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4. That though man can neither draw from the wreck of nature, nor from exterior revelation, the requisite aid to fulfil the conditions of his salvation; and though the grace of the Holy Spirit be promised to him; he has no right to presume on those aids, while he obstinately resists the aids afforded him by his frail nature, and by exterior revelation.

5. That the aids of the Holy Spirit promised to men, are imparted at first by measure; hence to abuse those he already has, is the surest way to obstruct the reception of fresh support.

6. To whatever degree one may have carried the abuse of past favours, one ought not to despair of obtaining fresh support, which should always be asked with fervent prayer.

These, brethren, are our six propositions, which apparently contain all that a Christian ought to know, and all he ought to do on this subject. God is my witness that I enter on the discussion in such a way as appears to me most proper to cherish among us that peace, which should ever be so dear, and to prevent all those unhappy controversies which have agitated the church in general, and this republic in particular. I shall proceed with these propositions in the same temper as I have enumerated them, and haste to make them the conclusion of this discourse.

1. Nature is so depraved, that man, without supernatural aids, cannot conform to the conditions of his salvation. Would to God that this proposition was less true! Would to God that we had more difficulty in proving it! But study your own heart. Listen to what it whispers in your ear concerning the precepts God has given in his word: listen to it on the sight of the man who has offended you. What animosity! what detestation! what revenge! Listen to it in prosperity. What ambition! what pride! what arrogance! Listen to it when we exhort you to humility, to patience, to charity. What evasions! what repugnance! what excuses! From the study of your own heart, proceed to that of others. Examine the infancy, the life, the death of man. In his infancy you will see the fatal germ of his corruption; sad, but sensible proof of the depravity of your nature, an alarming omen of the future. You will see him prone to evil from his very cradle, indicating from his early years the seeds of every vice, and giving from the arms of the nurses that suckle him, preludes of all the excesses into which he will fall as soon as his capacity is able to aid his corruption. Contemplate him in mature age; see what connexions he forms with his associates! Connexions of ambition; connexions of avarice; connexions of cupidity. Look at him in the hour of death, and you will see him torn from a world from which he cannot detach his heart, regretting even the objects which have constituted his crimes, and carrying to the tomb, if I may so speak, the very passions which, during life, have divided the empire of his soul.

After studying man, study the Scriptures: there you will see that God has pledged the infallibility of his testimony to convince us of a truth, to which our presumption scrupled to subscribe. It will say, that ". you were conceived in sin, and shapen in iniquity." It will

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say, that "in you; that is, in your flesh, dwelleth no good thing." It will say, that "this flesh is not subject to the law of God; neither indeed can be." It will say, that you carry within you, 'a law in your members, which wars against the law of your mind; a flesh which lusteth against the spirit." It will tell you, that man in regard to the conditions of his salvation is a stock, a stone, a nothing; that he is blind and dead. It would be easy to swell the list! It would be easy indeed, but in adducing to you those passages of Scripture on which we found the sad doctrine of natural depravity, I observe the caution already laid down, of preferring in the selection, a small number of conclusive passages, to the production of a multitude. Nature being so far corrupted, man cannot, without the aids of grace conform to the conditions of his salvation.

Here is the first thing you ought to know, and the first thing you ought to do; it is, to feel your weakness and inability; to humble and abase yourselves in presence of the holy God; to cry from the abyss into which you are plunged, "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death!" Rom. vii. 24. It is to groan under the depravity of sin. O glory of primitive innocence, whither art thou fled! O happy period, in which man was naturally prompted to believe what is true, and to love what is amiable, why art thou so quickly vanished away! Let us not deplore the curse on the ground; the infection of air; nor the animals destined for the service of man, that now turn their fury against him; let us rather deplore our disordered faculties; our beclouded reason, and our perverted will.

