change taken place in you ? Think again : It is a change that depends not on your descent from Christian parents ; a change which no endeavours of friends can ever accomplish, and which no efforts of your own can ever merit or effect : it is a new creation ; and a work of God alone, as much as the creation of the universe itself. Perhaps you will say, ' Tell me more distinctly wherein this change consists.' I will do so. It is " a receiving of the Lord Jesus Christ" as the gift of God to your souls ; and "a believing in him" as your "all in all." To these is " the privilege of becoming the sons of God" as- signed ; and to these alone. If, then, you are " born of God," these marks must, of necessity, be found in you. You have felt your need of a Saviour ; you have cried to God for mercy with your whole hearts : and you have embraced the Lord Jesus Christ as " all your salvation and all your desire." Examine into this matter, my beloved brethren. Here is the precise point of difference between the children of God and the children of the wicked one. Those who are born of the flesh only, may be moral and externally religious : but the child of God lives altogether by faith on the Son of God, receiving all blessings out of his fulness, and improving them all for his glory. This is a new birth : and were you as moral as Nicodemus himself, you must experience it, at the peril of your souls ; and, except ye be thus born from above, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of God. I pray you, brethren, settle this well in your minds : for to those only who stand in this relation to their God is there " any inheritance among the saints in light."]
2. Let us endeavour to manifest it, by a suitable life and conversation —
[God had one only dear Son, whom he sent down from heaven to sojourn upon earth. And the Scripture fully informs us what dispositions he exercised, and what conduct he pur- sued. And every one who is born of God will follow his steps, and " walk as he walked." He will " no longer walk according to the course of this world, according to the Prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience." He will be no longer of the world, any more than Jesus Christ was of the world. He will rise above it. He will be crucified unto it; and regard it as a crucified object, that has no longer any charms for him, or any power over him. His tempers, too, will be mortified and subdued. He will have the meekness and gentleness of Christ in his whole deportment : and, if he be not able perfectly to attain the measure that was in Christ Jesus, he will aspire after it, and be satisfied with nothing less. In a word, he will not live unto himself, but unto God, making it " his meat and his drink to