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With Dives, you have your pleasure in this life-O may God grant that, with him, you may not have your torments in the next! O may he awaken you out of your sinful prosperity; may he lay some of his fatherly chastisements also upon you, ere it be too late, and save your immortal souls by afflicting your mortal bodies! May he smiteBut the concern I have for you carries me too far. Why should I form such a wish, since there are yet two other ways by which God can bring you to a sense of that misery you do not feel, and stir you up to seek that true happiness which you leave unregarded, to pursue a vain shadow ! The first is Christian conversation. A child of God may, if you will suffer him to speak, show you the bottom of your heart, and the folly of your hopes, so that you will be forced to cry out as the woman of Samaria, "Behold, I have found one that has told me all things that ever I did;" for one that has found Christ can, if you will hear him, tell you what the Lord has done for his soul, and what he must do for yours. Thus, in the Gospel, Andrew told Peter, "I have found the Christ, the Son of God, come and see;" and Peter, upon his word, went and followed Jesus until he could say for himself, "Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee." May thus the Lord send you one who has entered at the strait gate, to say to you with the demonstration of his Spirit, "This is the way, walk in it;" and may you, like Peter, take the advice and follow on till you are admitted into the heavenly Jerusalem.

But, brethren, suppose the natural man is not awakened by conversing with Christians alive to God, which he will seldom do, because such Christians are very rarely to be met with in these faithless times, and because his contempt for them will hardly permit him to give ear or credit to their words; yet there is another great means of conviction, by which the Lord may still call him to repentance and life, namely, the preaching of the Gospel; and this, indeed, is the most common way of all, a way that God has chiefly blessed in all ages, and still blesses in our days. A man comes to church as he has done a thousand times, because it is his custom so to do on Sundays, and he thinks he can squander away the remainder of the Lord's Sabbath with a good conscience, if he can but say, "I was at church morning and evening;" or, perhaps, he comes to indulge his curiosity, and hear what every minister has to say; not with any desire that God would manifest himself unto him, that he would teach him to know himself, a poor, benighted, perishing, yet never-dying soul; not with any concern about getting an interest in the favour of that God who is a consuming fire to the unregenerate; of that God before whom his naked soul shall soon be dragged by the cold hand of death. No, he never thought of this; it never came into his head that he should wait upon God in his holy temple, as the vilest of sinners, a sinner under sentence of eternal death, is to wait upon the Majesty of heaven and earth, to ask, beg, implore a reprieve, if by any means he may be spared a week longer, to seek for repentance and pardon, for glory and immortality. No, he did not think of any one of these things, but he comes with an intent to behave as usual, to see and to be seen, to show all the signs of the most listless, careless indifference. Though he seems to use a prayer to God for his blessing on what he is entering upon; he comes either to fall asleep during VOL. IV.

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the awful service, or to recline in the most convenient posture for it; and sometimes, as though he supposed God to be asleep too, he comes to talk to another, or look round as utterly void of employment; or, at best, he comes to say his prayers, as he calls it, that is, to kneel or to stand, because others do so, and repeat with his lips, without any true concern of heart, the most moving pleas for mercy. But though he rushes into the presence of God with these shameful antichristian dispositions, yet he is upon the Lord's ground, though he is insensible of it; and the dread of that Lord, whom the heavenly hosts cannot behold with. out veiling their faces, and prostrating themselves with the deepest acts of adoration; the dread of that God, whose eyes are like a flaine of fire, who with one look tries the hearts and searches the reins; the dread of that Lord whom he has so long insulted in his very temple, may rest upon him in a moment, and he may at last apprehend it to be "a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." In spite of his presumption and carelessness, God may bless the word of his servant, and send it home to his hardened conscience, so that he shall tacitly own that he is a slothful and wicked servant, who has hitherto done despite to the Spirit of grace; and, perhaps, for the first time, seeing the necessity of "working out his salvation with fear and trembling,' he may say from the bottom of his heart, "Spare us, good Lord, and be not angry with us for ever." In this manner has God blessed the preaching of the Gospel in all ages.