2. But however great, however invincible, the corruption of all men may be, there is a wide difference between him who has the advantage of revelation, and him to whom it is denied. This is the second thing you ought to know on the subject we discuss; and this second point of speculation is a second source of practice. Do not apply to Christians born in the Church, and acquainted with revelation, portraits which the holy Scriptures give solely to those who are born in pagan darkness. I am fully aware that revelation, unattended with the supernatural aids of grace, is inadequate for a man's conversion. The preceding article is sufficient to prove it. I know that all men are naturally "dead in trespasses and sins." It is evident, however, that this death has its degrees: and that the impotency of a man, favoured with revelation, is not of the same kind as that of him who is still in pagan darkness. It is equally manifest, that a man, who, after having heard the doctrine of the gospel, grovels in the same sort of error and of vice into which he was impetuously drawn by his natural depravity, is incomparably more guilty than he who never heard the gospel. Hear what Jesus Christ says of those who, having heard the gospel, and who had not availed themselves of its aids to forsake their error and vice; "Had I not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloak for their sin." Here is the second thing you ought to know; hence the second thing you ought to do, is, not to shelter yourselves, with a view to extenuate voluntary depravity,

under certain passages of Scripture, which ex-vation; he has no right to presume on the grace claim not against the impotency of a Christian, of the Holy Spirit, while he obstinately resists but against that of a man who is still in pagan the aids which frail nature, and revelation afdarkness; you must apply the general assertion ford. But here we seem to forget one of the of Jesus Christ to all the exterior cares that maxims already laid down, and what we ourhave been taken to promote your conversion: selves have advanced; that if it is requisite for "If I had not come and spoken unto them, me to fulfil the conditions with which the gosthey had not had sin; but now they have no pel has connected salvation, how can I do cloak for their sin." O my soul, with what otherwise than obstinately resist the efforts humiliating ideas should those words of the which frail nature, and exterior revelation afLord strike thee! If God had not come; if he ford? This difficulty is but in appearance. To had not made thee to suck truth and virtue know, whether when abandoned to our natural with thy mother's milk; if he had not raised depravity, and aided only by exterior revelathee up masters in thy youth, and ministers in tion, we can conform to the conditions of the thy riper age; if thou hadst not heard so many gospel; or whether, when abandoned to the instructive and pathetic sermons, and read so depravity of nature, and aided only by exterior many instructive and affecting books; if thou revelation, we are invincibly impelled to every hadst not been pressed by a thousand and a species of crime, are two very different questhousand calls, thou hadst not had sin; at least tions. That we cannot perform the conditions thou mightest have exculpated thyself on the of salvation, I readily allow; but that we are ground of thy ignorance and natural depravity; invincibly impelled to every species of crime, but now thou art "without excuse." O un- is insupportable. Whence then came the dif happy creature, what years has God tutored ference between heathen and heathen, between thee in his church! What account canst thou Fabricius and Lucullus, between Augustus and give of all his care! Now thou art "without Sylla, between Nero and Titus, between Comexcuse." Here is the way we should study modus and Antony? Whatever you are able to ourselves, and not lose sight of the precaution, do by your natural strength, and especially not to sap morality under a plea of establish- when aided by the light of revelation, do it, if ing this part of our theology. you wish to have any well-founded hope of obtaining the supernatural aids, without which you cannot fulfil the conditions of your salvation. But the Scriptures declare, you say, that without the grace of the Holy Spirit you can do nothing, and that you can have no real virtue but what participates of your natural corruption: I allow it; but practice the virtues which participate of your natural corruption, if you would wish God to grant you his divine aids. Be corrupt as Fabricius, and not as Lucullus; be corrupt as Augustus, and not as Sylla; be corrupt as Titus, and not as Nero; as Antonius, and not as Commodus. One of the grand reasons why God withholds from some men the aids of grace, is, because they resist the aids they might derive from their frail nature. Here the theology of St. Paul, and the decision of that great preceptor in grace, imposes silence on every difficulty of which this point may be susceptible. Speaking of the heathens in the first chapter of his epistle to the Romans, he says, "That which may be known of God is manifested in them;" or, as I would rather read, is manifest to them; "but because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful," Rom. i. 19-21. "That which may be known of God is manifested unto them;" here then is the aid pagans might draw from the ruins of nature; they might know that there was a God; they might have been thankful for his temporal gifts, for rain and fruitful seasons; and instead of the infamous idolatry to which they abandon themselves, they might have seen the invisible things of God, which are manifest by his work. And because they did not derive those aids from the ruins of nature, they became wholly unworthy of divine assistance; "God gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts.-They changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever."

