fore, they are faid to be regenerate. But all the while this was a-doing, the new man was forming, and the work of regeneration was going on; and it was perhaps a very confiderable time from the firft beginning of it, till it came to a fixed and fettled ftate. And this, I doubt not, in experience of moft perfons who are reclaimed from a vitious courfe of life, is found to be the usual and ordinary method of God's grace in their converfion. And if so, it is in vain to pretend that a thing is done in an inftant, which by fo manifold experience is found to take up a great deal of time, and to be effected by degrees.

And whereas fome men are pleased to call all this the preparatory work to regeneration, but not the regeneration itself, this is an idle contention about words. For if thefe preparations be a degree of goodnefs, and a gradual tendency towards it, then the work is begun by them, and during the continuance of them, is all the while a-doing and though it be hard to fix the point or inftant when a man juft arrives at this ftate, and not before; yet it is very fenfible when a man is in it, and this change, when it is really made, will foon difcover itfelf by plain and fenfible effects.

[4] and laftly, All this is very agreeable to the plain and conftant tenor of fcripture, Ifa. i. 16. where the Prophet exhorts to this change, he fpeaks of it as a gradual thing, Wafh ye, make ye clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; ceafe to do evil, learn to do well; that is, break off evil and vitious habits, and gain the contrary habits of virtue and goodness by the exercife of it. The fcripture fpeaks of fome as farther from a state of grace than others, Jer. xiii. 23. Can the Ethiopian change his fkin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye alfo do good, that are accuftomed to do evil; plainly declaring the great difficulty, equal almost to a natural impoffibility, of reclaiming thofe to goodnefs who have been long habituated to an evil coure. And the fcripture speaks of fome as nearer to a state of grace than others. Our Saviour tells the young man in the gofpel, who faid he had

kept

kept the commands of God from his youth, that he was not far from the kingdom of God. But now, if by an irresistible act of God's power, this change be made in an inftant, and cannot otherwife be made, how is one man nearer to a state of grace, or farther from it than another? If all that are made good, must be made fo in an instant, or not at all, then no man is nearer being made good than another; for if he were nearer to it, he might fooner be made fo: but that cannot be, if all must be made good in an inftant; for fooner than that no man can be made fo.. If the fimilitude of our being dead in fins and trefpaffes be strictly taken, no man is nearer a resurrection to a new life than another; as he that died but a week ago, is as far from being raised to life again, as he that died a thousand years ago: the refurrection of both requires an omnipotent act, and to that both are equally easy.

31.

The two parables of our Saviour, Matth. xiii. 33. are by many interpreters understood of the gradual operation of grace upon the hearts of men ; that wherein the kingdom of heaven is likened to a grain of mustard-feed, which being fown was the leaft of all feeds, but by degrees grew up to be the greatest of herbs; and to leaven, which a woman took and hid in three meafures of meal, till the whole was leavened; intimating the progrefs of God's grace, which by degrees diffufeth itfelf over the whole temper of a man's mind, into all the actions of his life. To be sure the parable of the feed which fell upon good ground, does reprefent the efficacy of the word of God, accompa nied by his grace upon the minds of men, and that is faid to Spring up, and increafe, and to bring forth fruit with patience; which furely does exprefs to us the gradual operation of God's word and grace in the renovation and change of a man's heart and life.

The New Teftament indeed fpeaks of the fudden change of many upon the first preaching of the gofpel, which I have told you before is not a standard of the ordinary method of God's grace; the not confidering of which, hath been a great caufe of all the

mistakes

miftakes in this matter. It is true, those which were thus converted to the belief of the gofpel, their faith was a virtual principle of all grace and virtue, though not formally the habit of every particular grace. St Paul himself, who was a prime inftance of this kind; fpeaks as if he acquired the grace of contentment by great confideration, and diligent care of himself in feveral conditions; not as if the habit of this grace had been infufed into him at once, Phil. iv. 11. 12. I have learned in whatsoever State I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abafed, and I know how to abound: every where, and in all things I am inftructed, both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to fuffer need. And thus I have done with the first thing I propounded to confider, namely, the true and just importance of this metaphor of the new creation. The two particulars which remain, I fhall, by God's affiftance, finish in my next difcourfe.

