The Necessity of Regeneration

Jesus answered, and said unto him, verily, verily L say unto Hee, except man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. — Joaun iii. 3.

Jesus answered, verily, verily I say unto thee, except.a man be born of water, and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. — Joun iii. 5.

THEsE words contain the foundation of all practical

religion here, and happiness hereafter. It is the —

principal doctrine Christ, as a prophet, came to teach; and as a king, to work in the heart. The text proves the indispensable necessity of regeneration, by which I mean not a relative, but a real change of the subject, wrought in the complexion and inclinations of the soul. As in the restoring of health, there is a change made in the temper and; humours of the body.

As mankind were changed in ‘Apa from what they were in a state of creation; so men must be changed in Christ, from what they were in a state of corruption. As that change was not only relative, — but real, and the relative first introduced by the real; so must this. The relation of a child of wrath, was founded upon the sin committed. ‘Without a real change, there can be no relative. Being in Christ, as freed from condemnation, is always attended with a walking in the spirit; and walking is not before living. For the better ‘understanding this point, I

shall lay down some propositions concerning the Necessity of Regeneration.

There are but two states, one saving, the other damning; a state of sin, and a state of righteousness. All men are divided into two ranks. In regard of their principle, some are in the flesh, some in the spirit. In regard of their obedience, some walk after

the flesh, some after the spirit. Some are slaves to

the flesh, others are led by the Spirit: some live only to self, some live to God. In regard of the exercise of their minds, their nobler faculty; some mind the things of the flesh, others the things of the Spirit. Some indulge themselves in sin, others place the delights of their spirits upon better and higher objects.

The scripture mentions no other. A state ofemnity, wherein men have«their inclinations contrary to God. A state of friendship and fellowship, wherein men walk before God unto all well-pleasing, and would not willingly have an inward motion swerve from, his will. One is called light, the other darkness; you were sometimes darkness, but now ye are light: one, the children of wrath, the other, children of God. There is no medium between them: every man Is in one or the other of these states. All believers, from the bruised reed, to the tallest cedar; from the smoking flax on earth, to the flaming lamp in heaven; from Thomas, that would not believe without seeing, to Abraham, who would believe without staggering, all are in a state of life. And all from the most beautiful moralist, to the most venemous toad in nature’s field; from the young man in the gospel, who was not far from the kingdom of heaven, to Judas, who was in the very bottom of hell; all are in a state of death. Mere nature, though never so curiously garnished, can place a man no higher. Faith, though with many infirmities, puts

us in a state of amity: unbelief, though with many

¥

~~.

moralities, continues us in a state of enmity. These two very opposite conditions mentioned, include all the human race. The highest endowments of men in a state of nature cannot please God. The delight of God then, supposeth some real change in the object, which is the ground of that delight: for God is wise in his delight, and could not be pleased with any thing which was not fit for his complacency. Since original nature in a man, cannot displease God, unless it be changed by some fault, because it was his own work; so our present nature cannot please God, unless it be changed by some grace, though it be otherwise never so highly dignified. Whatsoever grows up from the old Adam, is the fruit of the flesh: whatsoever grows up by the new Adam, in us, is

the offspring of the Spirit; and upon thesetwo stocks,

all men in the world are set. Since therefore one is utterly destructive, and cannot please God, though never so well garnished, (for being utterly contrary to him, it cannot be approved by him) the other is absolutely necessary to salvation.

It is necessary upon the account of the fall of man, and the consequences of it. In Adam we died, “As in Adam all died:’’ therefore in Adam we sinned. Cor. xv. 22. “By one man’s disobedience, many “were made sinners.”? Rom. v.19. Man cannot be supposed to sin in Adam, unless some covenant had intervened between God and Adam, whence there did arise in the whole human nature a debt, of having righteousness transfused from the first parent to all his posterity: the want of this grace, wherein his posterity are conceived, is a privation, and a crime which was voluntary in the root and head. This privation of righteousness must be removed. The - institution of God stands firm, that Adam, and his posterity should have a pure righteousness. It is not for the honour of God to enjoin it so strictly at first,

a.

~E

=<

ye. “uy THE NECESSITY

and to have no regard to it afterwards. Now this privation of righteousness, and the unrighteousness which hath taken place in the sons of Adam, cannot be removed without the infusion of grace. For without this grace, he would always want righteousness, and yet be always under an obligation to have it: he would be desirous of happiness; but without it, and under an impossibility ofattaining it. Were the soul of man indifferent to good and evil, the writing of moral precepts upon it, by good education, would sway it to walk in the paths of virtue: but it is not so; for take two, let them have the same ways of education, the same precepts instilled into them, as Hsau and Jacob had by their father, who were equally taught; yet how different were their lives? Hsau’s bad, Jacob’s not without flaws. Education had not the power to root corruption out of either; no, nor out of any man in the world, without a higher principle. There is some powerful principle in the soul, which leads it into by-paths, contrary to those wholesome rules instilled into it. Hence ariseth a necessity of some other principle to be put into the heart, to overrule this corrupt bias. Man goes astray from

. the womb, as it is in Psal. lviii. 3. “The wicked are

estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they be born.’? There must be something to rectify him, and expel this wandering humour. Also,

By the fall of man there was contracted an unfitness to any thing that is good. Man is so immersed in wrong notions of things, that he cannot judge fully of what is good, “to every good work reprobate.’’

‘Tit. 1.16.. The state of nature, or the old man, is

described, “‘to be corrupt, according to deceitful lusts.”’ Eph. iv. 22. Deceitful, seducing from God, drawing us into perdition, by representing evil under

the notion of good; which evidenceth our understandings to be unfit to judge without a new illumi-OF REGENERATION. Pa We

nation; inward and spiritual lusts, which are most deceitful, being accounted brave and generous motions. Lusts or desires, which show the corruption of the will by ill habits: lust and sin are the mere composition of corrupted nature; the whole man is made up of polluting principles, and vicious appetites.

What was preternatural to man in a state of innocency, became natural*to him after his depraved state. He is carnal, sold under sin. The spring being already out of order, cannot make the motion otherwise than depraved: as when a clock is out of order, it is natural to that present condition of it to give false intelligence of the hour of the day: and it cannot do otherwise, till the wheels and weights be rectified. Our end was actively to glorify God in the service of him, and obedience to him; but since man is fallen into this universal decay of his faculties, and’ made unfit to answer this end; there is a necessity he should be made over again, and created upon a better foundation, that some principle should be in him, to oppose this universal depravation, enlighten his understanding, mollify his heart, and reduce his affections to their due order and object.

Not only an unfitness, but unwillingness to that which is good. We have not those affections to virtue, that we have to vice. Are not our lives, for the most part, voluntarily ridiculous? had we a full use of reason, we should judge them so. We think little of God; and when we do think of him, it is with reluctance. This cannot be our original state: for surely, God being infinitely good, never let man come out of his hands with this actual unwillingness to acknowledge and serve him; as the apostle saith in the case of the Galatians, “This persuasion comes not of him which calls you.’ Galat. v. 8. This unwillingness comes not from him that created you. How much, therefore, do we need a restoring prin-Q* ‘, ae’ ciple in us! we naturally fulfil the desires of the flesh. There is then a necessity of some other principle in us, to make us fulfil the will of God, since we were created for God, not for the flesh, We can no more be voluntarily serviceable to God, while that serpen-

“tine nature, and devilish habit remain in us, than we ean suppose the devil can be willing to glorify God,. while the nature he contracted by his fall, abides

powerful in him. It is as much as to say, that a man can be willing against his will. Nature and will must be changed, or we forever remain in this state.

Man is born a wild ass’s colt. No beast more wild and brutish than man in his natural birth; and

likely to remain in his wild and wilful nature without

Pea

grace: a new birth can only put off the wildness of the first.

Not only unfitness and unwillingness, but inability to good. A strange force there is in a natural man, which hurries him, even against some convictions of his will, to evil.

How early do men discover an affection to vice! how greedily do they embrace it, notwithstanding rebukes from superiors, good exhortations from friends, with the concurrence of the vote of conscience, giving its men to those dissuasions! and yet carried against all those arguments, deceived by sin, slain by sin, sold under it. This is the miserable state of every.son of nature.

Do we not find, that men sometime wrapt up in retirement, in consideration of the excellency of virtue, are so wrought upon by their solitary meditations, that they think themselves able to withstand the strongest invasion of any temptation? yet we see oftentimes, that when a pleasing temptation offers itself, though there be a conflict between reason and appetite, at length all the considerations and dictates of reason are laid aside; the former idea is laid asleep, and that committed which their own reason told them was base and sordid. So that there is something necessary, beside consideration and resolution, to the full cure of man. seer”

No privation can be removed but by the introduction of another form: as when a man is blind, that

blindness, which is a privation of sight, cannot be by

removed without bringing in a power of seeing again. Original sin is a’ privation of original righteousness, and an introduction of corrupt. principles, which cannot be removed but by some powerful principle contrary to it. Since the inability upon the earth, by reason of the curse, to bring forth its fruits in such a manner as it did, when man was in a state of innocency, the nature of it must be changed to reduce it to its original fruitfulness. So must man, since a general defilement from Adam hath seized upon him, be altered, before he can bring: forth fruit to God. We must be united to- Christ, ingraffed upon another stock, and partake of the power of his resurrection: without this, we may bring forth fruit, but not fruit to God. There is as utter an impossibility in a man to answer the end of his creation, without righteousness, as for a man to act without life, or act strongly without health and strength. It is a contradiction to think a man can act righteously without righteousness; for without it he hath not the being of a man; that is, man in such a capacity, for those ends for which his creation intended him.

Well then, since there is an unfitness, unwillingness, inability in a man, to answer his end, there is a necessity of a new life, a new nature, a. new righteousness: there is a necessity for his happiness, that he should be brought back to God, live to God, be a son of God; and this cannot be without regeneration: for how can he be brought back to God

16 «ee THE NECESSITY

without a principle oe spiritual motion? How can he live to God that hath no spiritual life? How can he be fit to be a son of God who is of a brutish and diabolical nature? —

Hence it follows that it is universally necessary. Necessary for all men — our Saviour knows none without this mark: there must be a change in the soul. “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he isa new creature.”? 2 Cor. v. 17. There must be the habitation of the spirit. “If any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his.’? Rom. viii. 9. There must be a crucifixion, not only of the corrupt affections of the flesh, but of the flesh itself. ‘“They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts.”” Gal. v. 24.

The old nature must be killed, with all its attendants. There is no sonship to God without likeness; ‘no relation of a child of God without a child-like nature. Let a man be of whatsoever quality in the world, never so high, never so low; of whatsoever age, of whatsoever moral endowments; except a man, every man be born again, &c.

And simply necessary. Our Saviour doth not say he is in danger not to see the kingdom of God, or he may come short of it; but he shall not, he cannot. There is no possible way but this for any man; no other door to creep in at but by that of a new birth: salvation cannot be attained without it; and damnation will certainly be the issue of the want of it. As there is no other name under heaven, by which we can be saved, but by the name of Jesus Christ; so there is no other way under heaven, wherein we can be saved, but by the birth of the spirit.

It is necessary therefore in all places, in all professions. It is not necessary only in Europe, and not in Africa. Let a man be what he will, in any place under heaven, he must have a Jesus to save him,

Se. a oe and an Holy Ghost to change him: it is one and the ‘same spirit acts in all, and produces the same qualities in all: — let men’s religion and professions be what they will (men are apt to please themselves with this and that profession and opinion; but) there is no salvation in any profession, or any kind of opinion, but by regeneration. It is not necessary our understandings should be all of one size, that our opinions should all meet in uniformity; but it is necessary we should all have one spiritual nature. It is as necessary to the being of a good man that he should be spiritual, as to the being of a man that he should be rational; though there is a great latitude and variety in the degrees of men in grace as well as their reasons: some are of little faith, some of great faith; some babes in Christ, some strong men. It is not necessary all should be as strong as Abraham; but it is abso-. lutely necessary all should be new born, as Abraham: no age, no time excludes it. Righteousness was necessary before the fall. The new birth is but the beginning of our restoration to ‘that state we had before the fall. Adam could not have been happy without being innocent. The holiness of God could not create an impure creature. Without it God could take no pleasure in his work. After the fall it was necessary; continually necessary from the first moment of the fall... This work of regeneration is included in the first promise, I “will. put enmity between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed.”’ Gen. iii. 15. Naturally we have a mighty friendship to Satan, a friendship to his works, though not to his person. But if any man had interest in that promise, he must exchange that friendship for an enmity. If Jesus Christ, who is principally meant by this seed of the woman, had an enmity to Satan, then all Christ’s seed-must be possessed with the same spirit.

For when the seed of the woman was to break the

serpent’s head, it was necessary that those that would enjoy the fruit of that conquest should be enemies to the nature of the devil and the works of the devil; otherwise they could not join with that interest which overthrows him. It is unreasonable to think the head should have an enmity, and the members an amity: and we cannot have an enmity to that which is the same with our nature, without a change of disposition. It is not a verbal enmity that is here meant: while we pretend to hate him, we may do his pleasure; and Satan is never troubled to be pretendedly hated, and really obeyed. As wicked men do the will of God’s purpose, while they oppose the will of his precept; so they do the Devil’s will many times while they think they cross it. There must be a contrary nature to Satan before there can be anenmity. We are never enemies to those that encourage us in what we approve. His nature can never be altered by reason of the curse of God upon him: therefore ours must, if ever the league be broken. In Isa. lxv. 25. it is said, “The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like an ox, and dust shall be the serpent’s meat.” The nature of men may be changed by the Gospel; but dust shall always be the serpent’s meat. ‘The saving some by water in the deluge was a figure of this inward baptism, which is the answer of a good conscience towards God, 1 Pet. iil. 20, 21. As the whole world was so corrupt, that all must be washed away before it could be restored, so is the little world of man: the cloud and sea through which the Israelites passed signified this, as the Apostle informs us. Whereupon some think there were some sprinklings of the water upon them, as they stood like two walls,

to favour their passage.

Necessary in the time of the law. By the moral law this renewing was implied in the first command,, of not having any other gods before him. We cannot suppose that command only limited to a not serving an outward image. Is not the setting up self, our own reasons, our own wills, and bowing down to them, and serving them, as much a wrong to God, as the bowing down to a senseless image? nay, worse than the adoring of an image, since that is senseless; but our wills are corrupt, and no more fit to be our God than an image is fit to be a representation of him. So that in the spiritual part of the command this must be included, to acknowledge nothing as the rule of perfection but God; to set ourselves no other patterns of conformity but God; which the apostle phraseth a being new created after God.

If all idolatry were forbidden, then that which is inward, as well as that which is outward. If we were to have no other gods before him, then we were to prefer nothing inwardly before him; we were to make him our pattern, and be conformed to him; which we cannot without another nature than that we had by corruption.

Upon this are those scriptures founded which speak of covetousness to be idolatry; that if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him: he doth not love God.

Now the preferring self before God, is the essential part of the corrupt nature; therefore all men by the law of nature (which is the same with the moral law,) and the Jews, to whom this law was given, were bound to have another nature than that which was derived from Adam, which essentially consisted in the making ourselves our God. Self-esteem, self-dependence, self-seeking, is denying affection and subjection to God.

By the ceremonial law more plainly. There duty was not terminated in an external observance of the types and shadows under the law; but a heart work God intended to signify to them in all those legal ceremonies. As sacrifices signified a necessity of expiation of sin; so their legal washings represented to them a necessity of regeneration.

