works, your sincerity, your religious duties, your own righteousness. Acknowledge, on the contrary, that as you are not born again, you are yet in your sins; poor, and miserable, and blind, and naked. Feel the necessity to "buy gold tried in the fire, that you may be rich; and white clothing, that the shame of your nakedness may not appear; and to anoint your eyes with eye-salve, that you may see." Cry out, like the penitent publican, with a broken and contrite heart, or as Saul, praying day and night for the Spirit of God, Lord, "be merciful to me a sinner." Lord, "who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Lord, "what shall I do to be born again?" If these be the desires of your soul, attend to the conclusion of this discourse. There you shall see that, however dangerous your case may be, it is not desperate, and you shall be convinced that there is balm in Gilead. You shall confess, that faith in the blood of Christ can not only heal the wounds of a dying soul, but raise to life one that is spiritually dead.

THE CONCLUSION.

BY WHAT MEANS A SOUL MAY BE BORN AGAIN.

GOD takes the title of "slow to anger; abundant in goodness and truth." He swears by himself, that he has

66

no pleasure in the death of a sinner," but that he should be converted and live; and the effects answer to those tender declarations. His mercy has found a way to raise fallen man, if he will yield, and to place him again among his children, without wounding his own justice. This way is astonishing, unthought of, incomprehensible. It surpasses infinitely the conjectures of angels, and the desires of men. And it is so infallible, that all who have a due sense of their miserable fall in Adam, all those who feel that they can no more regenerate themselves than they can create a new heaven and a new earth, may come

to God, and receive regeneration freely and by grace, and a right to the kingdom of heaven.

Reader, you have heard of this remedy a thousand times. But, on the one hand, knowing neither your indigence nor your malady; and, on the other, having your understanding darkened by your unbelief; you have neither, perhaps, considered nor apprehended as a Christian, "the things which belong to your peace." May you receive them now as the gospel of Christ, which is “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth."

Know, then, that the regeneration which we preach is nothing else than the two great operations of the Spirit of God upon a penitent soul. The first, called "justification," or "the remission of sins," is that gratuitous act of the divine mercy by which God pardons the sinner who believes in Jesus all his past sins, and imputes his faith to him for righteousness. Because, feeling that he has no righteousness, that he can do no work that is good in the sight of God, he submits to the righteousness of God. He receives with his heart Jesus Christ as his Saviour, his gratuitous Saviour, his sole Saviour; and he knows that he has received him, because God "fills him with peace and joy in believing," and because he receives dominion over all his sins.

This dominion over sin, which the believer receives with the remission of his past sins, is the beginning or foundation of the second part of regeneration, called in the holy scripture "sanctification." For in the same moment that the sinner receives this faith, the faith which justifies, at the same moment that the Spirit of God witnesses with his spirit that his sins are pardoned, he receives the power to love much, as he feels that he has much forgiven. "The love of God," being thus "shed abroad in his heart,” causes an extraordinary revolution in all the powers of his soul, and makes him feel, though perhaps in a low degree, the effects of the new birth, described in the second part of this discourse.

We are far from concluding that the body of sin is destroyed by this circumcision of the heart, this first revelation of Christ in the soul of a sinner. No, the old

man is only crucified with Christ; and although he can-
not act as before, he lives still, and seeks occasion to dis-
engage himself, and to exercise his tyranny with more
rage than ever.
David and St. Peter had painful expe-
rience of this; and hence we see that sanctification is not
generally the work of a day, nor of a year. For although
God can cut short his work in righteousness, as the peni-
tent thief found it aforetime, and as many sinners called
at the eleventh hour have found it ever since, it is never-
theless in general a progressive work, and of long dura-
tion. We therefore define sanctification to be that pow-
erful work of the Holy Spirit upon the heart of a par-
doned sinner, by which he receives power to go on from
faith to faith; by which, illuminated more and more to
see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and
renewed day by day in the image of his Saviour, which
he had lost in Adam, he feels himself internally "changed
from glory into glory," until he be "filled with all the ful-
ness of God;" until he "loves the Lord his God with all
his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his strength,
and his neighbour as himself," even as Christ loved him.
This is the highest point of the sanctification of a believer,
and consequently his regeneration is complete.

