INTRODUCTION.

PRACTICAL Discourses on Regeneration are among the most vital wants of this age. Although for the last century much has been written on this great doctrine, nothing has fallen under our observation so popular, so plain, so scriptural, and so practical, as the following production of Dr. Doddridge.

These Discourses were prepared with great care by their excellent author, and delivered on Sabbath evenings to his own flock at Northampton; which embraced, let it be remembered, about forty young men, of his Academy, most of them candidates for the Christian Ministry. They attracted the attention of members of other congregations—"a great many such persons of different persuasions and communions making up a part of the auditory." They were attended with uncommon diligence to the last, and long before the series was finished, were earnestly requested for publication. The request grew more importunate at the close. Strangers from a distance joined in it, including several ministers--believing that what had proved so beneficial in the hearing, would be no less so in the reading, both at home and abroad. "I thought myself bound in duty," says Dr. Doddridge, "at length to comply; which I was the rather encouraged to do from the several instances in which I had reason to believe the Divine blessing had in some measure attended these sermons from the pulpit, and had made them the means of producing and advancing the change they described and enforced."

This was in 1741. It was the period of the "Great Awakening" under the labors of Whitefield, Edwards, and others in this country, the effects of which were felt so powerfully at the time, in breaking up old systems of formalism, and inveterate habits of ungodliness; and which, with all its incidental excesses and evils, has been the main instrument in moulding the evangelical religion of this land, to this day. The impulse then given, the ideas then set forth, with the demonstration and power of the Spirit of God, are yet at work among us for good. It is well known that Drs. Watts and Doddridge shared in this impulse with a vital sympathy. They were in communication with Edwards for years. Northampton in old England and Northampton in New England, were centres of kindred ideas and feelings.

And what was the Great Doctrine, which above all others was made prominent in the preaching of that time of God's power? What was that fundamental and fruitful Truth, which, before unknown, or inoperative because misunderstood, or neglected, now shook society to its centre, and cleared away old and worthless foundations, in order to rear anew the Spiritual Temple of the Most High? What but this very Doctrine of Regeneration, to the discussion of which the following pages are so wisely and yet so warmly devoted.

The same great Truth, which in the age of Christ and his Apostles swept away the false hopes of hereditary profession—"the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God"—became again the Ruling Idea of the Age of Revival. So testifies the historian of "The Great Awakening." Speaking of this period he says, "The history of religious opinions and practices shows, that the most important practical idea, which then received increased prominence and power, and has held its place ever since, was the idea of the New Birth." "This doctrine of the New Birth, as an ascertainable change, was not generally prevalent in any communion, when the revival commenced; it was urged as of fundamental importance by the leading promoters of the revival; it took strong hold of those whom the revival affected; it naturally led to such questions as the revival brought up, and caused to be discussed; its perversions grew into, or associated with such errors as the revival promoted; it was adapted to provoke such opposition, and in such quarters, as the revival provoked; and its caricatures would furnish such pictures of the revival as opposers drew."The Great Awakening. By Joseph Tracy, Boston, 1842, p. ix. Preface.

When it is said above that the doctrine of the new birth was not generally prevalent in any communion before the beginning of the Great Revival, we must understand that while held as a part of an orthodox creed, it was not generally preached, and consistently applied. In some communions, as, for instance, in the Church of Rome and in the Church of England, the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration prevailed. In New England the scheme of church membership, called the "Half-Way Covenant," had been generally adopted, with an effect almost equally fatal. Men of sounder views in Congregational and Presbyterian churches--to say nothing of the Lutheran, and Dutch and German Reformed--found their evangelical teaching on this point unpalatable to those who had been trained to believe that by baptism in infancy they were brought into covenant with God. These and similar causes had lulled conscience asleep as with stupefying opiates, and "the form of godliness" to a great extent had supplanted its "power."

The scriptural doctrine of the New Birth struck at the root of all these forms of error. It was mighty through God. It became the leading idea of the age. "Ye must be born again," flashed from every pulpit, and penetrated every heart.

This great idea must in like manner take possession of our age, or Formalism will return. It must breathe into our countrymen the breath of a new life, or we shall become like the dry bones in the Valley of Vision. It must be set forth in our pulpits with all possible scriptural plainness; guarded from all perversion, on the right hand and on the left; fortified at every point by the testimony of God; and pressed to its genuine and resistless applications. All this must be done before the Church of Christ can rise again in her original beauty and vigor, or spread to her predestined greatness and glory—as the joy of the whole earth.

J. N. B.

Philadelphia, Dec. 13, 1854.

CONTENTS.

DISCOURSE I.

OF THE CHARACTER OF THE UNREGENERATE.

Ephes. ii. 1, 2.

And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.

AMONG all the various trusts which men can repose in each other, hardly any appears to be more solemn and tremendous, than the direction of their sacred time, and especially of those hours which they spend in the exercise of public devotion. These seasons take up so small a part of our lives, when compared with that which the labors and recreations of them demand; and so much depends upon their being managed aright, that we, who are called to assist you in the employment and improvement of them, can hardly be too solicitous, that we discharge the trust, in a manner which we may answer to God and to you.

If this thought dwell upon the mind with due weight, it will have some sensible influence upon our discourses to you, as well as on the strain of those addresses which we present to the Throne of Grace in your name, and on your account. We shall not be over-anxious about the order of words, the elegance of expression, or the little graces of composition or delivery; but shall study to speak on the most important subjects, and to handle them with such gravity and seriousness, with such solemnity and spirit, as may, through the Divine blessing, be most likely to penetrate the hearts of our hearers; to awaken those that are entirely unconcerned about religion, and to animate and assist those, who, being already acquainted with it, desire to make continual advances—which will be the case of every truly good man.

It is my earnest prayer for myself, and for my brethren in the ministry of all denominations, that we may, in this respect, approve our wisdom and integrity to God, and commend ourselves to the consciences of all men. 2 Cor. iv. 9. It is our charge, as we shall answer it another day to the God of the spirits of all flesh, to use our prudent and zealous endeavors, to make men truly wise and good, virtuous and happy: but to this purpose, it is by no means sufficient to content ourselves, merely with attempting to reform the immoralities and irregularities of their lives, and to bring them to an external behavior, decent, honorable, and useful. An undertaking like this, while the inward temper is neglected, even when it may seem most effectual, will be but like painting the face of one who is ready to die, or laboring to repair a ruinous house, by plastering and adorning its walls, while its foundations are decayed. There is an awful passage in Ezekiel to this purpose, which I hope we shall often recollect; (Ezek. xiii. 10-14;) "Wo to the foolish prophets--because they have seduced my people, saying Peace, when there was no peace; and one built up a wall, and lo, others daubed it with untempered mortar: say unto them that daub it with untempered mortar, that it shall fall:—Thus saith the Lord God, I will even rend it with a stormy wind in my fury: and there shall be an overflowing shower in mine anger, and great hailstones in my fury to consume it: so will I break down the wall that ye have daubed with untempered mortar, and bring it down to the ground, so that the foundation thereof shall be discovered, and it shall fall, and ye shall be consumed in the midst thereof; and ye shall know that I am the Lord."

If there be any, in one body of Christians or another, that abet men's natural disposition to flatter themselves in a way that is not good, by encouraging them to hope for salvation, because they were baptized in their infancy; because they have diligently attended on public worship, or merely because they do nobody any harm, but are rather kind and helpful to others; or because their faith is orthodox, their transports of affection warm, or their assurance confident; I pray God to awaken them by the power of his grace, before they are consumed, with their hearers, in the ruins of their deceitful-building.

Those of you who are my stated hearers can witness for me, that in this respect I have delivered my own soul. Ezek. xxxiii. 9. It has been the steady tenor of my doctrine among you, that our hope and confidence must be in Christ, and not in ourselves; and that, if we desire to be interested in the righteousness he has wrought out, and in the blessings he has purchased by his sacred blood, we must be experimentally acquainted with the work of God's renewing grace upon our souls, curing the inward distempers of our degenerate hearts, and transforming us into the image of his holiness. That is what we are taught in Scripture to call by the name of Regeneration; and considering how much the subject is neglected by some, and I fear I may add, misrepresented and disguised by others, I apprehend I shall profitably employ an evening hour for several succeeding Sabbaths, in giving a larger account than I have yet done, of the scripture doctrine on this important subject and its various parts.

It shall be my care, in the series of these discourses, as God shall enable me, to speak the words of truth and soberness; (Acts xxvi. 27;) and I entreat you to have recourse to the law and to the testimony, (Isa. viii. 20,) that ye may judge of the truth and weight of what I say. I desire not to be regarded any farther, than I produce evidence from reason and scripture; but so far as we are disregarded while we have the concurrent testimony of both, our hearers must see to it; and their danger will then be proportionable to the importance of those truths, which their negligence, or their prejudice, engage them either to reject, or to overlook.

The plan, on which I intend to proceed in the course of these lectures, is this: I will endeavor to describe the character of those whom we may properly call persons in an unregenerate state. I will describe the nature of that change, which may properly be called regeneration, or conversion. I will show at large the absolute necessity of this change, and the consequent misery of those that are strangers to it. I shall endeavor to prove the reality and necessity of the Divine influences on the mind, in the production of such a change. I shall describe some of those various methods, by which God is pleased to operate in the production of this holy and important work. I shall propose some advice to those who are already awakened, as to the method in which they are to seek renewing and converting grace. After which, I shall conclude these discourses with an address to those who have experienced this happy change, as to the manner in which they ought to be affected with such a series of sermons as this, and the improvement they should make of what they hear and what they have felt agreeable to it.

I should be peculiarly inexcusable, if I entered upon such a subject, without earnest and importunate prayers to the Fountain of light, grace, and holiness, that while you hear of this important doctrine, you may have that experimental knowledge of it, without which such discourses will indeed seem obscure and enthusiastical, according to the degree in which they are rational and spiritual. I shall only add that these lectures will take their rise from a variety of texts, which I shall not, according to my usual method, largely open and dilate upon, but only touch on them as so many mottoes to the respective sermons to which they are prefixed.

As I intend not philosophical essays, but plain, practical, and popular addresses, I shall begin,

First, With describing the CHARACTER OF THOSE WHOM WE MAY PROPERLY CALL UNCONVERTED AND UNREGENERATE PERSONS. It is absolutely necessary that I should do this, that you may respectively know your own personal concern in what is further to be laid before you in the process of these lectures.

Now you have the general character of such, in the words of my text; and a very sad one it is. They are represented, as dead in trespasses and sins, utterly indisposed both for the actions and enjoyments of the spiritual and divine life; as walking according to the course of this world, a sad intimation that it was the state of the generality of mankind; nay, according to the prince of the power of the air, that impure and wicked spirit, who works, or exerts his energy, in the children of disobedience, that is, in those who reject and despise the gospel; in which it is implied, and a dreadful implication it is, that the course and conduct of those, who reject the gospel, is according to the desire and instigation of the prince of darkness: they are going on as the devil himself would have them, and choose that path for themselves, which he chooses for them, as leading them to most certain and most aggravated ruin.

And who are these unhappy persons? Surely there must be some of them among us: for who can flatter himself, that in so numerous an assembly, the course of all is different from that of the world: and that all have happily triumphed over the artifices of that accursed spirit, who is, by God's righteous permission, become its prince, while it continues in its apostate state? I shall however think it a very happy point gained, if I could convince any of you, who are justly liable to that conviction, that you are the men; if I could, as it were, render visible to your eyes those subtile, yet strongly complicated chains, in which Satan is binding you, and by which he is drawing you on to eternal ruin; that you might recover yourselves out of the snare of the devil, who are led captive by him at his will.

I am now to describe the character of unregenerate men; but I cannot pretend to do it in all the variety of circumstances which may attend it. I shall therefore mention only some particulars which are most important, and which most certainly demonstrate a person to be of that wretched number. There are a great variety of countenances in the human species; yet the principal features in all are the same, though their proportion and lineaments may differ: and I apprehend, the characters which I am now to lay down, will most of them suit every unregenerate person, though they may appear in various persons in different degrees and different instances. I shall chiefly lay down these characters in negatives, as I apprehend it is the safest way: and would only observe, what you may easily imagine, that I speak only of the adult; for I would cautiously avoid entangling this Discourse with what relates purely to the case of infants, lest Satan should get an advantage over us, and turn that into an occasion to amuse curiosity, which I humbly hope, under the influence of the Spirit of God, will be a means of awakening conviction, and of breaking that delusive peace, in which, like the strong man armed, he keeps his vassals, till the fatal hour come which is to complete their ruin.

To waive the formality of labored demonstrations in a case which admits of such easy evidence, I shall go upon this obvious principle in the whole of my reasoning: That to be regenerate, and to be born of God, are in scripture terms of the same import; and consequently, that whatever temper and disposition is in scripture declared to be inconsistent with the character of a child of God, must necessarily denominate a man an unregenerate person. And one would think this principle could hardly be disputed, since all that allow of regeneration at all, in a Christian sense, seem to understand by it, that change, whatever it is, by which a person is made a child of God, and by consequence an heir of heaven.

Now on this principle, you may take the marks of an unregenerate person in such particulars as these; and let those, whose conscience owns them, hear and tremble.

1. The soul that never seriously inquired into its spiritual state, is, beyond all doubt, an unregenerate soul.

The Apostle earnestly presses it upon the Christians to whom he wrote, that they should diligently examine themselves whether they were in the faith; (2 Cor. xiii. 5;) and he who has entirely neglected to do it, seems to express, not merely a forgetfulness of religion, but even a contempt of it too. Nevertheless, be it known unto you, Sirs, that an humble return to God, and a cordial dedication of soul to his service, is not so slight an act of a man's life, that it should pass without any observation in doing it, or any serious reflection on having done it. Religion is a deliberate thing; it brings a man seriously to consider his ways, that he may turn his feet to God's commandments; (Psal. cxix. 59;) to search and try them, that he may turn again unto the Lord. Lam. iii. 40. A good man is so impressed with the thoughts of God, and of eternity, that perhaps he is rather ready to be over anxiously afraid and suspicious, in a matter of so great importance: and therefore will review on the one hand, the plan of salvation that God has laid down in his word, and on the other, the correspondency to it that he may discover in his own soul; and if there are any of you that have never been thus employed, any that have never separated yourselves awhile from other employments, that you might seek and intermeddle with this Divine wisdom, (Prov. xviii. 1,) you are assuredly strangers to it. If there are any of you that have never studied God's word, to learn his will from thence; that have never attended to sermons, that you might try yourselves by them, and, if possible, carry home something of the chief of what you hear, to assist your retired, and more diligent inquiries; you may now come to a very quick conclusion, and before you leave this place, yea, before I proceed to any further particulars, you may set it down as the memorable beginning of these lectures, and of this discourse, "I am already proved to be an unregenerate creature: I am in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity." Acts viii. 23. Nay, you may add, that there are perhaps thousands of those that are unregenerate sinners, who have not been so careless and so insensible as you. For, indeed, Sirs, a man may begin an examination, and start back from the prosecution of it, before it is brought to any important issue; or trying himself by false characters, he may come to a conclusion, which will be so much the more dangerous, as it has been the more deliberate. For the sake of such therefore, I add,

2. The soul that is not deeply convinced of its guilt before God, and desirous to seek deliverance from it by the Lord Jesus Christ, is still in an unregenerate state.

All the promises of God's paternal favor do certainly imply the promise of forgiveness; and you well know, that these are appropriated to such as humble themselves before God: and that humbling which is merely external, and implies no deep sense of inward guilt can pass for very little with that God, who searches the heart, and tries the reins of the children of men. Jer. xvii. 10.

The Scripture assures us, that whosoever believes that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God; (1 John v. 1;) and nothing can be more certain from the whole tenor of it, than that he that believes not, shall be damned, (Mark xvi. 16,) and surely a state of damnation is not, and cannot be, a state of regeneration. But what is this faith in Christ? Is it no more than a bare notional persuasion, that he is the Son of God? If this were all, the devils themselves believe; (Jam. ii. 19;) and many were the instances, in which you know that they confessed it, and trembled before him. You cannot then be ignorant, that the faith, to which the promises of salvation are made, is a faith, which receives the Lord Jesus Christ in all his offices; which trusts his atonement, as well as admits his revelation; and flies to him for righteousness and life. And how can that man seek righteousness from Christ, who is insensible to his own guilt? or how can he depend on him for life, who is not aware that he is under a sentence of death and condemnation?

But imagine not you are secure, because you acknowledge yourselves to be sinners. If that acknowledgment be slight and formal, it shows you are strangers to the operation of that Spirit, whose office it is to convince men of sin. John xvi. 8. If you have not been made sensible of the pollution of your hearts as well as the rebellion of your lives; if you have not received as it were a sentence of death in yourselves, and submitted to that sentence as righteous, though ever so dreadful; if you have not been made to loathe and abhor yourselves, and to repent in dust and ashes; (Job xliii. 5;) if you have not laid your hand on your mouth, (Mich. vii. 16,) and your mouth in the dust, (Lam. iii. 29,) crying out, Unclean, unclean, (Lev. xiii. 46,) and in this sense at least, adopted that pathetic complaint, O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me? (Rom. vii. 24,) it is a certain sign, that sin still reigns in your mortal bodies, (Rom. vi. 12,) and is unto this day bringing forth fruit unto death. Rom. vii. 5.

3. The soul that is unconcerned about the favor of God, and communion with him, is still in an unregenerate state.

Common reason may tell you, that a soul destitute of the love of God, can never be the object of his complacential regards; and that it is impossible you should love him, while you are unconcerned about his favor, and habitually indifferent to converse with him. You believe there is a God; you acknowledge that he is the great benefactor of the whole world; you know your happiness depends upon his favor; you wish therefore that you may enjoy it; that is, you wish that some way or other you may be happy, rather than miserable. But let conscience say, whether you have ever felt, that in his favor is life; (Psal. xxx. 5;) whether you have ever known what it is to cry out with intenseness and ardor of soul, Lord lift up the light of thy countenance upon me. Psal. iv. 6. Alas, Sirs, had you been sons, God would have sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts; (Gal. iv. 6;) and if this be not the sincere, if it be not the habitual language of your soul; if you do not thus earnestly desire to live under the manifestations of the divine love, and to be able to say, truly our communion is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ; (1 John i. 3;) you are spiritually dead, and under the fatal influences of that carnal mind, which, being enmity against God, (Rom. viii. 7,) engages men to live contented without God in the world, (Eph. ii. 12,) so long as their corn and their wine increase. Psal. iv. 7. A heart, thus alienated from God, was never savingly turned to him, and can have no just reason to imagine itself the object of his paternal favor.

4. The soul that is destitute of a sincere love to mankind, has reason to consider itself as in an unregenerate state.

You may, perhaps, think it unnecessary to mention this; but the Apostle was undoubtedly a much better judge, and his own words suggest this particular to me: Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth, is born of God, and knoweth God; he that loveth not, knoweth not God, and consequently cannot be born of him; for God is love. 1 John iv. 7, 8. And our Lord strongly intimates the same thought, when he exhorts his disciples to the most universal and unlimited benevolence by this argument, that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven; (Matt. v. 45;) plainly implying, that otherwise they could not really be born of God, or claim him for their Father. Regeneration is to form a man for intimate communion with the general assembly and church of the first born, (Heb. xii. 23,) and to prepare him for the region of complete and everlasting love; and the first fruits of it are to appear, and to be manifested here. It is a faithful saying, that they who believe in God should be careful to maintain good works; (Tit. iii. 8;) and unfeigned love is to be the root of them; so that if you cannot stand this trial, your religious hopes are all delusive and vain.

Let me entreat you therefore, that you would now look into your lives and hearts. Do any of the malignant passions harbor there? Ask yourselves, "Is there any of my fellow-creatures, whom I wish to see miserable; or would make so, if it were in my power to do it by the secret act of my will, so that no mortal on earth should ever know me to be the cause of the calamity?" If it be so, and this be your settled temper, you hate your brethren and are murderers; (1 John iii. 15;) and therefore are the children of the devil, who was a murderer from the beginning; and we may thus say of you in the very words of our Lord, who never uttered a rash censure: You are of your father the devil, for his passions you cherish, and his lust you would do. John viii. 44.

But reflect farther, If you wish others no harm, do you really wish them well? and that so really, and so sincerely, as to be ready to do them good? For merely to say unto them, depart in peace, be warmed and filled, (Jam. ii. 16,) when you have it in your power to help them, is at once to mock the poor, and to despise him that made him. Prov. xvii. 5. You that are conscious of a mean selfish temper, and wrap yourselves up, as it were, in your own separate interests, or in those of your own families, and can feel a concern for no others; you that devise what you may imagine shrewd and prudent things, but none that are liberal and compassionate; you whose eye does not affect your heart, when you see the distresses of your brethren, while you have this world's good, how dwelleth the love of God in you? 1 John iii. 17. How can you imagine you are the children of him, whom you so little resemble?

Nay, permit me to add once more upon this, that if all your compassion is only moved by men's temporal calamities, and works not in any degree with respect to their spiritual and eternal interests, you have reason to fear, that it is no better than an unsanctified humanity; and indeed, that you never have learnt the worth of your own souls, while you set so little value on the souls of others, even of those, to whom you profess and intend friendship. And this concluding hint is of importance to prevent a dangerous mistake, in which too many good natured sinners are ready to flatter themselves, and in which, perhaps, others are too ready to join in flattering them.

5. He that does not know what it is, to struggle with indwelling sin, and heartily to resolve against indulging it in any kind or degree, is undoubtedly still in an unregenerate state.

