SERMON XVIII. THE NECESSITY OF REGENERATION. JOHN iii. 3.-"Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." I PROPOSE, from this verse, to show the necessity of regeneration, or the new birth. The only introductory remark which it is necessary to make before we enter on the argument is, that the Saviour in the text asserts, with great earnestness and emphasis, that the new birth is indispensable for every one who would enter into his kingdom :—" Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man"-in the Greek, any one" be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." My argument will be directed solely to this point, that it is necessary for every one to be renewed, or regenerated, in order to be saved. :66 With reference to this argument, mankind may be conveniently divided into two great classes. The line, perhaps, may not be in all respects very definite, and there may be a middle region of character of considerable extent such as to leave us in doubt where to place many individuals; but it is sufficiently definite for our present purpose, and will not lead us into error in the argument. The two classes are these:-First. The openly wicked, abandoned, sensual, scoffing, profane. Second. The moral, the amiable, the upright, the sincere, the accomplished. The former are commonly designated as vicious; the latter as virtuous. The former are destitute of virtue and religion together; the latter lay claim to virtue without religion. The former attempt no divorce between virtue and piety, but abjure both together; the latter attempt a divorce, and seek to hold the one without the other. The former are willing to be excluded from good society on earth as well as from heaven; the latter mean to retain their rank in the goodly fellowship of this world, whatever may be the fact about their admission into heaven. The former take a decided stand against religion and all its appearances and pretensions; the latter desire to occupy a position somewhere on the confines of religion-and if they have not Christian piety, they intend to have something that they hope will, on the whole, answer just as well in the future world. Now the difficulty in regard to the subject before us is not at all in reference to the former of these classes. It will be conceded on all hands that it is necessary that they should be renewed in order to enter into the kingdom of heaven. Had the Saviour so modified his declaration, affirming the necessity of the new birth, as to have embraced only that portion of mankind, scarcely any doctrine would have met with more favour. The only embarrassment in the case has arisen from the fact that he so shaped his remark as to include Nicodemus and all that class of men under it, so as to make it just as necessary for them to be born again as for the openly abandoned and profane. It is a difficulty arising from the fact that in one respect-not in all respectshe has put them on a level, and affirmed that, whatever else might occur, they would be alike excluded from the kingdom of God unless they were "born of water and of the Spirit." Leaving the former of these classes, therefore, at present out of view, as those about whom there can be no debate, and as not probably among those who are now addressed. I shall direct your thoughts entirely to the question about the latter classthe amiable, the moral, the upright. The subject will have then this advantage at least, that it is one that pertains to your own case, and is one in which you will feel yourselves personally concerned. It falls in with my design, and with my convictions also, to concede to you all that you would claim on the score of morality, amiableness, courtesy, and kindness. Of these virtues you could mention none which my argument would not allow me to concede; of none who might set up the claim would I be disposed to call it in question. I do not see that the Redeemer was disposed to deny the existence of these virtues in Nicodemus ; I am certain he did not in the young man who came to him and told him that he had kept all the commandments from his youth up, and whom the Saviour told that he lacked but one thing in order to be perfect, and whom he "loved," Mark x. 21. Yet here lies the solemn declaration of the Saviour in our path, affecting alike the case of Nicodemus, and the amiable young man, and all who are like them :-"Except any one be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Why did he make such a declaration? On what was it based? What were the views of man which lay in the Redeemer's soul that justified this remark? We may not be able exactly to answer these questions, but we may state some considerations which show that the declaration is true, or that there are reasons why it was made. To that task I now proceed. I. The first consideration which I state is, that the heart by nature, or when unrenewed, is not in a proper state for the employments and enjoyments of heaven. I speak now of the human heart as such, without any special reference to the openly wicked and profane. I speak of the unrenewed heart in its best state, and under the best discipline and cultivation. I speak of it where there may be all the charms of accomplishment; all the beauties of native amiableness; all the courtesy of refined breeding; all that is attractive and valuable in unsuspected virtue. -the There are two sources of evidence in regard to this:Bible and your own consciousness. The testimony of the Bible is so clear that no one, I presume, will be disposed to doubt it, and this point need not detain us long. That testimony bears directly on the point before us, that the human heart, as such, is evil, and must be renewed if man would be saved. Thus it is said, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked," Jer. xvii. 9. That is, the heart of man, as such, without reference to any particular class or condition of men. The fair meaning is, that wherever there is a human heart it has this characteristic-that it is a deceitful heart-more deceitful than all things else in a world full of deceit, and that it has within it the elements of desperate wickedness. The same account of the