BX 9315 .C427 1864 v. 3 Charnock, Stephen, 1628-
1680. The complete works of
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NICHOL'S SERIES OF STANDARD DIVINES.
PURITAN PERIOD.
Wxfy (Smrnl Jrtface
BY JOHN C. MILLER, D.D.,
ummm college ; hoxoeaky caso* oe n^u i hector oe st M.axuVs, uniu-.
THE
WORKS OF STEPHEN CHARNOCE", B.B.
VOL. III.
COUNCIL OF PUBLICATION.
W. LINDSAY ALEXANDER, D.D., Professor of Theology, Congregational Union, Edinburgh.
JAMES BEGG, D.D., Minister of Newington Free Church, Edinburgh.
THOMAS J. CRAWFORD, D.D., S.T.P., Professor of Divinity, University, Edinburgh.
D. T. K. DRUMMOND, M.A., Minister of St Thomas's Episcopal Church, Edinburgh.
WILLIAM H. GOOLD, D.D., Professor of Biblical Literature and Church History, Reformed Presbyterian Church, Edinburgh.
ANDREW THOMSON, D.D., Minister of Broughton Place United Presby- terian Church, Edinburgh.
©erteral Got'tor. REV. THOMAS SMITH, M.A., Edinburgh.
THE COMPLETE WORKS
STEPHEN CHARNOCK, B.D.
BY THE REV. JAMES M'COSH, LL.D.
PROFESSOR OF LOGIC AND METAPHYSICS, QTJEEn's COLLEGE, BELFAST.
VOL. III.
CONTAINING :
THE NECESSITY— THE NATUBE— THE EFFICIENT— AND
THE INSTRUMENT OF REGENERATION.
GOD THE AUTHOR OF RECONCILIATION.
THE CLEANSING VIRTUE OF CHRIST'S BLOOD.
EDINBURGH : JAMES NICHOL.
LONDON : JAMES NISBET AND CO. DUBLIN : G. HERBERT.
M.DCCC.LXV.
edinbhrgh: printed by john greco and son,
OLD PHYSIC GARDENS.
CONTENTS.
DISCOURSES.
Page To the Reader. . . . . . .3
The Necessity of Regeneration. . . John III. 3, 5. . 7
A Discourse of the Nature of Regeneration. 2 Cor. V. 17. . 82
A Discourse of the Efficient of Regeneration. John I. 13. . 16G
A Discourse of the Word, the Instrument of
Regeneration. . . . . James I. 18. . 307
A Discourse of God's being the Author of
Reconciliation. . . . .2 Cor. V. 18, 19. 336
A Discourse of the Cleansing Virtue of
Christ's Blood. . . 1 John I. 7. . 501
DISCOURSES.
TO THE READER.
The quick sale of this excellent author's former volume, viz., his Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God, as well as that of Divine Provi- dence, considering how heavily the works of some others on such like sub- jects have gone off in our decrepit age, may be abundant evidence what acceptance they have found with the judiciously pious, who converse with books, and thereupon afford persuasive hopes that more of the genuine and useful issue of the same father, not less like to him than those born before, will yet be more favourably entertained. Wherefore, presuming we have not any way impeached oar reputation by anything we wrote in the fore- going Prefaces, if thou wilt (without any repetition of the same with respect to these) but give us credit till thou hast took a distinct view by a due pro- portion of the several well-made parts and features here presented to thine eye by us, who were desired to perform this office of love to our deceased worthy friend, we doubt not but thou wilt easily say, As those treatises were, so these are, Judges viii. 18 ; yea (as Joseph's brethren said, Gen. xlii. 11, 13), • All sons of one man in the land of Canaan ' above, each one resembling the children of him that now ' rests from his labours, and his works do follow him,' Rev. xiv. 13, being ' made a king and priest unto God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,' Rev. i. 5, whom he served with his spirit in the gospel, Rom. i. 9, which the choice heads of evangelical truths, clearly opened and practically applied in this volume, may largely attest, and so give a supersedeas to any further recommendation of ours. The rather, when thou mayest be fully assured that a considerable part, namely, the learned and spiritual Discourses of Regeneration, were carefully copied out by one f of the former happy undertakers ; and though another, who attained to the skill of perfectly reading his manuscripts, was chiefly employed in transcribing the major part of this great work from the author's own copy, yet the transcript hath been diligently compared with the original by the other J of the former transcribers before we read it each of us separately, and afterwards those passages conjunctly, in consultation to- gether, wherein either of us conceived any little scruple might arise concerning the author's genuine sense, we saw re-examined, being studious to do him all the right we could, and give his own meaning in his own words unto the world, without adventuring to interpose our own conceptions. Yet after our utmost care, and the vigilant supervisal of the press by an in- genious person, § who did much honour the author, we doubt not but had he himself survived the publication of what now appears, he would have sweetened and given grace to some lines that we presume not to alter. If,
* This Address to the Beader is prefixed to Vol. II. of the original edition of Cliarnock's Works, from which this Volume and the succeeding one will bo re- printed. It is Iherefore appropriately introduced here. — Ed.
t Mr Wickens. { Mr Nich. Ashton. \ Mr Taylor.
