lso. For on this point also
grievous and dangerous views and practices prevail. Human nature tends
to extremes. Here too, there is a tendency to go too far, either in
the one direction or the other. There are those, on the one hand, who
virtually and practically make this change of heart and of nature a
_human_ work. They practically deny the agency of the Holy
Spirit, or His means of Grace. On the other hand, there are those
whose ideas and teachings would rid man of all responsibility in the
matter, and make of him a mere machine, that is _irresistibly_
moved and controlled from above.

Is either of the above views the correct and scriptural one? If
not, what is the Bible doctrine on this subject? What has the human
will--_i.e._, the choosing and determining faculty of the mind--to do
with conversion? What, if any part of the work, is to be ascribed to
it? Is it a factor in the process? If so, in what respect, and to what
extent? Where does its activity begin or end? In how far is the human
will responsible for the accomplishment or non-accomplishment of this
change? These questions we shall endeavor briefly and plainly to
answer.

We must necessarily return to man as he is before his conversion,
while still in his natural, sinful, unrenewed state. In this state of
sin, the will shares, in common with all the other parts of his being,
the ruin and corruption resulting from the fall. The natural man has
the "_understanding darkened;_" "_is alienated from the life of
God, through the ignorance that is in him, because of the blindness of
his heart_." He "_receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God
... neither can he know them_." He is "_in darkness_," "_dead in
trespasses and sins_."

Thus is the _whole man_ in darkness, blindness, ignorance,
slavery to Satan, and at enmity with God. He is in a state of
spiritual death. The will is equally affected by this total depravity.
If the natural man cannot even _see_, _discern_, or _know_ the things
of the Spirit, how much less can he _will to do_ them!

Before his conversion, man is utterly impotent "_to will or to
do_" anything towards his renewal. The strong words of Luther, as
quoted in the Form of Concord, are strictly scriptural: "In spiritual
and divine things which pertain to the salvation of the soul, man is
like a pillar of salt, like Lot's wife, yea, like a log and a stone,
like a lifeless statue, which uses neither eyes nor mouth, neither