You will observe, I do not say, that every one who knows what it is, to feel a struggle in his own mind, when assaulted by temptations to sin, is a truly good man: the contrary is dreadfully apparent. A principle of natural conscience often makes very strong remonstrances against sin, and sends out bitter cries when subjected to its violence; and this is so far from denominating a, man a real Christian, that it rather illustrates the power of sin, and aggravates its guilt. But when a man's inclinations run entirely one way, and when he gives a swing to his natural passions without any guard or restraint; when he is a stranger to any inward conflict with himself, and any victory over his own lusts, and his corrupted will; it is a certain sign, he is yet under the dominion of Satan, and is to be numbered among the tamest of his slaves. For they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts; (Gal. v. 24;) have learnt to deny themselves, (Matt. xvi. 24,) and to mortify their members upon the earth. Col. iii. 5.

It is also of great importance to add, that there must be a resolution to oppose sin in every kind, and in every degree; for he that is born of God sinneth not; (1 John v. 18;) nay, it is elsewhere said, He cannot commit sin; (1 John iii. 9;) and though it is too visibly true in fact, and apparent from several other passages in the very Epistle whence these words are taken, that this expression is to be interpreted with some limitation; yet the least that it can be imagined to signify is this, that he does not wilfully allow himself in the practice of any sin. He has learnt to hate every false way, and to esteem all God's precepts, concerning all things to be right; (Psal. cxix. 128;) so that upon the whole, if he might have his request, and God would grant him the thing that he longs for, (Job vi. 3,) it would be this, to sin no more, and get rid of every sentiment, desire, and affection, in any degree contrary to the purity of God's nature and law. If, therefore, there be any of you, that spare one accursed thing, though you should seem eager on destroying all the rest--if it be the secret language of your soul, "There is but one lust that I will indulge; there is but one temptation that I will comply with;" I perceive your hearts are not right in the sight of God; (Acts viii. 21;) for though you could according to your pretended purpose, keep all the rest of the law, and yet offend in this one point alone, you would, in effect, be a transgressor of all. Jam. ii. 10. In short, He that commitetth sin is of the devil; (1 John iii. 8;) but he that is begotten of God, keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not. 1 John v. 18.

6. He that does not know what it is, to overcome this world, and to place his happiness in another, is yet in an unregenerate state.

This is another of those certain marks, which God has given us of his own children. Whatsoever is born of God--as it is very emphatically expressed in the original--overcometh the world. 1 John v. 4. (πᾶν τὸ γεγεννημένον ἐκ του Θεου.) It is not, you see, the extraordinary attainment of a few more eminent Christians; but it is an essential branch of every good man's character; for he is begotten again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, even to the hope of an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away. 1 Pet. i. 3, 4.

You have reason, therefore, to judge very sadly concerning your state, if you are strangers to this lively hope; which is a very different thing from that hope to be saved, of which some people talk in so indolent, not to say in so profane a manner, as to show, that it is the hope of the hypocrite, which will perish, when God takes away his soul. Job viii. 13; xxvii. 3. If you are conscious to yourselves, that you mind earthly things, your end will be destruction, (Phil. iii. 19,) for having your heart on earth, it is plain your only treasure is here; (Matt. vi. 21;) and if you govern yourselves by worldly maxims alone, and your great care be to obtain those riches and honors, which the children of the world pursue; if the importance of eternity has never appeared in such a light, as to make you judge everything trifling that can come in competition with it; nay, whatever your views of eternity have been, if you are not practically carrying on a scheme for it: and if you cannot, and do not, deny your worldly interest, when it cannot be secured without hazarding your eternal hopes; it is plain you are friends of the world, in such a sense as none can be, but he must be an enemy of God. Jam. iv. 4. If indeed you were dead to the world, and your life hid with Christ in God, you would set your affections on things above, on those things which are there where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God; (Col. iii. 1, 2, 3;) but the want of this temper shows that you are carnally minded, which it is death to be; (Rom. viii. 6;) and that the redeeming love of Christ has never exerted its influence upon your souls, nor his cross had any due efficacy upon you; for if it had, the world would have been crucified to you, and you to the world. Gal. vi. 14.

7. The soul that does not long for greater improvements in the divine life, is still a stranger to the first principles of it.

You know, that we are called, as Christians, with an high and holy calling; (Phil. iii. 14; 2 Tim. i. 9;) and as he that is the author of this calling is holy, so are we to be holy in all manner of conversation, (1 Pet. i. 15,) and to be perfect, even as our Father which is in heaven is perfect. Matt. v. 48. Here will therefore be room for improvement, not only during our continuance in the present life, but through all the ages of a glorious eternity; and it is the ardent desire of every good man, that in this sense above all others, his path may be like the shining light, that shineth more and more, until the perfect day. Prov. iv. 18. And this is the one thing that he does, or that in which all his labors centre; being conscious to himself how far he is from having already attained, or being already perfect, forgetting the things that are behind, he reacheth forth unto those things that are before, and presses toward the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Phil. iii. 12-14. In this view he seriously considers the circumstances of life in which Providence has placed him; that he may observe the advantages, which these circumstances give him for religious improvements; and it is delightful to him to discover such advantages.

Now if there be any of you, who know nothing of this temper, you are certainly in an unregenerate state; for none can be born of God, that do not love him; and none can truly love him, that do not earnestly desire, more and more to resemble him. So that if your hearts can indulge such a thought as this, "I wish I knew how much religion would be just sufficient to save me, and r would go so far, and stop there;" your conscience must tell you that you secretly hate religion, and are unwillingly dragged towards the form of it, by an unnatural and external violence--the fear of misery and ruin in neglecting it; and that you are not actuated by the free and liberal principle of a nature savingly renewed.

8. The soul that does not know what it is, to live by faith in Christ, and in dependence on his Spirit, is still in an unregenerate state.

We are all the children of God, by faith in Christ Jesus, (Gal. iii. 26,) if indeed we are so at all; and he that is joined to the Lord, in this sense, is one spirit with him. 1 Cor. vi. 17. But if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his, (Rom. viii. 9,) for as God has predestined us to the adoption of children, by Jesus Christ, to himself, (Ephes. i. 5,) so of his fullness it is, that all believers do receive, even grace for grace, (John i. 16,) or an abundance and variety of grace, by virtue of their union with him, who is the head: from whom the whole body being fitly joined together and strengthened by what every joint supplies, by an energy proportionable to every part, increases to the edifying of itself in love. Eph. iv. 15, 18.

These things, as you see, are not only hinted in Scripture, but are copiously insisted upon, as very material points; and though I readily acknowledge, good men may apprehend and consider them very differently, and may express those apprehensions in different phrases; yet as experience makes it plain, that those souls generally flourish most, who have the most distinct conceptions of them, and the most habitual regard to them; so I think it is plain from these Scriptures, that there can be no religion at all, where there is a total insensibility of them.

If, therefore there are any of you, that apprehend it is enthusiasm to talk of the assistances of the Spirit; nay, I will add, if there are any of you, that do not earnestly desire these assistances, and do not seek them daily from the hand of Christ as the great covenant head of his people, you are, I fear, strangers to some of the first principles of the oracles of God, (Heb. v. 12,) and are sensual, not having the Spirit. Jude, verse 9. And though you may now and then form a hasty, and perhaps a warm resolution in religion, you will quickly, with the proud youth that are conceited of their own sufficiency, faint and be weary, and with the young men you will utterly fail; while they only that wait upon the Lord, shall renew their strength, shall mount up as on eagles' wings, and, pressing on with an unwearied pace, according to the different degrees of vigor which the different parts of their course may require, shall run and not be weary, and shall walk and not faint. Isa. xl. 30, 31. In short, if you do not thirst after the water of life, that is, (as the Evangelist himself explains it,) the spirit, which they that believe on Christ shall receive, (John vii. 39,) however bountiful he is, he makes no promise to impart it to you; and if you never receive it, all your other sources of comfort will soon be dried up, and the miserable condition of the creature, that asked in vain for one drop of water to cool his tormented tongue, (Luke xvi. 24,) will certainly be yours.

Here I apprehend multitudes will miscarry, who have made a fair show in the eyes of men; and if you are condemned by this mark, I am sure you will not be acquitted by any of the preceding. For all the branches of a holy temper have such connection with this, and such a dependence upon it, that a man, who is destitute of this, can have only the semblance of the rest.

And thus, I have with all plainness and faithfulness, as in the sight of God, and sensible of my account to him, laid before you a variety of hints, by which I think you may safely and truly judge, whether you be, or be not, in an unregenerate state: and I shall now beg leave to conclude this Discourse with one plain inference from the whole, viz:

That BAPTISM IS NOT REGENERATION, in the scriptural and most important sense of the word.

To prove this as a corollary from the preceding Discourse, I shall only assume this most reasonable concession, with which you may remember I at first set out: that regeneration, and being born of God, signify the same thing. Now I have shown you from a variety of scriptures, under the former heads, that every one whom the Sacred Oracles represent as born of God receiveth Christ, overcometh the world, and sinneth not. But it is too plain, that these characters do not agree to every one that is baptized: and consequently it evidently follows, that every one who is baptized is not of course born of God, or regenerate; therefore, that baptism is not scriptural regeneration.

I think no mathematical demonstration plainer, and more certain than this conclusion; and therefore, whatever great and ancient names may be urged on the other side of the question, I shall rest the matter here, without leading you into the niceties of a controversy so easily decided.See Postscript, at the end. I would only further observe, that they who most vigorously contend for the other manner of speaking, (for after all it is but a dispute about a word,) acknowledge expressly, that a man may be saved without what they call regeneration, and that he may perish with it. And though persons are taught to speak of their state, in consequence of baptism, in very high, and, I fear, dangerous terms; yet when wise and good men come to explain those terms, it evidently appears, that many of whom they are used, are so in a state of salvation as to be daily obnoxious to damnation! so the children of God, as also to be the children of the devil! and so inheritors of the kingdom of heaven, as to be children of wrath, and on the brink of hell!

Where persons of real piety apprehend themselves under a necessity of using such phrases with respect to all that are baptized, we cannot blame them for endeavoring to bring down their signification as low as possible; but they will, I hope, excuse those who choose to speak, in what they apprehend to be a more scriptural, rational, and edifying language.

It was matter of conscience with me, to state the matter as you have heard. I do therefore earnestly entreat you, my dearly beloved, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and for the sake of your own immortal souls, that you deceive not yourselves with vain words; but that where your eternal salvation is so plainly concerned, you bring the cause, the important cause, to an immediate trial. And if you are convinced, as I suppose many of you quickly may be, that you are at present dead in trespasses and sins, then let me beseech you to reflect on what the most transient survey of the Scriptures may teach you, as to the danger of such a case. For though it will be my business, in the process of these Discourses, more largely to represent it, when I come to speak of the necessity of the new birth, God only knows, whether your lives may be continued, till we advance so far in the subject: and where a case of this kind is in question, the delay of a week, or even of a day, may be inevitable and eternal ruin.

DISCOURSE II.

OF THE NATURE OF REGENERATION, AND PARTICULARLY OF THE CHANGE IT PRODUCES IN MEN'S APPREHENSIONS.

2 COR. v. 17.

If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away, behold all things are become new.

THE knowledge of our true state in religion, is at once a matter of so great importance, and so great difficulty that, in order to obtain it, it is necessary we should have line upon line and precept upon precept. The plain discourse, which you before heard, was intended to lead you into it; and I question not but I then said enough to convince many, that they were in an unregenerate condition. Nevertheless, as there are various approaches towards regeneration and conversion, which on the whole fall short of it; I think it very expedient now to give you, what I may properly enough call the counterpart of this view; which I shall, by Divine assistance, attempt from the words I have now been reading.

DISCOURSE III.

OF THE NATURE OF REGENERATION, WITH RESPECT TO THE CHANGE IT PRODUCES IN MEN'S AFFECTIONS, RESOLUTIONS, LABORS, ENJOYMENTS AND HOPES.

2 Cor. v. 17.

If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new.

AMONG the various subjects, which exercise the thoughts and tongues of men, few are more talked of than Religion. But it is melancholy to think how little it is understood; and how much it is mistaken and misrepresented in the world.

The text before us gives us a very instructive view of it: such a view, that I am sure, an experimental knowledge of its sense would be infinitely preferable to the most critical and exact knowledge of all the most curious passages, both of the Old Testament, and the New. From it, you know, I have begun to describe that great change, which the word of God teaches us to represent under the notion of regeneration, or, according to the language of St. Paul, in this passage of his writings, by a new creation. I know I am explaining it to many, who have been much longer acquainted with it than myself; and it becomes me to believe, to many that have attained much higher advancement in it: but I fear also at the same time, I speak of it to many, who are yet strangers to it; and I am laboring, by the plainest addresses that I can, to give them at least some just ideas of it. Oh, that to all the descriptions that either have, or shall be given, God may, by his grace, add that understanding which arises from feeling correspondent impressions on the mind!

I have already endeavored to illustrate those new apprehensions, which arise in the regenerate mind; apprehensions of the blessed God, of itself, of Christ, of the eternal world, and of the way to obtain the happiness of it. It now remains, that I consider those "new affections, resolutions, labors, enjoyments, and hopes," which result from them. I observe, therefore,

II. That these new apprehensions will be attended with new Affections.

I readily acknowledge, that the degree in which the affections operate, may, and will be different, in different persons, according to their natural constitution: but, as in some degree or another, they make an essential part of our frame, it is impossible but they must be impressed with a matter of such infinite importance, as religion will appear. And the apprehensions described above, must awaken the exercise of correspondent affections, and direct them to objects very different from those by which they were before excited, and on which they were fixed. And here now,

1. This may be especially illustrated in love.

Love is indeed the ruling passion of the mind, and has all the rest in an avowed and real subjection to it. And here lies the very root of human misery in our fallen and degenerate state: we are naturally lovers of ourselves in a very irregular degree--lovers of pleasures, more than lovers of God. 2 Tim. iii. 4. But, on the contrary, the first and great commandment of the law is written in the breast of every regenerate man: thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. Matt. xxii. 37, 38. It is true, indeed, that if his soul were perfectly delivered into this mould, and his attainments in Divine love were complete, there would be an end of all sin, and almost of all calamity too: for what evil could assail or impress a mind entirely and unchangeably fixed upon God?

Yet that the love of God should be the prevailing affection, is not merely a circumstance, but an essential part of true religion. While the good man sees Him who is invisible, (Heb. xi. 26,) as infinitely perfect in himself, and as the author of being and happiness to the whole creation, he cannot but acknowledge, that he is, beyond comparison, the most amiable of all objects. And though it is certain, that nothing can so much induce and inflame our love to God, as a well-grounded assurance, that he is become our God, and our Father in Christ; yet before the regenerate soul has attained to this, a sense of those favors which he received from God in common with the whole human race, and more especially of those which are inseparable from a Christian community, together with the apprehension of his being accessible through the Mediator, and reconcilable to sinful men, will diffuse some delightful sense of God over the mind; which will grow sweeter in proportion to the degree in which his own hopes brighten and settle, while they are growing toward the full assurance of faith.

And as the real Christian loves him that begat, he loves him also that is begotten of him. 1 John v. 1. He loves the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, (Eph. vi. 24,) viewing him not in a cold and insensible manner, as he once did, but with inflamed affection, as the chiefest among ten thousand, and altogether lovely. Cant. v. 10, 16. If he knows, in any degree, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, (2 Cor. viii. 9,) in becoming incarnate for the salvation of his people, in making himself a sacrifice for their sins, and paying his life for the ransom of their lives; he feels himself drawn toward Jesus, thus lifted up on the cross; (John xii. 32;) and the love of Christ constrains him, (2 Cor. v. 14,) to such a degree, that he longs to find out some acceptable method to express his inward and overbearing sense of it. How divided soever true Christians may be in other respects, they all agree in this, in loving that Jesus whom they have not seen. 1 Pet. i. 8.

We may further recollect on this head, that the Apostle, in a solemn manner, adjures Christians by the love of the Spirit; (Rom. xv. 30;) thereby plainly implying, that such a love to him is an important branch of their character: and it must be so in all those who regard him, as every regenerate soul does, as the author of divine light and life, and as the source of love and happiness, by whom this love of God is shed abroad in the heart, (Rom. v. 5,) while it is enlarged with sacred delight to run the way of his commandments: (Psal. cxix. 32:) as that Spirit, by whom we are sealed to. the day of redemption, (Eph. ix. 30,) and who brings down the foretastes of Heaven to the heart in which he dwells, and which, by his presence, he consecrates as the temple of God. 1 Cor. iii. 16.

And most natural is it, that a soul filled with these impressions and views should overflow with unutterable joy, and feeling itself thus happy in an intercourse with its God, should be enlarged in love to man: for, says the Apostle, ye are taught of God to love one another. 1 Thess. iv. 9. Those whom he apprehends as his brethren by regenerating grace, he knows are with him beloved of the Lord; and as he hopes to dwell with them for ever in glory, he must love them so far as he knows them now. And though a narrow education, and that bigotry, which sometimes conceals itself under very honorable and pious names, may perhaps influence even a sanctified heart, so far as to entertain unkind suspicions as to those, whose religious sentiments may differ from his own, and it may be, to pass some rash censures upon them; yet as his acquaintance with them increases, and he discerns, under their different forms, the traces of their common Father, his prejudices wear off, and that sometimes by very sensible degrees; and Christians receive one another, as Christ has received them all. Ro. xv. 7.

And where the good man cannot love others with a love of complacency and esteem, he at least beholds them with a love of compassion and pity; and remembers the relation of fellow-creatures, where he sees no reason to hope that they are fellow-heirs with him. In a word, the heart is melted down into tenderness; it is warmed with generous sentiments; it longs for opportunities of diffusing good of all kinds, both temporal and spiritual, wide as its influence can reach; it beats with an ardor, which sometimes painfully recoils upon a man's self, for want of ability to help others in proportion to his desire to do it; and that God, who knows all the inmost workings of his mind, hears many an importunate intercession for others in the hour of solemn devotion, and many a compassionate ejaculation, which he is occasionally sending up to Heaven from time to time, as he passes through so sinful and so calamitous a world.

These are the ruling affections in the heart of a good man; and though it is neither reasonable nor possible, that he should entirely divest himself of self-love, yet he endeavors to regulate it so, that it may not interfere with the more important consideration of general good. Self has the lowest place in his regards, nor does he limit his affection to a party; but aiming at extensive usefulness, he guards against those immoderate attachments to particular friendships, and those extravagant sallies of personal fondness, which are often no more than self-love under a specious disguise; which at once alienate the heart from God, and contract the social affections within very narrow, and those very irregular bounds; and so prove almost as fatal to the health of the mind, as an excessive flow of blood into one part would be to that of the body.

I have enlarged so copiously on this change in the leading affections of the mind, that I must touch in a more transient manner on the rest. I add, therefore,

2. That a regenerate soul has new aversions.

He once hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord. Prov. i. 29. He hated the light, (John iii. 20,) which disclosed to the aching eye of his conscience the beloved and indulged irregularities of his heart. He hated everything that laid an embargo upon his lusts; and was ready to count those for his enemies that plainly admonished him, and secretly to dislike those whose conduct even silently reproved him. But now all these things are amiable to him; and those are esteemed his most valuable friends, whose example may be most edifying, whose instructions may be most useful, and whose admonitions may be most faithful. For he now hates every false way; (Psal. cxix. 104;) yea, and every vain thought too. Verse 113. He looks upon every irregular desire as an enemy, which he longs utterly to subdue; and especially strives against that sin which does most easily beset him, and abhors it more than he ever delighted in it. And though he rather pities than hates the persons of the most wretched and mischievous transgressors, yet he can no longer continue an endearing friendship with those, who were once his seducers to sin, and his companions in it. In this sense, like David, he hates the congregation of evil-doers, and will not sit with the wicked; (Psal. xxvi. 5;) and if they will not be wrought upon by his compassionate endeavors to reclaim them, he will soon break off the infectious intercourse, and say, Depart from me ye evil-doers, for I determine that I will keep the commandments of my God. Psal. cxix. 115.

3. The regenerate man has also new desires.

There was a time, when sinful passions, as the Apostle expresses it, did work in his members to bring forth fruit unto death. Rom. vii. 5. He was fulfilling the desires of the flesh, and of the mind, (Eph. ii. 3,) and making provisions to fulfil the lusts of both. Rom. xiii. 14. But now he earnestly desires a conformity to God, as his highest happiness; and can look up to him, and say, "O Lord, the desire of my soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee; (Isa. xxvi. 8;) to maintain such a sense of thy presence at all times, as may influence my heart to think, my lips to speak, and my hands to act, in a manner suitable to that remembrance, and agreeable to thy wise and holy will." He now hungers and thirsts after righteousness; (Matt. v. 6;) feels as real an appetite after more advanced degrees of piety and holiness, as he ever felt toward the gratification of his senses; and esteems the proper methods of attaining these advanced degrees, even more than his necessary food. Job xxiii. 12. Instead of desiring to run through a long course of animal enjoyments, he desires to get above them; longs to be a pure and triumphant spirit in the refined regions of immortality; and is willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. 2 Cor. v. 8.

But I waive the farther illustration of this, till I come to consider the new hopes which inspire him. I therefore add, as a necessary consequence of these new desires,

4. That the regenerate man has new fears.

Pain and sorrow, disappointment and affliction, he naturally feared; and the forebodings of his own mind would sometimes awaken the fears of future punishment, according to the righteous judgment of an offended God: but now he fears not merely punishment, but guilt; fears the remonstrance of an injured conscience; for he reverences conscience as God's vicegerent in his bosom. He therefore fears the most secret sins, as well as those which might occasion public disgrace; yea, he fears, lest by a precipitate and inconsiderate conduct he could contract guilt before he is aware. He fears, lest he should inadvertently injure and grieve others, even the weakest and the meanest. Hte fears using his liberty, in a manner that might ensnare his brethren, or might occasion any scandal to a Christian profession: for such is the sensibility of his heart in this respect, that he would be more deeply concerned for the dishonor brought to God, and the reproach which might be thrown on religion by any unsuitable conduct of his, than merely for that part of the shame that might immediately and directly fall upon himself. But again,

5. The regenerate man has new joys.

These arise chiefly from an intercourse with God through Jesus Christ; and from a review of himself, as under the sanctifying influences of his grace, and as brought into a state of favor with him, in proportion to the degree in which he can discern himself in this character and state.