4 TO THE READER.
then, there should be found some things less clear, or any metaphor less pleasing, there be other things of greater weight singularly well delivered will abundantly compensate it ; yea, which will greatly inform the judgment, affect the serious heart, and notably quicken to the main business of religion, and possibly, as the remains of the prophet Elisha, 2 Kings xiii. 21, which revived the man that was occasionally let down into his sepulchre, be a means, under God's gracious influence, to enliven some spiritually dead soul, set him upright, and enable him to run the ways of God's commandments ; or, like the writing left behind Elijah, 2 Chron. xxi. 12, compared with 2 Kings ii. 11, and iii. 11, serve to warm some who are contributing to the removal of the gospel from among us. However, this later, with the former volume, will evince to those who are addicted to an over hasty censuring men of his persuasion, without any just ground?, what his great soul was mostly exercised about, namely, not matters of human policy, but the great things of the kingdom of God ; not meats and drinks, i.e. mere circumstances, but the essentials and substantial of the Christian institution, righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, Kom xiv. 17, which we 'are confident he hath explained very consonant to the doc- trinal articles of religion, drawn up by our first reformers, and subscribed by the minsters of the Church of England. We know not that he doth at all vary from them, or other of the reformed churches. Discipline he doth not insist on. And we suppose ingenuous readers, if they find in any little matter his sentiments different from their own, will freely give an allowance for a fair interpretation of the authot's sense, at least in a posthumous work, and not wiredraw any sentences a working fancy might produce, and not review, to make them look crooked ; considering what we are put in mind of in this book,* viz., every error in the head doth no more destroy the truth of faith, than every miscarriage in the life, through infirmity, nulls the being of grace ; or every spot upon the face impairs the beauty and features of it
Some who have heartily blessed God for those good things they have already received since this author's departure (and we have no small engage- ment upon us to be thankful to God for good books, when there be such swarms of bad ones), do with greedy eyes long to peruse his meditations upon the proposed subjects ; which now appearing to their view, we are per- suaded will easily gain their grateful acknowledgments that they are not dis- appointed, when they here find the fruitful products of the very same spirit of Mr Charnock, which was of no ordinary elevation.
And however, in the Discourse of Christ's Exaltation, there be some few materials which be of the same import with some of those in that of Recon- ciliation, yet handled with an acceptable variety, this might easily so fall out in the course of his celebrated preaching, not designing to lay them to- gether in one volume, without the least disparagement ; yea, now they are printed, the bottomless pit being opened, Rev. ix. 2, by the papists' causing smoke to arise thence to trouble the eyes of real Chistians, the inculcating of such choice notions seems to be an angelical voice from heaven opened, Rev. xix. 11, to direct God's chosen ones into that way of truth which others have not known. And if, in two or three smaller tracts, the author seem not altogether so elaborate as in his other pieces, it cannot but be granted that they were some occasional sermons composed in great straits of time ; yet such as kindly savour of the same spirit with the rest, unto which it was thought fit to annex them, that there might not be any occasion to mutter that we had kept back part of what was primarily dedicated to the * Page 007.
TO THE READER.
use of the church ; or locked up in secret any pieces of so good an author, whose business, whilst he lived, was to benefit others ; being happy in veri- fying the Arabic proverb, viz., that that learned scholar is the worst of men, who doth not profit others by his learning.
As to that discourse about The Spirit's convincing the World of Sin, the author's own notes, upon stricter search, not being found, two skilful short- band writers,* who constantly attended his ministry, have supplied the defect, from what they both took from his own mouth, when they had compared their notes ; which supply, though it should want somewhat of the accuracy of those other parts transcribed from his own manuscripts, yet those who are not over critical will find, for the completing of tbese discourses upon that text, not much real detriment ; and upon the whole matter, not any detracting from that powerful name which the title page is adorned witb. We therefore taking the freedom to advise thee, Christian reader, of those things, are not much concerned with the carping censures of supercilious critics, having, we hope, conscientiously done what was incumbent on us with all faithfulness, in emitting these writings, which might, as Peter's, be beneficial after his decease to the public, 2 Peter i. 15, which was not more the design of the deceased author in his ministry, than of his yet surviving friends, and
Thy servants, for Jesus's sake,
Richard Adams. Edward Veal. Sept. 24. 1683.
* Mr Taylor, Mr Newberry.
THE NECESSITY OF REGENERATION
■Jesu% answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water, and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. — John III. 3, 5.
These words contain the foundation of all practical religion here, and hap- piness hereafter. It is the principal doctrine Christ, as a prophet, came to teach, and as a king to work in the heart. It is an answer to Nicodemus his compliment, who came to him with some veneration of him. His de- scription is in ver. 1 : ' There was a man of the'pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.' 1. By his profession or sect, a pharisee. 2. His name, Nicodemus. 3. His quality, a ruler of the Jews ; "A^oov, a prince, one of the great Sanhedrim, who had the supreme power in all affairs which con- cerned religion, even under the Roman government. His coming to Christ is described, ver. 2 : ' The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God : for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.' Where we have (1.) the time of his coming, by night ; (2.) the manner of coming and speak- ing to him with reverence, Rabbi, a title of honour. He comes to Christ ; therefore is to be commended. He comes by night ; hath some failure in his respect to Christ, afraid publicly to own him. Nicodemus was one of the number which believed Christ for his miracles, John ii. 23. He comes hereupon to discourse with him about divine things. He acknowledges him a prophet sent by God. The reason of his acknowledgment is the conside- ration of his miracles, which manifested a divine power, both in the greatness and multitude of them. For he knew that God would not set the seal of his power, to one that had not his commission. Miracles are the credential letters, to signify the divine authority of any person sent upon any new dis- pensation by God.
Observe,
1. God doth not force any man's belief, but gives such undeniable evi- dences of his will and mind, that not to believe is flat contradiction to him. When he sent Moses to deliver and give a new law to the Israelites, he at- tended him with a miraculous power, to testify it to be his will, that what Moses delivered should be entertained. So it was with our Saviour, and in the primitive times, at the first promulgation of the gospel in several places.
8 charnock's works. [John III. 3, 5.