universal depravity of the human heart is given in Gen. viii. 21: "The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth." This appears also in the form of an universal declaration. It is not that the profligate race which had been just swept away by the deluge was evil, but it is that the heart of man, as such, is evil from his youth. As these positive declarations settle the question so far as the Bible is concerned, I turn to the other source of evidence in the case the consciousness of the heart itself. And as the form of direct address will better fall in with the nature of the argument which I wish to urge, you will permit me with plainness to use this form. The argument relates to the following points: (1.) You are conscious that you have no vital religion; nothing that can be properly called religion. You do not even pretend or profess to have it. You would not consider it a reflection on you at all to have it said that you make no profession of piety, as you would to have it said that you do not profess to be influenced by the laws of honour or honesty. And in your life there is nothing that can be fairly interpreted as showing that you have real religion. You do not truly pray; you do not habitually read the Bible; you do not cherish love to God; you do not depend on his mercy for salvation; you do not identify yourselves with religious persons.. You claim to be moral, upright, faithful to your engagements, kind, courteous ; but in your own heart and wishes and intentions you do not claim to be religious men. Possibly you may say that all this is unkind and uncharitable. But I see not how it is so. I will concede all that you claim. I will yield all that you ask on the score of morality. I will even go farther than you will. I will yield to a man the claim to be a religious man when he professes to be, even when appearances are much against him—for I am not ignorant how much I must need the exercise of that charity "which suffereth long and is kind;" and I believe that there may be true piety where there is much imperfection, and if you make any profession of godliness I will extend the same charity to you. But I have not so read the New Testament, or so learned the character of Christ, or been so taught by any of the rules of urbanity, as to ascribe to a man what he does not himself profess to have; as to go with kind-heartedness beyond what he habitually lays claim to, and to attribute to him what never constituted a part of his own profession. Every man has a right to choose and "define his own position," and to make his own professions; and for myself, I ask no man, either from charity or justice, to attribute to me opinions and sentiments which I do not profess to have. In the same way I shall continue to judge of my neighbour, and shall conclude that I am doing him no injustice in supposing that he has no spiritual life when he asserts no claim to have any, whatever I may think about those who profess to be influenced by it. (2.) Another consideration is, that every man is conscious that there is much in his heart that is opposed to God and to religion. The depths of depravity indeed in his soul may not have been explored; there may have been no outbreaking wickedness to overwhelm his name and family in disgrace; he may have been neither a scoffer nor an open infidel; and in fact he may never have recorded one sentence in the most confidential letter to a friend, or given utterance to one remark, in the most familiar intercourse, opposed to religion; yet no man can reach a mature period of life without knowing that there is much in his heart that is opposed to God and to religion. Many of the doctrines of religion are unpalatable to the natural heart. Its more spiritual duties are onerous and irksome. Its restraints seem like a violation of freedom. The law of God is laid across the path at times and in a manner that chafes the feelings, and disturbs the plans of life. The claims, rebukes, threatenings, and penalties of both law and gospel are galling and unpleasant to the soul. There is much in the character and government of God that seems to such a man to be not only mysterious, but wrong. In his afflictions, disappointments, and blighted hopes, he has been conscious of murmuring thoughts, and has been obliged to exercise restraint lest they should find their way to his lips. He cannot but be conscious that when God has directed him to love him supremely, he has not done it; when he has required him to form his plans with reference to his glory, he has formed them with reference to ease, pleasure, gain, or ambition; when he has called on him to repent, he has remained impenitent; when he has commanded him to believe, he has continued unbelieving; and when he has counselled him to pray, he has restrained prayer. He cannot but be conscious that he has given indulgence to a roving imagination; that he has delighted to dwell, in his recollections of the past, on the objects fitted to debase and corrupt him; and that he has formed many a plan, and cherished many a wish, on which a pure Being could look only with a frown of indignation. And he cannot but be conscious that he has never found that pleasure in religion of which the Bible speaks, and which Christians declare that they enjoy; and that in the course of his life there has never been one whole day, or one whole hour, in which the mind would have found enjoyment in religion. His mind and heart are not in the course of things which God wishes, and which God is carrying forward. Hear what one says who knew: "Our life is a false nature-'tis not in The harmony of things,-this hard decree, This uneradicable taint of sin, This boundless upas, this all-blasting tree, Whose root is earth, whose leaves and branches be Childe Harold, iv. 126. (3.) The next remark is, that such a heart is not fitted for the employments and enjoyments of heaven unless it is changed. This is evident, unless the joys and employments of heaven consist in the mere prolongation of the pleasures and business of this life. If commerce, and manufactures, and merchandize, and agriculture were to be the business there, I do not see but they |