You know David, speaking of God, calls him his exceeding joy; (Psal. xliii. 4;) and declares the gladness he had put into his heart, by lifting up the light of his countenance upon him, to be far beyond what they could have, whose corn and wine increased. Psal. iv. 6, 7. And the Apostle Paul speaks of Christians, as joying in God through Jesus Christ, (Rom. v. 11,) and as rejoicing in Christ Jesus: (Phil. iii. 3:) and Peter also describes them as those, who, believing in him, though unseen, rejoice with joy unspeakable, and full of glory. 1 Pet. i. 8.

Perhaps there was a time, when the good man censured all pretences of this kind, now at least in these latter days of Christianity, as an empty, enthusiastic pretence; but since he has tasted that the Lord is gracious, (1 Pet. ii. 3,) he has that experimental knowledge of their reality and excellence, which he can confidently oppose to all the most artful and sophistical cavils; and could as soon doubt, whether the sun enlightens his eyes, and warms his body, as he could question, whether God has ways of manifesting himself to souls, when it is felt with unutterable delight: and when thus entertained, he can adopt David's words, and say, that his soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness, so that with joyful lips he praises God, (Psal. lxiii. 5,) when his meditation of him is thus sweet, (Psal. civ. 34,) and God says unto his soul, I am thy salvation. Psal. xxxv. 3.

DISCOURSE IV.

THE NECESSITY OF REGENERATION, ARGUED FROM THE IMMUTABLE CONSTITUTION OF GOD.

John III. 3.

Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

WHILE the ministers of Christ are discoursing of such a subject, as I have before me in the course of these Lectures, and particularly in this branch of them which I am now entering upon, we may surely, with the utmost reason, address our hearers in those words of Moses to Israel, in the conclusion of his dying discourse: Set your hearts unto all the words which I testify among you this day, which ye shall command your children to observe and do, even all the words of this law; for it is not a vain thing for you, because it is your life. Deut. xxxii. 46, 47. That must undoubtedly be your life, concerning which the Lord Jesus Christ himself, the incarnate wisdom of God, the faithful and true witness, (Rev. iii. 14,) has said, and said it with a solemn repeated asseveration, that without it a man cannot see the kingdom of God.

The occasion of his saying it deserves our notice; though the niceties of the context must be waived in such a series of sermons as this. He said it to a Jew of considerable rank, and, as it appears, one of the grand Sanhedrim, or chief council of the nation; who came not only for his own private satisfaction, but in the name of several of his brethren, to discourse with Christ concerning his doctrine, at the first passover' he attended at Jerusalem, after he had entered on his public ministry. Our Lord would, to be sure, be peculiarly careful what answer he returned to such an inquiry: and this is his answer, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God: as if he should have said, "If the princes of Israel inquire after my character, let them know that I came to be a preacher of regeneration; and that the blessings of that kingdom, which I am come to reveal and erect, are to be peculiar to renewed and sanctified souls; who may, by an easy and natural figure, be said to be born again." And the figure appears very intelligible, and very instructive to those that will seriously consider it; and might well lead us into a variety of pertinent and useful remarks.

You easily perceive, that to be born again must intimate a very great change; coming, as it were, into a new world, as an infant does; when after having lived awhile a kind of vegetative life in the darkness and confinement of the womb, it is born into open day; feels the vital air rushing in on its lungs, and light forcing itself upon the awakened eyes; hears sounds before unknown; opens its mouth to receive a yet untasted food, and every day becomes acquainted with new objects, and exerts new powers, till it grows up to the maturity of a perfect man. Such, and in some respects greater and nobler than this, is the change which regeneration makes in a heart, before unacquainted with religion: as you may have seen at large from the preceding discourses.

But I might further observe, that the phrase in the text may also express the humbling nature of this change, as well as the greatness of it. Erasmus gives this turn to the words; and it is so edifying, that I should have mentioned it at least, though I had not thought it so just, as it appears. To be born again, must signify to become as a little child; (Matt. xviii. 3;) and our Lord expressly and frequently assures us, that without this we cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. Mark x. 15; Luke xviii. 17. He has pronounced the very first of his blessings on poverty of spirit; (Matt. v. 3;) and where this is wanting, the soul will never be entitled to the rest. A mild and humble, a docile and tractable temper, a freedom from avarice and ambition, and an indifference to those great toys of which men are generally so fond, are all essential parts of the Christian character; and they have all, in one view or another, been touched upon in the preceding discourses. Let it be forgiven, however, if considering the importance of the case, you are told again, that in malice ye must be children; (1 Cor. xiv. 20;) and that if any man think himself wise, he must become a child, and even a fool, that he may be wise indeed. 1 Cor. iii. 18.

I might observe once more, that these words intimate the divine power, by which this great and humbling change is effected. Our first formation and birth is the work of God, and no less really so in the succeeding generations of men, than the first production of Adam was, when God formed him of the dust of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Gen. ii. 7. We may each of us say, with respect to the natural birth, and in an accommodated sense with respect to the spiritual too, thine eyes did see my substance, being as yet imperfect, and in thy book all my members, which in continuance of time were fashioned, were written, when as yet there was none of them. Psal. cxxxix. 16. All the first gracious impressions that were made upon the mind, and all the gradual advances of them, till Christ was formed in the heart, and the new creature animated, must, as I shall hereafter show at large, be ultimately and principally referred into a divine operation; and in this sense, it is God that brings every good purpose in the mind to the birth, and God that gives strength to bring forth. Isa. lxvi. 9.

But I omit the farther prosecution of these remarks at present, because they coincide with what I have said in former discourses, or what will occur in those which are yet to come: and shall only further consider the words, as they are a confirmation of, and therefore a proper introduction to, what I am to lay before you under the third general head of these discourses; in which--as I have already shown who may be said to be in an unregenerate state, and how great that change is which regeneration makes in the soul--I shall now proceed,

Thirdly, to show the high importance, yea, the absolute NECESSITY of this change.

Our Lord expresses it in a very lively and awakening manner, in these few determinate words, which are here before us.: Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. You see how emphatical the words are: he who is himself invariable truth, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, (Heb. xiii. 8,) repeats it again and again, with as much solemnity as he ever uses upon any occasion; repeats it to us, as he did to Nicodemus, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, that is, I seriously deliver it as a truth of infinite moment; except a man, i. e. any man, whatever his profession, whatever his knowledge, or whatever his privileges, may be; though he be a Jew, though he be a Pharisee, though he be, as thou Nicodemus art, a ruler or a senator; except he be born again, and have that great change, so often described in the word of God, wrought by the operation of the Spirit in his mind, he cannot see the kingdom of God: he cannot by any means approach it so as to enter into it, or have any share in the important blessings which it contains."

That we may more fully understand, and enter into this weighty argument, I shall from these words,

I. Briefly consider, what it is to see the kingdom of God.

II. Show how absolutely impossible it is, that any unregenerate man should see it. And,

DISCOURSE V.

OF THE INCAPACITY OF AN UNREGENERATE PERSON FOR RELISHING THE ENJOYMENTS OF THE HEAVENLY WORLD.

John iii. 3.

—Except a man be born again, he can not see the kingdom of God.

IN order to demonstrate the necessity of regeneration, of which I would fain convince not only your understandings, but your consciences, I am now proving to you, that without it, it is impossible to enter into the kingdom of God; and how weighty a consideration that is I am afterwards to represent.

That it is thus impossible, the words in the text do indeed sufficiently prove: but for the further illustration of the subject, I have proposed to consider it under two distinct views.

I have already shown it is impossible, because the constitution of the kingdom of heaven is such, that God has solemnly declared, and this under different dispensations, and more or less plainly in all ages of his church, that no unregenerate person, i. e. no impenitent sinner, shall have any part in it. And I am now further to show,

That the nature of the future happiness, which is here chiefly signified by the kingdom of God, is such, that an unregenerate person would be incapable of relishing it, even upon a supposition of his being admitted into it.

This is a thought of so great importance, and so seldom represented in its full strength, that I shall at present confine my discourse entirely to it.

I know, sinners, it will be one of the most difficult things in the world, to bring you to a serious persuasion of this truth. You think heaven is so lovely, and so glorious a place, that if you could possibly get an admittance there, you should certainly be happy. But I would now set myself, if possible, to convince you that this is a rash and ill-grounded persuasion; and that on the contrary, if you were now in the regions of glory, and in the society of those blessed inhabitants, that unrenewed nature and unsanctified heart of yours, would give you a disrelish for all the sublimest entertainments of that blissful place, and turn heaven itself into a kind of hell to you.

Now for the demonstration of this, it is only necessary for you seriously to consider what kind of happiness that of heaven is, as it is represented to us in the word of God; for from thence undoubtedly we are to take our notions of it.

You might to be sure sit down and imagine a happiness to yourselves, which would perfectly suit your degenerate taste; a happiness, which the more entirely you were enslaved to flesh and sense, the more exquisitely you would be able to enter into it. If God would assign you a region in that beautiful world, where you should dwell in fine houses magnificently furnished, and gaily adorned; where the most harmonious music should soothe your ear, and the most delicious food and generous wines in a rich variety should regale your taste: if he should give you a splendid retinue of people, to caress and attend you, offering you their humblest services, and acknowledging the most servile dependence upon your favor: especially if with all this he should furnish you with a set of companions just of your own temper and disposition, with whom you might spend what proportion of time you pleased, in gaming and jollity, in riot and debauchery, without any interruption from the reproof, or even the example of the children of God, or from indispositions of body, or remorse of conscience: this you would be ready to call life and happiness indeed: and if the great Disposer of all things were but to add perpetuity to such a situation, you would not envy persons of a more refined taste the heaven you lost, for such a Paradise as this.

Such indeed was the happiness which Mahomet promised to his followers: flowery shades and gay dresses, luxurious fare and beautiful women, are described with all the pomp of language in almost every page of his Alcoran, as the glorious and charming rewards which were to be bestowed on the faithful after the resurrection. And if this were the felicity which the Gospel promised, extortioners and idolators, whoremongers and drunkards, would be much fitter to inherit the kingdom of God, than the most pious and mortified saints that ever appeared on earth. But here, as almost everywhere else, the Bible and the Alcoran speak a very different language; and far from leading us into such gross and sensual expectations, our Lord Jesus Christ has told us that the children of the resurrection neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are like the angels of God in heaven, (Matt. xxii. 30,) and enjoy such pure and spiritual delights, as are suited to such holy and excellent creatures.

It is true that in the book of Revelations, stately palaces and shining habits, delicious fruit and harmonious music are all mentioned, as contributing to the happiness of those, who have the honor to inhabit the New Jerusalem. But then the style of that obscure and prophetical book naturally leads us to consider these merely as figurative phrases, which are made use of to express the happiness that Divine wisdom and love has prepared for the righteous, in a manner accommodated to the weakness of our conceptions; or at least, if in any of these respects provision be made for the entertainment of a glorified body, whatever its methods of sensation and perception will be, all will be temperate and regular; and after all, this is even there represented but as the least considerable part of our happiness, the height of which is made to consist in the most elevated strains of devotion, and in an entire and everlasting devotedness to the service of God and of the Lamb.

Let us therefore immediately proceed to settle the point in question, by a more particular survey of the several branches of the celestial felicity, as represented to us in the word of God; and from thence it will undeniably appear, that were an unregenerate soul in the same place with the blessed, and surrounded with the same external circumstances, the temper of the mind would not by any means allow him to participate of their happiness. For it is plain the Scripture represents the happiness of heaven as consisting,—-in the perfection of our minds in knowledge and holiness;—-in the sight and service of the ever blessed God,—-in beholding the glory of our exalted Redeemer;—-and enjoying the society of glorious angels and perfected saints,—-throughout an endless eternity. Now, sinners, it is impossible you should enter into any such delights as these, while you continue in an unregenerate state.

1. One very considerable part of the happiness of heaven consists in that perfection of knowledge and holiness to which the blessed shall be there exalted; but in which the unregenerate soul can have no pleasure.

Thus we are told, that the spirits of just men shall there be made perfect; (Heb. xiii. 23;) for nothing that defiles, as every degree of moral imperfection does, shall enter into the New Jerusalem. Rev. xxi. 27. An Old Testament saint conceived of future happiness, as consisting in being satisfied with the likeness of God: (Psal. xvii. 15;) a character that is manifestly most agreeable to the view of it, which the beloved disciple gives us, where he says, that when Christ shall appear, we shall be tike him, for we shall see him as he is; (1 John iii. 2;) which must certainly refer to the glories of the mind, which are of infinitely greater importance than the highest imaginable beauty and ornament, that can be put upon the corporeal part of our nature in its most illustrious state.

Now from this perfection and holiness, which shall then be wrought in the soul, there will naturally arise an unspeakable complacency and joy, something resembling that which the blessed God himself possesses, in the survey of the infinite and unspotted rectitude of his own most holy nature. And in proportion to the degree, in which the eyes of our understandings are enlightened to discern wherein true excellency consists, will the soul be delighted in the consciousness of such considerable degrees of it in itself.

But surely it will be superfluous for me to undertake to demonstrate, that an unregenerate soul can have no part in this divine pleasure, which implies the complete renewal of the mind as its very foundation. For to imagine that he might, would be supposing him regenerate and unregenerate at the same time. As Mr. Baxter very well expresses it, "The happiness of heaven is holiness; and to talk of being happy without it is as apparent nonsense, as to talk of being well without health, or being saved without salvation."

I would only add on this head, that the highest improvement of our intellectual faculties could not make us happy, without such a change in the affections and the will, as I have before described under the former general head. For the more clear and distinct the knowledge of true excellence and perfection is, the greater would be your anguish and horror, to see and feel yourselves entirely destitute of it; and it is exceedingly probable that spirits of the most elevated genius have the keenest sensation of that infamy and misery, which is inseparable from the prevalence of sinful dispositions in such minds as these.

2. Another very considerable branch of the celestial happiness, is that which arises, from the contemplation and enjoyment of the ever blessed God; but of this likewise an unregenerate sinner is incapable.

As our own reason assures us, that God is the greatest and best of beings, and the most deserving object of our inquiries and regards, one would think it would naturally lead us to imagine, that the perfection and happiness of the human soul consists in the knowledge and enjoyment of him; and that when it arrives at the seat of complete felicity, it must intimately know him, and converse with him. And in this view, I have sometimes been surprised, that men of such distinguished abilities, as some of the heathen poet, and philosophers appear to have been, should have had no greater regard to the Supreme Being in the description which they give us of the future happiness. That sort of friendship for them, which an acquaintance with their writings must give to a person of any relish for the beauties of composition, makes one almost unwilling to expose the low and despicable ideas, which they often give of the state of their greatest heroes in the regions of immortality. But the word of God speaks a very different language. Our Lord represents the rewards to be bestowed on the pure in heart, by telling us that they shall see, i. e. contemplate and enjoy God; (Matt. v. 8;) and virtuous souls who overcome the temptations with which they are here surrounded, shall be made as pillars in the house of their God, and shall go no more out: (Rev. iii. 12;) and it is elsewhere said that his servants shall serve him, and shall see his face. Rev. xxii. 3, 4. And David's views under a darker dispensation rose to such a degree of refinement, as to say, As for me, I shall behold thy face in righteousness; (Psal. xvii. 1;) which he mentions as a felicity infinitely superior to all the delights of the most prosperous sinner.

But now, sinners, it is utterly impossible that while you continue in an unregenerate state, you should behold the face of God with pleasure. The unutterable delight which the blessed inhabitants of heaven find in it, arises not merely from the abstract ideas of his essential perfections, but from a sense of his favor and love to them. It is this that gives a relish to the whole survey, and rejoices the heart of all the saints, both in heaven and on earth. He is a God of awful majesty and irresistible power, of infinite wisdom and unspotted holiness, of unerring justice, invariable fidelity, and inexhaustible goodness; and this God is our God; he will be our guide and our portion forever. Psal. xlviii. 14; lxxiii. 26. And were it not for this view, let a creature think of God with ever so much spirit and propriety, he must think of him, and be troubled; (Psal. lxxvii. 3;) yea, he must be filled with unutterable horror and confusion, as the devil is at the thought of an infinitely perfect Being, in whom he has no interest, from whom he has nothing friendly to expect; and if nothing friendly, then everything dreadful.

Now it is certain, sinners, that while you continue in an unregenerate state, under the influence of that carnal mind which is enmity against God, (Rom. viii. 7,) and full of unconquerable rebellion against his law, there can be no foundation for a friendship between him and your souls; nor for any persuasion, or any apprehension of your interest in his favor and love. Friendship, you know, supposes something of a similitude of nature and sentiment; for as God himself argues, how can two walk together except they be agreed? Amos iii. 3. Now I have before observed to you at large, that God being of purer eyes than to behold evil, (Heb. i. 13,) must necessarily hate all the workers of iniquity; the foolish therefore shall not stand in his sight, (Psal. v. 5,) or shall not be admitted to such a situation: nor would they indeed be able to endure it. Let conscience judge what satisfaction you could find in the presence of a God, that you knew scorned and hated you, even while he suffered you to continue among the crowd of his children and servants. The more lively ideas you had of the beauty and perfection of the Divine nature, the more you must loathe yourselves for being so unlike him, and so abominable to him: and what pleasure do you think consistent with such self-contempt and abhorrence? Or rather, would not the wretched degeneracy of your nature lead you another way; and a kind of unconquerable self-love, joined even with this consciousness of deformity and vileness, lead you to hate God himself? It is described as the fatal effect of prevailing wickedness in the heart, my soul loathed them, and their soul also abhorred me. Zechariah xi. 8. And thus would it probably work in you, and produce in your wretched breasts a mortal hatred against him, and an envious rage at the thought of his perfect happiness; a state of mind, of all others that can be imagined, the most odious, and the most tormenting.

How, sirs, could your hearts, possessed with these diabolical passions, bear to see the beams of his glory surrounding you on every side? How could you bear to hear the songs and adorations, that were continually addressed to his throne; and to observe the humble attendance of all the hosts of heaven about it, who perpetually reckon it their honor and happiness to be employed in obedience to his commands? Such a sight of the glory and felicity of your Divine Enemy would make you, so far as your limited nature was capable of it, miserable even in proportion to the degree in which he is happy. This was, no doubt, the torment of the devils as soon as they had harbored a thought of hostility against God; and the remembrance of that glory in which they once saw him, and which they know he still invariably possesses, is surely an everlasting vexation to them: and it would be so to you, if you were within the sight of it.

But further, the blessed in heaven find their everlasting entertainment in the service of God. They rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty; (Rev. iv. 8;) i. e. they are continually employed, either in the immediate acts of devotion, or in other services, in which they still maintain a devotional temper, and are breathing out their souls in holy affections, while their active powers are employed in the execution of his commands. But as I have already shown you, that while in an unregenerate state you could have no sense of his favor to you, it is very apparent, that you could have no sentiments of gratitude and love towards him. So that while angels and glorified saints were breathing out their souls in the most delightful and rapturous praises, you must keep a sullen silence; or, if it were possible that your harps and voices should sound as melodiously as theirs, it would be all ceremony and show; the music of the heart would be wanting; and you would look on all the external forms of service but as a tedious task, and count it your misfortune, that the customs of the place obliged you to attend them.

You may the more easily apprehend and believe this when you consider what little relish you now have for those solemnities of Divine worship, in which sincere Christians have the most lively foretaste of heaven. You know, in your own consciences, that short and interrupted as our public services are, they are the burden of your lives. You know that you say, in your hearts at least, When will the Sabbath be past, and the new moon be gone? Amos viii. Judge then how insupportable it would be to you, to spend an everlasting Sabbath thus. I question not, but to your wretched spirits annihilation would appear vastly preferable to an eternal existence so employed.

3. Another very considerable branch of the happiness of heaven, is that which arises from the sight of the glory of an exalted Redeemer; but for this likewise no unconverted sinner can have any relish.

This is a view of the future happiness, which our Lord gives us, when he prays for his people in those memorable words, engraven, as I hope, upon many of our hearts; Father, I will that they whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me. John xvii. 24. And he elsewhere promises it, as the great reward he would bestow upon his people; If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there also shall my servant be. John xii. 26. And agreeably to this, the apostle Paul represents it as the transporting view in which he considered the happiness of the future world; I desire, says he, to depart and be with Christ; which is far better; (Phil. i. 28;) incomparably beyond any of the enjoyments of the present world which can come into competition with it. But for this part of the happiness of angels, and of the spirits of just men made perfect, it is also evident, that you, sinners, can have no relish.

The sight of Christ will afford holy souls a transporting delight, because they will regard it as the glory of their Redeemer and their Friend, and as a pledge and security of their own glory. But what foundation can you, sinners, find for such a joyful sympathy with Christ, and such a comfortable conclusion with regard to yourselves? Such is the wretched degeneracy of your nature, that though Christ be indeed the chiefest among ten thousand, and altogether lovely, (Cant. v. 10, 16.) being the brightness of his Father's glory, and the express image of his person, (Heb. i. 3,) possessed of every divine perfection and excellence; yet you now slight and neglect him, and discern in him no form or comeliness, for which he is to be desired: (Isa. liii. 2:) and were you unregenerate in heaven, the same principle would prevail. Now where there is no love to a person, there can be no delight in his converse, nor any pleasure in his happiness. Nay, the contrariety of your nature to his would rather occasion aversion and terror. You could not but know, that the blessed Jesus is holy and undefiled, and separate from sinners; (Heb. vii. 26;) that he abhors all moral evil to such a degree, that he laid aside all the glory and entertainments of heaven, that he might destroy the interest of sin in this world of ours, and might purify to himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works: (Tit. ii. 14:) and when you should recollect at the same time that sinfulness that continued to reign in your hearts, and made you to every good work reprobate, (Tit. i. 16,) you could not but know that you must be hateful to him; and therefore could not but fear, lest his almighty power should be exercised for your punishment and destruction: and thus your terror must rise, in proportion to the sensible evidence you had of his dignity and authority. In a word, you would stand like guilty rebels in the presence-chamber of their injured and displeased Sovereign: his throne. and his sceptre, his robe and his crown, his courtiers and his guards, though in themselves splendid and magnificent objects, only serve to terrify and amaze them, while they display the grandeur and power of their enemy.

