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Whenever the prayerlefs perfon gets the Spirit of grace, he will be in hin a Spirit of fupplication, Zech. xii. 1o. It is as natural for one that is born again to fall a-praying, as for the new-born babe to fall a-crying, Acts ix. 11. Behold, he prayeth. His heart will be a temple for God, and his houfe a church. His devotion, which before was fuperficial and formal, is now spiritual and lively; forafmuch as heart and tongue are touched with a live-coal from heaven; and he rests not in the mere performing of duties, as careful only to get his tafk done; but in every duty feeking communion with God in Christ, justly confidering them as means appointed of God for that end, and reckoning himself disappointed if he miss of it. Thus far of the nature of regeneration.

The Refemblance betwixt natural and Spiritual generation.

II. I come to fhew why this change is called regeneration, a being born again. It is fo called, becaufe of the refemblance betwixt natural and fpiritual generation, which lies in the following particulars. Fift, Natural generation is a mysterious thing: and fo is fpiritual generation, John iii. 8. The wind bloweth where it lifteth, and thouheareft the found thereof, but canft not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: fo is every one that is born of the Spirit. The work of the Spirit is felt, but his way of working is a myftery we cannot comprehend. A new light is let into the mind, and the will is renewed; but how that light is conveyed thither, how the will is fettered with cords of love, and how the rebel is made a willing captive, we can no more tell, than we can tell, how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child, Ecclef. xi. 5. As a man hears the found of the wind, and finds it ftirring; but knows not where it begins, and where it ends; fo is every one that is born of the Spirit: he finds the change that is made upon him, but how it is produced, he knoweth not. One thing he may know, that whereas he was blind, now he feeth: but the feed of grace doth Spring, and grow up, he knoweth not how, Mark iv. 26, 27.

Secondly, In both, the creature comes to a being, it had not before. The child is not, till he be generate; and a man has no gracious being, no being in grace, till he be regenerate. Regeneration is not fo much the curing of a fick man, as the quickning of a dead man, Eph.. ii. 1, 5. Man in his depraved state is a mere non-entity in grace: and is brought into a new being, by the power of him, who calleth things that be not, as though they were; being created in Jefus Chrift unto good works, Eph. ii. 10. Therefore our Lord Jefus, to give ground of hope to the Laodiceans, in their wretched and miferable state, propofeth himself as the beginning of the creation of God, Rev. iii. 14. Namely, the active beginning of it; for all things were made by him at first, John i. 3. From whence they might gather, that feeing he made them when they were nothing, he could make them over again, when worse than nothing; the fame hand that made them his creatures, could make them new creatures.

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Thirdly, As

Thirdly, As the child is merely paffive in generation, fo is the child of God in regeneration. The one contributes nothing to its own generation; neither does the other contribute any thing, by way of efficiency, to its own regeneration: for tho' a man may lay himfelf down at the pool: yet he hath no hand in moving of the water, no efficacy in performing of the cure. One is born the child of a king, another the child of a beggar: the child has no hand at all in this difference. God leaves fome in their depraved ftate; others he brings into a state of grace or regeneracy. If thou be thus honoured, no thanks to thee; for who maketh thee to differ from another? 1 Cor. iv. 7. Fourthly, There is a wonderful contexture of parts in both births. Admirable is the ftructure of man's body, in which there is fuch a variety of organs nothing wanting, nothing fuperfluous. The Pfalmift confidering his own body, looks on it as a piece of marvellous work: I am fearfully and wonderfully made, faith he, Pfal. cxxxix. 14. and curiously wrought in the lower parts of the earth, ver. 15. That is, in the womb, where I know not how the bones do grow, more than I know what is a-doing in the lowest parts of the earth. In natural generation, we are curiously wrought, as a piece of needle-work; as the word imports; even fo it is in regeneration, Pfal. xlv. 14. She fhall he brought unto the King, in raiment of needle-work, raiment curicufly wrought. It is the fame word in both texts. And what that raiment is, the Apoftle tells us, Eph. iv. 24. It is the new man, which, after God, is created in righteoufnefs and true holiness. That is the raiment, he faith, in the fame place, we must put on; not excluding the imputed righteoufness of Chrift. Both are curioully wrought, as mafter-pieces of the manifold wifdom of God. O the wonderful contexture of graces in the new creature! O glorious creature, newmade, after the image of God! It is grace for grace in Christ, which makes up the new man, John i 16. Even as in bodily generation, the child has member for member in the parent; has every member the parent has, in a certain proportion.