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Thus while St. Peter preached at Jerusalem, three thousand of those who a few weeks before cried, "Crucify him, crucify him," were cut to the heart, and cried, in the anguish of their souls, "Men and brethren, what shall we do to be saved?" Thus, while St. Paul preached at Athens, Dionysius believed his report; and while he delivered the word at Lystra, the Lord opened Lydia's heart to understand and believe. Happy then, brethren, happy will you be, if at any time the Lord alarms your drowsy consciences, and gives you the least measure of spiritual feeling, though it should be but some dread of his majesty, or shame of your ingratitude, or fear of his vengeance. Do not resist the touch of

his mighty hand, lest he cut you off in his sore displeasure, "if his wrath be kindled, yea, but a little." Ah! do not harden your hearts, as Felix, who, when he heard St. Paul discourse on righteousness, temperance, and the judgment to come, was brought to tremble before God, and yet got nothing by his trembling, but a greater condemnation; for, soon stifling the remorse of his conscience, he said to the apostle, "Go thy way for this time, when I have a convenient season I will call for thee." O brethren, let none of you imitate his madness. Methinks he now lifts up his voice above the shrieks of those who are condemned with him to eternal weeping; methinks he cries to every one of us, "Now is the convenient season for you, now is the hour of salvation; improve it as it flies, lest it should be gone, and gone for ever!" Alas, this was his deplorable case, he quenched the Spirit of God, and God gave him up to a reprobate mind, for his Spirit does not always strive with man. The "convenient season " he spoke of never came again; he soon forgot Paul and his words, and not long after put an end to his life, madly hurrying to that judgment, the very thoughts of which made him once tremble. And which of us dares say, that this shall not be the last

hour in which God will strive with him? Which of us has made a covenant with death, and engaged him not to strike his heart before this day is over, or with hell that it shall not swallow him up? Is God a man, that he should lie? Is he like one of the sons of men, that he should break the most solemn declarations of his word? "Turn ye," he says by his prophets, "turn ye, every one from his wicked way, and I will abundantly pardon; turn ye unto me, for why should ye die, O house of Israel?" thus stooping to invite rebellious man to himself, and intreating him to return lest he should die. But if man answers, "Am I a heathen, that I should want to be turned to God; am I a drunkard or a murderer, that he should send me such a command?" I say, if man do not turn to God wholly, soul, body, and spirit, seeking all his happiness in his favour, and walking with him all the day long; surely that book comes from the father of lies, or he shall perish in his iniquity; for who can misunderstand these plain declarations of God's word? Psalm vii, 12, "God is angry with the wicked all the day long; if he turn not, he will whet his sword; nay, he has bent his bow and made it ready, he has prepared for him the instruments of death." And who are those wicked? You find it in the tenth Psalm, "The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God;" and a little before, "The wicked shall be turned into hell, with all the people that forget. God." Now, who will awake from his sleep, from the dream of his fancied goodness? Who will give glory to the loving God, and own that he is still among the wicked, because he never truly sought the Lord? Hear how David sought his God: "My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. My heart breaketh for the very fervent desire that I have for thy law. As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, yea, for the living God. O when shall I come and appear before God!"

Now I ask you, before the Searcher of hearts, if this be seeking God, did you ever seek God in sincerity? Do you think you seek him when you come into his house with the shameful dispositions I mentioned? Alas! so far from seeking him, you bid him depart from you; you mock him in his very temple; for though you know that Christ does not dwell in you nor you in him; though you know that your heart is far from him at the very time that you make as if you worshipped him with all your soul; yet so far from being troubled at your hypocrisy, through the pride of your heart you cry, "Peace, peace," and persuade yourself that you do not need to seek God in another manner. O awake from that delusion, throw off the mask in the Lord's presence, and own yourself ripe for destruction. This is the first step toward that true repentance which shall never be repented of. O if you could be prevailed upon to take it in this hour, how soon would it lead you to inward vital religion; how surely would it introduce you to the presence of a reconciled God, and give you, in the enjoyment of Christ, a foretaste of the joys of heaven! But alas! hitherto you have resisted all the calls of God. Yes, brethren, nothing, I fear, has made a lasting impression upon the minds of some of you; neither the Lord's mercies, nor his judgments; neither the deliverances from imminent dangers he has granted you, nor the death of many dear friends, which he permitted to

