Human nature in its fourfold state ... In several practical discourses

Of the Nature of Regeneration.

I. For the better understanding of the nature of regeneration, take this along with you in the first place. That as there are false conceptions in nature, so there are also in grace: and by these many are deluded, mistaking some partial changes made upon them, for this great and thorough change. To remove such mistakes, let these few things be considered. (1.) Many call the church their mother, whom God will not own to be his children, Cant. i. 6. My mother s children (i. e. false brethren) were angry with me. All that are baptized are not born again. Simon was baptized, yet still in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity, Acts viii. 13, 23. Where Christianity is the religion of the country, many will be called by the name of Christ, who have no more of him, but the name: and no wonder, seeing the devil had his goats among Christ's sheep, in these places, where but few professed the Christian religion, 1 John ii. 19. They went out from us, but they were not of us. (2) Good education is not regeneration. Education may chain up men's lusts, but cannot change their hearts. A wolf is still a ravenous beast, though it be in chains. Joash was very devout during the life of his good tutor Jehoiada; but afterwards he quickly showed what spirit he was of, by his sudden apostasy, 2 Chron. xxiv. 2, 17, 18. Good example is of mighty influence to change the outward man; but that change often goes off, when one changes his company; of which the world affords many sad instances. (3.) A turning from open profanity, to civility and sobriety, falls short of this saving change. Some are, for a while, very loose, especially in their younger years; but at length they reform, and leave their profane ••urses Here is a change, yet but such an one, as may be found in them, utterly […] of the grace of God and whose righteousness is so far from exceeding, that it doth not come up to the righteousness of the Suri and rises. (4.) One may engage in all the outward duties of religion, and yet not be born again. Tho' lead be cast into