4. Another very considerable branch of the celestial happiness will be the society of angels and glorified saints; but for this likewise an unregenerate sinner must be unfit.

You know that when the apostle speaks of our alliance to the heavenly world, he represents it as a social state; where excellent spirits dwell together, and converse with each other with mutual esteem and endearment: ye are come, says he, to the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven, and to the spirits of just men made perfect. Heb. xii. 22, 23. It is sitting down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with all the patriarchs and prophets, all the apostles and martyrs in the kingdom of heaven: (Matt. viii. 11:) and perhaps you think you shall want nothing more to complete your happiness, than to be admitted to a place among them. But reflect a little more attentively upon the circumstances of things, and I am persuaded you will form a different judgment.

There is no reason to doubt, but that at your first entrance into the regions of glory you would be agreeably struck with the view of those inhabitants. As for those beauties of their character, which consist in love to God, and in zeal for his honor and interest, it is certain, that you would be insensible of them, and pay but little regard to them: but the humanity and benevolence of their temper would, no doubt, render them agreeable to you; and so much the more, as self-love might lead you to expect some personal advantage by it. And it is more than possible, that you would be much prejudiced in their favor by those resplendent and attractive forms in which they appear; forms, no doubt, far more beautiful and engaging than any which the children of men ever saw upon earth. On both these accounts it might be natural enough for you, at first, to address them with an air of respect, as persons that you could be glad to be upon good terms with, and in whose friendship you could desire a share.

But how do you think that any such proposal of friendship would be received by an angel, or a glorified saint? No doubt, if there were any prospect of converting you, or any hope you might be brought to a devout and holy temper, they would immediately become preachers of righteousness to you; and endeavor by the most rational, the most pathetic, and the most insinuating address, to awaken and charm you to a sense of religion, and so to form you to a capacity for happiness. But they would know, that according to the eternal constitution of God, there could be no room to entertain such a hope; but that being filthy, you must be filthy still: (Rev. xxii. 11:) and therefore, as they would know you to be incorrigible, their love to God, and their concern to be approved and accepted by him, would prevent their forming any intimate friendship with persons whose natures were so contrary to him, and on whom he looked with such irreconcilable abhorrence. And besides this, their own personal sanctity of character would give them an aversion to such corrupt and degenerate creatures: so that how much soever they might pity your condition, they would turn away from you, as objects whose presence and converse were not to be endured.

And do you not easily apprehend, that such a refusal on their part would be both shameful and very provoking to you? For which way could you bear it, to be thus rejected and dishonored by the most excellent part of the creation; by those whom perhaps you once intimately knew, and with whom you conversed upon equal terms; nay, by many who were once much your inferiors, and whom, perhaps, in the pride of your hearts, you would not condescend to regard? The natural effect of this must surely be, that you would soon be proportionably displeased and enraged with the refusal, as you were at first charmed at their appearance; and when you saw that transporting pleasure which they took in the affection and friendship of each other, and the joy which the Divine favor poured into their souls, while you, in the very same place, were excluded from these rich entertainments, your hearts would soon burn with envy and indignation; and as much as you before admired them, you, upon this, would come to hate them. And, perhaps, that hatred would put you upon some attempt to interrupt, or even, if it were possible, to destroy that happiness which you were not allowed to share. But, then, when you saw them continually under the Divine protection, and compassed with his favor as with a shield, (Psalm v. 12,) so that your malice could not reach them, all the keenness and rancor of your spirit would recoil upon itself; you would fly from their presence, as insupportable; and would be glad to retire to some meaner apartment, or to hide yourselves in the shades of darkness; so that you might but get rid of the sight of so many dazzling objects, whose lustre, instead of cheering your vitiated eye, would pain and overpower it.

But if you should not be transported to this diabolical excess--if it were possible for you to behold the glorified saints, and to live among them, without these envious and tormenting passions; yet surely you would want a relish for the most entertaining part of their conversation. Had you indeed a good natural genius, which to be sure many unconverted sinners have, it might be very agreeable to hear them discoursing of the wonders of nature; and that curiosity, which is in some measure incident even to persons of the meanest capacities, would make it pleasant to hear them recount the important history relating to the revolutions of the angelic world, which we on this earth are entirely strangers to, or at least have been very little acquainted with them. But surely the most delightful topics of conversation, which heaven itself can furnish out, must be those which are religious and divine; the infinite perfections of the ever blessed God; the personal glories and incomparable love of his condescending, but exalted Son; and the sanctifying operations of the blessed Spirit on the soul, transforming it into the Divine Image, and making it meet for eternal glory. Yes, even when the blessed spirits above are handling philosophical or historical subjects, they still consider them with a regard to God, as his perfections are displayed and illustrated in the works of his hands, and in the conduct of his providence. And here their pleasure flows, not merely from a set of rational ideas, which arise in their own minds, or are suggested to them by others: but from the exercise of those devout affections upon the blessed God, which are correspondent to these several subjects of discourse.

And can you, sirs, who are alienated from the divine life, (Eph. iv. 18,) and accustomed to live in a continual neglect and forgetfulness of the Great Parent of universal nature, can you relish such subjects as these? You would, no doubt, be discontented and uneasy in such a scene: the heavenly oratory of this holy society would have no charms for you; but you would be longing for some of those vain and worthless companions, whom you were so fond of here upon earth, to hear a merry story, or a song, or to join with them in the pleasures of a debauch.

5. Another considerable branch of the happiness of heaven arises from the assured prospect of the everlasting continuance of this felicity; but, if an unregenerate soul could find any entertainment at all in heaven, he certainly could have no ground for such an expectation of its continuance.

When the children of God on earth think of the happiness of heaven, the eternity of it makes a very deep impression on their hearts, and even swallows up their souls with ardent desire and unutterable joy: it raises their esteem, and animates their hope, while they reflect on that exceeding and eternal weight of glory, (2 Cor. iv. 17,) that house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, (2 Cor. v. 1,) and that inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and which fadeth not away. 1 Pet. i. 4. And no doubt that the blessed in heaven regard it in the same view, and all the pleasures they enjoy are vastly increased by the prospect of their endless duration; so that by the anticipation of an eternity still to come, they do, as it were, every moment enjoy an infinite satisfaction. But as for you, sinners, while you are so ill attempered to the happiness of heaven, the prospect of an eternal abode there would not, on the principles I have laid down above, be a prospect of eternal happiness, but rather, on the whole, of eternal uneasiness to you.

But suffer me a little to discourse upon another supposition; and let me now, for argument sake, waive what I have been so long insisting upon, and suppose, that you could so far command the turbulent passions of your own heart, and so unite, as it were, the whole powers of your soul, to attend to the beauty of place, the harmony of music, and whatever else may be supposed capable of regaling the senses or the imagination, as upon the whole, to find heaven a pleasing and delightful abode, and to wish, that though some of its entertainments were above your taste and capacity, yet you might be allowed an eternal enjoyment of the rest; could there be any room for you to expect a perpetual abode in these blissful seats? No, sinners, you would not be able so much as to hope it. The good itself is so great, and perpetual enjoyment, even in any degree, has such a kind of infinite value, that I know not how the purest and noblest spirits in heaven could absolutely have been secure of it, separate from the engagement of a Divine promise.

And what Divine promise would you be able to have recourse to in such a circumstance as we now suppose? Where could you find it in all the book of God, that persons of your character should ever enter into heaven at all, much less that you should forever continue there? You could have therefore no security of the continuance of your abode in heaven, if it were possible that you should enter on the possession of it: but when you should consider the unsullied holiness of the ever blessed God, the sovereign of this sacred province, and the spotless purity of that gracious Redeemer, to whom the government of it is committed, you could not but fear, that you should quickly be seized by the hand of vengeance, be hurled from the battlements of heaven, and plunged low into the pit of destruction. You know this was the condemnation of the rebel angels, and your guilt, compared with that dreadful event, which makes so considerable a scene of the history of heaven, would, I doubt not, be sufficient to create everlasting jealousy and uneasiness, and to turn every pleasurable circumstance into a source of horror, in the apprehensions of being deprived eternally of it.

Thus you see, sirs, from a particular survey of the various lights in which heaven is represented, and of the various branches of which its happiness consists, an unregenerate sinner is incapable of it, even though we would suppose that he was actually admitted to it. Let me entreat you to reflect on all these things, and you will see the reasonableness of that one remark with which I shall conclude this discourse, viz.:

How vain are all those hopes of heaven, which in your present condition you are ready to entertain!

I have been proving at large, that if God were to admit you to the possession of heaven, which it is certain he never will, you would be incapable of relishing the enjoyment of it: nay, that there would be a solid foundation in your own hearts, for many of the most tumultuous and disquieting passions. Envy and grief, fear and rage, those roots of bitterness, would spring up even in the Paradise of God, and turn the fertility of that blessed soil into their own nourishment. And do you imagine that any external accommodations or ornaments could make you easy and comfortable, under the transports of such hellish passions? What if you were to take a man that was tormented with a violent fit of the stone or gout, and to place him in a most delicious garden, or in a palace of marble and cedar, to set him on a throne of gold under a canopy of purple, to clothe him with robes of velvet and embroidery, regaling him with the most delicious fruits and generous wines, and at the same time soothing his ear with all the harmony of sound, which the most melodious symphony of instruments and voices could afford? Would all this magnificence and luxury make him insensible of that anguish which was racking his very vitals? or would not that inward torture rather render him insensible of this association of pleasurable impressions from without? Yea, would it not incline him to suspect, that you intended all these pompous preparations only to deride and insult him?' As little would your distempered and unholy souls be capable of relishing the entertainments of heaven, while these entertainments and these souls of yours, continue what they are at present.

There must be therefore a change: and will you consider where that change must be made? If you continue still in your present character and circumstances, there must be a vast change in heaven itself, before you can be happy in it. The whole temper, character, and disposition of every saint and angel there, must be changed from what it now is, before they can be capable of any friendly and complacential conversation with you. Yea, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, (Heb. xiii. 9,) must divest himself of those beauties of holiness, which are infinitely dearer to him than any external grandeur or authority, before he can receive you into his kingdom. Nay, the very Father of lights, with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning, (Jam. i. 17,) must be entirely changed. He must lay aside that holiness which is essential to his nature, and which is the brightness and glory of it: he must love that which he now hates, and be indifferent to that which he most affectionately loves, before he can open his arms to you, and smile upon your souls. And can you dare to hope for such an unaccountable, such an inconceivable revolution as this? No, sirs, infinitely sooner would God change earth into hell, and bury you, and all of your character, under the ruins of this world, which you inhabit and pollute, than he would thus tarnish the beauties of heaven, and divest himself of the brightest glory of his own divinity. "God," says Archbishop Tillotson, "has condescended to take our nature upon him, that he might make us capable of happiness; but if this will not do, he will not put off his own nature to make us happy."

DISCOURSE VI.

OF THE IMPORTANCE OF ENTERING INTO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN

John iii. 3.

--Except a man be born again, he can not see the kingdom of God.

How impossible it is that an unregenerate sinner should see the kingdom of God, or enjoy that future blessedness to which the Gospel is intended to lead its professors, I have shown you at large. I have appealed to the testimony of God's holy prophets, and apostles, in concurrence with that of his incarnate Son, to prove that persons of such a character are, by the inviolable constitution of that kingdom, excluded from it. And I have further, in my last discourse, proved, that if they were actually admitted to it, they would be incapable of relishing its pleasures: that their vitiated palate would have a distaste to the choicest fruits of the Paradise of God; yea, that in these blessed regions thorns and briers would spring up in their paths, and make them wretched in the very seat of happiness.

I doubt not, but you are in your consciences generally convinced, that the truth of these things cannot be contested. You are inwardly persuaded that it is indeed so; and I fear many of you have also reason to apprehend, that you are of this unhappy number, who are hitherto strangers to regenerating grace. But how are your minds impressed with this apprehension? Do I wrong you, sirs, when I suspect that some of you are hardly impressed at all? Do I wrong you when I suspect there are those of you, who have spent the last week with very little reflection upon what you have heard? The cares and amusements of life have been pursued as before, and you have not taken one hour to enter into the thought with self-application, and seriously to consider, 'I am one of these concerning whom eternal wisdom and truth has pronounced, that if they continue such as at present they are, they shall not see the kingdom of heaven.' You have not paused at all upon the awful thought; you have not offered one lively petition to God, to beg that you may be recovered from this unhappy state, and brought to a meetness for his kingdom, and a title to it. For your sakes therefore, and for the sakes of others in your state, having already explained, illustrated, and confirmed the proposition in my text, I proceed,

III. To represent to you the IMPORTANCE of the argument suggested here; or to show you how much every unregenerate sinner ought to be alarmed to hear, that while he continues in his present state, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

And oh! that while I endeavor to illustrate this, my words might enter into your minds, as goads, and might fix there as nails fastened in a sure place! The substance of my argument is given forth by the one great Shepherd; (Eccles. xii. 11;) may the prosecution of it be blessed, as the means of reducing some wandering sheep into his fold.

Now in order to illustrate the force of this argument, I beseech you seriously to consider,—-what this kingdom is, from which you are in danger of being forever excluded:—and what will be the condition of all those, who shall be finally cut off from any interest in it.

Consider first what that kingdom is, from which the unregenerate, or those who are not born again, shall be excluded.

And here you are not to expect a complete representation of it: for that is an attempt in which the tongues of angels, as well as men, might fail; or how proper soever their language might be in itself, to us it would be unintelligible: for eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. 1 Cor. ii. 9. And surely these final and most illustrious preparations of his love must, beyond all others, exceed our description and conception. A minister, that, with the apostle Paul, had been caught up into the third heaven, if he would attempt to speak of the glorious scenes which were there opened to him, must say, they were unutterable things: (2 Cor. xii. 2, 4:) and one, that with John, had lain in the bosom of Christ himself, must say, as that Apostle did, It does not yet appear what we shall be. 1 John iii. 2. And indeed, when we go' about to discourse of it, I doubt not but the blessed angels pity the weakness of our apprehensions and expressions, and know that we do but debase the subject, when we attempt the most to exalt and adorn it.

Yet there are just and striking representations of this kingdom made in the word of God; and we are there often told in general, wherein it shall consist. You no doubt remember that I was, in the last of these Lectures, going over several important views of it. I then told you, it will consist in the perfection of our souls in knowledge and holiness; in the sight of God and our blessed Redeemer; in exercising the most delightful affections towards them, and in being forever employed in rendering them the most honorable services; in conversing with saints and glorious angels; and in the assured expectation of the eternal continuance of this blessedness in all its branches. That this is the scriptural representation of the matter, I proved to you from many express testimonies in the word of God; and I doubt not, but you have often heard the excellency of each of these views represented at large, in distinct discourses on each.

I will not therefore now repeat what has been said upon such occasions; but will rather direct you to some general considerations, which may convince you of the excellency of that state and world, from which, if you continue unregenerate, you must forever be excluded: for I would fain fix it upon your minds, that it is in this connection, and for this purpose, that the representation is made. And oh! that you might so review it, as no longer to neglect so great salvation, (Heb. ii. 3,) nor act as if you judged such everlasting life to be beneath your attention, and unworthy your care and regard! Acts xiii. 46. You cannot think it so when you consider,—that it is represented in scripture under the most magnificent images;—that it is the state which God has prepared for the display of his glory, and the entertainment of his most favorite creatures; that it is tile purchase of the blood of his eternal Son, that it is the main work of his sacred Spirit to prepare men's hearts for it; and the great business of our inveterate enemy, the devil, by all possible means, to prevent our obtaining it. Each of these considerations may much illustrate the excellency of it and all taken together yield a most convincing demonstration.

1. Consider, by what a variety of beautiful and magnificent images this happiness is represented in the word of God; and that may convince you of its excellency.

When the blessed God himself would raise our conceptions of a state of being, so much superior to anything we have ever seen or known, unless he intended a personal and miraculous revelation of it, he must borrow our language, and in painting the glory of heaven must take his colors from earth. And here the magnificence of a city, the sweetness of a garden, the solemn pomp of a temple, the lustre of a crown, and the dignity of a kingdom, strike powerfully on the human mind, and fill it with veneration and delight. But when such figures as these are borrowed from this lower world of ours, faintly to shadow out that which is above, there is always the addition of some important circumstance, to intimate how far the celestial original: exceeds the brightest earthly glory, by which the Divine condescension has vouchsafed to describe it.

The enumeration of a variety of scriptural descriptions will set these remarks in the strongest light. If therefore heaven be described as a city, it is the New Jerusalem, the city of our God, that cometh down from God out of heaven; (Rev. iii. 12, xxi. 2;) the pavement of its streets is all of pure gold, its gates are pearl, and its foundations jewels. Rev. xxi. 19, 21. If it be a garden, it is the Paradise of God, (Rev. ii. 7,) and so far superior to that which he at first prepared and furnished out for the entertainment of Adam in his state of innocence, that it is planted on every side with the tree of life, (Rev. xxii. 2,) of which there was but one alone in the garden of Eden: and is watered, not with such common rivers as the Tigris and Euphrates, but with that living, copious, inexhausted stream, the river of the water of life, which proceeds from the throne of God, (Rev. xxii. 1,) and gently glides along through all its borders. When it is represented as a temple, we are told that instead of a golden ark placed in the remotest recess, to which only the high priest might once a year approach, and on which he might not be allowed to gaze, the throne of God is erected there, (Rev. vii. 15,) perpetually surrounded with myriads of worshipers who see his face, and like the high priest when clothed in his richest robes, have his name written in their foreheads: (Rev. xxii. 4:) instead of the feeble rays of that golden candle. stick, whose lamps shone in the holy place, the heavenly temple is illuminated in a more glorious manner, and needs no candle, neither light of the sun, for the glory of God continually enlightens it, and the Lamb is the light thereof: (Rev. xxi. 23, xxii. 5:) Nay, we are assured that its sacred ministers are made kings as well as priests unto God; (Rev. i. 6;) and accordingly being clothed in white raiment, they have crowns of gold on their heads; (Rev. iv. 4;) as well as harps and golden vials, or censers full of incense in their hands: (Rev. v. 8:) and lest we should think these pompous services are only the entertainments of some peculiarly sacred seasons, we are told that they rest not day nor night, (Rev. iv. 8,) adoring him that sits upon the throne, and are fixed as pillars in his temple, to go out no more. Rev. iii. 12. Again, if it be spoken of as a crown, it is represented as incorruptible; (1 Cor. ix. 25;) a crown of glory that fadeth not away. 1 Pet. v. 4. And when it is called a kingdom, the scripture does not only add, as here in the text, that it is the kingdom of God, which must certainly exalt the idea of it; but that it is a kingdom which can not be moved, (Heb. xii. 28,) an everlasting kingdom: (2 Pet. i. 11;) nay, to carry our thoughts to the highest degree of dignity and glory, it is spoken of as a sitting down with Christ on his throne. Rev. iii. 21.

But further, the value of these illustrious representations is much enhanced, if we consider the character of the persons by whom they are made. They were persons well acquainted with these things, having received their information from a Divine revelation, and from the immediate visions of God. They were also persons of such sublime and elevated sentiments, that they had a sovereign contempt for all the enjoyments of time and sense, even those which the generality of mankind set the greatest value upon: and counted all things but loss for the knowledge of Christ, (Phil. iii. 8,) and the testimony of a good conscience, (2 Cor. i. 12,) while they looked not at temporal, but at eternal things. 2 Cor. iv. 18. They could deliberately, constantly, and even cheerfully, resign all the riches and honors, and carnal pleasures, which they might have purchased by their apostacy from religion; and were ready to embrace bonds, imprisonments, or death itself, when it met them in the way of their duty. Now certainly a glory, with which such holy, wise and heroic persons were so passionately enamored, and which they describe with such pathos of language, and such ecstasy of delight, while they were trampling with so generous a disdain on everything which earth calls good and great, must deserve our very attentive regard. And this it yet more evidently will appear to do, if we consider,

2. It is the state and world, which God has prepared for the display of his glory, and the entertainment of the most favored of his creatures.

This argument seems to be hinted at, when it is said, as in the place I referred to before, eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. 1 Cor. ii. 9. God well knows the capacity of his creatures, and how much happiness they are able and fit to receive; and he can fill their capacities to the utmost: nay, he can farther enlarge them to what degree he pleases, that they may admit superior degrees of. glory and felicity. A happiness, therefore, which he has prepared on purpose to display the riches of his magnificence and love, and to show what he can do to delight his creatures, must certainly be in some measure proportionable, if I may so express it, to the infinity of his own sacred perfections. Let us then seriously consider who God is; and attentively dwell in our meditations on the extent of his power, and the riches of his bounty; and our conception of the happiness of heaven must be raised to something more glorious, than the most emphatical words can perfectly describe.

And here, to assist our imagination in some degree, let us look round us, and take a survey of this visible world. This earth, how conveniently has he furnished it, how beautifully has he disposed it, how richly has he adorned it! What various and abundant provision has he made for the subsistence, the accommodation, and the entertainment of the creatures that inhabit it and especially of man, in whom this scheme and system of things appears to centre, and to whom it is almost wisely and graciously referred! Yet earth is the habitation of a race of mean and degenerate creatures, who are but in a state of trial; nay, it is the habitation of thousands and ten thousands of God's incorrigible enemies, with whom he is angry every day. Psa. vii. 11. Already it is marked with some awful characters of the Divine displeasure: and the scripture assures us, that it is reserved unto fire, against the day of judgment, and perdition of ungodly men. 2 Pet. iii. 7. Yet even this earth is not a spectacle unworthy our regard; nor can we, if we allow ourselves to survey it with becoming attention, behold it without an affecting mixture of admiration, of love, and of joy—passions that will strike us yet more powerfully, if from this earth of ours we raise our eyes to the visible heavens; and there behold the glory of the sun, the brightness of the moon, and all the numerous host of heaven that attend in her train. Who that considers, with any degree of attention, their magnitude, their lustre, their motion, and their influence, can forbear crying out, Oh Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens. Psal. viii. 1.

