an event, in which the lost spirit is found, the poor made rich, the rebel restored, the dead in sin made alive in holiness, the vessel of wrath made an heir of glory; an event, whose results extend through all time and all eternity ;-forever exalting its subject from a debasing career of sin and misery, with the fallen and wretched outcasts of creation, to a career of glory and bliss, with the angels of God. Who-would not be born again? Who would not be a Christian?

15

CHAPTER X.

THE AUTHOR OF REGENERATION.

THE Scriptures instruct us that we are saved "by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost."* What are we to understand by this language? Very serious errors have been entertained here. By a literal interpretation of metaphorical language, confounding the sign with the thing signified, has come the opinion that regeneration is only baptism. The consequences to the cause of vital Christianity have been deplorable in every age, from Justin Martyr downwards. It is a blunder of interpretation, similar in kind to that which makes the symbol of Christ's body in the sacrament, his body itself. It is a fact worthy of notice, that they who interpret the figurative language of the Bible literally, by a parity of blunder sadly atone for so doing, by interpreting its literal language figuratively; and thus they pervert and displace the most solemn and momentous teachings of God. The washing of regeneration is not, as some of the

*Titus iii. 5.

Fathers and the Romanists say, a literal washing of the body with water; but, by a pertinent and forcible similitude drawn from that purifying element, it designates the cleansing agency of the Holy Ghost in the soul. The latter clause of the passage, by a Hebrew parallelism, is explanatory of the former :-the "renewing of the Holy Ghost." A careful study of this important law of figurative language, and particularly of the Hebrew idiom, which abounds in the New Testament, might have saved the world from a desolating flood of errors.

The position now to be maintained is this, REGENERATION IS EFFECTED BY THE AGENCY OF THE HOLY GHOST.

Christ said, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit,"—and that "except a man is born of the Spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God."* This spiritual change is expressly denied to be of men, and declared to be wrought in the soul by divine efficiency, operating through faith in Christ. "As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name; which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."+

Other passages of Scripture assert, in the same breath and with the same explicitness, both the author and the instrument of regeneration. "Of his own will begat he us, with the word of truth, that we should be a kind

of first fruits of his creatures."*

Here we are taught, that the Holy Ghost is the author of regeneration, and that he employs in the work the instrumentality of truth; a perfect refutation of the notion that regeneration is mere baptism, for how could the truth perform a water baptism. The "word of truth" is spiritual light— divine teaching-we are not baptised with this;-we are regenerated with this, we are baptized with water. And so another apostle says, "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever."+ Men are not baptized by the word of God—the idea is absurd— but we are here taught that they are born again— regenerated—by it, as the instrument in the hands of the Holy Ghost. The truth of God is then the instrument, and the Holy Ghost the author, of regeneration.

That we may the more clearly apprehend this divine agency, we will analyze it. We find it comprising the following elements. It is,

1. GRACIOUS. It is an agency which God is under no obligation to bestow; our obligation to obey him being entire without it. If your child have a maimed or broken limb, you ought not to require of him the same as if he were sound. But if he has all his physical powers entire, so that nothing is wrong but the disposition, and that disposition is voluntary, you have only to require him to do what is right, and he is guilty if he does not do it. Now obedience to the divine law is right, and man has all the natural powers

requisite to obey it. Only his disposition is wrong— he is voluntarily opposed—and therefore his obligation is entire.

Nor is this, as the caviller objects, a mere hairsplitting distinction—a metaphysical subtlety of the schools to confound, rather than convince. It is a distinction recognized and acted on in all the responsible affairs of life. The man who might do well, but is indisposed to do so, is pronounced guilty by the common consent of the world. Otherwise, domestic rule is tyranny; civil government is oppression; all law is injustice; courts of judgment are but a solemn farce ;—we ought to pull down our prisons, and abolish all penalties. We ought to let the world go into anarchy ;—and on the same principle, God ought to annihilate the penalty of his law, abolish hell, never call men to judgment, and let the fiery waves of anarchy roll over the universe.

So far is a wrong disposition from excusing men from duty, that the more indisposed they are, the more guilty they are. Indeed, it is only as they are indisposed, that they are guilty at all. The thief, the liar, the murderer, is guilty, just in the degree that he is disposed to be thievish, false, murderous, and indisposed to be honest, true humane. The sinner against God is guilty, just in the degree that he is disposed to be sinful; and it is only because he is indisposed to holiness, that the agency of the Holy Ghost is needed. Hence that agency is entirely gracious;—it is an agency to dispose him to do what he ought to do, without it. God would have been perfectly just, if he