it will endeavour to check the Christian's progress ; and some- times by the most envenomed hostility and bitter persecution. But the regenerate person braves all the world's hostility, and will be deterred by nothing from following the path of duty. If the whole creation were to rise up against him, he would say, Whether it be right to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye : for I cannot but do what my God has enjoined.
There are those who will have regeneration to consist in baptism. But I would ask, Can it be said of every baptized person, that he overcomes the world ? Does not the whole state of the Christian world contradict this? Are there any, amongst heathens themselves, more captivated by its allure- ments or enslaved by its terrors, than millions of baptized persons are? This shews, incontrovertibly, that, whatever blessing God may see fit to confer on any particular persons in baptism, baptism itself is not, and cannot be, regeneration : for, if it were, every baptized person must, of necessit}', over- come the world ; which we see and know is far from being true in fact.
There is a peculiarity in the expression in my text, which will serve to throw considerable light on this subject. It is said, "Whatsoever is born of Goda" overcometh the world. In conversion a new nature is formed within usb : a new prin- ciple, new judgment, new taste, is imparted to us : and the whole of that is, in its very nature, opposed to the world, even as light is to darkness : and, as light struggles with darkness till it has overcome it, so does that new and heaven-born prin- ciple, which is imparted to us in conversion, conflict with, and overcome, the world ; so that the bonds in which, during our unregenerate state, we were held, are broken, and we are enabled to walk at liberty, in the way of God's commandments. This may be well explained by an expression of our blessed Lord, who says, " Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst ; but the water that I shall give him, shall be in him a well of water, springing up into everlast- ing lifec." The meaning of which passage is, not that the Holy Spirit which he imparts shall infallibly bring us to ever- lasting life, but that that will be its constant tendency and operation. A fountain is always sending forth its waters upwards: and so shall the Holy Spirit within us always operate to raise the soul from earth to heaven. Let the two passages be compared ; and they will shew, not what baptism, does, but ichat the new nature, which the Spirit of God imparts in con- version, will effect, in all that are truly regenerate.]
Let us now point out,
II. The means by which he achieves it —
a wav ro yeyevvrifiivov. b 2 Pet. i. 4. e John iv. 14.