Therefore God is said not to require the sacrifices of beasts. “Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire, ‘that is, sacrifices of beasts,) burnt offerings and sin offerings hast thou not required;” Psal. xl. 6; viz. as the ultimate object of his pleasure; but as. representations of Christ, the great sacrifice. So neither did he command circumcision, and other legal purifications, for any thing in themselves, or any thing they could work, further than upon the body;

- but to signify unto them, an inward work upon the

heart. Hence they are said not to be commanded by God, “For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices; but this thing commanded I them, saying, obey my voice.’”’ Jer. vil. 22, 23. That is, God did not principally require these, as the things which did terminate his will and pleasure; but an obedience to him, and walking with him, which cannot be, without an agreement of nature: for how can two walk together, unless they be agreed. Hence God speaks so often to them of the circumcision of the heart: and promises this circumcision of the heart. ‘“And the Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart, and the heart of thy seed,’’ &c. Deut. xxxvi. 6. And Paul expressly says, that “he was not a Jew.’’ Rom. il. 28, 29.- That is, a spiritual Jew, one of the spiritual seed of Abraham, who had the circumcision that was outward in the flesh; but he that had that of the heart.

So among us, many confide in baptism, which

signifieth nothing to men grown up, without an

inward renewal, and baptism of the heart, no more than outward circumcision did to them.

The obligation upon us is still the same. The covenant made with Adam was made perypetually with

him for all his posterity: therefore all his posterity, by,

that covenant, were perpetually obliged to a perfect righteousness. If God had made this covenant with Adam, that he should transfuse this original righteousness to his posterity only for such a time, then indeed, after the expiration of the term, the obligation had ceased, and none had been bound to have it,asa debt required by God: the fault of wanting it, had been removed, without any infusion of grace; because the time being expired, and so the obligation

ceasing, it had not been a fault to want it: neither could Adam,”s posterity have been charged with his sin, because the.want of righteousness, after the expiration of the time fixed had not been a sin: but because there was no time fixed, but that it was perpetually of force, as to righteousness, which was the main intent of it, we still remain under the obligation of having a righteous nature.

Now God seeing the impossibility of answering this obligation in our own persons, by our own strength, appoints a way whereby we may answer itinasecond head, not annulling the former covenant as to the essential part of it, which was a righteous nature; but mitigating it; as the chancery annuls not the common law, but sweetens the severity of it.

This latter covenant, is called an everlasting covenant. Not that the obligation of the other to righteousness has ceased, but transmitted to another head; which head cannot possibly fail, as our former did, who hath both a perfect righteousness in himself, and hath undertaken for a perfect righteousness in his people, which he is able to accomplish, and to that purpose begins it here, and perfects it hereafter. - To this purpose the Scripture speaks of the eternity A ig gr 4h, A ie

i;

=> os nof the covenant. “My covenant shall stand fast with him.”? Psal. lxxxix. 28. that is, with Christ: and if his people sin, as he expresseth it afterwards, “vet my. loving kindness will I not utterly take from him.’ In this respect Christ is called the covenant of the people. ‘I will give thee for a covenant of the people.’’ Isa. xlii. 6. And the end of placing David, his servant, over his people, is not to give way to unrighteousness, and maintain men in an hostile nature against God; but that they might

“walk in his judgments, and observe his statutes.”’

iw

‘Eezek. xxxvil. 24. And that everlasting covenant of

peace he would make with them, is in order to sanctify them, Ezek. xxxvil. 26. 28. When God would make a covenant of peace with them, an everlasting covenant, it was to set his sanctuary among them, and to let the heathen know, that the Lord did sanctify Israel. And the end of the covenant, is to put “his law into the inward parts.’’ Jer. 0b EES RD

Christ undertook to keep up the honour of God, which was violated by the breach of that covenant, to “make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness.’ Dan. ix. 24. This obligation our second head entered into for us; and in him we are complete, even as our head, and as the head of all principality and power, who hath undertaken for our perfect righteousness; of our persons, by his own righteousness; of our nature, by inherent righteousness; as it follows, “In whom you are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh,’’ Col. ii. 11. This obligation still remains upon our head, and upon us in him; and to him we are to have recourse for a full answering of it. And this cannot be answered without a new birth here, which ends in perfection hereafter. And Christ by a plain

precept, hath made it absolutely necessary now ‘to all under the gospel administration.

So that no.age, no time, no administration, excludes it. It was as necessary to Adam, the first man, as to the last that shall be born: for being by nature spiritually dead, there must be a restoration to a spiritual life, if ever any be happy. God is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living. What was always necessary, is absolutely necessary, and admits of no exception. And therefore the removal of the diabolical nature is indispensable to him, and to us, “since we are all the posterity of Adam, and the inheritors of his corruption. How can any in any age enjoy an infinitely holy God, without being changed from their impurity.

Hence it follows, that it is so necessary, that it is not conceivable by any man in his right mind, how God can make any man happy without it. It is not for us, poor shallow creatures, to dispute what God — can, and what God cannot do; what God may do by his absolute power: but yet it seems a contradiction, and it is not intelligible by us, how God can make a man happy without regeneration.

What semblance of reason can be given, that any one who is a Slave of Satan, a child of wrath by nature, can be made the son and friend of God, without an expulsion of that nature which rendered him criminal, and restoring that, in some degree, which renders him innocent.

Without habitual grace, sin is not taken away: and as long as a man remains under sin, how he can be capable of any communion with God, I understand not. For he cannot be at one and the same time under God’s greatest wrath, and his highest love. How is it possible, that one can have an enjoyment of eternal life, who hath nothing in him, but a relation to eternal death.

God made man’s nature fit for his communion;

man made himself unfit by guilt and filth. This unfitness must be removed by regeneration, before this privilege man had by creation can be restored. Not

‘that this restored righteousness, is the cause of our

communion with God in happiness; but a necessary requisite to it. No doubt, but God might have restored this righteousness, without admitting man to a converse with him, if there had been no covenant made to that purpose. That God may give grace without glory, is intelligible; but to admit a man to communion with him in glory, without grace, is not intelligible.

It is not agreeable to God’s holiness, to make any an inhabitant of heaven, and converse freely with him, in a way of intimate love, without such a qualification of grace. “The righteous Lord loveth righteousness; his countenance doth behold the upright.’’ Psal. xi. 7. He must therefore hate iniquity, and cannot love an unrighteous nature, because of his love to righteousness; his countenance beholds the upright; he looks upon him with a smiling eye: and therefore he cannot favourably look upon an unrighteous person. So that this necessity is not founded only in the command of God, that we should be re-

newed; but in the very nature of the thing; because

God, in regard of his holiness, cannot converse with an

impure creature. God must change his nature,or the sinner’s nature must be changed. There can be

no friendly communion between two of different natures, without the change of one of them into the likeness of the other. Wolves and sheep, darkness and light, can never agree. God cannot love a sinner, as a sinner, because he hates impurity by a necessity of nature, as well as a choice of will. It is as”

This change cannot be then on God’s part: it must

impossible for him to love it, as to cease to be holy. therefore be on man’s part. It must therefore be by grace, whereby the sinner may be made fit for converse with God; since God cannot embrace a sinner in his dearest affections, without a quality in the sinner suitable to himself. All converse is founded upon a likeness in nature and disposition. It is by grace only, that the sinner is made capable of converse with God.

It is not agreeable to God’s wisdom. Is it congruous to the wisdom of God, to let a man be his child, and the child of the devil at the same time? Is it fit to admit him to the relation of a son of God; who retains the enmity of his nature against God; to make any man happy with the dishonour of his laws, since he is not subject to the law of God, neither will be; one that cannot bear him, but abhors his ak and the apprehensions of his holiness.

Man naturally hath risings of heart against Goa, looks upon him under some dreadful notion; hath an utter aversion from him: alienation and enmity are inseparable. ‘ You who were sometimes alienated, and enemies in your minds.”? Col. i. 21. It doth not consist with the wisdom of God, to make any man happy against his will: God therefore first changeth the temper of the will, by his powerful grace, thereby making him willing, and by degrees fitting him for happiness with him.

It is not fit that corruption should inherit incorruption, or impurity be admitted to an undefiled inheritance: and therefore God brings none thither, which are not first begotten by him to a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. “Which accerding to his mercy, hath begotten us again to a iively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you.”? 1 Pet. i. 3,4. It cannot be honourable for the wisdom of God, to give a right to eternal life, to one that continues a child of the devil; and bestow his love upon one that resolves to give his own heart to sin and Satan.

This of which I have now discoursed, is founded upon men’s natural notions in their right reason. But if we look into the Scripture, it is certain there is no other way but this; a man without a new birth, can have no right to happiness, by any covenant of God, — by any truth of God, by any purchase of Christ. — God never promised happiness without it; Christ never purchased it for any one without a new nature. No example is there extant of any person God hath

‘made happy, without this alteration: nor in the

strictest inquiries can we conceive any other way possible: therefore if there be any one, that hath hopes to enjoy everlasting happiness without regeneration,

he expects that which God never yet bestowed

upon any, and which, according to our understanding, God cannot, without wrong to his holiness and wisdom, confer upon any person. I beseech you therefore, let none of you build your hopes upon such vain foundations: you must be holy, or you shall never see God to your comfort.

It is so necessary, that the coming and sufferings of our Lord and Saviour, would seem insignificant without it. That this regeneration was a main end of his coming, is evident by his making this one of. the main doctrines, he was as a Prophet, and teacher sent from God, to make known to the world, it being the first he taught Nicodemus. Jesus Christ came to glorify God, and to glorify himself in redeeming a people. And what glory can we conceive God hath; what glory can Christ have, if there be no character-

istic difference between his people and the world? And what difference can there be, but in a change of nature and temper, as the foundation whence all other differences do result? Sheep and goats differ in nature.

The righteousness which is given through our Mediator is the same essentially as that we had at first. And his threefold office, of king, priest, and prophet, is in order to it; his priestly, to reconcile and bring us to God; his prophetical, to teach us the way; and his kingly, to work in us those qualifications, and bestow that comely garb upon us, that was necessary to fit us for our former converse. Our second Adam would not be like the first if he failed in this great work of conveying his righteousness to us, as Adam was to convey his original righteousness to his posterity. As that was to be conveyed by carnal generation, so the righteous nature of the second Adam is to be trans-

—Mitted to us by spiritual regeneration. In this respect renewed men are called his seed, and counted to him for a generation; as, ‘‘ A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation.’’ Ps. xxii. 30, It shall be accounted as much the generation of Christ, as the rest are the generation of Adam; as if they had proceeded out of his loins, as mankind did out of Adam’s. As God looks upon believers as righteous through the righteousness of Christ, as if it were their own, so he accounts them as if they were the egerration of Jesus Christ himself.

Christ came to save from sin, Salvation from sin — was more his work than barely salvation from hell; “Fie shall save his people from their sins.”’ Mat. 1. 21. From sin, as the cause; from hell, as the consequence. If from sin, was it only from the guilt of sin, and to leave the sinful nature unchanged? Was it only to take off punishment, and not to prepare for glory? It would have been then but the moiety of — redemption, and not honourable for so great a Saviour. ‘Can you imagine that the death of Jesus Christ, being ‘al necessary for the recovery of a sinner, was appointed for an incomplete work, to remit man’s sin, and continue the insolence of his nature against God? It was not his end, only to save us from wrath to come, but to save us from the procuring cause of that wrath; not forcibly and violently to save us, but in methods congruous to the honour of God’s wisdom and holiness: and therefore to purify us, “to redeem us from all iniquity, (all parts of it) by purifying unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works;’’ Tit. il. 14, that we might have a holy nature, whereby we might perform holyactions, and be as zealous of good works, and the honour of God, as we had been of bad works, and to bring dishonour to him.

It was also the end of his resurrection, to quicken us to a newness of life, Col. ii. 12,13. Eph. i. 5, 6. If any man, without a new nature, could set foot into heaven, one great design of the death and resurrection of Christ would be insignificant.

Christ came’to take away sin, the guilt by his death, the filth by his spirit, given us as the purchase of that death. In taking away sin, he takes away also the sinful nature.

Christ came to destroy the works of the devil. ‘For this purpose the son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.”” 1 John ill. 8. These works are two; sin, and the misery consequent upon it. Upon the destruction of sin, necessarily follows the dissolution of the other which was knit with it. If the sinful nature were not taken away, the devil’s works would not wholly be destroyed; or if the sinful naturé were taken away, and a righteous nature not planted in the stead of it, he would still have his ends against God, in depriving God of the glory he ought to have from the creature; and the creature could not give God the glory he was designed by his creation to return, unless some nature —

v,
-.

mot
3 AN ae
ye x se gas

were implanted in him, whereby he might be enabled to do it.

Would it then be for the honour of this great Redeemer, to come short of his end against Satan, to let all the trophies of Satan remain in the errors of the understanding, rebellion of the will, disorder of the affections, and confusion of the whole soul? Or if our Saviour had only removed these, how had the works of the devil been destroyed, if we had lain open to his assaults, and been liable the next moment to be brought into the same condition? which surely would have been, were not a righteous and divine nature bestowed upon the creature.

Christ came.to bring us to God. “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.”’ 1 Pet. iii. 18. Was it to bring us to God with all our pollutions, which were the cause of God casting us off? No; but to bring us in such a garb, as that we might be fit to converse with him.: Can we be so without.a new nature, and a spritual likeness to God? Would that man who would bring another to a prince to introduce him into favour, bring him into his presence ina slovenly and sordid habit, such a garb as he knew was hateful to the prince?. Neither will our Saviour, nor can he bring sinners in such a plight to God; because it is more contrary to the nature of God’s holiness to have communion with such, than it is contrary to the nature of light, to have communion with darkness. Can it be thought, that Christ should come to set human nature right with God, without a change of that principle which caused the first revolt from God? Besides, since the coming of Christ was to please God, and to glorify him in all his attributes, as well as to save us; how can God be pleased with the effects of Christ’s death, if he brought the creature to him, without any change Te

he
ad
30 THE NECESSITY

of nature, but with its former enmity and pollution? Will you say his mercy would be glorified? How can that be, without a wrong to his purity, and a provocation to his justice? Suppose such a dispute were in God, would not holiness wisdom, justice, joined together, decide against mercy.

But since there can be no such dispute, how can we conceive that mercy, an infinite perfection in God, can desire any thing to the prejudice of the honour of his holiness, justice and wisdom?

Well then: if we expect happiness without a renewed nature, we would make Christ a minister of sin, as well as of righteousness. As there is a justification by him, so his intent was to plant a living principle in us, whereby we might be enabled to live to him. It is in vain then to think to find any benefit by the death of Christ, without a new nature.

