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power to resist it or to yield to it. If they yield to it, they will turn to Christ in repentance and
faith. These movements of the soul are not (as in Calvinism) the results of regeneration, but are
merely introductory to the state of grace properly so called. When their faith really terminates
in Christ, this faith is, for the sake of the merits of Christ, imputed to them for righteousness.
This does not mean that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to them as their very own, but
that, in view of what Christ did for sinners, their faith, which involves the principle of
obedience, honesty of heart, and good dispositions, is accepted in lieu of a perfect obedience
and is reckoned to them for righteousness. On this basis, then, they are justified, which in the
Arminian scheme generally simply means that their sins are pardoned, and not that they are
accepted as righteous. Arminians often put it in this form: The forgiveness of sins is based on
the merits of Christ, but acceptance with God rests on man’s obedience to the law or
evangelical obedience. Faith not only serves to justify, but also to regenerate sinners. It insures
to man the grace of evangelical obedience and this, if allowed to function through life, issues in
the grace of perseverance. However, the grace of God is always resistible and amissible.
The so-called Wesleyan or Evangelical Arminian does not entirely agree with the Arminianism of
the seventeenth century. While his position shows greater affinity with Calvinism than the
original Arminianism does, it is also more inconsistent. It admits that the guilt of Adam’s sin is
imputed to all his descendants, but at the same time holds that all men are justified in Christ,
and that therefore this guilt is at once removed, at birth. It also admits the entire moral
depravity of man in the state of nature, but goes on to stress the fact that no man exists in that
state of nature, since there is a universal application of the work of Christ through the Holy
Spirit, by which the sinner is enabled to co-operate with the grace of God. It emphasizes the
necessity of a supernatural (hyper-physical) work of grace to effect the sinner’s renovation and
sanctification. Moreover, it teaches the doctrine of Christian perfection or entire sanctification
in the present life. It may be added that, while Arminius made the bestowal on man of an ability
to co-operate with God a matter of justice, Wesley regarded this as a matter of pure grace. This
is the type of Arminianism with which we mostly come in contact. We meet with it, not only in
the Methodist Church, but also in large sections of other Churches, and especially in the many
undenominational Churches of the present day.
II. The Operation of the Holy Spirit in General
A. TRANSITION TO THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.
As already intimated in the preceding, in passing from Christology to Soteriology, we pass from
the objective to the subjective, from the work which God accomplished for us in Christ and
which is in its sacrificial aspect a finished work, to the work which He realizes as time goes on in
the hearts and lives of believers, and in which they are permitted, and also expected, to co-