trated and enforced in the very work we are recommending. We shall therefore draw this Essay to a close, with an earnest entreaty to all, not to lay the work aside, and not to satisfy themselves with a superficial and hasty glance of its contents. This would neither be doing justice to truth, to themselves, nor to God. If what the Son of God hath said be true, then the question whether he has been "born again" is, with regard to every sinner on earth, the turning point for eternity. "Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord:"-and being born again, is the beginning of holiness. It is then that the sinner is set apart for God, and fitted for his service and fellowship, both here and hereafter. The figure used to express the change is natural and appropriate. Others not less so, are also employed. It is a resurrection from death. It is a new creation. And all these representations convey strongly the sentiment, that the change represented by them is not external, superficial, and partial; but inward, radical, and total. "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature."Of all figures, the new birth is most easily made the subject of profane and heartless ridicule. But it is not a subject for jesting. It is insanity so to treat it. And one hardly knows whether most to pity the folly, or to censure the moral delinquency, of the man who can put off, with a drivelling joke, the all-absorbing interests of eternity, and barter his immortal soul for the credit of a witticism. All the evidence by which the Bible is proved to be the word of God, bears in full force on every saying which it contains. And all and every part of that evidence,-external, internal, and experimen tal, must be fairly met and entirely set aside,-nay, every likelihood, and every possibility of the truth and divine authority of the Bible, must be put out of the question, before a man can wisely or safely "EXCEPT A make light of the solemn assurance MAN BE BORn again, he cannot see THE KINGDOM OF GOD." The two Sermons on the doctrine of Salvation by Grace through Faith,' are very appropriately associated in this Volume with those on Regeneration. It is especially this doctrine that is the instrumental means, by which the Holy Spirit operates in regenerating the souls of men: "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever:-and THIS is the word, which, BY THE gosPEL, is preached unto you." It is by the cross,by the testimony of the everlasting love and free grace of God to sinners, through Christ Jesus, that that enmity of the heart is slain, which is the essence of spiritual death, and that holy love introduced in its stead, which is the grand elemental principle of spiritual life. Of the doctrine itself, of salvation by grace,' most truly does the Author say, "This glorious doctrine has been the joy of the church, in all ages, on earth; and it will be the song of all who have received it in truth, throughout the ages of eternity, and be pursued in the heavenly regions with ever-growing admiration and delight." R. W. GLASGOW, March, 1829. CONTENTS. OF THE CHARACTER OF THE UNREGENERATE. Ephesians ii. 1, 2.-" And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince OF THE NATURE OF REGENERATION, AND PARTICU- LARLY OF THE CHANGE IT PRODUCES IN MEN'S 2 Corinthians v. 17.-" If any man be in Christ, he is a new OF THE NATURE OF REGENERATION, WITH RESPECT TO THE CHANGE IT PRODUCES IN MEN'S AFFECTIONS, THE NECESSITY OF REGENERATION, ARGUED FROM THE IMMUTABLE CONSTITUTION OF GOD. John iii. 3.-"Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, OF THE NECESSITY OF DIVINE INFLUENCES TO PRO- DUCE REGENERATION IN THE SOUL. Titus iii. 5, 6.—" Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; which he shed on us abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour," 197 OF THE VARIOUS METHODS OF THE DIVINE OPERATION IN THE PRODUCTION OF THIS SAVING CHANGE. 1 Corinthians xii. 6.-"There are diversities of operations, but AN ADDRESS TO THE REGENERATE, founded oN THE James i. 18.-"Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first-fruits of his crea- |