absolutely necessary to our piety and ultimate Salvation. Namely, as that personal change of heart and will,-of inward state as well as outward, - of character as well as name, of experience as well as privilege, which we have already described at large, and which, you will perceive at once, must necessarily, from its very nature, be a matter of our personal consciousness. It cannot merely take place upon us; it must be wrought in us. It cannot be passed through passively, in the unconsciousness of infancy; it must be walked through actively, with the energy of manhood. It cannot be suffered by us as recipients only; it must be achieved by us as co-workers. No man can be sanctified by proxy, or franked by ecclesiastical privilege into heaven. In ourselves personally lies the disease of sin; by ourselves personally must be experienced the remedy. There is no magic charm in Christianity, to cure its patients at a distance, or by the muttering of cabalistic words, or by the opus operatum of a sacerdotal touch. Its medicines must be lodged within the mind, and work upon the thoughts, the feelings, the desires, the will; and thus affect and alter the entire circulation of the man, the whole current of his inmost life, if he would not die but live.

Such a personal Regeneration, I re-assert, is absolutely necessary to our present Piety, and our

ultimate Salvation. For Piety is Friendship with God; but the natural relation of man is that of contrariety to God; and therefore till this contrariety be removed there can be no Piety. And Salvation is the perfecting of Friendship with God, into complete Re-union with him. It is the unlimited enjoyment of God's presence; and there can be no enjoyment of God's presence but by participation of God's character. And hence our Lord declares to Nicodemus, "Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." Not, you observe," he shall not ;" but "he cannot"in the nature of things it is impossible- there is a moral necessity for his expulsion. None of the decrees of God are arbitrary and self-willed. They are all decisions of the purest Reason, whose necessity commends itself to our own judgment, and wins from us, whenever we consider the grounds of it, our own assent. And, therefore, they are unchangeable therefore we cannot conceive them to be capable of giving way. Caprice may possibly yield to entreaty. Reason is eternally the same.

Consider then, I pray you, the essential contrast between the character of God and the natural character of man, and you will yourself pronounce the absolute necessity of a personal change upon the part of man. God is spirit, man is flesh. God is pure and holy; man is corrupt and sinful.

God is

heavenly; man is earthly. God is all majesty and glory; man is all meanness and shame. Two beings not different only but contrary; not merely with qualities disproportionate, but those qualities excluding each other, and contradictory. And what then, if these two are to be brought into friendship? What, if man would enter into fellowship with God now, in order to enter into the kingdom of God hereafter? This cannot be while that contrast remains. "For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness ?" And what, then, must be done? There must be alteration on the one part or the other. One of the contradictory characters must change. One party must give way. But can GOD change? Can He who is THE ROCK give way? Can the ETERNAL deny himself? Can He put off that nature without which he would not be God? Or can He lower himself beneath his Can He accommodate his perfections

nature? to our sinfulness? Can he abate one atom of His Spirituality - his purity-his consistency? The very thought were blasphemy! And what then must be done? Where must the change take place? In whom must the approximation be begun? I put it to your common sense -I put it to your moral judgment-What is the demand-the necessary, unavoidable, demand-which the slightest consideration of the awful contrast

between God and man forces home upon the mind? Is it not that of Jesus to Nicodemus ?"Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye MUST be born again :"- —a higher spirit must possess you- a new life must descend into you-you must die from sin and rise again unto righteousness, continually mortifying all your evil and corrupt affections, and daily proceeding in all virtue and godliness of living.

Such a personal Regeneration, then, we must have all of us—either by the gradual dawn of light upon the soul stealing over its natural darkness, and disclosing new forms of truth and beauty to the wondering mind, almost before we are conscious of its source;—or by the conscious spring of the awakened spirit out of a world of vain appearances into one of reality-from the delusive images, and the confused purposes, and hurried efforts of an earthly dream, into the distinct ideas, the wellweighed resolutions, the pure aspirations of a heavenly life, wherein God shines out upon us as the central Sun of our existence,—and all other objects are seen in his light,—and estimated with reference to Him, and in subordination to his glory. "The doctrine of Conversion," says Dr. Paley, "we must preach plainly and directly to all those who, with the name indeed of Christians, have hitherto passed their lives without any internal religion whatever : who have not at all thought upon the subject; who, a few easy and customary forms excepted,

(and which with them are mere forms,) cannot truly say of themselves that they have done one action, which they would not have done equally, if there had been no such thing as a God in the world; or that they have ever sacrificed any passion, any present enjoyment, or even any inclination of their minds, to the restraints and prohibitions of religion; with whom, indeed, religious motives have not weighed a feather in the scale against interest or pleasure. To these it is utterly necessary that we preach conversion. At this day we have not Jews and Gentiles to preach to; but these persons are really in as unconverted a state as any Jew or Gentile could be in our Saviour's time. They are no more Christians, as to any actual benefit of Christianity to their souls, than the most hardened Jew, or the most profligate Gentile was in the age of the Gospel. As to any difference at all in the two cases, the difference is all against them. These must be converted before they can be saved. The course of their thoughts must be changed, the very principles upon which they act must be changed. Considerations, which never, or which hardly ever, entered into their minds, must deeply and perpetually engage them. Views and motives, which did not influence them at all, either as checks from doing evil, or as inducements to do good, must become the views and motives which they regularly consult, and by which they are