2. The civil and ingenious,Hhat have been well educated and brought up, need also to be born again : Mat. v. 20, ' Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.' Who more exact than they as to external conformity ? There is a strait gate that you are to ])ass through, and that is of repentance and the new creature, Mat. vii. 14. Oh, how many are deceived with this common error, that sin and holiness is nothing but moral virtue and vice, spiritual regeneration nothing else but good education and philosophical institution, godliness nothing but honest behaviour, Christianity nothing but a well acquired civility ! These have no change of nature. Alas ! these differ as the shadow and substance. The earth bringeth forth grass and baser flowers of itself, but it must be tilled to bring forth corn and finer flowers. There is a work of the Spirit, with respect to the two cove- nants, carried on. You must be born again, or you cannot see the kingdom of God. Regeneration signifieth such a change, that a man,
^ That is, ' ingenuous.' — Ed.
VeR. 23.] SERMONS UPON 1 PETER I. 23. 307
not only of vicious becometh virtuous, but of carnal becoraetli spiritual. I gather that from John iii. 6, ' That which is born of flesh is flesh.' A man by nature is carnal, yea, very flesh itself. He is so when he inclineth to things pleasing to the flesh, seeketh them only, and savoureth them only, afi'ecteth them only. This is a natural man, that hath not the Spirit of God : Jude 19, ' Sensual, not having the Spirit.' Nor receiveth the things of the Spirit, 1 Cor. ii. 14. Acteth but as a nobler and better-natured animal. He only liveth an animal life, common to us with the beasts. All his thoughts and cares run that way, void of spiritual life, ignorant, mindless of another world or the way that tendeth thither, desireth it not. Now, though they be not profane, do not w'allow in divers sins and wickedness, whereby others dishonour human nature, yet because they do not look after a better life, and have no desire of better things fixed upon theii- minds, they are carnal. But now he is regenerated when he that only before sought after carnal things, breathed after carnal things, contented himself with this lower happiness, afterwards desireth spiritual and heavenly things, and really endeavoureth to get them. This nature can never do ; water risetli no higher than its fountain. That which carrieth us to God must come from God.
To quicken the exhortation, I shall give you two arguments or motives —
1. From the danger. Better you had never been born if you are not born again. Many have cursed the day of their first birth, but never any cursed the day of their new birth. Better to be a toad or a dog, because his misery endeth when he dies ; but your misery then begins. You think, perhaps, that tlie God that made you will save you ; as his creatures, he will have pity on you. No : Isa. xxvii. 11, 'It is a people of no understanding ; therefore he that made them will not have mercy upon them, and he that formed them will show them no favour.' God hath set up another rule ; his delight is in his workmanship, in Christ Jesus. The unregenerate will curse the womb that bare them, and the paps that gave them suck.
2. Better you had never been baptized if you be not new-born. A carnal christian is worse than an infidel : 1 Tim. v. 8, ' If any man ])rovide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he lias denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.' Such know noticing of sin and righteousness with respect to a covenant, nothing of virtue and vice as a perfection or blemish of nature. They are baptized indeed, but have no benefit by it. It is not the laver of regeneration to such : John xiii. 8, ' If I wash thee not, thou hast no ])art in me.' Better scalding oil had been poured upon your heads than the water oi baptism. It is a witness of thy breach of vows, for thou art by baptism engaged to be a new creature.
308 SEEMONS UPON 1 PETER I. 23. [SeR. II.
SERMON II.
Being horn again, not of corruptible, but incorruptible seed. — 1 Peter i. 23.
I HAVE pressed you to seek after this work by divers arguments suited to all sorts of persons.
But you will say, To what end is this exhortation ? Is there any help in the hands of man ? Can men work this regeneration in them- selves, and so change a carnal sinful heart into a holy and new heart, or cause themselves to become new creatures ?
I answer — No ; surely regeneration is the proper work of an omnipo- tent God. But yet the exhortation is not in vain. I shall prove both the parts — (1). That regeneration is the work of God ; (2.) Yet this exhortation is not in vain ; and then go on with the exhortation.