The end of the Spirit’s coming, manifests it to be necessary. We are said therefore to be “saved by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost.” As God by his Spirit, moving upon the face of the waters, created the world; so God by his Spirit, moving upon the face of the soul, new creates all the faculties of it. Can the coming of Christ, and the coming of the Spirit, the most signal favours of God to mankind, be intended for no other end, than to

- convey to us’the mercy of God, with the dishonour of his holiness; to change our misery without changing our nature, and putting us in a capacity both to glorify God, and enjoy him? ‘To what purpose doth the Spirit come, if not to renew? Whatsoever was the office of the Spirit, cannot be supposed to be exercised without this foundation. Can there be any seal of the Spirit, without some impression made upon the soul like to the Spirit, which is the seal whereby we are sealed? Can he witness to us, that we are the children of God, if there be no principle in us suitable

to God,as a Father; no child like frame? Is the Spirit only to bring things to remembrance for a bare speculation, without any operative effect? Is He to help us in prayer? how can that be, without giving us first a sense of what we need, and a praying heart? And how can we have a praying heart, till our natures, so averse from God, and his worship, be changed? he is a quickning Spirit, “the Spirit gives life.’ 2 Cor. iii. 6. How can that be, while we are under the power of moral death! He isa Spirit of holiness. Can he dwell in a soul that hath an unholy nature? Though he find men so at his first coming, would he not quickly be weary of his house, if it continued so? he comes to change our old nature, not to encourage it. What fruits of the Spirit could appear, without the change of the nature of the soil. From all this it follows, that this new “birth is necessary in every part of the soul. There is not a

faculty but is corrupted; and therefore not a faculty -

but must be restored. Nota wheel, nora pin in all this macbine, but is out of frame: not one part wherein sin and Satan have not left the marks of their feet. ‘Their mind and conscience is defiled.”? Tit. i. 15. It isclearer to a regenerate soul, that it is so, since by the light of grace he discerns impurity in every faculty. The more knowledge of God he

hath, the more he discovers his ignorance; the more —

love to God, the more he finds, and is ashamed of his enmity: and though in our imperfect regeneration

here, grace and sin are in every part of the soul; yet

every faculty is in part renewed: and grace and sin lie not so confounded together, but that the soul can distinguish them, and be able to say, this is grace; this is part of the new Adam; and this is sin, and part of the old Adam in me.

Because there was an universal depravation by the fall, regeneration must answer it in every faculty,

wenenprcovnd
ee

@

Pipe rats THE NECESSITY

dip inds it is not the birth of the man, but of one

part only. It is but a new piece, not anew creature.

This, or that faculty may be said to be new, not the soul, not the man. We are all over polluted by sin; and we must be all over washed by the water of grace. A whole sanctification is the proper fruit of reconciliation. “The God of peace sanctify you wholly.”? 1 Thes. v. 23. Reconciliation was of the whole man; so must regeneration. Sin hath rooted itself in every part; ignorance and error in our understandings; pride, and self-love, and enmity in our wills; all must be subdued by grace, and the triumphs of sin spoiled by a new birth.

It is so necessary, that even the dim eye of nateral reason, has been apprehensive of some need of it. And therefore it is a wonder, that there should be a need of pressing it upon men under the light of the gospel. Those doctrines that are purely intellectual, and supernatural, are not so easily apprehended by men, as having no footing in reason, whereby reason is rendered more unwilling to consent to them. But those doctrines that tend to the reformation of man, carry a greater conviction, as having some notion of. a depravation, which give them some countenance in the minds of men, though not in theiraffection. Men cannot conceive any notion of God’s greatness, majesty and holiness, but they must also conceive something necessary to an enjoyment of him (wherein their felicity consists,) besides those natural principles which they find in themselves. Natural reason must needs assent to this, that there must be some other complexion of the soul, to fit us for a converse with so pure a majesty. The wiser sort of heathen did see themselves out of frame: the tumult and disorder in their faculties, could not but be sensible to them. They found the flights of their souls too weak for their vast desires: they acknowledged the wings of it to be clipt, and that they never came so out of the hands of God: that therefore there was a necessity of some restorative above the art of man, to complete the work. And I think I have read of one of them. that should say, “That there could not be a reformation, unless God would take flesh.”? They had the work of the law written in their hearts: they knew such works were to be done: they found themselves unable to do them. Whence would follow, that there must be some other principle to.enable them, than what. they had by nature. To this purpose they invented their purgative virtues; and by those, and other means, hoped to arrive to the likeness of God. As they were sensible of their guilt, and therefore had. sacrifices for the expiation of that, so they were sensible of their filth, and had their purifications and washings for the cleansing of that. Hence it was, that they admired those men that acted in a higher sphere of moral virtue and moderation than others. Some of them have acknowledged the malady, but despaired of a remedy, judging it above the power of nature to cure. Certainly that which the wisest heathen, in the darkness of nature, without know- - ledge either of law or Gospel, have counted necessary; and since it is seconded by so plain a declaration of our Saviour, must be indisputably necessary. Plato in several places saith, that there was a certain divine principle in our minds at first: but that it was abolished, and God would again renew and form the soul with a kind of divinity.

How vain then are men, how inexcusably foolish, to neglect both the light of the gospel and that of reason too! that spend not one hour, one minute, in a serious consideration of it, and inquiry after it! in. slighting their own reason, as well as the express declaration of Jesus Christ! Oh that men were sensible of this, which is of so great importance to them.

Regeneration is also necessary to a gospel state.

Nothing can exist in any state of being, without a proper form. That which hath not the form of a thing, is not a thing of the same species. He cannot be a man that wants the rational form of a man, a ‘soul. And how can any man be a Christian without that which doth essentially constitute a Christian?

We can no more be Christians, without a Christian. nature, than a man can be a-man without human v

nature. Grace only gives. being to a Christian, and constitutes him so. ‘ By the grace of God J am what Tam: and his grace which was bestowed on me was not in vain, but I laboured more abundantly than they all.”? 1 Cor. xv. 10. Grace there, is meant of habitual grace, because he speaks of his labour as the fruit of it. In bodily life, brutes go beyond us; in the vigour of senses, greatness of strength, temperance, natural affection. In reason, and moral virtues, many heathen have excelled us. There is something else then necessary for the constitution of a Christian, and that is Christ’s living in him by a new forming of his soul by his Spirit. As the body lives by the soul, which distributes natural, vital, and animal spirits to every part of the body, for the performance of its several functions; so the soul lives by grace, which diffuseth its vigour to every part, the understanding, will, and affections.

There is no suitableness to a gospel state and government without it. In all changes of government in the world, there is a change in the whole state of affairs, in those that are. the instruments of government, in the principles of those that submit to the government. After the fall of man, God set up a new mode of government. All judgment was committed to the Son. ‘For the Father judges no

man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son.” —

John v. 22. “And hath given him authority to execute judgment.”? Ver. 27. The whole administration of affairs is put into his hand; not excluding the Father, who still gave out his orders in the - government; wherefore he saith, “I can of myself do nothing, as I hear, I judge.’? Ver. 30. There must be therefore some agreement between the frame of this. government, and the subjects of it. As there is anew Adam, a new covenant, a new priesthood, a new Spirit; so there must be a new heart, new compacts, new offerings, new resolutions. New administrations, and old services, can no more be pieced together, than new cloth and old garments. The gospel state of the church, is called a new heaven, and a new earth. Man is by the inclinations of his corrupt nature, obedient to the law of sin. There must be a cure and change of those inclinations, to make them tend to an observance of the orders of this new government,.and an hearty observation of it. “Old things are passed away, behold all things are become new, and all. things are of God,’’ 2 Cor. v. 17, (so they were before,) but now in a new manner and frame; and this is the reason rendered, why every man in Christ must be a new creature.

All the subjects of this government have been brought in this way, not one excepted. Though God hath chosen some that he would bless for ever under this evangelical government, yet notwithstanding the purpose of God, they are in as great unfitness for this state, as the worst of men, till God exerting his power, fashions them to be vessels of honour to himself. It is not God’s choice of any man, which puts any man into a gospel state, without the operation of the Spirit, renewing the mind, and fitting him for it. All that were designed by God’s eternal purpose, were to be brought in by this way of the new birth; “God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of

é the truth.’’ 2 Thes. ii. 13. And by this they were fortified against all those workings of the mystery of iniquity against the government of Christ and the state of the Gospel, which would be damnable and destructive to many: for he had spoken of that. before, upon which occasion he brings this in. “A chosen generation, a holy nation, a peculiar people,” are joined together. Peculiar they could not be, unless they had something of an intrinsic value in them above others, and a peculiar fitness for special service, and to offer spiritual sacrifices; therefore called also ‘a royal priesthood.”’

The end of the particular institutions, of initiation or admission, under the two different administrations of this government, was to signify this: of circumcision under the law, and baptism under the Gospel. Both signified the corruption and filthiness of nature, and the necessity of the circumcision of the heart, and the purification of nature. Hence baptism is called “the laver of regeneration,” Tit. ii. 5., many understanding it of baptism. Not that these did confer this new nature in a physical way, or that it was always conferred in the administration of them; but the necessity of having this, was always signified by them. ‘Therefore one of the Jews, against the opinion of his countrymen, saith absolutely, it is a madness to think that those ceremonies, under their administration, were appointed only for the purification of the body without that of the soul. And in Rom. il. 29, saith the apostle, “He is a Jew which is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart in the Spirit.’ So that partaking of baptism, and being intrusted with the oracles of God, make a man no more —

a Christian, than circumcision, &c. did make a man a Jew. He is only a Christian that hath a Christian nature: the necessity of this nature was evidenced and signified both by the one, and by the other.

In every state there are duties to be performed, and privileges to be enjoyed. -So likewise in the gospel state. Without a new birth, we cannot perform the one, or be capable of the other. a

There can be no preparation to any service without it. Man’s soul at first, could make a spiritual music to God, till the flesh disordered the strings: and no music can be made, till the Spirit puts the instrument in tune again. In Jesus Christ we are created to good works: therefore no preparation can be before the new creation, no more than there was a preparation in the matter, without form and void, to become a world.. What evangelical duties can’ be performed without an evangelical impression, without the forming of Christ, and the doctrine of Christ in the heart; not only in the notion, but the operative and penetrating power of it? The heart must be first moulded, and cast into the frame of the doctrine of the Gospel, before it can obey it: “But ye have obeyed from the heart, that form of doctrine which was delivered unto you; or, unto which you were delivered.’? Rom. vi. 17. The mould wherein a thing is cast, makes it fit for the operation for which it is intended. The ship that wants any material thing in its make, cannot sail well, will not obey the direction of the pilot; and he that wants. grace, will be carried away with the breath of every sin and temptation. All the motions produced naturally in ways of duty by other principles, cannot make an aptitude to divine services, no more than a thousand times flinging up a stone into the air, can produce any natural fitness in it for such an elevation. Where should we have any preparation? It cannot be from Adam; he died a spiritual death by his sin, and had no natural fitness for any spiritual service; and therefore cannot convey by nature more to his

4% posterity than what he had by nature. What grace he had afterwards, was bestowed upon his person, not upon the nature which was to be transmitted to his posterity.

. - Therefore we cannot perform any evangelical service without a new nature. If we have no natural preparation, we can have no natural-action. The law must be written in our hearts, before it be formed into the life, “I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts.’’ Jer. xxxi. 33, 34. It is then, and then only, that we have a practical and affectionate knowledge of God: “and they shall know me from the least unto the greatest.’’ Restoration to a supernatural life, must be, before there can be supernatural actions; a just nature, before a just walk; as Hosea xiv. 9. “The just shall walk in them;?” that is, in the ways of God. The motion of the creature, is not the cause, but the effect of life:

the evangelical service, is not the cause of righteousness, but the effect. We cannot walk in one commandment of God, till the law be written in our inward parts. Those that have not a new heart, cannot walk in God’s statutes. We can never answer the terms of the covenant, without a new nature. For, no act can transcend the principle of it.

There is a certainty in this rule; that the elevation of an inferior nature to the acts of a superior nature, cannot be, without some inward participation of that superior nature. The operation of every thing, follows the nature of the thing. A beast cannot act like a man, without partaking of the nature of a man; nora man act like an angel, without partaking of the angelical nature. How then can a man act divinely, without a participation of the divine nature? Duties ofa supernatural strain, as evangelic duties are, require a

supernatural frame of spirit. Nothing can exceed the bounds of its nature; for then it would exceed — itself in acting. Whatsoever service therefore doth proceed from mere nature, cannot. amount to a gospel service, because it comes not from a gospel principle. We cannot believe without a habit of faith, nor love without a habit of love: for this only renders us able to perform such acts. Justification is necessary to our state, as well as regeneration: but regeneration seems to be more necessary to our duties than the former; this principally to the performance of them; the other to the acceptance of them.

The nature doth always tincture the fruit of it. Our Saviour, by his interrogation, implies an impossibility, that those that are evil, should speak good things. “Oh generation of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh.””? Mat. xii. 34. The very hissings of a viper, proceed from the malice of its nature. As the root is, so is all the fruit. From. one seed many grains arise, yet all partake of the nature of that seed. Streams partake of the quality of the fountain. If the seed, root, and fountain be sood, so is whatsoever springs from them. There is not one righteous man by nature, neither Jew nor Gentile, all are concluded under sin. “There is none righteous, no, not one; none that understands and seeks God, &c.’’? Rom. iil. 10.. He adds not one, twice; he exempts none: not one righteous by nature; not one righteous action by nature: none that doth good, no, not one. He applies it to all mankind. A poisonous nature can produce nothing but poisonous fruit. Our actions smell as rank as nature itself. Whatsoever riseth from thence, though never — so specious, and well coloured, is evil, and unprofitable. If therefore we would produce good fruit, we must have a new root, seed and spring. Our sour nature must be changed into a sweetness and purity.

the vine be empty, the fruit will be so too. “Eph- ‘raim is an empty vine; he brings forth fruit to himself, or equal to himself.’? Hosea. x. 1. Unless the tree be good, the. fruit can never be generous, “‘ Neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.’’ Mat. vii. 17,18. We must have the Spirit, before we can bring forth the fruits of the Spirit. - All good Services are “related to this, as effects, to their cause:

so that what a man doth by an act of reason, and natural conscience, and good education, if his under- ‘standing, and conscience, remain wholly under their natural pollution, the service is not good, because the soul is corrupt: much less are those services good, which are the fruit only of humour. How the soul ean be habitually sinful, and yet the acts flowing from it, be good, is not easily conceivable; it is against the stream of natural observation. It is true indeed, that a man that is habituated to one kind of sin, may do an action that receives no tincture from that particular habit, because it doth not proceed from it: as a drunkard may give alms; his giving

alms hath no infection inherent from that particular.

habit of drunkenness; but from the nature, which is wholly corrupt, it hath: who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one. Who can bring a Clean service out of animpure heart? Not one man in the world. ‘We cannot therefore perform any evangelical service, if those foundations be considered.

Not spiritually, because we are flesh. God must be worshipped in spirit; in a spiritual manner, with spiritual frames. The apostle speaks of walking in

the Spirit; and praying in the Holy Ghost. None can act spiritually, but those that are born of the Spirit;.

and no action is spiritual, but what proceeds from a renewed principle. The most glittering and refined flesh, is but flesh ina higher sphere of flesh: therefore

whatsoever springs up from that principle, is fleshly, fe upon the former foundation, that nothing can rise ‘4 higher.than its nature. You may as well expect to gather grapes of thorns, as spiritual duties from carnal hearts. “Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles??’ Mat. vii. 16. Ifa natural man cannot receive, and cannot know the things of God, because they are spiritually discerned, how should he perform the duties belonging to God, since they are spiritually to be performed? We are ‘naturally more averse to motions upon our wills, than to the illuminations of our minds. An appetite for knowledge, and a flight from God, being both the fruits of Adam’s fall, who was both curious to know, as God, and fearing to approach to God after his fall. There may be some services in natural men, which may look like spiritual; but in the principle they are not so. Many acts are done by irrational creatures, which look like rational acts. As the order among bees, like the acts of statesmen, regulating a commonwealth; their carrying gravel in their fangs, to poise them in a storm, and hinder them from being carried away by the violence of the wind; yet these. are not’rational acts, because they proceed not from reason, but from a natural instinct put into them by God, the Supreme Governor. So that as no action of an ape, though like the action ef a man, can be said to bea human act; so no action of an unregenerate man, though like a ‘spiritual action, can be called spiritual, because it proceeds not from * a spiritual principle, but from a contrary one paramount in him. And all actions have their true denomination from the principle whence they flow. They may be fruits of morality, and fruits of conscience, but not spiritual fruits which God requires. Well then: we must be first built up a spiritual house, we must be a priesthood, before we can offer spiritual sacrifice. We must have the powerful operation of the Holy Ghost in us, before we can have the influence of the Holy Ghost upon our services. In all human acts, we should act as rational creatures: in all religious acts, as spiritual creatures.. Now as a man cannot act rationally, without reason; so neither can we act spiritually, without a divine Spirit in us. We are indeed to serve God, and worship. him as men: therefore rational acts are due to God in worship, and we are constituted in the rank of rational beings to that purpose. But since our minds are defiled, they must be purified; since our understandings are darkened, they must be enlightened. There must be a grace infused, a lamp set up,.a spiritual awakening, and invigorating our reasons and wills, before we can worship God, as God, in a spiritual manner.