And when, with even these in our view, we further reflect, that there is another apartment, as yet invisible, of which this spangled firmament is but, as it were, the shining vail; an apartment, where the great Creator and Governor of all has fixed his stated residence, and erected the throne of his glory; even that throne which is forever surrounded by all the most holy and excellent of his creatures; we must be convinced, it is something more beautiful, and more magnificent than this harmonious system itself. And, methinks, when we have said more beautiful and more magnificent than this, imagination is ready to fail us, and to leave the mind dazzled and overwhelmed with an effulgency of lustre which it cannot delineate, and can scarce sustain. Yet will our venerable apprehensions of it be farther assisted if we consider,

3. That the kingdom of heaven is the great purchase of the blood of God's only begotten Son; and therefore to be sure it must be inconceivably valuable.

If you are at all acquainted with your Bibles, you must know that we are by sin in a state of alienation from God; (Ephes. iv. 18;) that we had forfeited all our title to his love, and stood justly exposed to his severe displeasure; and that it is Jesus who delivered us from the wrath to come. 1 Thess. i. 10. Now if we owe it to his merit and atonement that we live, (1 John iv. 9,) much more are we to ascribe it to him, if we are raised to any superior degree of happiness. If God could not, with honor to his justice, have suffered us, without such a propitiation, to have passed off with impunity; much less could he, without it, have received us to his embraces, and have advanced us to sit with him on his throne. Rev. iii. 21. Accordingly it is said of the blessed martyrs in the heavenly world, even of those who had so gloriously distinguished their fidelity and zeal, and loved not their lives unto the death; (Rev. xii. 11,) that they had washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb; (Rev. vii. 14;) and they gratefully acknowledge it in their hymns of praise, that Christ had redeemed them to God by his blood, and had made them kings and priests unto God. Rev. v. 9, 10.

Now let us seriously reflect, and consider what this blood of the Lamb is. The apostle Peter tells us, that silver and gold, and all the peculiar treasures of kings and princes, are but corruptible things, (1 Pet. i. 18, 19,) or perishing and worthless trifles, when compared with it. And no wonder it is represented in such exalted language, when we consider it was the blood of the only begotten Son of God, who is the brightness of his Father's glory, and the express image of his person, (Heb. i. 3,) and indeed one with him, (John x. 30,) being possessed of a nature truly and properly divine; so that it is called the blood of God. Acts xx. 28. We may well argue, even from these transient surveys, that it was some important happiness, which he came to procure at so expensive a rate. Had an angel been sent down from heaven, we should naturally have concluded, it must have been upon some momentous errand: surely then, when the Lord of angels comes down, not only to live on earth, but to expire in bitter agonies on the cross, to purchase a benefit for us, we may be well assured, that this benefit must be very considerable. Our Lord Jesus Christ must certainly set a very great value upon it, or he would not have purchased it at such a price; and we are sure, the value that he apprehended in it must be its true value. He could not be imposed upon by any false appearance of glory and splendor: he despised, with a just and generous contempt, all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; (Matt. iv. 8, 10;) and he was also well acquainted with the celestial kingdom, having so long dwelt in it, and so long presided over it: yet so highly does he esteem it, that he speaks of it upon all occasions, as the highest possible gift of Divine bounty, the richest preparation and noblest contrivance of Divine love: yea, he regards it as a felicity so great, that when he conducts his people into it, with the last solemn pomp of the judgment day, it is said, he shall see of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied, (Isa. liv. 11,) allowing it to be a just equivalent for all he has done, and all he has suffered in so glorious a cause.

4. The excellency of the heavenly kingdom will further appear, if we consider, that it is the main work of the Spirit of God upon men's hearts, to prepare them for an admittance into it.

You well know, that the blessed Spirit of God is spoken of as that Divine Agent, by whom all the hosts of heaven were created, and all God's various works produced; (Job xxxiii. 4;) and it is he that knows the things of God even as the human spirit knows the things of a man. 1 Cor. ii. 11. Now it is his peculiar office in the economy of our redemption, to form the soul to a meetness for glory. Accordingly, when the apostle Paul had been reminding the Corinthians, that while they continued in their sinful state, they were unfit for the kingdom of God, he adds, But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. 1 Cor. vi. 11.

That the Spirit should condescend to engage at all in such a work, must give us a very sublime idea of the end at which it aims. But much more will that idea be raised, when we consider with what a variety, and what a constancy of operations he begins, continues, and perfects it. He attempts it, as we shall hereafter more particularly show you, sometimes by convictions of terror, and sometimes by insinuations of love; and by one method or another, in the hearts of all the heirs of this glory, he works so great a change, that it is represented by turning a heart of stone into a heart of flesh, (Ezek. xxxvi. 26,) by raising the dead from their graves, (Ezek. xxxvii. 13. Eph. ii. 5, 6,) yea, by producing a new creation. 2 Cor. v. 17. Eph. ii. 10. For this does he watch over the soul with the tenderest care, and continues his friendly offices, to recover it from relapses, and gradually to form it to advancing degrees of sanctity, till at length it be enabled to perfect holiness in the fear of God. 2 Cor. vii. 1. Nay, so intent is this Sacred Agent on the important work, that when sinners most insolently and ungratefully reject him, and by resisting him oppose their own happiness, he does not immediately leave them; he strikes them again and again; and waits upon them for succeeding days and months, and years.

And when, perhaps, the sincere convert makes the most ungrateful return for the experience of his goodness, even after he has acknowledged, and at length obeyed it: when under the fatal transport of some ungoverned passion, and the influence of some strong temptation, he acts as if he were intent upon tearing down the work of the Spirit of God upon his soul, and driving him forever away; yet in how many instances does he return again after all these injuries, pleading the cause of God with a sweetly prevailing eloquence, and thus healing the wound, and repairing the breach, and making it perhaps stronger than before I And all this, for what? That the happy subject of all these kind operations may be formed to a fitness for the kingdom of heaven.

And are we to regard this blessed Spirit as an unmeaning agent, or as incapable of judging of the importance of this end for which he acts? Is that almighty energy of his employed in an insignificant manner? Surely Nicodemus, slow of understanding as he was, must apprehend the importance of entering into the kingdom of heaven, when he heard, that in order to be admitted to it, a man must be born of the Spirit. And let me add once more,

5. That the excellency of the heavenly kingdom may further be argued from the eagerness with which the enemy of souls is endeavoring to prevent our entrance into it.

You know the devil is always represented as the inveterate enemy of our happiness. His rage is expressed by that of a roaring lion, that walks about, seeking whom he may devour: (1 Peter v. 9:) and with unwearied diligence he is continually employed in forming and pursuing his temptations. And this is the grand design of all, that he may exclude us from the promised felicity. While sinners are in their unregenerate state, he endeavors to engage all their regards to the objects of time and sense; and for that purpose he continually presents them with a variety of entertainments and amusements suited to their respective tempers and circumstances. If they are awakened to any serious concern about their eternal salvation, he uses his utmost address to divert their minds from an attendance to it: and for this purpose he displays before them all the allurements of sin in its most engaging forms, and if they are not captivated with these, he often puts on a face of terror, and endeavors to affright them from religion by the most gloomy representations of it, or by horrible and distracting suggestions, that it is now forever too late to attain it.

Or, if Divine Grace surmount all this opposition, and the sinner resolutely chooses his portion in heaven, and puts his soul into the hands of Christ to be conducted to it, the malice of Satan pursues him even to that sacred retreat, which he has sought in the arms of his Saviour: and if he cannot prevent the soul from entering into heaven, he will at least labor to bring it into such a state of negligence, and to seduce it into those delays and relapses, which may divert its regards to that blessed world, which may cloud its evidences of it, and may at least, as much as possible, diminish the degree of its glory there.

Now permit me, in this instance, to turn the artillery of this cunning enemy against himself, and to argue the excellency of this kingdom, from the zeal and attachment with which he endeavors to obstruct your attaining it. Though Satan be now a very degenerate creature, he was once an angel of light, and still retains much of the knowledge, though he has lost the rectitude and integrity of the angelic nature. And he particularly knows what heaven is because he was once an inhabitant there; and while he is endeavoring to persuade the sinner to prefer earth before it, he does, by that very endeavor, incontestably prove, that he himself knows the contrary, and is fully apprized that there is nothing here to be compared with the felicity of the future state. And therefore while he seeks the destruction of the soul, he can leave it in the enjoyment of all its worldly prosperity; nay, he will attempt to lead him into methods, by which this prosperity may be promoted and increased.

And thus, sirs, I have endeavored a little to represent to you, what this kingdom of heaven is from which we are assured that unconverted sinners shall forever be excluded. I have argued its excellency--from the representations which are made of it in the word of God--from its being the preparation of Divine love--from its being the purchase of a Redeemer's blood--and the end to which, on the one hand, the glorious operations of the blessed Spirit lead--and of which, on the other hand, all the stratagems and assaults of the prince of darkness are intended to deprive us. If, therefore, there be truth in scripture, if there be wisdom in heaven, or policy in hell, it must surely be infinitely important. And will any of you be such mean-spirited creatures, as, when that happiness is proposed to you, basely to relinquish the pursuit of it, and to sacrifice this blessed hope to any perishing trifle of mortal life? Surely it would be madness; though nothing more were to be apprehended than the loss of it; and though, when heaven were lost, all that earth can give should remain, if not to counterbalance the loss, yet at least to make you less sensible of it. But the weight of the argument will much more evidently appear, if you consider,

Secondly, What will at last become of all those who are excluded from this heavenly kingdom?

And here I beseech you to ask your own consciences, whether they be not inwardly persuaded, that those who are excluded from heaven, will remain in a state of existence, in which they will be ever sensible of their loss, and will be delivered over by Divine vengeance into that seat of torment, which God has prepared for the punishment of his implacable and incorrigible enemies. This many of you do undoubtedly believe of such persons in general; believe it, therefore, of yourselves, if you are, and continue, in an unregenerate state.

1. You will still continue in a state of existence, in which you will be ever sensible of your unspeakable loss.

It might afford some wretched kind of consolation to you, if, as soon as you died out of this world, your being or your apprehensive powers were immediately to cease. Then the loss of heaven would only be an affliction to you in your dying moments, when you saw the enjoyments of earth were come to an end, and that you must have no part in any future happiness. But, alas! sirs, you cannot but know that when your bodies are dead, and consumed in their graves, your thinking faculties will still be continued to you: and, oh, that you would seriously reflect, how they will then be employed! You will then be thinking what you have done in life, what you have chosen for your happiness, and what has been the consequence of that choice. You will look round in vain for such accommodations and pleasures as you were once most fond of: but they will be no more. And when you perceive them vanished, like the visionary amusements of a dream, you will lift up your astonished eyes towards the regions of glory. And you indeed will have a lively view of those happy regions: but to what purpose will that view serve? Only through the righteous vengeance of God to aggravate your misery and despair.

"Alas," you will think, "there are millions of creatures yonder in heaven, who are rejoicing in the sight and favor of God, and are as full of happiness as their natures can contain, and shall be so forever; while I am cut off from all share in the Divine bounty. Rivers of pleasures are flowing in upon them, while not one drop is sent down to me; nor could I obtain it, though I were to ask the favor from the least of Christ's servants there. I am cast out as an accursed wretch, with whom God and his holy and blessed creatures will have no farther intercourse, or communion. And why am I thus cast out? and why am I thus cut off from God's favor, and driven from his presence, while so many that dwell with me on earth are admitted to it? My nature was originally as capable of happiness as theirs: and though it was sadly degenerate, it might, like theirs, have been renewed. God was once offering me that grace, by which my disordered soul might have been transformed, and I might have been fitted for the regions of glory: but I despised all these offers, and gave the preference to those fading vanities, which, alas I have forever forsaken me. And now they that were ready are gone in to the delightful banquet, and the door is shut; (Matt. xxv. 10;) the everlasting gates are shut forever, and barred against me. And here I must lie at this miserable distance, envying and raging at their happiness--of which, whatever sight or knowledge I may have of it, I must never, never, never partake!"

Such reflections, as these, sirs, will cut deep into your souls; and accordingly our Lord declares to impenitent sinners in his own days, There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see others sitting down in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out. Luke xiii. 28. And if you would reflect, you might easily apprehend this. How would you be enraged at yourselves, if by your folly you had neglected securing a plentiful estate, when it was offered to you on the most easy terms; and you actually saw others, once your equals, and perhaps your inferiors, in the possession of it, in consequence of having taken those methods which you stupidly neglected? The reflection, I doubt not, would very much impair the pleasure you might find in other comfortable and agreeable circumstances. How much more insupportable then will the loss of heaven appear to you, when you come to see, and know, what it is you have lost, and have nothing to relieve or support you, under the painful recollection?

It is to no purpose to object, that upon the principles of my last discourse, there will be no room to lament your exclusion from those entertainments, which you would be incapable of relishing if you were admitted to them: for you will then see, and lament that incapacity as a very great misery. As if a man, who was naturally fond of feasting and mirth, should see a great many regaling themselves, and reveling about him, while he was languishing under some painful distemper, which made him incapable of joining in the entertainment; he would yet grieve that he had no part in it: and it would be the increase, rather than the alleviation of his uneasiness, that it was his sickness which unfitted him for it; especially if, as in your case, it was a sickness, which he had brought upon himself by his own folly, and for which he had been offered an easy, pleasant, and infallible remedy, which he had refused to use till the malady was grown utterly incurable. One would imagine, this thought would be enough to impress you; but if it do not, let me entreat, and even charge you, to consider.

2. That if you are excluded from the kingdom of heaven, you will be consigned over to those regions of darkness, despair, and misery, which God has prepared for those unhappy criminals, who are the objects of his final displeasure, and whom he will render everlasting monuments of his wrath.

There is something in human nature, that starts back at the thought of annihilation with strong reluctance: and yet how many thousands are there in this miserable world, who would with all their souls fly to it as a refuge! They shall seek death, as an inspired writer strongly expresses it, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them. Rev. ix. 6. I will not attempt to enter into a detail of the horrors, attending the place and state, into which all who are excluded from the glories of the heavenly world shall be cast, and in which they shall be fixed. Let that one awful scripture suffice for a specimen of many more; in which we are told, that every one whose name was not found written in the book of life, or who was not registered in the number of those, who were to inhabit the New Jerusalem, or the kingdom of heaven, was cast into the lake of fire, (Rev. xx. 25,) or, as it is afterwards expressed, into the lake that burns with fire and brimstone. Rev. xxi. 8. Think of this, and ask your own hearts, you that are so impatient of the little evils of mortal life, whether you can endure to take up your abode forever in devouring fire, or whether you can dwell with everlasting burnings? Isa. xxxiii. 14. Yet these are the images by which the word of God represents it; to be plunged as in a sea of liquid fire, whose flames are exasperated and heightened, by being fed with brimstone; nay, as the prophet speaks, by a copious stream of brimstone, so expressly appointed by God himself, that this, as well as the river of the water of life, is represented as proceeding immediately from him: he has made Tophet deep and large: the pile thereof is fire and much wood, and the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it. Isa. xxx. 33.

It is painful to a tender mind to think of this, as what its fellow-creatures are obnoxious to: it is grievous to speak of it in these dreadful terms. But who are we, that we should be more merciful than God? Or rather, how can we imagine it is mercy, to avoid speaking of the appointment of infinite wisdom, for the punishment of impenitent sinners? What mercy were that, sirs, to avoid to mention these terrors to you, and to neglect to warn you of them, because they are great? which is indeed the very reason why the scripture thus pathetically describes them.

Away therefore with this foolish, this treacherous compassion, which chooses rather to leave men to be consumed, than to disturb their slumbers. Think, sirs, of that wretched man, whom Christ describes as lifting up his eyes in hell, being in torments; seeing the regions of the blessed at an unapproachable distance, and begging in vain that one drop of water might be sent to cool his tongue, amidst all the raging thirst with which he was tormented in this flame. Luke xvi. 23, 24. Regard it attentively; for as God lives, and as your soul lives, if you continue in an unrenewed state, you see in that wretch the very image and representation of yourselves. Yes, sinners, I testify it to you this day, that intolerable as it seems, it will on that supposition be your own certain fate; or to speak much more properly, your righteous, but inevitable doom. Heaven and earth will desert you in that dreadful hour: or if the inhabitants of both were to join to intercede for you, it would be in vain. Sentence will be past, and execution done. Hell will open its mouth to receive you, and shut it again forever to enclose you, with thousands, and ten thousands more, among whom you will not find one to comfort you, but every one ready to afflict you. Then shall you know the value which God sets upon his heavenly kingdom, by the judgments he inflicts upon you for neglecting and despising it; and then shall you know the importance of being born again, that only means by which Hell can be avoided, and Heaven secured.

And let me farther add, that conviction will quickly come in this terrible way, if you are not now prevailed upon to consider these things; things which, if you have the least regard to the word of God, you cannot but notionally believe. Do not then go about to annihilate, as it were, these prospects to your mind, by placing them at a long distance. The distance is not so great as to deserve mention. The patience of God will not wait upon you for thousands, or even hundreds of years; you have a few mortal days, in which to consider of the matter; or rather, you have the present moment to consider of it. And if you improve the opportunity, it is well; but if not, the just and uniform methods of the divine administration shall proceed, though it should be to your ruin. God has vindicated the honors of his violated law, and despised Gospel, upon millions, who with the rebel-angels, by whom they have been seduced, are even now reserved in everlasting chains under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day; (Jude, verse 6;) and he will as surely vindicate them upon you. If you do not repent, if you are not regenerate, you shall all likewise perish, (Luke xiii. 3,) and not one of you shall escape.

And thus I close this copious and important argument: this argument, in which life and death, salvation and damnation are concerned. View it, my friends, in all its connection, and see in what part of it the chain can be broken. Will you say, that without regeneration you can secure an interest in the kingdom of heaven, though the constitution of heaven oppose it, and all the declarations of God's word stand directly against it; and though nature itself proclaim, and conscience testify your incapacity to enjoy it? Or will you say, that being excluded from it, you shall suffer no considerable damage, though you lose so glorious a state, the noblest preparation of Divine love, the purchase of redeeming blood, and the end of the Spirit's operation on the soul; though you ever remain sensible of your loss, and be consigned over to dwell in that flaming prison, which God has prepared for the devil and his angels, and where all the terrors of his righteous judgment are made known?

But if you are indeed inwardly convinced of the truth and importance of these things, and will go away, and act as before, without any regard to them, I can say no more The reason of man, and the word of God can point out no stronger arguments, than an infinite good on the one hand, and an infinite evil on the other.

Hear, therefore, O heavens! and give ear O earth! and let angels and devils join their astonishment; that creatures, who would strenuously contend, and warmly exert themselves, I will not say merely for an earthly kingdom, but in an affair where only a few pounds, or perhaps a few shillings or pence were concerned, are indifferent here, where, by their own confession, a happy or miserable eternity is in question. For indifferent, I fear, some of you are and will continue. I have represented these things in the integrity of my heart, as in the sight of God, not in artful forms of speech, but in the genuine language, which the strong emotions of my own soul, in the views of them, most naturally dictated. Yet I think it not at all improbable, that some of you, and some perhaps who do not now imagine it, will, as soon as you return home, divert your thoughts and discourses to other objects; and may, perhaps, as heretofore, lie down upon your beds without spending one quarter of an hour, or even one serious minute, in lamenting your miserable state before God, and seeking that help and deliverance which his grace alone can give. But if you thus lie down, make, if you can, a covenant with death that it may not break in upon your slumbers; and an agreement with hell, (Isa. xxviii. 15,) that before the return of the morning, it may not flash in upon your careless souls another kind of conviction, than they will now receive from the voice of reason and the word of God.

DISCOURSE VII.

OF THE NECESSITY OF DIVINE INFLUENCES TO PRODUCE REGENERATION IN THE SOUL.

Titus iii. 5, 6.

Not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; which he shed on us abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour.

IF my business were to explain and illustrate this scripture at large, it would yield an ample field for accurate criticism and useful discourse, and more especially would lead us into a variety of practical remarks, on which it would be pleasant to dilate in our meditations. It evidently implies that those, who are saved of the Lord, are brought to the practice of good works, without which faith is dead, (James ii. 17,) and all pretences to a saving change are not only vain, but insolent. Yet it plainly testifies to us, that our salvation, and acceptance with God, is not to be ascribed to these, but to the Divine mercy; which mercy operates by sanctifying our hearts, through the renewing influence of the Holy Spirit: And that there is an, abundant effusion of this Spirit under the Gospel, which is therefore, with great propriety, called the ministration of the Spirit, (2 Cor. iii. 8,) and the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. Rom. viii. 2.

But I must necessarily, in pursuance of my general scheme, waive several of these remarks, that I may leave myself room to insist on the grand topic I intend from the words.

I have already shown you, who may be said to be in an unregenerate state: I have also described the change which regeneration makes in the soul; and have largely shown you, in the three last discourses, the absolute necessity and importance of it. And now I proceed,

To show the necessity of the Divine power, in order to produce this great and important change.

This is strongly implied in the words of the text: in which the apostle, speaking of the method God has been pleased to take for the display of his goodness in the salvation and happiness of fallen men, gives us this affecting view of it, that it is not by works of righteousness which we, i. e. any of us Christians, have done; but according to his free grace and mercy that he has saved us by the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost. . . . . .

