which promise salvation to those who use endeavours; to those "who take up the cross;" to those "who deny themselves;" to those "who crucify the flesh with its lusts;" to those "who strive, or agonize to enter in at the strait gate,' Matt. xvi. 24; vii. 13; Gal. v. 24. But the Scriptures no where exclude from salvation those who do not find in the exercise of piety, the joy, the transports, and the delights of which we have spoken. 4. Experience sometimes discovers to us characters whose whole life has been a continual exercise of piety and devotion; characters who have forsaken all for Christ, and who have not as yet attained to the blessed state after which they breathe, and continually aspire. 5. The greatest of saints, and those whom the Scriptures set before us as models, and those even who have known the highest delights of piety, have not always been in this happy state. We have seen them, not only after great falls, but under certain conflicts, deprived of those sweet regards which had once shed such abundant joy into their soul. One may, therefore, be in a state of grace without a full experience of the consolations of grace. 6. In short, the hope of one day finding the piety of taste and sentiment should assuage the anguish which the privation excites in the soul. God often confers piety of taste and sentiment as a recompense for the piety of sacrifice and preference. We have no need to go and seek those comforts in the miraculous lives, whose memory is preserved by the Holy Ghost, nor in the supernatural endowments conferred on others. If you except certain miracles which God once performed for the confirmation of religion, and religion being established, they are now no longer necessary; God still holds the same conduct with regard to his saints which he formerly held. We have seen saints who have long, and with ineffectual sighs, breathed after the comforts of the Holy Ghost; and who, in the issue, have experienced all their sweetness. We have seen the sick, who having been alarmed at the idea of dying, who having sighed at the simple idea of its pains, its anguish, its separation, its obscurity, and all the appalling presages excited by the king of terrors: we have seen them; previous to his approach, quite inundated with consolation and joy. I know we must always suspect the reveries of the imagination, but it seems to us, that the more calm we were in our investigation, precaution, and even distrust, in the scrutiny of this phenomenon, the more we were convinced it ought to be wholly ascribed to the Spirit of God. Those transformations were not the effect of any novel effort we had caused to be excited in the souls of the sick. They sometimes followed a profound stupor, a total lethargy, which could not be the effect of any pleasure arising from some new sacrifice made for God, or from some recent victory over themselves. The sick, of whom we speak, seem to have previously cherished all imaginable deference for our ministry. Nothing human, nothing terrestrial was apparent in those surprising transformations. It was the work of God. Let us ask that we may receive. If he do not answer the first time we pray, he answers the second: if he do not open the door of mercy the second time we knock, he opens the third. Suffer not thyself then, O my soul, to be depressed and discouraged, because thou dost not yet participate in the piety of taste and sentiment. Be determined to pierce the cloud with which God conceals himself from thy sight. Though he say to thee as to Jacob, "Let me go for the day dawneth," answer like the patriarch, Lord, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.' Though he affect to leave thee, as he feigned to leave the two disciples, constrain him as they did; and say with them, "Lord stay with me; it is toward evening: the sun is on the decline," Gen. xxxii. 26; Luke xxiv. 29. These are the principal sources of consolation to those who have a sincere and vehement desire to please God, and who have not yet attained the piety of taste and sentiment. But though the privation of those comforts should not dispirit us, yet the defect is ever a most humiliating and deplorable consideration. So you may conclude from what you have just heard. Yes, it is very humiliating and deplorable, though we should even prefer our duty to our pleasure, when those duties abound with difficulties, and afford no consolations; and when we are merely enabled to repel attacks from the pleasures of the age with reason and argument, which persuade, it is true, but they stop in the tender part of the soul, if I may so speak, and neither warm the imagination nor captivate the heart. Yes, it is very humiliating and deplorable to know by description only, that "peace of God; that joy unspeakable and full of glory; that white stone; that satisfaction; that seal of redemption;" and those everravishing pleasures, of which our Scriptures give us so grand a view. Yes, it is very humiliating and deplorable that we should resemble the Scripture characters, only in the drought and languor they sometimes felt, and always aspiring after a happier frame which we never attain. Farther still: the privation of divine comfort should not only humble us, but there are occasions in which it should induce us to pass severe strictures on our destiny. There are especially two such cases of this nature. 