Sermon 5. - Nature of Regeneration.
of the few who follow the Lord Jesus in the regeneration, that they may enter with him into the city of God.
Again: what have you to do with all the sinful hosts of the flesh; with surfeiting, drunkenness, and indulgence in lasciviousness and impurity? Leave them, I shall not say to devils, for the devils wallow not in these beastly pleasures; leave them to the brutes, to which alone they belong. And, since you are endued each with an everlasting spirit, worship God in spirit and in truth. But this you cannot do without the grace of Jesus. Ask it, then continually. When you get up and when you lie down; when you sit in your house or walk by the way, O let this be the ceaseless cry of your soul, “Lord Jesus, forgive me my sins, and give me thy good Spirit, that I may not sin against thee! O make me to love thee with all my heart, and let me now live the life of the righteous, that my latter end may be like his.” And be not discouraged by the ridicule that the children of the world will pour upon you on every side, when you begin this life of prayer; remembering that the things of God are foolishness to the natural man, and that all the saints who are now in glory experienced, in their way to it, the truth of St. Paul’s assertion, “Every one that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” But go on praying without fainting, and seeking the Lord till he sends his light and truth into your soul, and makes it a habitation for God through the Spirit; and then shall you begin to rejoice that ever you were awakened to work out your salvation with fear and trembling; and the angels of God shall rejoice for your conversion through the endless ages of eternity, which may God grant, for his mercy’s sake. Amen.
SERMON 5. - NATURE OF REGENERATION.
“If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature,”
ST. PAUL says, in his Epistle to the Romans, that “he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, but he who is such inwardly,” by the circumcision of the heart. This being applied to Christianity, it follows that he is not a Christian who professes to be so, but he who has got “a new heart and a new spirit,” by being truly born again, not of water only, but of the Spirit of Christ. That regeneration is absolutely necessary in order to be a true Christian, and that there is no surer mark whereby we may know whether we are living members of Jesus than to be really new men, appears in the clearest light in the words of the text, “If any man be in Christ,” or be a true Christian, “he is a new creature.” You see then, brethren, how necessary it is to have right notions of the doctrine of regeneration, since without it there can be no Christianity. I hope you will therefore follow me with an attention answerable to the vast importance of the subject, while I endeavour to show you,
First, What we must understand by regeneration, or becoming a new creature.
Secondly, What are the causes that concur to the work of regeneration: And,
Thirdly, Why regeneration is so necessary to salvation. May what shall be spoken in God’s name, be so applied by his grace to every one of our hearts, that the important work of regeneration may be powerfully begun, or carried on in each of our souls!
Regeneration, brethren, is that mighty change whereby a natural man is made a spiritual, or new man; and he that was a child of the devil, becomes by grace a child of God. For, as by our natural birth we are made in the likeness of fallen Adam, called “the old man,” the first man; so by this spiritual birth we become new creatures - spiritual men - and sons of God in Jesus Christ, the second Adam.
The work of grace, whereby we are thus born again, is so great that St. Paul calls it a new creation; and it deserves that name, for thereby the soul of man is renewed throughout, with all the powers and faculties thereof; his carnal, sensual, earthly disposition is turned into a spiritual and a heavenly one; his blind understanding is enlightened with the knowledge of God and Jesus Christ; his stubborn and perverse will becomes obedient and conformable to the will of God; his conscience, before seared and benumbed, is now quickened and awakened; his hard heart softened, his unruly affections crucified, and his body, whose members were before instruments of unrighteousness, is now ready to put in execution the good intentions of the mind. Thus is he restored to that happiness, to that image of God, wherein he was at first created, though before, on account of his corruption through the fall, he was altogether destitute of it. O! how great, how inconceivably great must man’s depravation be by nature, since God cannot fit him for glory by mending or repairing the Divine image in which he first made him; but must thus, as it were, create him a second time, and cause him to be born again, and made anew.
But to be a little more particular concerning the nature of regeneration. It has two parts, as says our Church, “a death unto sin,” and a “new birth unto righteousness.”
By “a death unto sin” we must understand that casting off and crucifying the old man; that destroying the body of sin, on which St. Paul so often insists. “Mortify,” says he, or put to death, “your members which are upon earth, uncleanness, covetousness, and the like:” whence it appears, that by those “members upon earth,” he means, all sorts of sins and unholy desires, whereunto a natural man is given. Nor is it enough to curb and hold them in, but their life must be taken - they must die. And, indeed, it is impossible to put on the new man, till the old man is cast off; nor can a new birth unto righteousness follow, but where a death unto sin has taken place. But when a man, tired of the body of sin, has yielded it up to be crucified with Jesus, and feels the power of his death; then, and then only, does he experience a new birth to righteousness, and becomes a partaker of the power and benefit of Christ’s resurrection.
