Of Effectual Calling, X:2

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

The Confession here takes special pains to re-emphasize the sovereignty of God's grace and the essentially monergistic nature of regeneration (which is synonymous with "effectual calling" for all intents and purposes). It also denies the foreknowledge view that insists God's election is based on his perfect foreknowledge of those who will of their own unaided volition exercise faith in Christ. Instead, the unregenerate man is wholly passive--until he is by the Spirit made alive (regenerated) and renewed unto spiritual life he can do nothing to effect his own salvation. Only by the sovereign work of the Spirit within him is he enabled to respond to God's call and accept the grace "offered and conveyed" therein.

This is not what we hear from most evangelical pulpits in America, to the undying shame of the American church. Instead, the "gospel" proclaimed there is man-centered, far more interested in preserving the myth of man's autonomy with respect to salvation than in upholding the biblical teaching that "salvation is of the Lord."

Tomorrow: Infants and salvation.