We cannot perform any evangelical service, vitally, because we are dead. Our services must-be living services, if in anywise they be suitable to a living -God. The apostle wishes us “to present our bodies a living sacrifice.”” Rom. xii. 1. He doth not mean only our bodies, consisting of flesh and bones, or a natural life; but he names the body, as being the instrument of motion and service, a part for the whole. Present yourselves as a sacrifice consecrated to God, and living to him, and as living by him.

Upon the loss of original righteousness, nifotinet form, or principle was introduced, called in Scripture, flesh, and a body of death. Hence, by nature we are said to be dead; and all our works before repentance, are dead works. And these works have no true beauty in them, with whatsoever gloss they may appear to a natural eye. A dead body may have some- thing of the features and beauty of a living; but it is but the beauty of a carcass, not of a man. ‘A state f, by the stone-cutter’s art, and the painter’s skill, Be ae 4 be made very comely; yet it is but a statue s where is the life? Such services are but the works oe of art, as flowers painted on a wall, with curious colours; but where is the vegetative principle. Since — i

J
i

e! man therefore is spiritually dead, he cannot perform a living service. Asa natural death doth incapacitate for natural actions; so a spiritual death must incapacitate for spiritual actions: otherwise in what sense can it be called a death, if a man in a state of nature were as capable of performing spiritual actions, as one in a state of grace? No vital actcan be exercised — without a vital principle. As Adam could not stir to perform any action, though his body was framed and perfected, till God breathed into him a living soul; so neither can we stir spiritually, tillGod breathe into us a living grace. Spiritual motions can no more be without a spiritual life, than bodily motions can be without an enlivening soul. The living, the living, they shall praise thee: and Psa.l xxx. 18. “Quicken us and we will call upon thy name.’’? There can be no living praise, nor any living prayer, without a renewed heart. If it be one effect of the blood of Christ, “to purge our consciences from dead works to serve the living God,’’ as Heb. ix. 14; then it is clear, that till our consciences are purged from dead works, we cannot serve the living God: for what suitableness can there be between a living God, and dead services? Isa putrified carcass, a fit present for a king; ora man full of loathsome disease, fit to serve in a prince’s chamber? Our best services, without a new nature, though they may appear varnished and glittering to man, yet in the sight of God, they have no life, no substance, but are an abomination, because coming from a dead and rotten heart.

f: - Well then, we must be born again: it is not a dead

nature, nor a dead faith, can produce living fruit for

;

God. We may as well read without eyes, walk without legs, act without life, as perform any service to God without a new nature; no, we cannot perform the least: a dead man can no more move his finger, than his whole body.

Not graciously, because we are corrupt. By the same reason that we are to speak with grace, and to sing with grace in our hearts to the Lord; we are to do every other duty with an exercise of grace to God: and without grace our praises are but hollowings, our prayers but howlings, as the Scripture terms them; “They have not cried to me with their hearts, when they howled upon their beds.”? Hosea vi. 14. How can there be an exercise of that which is not?. The skill of the musician cannot discover itself, till the in-Strument be made tuneable. The heart must be strung with grace by the Spirit, before that Spirit can touch the strings, to make harmony to God in a gospel ser-.. vice. Our tempers must be changed, our hearts fitted, before we can make melody to God. The principal beauty and glory of a duty, lie in the internal workings of the heart: and how can that heart work graciously, that hath nothing of God, and his grace in it? It is said, folly is bound up in the heart ofa: child. So is corruption like poison in the heart of a man. It is entered into the very composition of us. A law of sin is predominant in a natural man, which doth infiuence all his.actions; and all his services are regulated by it: for he hath no other law in his mind, to check the motions of it, and to scent his duties, whereby they may carry a pleasing savour to God. The gift of prophecy, the understanding of mysteries, the depth of knowledge, the removing mountains, bestowing alms, dying for religion, are brave and noble acts; but without charity (love to God), without which, no other grace can work, all these profit

nothing. There is a moral goodness i in feeding the

poor; but no gracious goodness without charity. <A little of this, would make those asa diamond doth gold, wherein it is set, more valuable. If all those profit nothing, without this srace of charity, they would profit much with it. How doth grace alter the very nature of services? Those acts which are sensitive in a brute, were he transformed into ‘a man, and endued with reason, would become rational. Those actions which are but moral in’a mere man, when changed into Christian, become evangelical: they would be of another nature, and another value.

Well then, look after the new birth, since it is so necessary. ‘There cannot be gracious practice, without gracious principle. Can any thing fly to heaven without wings? We are to walk as Christ walked: how can we do it without a principle akin to that which Christ had? We are bound to act from a principle of righteousness. Adam was, and his posterity are; and should we not look after that which is so necessary a perfection, requisite for our services? No doubt but the devil could find matter enough for prayer, and from the excellency of his knowledge, frame rare strains (as some word it): but would it be a service which came from such a nature? As long as we are allied to him in our nature, our services will be of as little value. He transforms himself into an angel of light, but is still a devil; and many men do so in their religious acts, yet still remain unregenerate.

We cannot perform spiritual services freely, and voluntarily, because we are at enmity. A natural man’s services are forced, not free. The aversion of our natures from God, is as strong as their inclination to evil. We have no fervent desires to love God; and therefore no desires to do any thing out of affection to him. When sensual habits are planted i in the soul, there is an enmity to God in the ’ ‘mind: it will not be subject to the law of God» and whilst that habit sways, it cannot. This inclination to sin, and consequently aversion to good, is incorporated in nature, like blackness in a negro, or spots in

* (Sine ie

Fb a leopard; they are accustomed to sin, and cannot do good. There is no agreeableness between God and man’s soul, whilst there is a friendship between the

heart and sin: he affects the one, and is disgusted with the other: one is his pleasure, the other his

trouble. He hath no will, no heart to come to God in any service; and when he doth, he is rather dragged, than sweetly drawn. The things of God are against the bent of a natural heart: there is nothing so irksome as the most spiritual service. When men engage in them, they row against the stream of nature itself’ There must therefore be something of a

contrary eflicacy to overpower this violent tide; a law of grace to renew the mind, and turn the motions

-of the will to another channel. Restraining grace

may for a while stop the current, but not turn and change the natural course. A carnal mind conceives the things of God, and his spiritual service to be foolishness; and therefore condemns them. The eye of the mind must be opened, to discern the wisdom of God in them, before he can love them. The heart should be lifted up in the evangelical ways of God. Can mere flesh be thus? Force can never change nature. You may hurl lead up into the air, but it will never ascend of itself, while it is lead, unless it be rarified into air or fire. Keep up iron many years in the air, by the force of a loadstone, it will retain its tendency to fall to the earth, if the obstacle be removed: the natural gravity is suspended, not altered. Till the nature of the will be altered, it can never move freely to any duty. There must be a power to will, before there is a will to do; as Phil. 11. 18;

“It is God which works in you both to will and to do.” A supernatural renewing grace, must expel corrupt habits from the will, and reduce it to its true object. When faith is planted, it brings love to work by: ae soul is renewed, there is an harmony

eae

:. between God and the heart, between the mind and the word, between the will and the duty: when.the appetite, and true taste of the soul, is restored in regeneration, then spring up strong desires to apply itself to every holy service. The sincere milk of the word, is frequently desired, after it is spiritually tasted. 1 Peter ii. 2, 3.

Well then, there must be a change in us, or in the ™ law. The law is ‘spiritual, man is carnal; the law can have no friendship for man, nor man any friend — ship for the law in this state, since their natures are so contrary. What the law commands, i is disgustful to the flesh; what the flesh desires, is displeasing to the law. There must then be a change; the law must become carnal, or man become spiritual, before any agreement can be between them, Where do you think this change must take place? It can never be in the law; therefore it must be in man. The wound in our ‘wills must be cured; the tide of nature, that never carries us to God, must be turned, and altered by a stream of grace, to move us to him and his service. Man hath been a slave to his lust by the loss of grace, and is never like to be restored to his liberty in the service of God, till he be re-possessed of that grace, the loss of which, brought him into slavery. The Gospel is a law of liberty. A servile spirit doth not suit a free law, neither is it a fit frame for an evangelical service.

We can never perform spiritual services with

g delight, because we are alienated. This we are to

do. Paul delighted in the law of God; and the law was the delight of David: his whole plea- “sure run in this channel. Now because of that aversion to God, there is no will and freedom in his ‘service; much less can there be a delight. A corrupt nature can have no divine strains: a diseased man

hath no delight in his own acts; his distemper makes

VY

;

y)

his very motion unpleasant to him. Things that are not natural, can never be delightful. There is a mighty distance between spiritual duties, and a car — nal heart. Things out of their place, can never beat rest. Sin is as much a natural man’s element, as water to a fish, or air toa bird. If he be stopped in the ways of the flesh, he is restless till he return. He may indeed have some delight sometimes in a service; not as it respects God as the object, or God as ‘the end: there is no such friendship in a natural man’s heart to him; but as there is an agreement between a service, and some carnal end. he performs it for. His delight is not terminated in the service, but

4
ae yy

anchored in it by some hopes of carnal advantage; not springing from a living love, or a gracious affection to God. He hath no knowledge of God; and therefore can have no delight in God, or in his service. It is impossible we can come before him without pleasure and delight, if we know how amiable mae he is in his person, and how gracious in his nature: but we naturally think God a hard master. And man having no delight in God, he can have none in those means which lead him to God, and as they are appointed to bring God and his soul together. He hath wrong notions of duties, looks upon them as drudgeries, not as advantages: “Ye said, behold what a weariness it is,’ &c. Malachii. 13. Without a change of nature, we cannot desire communion with God; and therefore cannot delight in the means of it. We can never be in a holy extasy, without this inward principle, to make the Gospel services connatural to us. This only makes high impressions upon the soul. It is the law within our hearts, which only makes us delight to do his will, “Thy law is within my heart.’’ Psalm xl. 8. He had a natural affection to it, and then a high delight init. It made

in self-love, self-interest, or some external reward; ./ our Saviour delight to do his work: and it was the inward man of the heart, wherein the Apostle’s delight in the law was placed. Unless we have a divine impression of God upon us, we cannot hear his word with any joy in it; as our Saviour saith, “Ye therefore hear them not,’ that is, the words of God, “because you are not of God.”’ John viii. 47. Unless we have God’s light, and his truth, sent forth into us, we can never make God our exceeding joy. or go to his ‘altar with such a frame.

Well then: there is a necessity of the new nature, to have a warm frame of heart in evangeli¢al duties. What isconnatural to us, is only delightful. So much of weariness and bondage we have in any holy service, so much of a legal frame; so much of love and delight, so much we have of a new covenant grace. A spirit of adoption, and regeneration only can make us delight to come to our Father and to cry Abba, before him.

, Without regeneration, we cannot perform evange- lical duties sincerely, because we are depraved, and in our best estate vanity. God is a Spirit, and therefore must be worshipped in spirit. God is truth, and therefore must be worshipped in truth. Without a new nature we cannot worship God in truth. The old nature is in itself a lie, a mere falsity, and contrary to that nature God created. It was first introduced by a lie of the devil (ye shall be as gods knowing good and evil); and thereupon a fancy that God lied in his command. How can we serve God with this nature, which had nothing but a lie for its foundation; a lie of the devil, a lie in our fancy. Therefore our old nature is no better than a lie. How can we serve God with this nature which is quite another thing to that of his framing? Man in his fall is a liar, “let God be true, and every man a liar;”’ Rom. iii. 4, a covenant breaker, that kept not his faith with God.

pane
. % %
ce
Be

Rok iw ry) ‘* God, in respect of truth, and man, in respect of lying, are set in opposition by ‘the Apostle there. No man, — but would slight and scorn that service from another, which he knew to be a lying service in the very frame of it. There can be no truth in any service which is founded only upon an old nature, and performed by one that is actuated by the father of lies: and so is every unregenerate man, every child of disobedi-

> ~

ayence, No sincerity can be without a new nature, because there are no divine motives which should sway the soul. Most services of natural men, have such corrupt springs, so unsuitable to that raised temper men should have in dealing with God, that they produce sacrifices not fit to be offered to an earthly governor. “If you offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil, &c. offer it now unto thy governor, will he be pleased. with thee?” Mal. i. 8. Had they had divine motives, they had never brought such sickly services. What fi was not fit for themselves, they thought fit for God. — Did but princes know what motives many had in their services, they would with as much scorn reject them, as they do ignorantly receive them with affection. But it is otherwise with God, who knows all the springs and wards in that lock of the heart of his own framing. Do not most services take their rise from th. custom, or from an outward religious education barely; or at. best from natural conscience; which though it be all. in a man, which takes God’s part, * yet it is flesh, and defiled? And what pure vapours can be expected from a lake of Sodom? “To them that are defiled, and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled.”? Tit. 1.15. The mind, which is the repository of natural light; and the conscience, which is the advocate of natural light, and applies it upon particular occasion, are defiled, and that in every unbelieving person. Can the eyieal a “motives which conscience takes from a dark and deobs, ‘filed principle, as the mind is, be divine? It is fear of death, wrath, and judgment, which it mostly applies. These are the motives of defilement. Fear is the natural consequence of pollution: without sin and corruption, we never should have had any fear of hell. That cannot be gracious, which springs naturally from the commission of sin; and can this be divine? Were there no punishment feared, there would be no duty performed. Conscience hath naturally no basis to stand upon, but this. What is the principle of his fear? self. It is not therefore obedience to God, but self preservation, sways a man. Fear is but a servile disposition; and therefore cannot make a service good. All such extrinsic motives which arise not from a new life, are no more divine,

. than the weights of a clock may be said to have life, because they set the wheels running. The same action may be done by several persons, upon different principles and. motives; for which one may be rewarded, the other not, as Matthew x. 41, 42: “He that receives a righteous man, in the name of a righteous man, shall receive a righteous man’s reward; and whosoever shall give unto one of these little ones

a cup of cold water only, in the name of a disciple,

heshallinno wise lose hisreward.’’ One may receive he -a member of Christ, out of respect to Christ, and the 4 relation the person hath to him. Another may receive the same person out of a common principle of humanity; the action is the same; the good redounding to the object, is the same: nay, it may be greater in him that acts from a commiseration of him, as a man; than a cup of cold water from the other, because his ability is greater; but the inward respect to the object is different. One respects him as a man of the same nature with himself in misery; the other respects him as a member of Christ in misery. One respects

ue

4 ‘ him as a man, the other as a righteous man. The principle is different; one relieves him out of a natural compassion, common to a heathen with him; the other out of a Christian affection to his head. The actions are therefore different, because of. their motives: one is rewardable, and promised to be rewarded; the other not: one may be from grace the other from nature. Ido not say, it always is, unless there be a constant tenor of such motives in our actions: for a natural man, under the preaching of the Gospel, may do such a thing out of a present and transient respect to Christ, whom he hears so often of, and hath some presumption to be saved by; but it is not his constant frame.