But when a doctrine is settled and a church established, God forbears those extraordinary works, as he did the raining down manna after the Israelites' entrance into Canaan, where they might have provision in an ordinary way of providence ; and they had miracles afterward in a more scanty measure, now and then. We have now rational ways to introduce us to a belief of the Christian doctrine ; and though there are no sensible miracles as before, yet there hath been in all ages, and is still, a miracle Jiept up in the world, greater than wrought by Christ upon the bodies of men.'' And that is the conversion of many obstinate sinners, and subduing them on a sudden, which in Christ's account, was the chiefest miracle he wrought when he was upon the earth : Luke vii. 22, ' Go your way, and tell John what things you have seen and heard : how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached.' Christ had cured many in their sight ; but he added in the end of the enumeration, ' To the poor the gospel is preached ;' Uru^oi iuayyiXifyvrai. The poor are evangelised, brought into a gospel frame, a renewed state for the kingdom of heaven, which is greater than the raising a man from a natural death to a natural life.
Nicodemus comes by night. He is fond of his own honour, loath to im- pair it by a free and open confession. He was a master in Israel. Had he come by day, his reputation had suffered in the vulgar opinion, who might well wonder that he, a pharisee, of a profound knowledge, should come to receive instruction from the son of a carpenter, a man despised by his fel- lows of the Sanhedrim. Yet he comes, though by night.
Observe,
1. It is a hard matter for us to perform a duty we are convinced of, with- out a flaw in it. Nicodemus is convinced by the miracles of Christ's divine authority ; but he forbears an open acknowledgment of him. He creeps to him in the night, unwilling to be seen with him in the day. If Christ were not a prophet, why should he be acknowledged at all ? If a prophet, why not in the day as well as in the night ? Strange not to consult him in the day, whom he confesseth to have his commission from God ! How weak is the faith of the best at first ! How staggering between Christ and self.
2. Our own reputation will be apt to mix itself in our religious services. It is his fear of the loss of this makes him choose the darkness. This greatest piece of old Adam in us will be rising in various forms, when we are in the most spiritual exercises. What a contest is there between reli- gion and reputation ! He was willing to gratify the one, but not displease the other.
3. Ambition is the great hindrance of a thorough conversion. Nicodemus had a mind to speak to Christ, but his reputation bears too much sway in him against a thorough giving up himself to him. He was ashamed to be taken notice of in this little address he made : John v. 44, ' How can ye believe, that receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour which comes from God only ?'
4. Men may have a high esteem of Christ, yet not such an esteem as amounts to a saving faith. Nicodemus acknowledges him a teacher, and that sent from God ; but not the teacher, the great prophet Moses had spoken of, Deut. xviii. 15. He confesseth him a prophet, but not the Messiah. Look to your estimations of Christ ; see whether they be supreme, superlative, the Saviour, the mediator, the Lord and King.
5. Convictions may be a long time before any appearance of conversion. If we consider Nicodemus here, only as one convinced of the divine autho- rity of Christ, and not a thorough convert at this time ; for he seems by his
John III. 3, 5.] the necessity of regeneration. 9
questions, vers. 4 and 9, to be rather a malcontent, than a convert ; yet the seed then sown by our Saviour's discourse sprung up at last in fruit. He doth upon a signal occasion plead Christ's cause before a council of phari- sees, probably the great Sanhedrim, yet but faintly: John vii. 50, 51, ' Doth our law judge any man before it hears him, and knows what he doth ?' Before, he would have no witness of his coming to Christ. Here he takes his part, as he might have done any man's upon a common principle of jus- tice and equity, that he should not be condemned before he was heard. But there is more generous fruit afterwards, where he joins with Joseph of Arima- thea in doing honour openly to our Saviour's crucified body : John xix. 39, 1 And there came also Nicodemus (which at the first came to Jesus by night), and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight.' What grace he had seems to be in a long sleep, but is very vigorous upon its awaking.
6. True grace doth one time or other discover itself most contrary to that which was the natural crime before. In both these places, fear had been his sin. It is now over- matched by confidence. The Holy Ghost takes notice of it, ' which at the first came to Jesus by night.' He came by night before, now he comes by day. He and another never named before, Joseph of Arimathea, who being possessed with the same passion of fear, was a dis- ciple in secret, — John xix. 38, ' Being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly, for fear of the Jews,' — own him publicly at his death, when those that had been familiar with him in his life forsook him. Christ will make timorous hares to own his cause, when those that think themselves courageous lions turn their backs upon him.
Paul had the most transcendent affection to the church, who before was guilty of the smartest persecution. And Peter, after the coming of the Spirit, was as courageous as before he was cowardly in his Master's cause.
We have seen the pharisee. Let us consider our Saviour's answer: ver. 3, ' Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.'
Some think that Nicodemus asked a question which is not expressed, but may be gathered out of Christ's answer, and seems to be this, What was requisite to a man's entrance into the kingdom of heaven ? Whereupon Christ tells him, that there was a necessity of being born again. Others think that Nicodemus asked no question, and that these words are a very proper reply to Nicodemus.
1. Christ answers not his compliment, but useth his authority, acknow- ledged by Nicodemus, of a teacher to inform him. Since you acknowledge my commission from God to be a teacher, I will teach you what I have to declare. The great design of my coming is to bring men to the kingdom of God ; and the great means to this is a new birth, which can only fit you for evangelical truths here, and eternal happiness hereafter. He acknowledges Christ to be a teacher, and Christ in his reply would teach him how to become a Christian.
2. Christ frames his answer according to the pharisee's corruption. Nicodemus came by night, out of love to his credit, that might be impaired by his coming in the day-time. What would the people think ? Surely this man, and the rest of his tribe, are not so knowing as they pretend to be, since he comes to Jesus to be taught, and out of fear of the pharisees, who thereby might be offended.