This second part of regeneration is called in Scripture a passage from darkness to light; from death unto life; God’s quickening us, and making us alive; a rising together with Christ, and walking in newness of life. Whence it is plain that we must understand by regeneration, not only the destruction of sin in our souls, which is the devil’s image stampt upon every child of Adam, since the fall; but the bringing in again into our souls that conformity to the Divine nature, that unspotted holiness, that image of God, wherein Adam was first created, and which Jesus Christ, the second parent of mankind, is ready to stamp again upon every sincere believer. Let us observe here the dangerous mistake of some who judge, that they are regenerate because they are reformed, and commit no longer those sins wherein they formerly lived. No, it is not enough to be able to say, “I am not what I was,” unless we can add, “I am what I was not.” It will signify but little for a man to plead that he is not a drunkard, that he swears no more, and no longer “walks after the flesh,” unless he can also say, that by the grace of God he “walks after the Spirit,” in faith, love, and holy obedience. You are not unjust, do you say? Very good. But do you show mercy? You are no longer unclean, nor sensual: but are you spiritual and heavenly minded? You no more break out into raging fits of anger! But does “the peace that passes all understanding,” keep your soul in the meekness, gentleness, and long suffering of Jesus? You are no longer swelled with that overbearing pride which made all around you look on you as a tyrant: but, instead of getting the humble mind that was in Christ, do not you rest in what the world calls a decent pride, a proper pride? You think it now below you to curse, swear, and lie: but do you bless and intercede, reprove and exhort? You scorn to tell a lie: but do you boldly stand for the truth as it is in Jesus? You no longer laugh at the despised followers of a crucified God: but do vou take their part, and confess Christ in his members, who are rejected of men as he was himself? You no more make a mock at the word of God. Very well. But do you “meditate therein day and night?” and is it “sweeter to your soul than honey to your taste?” You are convinced that it is a dreadful sin to take God’s name in vain: but do you rejoice with reverence, whenever you pronounce his sacred name? You detest profaneness, and daily lament the overflowings of ungodliness: but do not you rest short of piety, and lie down in a state of lukewarmness and presumption? You pity those who never go to church, and never worship in God’s house: but when you are there, are you sensible of the presence of the God on whom you wait? And does the apprehension of his Majesty make you cry out, as Jacob, in the deepest act of adoration, “This place is dreadful; surely it is the temple of the Most High?” You cry out against those who never say their prayers, and with much reason: but when you pray, is the intercourse opened between God and your soul, and do you find in your heart what you profess to ask daily, “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost?” If you do not, you are not yet regenerated in the Gospel sense. You know something, it may be, of the first part of regeneration, a death unto outward sin; but you are yet an utter stranger to the second part thereof: you never experienced a new birth unto righteousness, unto true inward holiness.
Having thus shown the nature and parts of regeneration, I come now to show, in a few words, what causes concur to effect that important change. God alone, in Christ, is the first cause and author of it; wherefore the regenerate man is said in Scripture to be born of God: and if you ask why he does not leave us in the state of sin and misery into which we plunged ourselves by the fall, but offers to create us again in his image; whereas there is no regeneration for the fallen angels upon whom Divine justice passed at once sentence of eternal damnation; I must answer in the words of the Prophet Jeremiah: “It is of the Lord’s mercy that we are not consumed: it is because his compassion fails not:” that, as Adam was once placed in a state of trial, either to remain holy, like angels, or to fall into the sin and misery of devils; so we have, during this life, our trial too. Though God might, with justice, have suffered the sentence of eternal death to take place in all men, since all have sinned, he bids us choose whether we will remain fallen with devils, or rise again, by regeneration, to that blessed and holy life which Adam lost. The mercy of God is then the only original and moving cause of our new birth, by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. “Of his own will,” says St. James, “he begat us by the word of truth.” And St. Peter, that “God has begotten believers again according to his abundant mercy.” But the immediate worker of regeneration is the Spirit of God, which our blessed Lord obtained for us by the merits of his death. In this respect true Christians are said by Christ to be born of the Spirit; and St. Paul calls regeneration “the renewing of the Holy Ghost,” Titus 3:5. Yet the ordinary instrumental cause is the word of God, when applied to the soul by his Spirit. In this sense the apostle says that believers are begotten by the word of truth, James 1:18; or the Gospel, said by St. Paul, Romans 1:16, to be “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.” This is “the incorruptible seed,” as St. Peter terms it, which Christ’s ministers sow in the Church of God; and when God raises it up with power in any soul under their ministry, we may look upon them also as instrumental causes of our regeneration, in the lowest sense of the word. Thus St. Paul tells the Corinthians, that he was their father, and had begotten them in Christ through the Gospel.