3. The aids which man is unable to draw either from the wreck of nature or from exterior revelation, are promised to him in the gospel: he may attain them by the operations of the Holy Spirit. Thanks be to God this consolatory proposition is supported by express passages of Scripture; by passages the most conclusive, according to our first precaution. What else is the import of the thirty-first chapter of Jeremiah's prophecies? "Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah.-This shall be the covenant that I will make with them: I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts." What else is the import of the thirty-sixth chapter of Ezekiel's prophecies? "I will sprinkle clean water upon you; I will give you a new heart; I will put a hew spirit within you." What else is the import of St. James' words in the first chapter of his general epistle? "If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not. And of Jesus Christ in the words of my text, "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth." Hence the third thing that we should know, and the third thing that we should do, is, to bless God that he has not left us to the weakness of nature; it is, like St. Paul, "to give thanks to God through Jesus Christ," Rom. i. 8; it is to ask of him those continual supports, without which "we can do nothing." It is often to say to him, "O God, draw us, and we will run after thee. Create in us a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within us," ," Cant. i. 8; Ps. li. 12.

4. But is it sufficient to pray? Is it enough to ask? We have said in the fourth place, that though a man may be unable to draw from frail nature, and exterior revelation, the requisite aids to conform to the conditions of his sal

5. Our fifth proposition imports, that the aids of the Holy Spirit promised to man are gradually imparted; hence, to misapply the grace we have, is the most dangerous way to obstruct the reception of fresh support. But listen to some of our supralapsarians, and they will say, that the design of God in promising these aids, is to assure us that how much soever we shall resist one measure of grace, he will still give us a greater measure, and ever proportion the counterpoise of grace to that of a deliberate, obstinate, voluntary enemy. So many have understood the doctrine of our church respecting irresistible grace; to judge of it consonant to their ideas, this grace redoubles its efforts as the sinner redoubles his revolts; so that he who shall throw the greatest obstacles in its way, shall be the very man who shall have the fairest claims to its richest profusion.

Poor Christians! are these your conceptions of religion? My God! is it thus thy gospel is understood? I hope, my brethren, that not any one of us shall have cause to recognise himself in this portrait; for I am bold to aver, that of all the most heterodox opinions, and the most hostile to the genius of the gospel, the one I have just put into the mouth of certain Christians, is that which really surpasses them all. On the contrary, he who opposes the greatest obstacles to the operations of grace, is precisely the man who must expect the smallest share of it. Grace diminishes its efforts in proportion as the sinner redoubles his resistance. Obstinate revolt against its first operations, is the sure way to be deprived of the second; and the usual cause which deprives us of it, is the want of co-operation with its true design.

6. We are now come to the last proposition, with which we shall close this discourse. However unworthy we may be of the divine assistance, and whatever abuse we may have made of it, we should never despair of its aids. We do not say this to flatter the lukewarmness of man, and to soothe his shameful delay of conversion; on the contrary, if there be a doctrine which can prompt us to diligence; if there be a doctrine which can induce us to devote the whole time of our life to the work of salvation, it is the one we have just announced in this discourse, and made the subject of our two preceding sermons. We have considered three points in the conversation of Jesus Christ with Nicodemus; the nature, the necessity, and the Author of the "new birth." And what is there in all this which does not tend to sap the delay of conversion?