Christ's answer therefore very well suits him. You must become a new man, if you would have acquaintance with evangelical mysteries. Away with your old notions, and pharisaical pride. Deny your honour, credit, and
10 charnogk's works. [John III. 3, 5.
whatsoever partakes of the name of self. A legal frame, and a pharisaical righteousness, will not advance you to the kingdom of God. The Jews were proud of being Abraham's children, and thought the gates of heaven could not be shut against any of that relation.
John had touched them before for this : Mat. iii. 9, ' And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father.' Christ doth tacitly here do the same, and puts him in mind of another birth, and the falseness and deceitfulness of his bottom of legal righteousness.
3. Christ frames his answer according to his weakness and ignorance. Nicodemus acknowledged him a teacher, not the Messiah. Christ would bring him to the knowledge of himself as the Messiah. Christ therefore by his answer would lift up his thoughts higher, and puts him in mind of the kingdom of God, which the Jews in their common discourse signified the kingdom of the Messiah by, and have entitled it in ages since, the kingdom of God, and the kingdom of heaven. So that Christ would bring him to the knowledge of himself as the Messiah, not only as an extraordinary prophet.
These three things evidence what relation this speech of Christ hath to that of Nicodemus.
Observe from the relation of this to Nicodemus his speech :
1. We shall gain nothing by our applaudings and praises of Christ, with- out a renewed nature. Nicodemus comes with much reverence, gives Christ the title of rabbi, confesseth him to be sent of God, owns the divinity of his miracles. Christ doth not compliment him again, takes no notice of his civility, but falls roundly to his work, acquaints him with the necessity of regeneration, without which he could not see the kingdom of God, for all his fine praises of him. A glavering reverential religion is insignificant with Christ. A new birth, a likeness to Christ in nature, a conformity to him, is accounted by Christ an higher estimation of him, than all external applauses given to him.
2. No natural privilege under heaven can entitle us to the kingdom of grace or glory. It is not our carnal traduction from the best man. It is no natural birth, with the choicest privileges, gives us a right to either of them. Not the honour of having the law from God's own mouth, the glory of an outward covenant, the treasure of the oracles of God, the seal of cir- cumcision borne in the body, that can instate this Nicodemus into this feli- city. It is a birth of a higher strain, from an higher principle, a change of nature, and a removal from the old stock.
See how strangely Nicodemus replied upon this discourse of our Saviour. How strangely astonished is this great ruler in Israel at the doctrine which is absolutely necessary to an entrance into the kingdom of heaven ! ver. 4, 1 Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old ? can he enter a second time into his mother's womb, and be born ? ' What a childish conception hath he of this most heavenly doctrine ! Can such an ancient man as I return to my first principles, dig a way into my mother's womb ? It is strange that Nicodemus, being a pharisee, and so well versed in Scripture, should be so ignorant, or at least guilty of so much inadvertenc}7, as not to think of that place, Ezek. xxxvi., and other places, which speak of ' a new heart,' and • an heart of flesh.' He might have considered the design of the legal purifications, which were to represent the inward holiness which ought to be in the persons so purified. Yet he hears him discourse, but doth not comprehend him. His carnal notion bears sway against spiritual truths.
Observe,
John III. 3, 5.] the necessity of regeneration. 11
1. A man may have great knowledge in the letter of the Scripture, and yet not understand the necessary and saving doctrines in it. The doctrine of regeneration was laid down in the whole Old Testament, though not in that term. Let us take heed how we read the Scriptures ; not to trouble our heads with needless and curious questions, but with the main mysteries of religion. What could all Nicodemus his knowledge profit him, if it had been ten thousand times more, without the knowledge of this doctrine, and the experience of it !
2. Nothing is more an enemy to the saving knowledge of gospel mysteries than a priding ourselves in head knowledge. Nicodemus his coming by night was not only from fear, but pride, that he might not be thought ignorant by the people. Humble men have the soundest knowledge : ' The meek will he teach his way,' Ps. xxv. 9.
3. How low was the interest of God in the world at that time ! How had ignorance and error thrust the knowledge of God out of other parts of the world, when it languished so much in the church ! How simple must the poor people be when the students in Scripture were no wiser ! It is a thing to be bewailed amongst us, that wrangling knowledge hath almost thrust out spiritual. And when Christians meet, their discourses are more about unnecessary disputes than these saving mysteries of Christianity, which might produce elevations of heart to heaven.
To this exception of Nicodemus Christ makes his reply ; where observe,
1. A fresh assertion of it, with an explanation : ver. 5, ' Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water, and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.' In the third verse, Christ lays down the necessity of the new birth ; in ver. 5, the necessity of the cause, ' Except a man be born of water, and of the Spirit.' In the first speecb, he lays down the doctrine ; in this, he explains the principle and man- ner of it, to remove his false apprehensions, wherein he might mean the transmigration of souls, which seems to be an opinion amongst the Jews.
2. A reason to back it : ver. 6, ' That which is born of the flesh is flesh ; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.' That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and can be no more by that principle, for the effect cannot be better than the cause ; but that which is born of the Spirit is spirit, i.e. hath a spiritual nature.
Flesh is taken for man corrupted : Gen. vi. 3, 'For he also is flesh,' de- generate into flesh, grown a mere sensual creature by the loss of original righteousness. For upon the parting of original righteousness, the soul of man was as a body without life ; a spiritual carcase, as the body is without a soul.
