when fanned by the gentle breezes of the Holy Spirit. A greater conformity will soon take place between the will of the Christian, and the will of his God. Even should this comfort be for a season denied, still he is under the protection of his Lord; who views with a loving pity the struggle in his heart, and who will doubtless, as soon as it shall be expedient for him, cause the light of his countenance to shine upon him. Meanwhile all things work together for his good; and, if his inclinations be deficient in fervency, his conscience acquires fresh tenderness and more acute discernment. The difficulty, which he finds in loving what he ought to love, gives him deeper views of sin and convinces him more effectually of his own utter inability. He now discovers, and believes, on the sure ground of actual experience, that in himself dwelleth no good thing, and that all his sufficiency is of God. So far from being faithful to grace, as some vainly talk, he daily

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sees more and more of his unfaithfulness; and, though he strives under the influence of the Holy Spirit to work out his salvation, yet he is constrained to acknowledge that it is God whe worketh in him both to will and to do.

Since Scripture represents man in his natural state as dead in trespasses and sin; it will follow, unless the whole propriety of the metaphor be destroyed, that he is totally unable, by any inherent strength of his own, to raise himself up to the life of righteousness. This figurative resurrection from the dead is the same, as what is sometimes termed, by a different metaphor, 'regeneration or a new birth. It is occasionally likewise represented as a new creation. All which images plainly teach us, both that a very essential change must take place in the moral constitution in order to a man's being a Christian, and that that change must be effected by some extrinsic power.

To be born again implies, that, as no man ean bestow upon himself a natural beingTherefore the Scripture chooses to express this new birth by such terms as import in us an utter impossibility and impotency to effect it by our own power. It is called the quickening the dead; you hath he quickened, says the Apostle, who were dead in trespasses and sins. Look, how impossible it is for a dead man, that is shut down under the bars of the grave, that is crumbled away into dust and ashes, to pick up every scattered dust and to form them again into the same members: look, how impossible it is for him to breathe without a soul, or to breathe that soul into himself. Alike impossible is it for a natural man, who hath lain many years in the death of sin, to shake off from himself that spiritual death, or to breathe into himself that spiritual and heavenly life that may make him a living soul before God."*

* Bishop Hopkins's Works, p. 531.

Most assuredly "for this great work God only is equal; it is not in our power to regenerate ourselves: for we are not born of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of 'the will of man, that is, not of any natural created strength, but of God."* He it is, who maketh us new creatures. By his Holy Spirit, not by any strength of our own, the divine principle of love, without which no man can live well, is diffused through our hearts.

So great a change, however, is not effected without much opposition on the part of those who are the subjects of it nor without a vehement exercise of that determined resolution, which God alone can confer upon them. "After many strugglings and conflicts with their

* Bishop Wilkins on prayer, chap. xvii.

t "Charitas Dei, sine qua nemo bene vivit, diffunditur in cordibus nostris, non a nobis, sed per Spiritum Sanctum qui datus est nobis." Augustin. Epist. 105.

lusts and the strong bias of evil habits," as it is rightly observed by Abp. Tillotson, "this resolution assisted by the grace of God, does effectually prevail and make a real change both in the temper of their minds and in the course of their lives: and when that is done, and not before, they are said to be regenerate."*

Well then might St. Austin exclaim, “To justify a sinner, to new create him from a wicked person to a righteous man, is a greater act, than to make such a new heaven and earth as is already made." Well might the pious founders of our Church maintain that, "the more regeneration is hid from our understanding, the more it ought to move all men to wonder at the secret and mighty working of God's Holy Spirit, which is within us. For it

* Tillotson's Serm. on Gal. vi. 15.

Cited in Homily for Rogat. Week. part i.