Let each of you recollect, as far as memory is able, what Jesus Christ has taught, and what we have taught after him, on the subject of regeneration. This work does not consist in a certain superficial change which may be made in a moment: in that case, it would suffice to have a skilful physician, and to commission him to warn us of the moment when we must leave the world, that we may devote that precise moment to the work of our salvation. But the regeneration which Jesus Christ requires, is an entire transformation; a change of ideas, a change of desires, a change of hopes, a change of taste, a change in the schemes of happiness. How then does the

system of delaying conversion accord with this idea? What time would you allow for this change and reformation? A month? a week? a day? the last extremity of a mortal malady? What! in so short a time would you consummate a work to which the longest life would hardly suffice? And in what circumstances would you do it! In delirium; in the agonies of death; at a time when one is incapable of the smallest application; at a time when we can scarce admit among the attendants, a friend, a child, whom we love as our own life; at a time when the smallest business appears as a world of difficulty?

But if what we have now said, after this "teacher come from God," on the nature of regeneration, has begun to excite some scruples in your mind concerning the plan of delaying conversion, let each of you recall, as far as he is able, what Jesus Christ has said, and what we have said, following him, concerning the necessity of regeneration: for since you are obliged to confess that regeneration cannot be the work of the last moments of life, I ask, on what ground you found the system of delaying conversion? Do you flatter yourselves that God will be so far satisfied with your superficial efforts towards regeneration, as to excuse the genuine change? Do you hope that this general declaration of the Saviour, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a man be born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of God," shall have an exception with regard to you? have then the reflections we made in our second discourse against this chimerical notion, made no impression on you? Do we preach to rational beings? or do we preach to stocks and stones? Have ye not perceived that regeneration is founded on the genius of the gospel; and that every doctrine of it is comprised in the proposition, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." It is founded on the nature of man, and on the proposed design of Jesus Christ to make him happy; and the acquisition of this end would imply a contradiction, if a man should revolt at the change and the reformation; because, since the loss of primitive innocence, our state is become our calamity; and it would imply a contradiction that we should be delivered from our calamity, unless we should be delivered from our state. It is founded on the nature of God himself: of the two, God must either renounce his perfections, or we must renounce our imperfections; and if I may dare so to speak of my Maker, God must either regenerate himself, or we must regenerate ourselves.

Upon what then do you found your hopes of conversion on a death-bed? Upon the aids of that grace without which you never can be converted? But does the manner in which we have just described those aids, afford you any hope of obtaining them, when you shall have obstinately and maliciously resisted them to the end?

Meanwhile, I maintain my last proposition; I maintain that however unworthy you may have rendered yourselves of divine aid, you ought never to despair of obtaining it. Yes, though you should have resisted the Holy

Ghost to the end of life; though you should | tion. "If any man be in Christ, he is a new have but one hour to live, devote it; call in creature; old things are past away, and behold your ministers; offer up prayers, and take the all things are become new," 2 Cor. v. 17. kingdom of heaven by violence! We will not deprive you of this the only hope which can remain: we will not exclude you from the final avenues of grace. Perhaps your last efforts may have effect; perhaps your prayers shall be heard; perhaps the Holy Spirit will give effect to the exhortations of his ministers; and, to say all in a single word, perhaps God will work a miracle in your favour, and deviate from the rules he is accustomed to follow in the conversion of other men.

Perhaps; ah! my brethren, how little consolation does this word afford in the great events of life; and less consolation still when applied to our salvation! Perhaps; ah! how little is that word capable of consoling a soul when it has to contend with death. My brethren, we can never consent to make your salvation depend on a perhaps; we cannot see that you would have any other hope of salvation than that of a man, who throws himself from a tower; a man actually descending in the air, that may be saved by a miracle, but he has so many causes to fear the contrary. We cannot see that you would have any other ground of hope than that of a man who is under the axe of the executioner, whose arm is uplifted, which may indeed be held by a celestial hand; but how many reasons excite alarm that he will strike the fatal blow! We would wish to be able to say to each of you, "fear not," Mark v. 30. We would wish that each of you could say to himself, "I know; I am persuaded;" 2 Tim. i. 12. Second our wishes: labour; pray; pray without ceasing; labour during the whole of life. This is the only means of producing that gracious assurance and delightful persuasion. May God bless your efforts, and hear our prayers. Amen. To whom be honour and glory for ever. Amen.

