he becomes sensible of the presence of the Supreme Being. He can say by experience with David, "Thou hast beset me, before and behind, and laid thy hand upon me." He renders back, without ceasing, to God, by prayer and praise, the breath of spiritual life, which he receives by faith; and acquiring every moment new strength, his spiritual senses are unfolded, exercised, and become capable of discerning spiritual objects.

"The eyes of his understanding are opened. He sees [in every place] him that is invisible. God, who commanded the light to shine into the darkness, shines into his heart, and enlightens him with the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of our Lord Jesus Christ. God lifts upon him the light of his countenance." With Abraham he sees the day of the Lord, the day which to him is the beginning of eternal life; and seeing it, he rejoices with joy unspeakable. His ears are opened as well as his eyes. God does not now call in vain. He understands, he knows the voice of his Shepherd. He comes to him. "He tastes the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come." In a word, his spiritual senses are all in action; the veil is taken away; the things of God are no longer mystery or foolishness. He knows he comprehends them. He feels the "peace which passes all understanding, the joy of the Holy Ghost, and the love of God shed abroad in his heart." He knows that he is born of God. He knows that he "dwells in God, and God in him."

This is your state, reader, if you be a believer; if you have that faith which is "the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen." But if you have never experienced that inward change, "judge yourself, that you be not judged of the Lord." Be deeply sensible, and confess that because you are not born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God. Consider the reasons which prove the absolute necessity of regeneration. They will infallibly convince you, if you suffer the grace of God to make you feel all their force and importance.

PART THIRD.

Why no man can see the kingdom of God without being born again.

It is certain, from the testimony of sacred Scripture, that before the fall of Adam our nature participated of a holiness and a goodness, of which we have not any remains in coming into the world. In this state of spiritual life, man loved God with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his mind. He served him with all his strength; he gave him thanks for all things; he rejoiced in him with joy unspeakable, and he had a constant communion with him by the Holy Spirit, of which he was the temple. But "by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and death passed upon all men, because all have sinned." Thus we are born "children of wrath," not only destined to bodily death, and exposed to death eternal, but already spiritually dead in original sin. "Conceived in sin, and shapen in iniquity, we are alienated from the life of God," having only carnal and earthly affections, in which, St. Paul declares, consists the death of our souls. And as

God is "not the God of the dead, but of the living," it is clear that before we can call "Jesus LORD, by the Holy Ghost, or God FATHer, by the Spirit of adoption;" before we can experience that which St. Paul calls the "life of God," we must feel inwardly the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and receive from him a new heart and a right spirit; spiritual and heavenly affections. This is the sacred oil with which God anoints true Christians. It is the want of this oil, of this vivifying grace, which causes the foolish virgins to be excluded from the kingdom of heaven, as well as the adulterers.

But again: as the decrees of God are unchangeable, the heavens shall be shaken, and the truth of God fail, before a child of Adam shall see the face of God without sanctification and the renewing of the Holy Ghost. You must be "transformed by the renewing of your mind," in order to prove "his holy, and acceptable, and perfect will." It ordains that you shall "put off the old man, and put on the new man, created after him in righteousness and true holiness;" and he declares solemnly, by the mouth of his Son, that none shall see his kingdom without being born again. Do not imagine that because God is good, he will cease to be true, and that he forgets to be holy and just because he is patient. No, his mercy does not make him the father of lies, and you should remember that though "heaven and earth pass away-his word shall not pass away."

But do you still demand why nothing that is impure and defileth, shall enter the kingdom of God? And why there are none before his throne but the spirits of the just made perfect, and saints, whose robes are washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb? The reason is clear: sin, that leprosy of the devil, must not offend HIM, whose eyes are too pure to see evil. Defilement and iniquity cannot dwell with the King of saints. There is no refuge, no dwelling place in the heavenly Jerusalem for vipers, dogs, or swine. The proud, the passionate, lying and revengeful persons; the envious, the covetous, the sensual, cannot enter there and if they could, they would find God only a consuming fire. "Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? (says David.) He who hath clean hands and a pure heart. Blessed are the pure in heart, (says Jesus,) for they shall see God." Miserable are those whose hearts are not purified, for they shall never see him. There is no communion between light and darkness, between Christ and Belial. To see the face of God in righteousness, we must be cleansed from our natural corruption, and become partakers of the nature of Christ, and of the image of God.