You see, brethren, how all these causes, in subordination to the first, concur to the Divine work of our regeneration. God’s mercy contrives the scheme of man’s redemption: our Lord Jesus executes it. His ministers are sent to cast the seed of his word into men’s souls, and to water it; but the Spirit of God alone gives the increase, and quickens the souls dead in sin and unbelief, when they are truly willing to be quickened. Thus the glory of our regeneration ought to be wholly ascribed to God’s mercy in Christ, since it is the only source of that unspeakable blessing; and we are bound to exalt the free grace of God continually, and to call upon our souls to praise the Lord, since “as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him.”
I come now to show the reasons why regeneration is necessary to salvation. And this appears,
1st. From the immutability of God’s purpose, who has chosen believers to salvation “through the sanctification of the Spirit.” Whoever will enter into heaven must put off sin, and be clothed with a robe of unspotted righteousness. Do you ask why? Because God is resolved that it shall be so. “This is the will of God,” says St. Paul, “your sanctification” first, and then your salvation. And there is no variableness nor shadow of turning with him, all the world shall sooner be damned than his purpose shall be made void.
2dly. From the stability of the word of God. “Except a man be born again,” says Jesus himself; “he cannot enter into the kingdom of God;” and he is not as the sons of men, that he should lie. Does he not declare that “heaven and earth shall pass away, but his word shall not pass away?” 3dly. From the respect that regeneration has to salvation. Regeneration is nothing but a degree and part of salvation. Grace is glory begun; holiness is the spring of true happiness; and he who is not saved from his sins here shall never be saved into glory hereafter. He who is not so changed on earth as to find his happiness in God, will never be fit to delight in him in heaven. The angelic hosts, says St. John, “praise God day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, who was, and is, and is to come.” Now what probability is there that the unregenerate, who delight in nothing but money, apparel, pleasure, eating; drinking, uncleanness, and the like; and who are such enemies to God, that they had rather be set to do any work than to spend an hour in private prayer to him every day: what probability is there, I say, that they will be able to bear their part in those sacred concerts, unless their soul be so saved from sin here, and so changed in all its faculties, that God’s service and worship, which are so tedious to them now, may become the joy of their hearts.
Let none then deceive himself. As sin is death and hell begun in the unregenerate, so are holiness, eternal life, and heaven, opened in the new creature. And as sure as there will be no hell for those that are saved from their sins here, so sure it is that there will be no heaven for those who are not made partakers of the Divine nature. We might as well look for the noon of a day which never dawned, as expect to see the meridian light of glory, without having ever known the morning of regenerating grace. 4thly. We may discover the necessity of regeneration in order to salvation, if we consider the entire corruption of our nature. Our first parents, having by their fall defaced that image of God in which they were created, and being there upon wholly polluted in soul, body, and spirit, all that come from them must be partakers of their corrupt nature. “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?” says Job. “I was born in sin,” says David, “and in iniquity did my mother conceive me.” “That which is born of the flesh is flesh,” that is to say, carnal and unclean. “Now,” says St. John, “no unclean person can enter into God’s kingdom.” Believe it, sinners; God will not take you from the dung hill of sin, and covered with Satan’s leprosy, to place you by him on his throne. The holy land shall not be filled with filth and rottenness; and in the heavenly Canaan there are no nests for serpents and vipers; no place for backbiting, lying, slandering, or cursing Christians; no den for angry lions to lurk in; and no mire for greedy and impure swine to wallow in; much less shall the vacant thrones of fallen angels, thrown down into hell for their pride, envy, and ambition, be given to proud, envious, ill - natured, or covetous men. Rebellious aliens must not inherit the kingdom of heaven. They must first be made children, and have the Spirit of adoption, and then are they heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ.
Again: that we must be new creatures to enter into heaven, appears from the enjoyments of saints and angels. They are wholly spiritual. Their felicity consists in the peace of God, the love of Christ, and the joy of angels: in an uninterrupted union and communion with the Lord; a continual admiration and fruition of all his perfections. But can carnal, worldly, unregenerate people taste pleasure in any of these things? Are not such delights for them, just what pearls and diamonds are to swine? Do not they even now trample them under their feet, and sometimes turn about and endeavour to rend those that hold out to them even that heavenly bread, that food of angels? Sinners, you must then lose your taste for earthly joys, and be made capable of relishing spiritual delights, or all the pleasures of heaven will prove to you just as much as the most melodious concert is to a deaf man, or the finest pictures to one that was born blind.