SERMON XCVIII.

This was the change which Jesus Christ announced to Nicodemus, though the Rabbi could not comprehend it. How explicit soever the declarations of the prophets had been on this subject; however familiar their style was among the Jews, regeneration, to regenerate a new man, were terms whose import Nicodemus could not distinguish. He flattered himself that it sufficed for admission into the communion of the Messiah, to acknowledge the authenticity of his mission, the sublimity of his doctrine, and the superiority of his miracles. "Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do those miracles that thou dost, except God be with him.” He hoped that this avowal would conciliate the esteem of Jesus Christ, while it equally preserved that of the Jews. He flattered himself with having found the just mean of distinction between that of his persecutors, and his disciples. Jesus Christ undeceived him in the words upon which our discourse must devolve. No, no, said he; God requires no such conduct; to him all accommodations are odious; you must choose, either to perish with those who fight against me, or become renovated with those who account it their glory to fight under ny stewards. "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. Art thou a doctor of the law, and knowest thou not these things?"

We said sometime ago, that one must not confound the change which the gospel requires of a weak and diffident Christian, with that which it requires of a man who has not as yet embraced religion, as it would be wrong to say of some who hear us, and who, notwithstanding their weakness and diffidence, are really members of Christ, that they shall not enter the kingdom of God, unless they are born again. But can we doubt, that among the many who compose the circles of Christian society, among the many who compose this

THE NECESSITY OF REGENERATION. congregation, there are many who are in the

PART III.

[NOW FIRST TRANSLATED.]

JOHN iii. 5-7.

error of Nicodemus? Can we doubt that many of you also, like this doctor, still divide yourselves between God and the world; and who flatter themselves to have the essence of Christianity, when they have but the exterior name. It is to men of this class, that we address ourselves in this discourse. We proceed conformably to the example of our great Master to make an effort to open their eyes, and show them the inutility of this semi-Christianity to which their views are circumscribed; and declare, “ verily, verily, except a man be born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of God."

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. Ir is a sublime idea that the prophets give of the change which the preaching of the gos- It is thus we shall continue the execution of pel should effectuate in the earth, when they the plan formed in our first discourse. We represent it under the figure of a new crea- there remarked three things in the conversation: "Behold I create new heavens, and a tion of Jesus Christ with Nicodemus: the nanew earth; and the former things shall not be ture of regeneration; the necessity of regeneraremembered," Isa. lxv. 17. These new hea- tion; and the Author of regeneration. The vens, and this new earth, my brethren, must first of these articles we have already discusshave new inhabitants. It would imply an ab-ed: we now proceed to the second; and relying surdity for God to unite the disorders of the on the aids of God already implored, and old world with the felicities of the new crea- which we still implore with all the powers

of our souls, we proceed to enforce the necessity of regeneration, whose nature and characters we have already described.

We take it for granted, that this expression so familiar in our Scriptures, "the kingdom of God," or "the kingdom of heaven," cannot be wholly unknown to you. The Hebrews substitute heaven for God (and this mode of speaking is common enough in all languages;) hence come the expressions which abound in our writings, the aids of Heaven for the aids of God; and death inflicted by the hand of Heaven, for the hand of God. Just so, the kingdom of heaven, and the kingdom of God, are two phrases promiscuously used in the New Testament. I forbear more texts, which would only waste the time destined for truths more important and more controverted.

