Old Lutheran Quote of the Day

Every child is born both a child of wrath and a child of grace. It is a child of wrath, since by inheritance its state is that of spiritual death. It is a child of grace, in so far as it has been comprised in the Scheme of Redemption and the love and mercy of God that devised that scheme go forth in efforts for the application to it of Redemption. It remains a child of wrath so far as the efforts of divine grace to aid it are defeated by the persevering resistance of its will. It becomes a child of grace, not only potentially, but in reality, when divine grace overcomes the natural resistance of its will, and it submits to God; the state of regeneration succeeding that of spiritual death. -- H. E. Jacobs, *Elements* pp. 67,78