Flesh signifies the whole nature, as in that place, Mat. xvi. 17, ' Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee,' &c. The incarnation of the Son of God, which is the foundation of all evangelical administrations, is above the sphere of nature to discover. Man in his natural generation is but mere nature, and cannot apprehend, cannot enjoy that which is only apprehensible and enjoyable by a spiritual nature ; but man regenerated by the Spirit is spiritual, and is advanced above mere flesh, for he is made partaker of the divine nature. So that Christ's argument runs thus : No flesh can enter into the kingdom of God ; but every man naturally is flesh, unless bom again of the Spirit; therefore no man, unless born again of the Spirit, can enter into the kingdom of God. If you could enter into your mother's womb, and be born again, the matter would not be mended with you ; you would still be but flesh, and rather worse than better ; therefore that is not the birth that I mean, for the impediment would be as strong in you as before.
12 charnock's works. [John III. 3, 5.
These two verses are an answer to Nicodemus his objection. Nicodemus understands it of a carnal birth. No, no, saith Christ, it is a spiritual birth I intend ; one that is wholly divine and heavenly. That which you mean brings a man into the light of the world ; that which I mean, brings a man out of the world, into the light of grace. That forms the flesh to an earthly life ; this forms the soul to an heavenly. That makes you the son of man ; this the son of God.*
All the difficulty lies in ver. 5, in that expression of water, &c. Some, as the papists, understand it of the elementary water of baptism, and from this place exclude all children dying without baptism from salvation. Others understand it of a metaphorical water, whereof Christ speaks, John iv. 14, • The water that I shall give him, shall be in him a well of water, springing up into everlasting life.'
Let us first see why by water cannot be meant the baptismal water.
Regeneration is the mystery and sense of that sacred ceremony. It is in- deed signified, represented, and sealed in baptism ; how, and in what sense, is not my present work.
1. It is strange, that when all agree that the birth here spoken of is spiri- tual and metaphorical, that the water here should be natural.
2. None could be saved, unless baptized, if this were meant of baptism. As if these words, John vi. 53, ' Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you,' were meant of the supper, none could be saved unless they did partake of it. Whereas Christ lays not the stress upon baptism, but upon faith : Mark xvi. 16, ' He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved ; but he that believeth not, shall be damned.' He doth not say, He that is not baptized shall be damned, but he lays dam- nation wholly upon the want of faith. Many have been saved without bap- tism, none without faith. It is true to say, He that doth not believe shall be damned ; but it is not true to say, He that is not baptized shall be damned. Christ saith the first, but not the second, though his discourse had obliged him to say so, had it been true, or had he meant this speech to Nicodemus of baptismal water. The Spirit is not tied to baptism, but he may act out of the sacraments as well as in them. Understand this of the bare want of baptism, not of the contempt or wilful neglect of it. If it were meant of baptism, it was true then, that none could be saved without it. How did the thief upon the cross enter into paradise, which Christ promised him ? So that one may enter into heaven without baptism by water, though not without the baptism of the Spirit.
3. Baptism was not then instituted as a standing sacrament in the Chris- tian church. The institution of it we find not till after Christ's resurrection : Mat. xxviii. 19, ' Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them.' And it is not likely Christ would discourse to Nicodemus of the necessity of an institution that was not yet expressly appointed by him, and which he did not appoint till after his resurrection ; for he discourseth of that which was of present necessity. And if this were meant of baptism, and of that absolute necessity the papists would lay upon it from these words, then all that died before the institution of baptism by our Saviour, unbaptized, could not enter into the kingdom of heaven, though believing. Can anything be necessary before the precept for it be given ? It could not be necessary be- fore, as a means, because it is not a natural, but an instituted means. It must be therefore necessary by virtue of a command ; therefore not abso- lutely necessary before the command, and at the time Christ spoke these words. Some say that Christ meant it, not of an absolute necessity at that
* Daille, Sermon en ce lieu.
John III. 3, 5.] the necessity of regeneration. 13
time, butThaHt-should be so after his death.* That is to give our Saviour the lie, for he spake it of the present time, some years before his death. Besides, it 'wrongs the goodness of our Saviour (if he had meant it of bap- tism), to* defer the institution of it so long after, when it was at present necessary for Nicodemus his salvation. It wrongs his wisdom, too, to speak of that to be at present necessary, which was not in being, nor would be till after his death.
4. It is strange that our Saviour should speak to Nicodemus of the neces- sity of baptism before he had informed him of the mysteries of the gospel, whereof it is a seal. To speak of the seal before he speaks of that which is to be sealed by it, is not congruous. For the sacraments being founded upon the doctrine on which they depend, to begin by a sacrament the instruction of a man, is to begin a building by the tiles and rafters, before you lay a foundation ; and against the order expressed by our Saviour to the apostles, which puts teaching before baptizing, and was always practised in the primi- tive times, and is to this day in all Christian churches, to the adult and grown up. As circumcision was, amongst the Jews, not administered to any proselyte before his turning proselyte, and instruction in those laws he was to observe, and then, and not till then, his children had a right to cir- cumcision.
5. Those that understand it of the baptismal water, and so make that of absolute necessity, do by another assertion accuse their own exposition of a falsity ; for they say that the baptism of blood supplies the want of that of water, and that if either infants or adult persons be hurried away to a stake or gibbet, or killed for the Christian cause, they are certainly saved ; which cannot be, if the baptism of water were to be understood in this place, and so absolutely necessary. It is water that is expressed, and blood is not water. One of these assertions must be false. A martyr dying unbaptized must be damned, and cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven, if this place be meant of the water of baptism.
6. It may also be observed that Christ, in the progress of his discourse, makes no more mention of water, but of the Spirit : ' That which is born of the Spirit is spirit ;' not born of water and the Spirit, which had been very necessary, if water had been of an equal necessity with the Spirit to the new birth. And since Christ mentions it positively, that he that is born of the Spirit is spirit, will it be said, that if any be born of the Spirit, without water, he is still but flesh ?