SERM O N CX.

Of the nature of regeneration, and its ne ceffity, in order to juftification and falvation..

GAL. vi. 15:

For in Chrift Jefus, neither circumcifion availeth any thing, nor uncircumcifion, but a new creature.

The fifth fermon on this text.

HE obfervation I am ftill upon from thefe words

THE this, viz. That in the Chriftian religion no

thing will avail to our juftification, but the renovation of our hearts and lives, expreffed here by a new creature. In treating of which, I propofed the doing of three things.

I. To fhew the true import of this metaphor of a

new creature.

2. To fhew that this is the great condition of our juftification; and,

3. That it is highly reasonable that it fhould be so. In treating of the firft of thefe particulars, I have confidered fome doctrines as founded upon this metaphor, which I have fhewn at large not only to have no foundation in fcripture, or reafon, or experience, but also to be very unreasonable in themselves, and contrary to the plain and conftant tenor of fcripture, and to the ordinary method of God's grace in the regeneration of men, whether by a religious and vir tuous education, or in thofe who are reclaimed from a notorious wicked courfe of life. And that I have fo long infifted upon this argument, and handled it in a more contentious way than is ufual with me, did not proceed from any love to controverfy, which I am less fond of every day than another; but from a great defire to put an end to these controverfies, and: quarrellings in the dark, by bringing them to a clear ftate and plain iffue, and likewise to undeceive good. men concerning fome current notions and doctrines, which I do really believe to be difhonourable to God, and contrary to the plain declarations of fcripture, and a cause of great perplexity and discomfort to the minds of men, and a real difcouragement to the refolutions and endeavours of becoming better. Upon which confiderations I was ftrongly urgent to fearch thefe doctrines to the bottom, and to contribute what in me lay, to the refcuing of good men from the dif quiet and intanglement of them.

I will conclude this matter with a few cautions, not unworthy to be remembered by us: That we would be careful fo to afcribe all good to God, that we be fure we afcribe nothing to him that is evil, or any wife unworthy of him: That we do not make him the fole author of our falvation, in fuch a way as will unavoidably charge upon him the final impenitency and ruin of a great part of mankind: That we do not fo magnify the grace of God, as to make his. precepts.

precepts and exhortations fignify nothing; fuch as thefe, Make ye new hearts, and new fpirits; Strive to enter in at the ftrait gate; where, if by the ftrait gate be meant the difficulty of our firft entrance upon a religious course, that is, of our converfion and regeneration, I cannot imagine how it is poffible to reconcile our being merely paffive in this work, and doing nothing at all in it, with our Saviour's precept of ftriving to enter in at the trait gate; unlefs to be very active, and to be merely paffive, about the fame thing, be all one, and an earnest contention and endeavour be the fame thing with doing nothing: Again, That we do not make the utmost degeneracy and depravation which men ever arrived at by the greateft abufe of themfelves, and the most vile and wicked practices, the fandard of an unregenerate ftate, and of the common condition of all men by na ture: And, laftly, That we do not make fome particular inftances in fcripture, of the ftrange and fudden converfion of fome perfons, (as namely of St Paul and the jailor, in the Acts), the common rule and measure of every man's converfion; fo that un lefs a man be as it were ftruck down by a light and power from heaven, and taken with a fit of trem bling, and frighted almoft out of his wits, or find in himfelf fomething equal to this, he can have no af furance of his converfion; whereas a much furer judgement may be made of the fincerity of a man's converfion, by the real effects of this change, than by the manner of it. This our Saviour hath taught us, by that apt refemblance of the operation of God's Spirit to the blowing of the wind, of the original caufe whereof, and of the reafon of its ceafing or continuance, and why it blows ftronger or gentler, this way or that way, we are altogether ignorant; but that it is, we are fenfible from the found of it: John iii. 8. The wind bloweth where it lifteth, and thou heareft the found of it, but canft not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth: fo is every one that is born of the Spirit. The effects of God's Holy Spirit in the regeneration of men are fenfible, though the manner and degrees of his operation upon the fouls of men

are