From hence it appears, that regeneration is the first degree of salvation. Grace is the only way to glory, and holiness the one foundation of true happiness. If we do not learn to know, in this world, Jesus Christ, who saves his people from their sins, we shall hear him say one day, "Depart from me, I know you not, ye workers of iniquity." God will receive into his kingdom only those whom Christ shall sanctify in soul, body, and spirit. As on the one side, sin is the seed of death, and bell begins in those who are not regenerated; on the other, holiness is life eternal, and heaven is already opened in the believing soul. "He who believeth in me (saith Jesus) hath eternal life;" he has the earnest, the seal, and the foretaste of it. And as hell cannot be for those who

are saved from their sins by Jesus, neither can paradise be for those who are not partakers of the Divine nature. We may add, that it is as preposterous to flatter ourselves with the hope of glory without having passed through regeneration, as to hope to see noon day without the intervention of the morning, or the summer of the year without the spring. Moreover, to rejoice in the pleasures that are at God's right hand for evermore, it is needful to have senses and a taste to correspond thereto. The swine trample pearls under their feet. Dogs prize an ingot of gold no more than a flint. The elevated discourse of a philosopher is insupportable to a stupid mechanic: and an ignorant peasant introduced into a circle of men of learning and taste, is disgusted, sighs after his village, and declares no hour ever appeared to him so long. It would be the same to a man who is not regenerated, if we could suppose that God would so far forget his truth as to open to him the gate of heaven. If his heart were not created anew, if from a natural he were not changed to a spiritual man, however blameless he had been in his life, he would be as incapable of those transports of love which make the happiness of the glorified saints, as a horse is to admire the lustre of a diamond, or a swine to contemplate with delight the beautiful water of a pearl.

He is ignorant of the language of the heavenly Canaan. He cannot expatiate on the love of Jesus with the heavenly inhabitants. It would be insupportable for him now to meditate one hour on the perfections of God. What then shall he do among the cherubim and seraphim, and the spirits of just men made perfect, who draw from thence their transporting delights? He loves the pleasures and comforts of an animal life; but are these the same with the exercises of the spiritual life? Are they not rather insupportable to him? And although he will not acknowledge it, does he not hate God in his heart? Yes, he hates him, if his actions are to be credited rather than his words. He cannot employ himself one hour in prayer to Jesus without secretly wishing that the burdensome toil were concluded. His conversations, his readings, his amusements, as void of edification as of usefulness, rarely fatigue him; but one hour of meditation or prayer is insupportable. If he be not born again, not only he cannot be in a state to rejoice in the pleasures of paradise any more than a deaf man to receive with transport the most exquisite music, or a blind man to admire the works of the most eminent painters; but the most ravishing delights of angels would cause in him an insupportable distaste. Yes, he would banish himself from the presence of God rather than pass an eternity in prostrating himself before the throne, and crying day and night, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts! who is, and who was, and who is to come!"

It is very easy for such a one to say with the crowd of worldlings, "I hope that God will be merciful, and open to me the gate of heaven." But it is not so easy to have just ideas of the heaven to which he flatters himself he shall go. It were to be wished that he would consider those words of our Lord, "The kingdom of God is within you." They prove clearly that paradise consists more in the heavenly dispositions of the hearts of the faithful, than in the glorious pomp of a local heaven. We see in the book of Job, that Satan, intermingling himself with the saints, presented himself with them before the throne. But was he the more happy? No, the kingdom of darkness, and consequently his own hell,

was within him. On the contrary, we may easily conceive a saint in a local hell; an Abednego in the burning fiery furnace, or a St. John in the caldron of burning oil, yet happy by virtue of the kingdom of God within them, "even righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." We conclude, that the gate of heaven must be opened upon earth by regeneration, and by the love of God, or that it will remain shut for ever; and that a local paradise would only be a sorrowful prison, to a man who was not regenerated; because, carrying nothing thither but depraved and earthly appetites and passions, and finding nothing there but spiritual and celestial objects, disgust and dissatisfaction must be the consequence; and, like Satan, his own mind would be his hell. Sinners cannot now comprehend this. But when their day of grace shall be past, and they shall be given over to a reprobate mind, they shall terribly feel the necessity of a spiritual birth, in order to be delivered from hell, and to see the kingdom of heaven; but, alas! it will be then too late.

