weakness you shall be made strong-and being made a partaker of the Divine nature, (God giving you, by faith, a change of mind to the acknowledgment of the truth,) you shall have liberty of access to the throne of grace, and shall walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. God grant, for the adorable Immanuel's sake, that the reading of the Sacred Volume may be instrumental to the communicating these blessings to your souls. Amen. Amen.

REGENERATION.

"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."

JOHN, III. 3.

HOWEVER lightly this saying may be esteemed-however carelessly it may be heard-however negligently it may be slurred over in reading--and however the mind may be satisfied to rest in ignorance of its real meaning, and take no pains to discover it, because it is figurative; yet if the speaker be, as he truly is, "the Faithful Witness"--if this book be the record which

God hath given of his Son-this his testimony shall be verified to every soul of man, in the day when that which binds mortality to earth shall be dissolved; and it shall be illustriously displayed as the truth of God, when Jesus comes to take possession of his everlasting kingdom, and to reign with his regenerated people, for ever and ever.

It is not, my dear friends, the being born in connexion with a church, however scripturally constituted —it is not the being providentially placed under the hearing of the Divine word—it is not the having the truth as it is in Jesus, in simplicity set before your minds-it is not the being able accurately to distinguish the relation which the several parts of Scripture bear to one another-it is not the being satisfied that those doctrines which are as "the wells of salvation," and minister grace to the faithful, have really place in the Bible, and harmonize divinely together, which singly or collectively constitute a man a subject of Christ's spiritual kingdom here on earth; or which will eventually confer the privilege of joining "the general assembly and church of the first-born, and the spirits of justified men made perfect." (Heb. xii. 23.) Our blessed Master forewarned his disciples, that in his kingdom, as far as it is outwardly constituted, there are, and will be to the end, "tares" among the "wheat," or false among true professors--that there will be those who call him "Lord, Lord," who shall not be enrolled among his spiritual subjects; unto whom he will profess, in his day, (however they might

have imagined that they ministered to his glory,) that he never knew them; and to whom he will pronounce that astounding sentence of eternal banishment, "Depart from me, ye that work iniquity." (Matt. vii. 21, 23.)

My dear friends, it is greatly to be feared-alas! it is too manifest, that, in this day of loud and confident profession, when the being associated in external fellowship with Christians of known and acknowledged sincerity, is so often mistaken for "fellowship with the Father, and with his son Jesus Christ," (1 John, i. 2) multitudes are thus attached to the churches of the saints, who like Simon Magus, in external fellowship with the church at Samaria, "have neither part nor lot in the matter" (Acts, viii. 21) to whom were we faithfully, and pointedly, and personally to address the emphatic language of the text, would laugh us to scorn and perhaps there is nothing which conduces more to deceive men, or serves more (humanly speaking) to keep them blind to the vast importance of this subject, and strangers to the blessings connected with genuine discipleship, than the supposition, unscripturally founded, that they are already born again —already made children of God-and that they are already heirs of the kingdom of heaven; at the same time that they are enemies of God's glory, ignorant of his character, and dead in trespasses and sins.

Permit me to entreat your patient and serious attention to what I shall be enabled to state from this passage, in which, with all the authority and decision of Him, in whose hands were the destinies of men,

and whose was "the kingdom, and the power, and the glory," Jesus reiterates the solemn affirmation,

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Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."

I shall endeavour to be very plain, and to speak as the oracles of God; to which, and not to the fallible opinions of man, I desire to bow; with which, if the words you hear from this place agree—if being placed in the balance of the sanctuary, they be found full weight; then, upon the credit of that authority, and of that only, may they be received: whereas, if being weighed, they be found wanting— if they savour of the mind of man, and not of God, I trust that Jehovah will vindicate his own truth, and demonstrate the error.

Let us consider,

I. The meaning of the phrase" born again.”

The language is evidently figurative, but yet, not the less intelligible upon that account. It was our Lord's common habit to address the multitudes in parables-to take occasion from surrounding objects to inculcate the great truths which he came to establish, and by the use of figures with which they were familiar, to illustrate the nature and the privileges of his kingdom. This mode of instruction, even had it not the sanction of his adopting it, possesses evident advantages. The figures constantly recurring to our observation, serve to convey the mind of him who uses them when the words in which the instruction had been delivered have been forgotten or have lost their