First, Although the work of regeneration by the Holy Spirit was / wrought under the Old Testament, even from the foundation of the ! world, and the doctrine of it was recorded, in the Scriptures, yet the revelation of it was but obscure in comparison of that light and evi- dence which it is brought forth into by the gospel. This is evident from the discourse which our blessed Saviour had with Nicodemus on this subject; for when he acquainted him clearly with the doctrine of it, he was surprised, and fell into that inquiry, which argued some amazement, '' How can these things be?" But yet the reply of our Saviour manifests that he might have attained a better acquaintance with it out of the Scripture than he had done : " Art thou," saith he, "a master in Israel, and knowest not these things?" — "Dost thou take upon thee to teach others what is their state and condition, and what is their duty towards God, and art ignorant thyself of so great and fundamental a doctrine, which thou mightst have learned from the Scripture?" For if he might not so have done, there would have been no just cause of the reproof given him by our Saviour; for it was neither crime nor negligence in him to be ignorant of what God had not revealed. This doctrine, therefore,— namely, that every one who will enter into the kingdom of God must be born again of the Holy Spirit, — was contained in the writings of the Old Testament. It was so in the promises, that God would cir- cumcise the hearts of his people, — that he would take away their heart of stone, and give them a heart of flesh, with his law Avi'itten in it, and other ways, as shall be afterward proved.
But yet we see that it was so obscurely declared that the prin- cipal masters and teachers of the people knew little or nothing of it. Some, indeed, would have this regeneration, if they knew what they would have, or as to what may be gathered of their minds out of their "great ^welling words of vanity," to be nothing but reformation of life, according to the rules of the Scripture. But Nicodemus knew the necessity of reformation of life well enough, if he had ever read either Moses or the Prophets; and to suppose that our Lord Jesus Christ proposed unto him the thing which he knew perfectly well, only under a new name or notion, which he had never heard of before, so to take an advantage of charging him of being ignorant of what indeed he full well knew and understood, is a blasphemous imagination. How they can free themselves from the guilt hereof
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who look on "regeneration " as no more but a metaphorical expression of amendment of life, I know not. And if it be so, if there be no more in it but, as they love to speak, becoming a nev) moral man, — a thing which all the world, Jews and Gentiles, understood, — our Lord Jesus was so far from bringing it forth into more light and giving it more perspicuity, by what he teacheth concerning regeneration, the nature, manner, causes, and effects of it, that he cast it thereby into more darkness and. obscurity than ever it was delivered in, either by Jewish masters or Gentile philo^phy; for although the gospel do really teach all duties of morality with more exactness and clearness, and press unto the observance of them on motives incomparably more cogent, than any thing that otherwise ever befell the mind of man to think or apprehend, yet if it must be supposed to intend nothing else in its doctrine of the new birth or regeneration but those moral duties and their observance, it is dark and unintelligible. I say, if there be not a secret, mysterious work of the Spirit of God in and upon the souls of men intended in the writings of the New Testa- ment, but only a reformation of life, and the improvement of men's natural abilities in the exercise of moral virtue, through the applica- tion of outward means unto their minds and understandings, con- ducting and persuading thereunto, they must be granted to be ob- scure beyond those of any other writers whatsoever, as some have not feared already to publish unto the world concerning the epistles of Paul. But so long as we can obtain an acknowledgment from men that they are true, and in any sense the word of God, we doubt not but to evince that the things intended in them are clearly and pro- perly expressed, so as they ought to be, and so as they are capable to be expressed; the difficulties which seem to be in them arising from the mysterious nature of the things themselves contained in them, and the weakness of our minds in apprehending such things, and not from any obscurity or intricacy in the declaration of them. And herein, indeed, consists the main contest wherein to things with the most are reduced. Some judge that all things are so expressed in the Scripture, with a condescension unto our capacity, as that there is still to be conceived an inexpressible grandeur in many of them, beyond our comprehension; others judge, on the other hand, that under a grandeur of words and hyperbolical expressions, things of a meaner and a lower sense are intended and to be understood. Some judge the things of the gospel to be deep and mysterious, the words and expressions of it to be plain and proper; others think the words and exj)ressions of it to be mystical and figurative, but the things intended to be ordinary and obvious to the natural reason of every man. But to return.