To all these considerations, permit me to add another, which arises from the nature of the thing, and of itself claims our attention. Good sense cannot but dictate to us, that drunkards, gluttons, and impure persons; in a word, all the servants of Belial will, in that great day, follow the master whom they now serve. And is it not also clear, that the unjust, the extortioners, the covetous, and all those who defend the interests of the kingdom of darkness, under the standard of mammon, shall be excluded the kingdom of heaven, as well as their infernal leader? And can we doubt that the worldlings, whose minds are more occupied with the pleasures and comforts of this life, than with the love and glory of God, will have their portion with Satan, who is the god of the world? Beside, does not reason convince us, that a depraved soul, loaded with the weight of its own sensuality, will precipitate itself into the abyss, as a stone, pressed by its own weight, falls toward the centre? And is it not as easy to conceive, that the heaviest and dullest of the feathered animals should soar like an eagle toward the sun, as to imagine that a soul that never had its conversation in heaven; that a soul who had never received by regeneration the wings of a firm faith, a lively hope, and a burning love, should be able to follow Jesus, and ascend to heaven with the triumphant army of the sons of God? We may then conclude, that our Saviour's words are founded on eternal reason and justice, and if a man be not born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

PART FOURTH.

DIVIDED INTO TWO SECTIONS.

SECTION I.

How dangerous it is to take the regularity of our manners for the regeneration of our souls.

PERHAPS some one will say, "I am convinced that perjured persons, debauchees, murderers, and those who act unjustly, shall never see the kingdom of heaven without being born again. But I thank God I am

not of this number. From my youth I have lived in the practice of tem perance and justice: and I flatter myself I am also no stranger to reli gion. I constantly attend the Church: I read the word of God: I pray and communicate regularly. Are not these indubitable marks of my regeneration? And was I not born again of water, and of the Holy Spirit, in my baptism?"

Before I answer this question, permit me to ask some which are not less important. Have you peace with God? Have you the remission of your sins? Has God revealed his Son in you? When you examine yourself, do you feel that Christ is in you the hope of glory? Have you received the "Spirit of adoption, witnessing with your spirit that you are a child of God?" Have you ever beheld the light of God's countenance, and felt the powers of the world to come? Do you taste the heaven which faithful souls enjoy even in this life, "the love of God shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto them?" Is your soul athirst for the living God? Does it pant after him as the thirsty hart after the brooks of water? Do you count all things as dung and dross for "the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus?" Are you no longer conformed to this evil world, but do you live as a stran ger and a pilgrim upon earth? Do you press with joy toward the hea venly Jerusalem in which are already your treasure and your heart? Does your soul ascend to God, even as the flame toward heaven? Do you celebrate in all your conversation the praises of him "who has called you out of darkness into his marvellous light?" And do you find within t you the humility, the patience, the disinterestedness, the renunciation of the world, the holy joy, the tender zeal, the constant sweetness, the desire to be with Christ, the modest gravity, the unfeigned love, which

characterizes true believers?

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If these questions do not surprise you; if the Spirit of God has enabled you to sound the depths which they contain; if your most lively concern be, that you experience those heavenly dispositions only in a ch low degree; and if it be your most vehement desire that you may grow in grace every moment, until you feel all the power of the resurrection of Jesus,-you are a child of God, you are born again! Whether as Samuel you have walked in the way of the Lord from your infancy, or like St. Paul, beheld the light of the Sun of righteousness in the midst of your career, it imports not: "All is yours, for you are Christ's, and Christ is God's."

But if, far from finding in your heart and in your conversation, these marks of a new and spiritual birth, your conscience rises against you, and you are forced to confess that you feel within you rather the natural than the spiritual man, being more occupied with earth than with heaven ; with yourself and the world, than with the love of Jesus, and the glory to which he calls you; we should only lay a stumbling block in your way, if we did not cry to you in the words of our Divine Master, "Ye must be born again, or you cannot see the kingdom of God." We mean not by this, that you must reform your life even as scandalous sinners. No, you live, it may be, according to the strict rules of justice and temperance. You give alms, you fulfil the exterior duties of religion. We may believe even that, with Nicodemus, you do all this in the integrity of your heart, and as unto God. But the Lord declares that although

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