Lest any should imagine, that an external ceremony (baptism) was sufficient, or that it was the chief thing intended, the apostle takes the matter higher. And as the apostle Peter tells us, that the baptism which saves us is not merely the putting away the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards God; (1 Pet. iii. 21;) so the apostle Paul here adds, that we are saved by the renewing of the Holy Ghost: by which I can by no means understand something entirely distinct from, and subsequent to his regenerating influences; for according to the view of regeneration stated in our former discourses, none can be regenerated who are not renewed: but it seems to explain the former clause, and to refer to the more positive effect produced by Divine grace on the soul, whereby Christians are not only purified from sin, but disposed to, and quickened in a course of holy obedience. And then he further tells us, that this Spirit is the gift of God, and is plentifully communicated to us in the name, and through the hands of the blessed Redeemer, being shed on us abundantly by God, through Jesus Christ our Saviour.

Agreeably therefore to the general design and purport of these words, I shall go on to demonstrate the absolute necessity of a Divine agency and operation in this great work of our regeneration; which I shall do from a variety of topics. And here I shall studiously waive many controversies, with which the Christian world has been afflicted, and the soundest part of it disturbed, with relation to the kind and manner of this influence. I will not so much as mention them, and much less discuss them; lest Satan should take an advantage of us, (1 Cor. ii. 11,) to divert our minds from what is essential in this doctrine, to what is merely circumstantial. Only let it be observed in general, that I speak of such an agency of God on our minds, as offers no violence to the rational and active nature which God has given us, nor does by any means supersede our obligation to those duties which his word requires; but on the contrary, cures and perfects our nature, and disposes the soul to a regard to such incumbent duties, and strengthens it in the discharge of them. With this only preliminary, which appears to me highly important, I proceed to show the reasonableness of ascribing this change to a Divine agency, rather than to anything else, which may be supposed to have any share in producing it. And we may infer this,

DISCOURSE IX.

DIRECTIONS TO AWAKENED SINNERS.

Acts ix. 6.

And he, trembling and astonished, said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do.

THESE are the words of Saul, who also is called Paul, (Acts xiii. 9,) when he was stricken to the ground as he was going to Damascus; and any one who had looked upon him in his present circumstances and knew nothing more of him than that view, in comparison with his past life, could have given, would have imagined him one of the most miserable creatures that ever lived upon earth, and would have expected that he should very soon have been numbered among the most miserable of those in hell.

He was engaged in a course of such savage cruelty as can upon no principle of common morality be vindicated, even though the Christians had been as much mistaken, as he rashly and foolishly concluded they were. After having dragged many of them into prison, and given his voice against some that were put to death, he persecuted others into strange cities; and had now obtained a commission from the Sanhedrim at Jerusalem to carry this holy, or rather this impious war into Damascus, (Acts xxvi. 10-12,) and to bring all the disciples of the blessed Jesus bound from thence to Jerusalem: (Acts ix. 2:) probably that they might there be animadverted upon with greater severity than could safely have been attempted by the Jews in so distant a city, under a foreign governor.

But behold, as he was in the way, Jesus interposes, clothed with a lustre exceeding that of the sun at noon. Acts xxvi. 13. He strikes him down from the beast on which he rode, and lays him prostrate on the ground, calling to him with a voice far more dreadful than that of thunder, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? Acts ix. 4.

Any one would have imagined, from the circumstances in which he now beheld Saul, that Divine vengeance had already begun to seize him, and that full execution would quickly have been done. But God's ways are not as our ways, nor are his thoughts as our thoughts. Isa. lv. 8. Christ laid him almost as low as hell, that he might raise him as high as the third heaven; of which he afterwards gave him a view in vision, to anticipate his reception into it. 2 Cor. xii. 2. This day of his terror and astonishment was, in a nobler sense than any other, the day of his birth; for he is brought to bow himself at the foot of an injured Saviour, to offer him, as it were, a blank upon which to write his own terms of peace; and as soon as he heard that this glorious person was Jesus, whom, in his members, he had so long persecuted, he makes his submission in these lively, comprehensive words, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? This was not a time for a long speech; but be that discerns all the secret recesses of the spirit, knew these few words were full of a most important meaning, and expressed not only a grief of heart for all that he had before been doing against Christ and his kingdom, but the sincerest resolution for the future to employ himself in his service, waiting only the intimations of his wise and gracious will, as to the most proper and acceptable manner of beginning the attempt.

There is, methinks, a poignant kind of eloquence in this short expression, far beyond what any paraphrase upon it can give: and our compassionate Lord accepted this surrender. All his former rebellions were no more remembered against him; and before he rose from the ground, to which he fell on so terrible an occasion, Christ gave him an intimation, not only that his forfeited life should be spared, so that he should get safe into the city to which he was bound, but that he should there be instructed in the service which Jesus, whom he had persecuted, would now condescend to receive at his hands.

I represent the case thus largely, because I hope it is a case, which, in some measure, suits the experience of some that hear me this evening. Paul tells us, it was for this reason, among others, that he himself obtained mercy, though he was the chief of sinners, that in him, as the chief, Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering, for a pattern to them who should afterwards believe. 1 Tim. i. 15, 16.

Is there then, in this assembly, any awakened and convinced sinner; any one that, apprized of his folly, and sensible of his misery, is desirous to fall at the foot of Christ, and say with Saul, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? That which I see not, teach thou me; and wherein I have done iniquity, I will do so no more! Job xxxiv. 32. Such would I now especially address; and while I put the question, Is there any such among us? I would fain persuade myself, there are several. For I humbly hope, that all the labors that have been bestowed in the preceding discourses are not in vain, nor all the prayers that have been offered for their success in vain; prayers which, I doubt not, have been carried by many of you into your families and your closets, as well as jointly presented to God in this public assembly. Trusting, therefore, that it is thus with some, and praying that it may be a more frequent case, I proceed,

Sixthly, to give some directions to such as are awakened by Divine grace to a sense of their misery in an unregenerate state, and are brought to desire recovery from it.

To such I propose to give directions: and to what purpose would it be to undertake to offer them to any others? Who would pretend to teach those who are unconcerned about their salvation, what methods they are to take in order to their becoming truly regenerate? This, methinks, would be like giving directions how those might learn to write who do not desire it, and will not take a pen into their hands. All I could say to such, while they continue in this character, would vanish into empty air. It would not, probably, be so much as observed and remembered.

I speak therefore to awakened souls, and it is pleasant to address such on this head. Ananias undoubtedly undertook his message to Saul with cheerfulness, to tell him what Christ would have him to do: and I would with pleasure and cheerfulness engage in the like work; humbly hoping, that some will hear with observation and attention--will hear for themselves and so hear for their good. Job v. 27. And to this purpose let me advise you--to attend to the impressions that have been made upon you with great seriousness--to break off everything that is contrary to them--to seek for further knowledge in religious matters—to pour out your souls before God in earnest prayer—to communicate the state of your case to some experienced Christian--to acquaint yourselves with such as are much in your own circumstances--to fly immediately to Christ, as ready to receive all that come to him--to dedicate yourselves to him, and to his service, in the most solemn manner--to arm yourselves to encounter the greatest difficulties in your Christian course--and finally, to take every step in this attempt with a deep sense of your own weakness, and an humble dependence upon Divine grace to be communicated to you as the matter requires. These are the several directions I would offer to you: and may they be impressed in such a manner on your souls, that none of you may lose the things that have been wrought: (2 John ver. 8:) but by the effectual working of the mighty power of God, (Eph. i. 19,) such as he graciously has been pleased to bring to the birth, may be brought forth, (Isa. lxvi. 9,) and such as are awakened may be savingly renewed!

1. I would advise you to attend to the impressions made upon you with great seriousness.

They may perhaps take you a little off the world and its concernments; and some will blame you for suffering such an interruption: but regard not that censure. The time will come, if you pursue these things aright, when renewed diligence, prudence, and the Divine blessing, will amply make amends for any present hindrance which these impressions may occasion. And if it should be otherwise, is there not a cause? If a man seized with a threatening distemper should choose, for a little while, to lay aside his usual business, that he might attend to the care of his health, before the symptoms grew incurable would any body blame him for this? On the contrary, would it not be looked upon as acting a very wise, prudent, and necessary part? Much more may be said here. It is not a light thing for you, because it is your life. Deut. xxxii. 47. And if the life is more than meat, and the body than raiment, (Matt. vi. 25,) then surely the soul is more to be regarded than either. And therefore what you do in your worldly affairs, do moderately, and do not grudge that retirement which is so necessary in such a tender circumstance as this.

I may apply to you, on this occasion, those words of Solomon: Through desire a man having separated himself, seeketh and intermeddleth with all wisdom. Prov. xviii. 1. If you desire to attain Divine wisdom, you must separate yourself from all other things to pursue it. And it is the more necessary to attend to this now, because the Tempter may probably contrive to lay some more than ordinary avocation in your way, at a time when the interest of his kingdom requires you should be diverted from prosecuting those views which are presenting themselves to you, and by which you may so probably be rescued out of his hands, and put forever out of his power.

2. Let me advise you to break off everything which is contrary to such impressions as these.

Sin will immediately appear to have been your disease and your ruin: and therefore, if ever you hope for recovery, you must resolutely break with that; not merely with this or that particular evil, but with every sin; and that not only for a little while, but entirely and forever. A mortal, irreconcilable war must be declared against it. Every fleshly lust must be denied, every immoral practice, for which your heart may at any time smite you, must be reformed; and if ever you expect to reap mercy and life, you must, as the prophet expresses it, break up your fallow ground, (Hos. x. 12,) and not sow among thorns. Jer. iv. 3. For righteousness has no fellowship with unrighteousness, and light no communion with darkness. 2 Cor. vi. 14. And you may be assured, that as all sin grieves the Spirit of God, and strengthens the heavy fetters which lie upon the soul; so those sins which are committed after these awakenings and convictions, have a peculiar guilt attending them, and do greater despite to the Spirit of grace, (Heb. x. 29,) in proportion to the degree in which his motions on the soul have been vigorous and warm.

3. Seek further knowledge, especially from the word and ordinances of God.

The influences of Divine grace are not to be considered as a blind impulse: but God's Spirit works on the spirit of man, as one rational being on another. The apostle therefore put the question with great reason, How shall they believe in him, of whom they have not heard? Rom. x. 14. And as some knowledge is the foundation on which the Spirit of God ordinarily operates in men's hearts; so in proportion to the degree in which you attain further light into the scheme of the gospel, and of salvation by Christ, it may be expected you will be more impressed by it. The mention of this is so much the more necessary, as mistaken notions of religion often expose people on the one hand, to great perplexities, and on the other, betray them into a false peace, which one way or another will be bitterness in the end.

Come, therefore, to the house of God, and attend spiritual preaching. The question is not about forms, but things. Be not therefore over-scrupulous about what is merely circumstantial in religion, on the one hand or the other: but where you find more spiritual light and improvement, there choose generally to attend: not confining religion to any particular party, nor judging those who differ from you in their sentiment or practice; but calmly and humbly seeking your own edification, leaving others to seek theirs where they are persuaded, in the sight of God, they may most probably find it.

Above all, remember, in this circumstance, to make the word of God the man of your counsel, (Psal. cxix. 24,) and to judge of what you read and hear by the tenor of that, as the oracle of eternal truth; always attending the reading of it with earnest prayer to God for the illumination of his Spirit, as I shall afterwards more particularly direct. No other books are to be set up in opposition to this, or in comparison with it; yet let it be your care, in subordination to scripture, to study the writings of those faithful servants of God in latter ages, who themselves manifest a sense of practical religion. Especially endeavor to find out and peruse those writings which treat of conversion and regeneration, and which contain advice suited to your case. Blessed be God, our language abounds with such: and every truly Christian minister will be glad to direct you to them, and so far as he has a convenient opportunity to furnish you with them.

4. Pour out your soul before God in earniest prayer.

You cannot be unacquainted with the many promises God has made in scripture for the encouragement of those who desire to pray to him in the sincerity of their hearts. You know into how little a compass Christ has crowded together three equivalent promises. Ask, and it shall be given you: seek and ye shall find: knock, and it shall be opened unto you; (Matt. vii. 7;) and you cannot but remember the threefold encouragement, from the success of those who have recourse to this expedient, which he has added in the most express and general terms: For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened. Verse 8. Go, therefore, in a cheerful dependence upon this promise: go, and try the truth of it. Whither should a creature in such circumstances go, but to that God, who has the hearts of all in his hand as the rivers of water, and turns them whithersoever he will? Prov. xxi. 1. And who should go to him, rather than you? And in what circumstances should a distressed creature rather think of looking and crying to him, than in these; where it sees itself surrounded with so much danger, and yet feels an inward earnest desire, not only of deliverance, but of holiness, too? Go, therefore, and cast yourself at the feet of God this very evening: do it as soon as you return to your habitations; and if you can not put your thoughts and desires into words, at least sigh and groan before the Lord. Mourn, if you can not pray; and mourn that you can not; or rather be assured, that unutterable groanings have sometimes the greatest efficacy, and prove the most prevailing eloquence.

It will be no wonder at all, if in these circumstances Satan should endeavor to terrify you. It is his common practice. So many souls have vanquished him upon their knees, that he dreads and hates the posture: but draw an argument from that very opposition to make you so much the more eager and importunate; and when your heart is overwhelmed within you, fly unto the rock that is higher than you. Psal. lxi. 2.

I will add, Be not discouraged, though help be not immediately imparted. Though you may seem to be cast out of God's sight, yet look again towards his holy temple: (Jonah ii. 4:) though you may seem to cry from the deep, and almost from the belly of hell, (Ver. 2,) the bowels of a heavenly Father will yearn over you as returning prodigals; and I doubt not you will meet with the reception that Ephraim found, when God saw him bemoaning and humbling himself, because he had been as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: when he cried, Turn thou me, and I shall be turned: for thou art the Lord my God; his heavenly Father answers him in these most affectionate words: attend to them, O thou returning sinner, for thy comfort in this hour of distress! Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still; therefore my bowels are troubled for him, and I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord. Jer. xxxi. 18, 20.

5. I would advise you farther, that you immediately communicate the state of your case to some experienced Christian.

I know there is a backwardness in persons of your circumstances to do it; and it has been surprising to me to learn from some, who, in this respect, have afterwards grown wiser, how long they have been pining away. in their sorrows before they could be persuaded to consult their ministers or Christian friends. It is a stratagem of Satan, against which I would by all means caution you. And one would think your own reason should suggest some very obvious advantages attending the method I propose, of opening your case freely to those whom you think to be more experienced in these things. The impression may be revived upon your own souls, even by the account you give them: and their advice may be exceeding useful to you to guard you against the wiles of the enemy which they have known, though hitherto you have been strangers to them; and to guide you into such methods as, by the Divine blessing, may farther promote that good work which seems, in any measure, to have been begun within you. You may also depend upon it that it will engage their prayers for you; which, in this case, may have great prevalency. And it will also naturally lead them to inspect your conduct: and if they see you afterwards in danger of being drawn aside, they may remind you of the hopes once entertained, and the impressions once made upon your mind. In this respect you may hope, that by walking with wise men you will be yet wiser; (Prov. xiii. 20;) and will soon find how happy an exchange you make, when you give up your vain, and perhaps wicked companions, that you may become the companion of them that fear God, and that keep his precepts; (Psal. cxix. 63;) and may have your delight in them, who, in the judgment of God, are the excellent of the earth, (Psal. xvi. 3,) however they may be despised and derided by men.

6. I would also advise that you endeavor to search out those, if there be any such about or near you, who are much in your own circumstances.

Observe, especially among young people, whether there are any that seem of late to have grown more serious than ordinary; and particularly more constant in attending the ordinances of God, and more cautious in venturing on occasions and temptations to sin; and if you can discover such, endeavor to form an acquaintance with them. Try by proper hints how far their circumstances resemble yours; and as you find encouragement, enter into a stricter friendship with them, founded on religion, and intended to promote it in each other's hearts. Associate yourselves in little bands for Christian converse and prayer; and by this means you will quicken and strengthen the hearts of each other. For on the one hand, what they tell you of their own experience will much confirm you in a persuasion that what you find in yourselves is not a mere fancy, but is really a Divine work begun on your hearts, and will give you encouragement to pursue it as such; for as face answers to face, in water, so does the heart of man to man. Prov. xxvii. 19. And on the other hand, the observation of your pious zeal will quicken others, and may occasion the revival of religion in the hearts of older Christians; as I bless God, I have found some things of this kind have done, and hope, and through the Divine blessing expect, to find it more and more. Therefore exhort one another daily, while it is called to-day, lest any of you should be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. Heb. iii. 13. Strengthen ye the weak hands and confirm the feeble knees; (Isa. xxxv. 3;) and be assured, that while you are endeavoring to help others, you will find in yourselves the first fruits of this happy attempt; and while you water others, you will be watered also yourselves.

7. It is an advice of the highest importance, that whoever you are, you should immediately fly to Christ, and repose the confidence of your souls upon him.

Observe that I urge you, WHOEVER YOU ARE, to fly immediately to Christ: and this I do, to guard against a strange notion which some are ready to entertain, as if we were to bring something of our own righteousness and obedience to him, to render us worthy of being accepted by him. But this is a grand mistake. The blessings of the gospel are not to be considered as matter of bargain and sale: no, if we come to buy wine and milk, it must be without money and without price; (Isa. lv. 1;) and whoever will take of the water of life, must do it freely. Rev. xxii. 17. If he pretend to offer an equivalent, he forfeits his share in the invitation; and must be made to know, that the price he offers is a great affront to the value of the blessings for which he would thus barter.

Let this then be your language, "Lord, I have undone myself, and in me is no help; I see nothing in myself which makes me worthy of thy regard; but this I know, that where sin has abounded, grace does much more abound, and reigns through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ; (Rom. v. 20, 21;) through whom thou hast assured me in thy word that eternal life is the gift of God. Rom. vi. 23. As such let me receive it: and by how much the more undeserving I have been, by so much the more will I celebrate the riches of thy grace in making me a vessel of mercy, and a monument of love throughout all eternity. Blessed Jesus, thou hast said, that him who comes unto thee thou wilt in no wise cast out; (John vi. 37;) behold, I come, and cast myself at thy feet; receive me, and put me among the children, (Jer. iii. 19,) though I deserve not the very crumbs that fall from thy table." Matt. xv. 27.

You will not, I hope, imagine that when I give such advice as this, I mean to insinuate that a person, purposing to continue in his sins, may nevertheless come and receive the blessings of the gospel: for that would be no other than in the grossest manner to pervert and contradict the whole tenor of it. But this I say, and repeat it, that when once a sinner finds himself, by Divine grace, disposed to turn from his sins to God, and made willing to accept the mercy tendered in the gospel, of which a deliverance from sin and a renovation of nature are a great, important, and essential part; he may with cheerfulness apply himself to the great Redeemer, as one of those whom he came on purpose to deliver; and in proportion to the degree in which he can discern the sincerity of his sentiments, he may open his heart to comfort, how great soever his former unworthiness has been, and how lately soever such impressions may have been made upon his heart.

8. Make the dedication of yourselves to Christ and his service as solemn a thing as you can.

We read in the Acts of some that were baptized, and publicly received into the church the very same day in which they were converted. Acts ii. 41, 47. Though a change of circumstances may at present render it convenient to defer doing it for some time, because it is proper that the efficacy of your repentance and conversion should first of all be so far seen, as in the judgment of charity to approve the sincerity of it: yet I think, when you feel your hearts absolutely determined for God, you should in a solemn manner lay hold of his covenant, in secret at least, as soon as possible; and declare, as before him that searcheth all hearts, the sincerity of that acceptance. Some have recommended the doing this in a written engagement: and there are several very affecting forms of this kind in books on this subject, which may very profitably be used. But I hope the fullness of your heart will dictate something of this kind, if such helps should be wanting, or if any peculiar consideration should prevent their being used.

And surely, if you feel the love of the blessed Jesus glowing in your hearts as you ought, you will need no other engagement to yield yourselves to him: that love will be instead of ten thousand arguments; and you will see a secret charm in the view of serving him, which will engage your very soul to spring forward with vigor and eagerness to every proper instance of it. The dread of future punishment has certainly its use to restrain from the commission of sin, especially in an hour of pressing temptation; and the hope of that exceeding and eternal weight of glory, which the gospel promises, will have a still greater efficacy upon a generous mind: yet I will venture to say, that a heart powerfully impressed with the love of Jesus will have a stronger influence than either of these. Cordial friendship needs not to be hired to perform its proper office. Love is a law to itself: it adds a delightful relish to every attempt for the service of its object: and it is most evidently thus in the present case.

"Lord," will the Christian say, "wilt thou do me the honor to accept any feeble attempt for thy service which I can form? I thank thee for it, and bow my head before thee in the most grateful acknowledgments, that thou favorest me with an ability to discharge, in any degree, the fullness of my grateful heart in presenting them. O that my whole soul might daily rise before thee as an acceptable sacrifice in the flame of love! O that I might always feel my heart enlarged, to run the way of thy commandments! Psal. cxix. 32. Were the degree of my future happiness from this moment invariably fixed, I would still pursue this delightful business; for there is no other in which my soul could find a pleasure equal, or comparable to it." If you feel such thoughts as these rising in your mind, breathe them out before the throne from day to day; and when you have done it, recollect frequently the vows of God that are upon you; (Psal. lvi. 12;) and see, that having sworn, you perform it, (Ps. cxix. 106,) and maintain in the whole of your lives a conduct agreeable to such a profession as this.

