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FROM ANIMAL MAN TO SPIRITUAL MAN.

"What is the state of a soul that is born again; and in what does regeneration consist? In general, we may say, it is that great change by which man passes from a state of nature to a state of grace. He was an animal man; in being born again he becomes a spiritual man. His natural birth had made him like to fallen Adam—to the old man, against whom God had pronounced the sentence of death, seeing it is the wages of sin; but his spiritual birth makes him like to Jesus Christ—to the new man—which is created according to God in righteousness and true holiness. He was before born a child of wrath— proud, sensual, and unbelieving, full of the love of the world and of self-love, a lover of money and of earthly glory and pleasure, rather than a lover of God; but, by regeneration, he is become a child and an heir of God, and a joint heir with Christ. The humility, the purity, the love of Jesus, is shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Spirit which is given to him, making him bear the image of the Second Adam. He is in Christ a new creature; old things are passed away, all things are become new. All the powers and faculties of his soul are renovated. His understanding, heretofore covered with darkness, is illuminated by the experimental knowledge which he has of God and of His Son Jesus Christ. His conscience, asleep and insensible, awakes and speaks with a fidelity irreproachable. His hard heart is softened and broken. His will, stubborn and perverse, yields, and becomes conformable to the will of God. His passions, unruly, and earthly, and sensual, submit to the conduct of grace, and turn of themselves to objects invisible and heavenly. And the members of his body, servants more or less to iniquity, are now employed in the service of righteousness unto holiness."

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TASTES THAT CORRESPOND.

"To rejoice in the pleasures that are at God's right hand, it is needful to have senses and a taste that correspond thereto. The swine trample pearls under their feet. The elevated discourse of a philosopher is insupportable to a stupid mechanic; and an ignorant peasant, introduced into a circle of men of learning and taste, is disgusted, sighs after his village, and declares no hour ever appeared to him so long. It would be the same to a man who is not regenerated, if we could suppose that God would so far forget His truth as to open to him the gate of Heaven. He would be incapable of those transports of love which make the happiness of the glorified saints. It would be insupportable for him now to meditate one hour on the perfections of God; what then shall He do among the cherubim and seraphim, and the spirits of just men made perfect, who draw from thence their ravishing delights? He loves the pleasures and comforts of an animal life; but are these the same with the exercises of the spiritual life? His conversations, his readings, his amusements, as void of edification as of usefulness, rarely fatigue him; but an hour of meditation or prayer is insufferable. If he be not born again, not only he cannot be in a state to rejoice in the pleasures of Paradise, any more than a deaf man to receive with transport the most exquisite music; but the ravishing delights of angels would cause in him an insupportable distaste. Yes, he would banish himself from the presence of God rather than pass an eternity in prostrating himself before the throne, and crying day and night, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts, who is, and who was, and who is to come! We conclude that the gate of Heaven must be opened upon earth by regeneration, and by the love of God, or that it will remain shut for ever; and that a local paradise would be only a sorrowful prison to a man not regenerated, because, carrying nothing thither but depraved and earthly appetites and passions, and finding nothing there but spiritual and celestial objects, disgust and dissatisfaction would be the consequence; and, like Satan, his own mind would be his hell."

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WISE WORDS TO THE SINNER.

"I conjure you by the majesty of that God before whom angels rejoice with trembling; by the terror of the Lord, who may speak to you in thunder, and this instant require your soul of you; by the tender mercies, the bowels of compassion of your Heavenly Father, which are moved in your favour, all ungrateful as you are! I conjure you by the incarnation of the Eternal Word, by whom you were created; by the humiliation, the pains, the temptations, the tears, the bloody sweat, the agony, the cries of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ! I conjure you by the bonds, the insults, the scourgings, the robes of derision, the crown of thorns, the ponderous cross the nails, the instruments of death which pierced His torn body; by the arrows of the Almighty, the poison of which drank up His spirit; by that mysterious stroke of Divine wrath, and by those unknown terrors which forced Him to exclaim, 'My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me!' I conjure you by the interests of your immortal soul, and by the unseen accidents which may precipitate you into eternity; by the bed of death, upon which you will soon be stretched, and by the useless sighs which you will then pour out, if your peace be not made with God! I conjure you by the sword of Divine justice, and by the sceptre of grace; by the sound of the last trumpet, and by the sudden appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ, with ten thousand of His holy angels; by that august tribunal, at which you will appear with me, and which shall decide our lot for ever; by the vain despair of hardened sinners, and by the unknown transports of regenerate souls! I conjure you from this instant work out your salvation with fear and trembling! Enter by the door into the sheepfold. Sell all to purchase the pearl of great price. Count all things dung and dross in comparison of the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Let Him not go till He blesses you with that faith which justifies, and that sanctification without which no man shall see the Lord. And, soon transported from this vale of tears into the mansions of the just made perfect, you shall cast your crown of immortal glory at the feet of Him that sitteth upon the throne, and before the Lamb who has redeemed us by His blood: to whom be the blessing, and the honour, and the glory, and the power for ever and ever! Amen."

THE END