fall into the grave in your presence, beckoning to you to prepare to follow them. But though neither the threatenings nor the promises of his holy word have hitherto been able to awake you into a true concern for your immortal souls,-into a lively sense of God's fear, and a real desire of giving yourselves up to him: yet if you are willing to awake now, if now you own yourselves undone; if you have nothing to plead but "God be merciful to me a sinner:" if you resolve to plead this continually till he seals the forgiveness of your sins to your heart; if you are willing to be saved upon any terms; in a word, if you truly repent, God is willing to cast the mantle of his love over what is past, to sink all your sins into the sea of his mercy, and love you freely after all your wanderings; nay, and to rejoice over you as a good shepherd over a poor returning sheep, which he thought lost for ever, and to enable you to delight in him a thousand times more than you ever did in all the pleasures of sin. Choose then between life and death, eternity and time, God and the world; choose, but be sincere and wise in your choice; O choose life, God, and eternity. The angels of God, nay, God himself, fix their eyes upon you in this moment; they consider whether you will be barbarous enough to your own soul to prefer the world and the trifles it offers, as you have hitherto done, to heaven and the endless joys that wait for you there. Nay, Jesus Christ, who is always where two or three are gathered together in his name, stands before you, with his vesture dipt in blood, and waits to see if his agony and bloody sweat, his wounds and sufferings, his tears and strong cries, his cross and passion, shall have any effect upon you: to see whether you will not at last resolve to part even with the most pleasing sins, rather than not to come to him, choose him, and enjoy him for your portion for ever. Ah! let him not wait in vain rather let us lift up our hearts together to him, and say, "Lord, turn us, and so shall we be turned!" Are you willing? Show it, by renouncing sin, and beginning to make conscience of keeping your baptismal vow. Will you become true Christians, the members of the Lord Jesus, the temples of the Holy Ghost? Let the world go; you cannot serve two masters. What have you to do with the pomps and vanities of this wicked world, with the pride of dress, balls and plays, cards and useless visits? Leave these things to those who choose to sleep on; they belong not to an awakened sinner, to one who sees himself with one foot in time and the other in eternity, just going to receive sentence of eternal death or endless life.

What have you to do with the devil and all his works, with lying, evil speaking, and slandering, with pride and passion, with envy and strife, with revenge and covetousness, with cursing and swearing, with Sabbath breaking and profaneness? All these are the works of the devil. O keep these his commandments no more; leave them to those who choose to have their portion in the eternal fire prepared for him and his angels, and be you of the few who follow the Lord Jesus in the regeneration, that they may enter with him into the city of God.

Again: what have you to do with all the sinful lusts of the flesh; with surfeiting, drunkenness, and indulgence in lasciviousness and impurity? Leave them, I shall not say to devils, for the devils wallow not in these beastly pleasures; leave them to the brutes, to which alone they belong. And, since you are endued each with an everlasting spirit, worship God

in spirit and in truth. But this you cannot do without the grace of Jesus. Ask it, then, continually. When you get up and when you lie down ; when you sit in your house or walk by the way, O let this be the ceaseless cry of your soul, "Lord Jesus, forgive me my sins, and give me thy good Spirit, that I may not sin against thee! O make me to love thee with all my heart, and let me now live the life of the righteous, that my latter end may be like his." And be not discouraged by the ridicule that the children of the world will pour upon you on every side, when you begin this life of prayer; remembering that the things of God are foolishness to the natural man, and that all the saints who are now in glory, experienced, in their way to it, the truth of St. Paul's assertion, "Every one that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." But go on praying without fainting, and seeking the Lord till he sends his light and truth into your soul, and makes it a habitation for God through the Spirit; and then shall you begin to rejoice that ever you were awakened to work out your salvation with fear and trembling; and the angels of God shall rejoice for your conversion through the endless ages of eternity, which may God grant, for his mercy's sake. Amen.

SERMON V.-Nature of regeneration.

"If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature," 1 Cor. v, 17.

ST. PAUL says, in his Epistle to the Romans, that "he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, but he who is such inwardly," by the circumcision of the heart. This being applied to Christianity, it follows that he is not a Christian who professes to be so, but he who has got "a new heart and a new spirit," by being truly born again, not of water only, but of the Spirit of Christ. That regeneration is absolutely necessary in order to be a true Christian, and that there is no surer mark whereby we may know whether we are living members of Jesus than to be really new men, appears in the clearest light in the words of the text, "If any man be in Christ," or be a true Christian," he is a new creature." You see then, brethren, how necessary it is to have right notions of the doctrine of regeneration, since without it there can be no Christianity. I hope you will therefore follow me with an attention answerable to the vast importance of the subject, while I endeavour to show you,

First, What we must understand by regeneration, or becoming a new

creature.

Secondly, What are the causes that concur to the work of regeneration: And,

Thirdly, Why regeneration is so necessary to salvation. May what shall be spoken in God's name, be so applied by his grace to every one of our hearts, that the important work of regeneration may be powerfully begun, or carried on in each of our souls!

Regeneration, brethren, is that mighty change whereby a natural man is made a spiritual, or new man; and he that was a child of the devil, becomes by grace a child of God. For, as by our natural birth we are made in the likeness of fallen Adam, called "the old man," the first man ; so by this spiritual birth we become new creatures-spiritual men-and sons of God in Jesus Christ, the second Adam.

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