Therefore from hence results a necessity of the

y alteration of the frame of our souls, to furnish us with

divine and heavenly motives for our actions. A man may do a thing by nature, from a good principle, a principle of common honesty, good in its kind, but not evangelically good, without a renewed affection to God. “If you love me, keep my commandments.” John xiv. 15. Keep what I command you, out of affection to me. “Where the imagination of the heart is evil, and only evil, and that continually.’? Genesis vi. 5. All the service a man in that state performs, riseth from this spring, and hath some infectious imagination in it, highly abominable to God; either wrong notions of God in it, or wrong notions of the duty, or corrupt motives, something or other of the evil imagination of the heart, mixes itself with it.

Without a renewed nature, as there are no ‘alvin motives, so there can be no divine ends. We are bound to refer our natural actions, much more our religious services, to the glory of God. ‘The end is the moral principle of every action. It is that which confers a goodness or badness upon the service, “If

he a the eye be evil, the whole body is full of darkness.’ Luke xi. 34. This is commonly understood of a man’s aim. If the intention be evil, there is nothing but darkness in the whole service. The perfection of every thing consists in answering the end for which it was framed: that which was the first end of our framing, ought to be the end of our acting, viz. the glory of God. But man hath taken himself off from this end, and hath been fond of making himself his chief good, and ultimate end. Men naturally have corrupt ends in good duties. Pride is the cause of some men’s virtue: and they are spiritually vicious, in avoiding crimes, because they intrench too much “upon their reputation. The Pharisees made their devotion contribute to their ambition, “They pray to be seen of men.’? Matthew vi. 5. “But all their works they do to be seen of men.’’? Matthew xxiii. 5. There was not one work wherein they had not respect to this. Their works might well be called the works of the devil, whose main business it was to set up pride and self. All their pretences of devotion to God, were but the adoration of some golden image. Have not many in their splendid actions, the same end with brutes, the satisfaction of the sensitive part, covetousness, pride, emulation, sense of honour, qualities perceivable in the very brutes, as the end of some of their actions? The acting for a sensitive end, is not suitable to a rational, much less can it be the end of a gracious creature. Have not men sinful ends in their religious services? in their prayers to God, i in their acknowledgment of God? The devil could intreat our Saviour’s leave to go into the herd of swine. Was this a prayer, though directed to Christ, when his end w was to destroy, and satisfy his malice in it? At best, a man without grace, is like a picture in a room, which eyes all, and hath no more |, respect to a prince, than his attendants, A natural a our actions cannot else be good, though A od himself. God employs Satan in some things;

ee
54 “THE NECESSITY

man’s respect to God, is but equal to a respect to all his other worldly concerns. Indeed it were well if it

were so. He parcels out one part for God, one part for himself,and one part for the world; but God hath the least share; or at best, no more “than the rest. And truly, as a picture cannot give a greater respect, to fix its eyes more upon a prince, than a peasant,

because it hath no life; so neither can a natural man,

pay a supreme respect to Ged in his service, without

a spirital life. There is a necessity then of removing

those depraved ends, that man may answer the true

end of his creation. The principles then upon which such ‘ends do grow, contrary to the will of God, must be rooted out, that the soul may move purely to God in every service. We are come short of the glory of God, “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” Romans ili. 23; short of aiming at it, short of his approbation of our acts. Being thus come short, our ends cannot rise higher than the frame of our soul. Grace, grace only can advance our wills to those supernatural ends for which they were first framed. We can never aim at the glory of God, till we have an affection to him; we can never honour him supremely, whom we do not supremely love. An affection to God can never be had,

till the nature wherein the aversion is’ placed, be changed into another frame. We are to elorify God,

as God: how can we do this, without the knowledge of him? How can we know him, but by the Gospel,

wherein he discovers himself? How can we have right conceptions of the Gospel, till gospel i impressions: be made upon us? How can we act for the glory of God, to whom naturally we are enemies? There are none of us born with a spiritual love to God. There must then be an alteration of the end, and im in us;

dered by

* tl te

as in afflicting Job: but is his performance good? No: because his end is not the same with God’s. He acts out of malice, what God commands out of sovereignty, and for gracious designs. Our end without it, is not the same with the end of the action: for moral acts tend to God’s glory, though the agent hath no such intention. So the action may be good in itself, but not good in the actor, because he wants a due end.

Well then, those actions only can be said to bs, evangelical, when the great end of God’s glory, which was his end both in creation and redemption, hath a moral influence upon every service; when we have the same end in our redeemed services, as God had in his redeeming love.

We cannot without regeneration perform ee hI ri

duties humbly, because of natural stoutness and hard- ness. Evangelical duties must be performed with humility. Self denial is the chief gospel lesson, and is to run through the veins of every service. Therefore God speaks of giving a heart of flesh, in gospel times, “I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes, and keep my ordinances, and do them.’?. Kizek. xi. 19. Gospel duties require a pliableness, — and tenderness of heart. Adam’s overvaluing himself, and swelling with designs of being like God, brought an incapacity upon himself of serving his Creator. And man ever since, is too aspiring, and has too good an opinion of himself, to perform duties in an evangelical strain, with that contrition in himself, which the Gospel requires. Our swelling and admiring thoughts of our own natural righteousness, hinders Christ from saving us, and ourselves from serving him. There must be an humble, and melting, and self denying frame. ‘The angels are said to cover their faces before God, as having nothing to glory 1 iy

2 es of their own. And the chief design of the Gospel, is to beat down all glorying in ourselves, “that no flesh should glory in his presence; let him that glorieth, slory in the Lord.’? 1 Cor. i. 29, 31. And indeed it humbles us no more, than what, upon due consideration, willappear very necessary. Nature then must be changed, before the pride be rooted out; old things must pass away, that God may be all in all in the creature. We cannot without a new nature, make a true estimate of ourselves, and lie as vile and base in the presence of God. A stone, with all the hammering cannot be made soft. Beat if into several pieces; you may sever the continuity of its parts, but not master its hardness; every piece of it will retain the hardness of its nature. So it is with a heart of stone: the nature must be changed, before it be fit for those services which require melting, humble and admiring frames. There is a necessity of a residing grace, like fire, to keep the soul in a melting temper. Without a new nature, we cannot perform gospel

“/~sevices constantly, because of our natural levity.

Where the nature is flesh, the heart minds the things of the flesh. The mind thus habituated, will not be long employed about the things of the Spirit. There is a natural levity in man’s nature. Do not many seem to begin in the Spirit, and end in the flesh? seem to arise to heaven, and quickly fall down to earth? Do not our very promises vanish with the next wind of temptation; and like sparks, expire as soon as they be born, unless grace be in the heart to keep them alive? The Israelites are accused of not having a heart steadfast with God. “Their heart was not right with him, neither were they stead fast in his covenant.”” Psal. xxviii. 37. Are our natures better than theirs? Do we not all lie under the same charge; so uncertain naturally, about divine things, as if there were nothing but wind in our composition? Nothing can be kept up in motion against its nature, but by force. A top hath no inward principle of motion, but is moved by some outward force: when that is removed, the motion languisheth. Any motion that depends only upon outward wires, expires upon the breaking of them. When external motives, which spurred men on to this or that service, cease, the service dies of course, because the spring of the motion fails. If fear of hell, terrors of death, some pressing calamity, be the spring of any duty; when these are removed, there will be no more regard to the duty they engendered. But what is natural, is constant, because the spring always remains. Interest changeth, conscience is various; and therefore the operations arising from thence, will partake of the uncertainty of them. Stony ground may bring forth blades; but for want of root, they will quickly wither. A man may mount high in religion, by the mixture of some religious passion, as meteors in the air; but by reason of the gross and earthy parts in them, will not continue in their station. There is no being without, stable, but God, and no principle stable within, but grace. “It is a good thing that the heart be established with grace.”’ Heb. xiii. 9. Whatsoever service is undertaken upon changeable motives, is as changeable as the bottom upon which it stands. If credit, slavish fear of God, worldly interest, inspire us with some seemingly holy resolutions, they will all fly away upon the first removal of those props. ‘There is therefore a necessity of a change of nature and disposition. Where there is no approbation of things that are excellent, there can be no constant operation about them. All action about an object, continues according to the affection to it and delight in it. We shall then be filled with the fruits of righteousness, to the glory of God, when we have a sincere approbation of the excellency of them, first, “approve things that are excellent;’? and then

O0T eee

ben follows, “without offence, ill the day of ‘Christ.’’ Phil. i. 10, 11. A stately profession can no more hold out against the floods of temptation, than a beautiful building can stand against the winds without a ‘good foundation under ground. It is the Spirit of the Lord within, as well as without, can only maintain the standard against temptation.

Well then, upon the whole, there is a necessity of regeneration, for the performance of Gospel duties. We cannot else perform them spiritually; because we are flesh; nor vitally, because we are dead; nor graciously, because we are corrupt; nor voluntarily, because we are at enmity; nor delightfully, because we are alienated; nor sincerely, because we are falsity; nor humbly, because of our stoutness; nor constantly, because of our levity: our natures must be changed in all these respects, before we can be fit for any Gospel service.

Again, Regeneration is necessary for the enjoyment of Gospel privileges. We are not fit for God’s delight, without it. That person who hath his love, must have his image. If ever God could love an old nature, which he once hated, and delight in that which he once loathed, he must divest himself of his immutability. He never hated the person of any of his creatures, but for unrighteousness. And upon the removal of this cloud of separation between him and them, the beams of his love break out in their former vigour. God’s love is not straitened, nor his kindness exhausted, no more than his hand is shortened, or his ear grown heavy, that he cannot hear, «But your iniquities have separated between you, and your God: and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.’’ Isa. lix. 1, 2.

What made the first separation? Was it not sin? God told Adam before, what the issue would be, upon his eating the forbidden fruit, “in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.”? Gen. 11.17. It —

Leis is not a temporal ‘death. that is only meant; for he would then have died that day wherein he fell; the word surely importing as much. And the punishment of a temporal death was pronounced afterwards, “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.’’ Gen. iii. 19. Thou shalt surely die; thy integrity and righteousness will expire that very moment, and thou shalt die in my just displeasure. It is a spiritual death that is most properly meant. The punishment of sin, is death. The chief part of this death is an alienation from the life of God: that is not to have God, and the righteousness of God’s image, living in

him; but to be impure, corrupt, a hater of God, and ~-

ser vant of sin. Now from this punishment no man can be freed, but by regeneration; the proper effect whereof, is to love God, to know his name, to partake of his holiness, to imitate his virtues. Man forfeited all God’s favour upon his fall, and can challenge nothing of it.

What then can restore man to God’s favour? Can that which first deprived us of it? The cause of our destruction can never be the means of our restoration.

Did the loss of Adam’s integrity, make him -unfit for paradise, the garden of God, whence he was expelled, as a token of God’s displeasure? And can the con-

‘tinuance of that loss, be a means to regain that love which banished us? It was a spiritual death. And is the carcass of a soul fit for God’s complacency? There must be not only a satisfaction to his justice for the re-instating man into his favour: but a restoring of his i image, by the Holy Ghost. It is as impossible the soul can be beautiful without life, and without holiness, as fur a body to be beautiful without a good colour, and proportion of parts. Take away — this, beauty must cease, and deformity succeed in the place. It is impossible therefore, that where sin remains in its full vigour, where there is nothing of an

Po original integrity residing, but that the soul must be monstrous, vile, and deformed in the eyes of God. To make it therefore a fit object for God’s favour, it is necessary to be beautified with a holy nature, and adorned with its due proportions and vigour. The righteousness of Israel must go forth as brightness; he must be called by a new name; that is a new nature: for what is a name without a nature? And then it should be Hephzibah, the Lord delights in thee. ‘The righteousness thereof shall go forth as brightness, and the glory thereof as a lamp that burneth.”’ Isaiah lxii. 1,2, 3,4. Righteousness is the glory of a soul, as well as of a church. ‘ Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory. Thou shalt be called by a new name;”’ a new nature wrought by the word of God; “which the mouth of the Lord shall name.” ‘Then she should be in favour with God; “a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of her God.’”’ Righteousness is the glory of a soul, and God’s delight and complacency is the consequent of a righteous nature. The elect themselves have no interest in God’s fa. vour of delight without it. This follows upon the — former.. God cannot love the very best of mankind, his own choice, with a love of complacency, without regeneration, witiott a righteous nature. ‘There is a favour of intention and purpose before it: there is also an executive love in the very infusing the habits

of grace, which is a supernatural favour, because

there is both a purpose, and then an actual conferring a supernatural good. God is free, and may give his gifts how, and to whom he pleases. But an elect

yerson, whilst he continues in a state of nature, is not

sti ‘simply beloved, though there be a purpose of love;

ae ee 2
ae ag. 28

because there is no gracious quality in him, which is the object of God’s special favour. It is regeneration only which is the object of God’s delight in us.

moe, $ — —

Neg 2 a Hence will follow, that no privileges under heaven, without it, can bring us into God’s favour. No, not if any man were related to Christ, according to the flesh. The apostle Paul would not think the better of himself for a fleshly relation to Christ, for being of the same country, descended of the Jewish nation. “Though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet henceforth know we him no more. Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.’’ 2 Cor. v.16. Though it be an honour to be of the same descent with Christ, according to the flesh; to be of the same nation and country; yet this doth not make a man any more beloved of God. Nothing avails in Christ but a new creature. And our Saviour himself pronounceth it so. It was the highest privilege to be the mother of our Saviour, according to the flesh: yet this had been nothing, without her being born again of the Spirit; “Who is my mother, and who are my brethren? Behold my mother and my brethren,” pointing to his disciples; “my mother and

my brethren are these which hear the word of God, and do it.”’ Luke viii. 21. Those that hear the word, that have the gracious effect of the word wrought in

- them by the Spirit, are equal to my mother and my

brethren, and superior to any of my fleshly relations,

i they be without it. There is a necessity of regeneration upon this account. As there is no favour, so there’is no union with God and Christ without it. Man hath some kind of

natural unio with all things in the world; he hath

y:

being with a i creatures, rational faculties with angels, sense with animals, vegetation with plants. ‘He wants only that with God, which would beautify all the rest. And this can only be by partaking of the

image of God’s holiness by a new birth. There

must be a capability for this union on man’s part. — A superior and inferior nature may be united to- 6*

i, bi a b gether: but never contrary natures. There must be some proportion between the subjects to be united, which proportion consists in a commensuration of one thing to another. What proportion is there between God and our souls? There can be none without a supernatural grace, infusing a pure nature. As we come out of the quarry of nature, rough and unpolished, we are not fit to be cemented with the corner-stone in the heavenly building; we must be first smoothed and altered by grace.

How can things be united to one another, which are already united to their contraries? Separation from one body must make way for union to another. Naturally we are. united to the devil, as the head of the wicked.world.. We are by nature his members. Our understandings ‘and wills were united with his in Adam, when Adam gave up his understanding and will to him: and ever since he works‘ in the children of disobedience. Working,and working in, as a united nature to him, and principle in him. It is necessary this union should be broken, before we can partake of the influence of another head.” The diabolical nature and principle therefore, which we have got by sin, must be removed, and another nature, which is divine, must be restored before we can be united to Christ, and enjoy the benefits of union with him.