Sanctification cannot therefore begin before justifica-
tion; for, seeing that the Spirit of God sanctifies the
heart of a sinner, that Spirit must be received. But he is
not received but in the sinner's being pardoned. For,
according to Scripture, the first operation of the Spirit of
adoption is to cry, "Abba, Father!" in the heart of
which he takes possession; to testify to the spirit of the
believer that he is a child of God, and to give him the
foretaste of his heavenly inheritance. Beside, reason
convinces us that God cannot communicate his nature and
the graces
of his Spirit to a man whose sins he has not
yet pardoned. A king is not bountiful to a rebellious
subject before he restores him to his favour.

Thus our church also declares in her thirteenth article, "That works done before the grace of Christ and the inspiration of his Spirit are not pleasant to God, forasmuch as they spring not of faith in Jesus Christ; yea,

rather, for that they are not done as God has willed and commanded them to be done, we doubt not but that they have the nature of sin, however good they may appear to

men."

66

This being admitted, it is evident, that for a sinner to know how he is to be regenerated, he is to consider how he may be justified and sanctified. Upon this the scripture is clear. 'By grace ye are saved," says St. Paul, through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast;" being "created anew in Christ Jesus unto good works." As if the apostle had said, "By the faith God has freely given you, you are saved from your sins, delivered from the punishment which they deserve by justification, and from their dominion over you by sanctification. Hence you are regenerated and new creatures." Thus St. Paul declares that a living faith is the gate of salvation; and all the scripture declares it with him. "He who believeth shall be saved," says Jesus Christ; "he who believeth hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life." And St. John shows us that "this passing from death unto life," and regeneration, is the same thing. "He who believeth is born of God," says he, in his first epistle; and in his gospel he declares, that "those who receive Christ, to them he gives power to become the sons of God, even to those who believe on his name, who are born not of the will of man, but of God."

Our church declares the same thing. In her homilies she teaches, that the only instrument necessary to salvation is faith; which is there defined "a sure and firm confidence, that through the merits of Christ, our sins are forgiven, and we reconciled to God."

Observe here, reader, with respect to faith, none can enjoy it but those who have felt their need of it. Jesus Christ never gives this sweet assurance, this testimony of his Spirit, but to those whose hearts are really contrite. "Come to me," says he, "all ye who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." He invites no others, he comforts no others. Before the Spirit of God

convinces the world of righteousness, he convinces of sin, because they believe not in Jesus. None can come to the Son for justifying faith, unless the Father draw him by a sense of his sins, and by the fear of that punishment which he merits.

If these truths have dissipated your doubts; if you no longer halt between God and Baal; if you are convinced, that you can never see the kingdom of God without being born again, and that the sole means of obtaining this blessing is by a faith of the operation of God, and which is the power of God unto salvation, a faith by which Christ is revealed in us, and we obtain peace with God, a "faith" which "is the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen," which points like John the baptist to "the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world," and who freely and graciously gives this faith to those who earnestly seek it; come then, dear reader, come then to the throne of grace; but come condemned by your conscience, burdened by the weight of your iniquities, and pierced with a sense of your unbelief and hardness of heart. Implore the mercy of your Judge until he shows himself your Father in giving you the Spirit of adoption, your Jesus in saving you from your sins, your Christ in giving you the unction of the Holy Spirit, your Emmanuel in revealing himself in you, and dwelling in your heart by faith.

He invites you himself: "Ho! every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters. You who have no money, who are poor in spirit, who tremble at my word, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do ye spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which satisfieth not? Hearken diligently unto me, and eat that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Come to me! Hearken! and I will make an everlasting covenant with you,' even 66 "In the sure mercies of David, and your soul shall live." the great day of the feast Jesus cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink. He who believeth in me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. And this," says St. John, "spake he of the Spirit which

1