the Holy Spirit’ (Tit. 2:5), and bestows new powers of life and activity: ‘the grace of the Holy Spirit and abundance of virtues are given in baptism’.8 Regeneration establishes (though it does not complete) a new order of being from which there comes a new course of life. The sequence is irreversible, regenerate nature preceding regenerate conduct. Regeneration is principally a ‘physical’ work—the establishment of the new nature or physis,9 and only by consequence a moral summons. The Spirit does
Page 125