How can things of a contrary nature be united to- ‘gether? Can fire and water be united, a good angel and an impure devil? Can heaven and hell ever become friendly and compose one body? We are united to the first Adam by a likeness of nature: how can we be united to the second without a likeness to him from a new principle? We are united to the first by a living soul; we must be united to the other by a quickening spirit. We have nothing to do with the heavenly Adam, without bearing an heavenly image. We are earthly as in the first Adam; we must be heavenly to be in the second, because his nature is so. If we are his members, we must have the same nature which was communicated ‘to him by the Spirit of God, which is holiness. This nature must flow from the same principle; otherwise it is not the same nature. An old nature cannot be joined toa new Adam: there must be one spirit in both; “He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit.”? 1 Cor. vi. 17. And if it were an union barely of affections, as some would only make it, it is not conceivable how it can be without a change of disposition. But since it is a union by indwelling of the same Spirit in both, it is less intelligible how it can be without an assimilation of our nature to the nature of Christ. “If any man hath not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his.??

Roman viii. 9. It can never be supposed the Spirit

should unite a pure head and impure members. Such a union would make our blessed Saviour like Nebuchadnezzar’s image; an head of gold, arms of silver, and feet of clay. Shall we loathe to have impure things about us? and will the holy Jesus endure a loathsome, putrifying soul to be joined to him? How can any thing be vitally united to another without life? ‘It is a vital union, by virtue of which believers are called Christ. ‘ As all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ,’’? 1 Cor. xi. 12; and is compared to the union of the members of a natural body, Rom. xii. 4, 5. Members have not only life in their head, but in themselves, because the soul, which is the life of the body, is not only in the head, but in all the parts of the body, and exerciseth in every part its vital operations. The Spirit, therefore, which is the bond of this union, communicates life. to every member wherein he resides, as well as in the head. What man would endure a dead body to be joined to him, though it were the carcass of one he ever so dearly

loved? If’a man were united to Christ, without regenih.

“eration, ,Christ’s body would be partly alive, partly

dead, if any one member of it had not a spiritual life. A dead body and a living head; a member of Christ, with a nature contrary to him, is an inconceivable paradox. Did God ever design such a monstrous union for his Son? Hence results

The necessity of regeneration; for without it there can be no union with Christ. e

There can be no justification without it. We are not justified by an inherent righteousness; yet we are not justified without it; we cannot be justified by it, because it is not commensurate to the law: by reason of its imperfection: we cannot be justified without it, for it is not congruous to the wisdom and holiness of God to count a person righteous who hath nothing of righteousness in him, and whose

nature is as corrupt as the worst of men. With

what respect to God’s honour can it be expected that God should pardon that man’s sins whose will is not changed, who still hath the same habit in his will to commit sin, though he doth not at present exercise it. It is very congruous in a moral way that the person offending should retract his sin, and return to his former affection. There is a distinction between justification and regeneration, though they never are asunder. Justification is relative; regeneration internally real. Union with Christ is the sround of both; Christ is the meritorious cause of both. The Father pronounceth the one; the Spirit works the other: it is the Father’s sentence, and the Spirit’s work. The relative’and the real change are both at the same time, “But you are sanctified; but you are justified,’ 1 Cor. vi. 7: both go together. We are not justified before faith, because we are justified by it. Rom. y% 1. And faith is the vital

ue ais

principle whereby we live. “The life which I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God.”’ Gal. ii. 20. It is the root-grace, and contains the seeds of all other graces in it: it is habitually and seminally all other graces. So that, unless we be new born, no justification can be expected; no justification can be evidenced. God never pardons sin, but he subdues iniquity. ‘Who is a God like unto thee, that pardons iniquity? He will subdue our iniquities.”? Mich. vii. 18,19. The conquest cannot be made, while the nature, the root of the rebellion remains, When he turns his compassion to us, he will turn away our hearts from

iniquity. If a man were justified before he were °

regenerate, then he were righteous before he was alive: being in Christ, as free from condemnation, is always attended with a walking after the Spirit; and walking is not before living. Pardon would be unprofitable, unless he that were pardoned were made

righteous inherently here, and had a right to, and hope of, a perfect righteousness hereafter. If righteousness were not imparted in this manner, it would be an argument a man were still under the law; which saith, “He that doeth them shall live in them;’’ which is impossible in a man that hath once sinned, though his sins are remitted. But it is clear that righteousness is imparted, since there is no man in the world, whose sins are pardoned, but finds some principle in him, whereby he is enabled to contest with sin more than he was before. Therefore do not deceive yourselves; there is no pardon without a righteous nature, though pardon be not given for it. 79m

There is no adoption without regeneration. We can no more be God’s sons, without spiritual regeneration, than we.can be the sons and daughters of men

without natural generation. Adoption is not a mere

relation, without an inwardadorm. The privilege and

La

oR - epee fy the image of the sons of God both go together. A

state of adoption is never without a separation from

defilement, “Come you out from among them, be you separate, and I will be a father unto you, and you shall be my sons and daughters. 72 Core vito The new name in adoption is never given, till the new creature be framed. “As many as are led by the Spirit, they are the sons of God.”? Rom. viii. 14; that is the signal mark, that they are led by the Spirit, therefore first enlivened by the Spirit. A child-like relation is never without a child-like nature. The same method God observes in declaring the members his sons, as he did in declaring the head hisSon, which was “according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.’’ So he declares believers to

be his sons, by giving them a spirit of holiness, and.

by a resurrection from sin, and spiritual death. The devils may as well be adopted sons of God, as we, without a change of nature. To be the sons of the living God, was the great promise of the Gospel prophesied of, “Ye are the sons of the living God.’’ Hos. 1.10. How well will it suit, a living God, and a dead son? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. Our Saviour’s argument for the immortality of the soul will evidence not only a resurrection, but a necessity of a spiritual life. What advantage. is there in being the sons of a living God, if we had no more life in us, than his greatest enemies?. Regeneration, as a spiritual act, gives us a likeness to God in our nature: adoption, asa legal act, gives us a right to an inheritance; both the great ends of the Gospel, accompanying one another. No sonship without a new nature.

There is no acceptance of our services without it. We are not fit to perform any duty without it; and God will never accept any duty from us without it. In the first of Ephesians, election and regenera uae are expressed by being holy; adoption and acceptance are linked together, ““He hath chosen us that we should be holy, and without blame before him in love; having predestinated us to the adoption of children:’’ after follows “grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.”’ Ver. 4. 5, 6. Our acceptance is only upon the account of Christ; but the acceptability is upon the account of grace. Faith makes our persons and our duties acceptable; and Christ makes them both accepted. Acceptability ariseth from grace, as damnation ariseth from sin. God damns none, unless they be damnable: neither doth God accept any in Christ unless they be acceptable. The papists, that plead for merit, acknowledge nothing of it before grace, but after grace, because then the services have a greater proportion to God, from the dignity of the person, they being acts of God’s children, and wrought by his Spirit. God can love nothing but himself, and what he finds of himself in the creature. All services, without something of God’s image and Spirit in them, are nothing. As the product of a million of ciphers, though you still add to them, signifies nothing; but add one figure, a unit, the Spirit,

grace, it will make the product to be many millions

of high account with God. All the signification depends upon the figure, which if absent, the rest would be nothing. - All moral perfections, without a new nature, are but ciphers in God’s account, “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” Heb. xi. 6. Grace is only a good work, “He which hath begun a good work in you, will perform it till the day of Christ.” Phil. i. 6. Intimating, that their morality, and their natural wisdom, before their regeneration, were not good works in the sight of God. They were good in their kind; asa crab may be said to be a good crab, but not a sood pippin. It is not good,

unless it be fruit brought forth in Christ: neither is it v

ordained as good to the day of Christ, to appear glorious at the time of his triumph. God looks into our services, whether the Spirit frames them, and Christ presents them: all that we do, must go through

their hands, before they can reach God’s heart. Acceptance can never be without a renewed nature. The services of the flesh cannot please God, “They that are in the flesh cannot please God.’’? Rom. viii. 8. Their persons cannot, therefore their actions cannot, because they are the products of a nature at variance with him; a nature that is not, nor cannot be subject to his law. So that God must be displeased with his own spiritual law; yea, with his own holy nature, and change his judgment, and change his nature, before he can be pleased with fleshly services; for at the best, they are but empty appearances. The image

of the devil, can never be grateful to God. Services

flowing from nature, may seem in the outward form of them, to be as acceptable as the duties of a good man: but considering what a sink of impurity the heart is, from whence they proceed, they cannot be so. Good water is sweetest, and bad water most corrupt nearest the spring or fountain: although the streams may lose some of their corruption in their passage. A gracious man’s duties are most pleasant to God, nearest the heart; a natural man’s services are most distasteful, nearest the spring. When the heart isa good treasure, what comes from it, is regarded as a rich gift, because it comes from a valuable treasure. Hence it is, that a less work, coming from a pure and holy principle in a renewed man, is more acceptable to God, than a greater work, in respect of the external glorification of him in the good of mankind, coming from an impure principle in a natural man. Asa cup of cold water given to a disciple, is more valuable than the gift of a prince, from another principle. In the one, God sees a conformity of affection with his

ME ds

holiness: in the other, only a conformity with his providence. One intends God’s glory, and the other only acts it, proposing some other end to himself. And we are accustomed to value gifts, rather by the affection of the friend, than the quantity of the gift. Well then, consider it: without a new nature, all our services, though they should amount to many millions in number, have no intrinsic value in them with God. For where the nature is displeasing, the actions flowing from that nature, can never please him. He that turns away his ear from hearing the law; that is, from a spiritual obedience to the law, even his prayer is an abomination. It is formed by a polluted soul.

There is no communion with God, without a re- -newed soul. God is incapable on his part, with the honour of his law and holiness, to have communion with such a creature. Man is incapable on his part, because of the aversion rooted in his nature. What way can there be to bring God and man together, without this change of nature? What communion can there be between a living God, and a dead heart? God loathes sin, man loves it; God loves holiness, man loathes it. How can these contrary affections meet together in an amicable friendship? What communion with so much disagreement in affections? In all friendship there must be similitude of disposition.

Justification cannot bring us into communion with

God, without regeneration. It may free us from punishment, discharge our sins; but not prepare us for a converse wherein our chief happiness lies. There must be some agreement, before there can be a communion. Beasts and men agree not in a life of reason; and therefore cannot converse together. God and man agree not in a life of holiness; and therefore can have no communion together. We are by sin, alienated from the life of God; and therefore from his 7

ae a ‘fellowship. We must have his life restored to us, before we can be restored to communion with him.

God can have no pleasure in such communion. God took. a delight in the creation, and rejoiced in his work. Sin despoiled God of his rest. It can give God no content, no satisfaction: for to be in the flesh, is to be in that nature which was derived from Adam; which brought the displeasure of God upon all mankind. Regeneration by the Spirit, restores the creature to such a state, wherein God may take pleasure in him; and strips him by degrees of that sin which spoiled his delight in the work of his hands; as it grows, communion isenlarged. God made man at first after his own image, that he might have communion with him. Since the loss of that, what fitness can there be for communion, till the restoration of that which God thought fit for his delight? Suppose that some one work of a natural man, may be good and pleasing to God, it will not argue a communion of God with the person: he may be pleased with the work, but not with the man; for all the goodness he hath, being in the act, and the act being transient, when that is past, his goodness is as the morning dew, vanished. He cannot be the object of God’s delight, because he hath no habitual goodness in him. Now God being infinitely holy, can have no communion with that which he abominates: and he cannot have a fixed, and a delightful communion with that which he cannot confide in. It must be, therefore, such a nature as is produced, and preserved by his own Spirit. If the heavens are not clean in his sight, we must have a nature purer and cleaner than the heavens, before God can delightfully behold us, and pleasingly converse with us.

As God can have no pleasure i in such communion, =~ sO man is contrary to it. Man, as he is by corruption, is at variance with God, and cannot but be at

7
d

variance with him. An uncircumcised fieare will not love God; or, at least, will not pay him such a proportion of love, and love of such a quality, as is due to him. For if the end of the circumcision of the heart, be to love the Lord with all our hearts, “And the Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart, to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,’’ Deut. Xxx. 6; then, it will necessarily infer, that he whose heart is not circumcised, doth not love God with all his heart. Holiness and iniquity are so contrary, that no agreement can be made between them. God must deny his nature before he can deny his hatred of sin; and man must be stripped of his nature, before he can leave his affection to sin. It is equally impossible for wickedness to love holiness, and for purity to love pollution: there can be no fellowship with God, whilst we walk in darkness, and he is light.

Nay, man naturally resists all means of communion with God. It is the Spirit only which is the bond of union, and. consequently the cause of communion: the Spirit can alone bring God and us together. Walking in the Spirit hinders us from fulfilling the lusts of the flesh, which makes us incapable of communion. “Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh.”’? Gal. v.16. But every man by nature, as well as the Jews, “resists the Holy Ghost.” Acts vii. 51. And while this resistance of the great medium of it remains, this communion can never be: this resistance, therefore, must be removed, and there must be a divine stamp and impression upon our very nature to make it pliable. You see more andl more the necessity of regeneration.

As there is no communion with God without it, so no communications of Christ to our souls can be relished and improved without it. All the communications of Christ relish of that fulness of grace

. which was in his person; and, therefore, cannot be

relished by any principle but that of the same nature. Whenever Jesus Christ comes to bless us with the great blessings of his purchase, he “turns away our

hearts from iniquity.”’ Acts iii. 26.

/ls regeneration is necessary to a gospel state, so it ts to a state of glory. It seems to be typified: by the strength and freshness of the Israelites when they entered into Canaan. Not a decrepid and infirm person set foot in the promised land: none of those that came out of Egypt, with an Egyptian nature, and desires for the garlic and onions thereof, with a suffering their old bondage, but dropped their carcasses in the wilderness, only the two spies, who had encouraged them against the seeming difficulties. None that retain only the old man, born in the house of bondage, but only a new regenerate creature, shall enter into the heavenly Canaan. Heaven is the inheritance of the sanctified, not of the unholy. “That they may receive an inheritance among them which are sanctified ey faith that is in me.’ Acts xxvi. 18.

Regeneration is necessary in a way of aptitude and fitness for this state. A fitness in both subjects is necessary to the enjoyment of one another. Since, therefore, our happiness consists in an eternal fruition of God; and that, naturally, we are a mass of corruption; there must be such a change as to make an agreement with that God, whom to enjoy is our happiness. For all aptitude is a certain connexion of the two terms, whereby they may teuch and receive each other. We cannot enjoy God in his ordinances without an holy nature, much less in heaven. As Wwe are under the condemnation of the law, by reason of our guilt, so we are under an unfitness for heaven, by reason of our impurity. We have a remote

‘Poet “ks ¥: r natural capacity for it, as we are creatures endued with rational facuities. But we have a moral un- — fitness, while we want a divine impression to make us suitable to it. Justification and adoption give us a right to the inheritance; but regeneration gives us a “meetness to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.””, We are not meet for it while we are unholy and while we are darkness, because it is an inheritance of saints, and an inheritance in light. As the body cannot be made glorious without a resurrection from a natural death, so neither can the soul, which is immortal, be made glorious without resurrection from a spiritual death. Our corruptible bodies cannot possess an incorruptible kingdom, unless made like to the glorious body of Christ; much less our souls, which are the chief subjects of communion with him in heaven. A depraved soul is as much unfit for a purified heaven as a corruptible body is for an incorruptible glory. Our Saviour ascended not into heaven to take possession of his glory, till after his resurrection from death; neither can we enter into heaven till a resurrection from sin. As Jesus Christ became. like unto us, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest for us. “It behoved him to be made like unto his brethren.’’