Now, this expression, "the kingdom of God," can have but one of those two meanings, of the most common occurrence in our Scriptures. It may signify either the economy of the Messiah, which the prophet Daniel represents under the idea of a kingdom, or the felicity of the blessed. The first is the import of our Saviour's words, Matthew the xiith; "If I had cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you." That is to say, if I have received of God the gift of miraculous powers; if I eject demons by the power of God, you may be fully assured that the Advent of the Messiah, which you have awaited with so much desire, is come unto you; it being impossible that God should lend his Almighty power to an impostor.

All the principles of the Christian religion, are in direct opposition to the principles of the unregenerate. It is not possible to embrace the Christian religion, without being born again in the sense we have given to this expression. What is the sense given to this figurative phrase, born again, in our first discourse? In what does the truth of the metaphor consist? A change of ideas; a change of desires; a change of taste; a change of hope; a change of pursuits. Examine the nature of the Christian religion, and you will at once see that its principles are directly opposed to those of the unrogenerate; and that the religion of a man which rejects conversion as to any one of these five points, be it which it may, is a religion directly opposed to that of Jesus Christ.

1. The religion of a man who rejects a change of ideas is a religion directly opposed to that of Jesus Christ. The change of ideas here in question, consists, as already explained, not indeed in the renunciation of reason, but in a persuasion that the best possible use a rational being can make of reason, is to allow it to lead him to God, who is the source of all intelligence. Now, it is demonstrated by the nature of the Christian religion, that without this disposition of mind, no man can be a Christian.

The Christian religion teaches us two sorts of truths, some which lie open to our ideas, and which the mind of man may discover by its own efforts; but which on the coming of Jesus Christ were so beclouded with obscurity, and with innumerable prejudices, as to require This expression, "the kingdom of God," energies almost more than human to penetrate signifies also the state of the blessed. So it them. Such were the doctrines of a provimust be understood in the encomium which dence, the immortality of the soul, a judgment, our Saviour pronounced on the great faith of a a future state, and some others. The object heathen centurion. "Verily, I say unto you, of the Christian religion has been to substitute that many shall come from the east, and from divine authority for that of discussion. You the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, cannot fully demonstrate the doctrine of a proand Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of hea-vidence, because of the obscurity in which it ven;" that is, many of those gentiles who were then "without God, and without hope in the world," shall be admitted with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to the celestial felicity, represented in our Scriptures by the idea of a feast. We think ourselves authorized to take this expression in the first of the meanings we here just assigned it: " Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he shall not enter the kingdom of God;" that is, to become a member of the church of Christ, he must be born again; but if any one will adhere to the latter sense, we feel no interest in disputing the point. Jesus Christ requires us to teach, that his communion affords no mean of attaining eternal happiness, but that of regeneration. The distinction has nothing that should stop us: to have named it, is enough; perhaps too much.

Let us come at once to the essential point, and prove that this regeneration is absolutely necessary to become a Christian, or as I have said, to attain to celestial happiness. This we shall prove by three arguments.

I. The first is taken from the genius of the
Christian religion.

II. The second from the wants of man.
III. The third from the perfections of God.
I. From the genius of the Christian religion.
VOL. II.-51

is involved. This doctrine is decided in the gospel: hear the words of Jesus Christ. "The hairs of your head are numbered: God feeds the ravens; a sparrow falls not to the ground without his will." You cannot fully demonstrate the doctrines of the immortality of the soul, and of a future state, because of the darkness in which they are enveloped. Jesus Christ has decided these points. Hear his words: "The wicked shall go away into everlasting fire, but the righteous into life eternal." It is the same with regard to other doctrines. In this respect, it seems quite clear to me, that the principles of the unregenerate are incompatible with the design of the Christian religion. Because its designs on all these points being to supply by authority that of discussion, no man can be a Christian who does not submit to the authority by which they are decided. The temper of a man who will believe nothing, admit nothing, but what can be demonstrated by the efforts of his own mind, is directly opposed to the design of the Christian religion; hence, on this point, a man must be born again before he can enter the kingdom of God: the religion of the unregenerate, and that of the Christian, are not only different, but directly opposed.

The second order of truths revealed by the

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