PREFACE.

It is undoubtedly the duty of every wise and good man, to be forming schemes for the service of God and his fellow-creatures in future years, if he be continued to them; and it will be his prudence to do it early in life, that he may be gradually preparing to execute them in the most advantageous manner he can. But while a man's heart is thus devising his way, the Lord directeth his steps. And as many such schemes will probably be left unfinished at death, which will quickly come to break off our purposes and the thoughts of our hearts; so it is not improbable that they who humbly and obediently follow the leadings of Divine Providence and Grace, may often find themselves called out, on a sudden, to services which, but a little before, were quite unthought of by them.

This has been the case with me in most of the Sermons I have published, of which very few were composed with any view to the press; and it is most remarkably so with respect to these on Regeneration. Besides many other excellent persons, my much honoured friend, Dr. Wright, has handled the subject in so judicious and lively a manner, and, through the great goodness of God to us, so many thousands

of his treatise are dispersed in all parts of our land, that I could hardly have believed any one who had told me I should thus have resumed it; nor had I the least intention of doing it, when I began that course of Lectures which I now offer to my reader's perusal.

I did indeed think it necessary, last year, to treat the subject more largely than I had ever done before, knowing in the general how important it is, and observing that several controversies had about that time. been raised concerning it, which, (though I do not judge it necessary to mention the particulars of them,) I was ready to fear, might have had an evil influence to unsettle men's minds, and either to lead them into some particular errors, or into a general apprehension that it was a mere point of speculation, about which it was not necessary to form any judgment at all.*

That these Discourses might be more generally useful, I determined to preach them on Lord's-day evenings, that those of my neighbours, who were not my stated hearers, might, if they thought proper, have an opportunity of attending them: and, accordingly, they were attended to the last with uncommon diligence; a great many persons, of different persuasions and communions, making up a part of the auditory. As practical instruction and improvement was the main thing I had in view, I knew it was necessary to make my discourses as plain, as free, and as serious as I could. But before I had finished half of my scheme, several of my hearers earnestly requested that the Sermons might be pub

* See Mr. Hebden's Appendix to his late Discourse on RE

GENERATION.

lished: and the request grew more extensive and importunate every week, with this additional circumstance, (which I much regarded,) that some very pious and judicious friends at a distance, being providentially brought to the hearing of some of these Lectures, strongly concurred in the desire; expressing a very cheerful hope, that the reading of what they had heard might be useful in distant parts of the land, to which, they assured me, they would endeavour to spread them, as opportunity might offer. As the advice of several of my brethren in the ministry was joined with all this, I thought myself bound in duty at length to comply; which I was the rather encouraged to do, from the several instances in which I had reason to believe the Divine blessing had, in some measure, attended these Sermons from the pulpit, and had made them the means of producing and advancing the change they described and enforced.

On these considerations, I applied myself to recollect the substance of them as well as I could, from the short hints I had written of them, with the assistance of those notes which some of my friends had taken. Some things are perhaps omitted, though I believe but very few; some contracted, and some enlarged; but my hearers will find them, in the main, what they heard. It cost me more labour than I was aware, from such materials, to reduce them into their present form.

I shall leave it to my reader to observe for himself the manner and method in which I have handled my subject, without giving him a particular view of it here; only must beg leave to tell him, in the general, that I hope he will find I have not presumed so

far on the sublimity of my subject, as to talk without determinate ideas; for which reason I have omitted many phrases, used particularly of late by some pious and worthy persons, because I freely own, that as I cannot find them in my Bible, so neither can I understand their exact meaning; and it seems very improper to embarrass such plain discourses as these with a language, which, not being thoroughly master of, I may chance to misapply, supposing those phrases to be really more proper than I can at present apprehend they are. I have endeavoured tokeep to one idea of REGENERATION, which I take to be that which the Scripture suggests: by Regeneration I mean a prevailing disposition of the soul to universal holiness, produced and cherished by the influences of God's Spirit on our hearts, operating in a manner suitable to the constitution of our nature, as rational and accountable creatures.' If this be (as I think I have proved at large that it is) the Scriptural notion of it, it will follow, that nothing which may be found where this is not, or which may not be found where this is, can be Regeneration in the Scripture sense, which is that sense in which we are much more concerned, than we are in that to which any human writers, whether ancient or modern, may think proper to apply it.

If the doctrine which I have endeavoured, in the whole course of these Sermons, to confirm and illustrate by the word of God, be in one form or another generally taught by my brethren in the ministry, of whatever denomination, I rejoice in it for their own sakes, as well as for that of the people under their care. I am very little inclined to contend about