For, 1. It is possible this course may succeed with them. If you do what you can, it may be, God will do for you what you cannot do for yourselves. This is sufficient to determine a man in a matter of the utmost importance, such as this is, Acts viii. 22, Pray God, if perhaps the thought of thy heart may be forgiven thee." Joel ii. 14, “Who knoweth if he will return ?" If success may be, the trial should be. If, in a wreck at sea, all the sailors and passengers betake themselves each to a broken board for safety; and one of them should see all the rest perish, notwithstanding their utmost endeavour to save themselves: yet the very possibility of escaping by that means, would determine that one still to do his best with his board. Why then do not you reason with yourselves, as the four lepers did, who sat at the gate of Samaria ? 2 Kings vii. 3, 4. Why do you not say, "If we sit still," not doing what we can, "we die;" let us put it to a trial; if we be saved, “we shall live;" if not we shall but die?" 2. It is probable this course may succeed; God is good and merciful; he loves to surprise men with his grace, and is often "found of them that sought him not," Isa. lxv. 1. If you do this, you are so far in the road of your duty; and you are using the means, which the Lord is wont to bless, for men's spiritual recovery: you lay yourselves in the way of the great Physician; and so it is probable you may be healed. Lydia went, with others, to the place "where prayer was wont to be made;" and "the Lord opened her heart," Acts xvi. 13, 14. You plough and sow, though nobody can tell you for certain that you will get so much as your seed again: you use means for the recovery of your health, though you are not sure they will succeed. In these cases probability determines you; and why not in this also? Importunity, we see, does very much with men: therefore pray, meditate, desire help of God; be much at the throne of grace, supplicating for grace; and do not faint. Though God regard you not, who in your present state are but one mass of sin, universally depraved, and vitiated in all the powers of your soul; yet he may regard prayer, meditation, and the like means of his own appointment, and he may bless them to you.-Wherefore, if you will not do what you can, you are not only dead, but you declare yourselves unworthy of eternal life.

To conclude. Let the saints admire the freedom and power of grace, which came to them in their helpless condition, made their chains fall off, the iron gate to open to them; raised the fallen creatures, and brought them out of the state of sin and wrath, wherein they would have lain and perished, had not they been mercifully visited. Let the natural man be sensible of his utter inability to

recover himself. Know, that thou art without strength and canst not come to Christ, till thou be drawn. Thou art lost, and canst not help thyself. This may shake the foundation of your hopes, if you never saw your absolute need of Christ and his grace, but think to contrive for yourself by your civility, morality, drowsy wishes, and duties; and by a faith and repentance, which have sprung out of your natural powers, without the power and efficacy of the grace of Christ. O be convinced of your absolute need of Christ, and his overcoming grace; believe your utter inability to recover yourself; that so you may be humbled, shaken out of your self-confidence, and lie down in dust and ashes, groaning out your miserable case before the Lord. A proper sense of your natural impotence, the impotence of depraved human nature, would be a step towards a delivery.

Thus far of man's natural state, the state of entire depravation.

STATE III.

THE STATE OF GRACE.

PART I.

ON REGENERATION.

1 PETER i. 23,

Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.

WE proceed now to the state of grace, the state of begun recovery of human nature, into which all that shall partake of eternal happiness are translated, sooner or later, while in this world. It is the result of a gracious change made upon those who shall inherit eternal life which change may be taken up in these two particulars : 1. In opposition to their natural real state, the state of corruption, there is a change made upon them in regeneration; whereby their nature is changed. 2. In opposition to their natural relative state, the state of wrath, there is a change made upon them in their union with the Lord Jesus Christ; by which they are placed beyond the reach of condemnation. These, therefore, regeneration and union with Christ, I desire to treat on as the great and comprehensive changes on a sinner, bringing him into the state of grace.

The first of these we have in the text; together with the outward and ordinary means by which it is brought about. The apostle here, to excite the saints to the study of holiness, and particularly of brotherly love, puts them in mind of their spiritual original. He tells them that they were born again; and that of incorruptible seed, the word of God. This shows them to be brethren, partakers of the same new nature: which is the root from which holiness, and particularly brotherly love, springs. We have been once born sinners we must be born again, that we may be saints. The simple word signifies" to be begotten;" and so it may be read, Matth. xi. 11; "to be conceived," Matt. i. 20; and "to be born," Matt. ii. 1. Accordingly, the compound word, used in the text, may be taken in its full latitude, the last idea presupposing the two former so regeneration is a supernatural real change on the whole man, fitly compared to the natural birth, as will afterwards appear. The

ordinary means of regenaration, called the "seed," whereof the new creature is formed, is not corruptible seed. Of such, indeed our bodies are generated: but the spiritual seed of which the new creature is generated, is incorruptible; namely, "the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever." The sound of the word of God passeth, even as other sounds do; but the word lasteth, liveth, and abideth, in respect of its everlasting effects, on all upon whom it operates. This "word, which by the gospel is preached unto you," ver. 25, impregnated by the Spirit of God, is the means of regeneration and by it dead sinners are raised to life.