9. Gird up the loins of your mind to encounter a great deal of difficulty in your Christian course.

Many are the difficulties that you must expect; great, and possibly for a while increasing difficulties. It is commonly said, indeed, that those difficulties which attend the entrance on a religious life are the greatest; and in themselves considered, no doubt but they are so: they arise from many quarters, and unite all together in the same design of keeping you from a believing application to Christ, and a resolute closure with him. In this respect, evil sometimes arises to a man in his own house; (Matt. x. 35, 36;) and those, whose near relation should rather engage them to give the young convert the best assistance where his most important interests are concerned, are on the contrary ready to lay a stumbling block in his way; and perhaps act as if they had rather he should have no religion at all, than change a few circumstances in the outward profession of it. Worldly interest, too, is perhaps to be sacrificed; and conscience cannot be preserved without giving up the friendship of those whom at any other expense but conscience a man would gladly oblige. And it is no wonder if Satan make his utmost efforts, and those very unwearied, too, that he may prevent the revolt of these subjects, or rather the escape of his prisoners. The Christian is therefore called upon by the apostle to arm himself as for a combat, and that at all points; to put on the whole armor of God, that he may be able to withstand in the evil day; and having done all, to stand. Ephes. vi. 11, 13.

Nor must you, my friends, though as soon as you have put on your harness you gain some important victory, boast as if you might securely put it off. 1 Kings xx. 11. Your whole life must be a series of exercise. Through much opposition, as well as much tribulation, you must enter into the kingdom of God: (Luke ix. 62:) and though your difficulties may generally be greatest at first, yet your encouragements then may perhaps be so peculiarly great, and your spirits under their first religious impressions so warm, that other difficulties, in themselves smaller, may afterwards press more sensibly upon you. Endeavor therefore to keep yourselves in a prepared posture. Put on a steady resolution; and to support it, sit down and count the cost, lest having begun to build, you shamefully desist and be not able to finish it; (Luke xiv. 28, 30;) or lest having put your hand to the plow, you should look back, and become unfit for the kingdom of God. Luke ix. 62. And therefore,

10. Let every step in this attempt be taken with a deep sense of your own weakness, and on humble dependence upon Divine grace to be communicated to you as the matter requires.

Recollect seriously what I was telling you in a former discourse, of the necessity of a Divine agency and interposition; and remember, it depends upon God, not only to begin the good work, but also to carry it on, and perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. Phil. i. 6. If we trust in our hearts, especially after this solemn admonition, this plain instruction, added to such frequent experience, we are fools indeed. Prov. xxviii. 26. Let us therefore trust in the Lord, and not lean to our own understanding. Prov. iii. 5. And do you, my friends, who have but just enlisted yourselves in this holy war, every one of you say, with an humble yet cheerful heart, in the name of our God will we set up our banners. Psal. xx. 5. And if thus you wait on the Lord, you shall renew your strength; and even the feeblest soul shall be enabled by Divine grace to mount up with wings as eagles, and to press on from one degree of religious improvement to another, while the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. Isa. xl. 30, 31. The Apostle expresses, in the liveliest manner, his dependence on the Divine Redeemer to communicate this grace in a proper degree, when he says, Let us come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need: (Heb. iv. 16:) plainly implying, that it may be obtained if we have but hearts to seek for it; which, as on the one hand, it effectually takes off all idle excuses for the neglect of our duty, pleaded from our own acknowledged weakness, any further than we are supported by Divine power; so on the other hand it animates the heart, that, sensible of its various infirmities, desires nevertheless to go forth to the work of God, and to consecrate all its faculties to his service; using them, such as they are, for God, and humbly seeking from him the enlargement of them.

DISCOURSE X.

AN ADDRESS TO THE REGENERATE, FOUNDED ON THE PRECEDING DISCOURSES.

James I. 18.

Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

I INTEND the words which I have now been reading, only as an introduction to that address to the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty, with which I am now to conclude these lectures; and therefore shall not enter into any critical discussion, either of them, or of the context.

I hope God has made the series of these discourses, in some measure, useful to those for whose service they were immediately intended: but if they have not been so to all, and if with relation to many I have labored in vain from Sabbath to Sabbath, I cannot be surprised at it. What am I better than my fathers? 1 Kings xix. 4. It has, in every age, been their complaint, that they have stretched out their hands all the day to a disobedient and gainsaying people; (Isa. 1xv. 2: Rom. x. 21;) that the bellows have been burnt, and the lead consumed of the fire, but the dross has not been taken away: such reprobate silver have multitudes been found. Jer. vi. 29, 30. Yea, the Lord Jesus Christ himself, who spake with such unequaled eloquence, with such divine energy, yet met with multitudes, who were like the deaf adder, that would not hearken to the voice of the wisest charmer: (Ps. lviii. 4, 5:) and surely the disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord. Matt. x. 24.

When indeed we consider the infinite importance of the message we address to you, O ye perishing sinners I we hardly know how to give over, or to take a denial. We feel a strong impulse on our hearts to give line upon line, and precept upon precept: (Isa. xxviii. 10:) as a physician that loves his patient, when he sees the distemper prevailing, and has run through the whole range of medicines, is ready, while life yet remains, not entirely to give over, but to repeat again what he had prescribed unsuccessfully before. And if God spares our lives, no doubt many of those things which I have before been urging, must in substance be repeated. But at present I will desist: I know not what more or further to say; and if you are utterly unimpressed with what I have already laid before you, especially with regard to the character of the unregenerate--the nature of regeneration--the absolute necessity of it—and of the Divine agency in producing it, with the absolute importance of your securing a part in the kingdom of heaven; I know not what further to urge, and must leave you either to the grace or the judgment of God.

The time will certainly come, when you will see and own the importance of these things. The word of God will, in one sense or another, take hold of every soul that hears it, and, perhaps on some of you in a very terrible manner, and in a very little time. But if it do, I may say with the apostle Paul, when in token of the solemnity with which he spoke, he shook his raiment, and took leave of his obstinate hearers, I am clean from your blood; (Acts xviii. 6;) and since you refuse to be instructed, I turn to those who regard what I say. And thus, according to the method I at first proposed, I proceed,

Seventhly, To conclude these discourses with an address to those who, by Divine grace, are experimentally acquainted with this great work of regeneration; to show them how they ought to be affected with the consideration of the truths that have been offered, and what improvement they should make of such a course of sermons as you have lately been attending.

Out of a general regard to the glory of God and the good of souls, you have attended on what has hitherto been spoken to persons of a very different character; and I hope not altogether without some sensible refreshment and advantage; but now hear more immediately for yourselves, and suffer a word of exhortation in such particulars as these: Be thankful to God for what you have experienced; improve it as an engagement to behave in a suitable manner; study to promote the work of God upon the hearts of others; and long for that blessed world where the change that is now begun, and is gradually advancing in your souls, shall be universal and complete. Your own wisdom and piety have, no doubt, anticipated me in each of these particulars; but you will be glad to enter more fully into the reflection than you could do, while it was intermingling itself with other thoughts.

I. Return the most affectionate acknowledgments of praise to the God of all mercy for the experience you have had of a regenerating change.

I would now address this exhortation and charge to every one of you, who, through Divine grace, hope you can say, that you are born again; to all who can say, that God has, of his own will, begotten you with the word of truth, that you may be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. To you I would say, Sing unto the Lord, O ye saints of his, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness and goodness. Psal. xxx. 4. Give thanks to the Father, who has made you meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. Col. i. 12. Join your voices and your hearts in the most cheerful hymns of praise, whatever your different circumstances are. Let the young and the old, the rich and the poor, the honorable and the mean, rejoice together; if any may be called poor, who are thus enriched; if any may be accounted mean, who are thus honored. Bless the Lord at all times, let his praise be continually in your mouths; (Ps. xxxiv. 1;) and endeavor to carry along with you, through the darkest road you travel, and the bitterest sorrows you taste, cheerfulness in your hearts, and praise on your tongues; considering—how important the blessing is with which the Lord has favored you; how few there are who partake of it; and in the midst of how much opposition the Divine grace has taken hold of your souls, and wrought its wonders of love there.

1. Consider, my Christian friends, how important this favor is which God has bestowed upon you, in thus begetting you as a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

Justly indeed may we say, Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be regenerated by his grace, and so be called, and that with propriety, the sons of God! 1 John iii. 1. Justly may I say to you, now you are assembled in the courts of the Lord, in those emphatical words of David, O come, let us worship, and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; (Psal. xcv. 6;) for it is he that has made us and not we ourselves, with regard to this second, as well as the first creation; and we, in consequence of it, are in the noblest sense, his people, and the sheep of his pasture: enter, therefore, into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise; be thankful unto him, and bless his name. Ps. c. 3, 4.

My brethren, it is a favor in which the salvation of your souls is concerned; and can that be small? or ought it ever to be thought of but with the highest emotion and enlargedness of heart? The gracious purposes of God towards his children are to make every one of them higher than the kings of the earth, (Psal. lxxxix. 27,) to jive them more solid satisfaction than crowns and kingdoms can afford, and at length to raise them to a diadem of immortal glory. Oh what reason have you with the Apostle, to say, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to his abundant mercy, has begotten us again to a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, even to the hope of an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for us, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation! 1 Pet. i. 3-5. Survey this great privilege which God has already given you, this high security, these glorious hopes. Has he not brought the beginning of glory already into your souls? Has he not wrought you to a filial temper, and taught you to cry, Abba, Father? Gal. iv. 6. Has he not, in some measure, formed and fashioned your minds to a meetness to dwell with angels and perfected spirits in heaven? So that you can now say, even with relation to that which you already feel, that you are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God. Eph. ii. 19. You are even now the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what you shall be; (1 John iii. 2;) but there is enough appears, and enough known at present, of what you are, and what you shall be, to revive, to delight, to transport the heart.

And is not this too, O thou afflicted soul, who art called to encounter the most painful difficulties, enough to be the means of thy support, and to afford thee matter for thy strong consolation? You that are tossed with tempests, (Isa. liv. 11,) and obliged to struggle under various and long continued burdens, have you not here a joy that the world can neither bestow nor impair, a pleasure in public and in secret duties, and a hope, which is as the anchor of the soul both sure and steadfast, entering into that within the vail, (Heb. vi. 19,) and so enabling you to outride these storms and tempests? How glorious does your lot appear when viewed in the light of scripture! You are expressly told, All things are yours: (1 Cor. iii. 21:) the Lord will give grace and glory, and no good thing will he withhold from you: (Psal. lxxxiv. 11:) all the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth to you; (Psal. xxv. 10;) and ere long you shall see how they are so. You have a sight by faith of the inheritance appointed for his children; but he does not intend merely a distant prospect for you: you shall go in and possess that good land, (Deut. iv. 22,) and shall ere long be absent from the body, and present with the Lord: (2 Cor. v. 8:) yea, the Lord Jesus Christ, ere long, shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe, (2 Thess. i. 10,) to be glorified and admired, in and by you in particular; when bearing the image of your heavenly Father, you shall rise far beyond this earth and all its vain anxieties, and vainer amusements, to dwell forever in his presence. And what is there in this world that you imagine you want, which is by any means to be compared with these enjoyments and hopes? Surely, sirs, in such a view, you should be much more than content; and should feel your inward admiration, love, and joy, bursting the bonds of silence, and turning your voices, that have been broken by sighs, into the most cheerful and exalted anthems of praise: especially when you consider,

2. How few there are who partake of this important favor, which God has extended to you.

I hope I need not, after all I have said, remind you at large, that I intend not by any means to speak, as excluding those of different forms and different experiences; as if, in consequence of that diversity, they had neither part nor lot in this matter. Acts viii. 21. I hope. that many who are not so ready, as it were to be wished, to receive one another, are nevertheless, in this respect, received by Christ to the glory of God. Rom. xv. 7. Yet the temper and conduct of the generality of mankind, even under a Christian profession, too plainly show, that they have the marks of eternal ruin upon them: and one can form no hope concerning them, consistent with the tenor of the whole word of God, any other than this, that possibly they may hereafter be changed into something contrary to what they are, and in that change be happy.

Now that you are not left among the wide extended ruins of mankind, but are set as pillars in the building of God, is what you have been taught by the preceding discourses to refer to the grace of God, which has taken and polished you to the form you now bear. Or, as the Evangelist expresses it, in language more suitable to the subject before us, the power, or privilege, to become the sons of God, is what he gives to as many as receive him; and it is manifest as to your regeneration, that you are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God: (John i. 12, 13:) for we love him, because he first loved us; (1 John iv. 12;) and whatsoever our attainments be, there is no true believer but will be ready, with the Apostle Paul, to say, By the grace of God I am what I am. 1 Cor. xv. 10.

And now, when these two thoughts are taken in this comparison with each other, how deeply should they impress our minds! And how should it excite us to the most lively gratitude, to consider that when so many of our fellow-creatures perish, even under the sound of the gospel; that when they live and die under the power of a corrupt and degenerate nature, despising all the means which God has given them of becoming better, and turning them into the occasion of greater mischief; God should graciously incline our hearts to a wiser and better choice! It is indeed a melancholy reflection, that the number of those who are made wise to salvation should be so small; yet it is an endearing circumstance in the Divine goodness to us, that when it is so small, we should be included in it: as no doubt it would appear to every truly religious person in the ark, that when but eight souls were saved from the deluge, he should be one. There is now a remnant, says the Apostle, according to the election of grace: (Rom. xi. 5:) to that grace therefore should we render the praise. We have indeed chosen him; but it is in consequence of his choosing us. John xv. 16. We have said, The Lord is my portion; but let us remember to bless him that he has given us that counsel, (Psal. xvi. 5, 7,) in consequence of which we have been inclined to do it. Again,

3. Consider, in the midst of how much opposition the grace of God has laid hold on your souls, and wrought its wonders of love there.

Christians, look into your own hearts; yea, look back upon your own lives, and see whether many of you have not reason to say, with the great Apostle, It is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief: (1 Tim. i. 15:) and yet to me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this given, (Eph. iii. 8,) that I should be a regenerate, adopted child of God, begotten to an inheritance of eternal glory.

"Oh," may one Christian say, "how obstinately did I strive against my own happiness! like a poor creature that, having received some dangerous wound, and being delirious with a fever attending it, struggles with the hand that is stretched out to heal him. How did I draw back from the yoke of God! How did I trifle with convictions, and put them off from one time to another! So that God might most righteously have awakened any heart rather than mine. He admonished me by his word, and by his providence; he sent afflictions; he wrought out deliverances for me; and yet I went on to harden my heart, as if I had been afflicted and delivered, that I might work greater abominations; (Jer. vii. 10;) till the Lord being merciful to me, laid hold upon me, and drew me out of Sodom." Gen. xx. 16.

And here another Christian will be ready to say within himself, ''If the grace of God wrought sooner upon me, when my soul was more pliant, when my heart was comparatively tender in infancy or childhood, or in early youth; yet what ungrateful returns have I since made for his mercy I How defective have I been in those fruits of holiness which might reasonably have been expected from me, who have so long a time been planted in the house of the Lord! Alas for me! that I have flourished no more in the courts of my God. Psal. xcii. 13. How often have I forgotten and forsaken him; how cold and negligent has my spirit been, how inconstant my walk, how indolent my behavior, for these many years that have passed since I was first brought into his family! How little have I done in his service in proportion to the advantages I have enjoyed! All this he foresaw; all the instances in which my goodness would be as a morning cloud, and as the early dew; (Hos. vi. 4;) all the instances in which this perverse heart of mine, so prone to backslide, should turn aside, and start back from him like a deceitful bow: (Psal. lxxviii. 57:) and yet he has mercy upon me, I know not why. I cannot pretend to account for it any otherwise than by saying, Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight: (Matt. xi. 26:) thou hast mercy on whom thou wilt have mercy, and thou hast compassion on whom thou wilt have compassion. Rom. ix. 15. I have revolted deeply from thee again and again; yet thou sufferest me not to be lost to this very day, nor wilt thou ever suffer it: Thou restorest my soul; thou leadest me in the paths of righteousness for thy name's sake. Psal. xxiii. 3. Having therefore obtained help from God, I continue to this day; (Acts xxvi. 2;) and surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and unworthy as I am so much as to enter into thine house below, I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever above. Psal. xxiii. 6. Thus, Lord, thou makest me, as it were, a wonder to myself; and I hope to express my admiration and my gratitude throughout eternal ages: and if I can vie with the rest of thy redeemed ones in nothing else, I will at least do it in bowing low before thy throne, and acknowledging that I am of the number of the most unworthy, in whom my Lord has been pleased to glorify the riches of his mercy, and the freedom of his grace."

In the mean time, Christians, I call you often to entertain yourselves with such views as these, often to excite your hearts by such lively considerations; I call you, in the name of your Father and your Saviour, to a whole life of gratitude and praise. And this leads me to add,

II. Improve those experiences you have had of Divine grace, as an engagement to behave in a suitable manner.

Remember the lively admonition of the text, that you were begotten by him for this very purpose, that you should be a kind of frst-fruits of his creatures. See, therefore, that ye be entirely consecrated to him; and behave as becomes the children of God, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation: being not only harmless and blameless among them, but shining as lights in the world, and holding forth that word of life, (Phil. ii. 16,) by which he has begotten you to himself, and quickened you when you were dead in trespasses and sins. Eph. ii. 1, 5.

God has now brought you into a most honorable relation: he may therefore well expect more, much more from you than from others. He has made you as his children, kings and priests to himself, (Rev. i. 6,) and you are therefore to offer up spiritual sacrifice, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. 1 Pet. ii. 5. You were once darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord; walk, therefore, as children of light. Eph. v. 8. Remember you are not your own; (1 Cor. vi. 19;) your time, your possessions, and all your capacities for service, are the property of your heavenly Father. And permit me to remind you, that if you desire to see this doctrine of regeneration prevail, you, who profess to be experimentally acquainted with it, must take great care that your behavior may not only be innocent, but exemplary: otherwise many will be ready to blaspheme the holy name of that God, (2 Sam. xii. 14,) whom you call your Father; and you are like to bring a reproach upon the household of faith, which probably you will never be able to roll away.

Christians, the dignity of our birth and our hopes is too little considered and regarded; and the reason why the world thinks so meanly of it, is because we ourselves are so insensible of its excellency. Did we apprehend it more, we should surely be more solicitous to walk worthy of that calling wherewith we are called, (Eph. iv. 1,) that high and holy calling. Let me, therefore, exhort you to endeavor to loosen your affections more from these entanglements of time and sense, which so much debase our minds, and dishonor our lives. Yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead: (Rom. vi. 13:) employ, with a growing zeal, to the honor of God, that renewed life which he has given you: Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your minds: (Rom. xii. 2:) and let your conversation and behavior be like those who feel the constraining influences of Divine love, (2 Cor. v. 14;) who are, not in form, but in reality, devoted to God; and who would be continually waiting for his salvation, (Gen. xlix. 18,) with that temper in which you could most desire that salvation to find you when it comes.

III. Let those who have experienced the power of Divine grace themselves, study to promote the work of God upon the hearts of others.

Labor, as much as possible, to spread this temper which God has wrought in your hearts; for you cannot but know that with it you spread true happiness, which alone is to be found in that intercourse with the great Author of our being, for which this lays the foundation, and in the regular exercise of those powers which are thus sanctified. No sooner was Paul converted himself, but he presently set himself to bring others to Christ, and to preach the faith which once he destroyed. Gal. i. 13. And David speaks of it as the effects of God's pardoning love to him, Then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee. Psal. li. 13.

If, therefore, God has called us to the office of the ministry, as the experience of this change on our own hearts will be our best qualification for our public work, and indeed such a qualification that nothing else can supply the want of it; so it will surely excite us in a very powerful manner to apply vigorously to this care. That which we have not only heard, but seen with our eyes, and looked upon, and handled of the word of life, let us declare to others; that their fellowship also may be with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. 1 John i. 1, 3. Let us declare it in our public discourses, and never be ashamed to bear our testimony to that grace to which we are so much indebted; to that grace by which we are what we are. 1 Cor. xv. 10. Let us warn every man, and teach every man the absolute necessity of regeneration; and expose the vanity of all those hopes which are built upon any fair outside, on any moral decency of behavior, or any humane turn of temper, on any warm flight of imagination or emotion of the passions, while the soul continues unrenewed and unsanctified. Let us endeavor to save men with fear, pulling them out of the fire, (Jude ver. 23,) which, if they are yet unregenerate, is just ready to kindle upon them. And let us be often reviewing our respective flocks, that we may see who they are, concerning whom there is reason to entertain this fear; that proper applications may be made to them in private, as well as in public; that joining our admonitions to our sermons, and our prayers and examples to both, we may at least deliver our own souls, (Ez. xxxiii. 9,) if we cannot deliver theirs. But in proportion to the degree that such a spirit prevails in us, there is very great encouragement to hope it will be propagated to them, and that our labor shall not be in vain in the Lord. 1 Cor. xv. 58.

And let me beseech you, my beloved hearers in other stations of life, that you would not imagine the work is so entirely ours that you have nothing to do with it. Are we alone redeemed by the blood of the Son of God? Are we alone renewed and sanctified by his grace? Are we alone the brethren and friends of mankind, that the generous care and endeavor to promote their eternal happiness should be entirely devolved upon us? We wish so well to the world, and permit us to say, we wish so well to you, to your own religious consolation and establishment, to your comfortable account, to your eternal reward, that we can not but earnestly exhort you all, even as many as have tasted that the Lord is gracious, (1 Peter ii. 3,) that in this respect you join, not only as I trust you do, your prayers with ours, but that you also join your endeavors.

Let me particularly address this exhortation to those of you who bear any distinguished office in the society, to whom therefore its religious interests are dear by additional ties Let me address those of you whose age and experience, in the human and the divine life, give you something of a natural authority in your application, and command a distinguished regard. Look round about you and observe the state of religion in your neighborhood; and labor to the utmost to propagate, not so much this or that particular opinion or form of worship, but real vital Christianity in the world. Bear your testimony to it on all proper occasions: be not ashamed of it in your familiar discourse; and above all, labor to adorn it by your actions. And when you see any under serious impressions, as it is certain they will have a great deal discouraging and difficult to break through; and as the devil and his instruments, among whom I must necessarily reckon licentious company, will be doing their utmost to draw them back into the snare of the fowler; let me exhort and charge you to be as solicitous to save as others are to destroy. I know how many excuses our cowardly, and indolent hearts are ready to find out upon such an occasion: but I think those words of Solomon are a sufficient answer to all, and I beg you would seriously revolve them; If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain: if thou sayest, Behold we knew it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, thine, Oh Christian, with such peculiar and gracious care, doth not he know it? and shall not he render to every man according to his works? Prov. xxiv. 11, 12. He will assuredly remember, and will abundantly reward, every work of faith, and every labor of love; (1 Thes. i. 3;) and we are insensible of our own true interest, if we do not see how much it is concerned here.

