Pastor Larry
I see you been busy. Most of my posts to you are way back on page 27 if you are still there :type:
This is the nub of the one on Westminister Confession -- this "Word and Spirit" by which the "effectual call" comes, it appears to me, like justification from sins of a Catholic infant being baptized. When the priest reads the Word over the infant, who obvously cannot comprehend, Catholics say that the Spirit takes away their "original sin," their "sin guilt from Agam."
That is the "passive role" the WC seems to describe for the "elect" during the "effectual call." It can only happen to those to whom the Spirit directs it (without mentioning their names, mind you, as a good Catholic baptism would). Then that "elect," "discovering" that he/she is being "called," joins the church and begins his/her journey of sanctification therein.
The point is, they are given confirmation classes likely -- they recite the Apostle's Creed with gusto now -- but since they are "elect," there is no need of praying for salvation. Same as it is hard for a Baptist to admit he/she has gone to a Baptist church for years but was never saved in the manner God called for, it is near impossible for a Reform/Calvinist member to do so seeing the thinking there is that we do nothing in salvation -- we are passive in our own salvation.
Is that a decent rendering of "effectual calling?" Without hearing, the "elect" is given discernment of the Word and Spirit?
skypair