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

2. It is a supernatural change; he that is born again, is born of the Spirit, John iii 5. Great changes may be made by the power of nature, especially when assisted by external revelation. And nature may be so elevated by the common influences of the Spirit, that one may thereby be turned into another man, (as Soul was, 1 Sam. x 6.) who yet never becomes a new man. But in regeneration nature itself is changed, and we become partakers of the divine nature; and this must needs be a supernatural change. How can we that are dead in trespasses and sins, renew ourselves, more than a dead man can raise himself out of his grave? Who, but the sanctifying Spirit of Christ, can form Christ in a soul, changing it into the same image? Who, but the Spirit of sanctification can give the new heart? Well may we say, when we see a man thus changed, This is the finger of God.

3. It is a change into the likeness of God, 2 Cor iii. 18. We— beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image. Every thing that generates, generates its like: the child bears the image of the parent; and they that are born of God, bear God's image. Man aspiring to be as God, made himself like the devil. In his natural state he resembles the devil, as a child doth the father, John viii 44. Ye are of your father the devil. But when this happy change comes, the image of Satan is defaced, and the image of God restored. Christ himself, who is the brightness of his Father's glory, is the pattern, after which the new creature is made, Rom. viii 29. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son Hence he is said to be conformed in the regenerate, Gal. iv. 19.

3. It is a change into the likeness of God, 2 Cor iii. 18. We— beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image. Every thing that generates, generates its like: the child bears the image of the parent; and they that are born of God, bear God's image. Man aspiring to be as God, made himself like the devil. In his natural state he resembles the devil, as a child doth the father, John viii 44. Ye are of your father the devil. But when this happy change comes, the image of Satan is defaced, and the image of God restored. Christ himself, who is the brightness of his Father's glory, is the pattern, after which the new creature is made, Rom. viii 29. For whom he did forknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son Hence he is said to be conformed in the regenerate,