Water then here is to be taken mystically. Some by water understand the whole doctrine of the gospel ; as the waters mentioned through the whole 47th of Ezekiel signify the doctrine of the gospel. To drop, in Scripture, signifies to teach, Amos vii. 16 ; Ezek. xx. 46, ' Drop thy word toward the south.' Others, by water, understand the grace of regeneration as the prin- ciple, the Spirit as the cause, as Titus iii. 5, 6, • He hath saved us by the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost.' What wash- ing he means is expressed in the renewing of the Holy Ghost ; that is, that renewing which is wholly spiritual, as proceeding from the Spirit of God, whence this grace doth flow.
By water and the Spirit are signified one and the same thing, the similitude of water shewing the cleansing and generating virtue of the Spirit; as fire and the Spirit are put together, Mat. iii. 11, to signify the refining quality the Spirit hath (as fire hath to separate the dross from the good metal). Fire and the Spirit, i. e. a spirit of fire, of the force and efficacy of fire.
* Bellarm. de Sacram. Baptism, lib. i. cap 5, 6.
14 charnock's works. [John III. 3, 5.
This water is the same which God had promised : Tsa. xliv. 3, ' I will pom- water upon him that is thirsty ;' and Ezek. xxxvi. 25, ' Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you;' and ver. 27, ' I will put my Spifit within you.' He there explains water to be the Spirit : ' I will pour my Spirit uponihy seed.' And in Ezekiel he joins water and the Spirit ; i. e. the water of my Spirit, or my spiritual water, my gospel grace. And Isa. xli. 18, 19, God speaks of the admirable fruitfulness of this water. This shall renew you, and make you fructify in the kingdom of my Son, where none shall be received who is not born of this divine principle.
Now our Saviour having to do with a pharisee, who was acquainted with those oracles, to make him understand this truth, uses those words which the prophets had used, and ranks them in the same order ; first water, then the Spirit, that the latter might clear the sense and nature of the former, to hinder Nicodemus from imagining that to be a natural water which was spiritual and mystical. Water and the Spirit signifies the water of the Spirit, or a spiritual water, as 1 Thes. i. 5, ' Our gospel came not unto you in word only, but in power, and in the Holy Ghost ;' that is, in the power of the Holy Ghost.
The Spirit is compared to water in respect of its generative virtue. No fruitful plant but is produced by moisture. Water contains in it the seeds of all things. It was from water and the earth that all things in the lower world were in the first creation produced. Water is put here as exegetical of the effect of the Spirit ; water being the cause of generation by its moisture, uniting the parts together.
Our Saviour in both places useth an asseveration, Verily, verily, which is spoken,
1. To shew the infallible necessity of it, the certainty of the proposition.
2. To urge a special attention. Men press those things in discourse which they would have retained.
It is to be believed because of its necessity ; it is to be considered because of its excellency.
Born again. " Avudsv signifies properly from above ; but sometimes it is taken for again.* Nicodemus understands it so by his reply, of entering a^ain into his mother's womb, and not of a heavenly birth.
° Man was born in nature ; he must be born in grace. He was born of the first Adam ; he must be born of the second Adam. It is expressed in Scripture by various terms : a resurrection to life, a quickening, a new creation, the new man, the inward man, a dying to the world. It is indeed a putting off the old man, the principles and passions, the corrupt notions and affections which we derive from Adam, to devote ourselves to God, to live to Christ, to walk in newness of life.
The kingdom of God, which is sometimes taken, (1) for the kingdom of dory, (2) it is sometimes taken for the gospel state. And the same thing is signified by the kingdom of God, and the kingdom of heaven. What is called by Matthew ' the kingdom of heaven,' Mat. iv. 17, is called by Mark, relating the same story, ' the kingdom of God,' Mark i. 15. And the gospel is called ' the gospel of the kingdom of God,' Mark i. 14. It is called the kingdom of God ; —
1. Because it sets up the rule and government of God in the world above the devil's. The devil had been so long the God of the world, that the interest of God seemed to be overmatched by a multitude of unclean spirits, and abominable idols ; and the true God was not known to be the governor
* Grotius in loc.
John III. 3, 5.] the necessity of regeneration. 15
of it. The gospel discovers the true governor of the world, and sets up his rule and authority.
2. It sets up the righteousness of God,* above a legal and fleshly right- eousness, much in vogue among Jews and Gentiles ; but they were wholly ignorant of the righteousness of God, Horn. x. 3.
3. This kingdom is framed and set up by the Son of God ; the other kingdom, under the law, was settled by God, but by the hand of Moses, a man. This is administered by him through his Spirit, his vicegerent. His royalty did not so eminently appear as in the times of the gospel.
The Father appoints the gospel state in his wisdom, the Son lays the foundation of it in his blood, the Spirit carries it on in the world by his power.
4. In respect of the service, it is high and heavenly ; a serving God in spirit. The service under the legal administration was carnal ; the service under the gospel administration is more spiritual, and so more suitable to the perfections of God.
5. In the end and issue of it. It is a translating us into the kingdom of Christ, Col. i. 13. The legal ceremonies could not fit men of themselves for glory ; they could not make the comers thereunto perfect. But this kingdom of grace prepares us for the kingdom of glory.
Cannot see the kingdom of God. In ver. 5, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. He cannot,
1. By reason of God's appointment.
2. In the nature of the thing itself; he hath no fitness for heaven or heavenly mysteries.
See. Seeing is taken sometimes for enjoying ; not a bare sight, but fruition : John hi. 36, ' He that believes not the Son shall not see life ;' that is, shall not enjoy life. And Heb. xii. 14, ' Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord ;' they may see him in his pronouncing the sentence, but shall not see him in a way of glorious enjoyment of him.
