tion and life, which is opposed to the spirit and requirements of the gospel, but even of those moral principles and habits formed in him by education, though not founded on religion, and of those dispositions which religion approves and cherishes in every soul in which they are found, and calls into exercise where they do not exist. But this is in no degree more unreasonable or unscriptural when asserted of repentance, than when the same thing is affirmed of regeneration.

But to return to the Scriptures. Nothing needs to be said to show, that the discourse with Nicodemus, according to the preceding explanation of it, gives no support to the supposition against which we are reasoning. And as this, together with the declaration of our Lord just quoted, is probably considered as bearing more directly than any other texts in the Gospels, upon the present question, we shall turn to the Epistles.

In this portion of the New Testament, the strongest text is perhaps that in 2 Corinthians, v, 17. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature,' or there is a new creation; 'old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new.' This passage is descriptive not only of the signal revolution in the moral and religious condition of mankind, introduced by Christianity, so far as it was received in the world, but more especially of that great, and, according to a common latitude of expression in every language, that complete change in the religious belief, the character and life, the prospects and hopes, of all men, and most remarkably of the heathen, consequent on their conversion to the Christian faith, and conforming to the precepts and requirements of the Christian religion. It is perhaps impossible for us who are educated in a knowledge of the truths, and, to a certain extent, in the observance of the morals of Christianity, to conceive fully of the greatness of that change, experienced by both Jews and Gentiles on becoming Christians, in their views and sentiments, and also in their principles, habits and char

acters, so far as they were faithful and consistent in their new profession. It is scarcely possible to conceive of any greater moral and religious change through which the human mind can pass, than when the Jew, from his national prejudices and vices, from his pride and bigotry, from his hatred or uncharitableness to the Gentile world, his self-righteousness and hypocrisy, from his narrow and erroneous conceptions of God, of the nature of acceptable worship, and of the true character of the righteousness required by the divine law, from his false expectations concerning the Messiah, the nature of his kingdom, and the effects of his appearing on earth; when the Gentile, from his polytheism and idolatry, his gross ignorance and grosser wickedness, from the deplorable degradation of his nature into which the follies of superstition, and the progress of moral corruption had sunk him;-when the Jew and Gentile from this state of mind and character, were truly and sincerely converted to the pure, self-denying, benevolent, heavendirected religion of Jesus, revealing the only living and true God, and Him an infinite, holy and invisible Spirit, the Almighty Father of the human race, bestowing his favor impartially on all of every nation, that should fear Him and work righteousness, requiring and accepting no worship but that which is offered in spirit and in truth, enjoining, as terms of acceptance with Him and conditions of his favor, not oblations and sacrifices, nor ceremonial observances, nor mere outward services of any kind, but repentance toward Him, and faith in his Son, love to Him, and love to man, a life of sobriety and righteousness, of humble, conscientious and persevering obedience to the divine will as made known in the gospel;-the religion of Jesus, who came to establish no kingdom of this world,' but a kingdom only in the hearts of his followers; who gave himself to death for the salvation of mankind, and was raised from the dead to bring life and immortality to light, the final inheritance of all who persevere to the end in fidel

ity to him as their Teacher and Guide, their Redeemer and Saviour. This surely is a change of faith, of feelings, of principles, of desires and hopes, and, so far as these had their due practical influence, of manners and life, justly deserving to be described as that in which 'old things pass away, and all things become new.’

We must not however, as common sense alone would suggest to us, understand this in the most unlimited and unrestricted meaning which the words of themselves will bear, any more than when the same Apostle says to the Corinthians, all things are yours,' or of Christians, that they know all things.' In the case of the first converts to Christianity, it is most certain, that their old errors and pejudices and habits, were not for a long time totally abandoned, and that all the labors and instructions of the inspired Apostles, could not bring them at once and completely into those 'new' views, and that 'new' spirit and life, into which it was the design of the gospel to raise them. Hence the words of St Paul, in this as in other places, are to be understood with those qualifications and restrictions which the nature of the subject demands, and which any reader of ordinary capacity would scarcely fail to supply.

Similar language is in familiar use among us, and probably in every nation. We say of the effects of any signal revolution in the government of a country, or change of its institutions, and especially of a revolution by which a nation is delivered from abject servitude into a state of independance and liberty, civil and religious, that old things have passed away, and all things have become new, though much may still remain to be done, to complete and establish the change, to eradicate the remains and remedy the consequences of former evils and abuses, and to bring the new laws and institutions into regular and perfect operation; though much may still remain unchanged, and unchangeable.

In the instance of an individual first becoming acquainted with those minute and magnificent discover

ies, which the sciences of chemistry and astronomy have unfolded, or indeed with the details of almost any department of knowledge to which before he was a stranger, it would be accounted no exaggeration, were he to exclaim that all things had become new to him. It is still more consonant with common and universal modes of expression, to say of one who had been recovered from great ignorance and vice, from grovelling views, and low and mean gratifications, and debasing company, into a state of useful education, to a relish of moral and intellectual pleasures, into cultivated society and to habits of virtue, that he is become a new creature, that with him old things have passed away, and all things have become new.

These instances are sufficient to illustrate the manner in which this language is used by the Apostle in relation to those who were converted from among Jews or Gentiles, but especially the latter, to the Christian faith, and to suggest the sense and the limitations with which it may be applied to those, who, at the present day, become Christians from among ourselves. It would most plainly be stretching its meaning beyond reason and truth, beyond its original application; its common import in Scripture, to suppose it to denote the total change above stated. This conclusion will be confirmed by one or two other texts I shall cite.

In the Epistle to the Ephesians iv, 21, &c. addressing himself to those to whom he was writing, the Apostle thus states the grand requisition of the truth as it is in Jesus; that ye put off concern ing the former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.' In this passage St Paul describes, what we have endeavored to explain, the true nature of Christian regeneration,-of conversion, if the term be preferred,of repentance, to use a synonymous ex

pression, still more common in the teachings of Christ and his Apostles. By the old man,' are most obviously meant the corrupt principles, lusts and habits, to which they had been addicted in their former heathen conversation and life. By 'the new man,' on the contrary, are meant the new and purer principles, desires and hopes, the character of righteousness and true holiness, to which it is the design of the religion of Christ to form its disciples.

In another place, Galatians vi, 15, the same Apostle says, in Christ Jesus,' that is, according to his religion, under the new dispensation he has established, 'neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision,' neither the being a Jew, nor the not being one, is of any account, but a new creature,' or a new creation, that new spirit, temper, character, required and effected by the gospel, and which he else where calls the new man; the having this formed in us, is the only available condition of acceptance with God through Jesus Christ.

In neither of these passages is the necessity asserted of a radical, entire change of a man's whole moral nature. I cannot conceive that such a literally and absolutely total change should either be necessary, or could take place, in becoming a Christian, but in one, strictly speaking, totally depraved, utterly destitute of and estranged from all good, and wholly and irresistibly bent upon all evil. Whether such a being ever existed on the face of the earth, in human shape, I know not; how any one who has ever associated with his fellowcreatures, can in his senses persuade himself into the belief that this is the proper, native character of his race, I cannot imagine; one such monster it was never my lot to witness, and I pray Heaven it may never be.

The conclusion, then, which the representations of Scripture warrant, and to which the preceding remarks conduct us, is, that the change, inward and outward, which regeneration supposes, is great and visibly great,