Garrett on Charnock

Brother Garrett has asserted that my criticism of his view of effectual calling is refuted by the passages of Stephen Charnock that he quoted (here).

Brother Garrett stated:

"Stephen Charnock wrote, in his sermon "A Discourse of the Word, the Instrument of Regeneration," the following as it relates to the efficient and instrumental causes of regeneration.  These citations refute the argumentation of Jason Brown, Hardshell apologist, wherein he argued that the instrumental cause must be viewed as the efficient cause."


My principal point is that it is perfectly clear that to the spiritually dead, carnal man, the instrument of the gospel is not instrumental except as the effect of the Spirit; the gospel is instrumental as the object of the faith and life effected by the Spirit - it is not instrumental to the Spirit's work per se, only the immediate effects of the Spirit in faith, however absolute these effects be.  In this wise it is a misnomer to refer to the gospel as an instrumental cause of regeneration when it cannot logically be instrumental to the immediate work of the Spirit.  This view is "sayable", but, carried to it's logical conclusion, it is not really thinkable.

The pertinent question is how the gospel is instrumental by the Spirit in causing faith in carnal man.  The gospel is simply propositional truth about Christ.  This propositional truth is used by the Spirit to effect faith in the carnal mind, presumably. But how is it that the Spirit effects faith literally by the propositional truth of the gospel?  Faith is mental assent and trust.  How is this drawn out through the gospel by the Spirit?  The Spirit grants the capacity for faith in carnal man, surely immediately.  Even Garrett argues that this is done immediately, but, then, the gospel is not an instrumental cause of this immediate act.  It is clear, then, in admitting that the creation of faith is immediate by the Spirit, Garrett cannot argue that gospel propositions are instrumental to this immediate act, and contradicts himself in claiming to hold to Charnock's inchoate view.


The carnal man does not have the spiritual capacity to exercise faith in the gospel apart from the agency of the Spirit (1 Cor. 2:14), so what exactly is the account here of how the carnal mind embraces the gospel by the Spirit without the Spirit not being the antecedent cause of gospel instrumentality in faith and repentance?  

When the Spirit first moves the carnal man to freely embrace the gospel, how is the Spirit's moving of the carnal man mediated meaningfully through the gospel when he is still carnal and incapable of spiritual discernment?  When the Spirit moves the carnal man how is it meaningfully "through the gospel"?  How is he quickened meaningfully by gospel propositions when he is dead and incapable of profiting in understanding the propositions until after he is quickened?  

Charnock states, "The Word of Christ is first Spirit, then life."  The essential question that must be addressed is this: how are the gospel propositions Spirit?  If they are Spirit in that they convey the Spirit, they effect life in that they convey the Spirit, not that understanding of the words can be meaningfully asserted before the spirit effects life and understanding.  What is the essential thing by which the carnal man is reborn?  Charnock argues that the Spirit effects life by the gospel, but the understanding of men that are, logically, yet carnal precludes meaningful instrumentality, and his view dissolves into a logical denial of 1 Cor. 2:14. 


I, or any Primitive Baptist, argue that the gospel, as propositional truth declared by men, is instrumental to conversion to discipleship, and that God, by the Spirit, is the efficient cause of it.

The fundamental difference between Charnock and the Primitive Baptist view of effectual calling is that Charnock views the conversion to open discipleship as a sine qua non of effectual calling in those "grown up (adults)" or of God's "ordinary" method of effectual calling, but, like the LCF, this is arbitrarily asserted in view of the effectual calling allowed in Charnock and the LCF in those, like infants, apart from the gospel, who are effectually called "extraordinarily".

If Charnock, and the LCF are understood as arguing that the gospel as preached by man is the instrumental cause of spiritual life in the sense that the gospel is the instrumental cause of faith, which is the immediate effect of the Spirit, this is perfectly reasonable to those effectually called under the sound of the gospel.  They cannot logically argue that the gospel is instrumental to the moving cause of life, but that the gospel is instrumental to spiritual life because it is the content of the gospel that must be embraced as a necessary condition of spiritual life. It is only in this sense that gospel "instrumentality" can be logically argued.  The point I have made is, even considering an effectual call made through the word, knowledge of the word cannot be meaningfully asserted as instrumental to the first cause of life, which is the Spirit.  The instrumentality of the gospel can only logically refer to the spiritual life effected by the Spirit in the faith exercised, which may have has as it's object the word or the content of the gospel, which is Christ.

Is it correct, then, to say that the instrumental cause of the effectual call is the gospel?  Strictly by logic it cannot be asserted reasonably because the instrumentality of the gospel as a cause of faith can only be meaningfully understood of those already moved by the Spirit.  The instrumentality of the gospel cannot be affirmed as instrumental until the dead have been raised and the capacity for faith established.  Spiritual resurrection mediated through the gospel is a void instrument on the deaf ears of the unregenerate until faith in the gospel is effected by the Spirit.  Spiritual resurrection cannot be argued as simultaneous with gospel belief, as, if the Spirit is not the antecedent cause, this would remove all logical basis to say that only the Spirit is the efficient cause.

Charnock is unclear on how the carnal man's understanding of the word as an instrumental cause of regeneration can be formulated without the Spirit's operation being viewed as antecedent to gospel belief.  His view, upon logical analysis, collapses into the view that the Spirit alone must be an antecedent cause of any meaningful sense of gospel "instrumentality".  Any clarification of what he meant relative to Total Depravity would collapse into affirming the necessity of the Spirit's immediate and antecedent work.