To have a communion with Christ in a gospel state, to have an enjoy- ment of Christ in eternal glory, it is necessary we be stripped of the cor- ruption of our first nature, and be clothed with another by the Spirit of God.
Observe in the verse,
1. The infallibility of the proposition : Verily, verily.
2. The necessity of regeneration : except.
3. The extension of it in regard of the subject. (1.) Suhjectum quod recipit : man, i.e. every man.
(2.) Subjectum in qvo recipitur : man, i.e. the whole man, every faculty.
4. The excellency of it implied : they cannot see the kingdom of God. J.f he be born again, he shall enjoy the kingdom of God.
Doct. Regeneration of the soul is of absolute necessity to a gospel and glorious state.
By regeneration, I mean not a relative, but a real change of the subject, wrought in the complexion and inclinations of the soul, as in the restoring of health there is a change made in the temper and humours of the body.
As mankind was changed in Adam from what they were by a state of creation, so men must be changed in Christ from what they were in a state of corruption. As that change was not only relative but real, and the relative first introduced by the real, so must this. The relation of a child of wrath was founded upon the sin committed. Without a real change there can be no relative. Being in Christ, as freed from condemnation, is always attended with a walking in the Spirit ; and walking is not before living. For the better understanding this point, I shall lay down,
t Mat. vi. 33, the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, are put together.
16 charnock's works. [John III. 8, 5.
I. Propositions concerning the necessity of it.
II. I shall shew that it is necessary,
1. To a gospel state.
(1.) To the performance of gospel duties. ' (2.) To the enjoyment of gospel privileges.
2. To a state of glory.
I. Propositions concerning the necessity of it.
Prop. 1. There are but two states, one saving, the other damning; a state of sin and a state of righteousness ; and all men are included in one of them. All men are divided into two ranks. In regard of their principle, some are in the flesh, some in the Spirit, Rom. viii. 8, 9 ; in regard of their obedience, some walk after the flesh, some after the Spirit, Rom. viii. 1 ; some are slaves to the flesh, others are led by the Spirit ; some live only to self, some live to God. In regard of the exercise of their minds, their nobler faculty, some mind the things of the flesh, others the things of the Spirit, Rom. viii. 5 ; some swinishly wallow in sin, others place the delights of their spirits upon better and higher objects.
The Scripture mentions no other. A state of enmity, wherein men have their inclinations contrary to God ; a state of friendship and fellowship, wherein men walk before God unto all well-pleasing, and would not willingly have an inward motion swerve from his will. One is called light, the other darkness : Eph. v. 8, ' You were sometimes darkness, but now are you light;' one the children of wrath, the other the children of God. There is no medium between them, every man is in one of these states. All believers, from the bruised reed to the tallest cedar, from the smoking flax on earth to the flaming lamp in heaven, from Thomas, that would not believe without seeing, to Abraham, who would believe without staggering, all are in a state of life ; and all, from the most beautiful moralist to the most venomous toad in nature's field, from the young man in the gospel, who was not far from the kingdom of heaven, to Judas, who was in the very bottom of hell, all are in a state of death. Mere nature, though never so curiously garnished, can place a man no higner ; faith, though with many infirmities, puts us in a state of amity ; unbelief, though with many moralities, continues us in a state of enmity. All men are either the object of God's delight or of his abomination. The highest endowments of men remaining in corrupted nature cannot please him. The delight of God then supposeth some real change in the object which is the ground of that delight, for God is wise in his delight, and could not be pleased with anything which were not fit for his complacency. Since original nature in a man cannot displease God un- less it be changed by some fault, because it was his own work, so our present nature cannot please God unless it be changed by some grace, though it be otherwise never so highly dignified. Whatsoever grows up from the old Adam is the fruit of the flesh, whatsoever grows up by the new Adam in us is the offspring of the Spirit ; and upon one of these two stocks all men in the world are set. Since, therefore, one is utterly destructive, and cannot please God (Rom viii. 8, Sb'then they that are in the flesh can- not please God), though never so well garnished (for being utterly contrary to him it cannot be approved by him), the other is absolutely necessary to salvation.
Prop. 2. It is necessary upon the account of the fall of man and the consequents of it. In Adam we died : 1 Cor. xv. 22, ' As in Adam all died ;' therefore in Adam we sinned : Rom. v. 19, ' By one man's disobedience many were made sinners.' Man cannot be supposed to sin in Adam unless
John III. 3, 5. J the necessity of regeneration. 17
some covenant had intervened between God and Adam,* whence there did arise in the whole human nature a debt of having righteousness transfused from the first parent to all his posterity. The want of this grace wherein his posterity are conceived is a privation, and a crime which was voluntary in the root and head. This privation of righteousness must be removed. The institution of God stands firm, that Adam and his posterity should have a pure righteousness. It is not for the honour of God to enjoin it so strictly at first, and to have no regard to it afterwards. Now this privation of righteousness, and the unrigbteousness which hath taken place in the sons of Adam, cannot be removed without the infusion of grace ; for without this grace he would alway want righteousness, and yet be alway under an obliga- tion to have it ; he would be under desires of happiness, but without it under an impossibility of attaining it.
Were there an indifferency in the soul of man, were it an abrasa tabula, the writing of moral precepts upon it by good education would sway it to walk in the paths of virtue, as an ill education doth cast it into the ways of [vice]. This is not so ; for take two, let them have the same ways of educa- tion, the same precepts instilled into them, as Esau and Jacob had by their father, who were equally taught, yet how different were their lives ! Esau's bad, Jacob's not without flaws. Education had not the power to root cor- ruption out of both, no, nor out of any man in the world without a higher principle. There is some powerful principle in the soul, which leads it into by-paths contrary to those wholesome rules instilled into it. Hence ariseth a necessity of some other principle to be put into the heart to over- sway this corrupt bias. Man goes astray from the womb, as it is in Ps. lviii. 3, ' The wicked are estranged from the womb ; tbey go astray as soon as they be born.' There must be something to rectify him, and expel this wandering humour.
