gracious and encouraging are his own words, "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."-Isaiah i. 18. Only believe, and thou shalt be saved. The following verses are most expressive and agreeable to the Divine Word. May they assist you to remember what has already been said; and may all be blessed to your soul, and to the glory of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. "Come, ye sinners, poor and wretched, Weak and wounded, sick and sore; Jesus ready stands to save you, Full of pity, love, and power: He is willing, doubt no more. "Ho! ye thirsty, come and welcome ; True belief, and true repentance, Every grace that brings us nigh, Come to Jesus Christ, and buy. "Let not conscience make you linger, Is to feel your need of him: 'Tis the Spirit's rising beam. "Come, ye weary, heavy laden, Bruis'd and mangled by the fall! Sinners, Jesus came to call. "Agonizing in the garden! Lo! your Maker prostrate lies: Sinner, will not this suffice? "Lo! the incarnate God, ascended, Can do helpless sinners good. "Saints and angels, join'd in concert, Sing the praises of the Lamb: While the blissful seats of heaven Sweetly echo with his name, Hallelujah! Sinners here may sing the same." SERMON II. THE NEW BIRTH. JOHN III. 7. "Marvel not that I said, Ye must be born again." NICODEMUS was one of the rulers of the Jews, a learned man, and what the world terms well read in the Scriptures; that is, he knew the letter of them, and all the events they related, and all the moral precepts they taught, and all the ceremonies they directed to be observed under the olden Mosaic religion. He was also a kindly disposed moral character; but he was quite ignorant of the spiritual nature of the divine law, and of the real state and nature of the human heart, and of that great change which it must undergo before it is acceptable to God, or fit for the kingdom of heaven. When, therefore, our blessed Lord began to discourse with him on this sub ject, and to insist on this great change, he was quite confounded. He had never thought of it, although it is a change that makes the person, who experiences it, so different to what he was before, that it is like undergoing a new creation, or being born again; yes, this ruler, this learned moral man, was all amazement; he listened, he marvelled, or wondered at our Lord's words, for they were such as he had never heard or thought of before; he could not imagine what they meant. Our Lord, however, went on to repeat what he had said; and Nicodemus continued to express his astonishment, just as many people do now who ought to know this important doctrine, and earnestly to seek the experience of it in their own souls, instead of wondering, and ridiculing, and turning away as though the preacher was a fool or a madman. Let all, then, who hear or read this address know assuredly that the Lord Jesus pronounced an eternal, unchangeable truth, when he declared to Nicodemus, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." John iii. 3. On the understanding, believing, and experiencing the truth of these words our salvation depends. Let us, then, endeavour to explain the subject, by First, stating what "being born again" means; Secondly, what man is by nature before he is born again; and, Thirdly, what the nature of this kingdom of God is; and thence see the necessity of this new birth before any one can enter or possess that kingdom. First, then, "being born again" means our being changed by the Holy Spirit in all the dispositions and faculties of the soul; so that we become quite different people to what we were before. Just as the wild olive or the crab tree is entirely changed by being grafted. By our natural birth we bring into the world the same nature our parents inherited from their parents; by our spiritual birth we receive a new nature. |