advent is by good internally into the spiritual plane, or into the will.

In order to be saved, therefore, man must receive truth from the Word into a ground of vital faith, which is a practical principle, and, suffering his will to be determined by truth rationally considered, he must bring himself more and more into a state of thorough conformity to it, by exercising his powers as his own, and yet acknowledging that all his power is of God. For man's essential nature can never be changed without destroying him as man. He must, therefore, ever be constituted so as to act in freedom according to reason. Life flowing into him must still appear to be in him as his own. And hence, though God in Christ Jesus has given man the power to will and to do of his good pleasure, by reconciling man's nature to the divine nature, and so opening a way for the divine influences to reach him, yet man must use his faculties as though they were his own, and must "work out his own salvation with fear and trembling." He must put forth his energies as a man, and not wait to be acted upon as a machine. By a power vouchsafed to him continually to act as of himself, he must stretch forth his withered hand, that the Lord may, by this very act, flow into him with fresh life from within and heal him. This is the only way that he can be made whole. And thus he must be saved by obeying, as a rational free agent, the dictates of divine love and wisdom. He, acting as of himself, yet believing that power is given to him by the Lord, must "wash him, make him clean, put away the evil of his doings from before the eyes of Jehovah, cease to do evil, learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow."

In short, man, acting in freedom according to reason, must "repent, and turn from his transgressions, so iniquity may not be his ruin." He must "cast away from him all his transgressions whereby he has transgressed, and make him a new heart and a new spirit," whereby he may keep the first and great commandment, and the second, which is like unto it, on which hang all the Law and the Prophets, and in keeping which there is the great reward of the life that now is and that which

is to come.

Yes," if any man will enter into life, let him keep the commandments." The Great Physician has given this prescription "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind," and "thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself"-"This do, and live." And although this may be bitter physic, yet it must be taken.

Love of self and the world, which comes from hell and leads to hell, and which is the cause of all diseased action in the limbs, organs or viscera of the universal man, must be denied and put off as a principle of action. Love of God and the neighbour must become the all-actuating principle. Then man will come from under the influence of hell, which is obstructing the divine influences and mortifying his immortal soul. Then the arteries of the divine life, again ramifying through him, will cause him to pulsate with heaven, and will impart to him its health, its happiness and its "joy unspeakable and full of glory." And then, though his sins "were as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they were red, like crimson, they shall be as wool."

Thus, finally, there can be no doing of good without putting away evil-no regeneration without reformation—no salvation without redemption; and, consequently, no salvation of man without his ceasing to do evil. For man is spiritually lost by sin, which is the derangement and disease of his spiritual frame; and the only way to save him is to have all those things which "work abomination and make a lie" purged from his spiritual body "as with hyssop." "The blood is the life :" and that blood of man's spirit, which is inflamed and vitiated by influences from hell, must be so altered in its quality as to correspond to the divine life flowing from within. The blood of self-love must be regenerated and become the blood of love to God. External truth from the Word (which is signified by hyssop) must be taken as medicine, and the morbid forms of man's depraved natural will must be corrected by "the leaves of the tree of life, which are for the healing of the nations." Nay, that will itself must, as an old man, be put off, and a new

will, as a new man, must be put on. Thus sin, which obstructs man's salvation, must be removed by man's repentance unto reformation, and new life must be infused into him by obedience to the divine commandments. This is the way of salvation prescribed by the True and Good Physician, and they who prescribe any other way are spiritual quacks.

Oh, then, “Jerusalem wash thy heart from wickedness that thou mayest be saved"! (Jer. iv. 14.) Trust not to those who are crying "Peace, peace, when there is no peace”—who, for fear of disturbing thee on thy death bed, would soothe thee with flattering representations of thy health, when thou art dying! Oh rather listen to the still small voice of the spirit of truth, which, pointing to the way of reformation by the life of the commandments, says, "This is the way, walk ye in it." And be ye well assured, "If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land. But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it"!

SERMON XIX.

JOHN, III. 5.

"Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."

THESE words suggest two topics of discourse: first, what is meant by being born of water and the spirit; and, second, the impossibility of entering into the kingdom of God without this

birth.

Reserving the necessity of a new birth for another discourse, we shall, in this, first take a view of man's state before regeneration, in order that we may see more distinctly the nature of that change which regeneration effects; and then consider the means by which this change is wrought; which will lead us to unfold the scriptural meaning of the being born of water and the spirit.

Paul says that is first which is natural, and afterwards that which is spiritual. This, as it regards man, is a universal truth. In general, then, regeneration is the bringing us from a natural into a spiritual state.

But what is radically and distinctively our state by nature? It is all-important that we should have right ideas on this point. For according to our views of this will be our views of religion, and the change which religion effects. And hence if our view's on this point are erroneous, our religion will be false, and we shall stop short of that change which is indispensable to our salvation.

It is very generally thought that our state by nature is depraved. It is admitted that we are fallen creatures; that we are prone to evil and this continually; that "the whole head is

sick, and the whole heart faint;" that "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; but, in the minds of most people, the conception of this scriptural truth amounts to nothing more than a general and vague impression that we are evil, without distinctly knowing in what this evil consists. It is true we can discern that we are by nature inclined to anger, hatred, malice, revenge, cruelty, unkindness, and many other evil feelings; and that we are continually prone to give vent to these feelings, and to adopt and maintain those false maxims which justify or palliate their indulgence. But these evil feelings, maxims and acts are only effects of a cause, with which many seem not to be acquainted. And as these effects may be restrained and modified by even the cause from which they proceed; hence many people rest satisfied with an alteration of the effects, without an alteration or removal of the cause. The cause is in the ruling love, and the effects are in the affections and thoughts, or the motives and maxims, which proceed from this love and determine themselves in act.

Man's ruling love forms his life; and the destruction of the life is the destruction of the love itself. Hence, when the passions and principles which proceed from the love, would, in their unrestrained indulgence, destroy its life, the love prevents them from coming into act, and assumes an orderly and decent exterior, in order to prevent its own destruction. For example: suppose a man is governed by a covetous love, which prompts to the aggrandizing oneself at the expense of others. If this love met with no restraints, it would urge him to take, without leave, and even with violence, whatever he wanted. He would overreach his neighbour whenever he could: and when he could not do this, he would rob and plunder him without mercy. But the general consequences of such conduct as this would destroy society; and hence men have agreed together to enact laws, with penalties annexed, by which the aggressions of any one upon the others are restrained. And now any one who should indulge the direct inclinations of such a love, would not only incur the penalty of the law, but also the loss of reputation, and of gain, which would defeat the attainment of his