then, and shake off your lethargy: consider yourself as a sinner on the brink of perdition. Know your danger, and let the knowledge of it influence your conduct. Who, in the instant of peril, stays to reason upon the difficulty of avoiding it, or on natural and moral impossibility? It is a moment in which every faculty is called into exercise, when we cease to speculate and begin to act. Be this your example. Call upon God. Use the means of grace without embarrassing yourself by inquiring into subtle questions which none can thoroughly understand. Thus, and thus only, can you escape the wrath to come. But if you persist in attempting nothing, because nothing can be accomplished but by the power of God, what can you expect but to perish, as despisers of the grace which has been offered through Jesus Christ?

2. Let this doctrine teach us humility and dependence upon Christ.-Far be it from me, to minister to the pride of our corrupt nature by an exaggerated representation of our own strength. All power is from God; and our conviction of this truth should be evident by our earnestness in seeking the Divine assistance. Beware of entertaining high thoughts of yourself, or of expecting to do any thing acceptable to God; but by his especial grace working in you to will and to do. Prove that you believe the doctrine of man's inability by the disposition in which you enter upon any good work. Let it be with fervent prayer to God for ability. Proceed in the execution of it, with a constant dependence upon the grace of Christ, and with deep humility of spirit. And when you look back upon any act of holy obedience, see that you do not cherish pride and self-exaltation; but with all lowliness of mind, render your thanksgiving to God, whose grace has enabled the unworthiest and weakest of his servants to glorify his Name.

3. Let us derive from this subject encouragement in seeking to know God; and in endeavouring to serve him. The legitimate knowledge of our own weakness

is given by God. He imparts it to those who faithfully strive against sin, who read the Scriptures with diligence, and stedfastly use the means of grace. I say the legitimate knowledge; for there is a spurious knowledge of our own inability, which arises merely from the indulgence of our corrupt propensities. Such is his knowledge, who yields to his sins because he loves them, who neither strives for victory over his depraved nature nor seriously wishes to be delivered from its powér. This kind of knowledge can produce no salutary effect. It generates only inactivity and self-indulgence. But the legitimate knowledge of our inability, though it is given to humble man, yet is given to encourage him also: to encourage him to apply to a gracious God, who has sent his Son to redeem us, and his Spirit to help our infirmities. Be emboldened then, notwithstanding the sense of your weakness, to hope in the Lord, and to put your trust in his power and grace. Look to him with renewed earnestness and confidence: trust in his grace, and rely upon his promises: and the strength of Christ will be made perfect in the weakness of man, and the glory of the Lord be displayed, where our own insufficiency is most deeply felt and acknowledged.

SERMON VI.

ON THE CONNEXION BETWEEN REGENERATION AND OTHER DOCTRINES OF THE GOSPEL.

John iii. 1-3.

There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a Teacher come from God; for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

WHEN a person, claiming so high a title as that of the Son of God, proposes to us a new religion, grounded upon the evidence of various miracles; and declares, that, according to their reception or rejection of it, mankind shall be saved or perish for ever; it is highly incumbent upon us clearly to understand what are its characteristic doctrines and peculiar genius, and wherein it essentially differs from others religions which have been received in the world. The curiosity of Nicode

mus, therefore, was laudable; and the inquiry he made was proper and important. He had seen Jesus perform such miracles as indisputably proved that God was with him; and he considered those miracles as attestations to the truth of the doctrines he delivered. "We know," says he, "that Thou art a Teacher come from God." But though he was persuaded of this, he does not appear yet to have been satisfied respecting the peculiar nature of the doctrine of Christ; and he therefore comes to him by night, to seek information on that subject.

In answer to his inquiry, our Lord without further preface, lays down with a solemn asservation, a doctrine so intimately connected with every other part of Christianity, that it may be justly called the fundamental article of the Christian faith: and further to enforce the practical observance of this great truth, he declares, that except a person experienced the change of which he spoke, he could not enter the kingdom of God.

Regeneration has, by some, been supposed to mean little more than the being admitted into the church by the act of baptism. I shall not on this occasion enter into the refutation of this doctrine, which I think is supported neither by reason nor Scripture. It will be sufficient for my present purpose to observe, that this supposition would degrade the character of the Most High, since it represents him as punishing with eternal destruction the neglect of an appointed rite; and that it is derogatory to the person and mission of our Redeemer, who is thus exhibited as enforcing with the utmost solemnity, and by the most awful sanctions, the observance of an outward ceremony.

Baptism is, however, both a type or figure of regeneration, and in some measure connected with it. "Except a man be born of water and the Spirit;" that is, unless a man be admitted into the spiritual church of Christ, by that new birth of which the rite of baptism is illustrative; "he cannot enter into the kingdom

of God." It is, indeed, at once a great evidence of the truth of the doctrine of regeneration, and strong illustration of its importance, that the rite by which we are admitted into the Christian Church, bears so close an analogy and reference to it.

Some, whose interpretation of this doctrine has been substantially consistent with the word of God: have yet, in their statements, exceeded the limits of scriptural truth, and have made many rash and unwarrantable assertions on this subject. Yet, however injurious such errors may be, the danger of the present times arises not so much from enthusiasm, as from an indifference to spiritual things. There is a sober sense of the doctrine, in which good men have been generally agreed; and, taken in this sense, it is justly ranked as one of the most important of Christianity, securing the interests of true holiness, equally from the carelessness of the world and the abuse of the enthusiast. This sense I cannot better express, than in the words of our Church, wherein the "outward and visible sign" of baptism is represented to signify "an inward and spiritual grace;" viz. "a death unto sin and a new birth unto righteousness;" for being by nature born in sin, and the children of wrath, we are hereby made the children of grace.

The doctrine, thus interpreted, I propose, as the subject of our present consideration. It is not my intention to enter into an explanation of the new birth, but to offer some remarks on its genius and character, and to explain how Christianity is distinguished from other religions by this important article of faith.

I. The foundation of the doctrine of regeneration, is the acknowledgment of human depravity; for it is necessary we should be born again of the Spirit, only because we are totally corrupt in our natural state, Now the character which Christianity thus gives of mankind, is not to be discovered in any other religious system. I except, indeed, the Jewish religion, in which all the particular doctrines of Christianity were ob

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