I shall conclude all these reasons with one drawn from the holiness of God’s nature, which is such that no unclean person can stand in his presence. “His eyes are too pure,” says a prophet, “to behold iniquity.” “Evil shall not dwell with thee,” says David, “neither shall the foolish stand in thy sight.” There is such a contrariety between the holy nature of God, and the unholy nature of unregenerate men, that they can no more agree together than light with darkness; for “what fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness?” says St. Paul. A pure God with impure creatures? None at all; unless it be that which a devouring flame has with the stubble thrown therein. O sinners! learn then what the apostle means when he says, “Without holiness none shall see the Lord,” lest you find him a consuming fire, as the unregenerate will most certainly do. And that you may be the more willing to get out of the state you are in by sin, let me show you the many dangers that attend it.
You are not yet a new creature, and consequently you are yet without Christ in your heart, and nothing stands between God’s justice and your unregenerate soul. And for what do you expose yourself to this dreadful peril? That you may serve Satan? “He that committeth sin is of the devil,” says St. John.
O that your eyes were open to see what master you have chosen, and what wages he will give you at last! Is it that you may take your chance with the rest of the world? Alas! do you not know the word of God declares, that he who loves the world is the Lord’s enemy? And that this world, and all that is therein, except the souls and bodies of the regenerate, are reserved unto fire against the day of judgment? Is it that you may indulge a little longer the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eye, and the pride of life? O! if you saw them in a true light, you would renounce them as you would the service of a base and cruel tyrant, that says to you, “Do this,” though it will destroy thy body, and you do it: “Do not that,” though your soul should live thereby, and you do it not. Thus, like the child who was possessed by an evil spirit, you are possessed by carnal desires and unruly passions, which tear you and cast you sometimes into the fire, sometimes into the water, still waiting for the moment when they may plunge you into “the lake that burns with fire and brimstone.”
O! do the pleasures of sin, and the smiles of the world, compensate you for the happiness of the children of God, which you renounce for them; and when the curses of God’s law overtake you, will they screen from the stroke of his wrath? For though you may little think of it, if your sins are not forgiven vou, a curse attends all your enjoyments. “I will curse their blessings,” says God by one of his prophets. Nay, it follows you in your religious exercises. The word which you hear is cursed to you; because you believe it not, or do it not, it proves to you “the savour of death unto death;” the prayers which you make, with so much indifference and contempt for God, draw no blessing upon you; and the Lord’s table is made a snare to you by your presumption: for, instead of feeding on the body and blood of Christ, you trample it under foot, and refuse to let it have its due effect upon you.
And not only so, but you are liable to temporal and eternal judgments. In time God may let loose upon you the most dreadful sicknesses and afflictions, and you have no God to stand by you, no grace to comfort you under them. And in eternity what have you to expect but an eternal despair? and for whom is “the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone” appointed, if not for the unregenerate? And who shall have “the smoke of their torments ascending for ever and ever,” if not those who never strove to enter in at the strait gate of the new birth, but remained willing servants of the prince of this world, and their unruly passions, for ever and ever? O measure, if you can, the length and breadth, the depth and height of the meaning of that word, “for ever and ever;” and though all that Jesus says of that fire prepared for the devil and his angels, of that “fire which never shall be quenched,” that “worm which never dieth,” and that “outer darkness where there will be weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth:” though all these expressions should mean no more than an eternal fever, or an eternal confinement in a dark dungeon, will you draw this upon you for the momentary pleasure of walking according to the sight of your eye, and the desire of your heart? And will not you repent of this your unhappy choice even in this life? Ah! when death shall appear to you, and tell you that he has a message from the Lord, a warrant from the King of heaven to take from you all your worldly comforts, all the carnal pleasures and delights for which, Esau - like, you sell your birthright, and the blessing of your heavenly Father; all your nearest and dearest relations; all your wealth and honour, all your schemes of building and planting, buying and selling; and all the hopes of enjoying any longer those conveniences and superfluities, for getting of which you forget that your main business here is to be born again of the Spirit of God; - when death shall thus hurry you away from your earthly paradise; when it shall rouse your drowsy conscience, and lay before you the black catalogue of all your sins, your lies, your scoffings at virtue and religion, your goods ill - gotten and ill - spent; your profanation of the Lord’s day; your speculative wantonness or actual filthiness; your vanity, pride, covetousness, sensuality; with the many years spent with so much eagerness in the devil’s service; what will then your views and