in the most endearing manner in the record he has made, and the teftimony he has given concerning his Son: For this is the record, that he has given us eternal life; and, for greater fecurity, lodged it where it must be perfectly safe, even in the hands of his blessed Son; lodged it as certainly there, as he has fent his Son to be the faviour of the world; and not only allowed, but commanded, every man, without exception, to receive him, and to trust in him, not only for pardon, but eternal life, in a perfect conformity to the standard of perfection, Jefus the Son of God, exalted as he is at the right hand of the Majesty on high. If we know this Jefus, and truft him as he deserves, we must know and believe the love of God to us, and love him who first loved us. 1 20. Regeneration, and Eternal Life. "HE grace of God which brings fal TH vation, and his love to man, have appeared in fuch a ftrong and furprifing light, in the gift he has made of Jefus Chrift, with Chrift, with not only not only pardon, but eternal life in him, that it is quite aftonishing how how any finner that hears the report of it, can be hardened to fuch a degree of perverfenefs, as to neglect so great a falvation. But experience affures us it is a common cafe, and none of us need go farther than ourselves to feel it. Our Lord lets us in to the myftery of it. The love of God, wonderful as it is, is not to be perceived but in Chrift; who hath affured us," that no man 66 can come to him, unless his heavenly "Father draw him;" or, in other words, 66 that no man can believe in him, unless it "be given him of the Father." And the reafon of this he likewife gives, viz. that none of the children of Adam have life in themfelves, but are dead in trespasses and fins, until they are quickened with that new life which is lodged in his hands. There is hardly any thing that the men of the world, even the wifeft of them, are more loath to believe: but what our Lord told Nicodemus, though it feemed an inconceiveable thing to him, yet is most certainly true, "That unless a man be born again, he can by no means enter into the king"dom of heaven;" and that is the fame with obtaining eternal life; which cannot be be but by entering the child of Adam into the fpiritual and eternal world. That there is a fpiritual and eternal world, completely provided for the fubfiftence and entertainment of created fpirits, its natural inhabitants, is as certain, as that there is a God, and fuch beings as created fpirits. But of that world we never had known, nor yet can know any thing, with tolerable certainty, but by report, and the testimony of fuch as are acquainted with it. We have no correspondence with any of the created inhabitants, and can have no information but from him who has given us hopes of being admitted there. He has given information fo far as we are capable of receiving it; but that can be no further than human language has words to exprefs, or than our world hath images to convey, fome notion of these unfeen things: for direct ideas we neither have, nor can have, of any of those things which cannot be imaged. From what falls under our obfervation in the fenfible and rational world, all our defcriptive terms are, and must be taken; and all the knowledge we can receive of that unseen world, must fubfift in pure analogy, and the refem blance blance which this of ours bears to it. And in this view we are directed to confider it as a defigned figure, or fenfible reprefentation, of eternal and unfeen things. We can fay nothing about life or being farther than we can gather from what we enjoy of them; but the things themselves are as much mystery to us as creation out of nothing. We may know how we came into this world, and enter upon life; how we are fupported and maintained in the poffeffion of it; and how we are fitted and qualified, by the powers belonging to it, for the business and enjoyments of life: and that is all we have any concern with; the giving and difpofal of life are entirely in the hand of the creator. po The life we now enjoy was originally lodged in the hands of our first father, and from him derived down to all his fterity in the courfe of what we call ordinary generation, the only method of entrance into this world. In this way all the powers neceffary for living, for taking in the proper food and nourishment for fupporting life, and raifing the man to his proper degree of ftature, and ftrength of body or mind, are conveyed. But all deVOL.I. pends 3 D pends on the connection established between us, and the material fyftem in which we subsist; the heat and light of the fun, and the air we conftantly breathe in. When this connection is broken, though there is not any particle loft, life is at an end; the man dies; and the curious bodily machinery is crumbled into its original dust. ; No body will imagine that spirits can be fupported in life by the fame means that our bodies are; but it would at once be a very grofs and dangerous miflake, to think that life is effential to them or, which is the fame thing, that they have life in themselves. There is a fpiritual system as well as a material one, and it is in dependence on, and connection with, that system, that spirits live. There, we are told, is fpirit answering our material air; and in the original languages there is but one word for both. There alfo is the light of life, and that spiritual warmth and heat in which life confifts; all of them as neceffary for fupporting the life of a fpirit, as the material light and air are for fupporting the natural life. Whenever this connection is broken, the spirit must die; that is, though the substance of it continues the fame, yet it must be incapable of exerting |