Fifthly, All this, in both cafes, hath its rife from that which is in itfelf very finall and inconfiderable. O the power of God, in making fuch a creature of the corruptible feed! and much more in bringing forth the new creature from fo fmall beginnings: it is as the little cloud like a man's hand, which spread' till heaven was black with clouds. and wind, and there was a great rain, 1 Kings xiii. 44, 45. A man gets a word at a fermon, which hundreds befide him hear and let flip: but it remains with him, works in him, and never leaves him, till the little word be turned up-fide-down by it; that is, till he become a new man. It is like the vapour that got up into Ahasuerus's head, and cut off fleep from his eyes, Efther vi 1. which proved a spring of fuch motions, as never ceafed, until Mordecai, in royal pomp, was brought on horfe-back through the ftreet, proud Haman trudging at his foot; the fame Haman afterwards hanged, Mordecai advanced, and the church delivered from Haman's hellish plot. The grain of mustard

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feed becometh a tree, Matth. xiii. 21, 22. things out of finall beginnings.

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Sixthly, Natural-generation is carried on by degrees, Job x. 1o. Haft thou not poured me out as milk, and cruddled me like cheese? So is regeneration. It is with the foul, ordinarily, in regeneration, as with the blind man cured by our Lord, who first faw men as trees walking, afterwards faw every man clearly, Matth. viii. 23, 24, 25. It is true, regeneration being, ftrictly speaking, a paffing from death to life, the foul is quickned in a moment: like as, when the embryo is brought to perfection in the womb, the foul is infufed into the lifelefs lump. Nevertheless, we may imagine fomewhat like conception in spiritual generation, whereby the foul is prepared for quickening: and the new creature is capable of growth, 1 Pet. ii. 2. and of life more abundantly, John x. 10.

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Seventhly, In both there are new relations. The regenerate may call GOD, Father: for they are his children, John i. 12, 13. begotten of him, 1 Pet. i. 3. The bride, the Lamb's wife, (that is the church). is their mother, Gal. iv. 27. They are related, as brethren, as fifters, to angels and glorified faints, the family of heaven. They are of the heavenly stock: and the meaneft of them, the bafe things of the world, 1Cor i. 28. the kinlefs things, as the word imports, who cannot boast of the blood that runs in their veins, are yet, by their new birth, near of kin with the excellent of the earth.

Eighthly, There is a likenefs betwixt the parent and the child. Every thing that generates, generates its like; and the regenerate are partakers of the divine nature, 2 Pet. i. 4. the moral perfections of the divine nature are in measure and degree communicated to the renewed foul, and thus the divine image is retrieved; fo that, as the child refembles the father, the new creature refembles God himself, being holy as he is holy.

Laftly, As there is no birth without pain, both to the mother and to the child; fo there is great pain in bringing forth the new creature. The children have more or lefs of thefe birth-pains, whereby they are pricked in their heart, Acts ii. 37. The foul has fore pains when under conviction and humiliation, A wounded Spirit who can bear? The mother is pained, Zion travails, Ifa. Ixvi. S. the fighs, groans, crieth, and hath hard labour, in her minifters and members, to bring forth children to her Lord, Gal. iv. 19. My little children, of whom I travail in birth again, until Chrift be formed in you. And never was a mother more feelingly touched with joy, that a man-child was born into the world, than the is upon the new birth of her children. But what is more remarkable than all this, we read, not only of our Lord Jefus Chrift's travail, (or toil of foul) Ifa. liii. 11. but (what lies more directly to our purpofe) of his pains, or pangs, as of one travelling in child-birth; fo the word ufed Acts ii. 24. properly fignifies. Well may he call the new creature, as Rachel called her dear-bought fon, Benoni, i.e. The son of my forrow: and, as the called another, Naphtali,

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i.e. my wrestling for the pangs of that travail put him to ftrong crying and tears, Heb. v. 7. yea, in an agony and bloody fweat, Luke xxii. 44. And, in the end, he died of these pangs, they became to him the pains of death, Acts ii. 24.

The Doctrine of Regeneration applied.