* Heb. 11.17. So it behoves us to be made like unto him, that we may be fit offerings in the hand of our high priest, to present to God, for him to take pleasure in. The father of the prodigal forgave him at the first meeting after his return: but before he admitted him into the pleasure of his house, he took away his garments, and put other robes upon him. God is said, therefore, to work us to this thing, that we may be fit to be clothed upon with our heavenly house. If God be happy in his nature, man cannot be happy in a nature contrary to him. For we can never expect to enjoy a felicity in such a nature,

&

4 “mu 4 oe sig which if God himself had, he could never be happy in himself. It is holiness in God which fits him to fill heaven and earth with the beams of his glory: and it is an holy nature in us which makes us fit to receive him. - As without holiness God could not be glorious in himself, “Holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory,’ Isa. vi. 33 so,

without holiness in our natures, we could not be

glorious with God. We are no more fit for heaven

., in a state of nature, than a vile particle of earth is

fit to become a star. In heaven there are duties to be done, and privileges to be enjoyed. The work cannot be done, the reward cannot be received, without a new nature. The glorifying God and enjoying him, is the glory of heaven. How can we do the one, or receive the other without the change of our affections? Can God have a voluntary glory from his enemy? Or can his enemy delight in the

enjoyment of him.

Regeneration and the new nature are necessary to the duty of heaven. Eternity cannot free us from duty. Some duties are essential to the relation of a creature: some result only from this or that state of the creature. The alteration in the state changeth the duty proper to that state: but no place, no state, can exempt a creature from those duties which are essential to him asacreature. It is impossible to conceive any relation, without some new debt, or service. From every change in relations in the world,

there doth arise some new duty, which was not incumbent upon a man before. The relation which a regenerate man hath to God here, is the same which it is in heaven: but it is manifest there in an higher degree, and a ehoicer fruition. Thence therefore will arise, though not any new duty that we can conceive; yet fresher obligations to those services which are proper for that place. Without a change of nature,

fr it is not possible for any man, were he admitted —

thither, to perform the duties of heaven. Holy work is troublesome to a natural man here; and the more heavenly it is in itself, the more disgustful to corrupt nature. What was ina little measure holy, was a drudgery upon earth: and what is in-a greater measure holy, cannot be a satisfaction in heaven to an old frame. ‘There are some natural motives to some duties here; and our indigency takes part with them, as in that of prayer: but those of.a more elevated strain, as love, and praise, and admiration of God, our natures are more averse to. What duty can be performed without a will? It is concluded by most, that the happiness of heaven consists as much, if not more, in the frame of the will, than in that of the understanding. If the will be not new framed, what capacity is there to perform the service requisite to that happy state? We must first be made just here, before we can be made perfect above, “Spirits of just men made perfect.”’ Heb. xii. 23. Just by an imputed righteousness, holy by an inherent righteousness, before they were transplanted to a state of perfection. Without a perfect frame, none can perform the choice duties of heaven: and without righteousness here, we cannot be made perfect there.

But what are the duties of heaven, that cannot be performed without anew nature? I answer, attendance on God. Some kind of service which we cannot understand, in this state here below. The angels stand before God, and wait his commands; there is — a pleasure of God which they do, “Ye ministers of — his that do his pleasure.’’ Psal. ciii. 21. There isa will of God done in heaven, as well as upon earth: there are acts of adoration performed by them. They cover their faces: they are commanded to worship the Lord Christ. Their holiness fits them for their attendance; therefore called the holy angels. It is

Le: against the nature of devils to perform such acts as those, which the. holiness of angels fits them for. Glorified souls shall be as the angels of God in heaven, “But are as the angels of God in heaven.” “i Matt. xxii. 30. Equal to angels in their state, as Whey are angels in heaven: equal to angels in their work, as they are angels of God, attending on God, and ministering unto him; though what that ministry shall be, is not easily known in the extent of it. Is it usual in this world, to take up a mean person, and bring him to an immediate attendance on a prince, without due preparation? God selects some out for an immediate attendance on him in heaven; but he sends his Spirit to be their tutor, to breed them up, and grace their deformed souls with beautiful features, that they may be meet to stand before him. When God calls any to do him service in a particular station in the world, he gives them another heart; so he did to Saul for the kingdom. Is there not much more necessity of it for an immediate service of God in heaven? A malefactor, by pardon, is ina capacity to come into the presence of a prince, and serve him at his table: but he is not in a fitness, till his noisome garments, be taken off. Can one that is neither pardoned nor purified; one with the guilt of rebellion

upon him, and a nature of rebellion in him, be fit to

stand before God?

Again, contemplation of God is a work in heaven. There shall be a perfect knowledge, therefore a delightful contemplation. The angels behold his face, and that always. The saints shall see him as he is. It is not a stupid sight, but a gazing upon the face of this sun, with a refined and ravishing delight. For this work, there must be,

A change of judgment. The eye must be restored. It is as possible for a blind eye to behold the sun, or a weak eye to stare in the face of it, as for a blind

oft js
i haar i
sie wi.
HF ig & +. Ge ‘€

understanding to behold God. For it is not a being in the place of heaven, but having a faculty disposed, which elevates us to the knowledge of him. Things that are corporeal, cannot know things that are spiritual. We cannot in this sensitive body, view the face of an angel, and understand his nature; much — less with a body of total death, see the face of God, which is above all created beings, more than any Spiritual creature is above sense. In heaven the saints shall know him, as they are known of him, perfectly, as far as the capacity of a creature may extend. Has God any scales upon his eyes? Does he not know perfectly what he knows? So shall the glorified saints. but if a natural man were admitted — into heaven, what prospect could he have with a

blind understanding? As men under the gospel ad-.

ministrations, cannot see the kingdom of God, even in the midst of it, without a new birth; so neither could they see the kingdom of God in the midst of heaven itself, without a new-frame; if not see it, much less enjoy it.

For the contemplation of God in heaven, there must be a change of will. Men like not to retain God in their knowledge, when he is represented to them in the dark, yet pleasant glass of nature, Rom. i.28. The apostle there speaks it of the heathen, and the wisest of them, their philosophers, who though pleased with the contemplation of nature, yet were not pleased with the contemplation of God in nature: much less will they like him, when he discovers himself clothed with the light of holiness as a garment. That vicious eye, which is too weak to behold, with any delight, the image of the sun in a glass, or a pail of water, will be much too weak, to gaze upon it in its brightness in the firmament. If there be no delight to know God here, what pleasure, what fitness can there be in the same frame, to contennpigae him above?

4 4 3
hat, <a
7 a

, q

¥

HN Yo
“ti

Hf oe Let me ask you; have you any pleasure i in the study of God? What is the reason then, that in your retirements, when you have nothing to do, your thoughts are no more upon him? What is the rea-

Son, that if any motion doth offer to advise you to fix your thoughts upon him, you so soon shift it off, as

a troublesome companion, and some slight jolly thought is admitted with gladness into those embraces which the other courted? Can such a temper be fit for heaven, where nothing but thoughts of God run peepee the veins of glorified souls? If the discovery of God’s glory in the Gospel, is accounted no better than folly by natural men; and therefore not received; the manifestation of it above, would meet with no better valuation of it, unless the temper both of judgment and will were changed: they are spiritually to be discerned here, and no less spiritually to be discerned above. The weak and waterish eye must be cured by some powerful medicine, before it can stare upon

the light of the sun, or delight itself in its glory.

Love is another duty in Heaven. Love is a grace

that shoots the culf with us, and attends us not only

to the suburbs, but into the very heart of heaven, when other graces conduct us only to the gates, and then take their leave of us, as having no business there. “Charity never faileth.””? And, indeed, it is so essentially our duty in every place, that it is concluded, that God cannot free us from the obligation of it, whilst we remain his creatures; because God, being infinitely good, and, therefore, infinitely amiable, and infinitely gracious to them, it would seem unrighteous and inconsistent with supreme goodness, to forbid the creature an affection to that which is

infinitely excellent, and a gratitude to his benefactor,.

which can be paid only in love. Now, though we are bound to love God in the highest degree, yet

every new mercy adds a fresh obligation to return y n

ees

‘ae i our. affection to hin o when we shall have the clearest beams of God’s love, darting upon us from heaven, we shall also have higher obligations to love him, both for his excellency, which shall be more visible; and his love, which shall be more sensible. Now, can the heart of a natural man cling about God? Can it forget its father’s house, and be wholly. taken up with the Creator’s excellency? Can he that loved pleasure more than God in the world, love God more than pleasures in heaven, without an alteration of his soul? No: the heart must be first circumcised by God, before we can love God with all our heart. If we will not be subject to the law of God here, how can we be subject to the love of God, which is the law of heaven? How can we cleave to God without love, or relish him without delight? No man in a natural state, could stay in heaven, because he doth not love the person, whose presence alone makes it heaven. How can there be a conformity to God in affection, without a conformity to his holiness? A choiceness of love, with a perverseness of will; a supremacy of delight, without rectitude of heart; a love of God, without a loathing of sin; a fervency of love, with a violence of lust: all these are contradictions. He that hath a hatred of God, cannot perform the main duty of heaven; and, therefore, what should he do there? Again: praise is a service in heaven. If a pure angel be not sufficient for so elevated a duty, how unfit then is a drowsy soul? What is the angel’s note, “holy, holy, holy Lord God,’’? can never be a natural man’s: for how can he possibly praise that which he hates? What is the note of glorified saints? It is “alleluiah, salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto the Lord our God;” Rev. xix. 1; and again they said, “alleluiah, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth,”’ ver.6. Nothing but alleluiah

Hit

i 1.
Ny
a i

four times, ver. 1. 3,4. 6. How can that heart frame an alleluiah, that is filled with jealousies of him? How can he exalt the honour of God, who was always pleased with the violations of it: How can he rejoice at the Lord’s reigning, that would not have one lust subdued by his power? How cana natural man, as natural, ever be wound up to a height, fit for such strains, since “out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks?” The tongue can never be framed to praise, while the heart is evil. Our blessed Saviour must be glorified in us, * before he can be glorified by us. If a man ina mere natural state, be unfit for this heavenly work, how ‘unfit are then their tongues to sound his praise, which are always filled with reproaches of God? And how can their ears endure to hear it from others which were never offended with the blasphemies of him? They could never rejoice in this heavenly concert, were they admitted. Nay, their enmity to the work would not permit their stay. The smoke of pure incense, is fitter, rather to drive a swine out of the room, than to invite his continuance.

~As the new birth is necessary, to the duty, so to the reward of heaven. As the reward is exceedingly glorious the preparation thereto, must be exceedingly gracious. The rewards of heaven are something incorporated with us, inlaid in the very frame of our souls, and cannot be conceived enjoyable, without a change in the nature of the subject. Man was first formed, before he was brought into the garden of Eden, or pleasure: “there-he put the man whom he had formed.’’?’ Man must be new-formed, before he be brought into that place, which is the antitype of Eden, the place of eternal and spiritual pleasure. A natural man can no more relish the rewards of hea- / ven, than a dead carcass can esteem a crown, and apurple robe: or be delighted with the true pleasure

a“of heaven, than a swine that loves to wallow in the mire, can be delighted with a bed of roses. A disorder in nature, is a prohibition to all happiness belonging to that nature. A distempered body, under the fury of a disease, can find no delight in the pleasures of the healthful. A wicked man, with a troubled and foaming sea of sin, and lust in his mind, would find no more rest in heaven, than a man, with disjointed members upon a rack, can in the beauty of a picture. We must be “spiritually minded,’’ before we can have either “life or peace.”’ Righteousness in the soul, is the necessary qualification for the peace and joy in the kingdom of God, “The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.”? Rom. xiv. 17. While malice remains in the devil’s nature, were he admitted into heaven, he would receive a torment instead of a content. A wicked man would meet with hell in the midst of heaven, as long as he carries his own rack within him, boiling and raging lusts in his heart, which can receive no contentment, without objects suitable to them, let the place be what it will. Heaven indeed, is not only a place, but a nature; and it is a contradiction to think that any can be happy with a nature contrary to the very essence of happiness.

The pleasure and reward of heaven is a perfect.

likeness to God and Christ. This is the great privilege of heaven, which the apostle, in the midst of his ignorance of other particulars, resolves upon as certain, as that which results from regeneration, and being the sons of God, and is the full preparation for the beatific vision, Now we are the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we

know, that when he shall appear, we shall be like

him, for we shall see him as he is.”? 1 John iii. 2. He seems to intimate this, that we can never be like him 8.

é: ee ao when: he doth appear, unless we be now, while we are here, the sons of God; nor ever be admitted toa sight of him. As Christ presented himself without spot to God, when he laid the foundation of our redemption; so he presents his people without blemish to God, when he lays on the top stone of it in our glorification. Now as we cannot be like to Christ in our walk here, without a new birth; neither can we without it, be like Christ in glory hereafter. It is not the place makes us like to God, but there must be a likeness to God, to make the place pleasant to us. When once the angels had corrupted their nature, the

short stay they made in heaven after, neither pleased,

nor reformed them. And when Satan appeared before God, among the angels, neither God’s presence, nor his speaking to him did any wise better him. He came a devil, and he went away so, without any pleasure in the place, or presence, but by the permission of God to wreak his malice on holy Job. An unlikeness to God, is the misery of the creature. It is therefore impossible, whilst the soul remains in that state, that it can arrive at blessedness, because it is a contradiction, to think a felicity can be enjoyed in a contrariety to, and separation from the fountain of it, “Lo, they that are far from thee, shall perish.’’ Psal. lxxi. 27. It is by faith, beholding the glory of the Lord in the glass of the Gospel here, that we must be transformed into his image, before we can be changed into his glory. And we cannot be like God by holy actions only, though we had performed as many of them, as all the holy men in the world ever did, as to the matter of them, abstracted from the principle and end: and the reason is, because God is not only holy in his actions, but holy in his nature; and therefore we must not only have actions materially good, but a holy nature suitable to the holiness of God, otherwise we neither are, nor. ever can be like him.

The fruition of God is a privilege of heaven, which necessarily follows this likeness. God is the eternal portion of glorified souls, upon which they live. He is the strength of their hearts: there is none but God in heaven who is the chief object of their love and delight. The presence of God makes the fulness of joy. His favour and the light of his glorious countenance, constitute heaven and happiness; not the place, but the countenance. God’s frown kindles hell, and his smile renders any place an heaven. Now an old nature cannot have a good look from God: for since he is infinitely holy, he must hate unholiness; infinitely true, he must hate falsity. As it is impossible a man can love truth and falsity, righteousness and unrighteousness, as such, at one and the same time, in an intense degree; therefore an impure nature cannot be happy, unless God be mutable. God cannot smile on the old Adam, unless he hate himself. What satisfaction can such a one possibly have in God’s presence?. How can he savour the society of God, that never loved it? Do we naturally love any warm mention of God? Have we not a stony deadness to any heavenly motion that falls upon us? A mighty quickness to receive sinful motions in that which we love. Do not our countenances fall, and our delight take wings to itself, and fly away, at any lively appearance of God. If we have such an enmity to his law, which is but a transcript of his holiness, much greater must our enmity be to the original copy. Hence in Scripture men are said to “refuse his law.’’ Psal. Ixxvili. 10, to “forsake his law.’? Psal. cxix. 53, to be “far from his law.’’ Psal. cxix. 150. Darkness doth not more naturally vanish at the appearance of the sun, than an old nature will fly from the glory and brightness of

God. A mass of black darkness, and an immense sphere of light, may as soon be espoused together, as a friendly amity be struck up between God and an unrenewed man. God is light without darkness; man is darkness itself, as if nothing else entered into the composition of his corrupt nature. If there be therefore a disagreement, contrariety, and unwillingness on both sides, how can any pleasing correspondence ‘be effected? If God should bring a man, with his corrupt nature, into a local heaven, God could not please himself in it, nor such an one delight himself in God, no more than aswine can be pleased with the presence of an angel, or a mole sport itself with the beauty of flowers, or a vitiated eye rejoice at the brightness of light. We must really make God such an one as we shape him in our natural fancy, before we can take any pleasure in converse with him. Our nature therefore must be changed, before we can please him, or be satisfied in him. His presence else will cause fear, while our sinful state re- - mains, an affection inconsistent with happiness.

