When asked the way to heaven, Bishop Wilberforce replied: “Take the first turn to the right, and go straight forward.” Phillips Brooks’s conversion is described by Professor Allen, Life, 1:266, as consisting in the resolve “to be true to himself, to renounce nothing which he knew to be good, and yet bring all things captive to the obedience of God, ... the absolute surrender of his will to God, in accordance with the example of Christ: ‘_Lo, I am come ... to do thy will, O God_’ (_Heb. 10:7_).” (_b_) This twofold method of representation can be explained only when we remember that man’s powers may be interpenetrated and quickened by the divine, not only without destroying man’s freedom, but with the result of making man for the first time truly free. Since the relation between the divine and the human activity is not one of chronological succession, man is never to wait for God’s working. If he is ever regenerated, it must be in and through a movement of his own will, in which he turns to God as unconstrainedly and with as little consciousness of God’s operation upon him, as if no such operation of God were involved in the change. And in preaching, we are to press upon men the claims of God and their duty of immediate submission to Christ, with the certainty that they who do so submit will subsequently recognize this new and holy activity of their own wills as due to a working within them of divine power. _Ps. 110:3_—“_Thy people offer themselves willingly in the day of thy power._” The act of God is accompanied by an activity of man. Dorner: “God’s act initiates action.” There is indeed an original changing of man’s tastes and affections, and in this man is passive. But this is only the first aspect of regeneration. In the second aspect of it—the rousing of man’s powers—God’s action is accompanied by man’s activity, and regeneration is but the obverse side of conversion. Luther’s word: “Man, in conversion, is purely passive,” is true only of the first part of the change; and here, by “conversion,” Luther means “regeneration.” Melanchthon said better: “Non est enim coäctio, ut voluntas non possit repugnare: trahit Deus, sed volentem trahit.” See Meyer on _Rom. 8:14_—“_led by the Spirit of God_”: “The expression,” Meyer says, “is passive, though without prejudice to the human will, as _verse 13_ proves: ‘_by the Spirit ye put to death the deeds of the body_.’ ”