powers they have, and do what they can. For, (1.) It is possible this course may succeed with them. If ye do what ye 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 thoughts 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 had betaken themselves each to a broken board for safety, and one of them should see all the rest perish, notwithstanding of their utmost endeavours 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 ye not reason with yourselves, as the four lepers did who sat at the gates of Samaria? 2 Kings vii. 3, 4. Why do ye 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. Ixv. 1. If ye do thus, ye are so far in the road of your duty; and ye are using the means which the Lord is wont to bless for mens spiritual recovery; ye lay yourselves in the way of the great Physician, and so it is probable ye 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. Ye plough and sow, though nobody can tell you for certain, that ye will get so much as your seed again: Ye use means for the recovery of your health, though ye 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 not you, 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 his own ordinance. Though he regards not your prayers, your meditations, &c. yet he may regard prayer, meditation, and the like means of his own appointment, and so bless them to you. Wherefore, if ye will not do what ye can ye 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 they not been mercifully visited. Let the natural man be sensible of his utter inability to recover himself. Know thou art without strength, and cannot come to Christ, till thou art drawn. Thou art lost, and cannot help thyself. This may shake the foundation of thy hopes, who never saw thy absolute need of Christ and his grace; but thinkest to shift for thyself, by thy civility, morality, drowsy wishes and duties; and by a faith and repentance, which have sprung up out of thy natural powers, without the power and efficacy of the grace of Christ. O be convinced of thy absolute need of Christ, and his overcoming grace; believe thy utter inability to recover thyself; and so thou mayest be humbled, shaken out of thy self-confidence, and lie down in dust and ashes, groaning out thy miserable case before the Lord. A kindly sense of thy natural impotency, the impotency of depraved human nature, would be a step towards a delivery. Thus far of man's natural state, the state of entire depravation. 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, (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 set beyond the reach of condemnation. These, therefore, namely, regeneration and union with Christ, I design to handle, as the great and comprehensive changes on a sinner, constituting him in 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 they were born again; and that of one incorruptible seed, the word of God. This speaks them to be brethren, partakers of the same new nature; which is the root from which holiness, and particularly brotherly love, doth spring. We are once both sinners; we must be born again, that we may de saints. The simple word signifies to be begotten; and so it may be read, Matth. xi. 11. to be conceived, Matth. i. 20. and to be born, Matth. ii. 1. Accordingly, the compound word used in the text may be taken in its full latitude, the last notion presupposing the two former; and so regenera tion is a supernatural real change on the whole man, fitly compared to natural or corporeal generation, as will afterward appear. The ordinary means of regeneration, called the seed, whereof the new creature is formed, is not corruptible seed. Of such, indeed, our bodies are gene rated; 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 are dead sinners 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 endued with gracious qualities and dispositions, are regenerate persons. In discoursing this subject, I shall shew what regeneration is: Next, Why it is so called; and then apply the doctrine. Of the Nature of Regeneration. 1. For the better understanding of the nature of rege neration, take this along with you in the first place, That as there are false conceptions in nature, so there are also in grace; and by these many are deluded, mistaking partial changes made upon them for this great and thorough change. To remove such mistakes, let these few things some 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 (i. e. 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 will be called by the name of Christ, who have no more of him but the name; and no wonder, seeing the devil had his goats among Christ's sheep, in these 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 apostacy, 2 Chron. xxiv. 2, 17, 18. Good example is of mighty influence to change the outward man; but that change often goes off, when one 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 but such an one as may be found in men, utterly void of the 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. 23. and faith unfeigned, 1 Tim. i. 5. which shews us, that there is a 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 strictest sect of our religion, I lived a Pharisee." |