Inferences. — lf regeneration be absolutely neces- ry

. sary to a gospel state, and the enjoyment of eternal glory in heaven; then it informs us, how much the -~»nature of man is depraved. For otherwise there were no need of his being born again: and no reason could be imagined, why our blessed Saviour should so pressingly urge the necessity of it. If man’s nature were according to his original frame, it would please God, because it was of his own creation. But we are flesh by our natural birth; and therefore to be happy, we must be spiritual by a second birth.

If regeneration be so necessary, then how much to be lamented is the ignorance of this doctrine in the world? And strange and sad it is, that it should be so little considered. The common talk is of serving God, and reforming the life; but who of a thousand speaks of the necessity of a new nature? It isa sad case, that when a doctrine is so clear, men should be so stupid, and deludingly damn themselves; that they should be so wilfullyignorant of this, who have Bibles in their hands and houses; yet not understand this, which is the great purpose for which God sent the Scripture among the sons of men. It is a shame not to have the knowledge of this great and necessary truth. As the apostle in another case, “Some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame.”? 1.Cor. xv. 24. How strange and uncouth doth this doctrine sound in the ears of the carnal world, who wonder at it, as Nicodemus did at our Saviour’s proposal; and think all our discourses of it an heap of enthusiastic nonsense? It is as if we would speak parables; as if you should talk of astronomy to the natural fool, or read divinity in Arabic to a man who understands only his native language. How little sensible is the world of the necessity of this work? They expect Christ should change their misery into glory, without changing their hearts, and

fitting their spirits for it, which will never be. They

think it enough for-them that Christ was conceived in the womb of the Virgin, without being formed again in their souls; as the poor Jews at this day expect a Messiah, not to alter the frame of their souls, but the frame of the world; not to subdue their spirits, but to conquer the nations to be their vassals. How should this stupidity of men be a matter of lamentation to us!.

If regeneration be so absolutely necessary, how should Christian parents endeavour all they can to have their children regenerated? There is no necessity they should have great estates, and live ostentatiously in the worid: but there is a necessity, a great necessity, they should be new creatures, and live spiritually. In leaving the one to your children, you leave them but earth; in leaving the other, you convey heaven to them. There is an obligation upon you; their old polluted nature was derived from you by carnal generation; make them amends by endeavouring to secure grace to them by spiritual instruction: you made them children of wrath; why will you not endeavour to make them children of God and heirs of heaven. Education of itself will not produce this noble work; nor the bare hearing of the word, or any outward means whatsoever, by their own strength; yet the Spirit doth often bless them, and very much; and I doubt not but a great number that are regenerated had the first seeds sown in them by a religious education; and I have made the observation in many. Timothy had a religious education, both by his mother and grandmother, though this did not renew him; for Paul, by the preaching of the Gospel, was the instrument of that: he calls him his own son in the faith: yet no question his religious instructions from his parents did much facilitate this work. Use all endeavour, therefore, to convince them of the necessity of anew birth; be earnest with them

till you see it produced, that they may not curse you

for being the instruments of their beings, but bless you for being the instruments of their spiritual life. This doctrine acquaints us with the insufficiency of every thing else, without this, to enable us to enter into the kingdom of God., Great knowledge is not sufficient. All the wisdom. of Solomon in a man, though it may enable him to take an exact measure of nature from the highest star, to the meanest insect, doth no more fit him for heaven, than the shining skin of a serpent expels his venomous nature. We have more relics of Adam’s nature in knowledge, than we have in righteousness. To be a philosopher, physician, or statesman, is not essential to happiness in this world; much less can it prepare a man for the happiness of another. But grace is as essential to it,as natural heat, and radical moisture, are to the life of a man. Jesus Christ came not to make us scholars in natural things, but to endue us with such a knowledge, as is in order to eternal happiness; and with such a renewing principle, as might make us capable of heaven. Knowledge and wisdom are some of the choicest flowers in nature’s garden. But it will be a small advantage, to descend to hell with our brains full of wit and sophistry. One saving cry from a new-born infant soul, is of more value, than the knowledge of all philosophers. We may possess great knowledge of Revelation, and the doctrines it contains, and be ignorant of God. Nicodemus had a good stock of this; he understood the letter of the Scripture; was well read in all the parts of the law; he was thought fit to be one of the great Sanhedrim: something else was requisite besides this; a new birth was still wanting. What if we understood the mind of the Spirit of God in every verse in the Bible; were able to discourse profoundly of the great mysteries of the Gospel; had the gift of

prophecy, and knowledge of things to come; had the —

interpretation of the whole book of the revelation

writ in our minds; what will all this avail us? An”.

evangelical head, will be but drier fuel for eternal burning, without an evangelical impression upon the heart, and the badge of a new nature. Men may prophesy in Christ’s name; in his name cast devils out of bodies, and devils of error out of men’s brains; yet not be regarded by Christ: but he says to them, “J never knew you: depart from me ye that work iniquity.”’ If they had had this mark, and Gospel impression, our Lord would have known them. Christ in heaven would have owned himself formed in the heart: he could not have been ignorant of his own nature and offspring.

Well then: a man may have all the learning of Christians and heathen stored up in his head, and not the least stamp of it in his heart. He may be wise in knowledge, and a fool in improvement.. A heap and pack of knowledge, is not wisdom among men, without an application of that knowledge to particular exigencies and usefulness.

Outward reformation is not sufficient. Regeneration is never without reformation of life: but this may be without that: we may be outward Christians, without an inward principle, though we can never be inward Christians, without an outward holiness. The new birth is properly an internal work, and shows itself externally; as the heat of the heart, and vital parts, will evidence itself in outward motions: “the king’s daughter is all glorious within,’’ as well as without, Psal. xlv. 13. What a vanity would it be, to boast of freedom from other diseases, if thou hast the plague upon thee? What a poor comfort is it, to brag of thy being without gross immoralities, whilst the plague of thy nature remains uncured? Outward reformation only (though of excellent use,) is but a new appearance, not a new creature; a change of life, not of the heart: whereas this work we discourse of, is a new birth in the understanding and will; it begins at the spirit, and descends from thence to the body. 1 Thes. v. 23. It is a sanctification in spirit, soul, and then body. Can that which can be no evidence to us in self-examination, be of itself sufficient to waft us to heaven? If you retire to take a view of yourselves, whether you belong to God, will you judge by your outward actions, or inward frame? ‘There is no characteristic —

difference in any external action, between a true Christian, and an hypocrite; that therefore which is not a sufficient evidence to us, of a right to happiness, cannot be a sufiicient preparation of ourselves for it.

aaa “Morality is not sufficient. By morality, I mean, not only an outward reformation, but some love to moral virtue, as the heathen had, raised upon the thoughts of the excellency of it. Nicodemus was a moral man: he had some affection to Christ, upon the consideration of his miracles; he had never else ventured to come to him, so much as by night. He had no blot upon his conversation; he had desires to be instructed. This was more than a bare abstinence from sin; yet notwithstanding, besides those moral qualifications, he must have a new birth, before he can see the kingdom of God. Men may do much good, be very useful to others in their generation, yet be in the very bottom of unregeneracy. An healing witch, as well as a hurting one, is the devil’s client, and in covenant with him. There is not so great a difference between the highest degree of glory in heaven, and the lowest degree of grace on earth, as there is between the lowest degree of saving grace, and the highest degree of natural excellency; because the difference between these is specific, as between a rational and irrational creature; the difference between the other, is only in degree, as between an infant anda man. It is one thing to have a love to moral virtue, another thing to have a love to God in it; one thing to move for self, and another thing to move for the glory of the Creator; one thing to be animated by reason, and another thing to be inspired by the Holy Ghost. What can a moral honesty profit that man, who values the world’s dung above the Creator’s glory? What though he be honest, and useful to his neighbours, must his affection to God be measured by his honesty among men? The great business is from what principle it flows. What if he doth good to others, whilst he doth his Creator wrong, by fostering any one thing in his heart above him? Can his goodness to others, make a compensation for his disesteem of God? The greatest man in the whole world, who hath no other descent than from Adam, must have a new quality put into his heart, before he can be happy: for if a new birth be necessary, all endowments below it, are to no purpose for the attainment of that state for which it is intended. Whatsoever is of the old Adam in us, though it be. a beautiful flower, must wither and die, “For all flesh is as grass, and the glory of man, as the flower of grass; the grass withers, and the flower thereof fadeth away.’ 1 Pet.1. 23,24. The Apostle sets in opposition, the incorruptible seed, whereby they were born, and the fairest flowers in nature’s garden. The best thing which a man glories in, is a flower, but withering: it is a glory, but the glory of the flesh: it hath no lustre in the sight of God: it is not a flower to be set in heaven: it is only the word of God, and the impressions made on us by that word, which endure for ever. As herbs cannot grow without partaking of the natural influence, and beams of the sun, so nothing stands and flourishes, but what partakes of the nature and Spirit of Christ. Nay, it is so far from being sufficient, that it is a great hindrance of regeneration, without the overpowering grace of God, because it is the glory of a man; that is, that wherein a man glories. Men are apt to rest upon their morals, without reflecting upon their naturals. They see no spots in their lives; and therefore will not believe there are any in their hearts. They are so taken up with the Pharisee, their proud thoughts of their being above others, that they never think how much they have inwardly of the publican, in coming short of the glory of God. Unregenerate morality therefore is not sufficient. The heart must be changed, before moral virtues can commence graces. When this is once done, what were moral before, become divine, as having a new principle to quicken them, and a new end to direct. them.

Religious professions are not sufficient. Can you /upon a serious consideration conclude, that this only is the import of all those Scriptures which speak of being born of God, raised from a death in sin, quickened and led by the Spirit, created in righteousness and true holiness? are not these things in the very manner of speaking them, elevated above any mere profession, which may be declared to the world without any such work, which is the evident intention of those Scriptures? It is not the naming the name of Christ, but the departing from iniquity; a departing from it in our nature, as well as in our actions, that is the badge whereby the Lord knows who are his, ‘The Lord knows who are his: and let every one that names the name of Christ, depart from iniquity.” 2 Tim. i. 19. Religious profession only is but a form, a figure, a shape of godliness: a picture made by art, without life and power, and-an enlivened faculty, and a divine principle whence it should proceed; it is but a name of life at best under a state of

death, “Thou hast a name, that thou livest, and art

dead.”? Rev. ili. 1. Professions without a new nature, are no more the things God requires of us, than

sacrifices under the law, without a broken heart: it is not a following our Saviour in profession, but in regeneration, which gives the apostles a title to that promise of sitting upon his throne in glory, “Ye that have followed me in the regeneration, ye shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.’ Mat. xix. 28. Judas had followed Christ till that

time, and after,in a profession, but not in the regene- —

ration, not from a regenerated principle.

Multitudes of external religious duties and privileges are not sufficient. Mem are very apt to place their security here: it was the great labour of the prophet Isaiah, to bring the Jews in his time off from them: God doth not require attendance on ordinances, as the ultimate end, but as means to the beginning and promoting a new birth, “To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me? Wash

ye, make ye clean.” Isa. i: 11, 16. The resting in these is the manifest destruction of men’s souls, when

thousands of sacrifices to God cannot be acceptable without a new nature. We naturally affect an easy religion; and outward acts of worship, especially under the Gospel, have no great difficulty in them. Men - would rather be at great expense of sacrificing, than - erucify one beloved sin; and bow a thousand times before the cross of Christ, than nail one corruption to it. How easy a work were it, to get to heaven, if nothing else were required but to be a member of the visible Christian church? Circumcision was a privilege, but it availed nothing without a new creature. There was another circumcision made without hands, the work of God, that was required; a new creature, without which, outward circumcision signified nothing. The practice of some duties may stand with an inward-hatred of them, as the abstinence from some sins may stand with an inward love to them. Outward worship is but a carcass, when the soul is not conformed to God, the object of worship; and doth not attain an union to, and communion with God, which is the end of worship; what are all acts of worship without a nature suitable to the God we approach unto in them? Judge not therefore of your state, by any external actions; no outward act, but unregenerated persons may do, yea, they may express much zeal in them; they may have their bodies as martyrs consumed by flames, without having their corruption consumed by grace; an impure breath may make as good music to the ear ina pipe, asa sound one: there is something more necessary than a bare performance of duties.

Nay more, convictions are not sufficient. Nicoty;; Pa demus was startled by our Saviour’s miracles, be- —

lieved him to be a prophet sent by God, acknow- —

ledged that God was with him, yet still the necessary

qualification of a new birth was wanting. Your spi-

“rits may be torn in pieces by terror, the heart of stone

may be rent asunder, and yet no heart of flesh appear; the ground may be ploughed, yet not sown;

sensuality and Tust may be kept under by a spirit of bondage, when it is not cast out by a spirit of adoption: the sun may scorch you, and not enliven you:

the knowledge of the foulness of sin, and the fierceness of wrath, is the work of the Spirit in the law;

the new birth is the work of the Spirit in the Gospel; the stone may be cut and hewed by the law, and yet never polished by the Gospel, never brought into covenant, “I have hewed them by my prophets, but they like men have transgressed the covenant.”’ Hos. vi. 5,7. It is not then great knowledge, fair coloured fruit, loud professions, giittering services, or tearing convictions, which are this badge, whereby Christ knows his own from all the world besides; all these will be answered, “I know you not.” Is it not then a necessary work, and high time to get that new nature, whereby God will know thee to belong to him? Professions may be false, outward reformation may be but asa painted sepulchre: knowledge only elevates the understanding, but as our communion lies in the acts of the will,

%

there must be some work upon that to fit us for our

great happiness. If these things are not sufficient, then profane men cannot expect heaven by the way of hell.

If regeneration be so absolutely necessary to salvation; how miserable is the condition of every unregenerate man! What a miserable case is it, that sinners should dream on in their delusions, till everlasting burnings confute their fancies, and turn their

hopes into dreadful despair? Oh, how do most men live, as if this doctrine were a mere falsity; and act as if they would take heaven by the violence of their lusts, not by the industry of grace? Know you not — that an unrighteous nature shall not inherit the kingdom of God? “Know you not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the: kingdom of God? be not deceived,’? &c, 1 Cor. vi. 9. Is it possible you should be ignorant of that which stares you in the face, in every page of the Bible? if you know not this, you know nothing. Be not deceived: nothing is so natural as heart deceit, and presumptuous confidence; the Apostle else would not have spoken of it, with such an emphasis, but that he knew how apt men are to delude themselves with hopes of mercy ina state of sin. Self flattery is one of the strongest branches, which grows upon the pride of nature. How vain is it to fancy to yourselves a fitness for heaven, while there are only preparations for hell? Whence should such imaginations arise? Not from God; it is contrary to all his declarations; is it from yourselves? What reason have you to believe your

- fancies in spiritual things, who are so often mistaken

- jin temporal? Is it from the devil? What reason

have you to believe your greatest enemy? If this work be wrought, he hath for ever lost you: it is he that cherishes such notions, for he hath no pleasure to undo his kingdom, and lose his subjects. Never did any man use so much diligence to get a new nature, as the devil doth to hinder him. i