Let me especially leave this exhortation with you who are parents and heads of families. And one would imagine there should need but little importunity in such a case as this: one would think your own hearts should speak to you, upon such an occasion, in very pathetic language. Look upon your dear children, to whom you have conveyed a nature which you know to be degenerate and corrupt; and be earnest in your prayers before God, and your endeavors with them, that it may be renewed. And take care that you do not in this sense despise the soul of your manservant, or of your maid-servant. Job xxxi. 13. God has brought them under your care, it may be in those years of life in which, on the one hand, they are most capable of being instructed and seriously impressed; and in which, on the other hand, they are also most in danger of being corrupted. Perhaps their relation to you, and abode with you, is the most advantageous circumstance which may occur in their whole lives: see therefore that you seize it with a holy eagerness; and amidst all the charges you give them relating to your own business, neglect not that of the one thing needful; (Luke x. 42;) and labor heartily to bring them to the honor and happiness which is common to all God's servants, and peculiar to them alone.

Let me conclude this part of my address with entreating you all to express your concern for the souls of others, by your importunate prayers to God for them. Pray for the success of gospel ordinances: and for a blessing on the labors of all God's faithful servants throughout our whole land, of one or another denomination in religion. Yea, pray that throughout the whole world, God would revive his work in the midst of the years; (Hab. iii. 2;) that the religion of his Son, by which so many souls have been regenerated, refined and saved, may be universally propagated; and that all who are vigorously engaged in so important, though so self-denying a work, may find that the hand of the Lord is with them, and multitudes believe and turn unto the Lord; (Acts xi. 21;) so that his sons may be brought from far, and his daughters from the ends of the earth; (Isaiah xliii. 6;) that the barren may rejoice, and she that did not travail with child, may break forth into singing, and cry aloud; that the children of nations now strangers to Christ, may be more than of those that are already espoused to him. Isa. liv. 1; Gal. iv. 27. And then,

IV. Let all that are born again, long for that blessed world, where the work of God shall be completed, and we shall appear with a dignity and glory becoming his children.

As for God, his work is perfect; (Deut. xxxii. 4;) and the time, the happy time is approaching, when we shall know, and the whole world shall know, in another manner than we now do, what our heavenly Father has intended for us in begetting us to himself. Whatever our attainments here may be, we know at present but in part: (1 Cor. xiii. 9;) and with whatever integrity of soul we now walk before God, we are sanctified but in part: and hereupon we find, and must expect to find, the flesh striving against the Spirit, as well as the Spirit against the flesh: so that, in many respects, we cannot do the things that we would. Gal. v. 17. In proportion to the degree in which our nature is refined and brightened, we are more sensible of the evil of these corruptions that remain within us; so that though we are not, in a strict propriety of speech, carnal and sold under sin, but do indeed delight in the law of God after the inward man, (Rom. vii. 14, 22,) yet in the humility of our hearts we are often borrowing that pathetic complaint, Oh, wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Verse 24.

But let it be remembered, Christians, as the matter of your joy, that the struggle shall not be perpetual, that it shall not indeed be long. Look up with pleasure then, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh. Luke xxi. 28. The time is approaching, when that which is perfect shall come, and that which is in part shall be done away. 1 Cor. xiii. 10. You are now the children of GOD; but it does not appear to every eye that you are so: the world knows us not. 1 John iii. 1, 2. Nor are we to wonder at it: for even Christ our Lord was once unknown, and appeared in so much meanness, and so much calamity, that an undiscerning and carnal eye could not have discovered who and what he was. But there is a day appointed for the manifestation of the sons of GOD, (Rom. viii. 19,) as the apostle Paul most happily expresses it; when he will manifest them to each other, and manifest them also to the whole world. They shall not always live thus at a distance from their Father's house, and under those dispensations of Providence that look so much like disregard and neglect; but he will take them home, and gather them to himself. Ere long, Christians, he will call these heaven-born spirits of yours, that are now aspiring towards him, to dwell in his immediate presence: he will receive you to himself; and you shall stand, where no sinner shall have a place, in the congregation of the righteous, (Ps. ii. 5,) and shall have an inheritance among the saints in light, the saints in holiness and glory.

O happy day! when dropping this body in the grave, we shall ascend pure and joyful spirits to that triumphant assembly, where there is not one vitiated affection, not one foolish thought to be found among the thousands and ten thousands of God's Israel! O blessed period of a regenerate state I Though all the schemes of the Divine love were to rest here, and these bodies were forever to be laid aside, and utterly to be lost in the grave; the rejoicing soul might say, "Lord, it is enough!" And it might be indeed enough for us; but it is not enough to answer the gracious purposes of God's paternal love. God will show, in the most conspicuous manner, what a family he has raised to himself among the children of men; and therefore he will assemble them all in their complete persons, and will do it with solemn pomp and magnificent parade. He will for this purpose send his own Son, with all his holy angels, (Matt. xxv. 31,) and will cause the bodies of millions of his children, that have long dwelt in the dust, to spring out of it, at once in forms of beauty and lustre, worthy their relation to him. This, therefore, is, with beautiful propriety, called by the apostle the adoption, even the redemption of our body; (Rom. viii. 23;) alluding to the public ceremony, with which adoptions among the ancients were solemnly confirmed and declared, after they had been more privately transacted between the parties immediately concerned.

O, Christians, how reasonable is it that our souls should be rising with a secret ardor towards this blessed hope, this glorious abode!—It is pleasant for the children of God to meet and converse with one another upon earth; so pleasant, that I wonder they do not more frequently form themselves into little societies, in which, under that character, they should join their discourses and their prayers. It is delightful to address those that, we trust, through grace are born of God. No discourses are more pleasant than those that suit them: and could we, that are the ministers of Christ, reasonably hope, that we had none but such to attend our labors, we should joyfully confine our discourses to such subjects. Yet while we are here, we see imperfections in others, we feel them yet more painfully in ourselves: and as there is no pure, unmixed society, no fellowship on earth that is completely holy and without blemish, so there is now no pure delight, no perfect pleasure to be met with here. Oh when shall I depart from this mixed society, and reach that state where all is good, all glorious: where I shall see my heavenly Father, and all my brethren in the Lord; and shall behold them all forever acting up to their character! All giving thanks to the Father, who has made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light! Col. i. 12. All forever blessing and serving the great Redeemer; and without one ungenerous action, one reflecting word, one suspicious thought, forever serving each other in love, rejoicing in each other's happiness, and with the most prudent and steadfast application forever studying and laboring to improve it!

With the most earnest desire that you, my dear brethren and friends, may at length attain to this state of perfection and glory; and with a cheerful expectation, through Divine grace, that I shall ere long meet many of you in it, I close this sermon, and these discourses: not without an humble hope, that when we arrive at this blessed world, these hours, which we have spent together in the house of God, in attending them, will come into a pleasant remembrance; and that the God of all grace, to whose glory they are faithfully devoted, and to whose blessing they are humbly committed, will honor them as the means of increasing his family, as well as of feeding and quickening those who are already his regenerate children!--Amen.

POSTSCRIPT.

MEANING OP THE WORD REGENERATION.

To what I have said in the conclusion of the first discourse concerning the proper import of the word Regeneration, I beg leave to add the following remarks for the farther satisfaction of some worthy persons, who think it may be convenient to state the matter a little more particularly.

I ACKNOWLEDGE that many learned and pious divines have taught and contended, that Regeneration does, in the strictest propriety of speech, signify Baptism--so that no unbaptized person, how well disposed soever, can properly be said to be regenerated; whereas that title may justly be given to all who have been baptized, how destitute soever they might have been of Christian faith and holiness when they received the ordinance, or how grossly soever they may since have forfeited the final blessings of a regenerate state. Dr. Waterland has stated this matter at large in his labored and ingenious treatise on the subject, which is the best I know on this side of the question. And though this would be a very improper place to enter on a critical examination of that piece, I will briefly touch on the chief arguments which he, or others in his sentiments, have urged in vindication of this favorite notion. So far as I can recollect, what they say is capable of being reduced to two heads;—that Christian antiquity uses the word in this sense;—and that there are passages of Scripture which authorize such an application of it.

As to the first of these, I readily own that the word has this sense in the generality of the Christian writers, from about the middle of the second century, though I think not so universally as some have concluded:Clemens Alexandrinus, so often, and to be sure reasonably, quoted on the other side, plainly uses the word for a change of character by true repentance; (Strom. lib. ii. page 425,) where, speaking of a penitent harlot, he says, "that being born again by conversion, or a change in her temper and behavior, she has the regeneration of life:" αναγεννηθεισα κατα την επισστοφην του βιου παλιγγενεσιαν εχει ζωης. but I think it easy to account for such a use of it among them. For in the earliest ages of the church, persons were generally baptized as soon as they were converted to the cordial belief of Christianity; and therefore the time of their conversion, and that of their baptism, might naturally enough be spoken of as one: and as this was a period when they did, as it were, come into a new world, it is no wonder that the action by which they testified a change so lately made, should be put for that change itself. Just as illumination also among the ancients signifies baptism: not to intimate that the grand illumination of the mind was made by this rite, or at the time of it; for that would be supposing the person in darkness when he embraced the Gospel, and determined to be baptized: but because it was taken for granted, and that very justly in those days, that every one savingly enlightened would soon be baptized, that so he might be regularly joined to the society of enlightened or regenerated persons, that is, to the Christian church: which no doubt had the best right of any body of men in the world to that title, though in its purest state it contained some ignorant and wicked members.

In a word, a man by baptism solemnly professed himself a Christian; and as it was generally the first overt act by which his believing the Gospel could be publicly and generally known, and was also supposed to be very near the time of his inward conversion, they dated his regeneration, that is, his happy change (as that word used to signify even among the heathen

It is well known that Cicero expresses the happy change made in his state, when restored from his banishment, by this word. (Cic. ad Attic. lib. vi. Epist. 6.)

The Greeks expressed by it the doctrine of the Brahmans, in which they affirmed our entering on a new state of being after death. (Clem. Alex. Strom. lib. iii. pag. 451.) And the Stoics used it to denote their expected renovation of the world after successive conflagrations. (Marc. Antonin. Medit. lib. xi. § l. v. 13, x. 7. See Lucian, Oper. pag. 532. Euseb. Præp: Evang. ex numen. lib. xv. chap. 19. Phil. Jud. de Mundi Immort. pag. 940, 951, and in many other places.) And so the fathers often use it to signify the resurrection which Christians expect. (See Euseb. Eccl. Hist. lib. v. chap. 1. in fin.) Compare Matt. xix. 28, and the Note there: Fam. Expos. Vol. II. pag. 238.

As to the arguments from Scripture in support of the interpretation I oppose, they are taken partly from particular places; but chiefly, as I apprehend, from the general tenor of it, in which Christians are spoken of as regenerated.

The particular texts are John iii. 5, and Tit. iii. 5, on which much of the stress of this controversy is laid; but on considering them attentively, I find nothing in either of them to lead us to think baptism the regeneration spoken of there.

As to the former of them, John iii. 5, when our Lord says, Except a man be born of water, and of the Spirit, he can not enter into the kingdom of GOD; it is (after all the contempt with which that interpretation has been treated) very possible he may mean, by a well-known figure, to express one idea by both those clauses, that is, the purifying influences of the Spirit cleansing the mind, as water does the body: as elsewhere, to be baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire, (Matt. iii. 11,) signifies to be baptized by the Spirit operating like fire. But if there is indeed a reference to baptism in these words (which I own I am much inclined to believe) it will by no means follow that baptism is Regeneration. On that supposition, I still think the sense of the passage must be that which I have given in my paraphrase on it (Fam. Expos. vol. I. p. 148-p. 57 Am. Ed.) "Whosoever would become a regular member of the kingdom of God, must not only be baptized, but as ever he desires to share in its spiritual and eternal blessings, must experience the renewing and sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit on his soul, to cleanse it from the power of corruption, and to animate and quicken it to a spiritual and Divine life." It is granted therefore, that how excellent soever any man's character is, he must be baptized before he can be looked upon as completely a member of the church of Christ; and that, in general, being born of the Spirit, he will also be solicitous that he may be born of water, and so fulfill all righteousness. But it will never follow from hence, that being born of water and born of the Spirit are the same thing. The text rather implies they are different; and I think every body must own, they may be actually separate.

Nothing therefore can be more absurd than to infer from this text, that if there be two persons, one of whom is born of the Spirit, and not of water; another of water, and not of the Spirit; the latter, that is, the wicked man, who has perhaps with some iniquitous design been baptized, may properly be said to be regenerated, or born of GOD, and consequently to be an heir of GOD, (Rom. viii. 17,) rather than a truly religious man who has not yet been baptized, either through want of opportunity, or through some unhappy mistake, as to the nature and design, or the perpetuity and obligations of that ordinance. Now this I take to be precisely the question, and must declare that when a baptized person is destitute of true religion, that birth which he had by water, seems to me as it were an evanescent thing, or a thing which disappears as unworthy the mention; and that it must be therefore most safe and advisable, as well as most agreeable to the scripture sense, to appropriate the title of regenerate persons to those sanctified by Divine grace, rather than to use it of all who are baptized.

As to the text in Titus (chap. iii. 5,) where God is said to save us by the washing of regeneration, or, as some earnestly contend it should be rendered, by the laver of regeneration: I might answer, that as that interpretation is by no means necessary,The original is δια λουτρου παλυγγενεσιασ. Now it is certain the seventy use another word, that is Λουτηρ, to signify Laver, Exod. xxx. 18, 28; xxxi. 9; and I think (so far as I have observed) everywhere else: and Λουτρον (St. Paul's word here) is used where it can not signify laver, for the water in which sheep are washed, Cant. iv. 2, and for a large quantity of water in which an adult person was washed or bathed. Eph. v. 26. And this remark quite overthrows all the argument from this text, if any argument would follow from rendering it laver: but I think I need not urge this. it cannot be proved that baptism is here designed; though I acknowledge there may be a graceful allusion to it. The Apostle may mean, we are saved by GOD'S washing our hearts by his sanctifying Spirit (a phrase so often used in the Old Testament) and thereby making us his children: and in this sense it might have been used, though baptism had never been instituted. But granting (as I have done) that Λουτρον may be rendered laver, and that baptism may be the laver referred to; and that "there is indeed an allusion to the washing new-born children; (as Mr. Mede in his diatribe on this text contends;) I think this text will be so far from proving that St. Paul meant to call baptism Regeneration, that it will prove the contrary: for regeneration itself, and the laver of regeneration, can not be the same thing. And whatever Tertullian and other ancients may fancifully talk of our being generated like fishes in the water, in a weak allusion to the technical word ΙΧΘΥΣ, (a fish,) common sense will see how absurd it would be to apply this to a child, and will teach us rather to argue, that as children must be born before they can be washed, so they must be regenerated before the washing of regeneration (that is, the washing which belongs to their new birth,) can be applied to them. But on the whole, I am more and more inclined to think there is no reference at all here to a laver, or to the washing new-born children; and therefore, that this washing and the renewing of the Holy Ghost are exegetical, and that the latter clause might be rendered, even the renewing, &c, which makes the text decisive for the sense in which I use the word.

After all, then, if any argument can be deduced from scripture in favor of the manner of speaking now in debate, it must be from the general tenor of it; according to which it seems that all who are members of the visible church are spoken of as regenerate; from which it may be inferred, with some plausible probability at least, that baptism, by which they are admitted into that society, may be called Regeneration. And I am ready to believe, as I hinted above, that this was the chief reason why the ancients so often used the word in the sense I am now opposing.

Now with relation to this, I desire it may be recollected, that when Christianity first appeared in the world, it was attended with such discouragements, as made the very profession of it, in a great measure, a test of men's characters. The Apostles therefore, knowing the number of hypocrites to be comparatively very small, generally take no notice of them, but address themselves to whole bodies of Christians, as if they were truly what they professed to be. Just as our Lord Jesus Christ, though he knew the wickedness of Judas, often addressed himself to the whole body of his Apostles, as if they were all his faithful servants, and makes gracious declarations and promises to the whole society, which could by no means be applicable to this one corrupt and wretched member of it; telling them, for instance, that they should share in his final triumph, and sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. Matt. xix. 28.

This is therefore the true key to all those passages in which Christians are, in the general, said to be adopted, sanctified, justified, &c., as well as regenerated. The Apostles had reason, in the judgment of charity, to think thus of by far the greatest part of them; and therefore they speak to them all, as in such a happy state. And agreeably to this, we find not only such privileges, but also such characters, ascribed to Christians in general, as were only applicable to such of them as were Christians indeed. Thus all the Corinthians are spoken of by the Apostle Paul, as waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, (1 Cor. i. 7,) and all the Ephesians, and all the Colossians, as having faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and love to all the saints, (Eph. i. 15; Col. i. 4,) and all the Philippians, as having a good work begun in them, which Paul was persuaded GOD would perfect, (Phil. i. 6,) and all the Thessalonians, as remarkable for their work of faith, and labor of love, and patience of hope; (1 Thess. i. 3;) though it evidently appears there were persons in several of these churches who behaved much amiss, and to whom, had he been particularly addressing each of them alone, he could not by any means have used such language. On the like principles Peter, when addressing all the Christians in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, speaks of the whole aggregate of them, (1 Pet. i. 8,) as loving an unseen Saviour, and amidst all their tribulations, rejoicing in him with joy unspeakable and full of glory; though probably there were some weak and dejected Christians among them, and undoubtedly in so large an extent of country, in which there were such a vast number of churches, not a few, who (as our Lord afterwards expresses it of some of them) had only a name to live, while they were dead; (Rev. iii. 1:) in which passage, by the way, our Lord uses the same figure, and describes the whole body by the character of those who made the greater of it.

I state the matter thus particularly, because I think this obvious remark is a sufficient answer to what is most peculiar and important in a late Discourse, consisting of near 130 quarto pages, and entitled A Key to the Apostolic Writings, &c., prefixed by the Rev. Mr. Taylor, of Norwich, to his late Paraphrase and Notes on the Romans.And with singular inconsistency adopted by Dr. Adam Clarke, in his Commentary on the New Testament, now so widely circulated.--J. N. B. I think what I have briefly advanced here, will much more effectually answer the end of fixing the true sense of the scripture phrases in question. And I cannot forbear saying, that to determine the sense of the words called, redeemed, sanctified, &c., when applied to the Christian church, by that in which they are used in Moses and the prophets with respect to the whole people of Israel, seems to me as unreasonable, as it would be to maintain, that the dimensions, the strength, and the beauty of a body are to be most exactly estimated by looking on its shadow.

Yet on this evidently weak and mistaken principle, the learned and ingenious Author referred to above, ventures not only to attempt an entire alteration in the generally-received strain of theological Discourses, but to throw out a censure, which, considering its extent and its severity, must either be very terrible, or very pitiable. He not only seems to think, if I understand him right, that we were all regenerated (if at all) as well as justified, in those of our parents who were first converted from idolatry to Christianity, (Key, § 81, 82, and 246,) as indeed he expressly says, "that we are born in a justified," and therefore undoubtedly, (if the word is to be retained,) in a regenerate "state:" but he presumes to say, that such doctrines as have been almost universally taught and received among Christians, concerning "Justification, regeneration, redemption, &c., have quite taken away the very ground of the Christian life, the grace of God, and have left no object for the faith of a sinner to work upon." (§ 357.) And hereupon, lest it should be forgot, he repeats it in the same section, that to represent it as "the subject of doubtful inquiry, trial, and examination, whether we have an interest in Christ, whether we are in a state of pardon, whether we be adopted, (and by consequence, to be sure, whether we be regenerated,) "is" (as the Antinomians I imagine would also say,) "to make our justification, as it invests us in those blessings, to be of works, and not by faith alone;" and (as we just before said in the same words,) "to take away the very ground of the Christian life, the grace of God, and to leave no object for the faith of a sinner to act upon." And this way of stating things, which has so generally prevailed, is joined with the wickedness and contentions of professing Christians, as a third cause of that disregard to the Gospel which is so common in the present day.

Now as no book can fall more directly under this censure, than this of mine, in which, it is the business of the first three discourses to direct professing Christians into an inquiry, whether they be or be not in a regenerate state; I thought it not improper, in this postscript, briefly to acquaint my reader with the principles on which I continue to think the view, in which I have put the matter, to be rational and scriptural,

For the full proof of this, that it is the most scriptural sense, I must desire the reader diligently to examine, and seriously to consider, the several texts which are quoted in the foregoing Discourses.

Let it still be remembered, that to be regenerated, and to be born of GOD, are equivalent phrases: And with this remark, let any one that can do it paraphrase all the passages referred to, in two different views; first putting the word baptism for regeneration, and baptized persons for born of GOD; and then substituting our definition of regeneration or of a regenerate person, instead of the words themselves: and I can not but think he will be struck with that demonstration, which will (as it were) emerge of itself upon such a trial. And I must add, that if he looks into the context of many of these passages, he will at the same time see how utterly ungrounded it is to assert, as some have done, "that regeneration is only used when applied to Jewish converts to Christianity, referring to their former birth from Abraham;" a notion so fully confuted by our Lord's discourse with Nicodemus, John iii. 3, et seq. by Tit. iii. 5, and by 1 Pet. i. 3, 23; ii. 2, when compered with 1 Pet. i. 14: iv. 3, (which proves that the Apostle there wrote to societies, of which the greater part had before been idolatrous Gentiles.)

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