man finds his heart so wonderfully and so happily changed, that he regards it for itself, as the food, the health, and the life of his soul; as that which necessarily brings its own pleasures, and, in a considerable degree, its own reward along with it; so that now, as David beautifully expresses it, “He openeth his mouth, and panteth, because he longs for God's commandments."

And I will add once more, the good man is also made sensible of the place which faith and holiness hold in the scheme which God has laid for our justification before him, and our acceptance with him. I do not say that all Christians conceive of this with equal perspicuity, or express their conceptions with equal exactness: the most candid allowance should here be made for the different ideas they fix to the same phrases, as they have been used to look upon them with veneration or with suspicion. But this I will venture to say, because I am persuaded the Scripture will bear me out in it, that the confidence of a regenerate soul is not fixed on his own holiness or faith, as the meritorious cause of his acceptance with God.'

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He is deeply and cordially sensible, that he is made accepted in the Beloved; and, seeing nothing but guilt, and weakness, and ruin in himself, he ascribes to the blessed Jesus, and to the riches of God's free grace in him, his righteousness, his strength, and his salvation. And where a man is thus persuaded, I think he must, in effect, believe, even though he might scruple, in words, expressly to own it, "that Christ, as our great surety, having perfectly obeyed the law of God himself, and by his blood having fully satisfied the divine justice for the breach

of it, we, on our believing in him by a vital faith, are justified before God, by the imputation of his perfect righteousness." This latter way of stating it, when rightly explained, appears just equivalent to the former; and it is a manner of conceiving and expressing it, which, when rightly understood, seems extremely suitable to that deep humility and poverty of spirit to which the renewed soul is brought, when, "like a new-born babe, it desires the sincere milk of the word, that it may grow thereby." But as the mind, at such a time, finds little inclination to contend about words and phrases, it would be much less proper for me to enter into any controversy about them

here.

a new creature.

Let it suffice, for the present, that I have given you this plain representation of that change which is wrought in a man's apprehensions, when he is made When old things are passed away, he has new apprehensions of God, of himself, of Christ, of eternity, and of the way to obtain the happiness of it; and as, at this happy time, all things are become new, there are new affections, new resolutions, new labours, new enjoyments, and new hopes," which are the result of the change already described. But it will be much more difficult to reduce what I have to offer on these heads within the bounds of the next discourse, than proper to at

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tempt any of them in this. Go home, my friends, and try yourselves by what you have already heard; and be assured, that if you are condemned by this part of the description, it is impossible you should be approved by any that will follow, since they have all their foundation in this.

SERMON III.

OF THE NATURE OF REGENERATION, WITH RESPECT TO THE CHANGE IT PRODUCES IN MEN'S AFFECTIONS, RESOLUTIONS, LABOURS, ENJOYMENTS, AND HOPES.

2 CORINTHIANS V. 17.

"If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."

AMONG the various subjects which exercise the thoughts and tongues of men, few are more talked of than religion. But it is melancholy to think how little it is understood, and how much it is mistaken and misrepresented in the world. The text before us gives us a very instructive view of it; such a view, that, I am sure, an experimental knowledge of its sense would be infinitely preferable to the most critical and exact knowledge of all the most curious passages, both of the Old Testament and the New. From it, you know, I have begun to describe that great change which the word of God teaches us to represent under the notion of regeneration, or, according to the language of St. Paul, in this passage of his writings, by a new creation. I know I am explaining it before many who have been much longer acquainted with it than myself, and, it becomes me to believe, before many that have attained much higher advancements in it; but I fear also, at the same time,

I speak of it before many who are yet strangers to it: and I am labouring, by the plainest addresses that I can, to give them, at least, some just ideas of it. Oh, that to all the descriptions that either have, or shall be given, God may, by his grace, add that understanding which arises from feeling correspondent impressions on the mind!

I have already endeavoured to illustrate those new apprehensions which arise in the regenerate mind; apprehensions of the blessed God, of itself, of Christ, of the eternal world, and of the way to obtain the happiness of it. It now remains that I consider those new affections, resolutions, labours, enjoyments, and hopes,' which result from them. 1 observe, therefore,

II. That these new apprehensions will be attended with NEW AFFECTIONS.

I readily acknowledge, that the degree in which the affections operate, may, and will be, different in different persons, according to their natural constitution; but as, in some degree or another, they make an essential part of our frame, it is impossible but they must be impressed with a matter of such infinite importance as religion will appear: and the apprehensions described above must awaken the exercise of correspondent affections, and direct them to objects very different from those by which they were before excited, and on which they were fixed. And here now,

1. This may be especially illustrated in love.

Love is, indeed, the ruling passion of the mind, and has all the rest in an avowed and real subjection to it. And here lies the very root of human misery, in our fallen and degenerate state: we are naturally

lovers of ourselves, in a very irregular degree; "lovers of pleasures, more than lovers of God." But, on the contrary, the first and great commandment of the law is written in the breast of every regenerate man: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." It is true, indeed, that if his soul were perfectly delivered into this mould, and his attainments in divine love were complete, there would be an end of all sin, and almost of all calamity too; for what evil could assail or impress a mind entirely and unchangeably fixed upon God? Yet, that the love of God should be the prevailing affection, is not merely a circumstance, but an essential part of true religion. While the good man "sees him who is invisible,” as infinitely perfect in himself, and as the Author of being and happiness to the whole creation, he cannot but acknowledge that he is, beyond comparison, the most amiable of all objects. And though it is certain that nothing can so much induce and inflame our love to God, as a well-grounded assurance that he is become our God and our Father in Christ; yet, before the regenerate soul has attained to this, a sense of those favours which he receives from God, in common with the whole human race, and more especially of those which are inseparable from a Christian profession, together with the apprehension of his being accessible through a Mediator, and reconcilable to sinful men, will diffuse some delightful sense of God over the mind, which will grow sweeter in proportion to the degree in which his own hopes brighten and settle, while they are growing toward the full assurance of faith.