Of Effectual Calling (2LCF 10)

Jim Butler

Effectual calling — the internal, sovereign act by which God draws his elect from death to life by his Word and Spirit — is the focus of 2nd London Baptist Confession of Faith chapter 10. This study works through all four paragraphs of the chapter, tracing the monergistic character of the call: it originates in God's eternal predestination, operates independently of anything foreseen in the creature, and is accomplished by a power no less than that which raised Christ from the dead. The chapter's handling of elect infants, the mentally incapable, the non-elect, and the heathen is examined in turn, with sustained application to evangelical method, the centrality of the cross in preaching, and the believer's dependence upon God in prayer and witness.