DOCTRINE. All men in the state of grace, are born again. All gracious persons, namely, such as are in a state of favour with God, and endowed with gracious qualities and dispositions, are regenerate persons. In discoursing on this subject, I shall shew, What regeneration is; next, Why it is so called; and then apply the doctrine. I. Of the Nature of regeneration.

For the better understanding of the nature of regeneration, take this along with you, that as there are false conceptions in nature, so there are also in grace: by these many are deluded, mistaking some partial changes made upon them, for this great and thorough change. To remove such mistakes, let these few things be considered: (1.) Many call the church their mother, whom God will not own to be his children, Cant. i. 6. "My mother's children," that is, false brethren, were angry with me." All that are baptized, are not born again. Simon was baptized, yet still "in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity," Acts viii. 13, 23. Where Christianity is the religion of the country, many are called by the name of Christ, who have no more of him than the name: and no wonder, for the devil had his goats among Christ's sheep, in those places where but few professed the Christian religion, 1 John ii. 19, "They went out from us, but they were not of us." (2.) Good education is not regeneration. Education may chain up men's lusts, but cannot change their hearts. A wolf is still a ravenous beast, though it be in chains. Joash was very devout during the life of his good tutor Jehoiada; but afterwards he quickly shewed what spirit he was of, by his sudden apostasy, 2 Chron. xxiv. 2-18. Good example is of mighty influence to change the outward man: but that change often goes off, when a man changes his company; of which the world affords many sad instances. (3.) A turning from open profanity, to civility and sobriety, falls short of this saving change. Some are, for a while, very loose, especially in their younger years; but at length they reform, and leave their profane courses. Here is a change, yet only such as may be found in men utterly void of the

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grace of God, and whose righteousness is so far from exceeding, that it doth not come up to the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees. (4.) One may engage in all the outward duties of religion, and yet not be born again. Though lead be cast into various shapes, it remains still but a base metal. Men may escape the pollutions of the world, and yet be but dogs and swine, 2 Pet. ii. 20-22. All the external acts of religion are within the compass of natural abilities. Yea, hypocrites may have the counterfeit of all the graces of the Spirit for we read of "true holiness," Eph. iv. 24; and "faith unfeigned," 1 Tim. i. 5; which shews us that there is counterfeit holiness, and a feigned faith. (5.) Men may advance to a great deal of strictness in their own way of religion, and yet be strangers to the new birth, Acts xxvi. 5, "After the most straitest sect of our religion, I lived a Pharisee." Nature has its own unsanctified strictness in religion. The Pharisees had so much of it, that they looked on Christ as little better than a mere libertine. A man whose conscience has been awakened, and who lives under the felt influence of the covenant of works, what will he not do that is within the compass of natural abilities? It is a truth, though it came out of a hellish mouth, that "skin for skin, yea all that a man hath will he give for his life," Job ii. 4. (6.) A person may have sharp soul-exercises and pangs, and yet die in the birth. Many "have been in pain," that have but, "as it were, brought forth wind." There may be sore pangs of conscience, which turn to nothing at last. Pharaoh and Simon Magus had such convictions, as made them to desire the prayers of others for them. Judas repented himself: and, under terrors of conscience, gave back his ill-gotten pieces of silver. All is not gold that glitters. Trees may blossom fairly in the spring, on which no fruit is to be found in the harvest and some have sharp soul-exercises, which are nothing but foretastes of hell.

The new birth, however in appearance hopefully begun, may be marred two ways. Some have sharp convictions for a while but these go off, and they become as careless about their salvation, and as profane as ever, and usually worse than ever; "their last state is worse than their first," Matt. xii. 45. They get awakening grace, but not converting grace; and that goes off by degrees, as the light of the declining day, till it issues in midnight darkness. Others come forth too soon; they are born, like Ishmael, before the time of the promise, Gen. xvi. 2; compare Gal. iv. 22, &c. They take up with a mere law work, and stay not till the time of the promise of the gospel. They snatch at consolation, not waiting till it be given them; and foolishly draw their comfort from the law that wounded them. They apply the healing plaster to themselves, before their