1. When the privation is general; when a conviction of duty, and the motives of hope and fear, are ever requisite to enforce the exercises of religion; when we have to force ourselves to read God's word, to pray, to study his perfections, and to participate of the pledges of his love in the holy sacrament. It is not very likely that a regenerate soul should be always abandoned to the difficulties and duties imposed by religion, that it should never experience those comforts conferred by the Holy Spirit, which make them a delight. 2. The privation of divine comforts should induce us to pass severe strictures on ourselves, when we do not make the required efforts to be delivered from so sad a state. To possess a virtue, or not to possess it, to have a defect, or not to have it, is not always the criterion of distinction between the regenerate man, and him who has but the name and appearance of regeneration. To make serious efforts to acquire the virtues we have not yet attained, and to use endeavours to correct the faults to which we are still liable, is a true character of regeneration. But to see those faults with in- their ease, their sensuality, their effeminacy, difference; and under a plea of constitutional to high notions, to ambition, and the love of weakness, not to subdue them, is a distinguish-glory. And how often have the heroes theming mark of an unregenerate state. Thus it is apparent, that though the privation of the piety of taste and sentiment be not always criminal, it is always an imperfection; and that alone should prompt us to reform it. I will suggest to you the remedies of this evil, after having in the third place traced the causes which produce it. III. To accomplish my purpose, and to exhibit the true causes which deprive us of the piety of taste and sentiment, we shall make a short digression on the nature of taste and sentiment in general; we shall trace to the source certain sympathies and antipathies which tyrannize over us without our having apparently contributed to the domination. The task we here impose on ourselves, is a difficult one. We proceed under a conscious need of indulgence in what we propose. The causes of our inclinations and aversions are, apparently, one of the most intricate studies of nature. There is something it would seem, in the essence of our souls, which inclines us to certain objects, and which revolts us against others, when we are unconscious of the cause, and sometimes even against the most obvious reasons. The Creator has obviously given a certain impulse to our propensities, which it is not in our power to divert. Scarcely do the dawnings of genius appear in children, before we see them biassed by peculiar propensities. Hence the diversity, and the singularity of taste apparent in mankind. One has a taste for navigation, another for trades of the most grovelling kind. Virtue and vice have also their scale in the objects of our choice. One is impelled to this vice; another to a vice of the opposite kind. One is impelled to a certain virtue, another to a different virtue. And who can explain the cause of this variety, or prescribe a remedy for the evil, after having developed the cause? But how impenetrable soever this subject may appear, it is not altogether impossible, at least in a partial way, to develop it. The series of propositions we proceed to establish, shall be directed to that end. But we ask beforehand your indulgence, that in case we throw not on the subject all the light you would wish, do not attribute the defect to this discourse, which may probably proceed from the difficulty of the subject, and probably from the slight attention our hearers pay to truths which have the greatest influence on life and happiness. Proposition first. We have already intimated, that a sensible object naturally makes a deeper impression on men, than an object which is abstract, spiritual, and remote. This is but too much realized by our irregular passions. A passion which controls the senses is commonly more powerful than those which are seated in the mind; ambition and the love of glory are chiefly resident in the mind; whereas, effeminacy and sensuality have their principal seat in the senses. Passions of the latter kind do more violence to the society than others. With the exception of those called heroes in the world, mankind seldom sacrifice selves sacrificed all their laurels, their reputation and their trophies, to the charm of some sensible pleasure? How often have the charms of a Delilah stopped the victories of a Samson; and a Cleopatra those of a Cesar and a Mark Antony? Proposition second. The imagination captivates both the senses and the understanding. A good which is not sensible; a good even which has no existence, is contemplated as a reality, provided it have the decorations proper to strike the imagination. The features and complexion of a person do not prove that a connexion formed with her would be agreeable and happy. Meanwhile, how often have those features and tints produced a prejudice of that kind? Nothing is often more insipid than the pleasure found in conversation with the great. At the same time, nothing commonly appears so enviable. And why? Because the splendour attendant on this intercourse strikes the imagination. The retinues which follow them; the splendour of their carriages; the mansions in which they live; the multitude of people who flatter and adore them; all these are