts, and be no more stiffnecked.”—“Make you a new heart, and a new spirit; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?”—“Only fear the Lord, and serve him in truth, and with all your hearts.” The language of the promises is perfectly correspondent with all this, with respect to the nature of what is bestowed:—“And the Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul.”—“A new heart will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.”—“And I will put my fear in their hearts, and they shall not depart from me.”

Fourthly, That which the Holy Spirit communicates in regeneration, being the great remedy of human nature, must correspond with the nature of the malady: but the malady of human nature does not consist in simple ignorance, but in the bias of the heart; therefore such must be the remedy. That regeneration is the remedy of human nature, and not the implantation of principles which were never possessed by man in his purest state, will appear from its being expressed by the terms “washing” and “renewing;” the washing of regeneration, the renewing of the Holy Spirit; which convey the ideas of restoring us to purity, and recovering us to a right mind. Regeneration implies degeneracy. The nature of that which is produced therefore by the one must correspond with that which we had lost, and be the opposite of that which we possessed in the other. Now that which we had lost was the love of God and our neighbour. “Love is the fulfilling of the law;” love, therefore, comprehends the whole of duty; consequently the want, or the opposite of love, comprehends the whole of depravity. If it be said, No, the “understanding is darkened”—True, but this is owing to the evil temper of the heart, Eph. 4:18.* There is no sin in being ignorant, as observed before, any further than that ignorance is voluntary, or owing to some evil bias. That we are sure is the case with wicked men, with respect to their not understanding the gospel. “Why do ye not understand my speech?” said our Lord to the Jews. The answer is, “Because ye cannot hear my word.” His word did not suit the temper of their hearts; therefore they could not understand it. Prejudice blinded their eyes. Here then lies the malady; and, if the remedy correspond with it, it must consist in being “renewed in the spirit,” or temper, “of our minds;” and not merely in having the intellectual faculty enlightened.

It may be said, we cannot love that of which we have no idea; and therefore light in the understanding is necessary to the exercise of love in the heart. Be it so; it is no otherwise necessary than as it is necessary that I should be a man in order to be a good man. There is no virtue or holiness in knowledge, further than as it arises from some virtuous propensity of the heart, any more than there is in our being possessed of human nature. This, therefore, cannot be the grand object communicated by the Holy Spirit in regeneration.

Should it be further objected, That those who plead for a new light in the understanding mean by it more than mere speculative knowledge—that they mean spiritual or holy light, such as transforms the heart and life; to this I should answer, If so, the light or knowledge of which they speak is something more than knowledge, literally and properly understood: it must include the temper of the heart, and therefore is very improperly distinguished from it.

To represent men as only wanting light is indeed acknowledging their weakness, but not their depravity. To say of a man who hates his fellow man, “He does not know him—if he knew him, he would love him;” is to acknowledge that the enmity towards the injured person is owing to mere mistake, and not to any contrariety of temper or conduct. The best of characters might thus be at variance, though it is a great pity they should, especially for any long continuance. If this be the case between God and man, the latter is not so depraved a creature as we have hitherto conceived him to be. The carnal mind is not enmity against God, but merely against an evil being, which in his ignorance he takes God to be. To this may be added, if sin originate in simple ignorance, (which is supposed, in that the removal of this ignorance is sufficient to render us holy,) then it is no more sin; nor is there any such thing as moral evil in the universe. So far as we can trace our actions to simple ignorance, or ignorance in which we are altogether involuntary; so far, as we have already seen, we may reckon ourselves ignorant, even in those cases wherein, had we not been ignorant, we should have been guilty. These are serious consequences; but such as at present appear to me to be just.

The above is submitted to the consideration of Tardus, and the reader, as the result of the maturest reflections of the writer.

Fuller, A. G. (1988). “The Nature of Regeneration,” Answers to Queries. The Complete Works of Andrew Fuller: Expositions—Miscellaneous (J. Belcher, Ed.; Vol. 3, pp. 776–779). Sprinkle Publications.