2. The state whereinto men are brought by regeneration is the same. Nor is it, in its essence or nature, capable of degrees, so that one should be more regenerate than another. Every one that is born of God is equally so, though one may be more beautiful than another, as having the image of his heavenly Father more evidently impressed on him, though not more truly. Men may be more or less holy, more or less sanctified, but they cannot be more or less regenerate. All children that are born into the world are equally born, though some quickly outstrip others in the perfections and accomplishments of nature; and all born of God are equally so, though some speedily outgo others in the accomplishments and per- fections of grace. There was, then, never but one kind of regenera- tion in this world, the essential form of it being specifically the same in all.
216 WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE [BOOK HI.
y^ S. That tlie efficient cause of this wor-h, the grace and power /"^ whereby it is wrought, with the internal manner of the communica- tion of that grace, are the same, shall be afterward declared. To this standard, then, all must come. Men may bear themselves high, and despise this whole work of the Spirit of God, or set up an ima- gination of their own in the room thereof ; but whether they will or no, they must be tried by it, and no less depends on their interest in it than their admission into the kingdom of God. And let them pretend what they please, the true reason why any despise the new birth is, because they hate a new life. He that cannot endure to live to God will as little endure to hear of being boj^n of God. But we shall by the Scripture inquire what we are taught concerning it, and declare both what it is not, of things which falsely pretend there- unto, and then what it is indeed. • First, Regeneration doth not consist in a participation of the ordi-
-^ nance of baptism and a profession of the doctrine of repentance. This is all that some will allow unto it, to the utter rejection and overthrow of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ : for the dispute in this matter is not, whether the ordinances of the gospel, as bajDtism, do really communicate internal grace unto them that are, as to the outward manner of their administration, duly made partakers of them, whether ex opere operato, as the Papists speak, or as si federal means of the conveyance and communication of that grace which they betoken and are the pledges of ; but, whether the outward susception of the ordinance, joined with a profession of repentance in them that are adult, be not the whole of what is called regeneration. The vanity of this presumptuous folly, destructive of all the grace of the gospel, invented to countenance men in their sins, and to hide from them the necessity of being born again, and therein of turning unto God, will be laid ojDen in our declaration of the nature of the work itself. For the present, the ensuing reasons will serve to re- move it out of our way : — * 1. Regeneration doth not consist in these things, which are only outward signs and tokens of it, or at most instituted means of effect- ing it; for the nature of things is different and distinct from the means and evidences or pledges of them : but such only is baptism, with the profession of the doctrine of it, as is acknowledged by all who have treated of the nature of that sacrament. 2. The apostle really states this case, 1 Pet. iii. 21, " In answer whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), by the resurrection of Jesus Christ." The outward administration of this ordinance, considered materially, reacheth no farther but to the wash- ing away of " the filth of the flesh;" but more is signified thereby.
CHAP. I.] NEW CREATION BY REGENERATION. 217
There is denoted in it the restipulation of a " good conscience toward God, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ" from the dead, or a " con- science purged from dead works to serve tlie living God," Heb. ix. 14, and quickened by virtue of his resurrection unto holy obedience. See Rom. vi. 3-7. 8. The apostle Paul doth plainly distinguish between the outward ordinances, with what belongs unto a due participa- tion of them, and the work of regeneration itself: Gal. vi. 15, "In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircum- cision, but a new creature;" — for as by "circumcision" the whole system of Mosaical ordinances is intended, so the state of " uncircum- cision," as then it was in the professing Gentiles, supposed a partici- pation of all the ordinances of the gospel; but from them all he distinguisheth the new creation, as that which they may be without, and which being so, they are not available in Christ Jesus. 4. If this were so, then all that are duly baptized, and do thereon make jDrofession of the doctrine of it, — that is, of repentance for the for- giveness of sins, — must of necessity be regenerate. But this we know to be otherwise. For instance, Simon the magician was rightly and duly baptized, for he was so by Philip the evangelist; which he could not be without a profession of faith and repentance. Accord- ingly, it is said that he "believed," Acts viii. 18, — that is, made a profession of his faith in the gospel. Yet he was not regenerate ; for at the same time he had "neither part nor lot in that matter," his "heart not being right in the sight of God," but was "in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity," verses 21, 23; which is not the descrip- tion of a person newly regenerate and born again. Hence the cabalis- tical Jews, who grope in darkness after the old notions of truth that were among their forefathers, do say, that at the same instant wherein a man is made "a proselyte of righteousness," there comes a new soul into him from heaven, his old pagan soul vanishing or being taken away. The introduction of a new spiritual principle to be that unto the soul which the soul is unto the body naturally is that which they understand ; or they choose thus to exj^ress the reiterated promise of taking away the " heart of stone," and giving a " heart of flesh" in the place of it.