USE I. By what is faid, you may try whether you are in the ftate of grace or not. If ye be brought out of the ftate of wrath or ruin, into the state of grace or falvation; ye are new creatures, ye are born again. But ye will fay, "How fhall we know whether 66 we be born again or not?" Anf. Do you ask me, if the fun were rifen, and how you fhould know, whether it were rifen, or not? I would bid you look up to the heavens, and fee it with your eyes. And would you know if the light be rifen in your heart? Look in, and fee. Grace is light, and discovers itself. Look into thy mind, fee if it has been illuminate in the knowledge of God. Haft thou been inwardly taught what God is? Were thine eyes ever turned inward to fee thyself, the finfulness of thy depraved ftate; the corruption of thy nature; the fins of thy heart and life? Waft thou ever let into a view of the exceeding finfulness of fin? Have thine eyes feen King Jefus in his beauty; the manifold wifdom of God in him, his tranfcendent excellency, and abfolute fulness and fufficiency, with the vanity and emptiness of all things elfe? Next, What change is there on thy will? Are the fetters taken off, wherewith it was fometimes bound up from moving heavenwards? And has thy will got a new fet? Doft thou find an averfion to fin, and a proneness to good wrought in thy heart? Is thy foul turned towards God as thy chief end; is thy will new-molded, into fome measure of conformity to the preceptive and providential will of God: Art thou heartily reconciled to the covenant of peace, and fixedly difpofed to the receiving of Chrift, as he is offered in the gofpel? And as to a change on your affections, are they rectified, and placed on right objects? Are your defires going on after God? Are they 66 to his name, and remembrance of him ?” Ifa. xxvi. 8. Are your hopes in him? Is your love fet upon him, and your hatred fet againft fin? Does your offending a good God affect your heart with forrow, and do you fear fin more than fuffering? Are your affections regulated? Are they, with respect to created comforts brought down, as being too high: and with refpect to God in Chrift, fcrewed up, as being too low? Has he the chief feat in your heart? And are all your lawful worldly comforts and enjoyments laid at his feet? Has thy confcience been enlightned and awakened, refufing all cafe, but from the application of the blood of a Redeemer? Is thy memory fanctified, thy body confecrated to the fervice of God? And art thou now walking in newness of life? Thus ye may difcover, whether ye are born again or not.

But,

But, for your further help in this matter, I will difcourfe a little of another fign of regeneration, namely, The love of the brethren; an evidence whereby the weakest and moft timorous faints have often had comfort, when they could have little or no confolation from other marks propofed to them. This the Apostle lays down, 1 John iii. 14. " We know that we have paffed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.' It is not to be thought, that the Apostle, by the brethren in this place, means brethren by a common relation to the first Adam, but to the second Adam, Christ Jefus: becaufe, however true it is, that univerfal benevolence, a good-will to the whole race of mankind, takes place in the renewed foul, being a lively lineament of the divine image; yet the whole context fpeaks of thofe that are the fons of God, ver. 1, 2. children of God, ver. 10. born of God, ver. 9. diftinguishing betwixt the children of God, and the children of the devil, ver. 10. betwixt these that are of the devil, ver. 8, 12. and thefe that are of God, ver. 10. And the text itself comes in as a reason why we should not marvel that the world hates the brethren, the children of God, ver. 13. How can we marvel at it, feeing the love of the brethren is an evidence of one's having paffed from death to life? And therefore it were abfurd to look for that love amongst the men of the world, who are dead in trefpaffes and fin. They cannot love the brethren: no marvel then that they hate them. Wherefore

it is plain, that by brethren here, are meant brethren by regeneration. Now, in order to fet this mark of regeneration in a true light, confider these three things. (1) This love to the brethren, is a love to them as fuch. Then do we love them in the fenfe of the text, when the grace, or image of God in them, is the chief motive of our love to them. When we love the godly for their godliness, the faints for their fanctity or holiness: then we love God in them, and fo may conclude, we are born of God; for every one that loveth him that begat, loveth him also that is begotten of him, 1 John v. 1. Hypocrites may love laints, on account of a civil relation to them; becaufe of their obliging converfation; for their being of the fame opinion with themselves in religious matters: and on many other fuch like accounts, whereby wicked men may be induced to love the godly. But happy they, who can love them for naked grace in them; for their heaven-born temper and difpofition; who can pick this pearl out of a dunghill of infirmities in, and about them; lay hold on it, and love them for it. (2.) It is a love that will be given to all, in whom the grace of God appears. They that love one faint, because he is a faint, will have love to all the faints, Eph. i. 15. They will love all, who to their difcerning, bear the image of God. They that cannot love a gracious perfon in rags, but confine their tove to thefe of them who wear gay cloathing, have not this love to the brethren in them. Thefe who can confine their love to a party, to whom God has not confined his grace, are fouls too narrow to be put among the children. In what

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