They, therefore, who fancy that they feel a power in regeneration which instantly renews their souls, and brings them to a state of sinless perfection, and that by the sole action of the Holy Spirit, without the use or application of any external means, do but amuse themselves with visions as void of all support in sense and experience, as in the revealed word of God. For according to them, our Lord came down from heaven to teach mankind the way to salvation; he lived and died to establish amongst them that revelation which he brought from heaven; he appointed chosen witnesses, who under the peculiar guidance of the holy Inspirer, recorded this revelation for the universal good of all mankind, and sealed the record with their blood; and yet after all, the Inspirer himself sets aside the use of that word which he inspired, and by his own single and miraculous influence on the soul, obtains all the ends for which the revelation was given. According to them, the Holy Spirit hath publicly established the means of grace and spiritual improvement, and yet doth privately in every particular instance render the application of those means unnecessary. According to them, the whole glorious structure of the christian dispensation, which heaven-directed men have with so much labor brought to perfection, that structure which rises on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone, is a work that might well have been spared: since instead of

our receiving any support from the Apostles and Prophets, instead of our being formed into that building fitly framed together, every one, according to them, is built only on the foundation of his own personal feelings, and guided, independently of all others, by particular communications of the Spirit made in secret to himself alone.

Upon the whole; with regard to the christian regeneration we may venture to conclude, that the change which the soul undergoes is not a total and substantial change, is not the acquisition of a new soul, but a recovery and restoration of its whole frame and constitution, from sickness and disorder to harmony and health; that this change is produced by the concurrent influence of faith and the Holy Spirit; faith filling the soul with the sublimest principles of virtue, and the Holy Spirit disposing and exciting all its powers to act according to those principles: and consequently that the part which the Holy Spirit takes in the work of regeneration is by no means to inspire, by no means to infuse into the soul new revelations, but to strengthen and sustain it in following the light of that common revelation, which he hath already inspired and promulgated for the use of all mankind.

SECTION VIII.

Of Good Works.

REGENERATION being no other than the entire possession of the soul by the principles and powers of christianity, whereby its evil dispositions are subdued, and it is gradually wrought into an holy and an heavenly frame, we cannot but discern how naturally it must lead to the practice of good works. Virtuous action is indeed the grand aim of the whole christian institution: it is the very end and design, as we are expressly assured by St. Paul, of our new creation, for "we are God's workmanship, saith the Apostle, created in Christ "Jesus unto good works."*

Were it possible in surveying the christian system not to perceive how directly it is calculated to answer this great end, we should want one of the noblest proofs which we now enjoy of the wisdom and goodness of Him who formed it. THE POWER OF MAKING US GOOD is the greatest glory of the christian dispensation; and they who would deny it this power, rob it of that jewel which shines the brightest in its heavenly crown, and fix upon it a calumny greater than all its enemies have ever been able to invent against it.

The design of redemption was to restore man to that happiness which he had lost by Eph. ii. 10.

sin. To have relieved his misery only without taking any measures to remove his guilt, would have been removing the effect and leaving the cause in its full force again to operate the same effect. A redemption undertaken on account of sin must certainly have been aimed against sin itself, otherwise the enemy would be left in full possession of his conquest. To suppose that the Redeemer came only to deliver us from the punishment of sin, without delivering us from its power, is to suppose that he came in fact to take away a discouragement to sin, by removing its penalty. His mercy thus confined would hardly deserve the name of mercy: it would be mercy to sense only, whilst it was denied to our nobler, our spiritual and intellectual part.

But these unworthy notions of redemption will not stand a moment before the light of the gospel. The very first intimation of the great design shows us that our Saviour undertook to bruise the serpent's head: that is, not only to obviate some ill effects of his power, but to destroy his power itself. To make us happy, and yet to leave us under the dominion of sin, seems to be one of those contradictions which Omnipotence itself cannot effect. At least we are assured that redemption is very far from any attempt thus to do violence to the nature of things, by connecting happiness with vice, which can only be the natural parent of misery. Redemption goes at once to the very source of all our sufferings, and applies its healing virtue to cure the soul of that disease from which all its misery springs. Redemption acts in per

fect conformity with the first sacred establishment of heaven; and leads us to happiness by forming us to the practice of virtue, the only way to happiness that either revelation or experience have ever pointed out.

Every part of the christian dispensation is manifestly adapted to answer this great end, to train us up to the exercise of goodness, and to qualify us for virtuous action. For to what other end doth our holy faith inspire us with all its principles of virtue? Why doth it, like Moses, striking a rock, open the fountain of divine love in our heart, and cause the love of man to spring from the love of our Redeemer; why doth it enlighten us with all its laws of heavenly goodness; why point to the bright example of a Saviour walking before us in the path of active virtue; why doth it try to move us by all the power of those awful sanctions which belong to our holy religion? Why, still farther, doth the Holy Spirit join his influence to that of faith, and give new strength and vigor to our souls; why are we endowed with all these principles and powers of action, if yet the christian life is not a life of action, and if all is to end only in some brisk emotion of the spirits, and some inward agitation of the mind? When "the man of God is thus adapted and thor"oughly furnished unto all good works," how strange a doctrine is that which will yet adventure to say, that he is designed for no kind of work; and when all these principles and springs of action are in motion within him, would at