strikingly qualified to make an impression on the imagination, which supersedes the operations of sense, and the convictions of the mind. Proposition third. A present, or at least, an approximate good, excites, for the most part, more vehement desires, than a good which is absent, or whose enjoyment is deferred to a remote period. The point where the edge of the passions is blunted, almost without exception, is, when they have to seek their object in distant epochs, and in future years. Proposition fourth. Recollection is a substitute for presence: I would say, that a good in the possession of which we have found delight, produces in the heart, though absent, much the same desires, as that which is actually present. Proposition fifth. A good, ascertained and fully known by experience, is much more capable of inflaming our desires, than a good of which we have but an imperfect notion, and which is known only by the report of others. A person endowed with good accomplishments, and whose conversation we have enjoyed, is more endeared to us than one known only by character; though the virtues of the latter have been represented as far surpassing the virtues of the other. A sixth proposition is, that all things being equal, we prefer a good of easy acquisition, to one which requires care and fatigue. Difficulty sometimes, I grant, inflames desire, and seduces the imagination. When we have a high opinion of a good, which we believe is in our power to acquire by incessant endeavours, our ardours become invigorated, and we redouble our efforts in proportion as the difficulty augments. It is, however, an indisputable axiom, and founded on the nature of the human mind, that things being equal, we prefer a good of easy acquisition, to one that requires anxiety and fatigue. A seventh proposition is, that a good beyond our reach, a good that we do not possess, and | that we have no hope so to do, does not excite any desire. Hope is the food of the passions. Men do indeed sometimes pursue phantoms; and they frequently run after objects which they never enjoy; but it is always in hope of enjoying them. The last proposition is, that avocations fill the capacity of the soul. A mind which is empty, at leisure, and unoccupied with ideas and sentiments, is much more liable to be animated with a passion, than one which is already attracted, occupied, and absorbed, by certain objects unconnected with that passion. IV. These propositions may lead us to an acquaintance with the causes of our antipathies and our sympathies. We have laid them down with a view to assign the reasons why most people fall short of the piety of taste and sentiment. This is the point we proceed to prove. We shall also trace the sources of the evil, and prescribe the principal remedies which ought to be applied. We shall hereby make the fourth part, combined with the third, the conclusion of this discourse. calculated to enfeeble the influence of his 2. Are we destitute of the piety of taste Are we destitute of the piety of taste and it to our minds. Let us constantly exercise 1. Are we destitute of the piety of taste and sentiment? It is because that a sensible object naturally makes a deeper impression upon us, than an object which is abstract, invisible, and spiritual. The God we adore, is a God that kideth himself. The lustre of the duties impos-habit of anticipating the future, and of realizing ed by religion, appear so to the mind only; they have nothing that can attract the eyes of the body. The rewards promised by Jesus Christ, are objects of faith; they are reserved for a world to come, which we never saw and of which we have scarcely any conception: whereas the pleasures of this world are presented to our taste; they dazzle the eye, and charm the ear. They are pleasures adapted to a creature which naturally suffers itself to be captivated by sensible objects. Here is the first source of the evil. The remedy to be applied is to labour incessantly to diminish the sovereignty of the senses. To animate the soul to so laudable a purpose, we must be impressed with the base and grovelling disposition of the man who suffers himself to be enslaved by sense. What! shall the senses communicate their grossity and heaviness to our souls, and our souls not communicate to the senses their purity, their energies, and divine flame? What! shall our senses always possess the power, in some sort, to sensualize the soul, and our souls never be able to spiritualize the senses? What! shall a concert, a theatre, an object fatal to our innocence, charm and ravish the soul, while the great truths of religion are destitute of effect? What! do the ideas we form of the perfect Being; of a God, eternal in duration, wise in designs, powerful in execution, magnificent in grace; what! does the idea of a Redeemer, who sought mankind in their abject state, who devoted himself for their salvation, who placed himself in the breach between them and the tribunal of justice; what! does the hope of eternal salvation, which comprises all the favours of God to man, do all these ideas still leave us in apathy and indifference? This consideration should make a Christian blush; it should induce him to call to his aid, meditation, reading, retirement, solitude, and whatever is 4. Are we destitute of the piety of taste and sentiment? It is because, to a certain degree, recollection is a substitute for presence. This