My goal is to understand the scriptures-not to support a doctrine. I would include "drawing" as part of 1) illumination and 2) confession. As with Cornelius God illumination lead to Cornelius confession.
That is how the scriptures define drawing. Not as man making an intellectual choice. There is no scriptural support for that interpretation.
(gently)
You have now introduced Cornelius' "confession" into your interpretation, and with nary a cite or definition in support of it. And I'm sure you know the concept of a "confession" made by Cornelius does not appear in scripture.
Scripture is silent on when Cornelius made a "confession" whatever that might have been. You are arguing from silence again.
So for your position to now include God's "drawing" as part of "confession and illumination", all three of which followed Cornelius' belief (in your interpretation), implies therefore his belief still preceded everything, including now God's drawing!
I would disagree. God's drawing preceded Cornelius belief and is not part of scriptural regneration.
Unless of course you wish to argue his belief was a false belief, in which case why were his prayers a memorial to God and was his confession based on a false belief?
Rather than simply accept that scripture records that Cornelius first believed what he'd heard about the God of the Israelites and Jesus, and later the angel visited, and later still the Holy Spirit fell, you have constructed a house of terminological cards, adding one after the other not even consistently, to support your doctrine that man can't make an intellectual choice to believe unless the Holy Spirit first regenerates that man and enables the ability to believe.
Can you not see how you stand scripture and English on their heads to achieve this?
Perhaps this would a good point to review the scriptural cites (in my earlier post #246) of precisely man believing (intellectual choosing) after hearing the word and prior to being regenerated, all straight forward English without need to introduce new doctrinal terminology.