is the fourth source of evil. You would yourselves, and without difficulty, prescribe the remedy, if, in this discourse which requires you to correct your taste by your reason, you did not consult your reason less than your taste. But plead for certain pleasures with all the energy of which you are capable; make an apology for your parties, your games, your diversions; say that there is nothing criminal in > those dissipations against which we have so whether it be the part of religion, or the part 7. The affairs of life engross the capacity of the soul. A mind which is empty, at leisure, and unoccupied with ideas and sentiments, is much more liable to be animated and filled with a passion, than one that is already concentrated on certain objects, which have no connexion with that passion. This is the last reason assigned for our non-attainment of the consolations of religion. Let us keep to the point. Casting our eye on the crimes of men, we regard, at first view, the greater part of them as monsters. It would seem that most men love evil for the sake of evil. I believe, however, that the portrait is distorted. Mankind are perhaps not so wicked as we commonly suppose. But to speak the truth, there is one duty, my brethren, concerning which their notions are quite inadequate; that is, recollection. There is likewise a vice whose awful consequences are by no means sufficiently perceived; that vice, is dissipation. Whence is it, that a man, who is appalled by the mere idea of death and of hell, should, nevertheless, brave them both? It is because he is dissipated; it is because his soul, wholly engrossed by the cares of life, is unable to pay the requisite attention to the idea of death and hell, and to the inter 5. Are we destitute of the piety of taste and sentiment? It is because that a good, known and experienced, is much more capable of inflaming our desires, than that which is imperfectly conceived, and known merely by the report of others. Why do we believe that a soul profoundly composed in meditation on the glories of grace, is "satisfied as with marrow and fatness?" We believe it on the positive testimony of the prophet. We believe it on the testimony of illustrious saints, who assert the same thing. But let us endeavour to be convinced of the fact in a better way. Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us." So was the prayer of Philip to Jesus Christ, John xiv. 8. This request proceeded from the ignorance of the apostles, prior to the day of pentecost. The request was, however, founded both on reason and truth. Philip was fully persuaded, if he could once see with his own eyes the God, whose perfections were so gloriously dis-ests of this life. Whence is it, that a man dis-. played, that he should be ravished with his beauty; and that he should, without reluctance, make the greatest sacrifices to please him. Let us retain what is rational in the request of Philip, rejecting what is less enlightened. Let us say to Jesus, but in a sense more exalted than this disciple, "Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us." Lord, give me to know by experience the joy that results from the union of a soul reconciled to its God, and I shall ask no other pleasure; it shall blunt the point of all others. 6. Are we destitute of the piety of taste and sentiment? It is because all things being equal, we prefer a good, easy of acquisition, to one that requires labour and fatigue. And would to God, that we were always disposed to contract our motives with our fatigues; the estimate would invert our whole system of life. We should find few objects in this world to merit the efforts bestowed in their acquisition; or, to speak as the Supreme Wisdom, we should find that "we spend money for that which is not bread, and labour for that which satisfieth not," Isa. Iv. 2. Would to God, that the difficulties of acquiring a piety of taste and sentiment, were but properly contrasted with the joy it procures those who surmount them. In this view, we should realize the estimate, "that the sufferings of this present life, are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us," Rom. viii. 18. Seeing then, that whatever part we espouse, tinguished for charity and delicacy, shall act in a manner so directly opposite to delicacy? It is because the dissipations inseparable from the office he fills, and still more so, those he ingeniously procures for himself, obstruct attention to his own principles. To sum up all in one word, whence is it, that we have such exalted views of piety, and so little taste for piety? The evil proceeds from the same source our dissipations. Let us not devote ourselves to the world more than is requisite for the discharge of duty. Let our affections be composed; and let us keep within just bounds the faculty of reflection and of love. If we adopt these maxims, we shall be able to reform our taste; and I may add, to reform our sentiment. We shall both think and love as rational beings. And when we think and love as rational beings, we shall perceive that nothing is worthy of man but God, and what directly leads to God. Fixing our eyes and our hearts on the Supreme object, we shall ever feel a fertile source of pure delight. In solitude, in deserts, overtaken by the catastrophes of life, or surrounded with the shadows and terrors of death, we shall exult with our prophet, "My soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips, when I remember thee in the night-watches;" and when I make thy adorable perfections the subject of my thought. May God enable us so to do: to whom be honour and glory for ever. Amen. SERMON XCVIII. ON REGENERATION. JOHN iii. 1-8. There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: the same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God; for no man can do those miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, how can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. THE transition which happened in the condition of Saul was very remarkable. Born of an obscure family, actually employed in seeking strayed asses, and having recourse on this inconsiderable subject to the divine light of a prophet, Saul instantly found himself anointed with a mystic oil, and declared king, by the prophet, who added, "It is because the Lord hath anointed thee to be captain over his heritage." I Sam. x. 1. is by nature a child of wrath. His father is an Amorite, and his mother a Hittite; yet he is called out of darkness into marvellous light." He is called to be a prince and a priest. But in vain would he be honoured with a vocation so high, if the change in his soul did not correspond with that of his condition. Who is sufficient for so great a work? How shall men whose ideas are low, and whose sentiments are grovelling, attain to a magnanimity assortable with the rank to which they are called of God? The grace which elevates, changes the man who is called unto it. The Spirit of God comes upon him; it gives him a new heart, and he becomes another man. These are the great truths which Jesus Christ taught Nicodemus in the celebrated conversation we have partly read, and which we propose to make the subject of several discourses, if God shall preserve our life, and our ministry. Here we shall discover the nature, the necessity, and the Author, of the regeneration which Christianity requires of us. I. The nature of this change shall be the subject of a first discourse. Here in giving you a portrait of a regenerate man, and in describing the characters of regeneration, we shall explain to you the words of Jesus Christ, "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit.' II. The necessity of this change shall be the subject of a second discourse. Here, endeavouring to dissipate the illusions we are fond of making on the obligations of Christianity, we shall press the proposition which Jesus Christ collects and asserts with so much force, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again. Art thou a master in Israel, and knowest not these things?" To correspond with a rank so exalted, it was requisite that there should be as great a change III. The author of the change shall be the in the person, as there was about to be in the subject of a third discourse. There using our condition, of Saul. The art of government best efforts to penetrate the vast chaos with has as many amplifications as there are wants which ignorance, shall I call it, or corruption, and humours in those that are governed. A has enveloped this branch of our theology, we king must associate in some sort in his own shall endeavour to illustrate and to justify the person, every science and every art. He must comparison of Jesus Christ; "the wind bloweth be, so to speak, at the same juncture, artificer, where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound statesman, soldier, philosopher. Those who thereof; but canst not tell whence it cometh, are become gray-headed in this art find daily and whither it goeth." new difficulties in its execution. How then could Saul expect to acquire it in an instant? The same prophet that notified the high honour to which God had called him, discovered the source whence he might derive the supports of which he had need. "Behold (said he,) when thou shalt come to the hill of God, where there is a garrison of the Philistines, thou shalt meet a company of prophets. Then the spirit of the Lord shall come upon thee, and thou shalt prophesy, and thou shalt be changed to another man," 1 Sam. x. 5, 6. The Spirit of the Lord shall come upon thee: here is support for the regal splendour; here is grace for the adequate discharge of the royal functions. Does it not seem, my brethren, that the sacred historian, in reciting these circumstances, was wishful to give us a portrait of the change which grace makes in the soul of a Christian. "Conceived in sin, and shapen in iniquity, he I. In giving a portrait of the regenerate, and in tracing the characters of regeneration (which is the duty of the present day,) we must explain the expressions of the Lord, "to be born again;-to be born of the Spirit," though it be not on grammatical remarks we would fix your attention, we would, however, observe, that the phrase, to be born of water and of the Spirit, is a Hebraical phraseology, importing to be born of spiritual water. By a similar expression, it is said in the third chapter of St. Matthew, "I indeed (says John Baptist) baptize you with water unto repentance, but there cometh after me one mightier than I; he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire;" that is, with spiritual life. When Jesus Christ says, that we cannot see the kingdom of God, except we are born of water and of the Spirit, he wishes to apprise us, that it is not sufficient to be a member of his church, to |