By the fall of man there was contracted,
(1.) An unfitness to any thing tbat is good. Man is so immersed in wrong notions of things, that he cannot judge fully of what is good : Titus i. 16, ' To every good work reprobate.' The state of nature, or the old man, is described, Eph. iv. 22, to be ' corrupt, according to deceitful lusts ;' deceitful, seducing us from God, drawing us into perdition, by representing evil under the notion of good, which evidenceth our understandings to be unfit to judge without a new illumination; inward and spiritual lusts, which are most deceitful, being accounted brave and generous motions ; lusts or desires, which shew the corruption of the will by ill habits. Lust and sin is the mere composition of corrupted nature ; the whole man is stuffed with polluting principles and filthy appetites.
What was preternatural to man in a state of innocency became natural to him after his depraved state. He is ' carnal, sold under sin,' Rom. vii. 14. The spring being already out of order, cannot make the motion otherwise than depraved, as when a clock is out of order, it is natural to that present condition of it to give false intelligence of the hour of the day, and it cannot do otherwise till the wheels and weights be rectified. Our end was actively to glorify God in the service of him and obedience to him ; but since man is fallen into this universal decay of his faculties, and made unfit to answer this end, there is a necessity he should be made over again, and created upon a better foundation, that some principle should be in him to oppose this universal depravation, enlighten his understanding, mollify his heart, and reduce his affections to their due order and object.
* Suarez, 2 Tom. ii. De Grat. lib. ii. cap. 13, num. ?, 4.
VOL. III. B
18 charnock's works. [John III. 3, 5.
(2.) Not only an unfitness, but unwillingness to that which is good. "We have not those affections to virtue as we have to vice. Are not our lives for the most part voluntarily ridiculous ? Had we a full use of reason, we should judge them so. We think little of God ; and when we do think of him, it is with reluctancy. This cannot be our original state, for surely, God being infinitely good, never let man come out of his hands with this actual unwillingness to acknowledge and serve him ; as the apostle saith, in the case of the Galatians' errors, Gal. v. 8, ' This persuasion comes not of him which calls you,' this unwillingness comes not from him that created you. How much, therefore, do we need a restoring principle in us ! We naturally fulfil the desires, or 6t\fifiaru * of the flesh,' Eph. ii. 3. There is then a necessity of some other principle in us to make us fulfil the will of God, since we were created for God, not for the flesh. We can no more be voluntarily serviceable to God while that serpentine nature and devilish habit remains in us, than we can suppose the devil can be willing to glorify God, while the nature he contracted by his fall abides powerful in him. It is as much as to say that a man can be willing against his will. Nature and will must be changed, or we for ever remain in this state.
Man is born a wild ass' colt, Job xi. 12. No beast more wild and brutish than man in his natural birth, and like to remain in his wild and wil- ful nature without grace ; a new birth can only put off the wildness of the first.
(3.) Not only unfitness and unwillingness, but inability to good. A strange force there is in a natural man, which hurries him, even against some touches of his will, to evil.
How early do men discover an affection to vice ! How greedily do they embrace it, notwithstanding rebukes from superiors, good exhortations from friends, with the concurrence of the vote of conscience, giving its amen to those dissuasions ! and yet carried against those arguments, deceived by sin, slain by sin, sold, under it, Kom. vii. 11, 14. This is the miserable state of every son of nature.
Do we not find that men sometime wrapt up in retirement, in considera- tion of the excellency of virtue, are so wrought upon by their solitary medi- tations, that they think themselves able to withstand the strongest invasion of any temptation ! Yet'we see oftentimes that when a pleasing temptation offers itself, though there be a conflict between reason and appetite, at length all the considerations and dictates of reason are laid aside, the former ideas laid asleep, and that committed which their own reason told them was base and sordid ; so that there is something necessary, beside consideration and resolution, to the full cure of man.
No privation can be removed but by the introduction of another form ; as when a man is blind, that blindness, which is a privation of sight, cannot be removed without bringing in a power of seeing again. Original sin is a privation of original righteousness, and an introduction of corrupt principles, which cannot be removed but by some powerful principle contrary to it. Since the inability upon the earth, by reason of the curse, to bring forth its fruits in such a manner as it did when man was in a state of innocency, the nature of it must be changed to reduce it to its original fruitfulness ; so must man, since a general defilement from Adam hath seized upon him, be altered before he can ' bring forth fruit to God,' Rom. vii. 4. We must be united to Christ, engrafted upon another stock, and partake of the power of his resurrection ; without this we may bring forth fruit, but not fruit to God. There is as utter an impossibility in a man to answer the end of his creation, without righteousness, as for a man to act without life, or act strongly with- out health and strength. It is a contradiction to think a man can act
John III. 3, 5.] the necessity of kegeneeation. 19
righteously without righteousness, for without it he hath not the being of a man ; that is, man in such a capacity, for those ends for which his creation intended him.
Well, then, since there is an unfitness, unwillingness, inability in a man to answer his end, there is a necessity of a new life, a new nature, a new righteousness. There is a necessity for his happiness that he should be brought back to God, live to God, be a son of God, and this cannot be with- out regeneration ; for how can he be brought back to God without a prin- ciple of spiritual motion ? How can he live to God that hath no spiritual life ? How can he be fit to be a son of God who is of a brutish and dia- bolical nature ?
Prop. 3. Hence it follows, that it is universally necessary. Necessary for all men. Our Saviour knows none without this mark. There must be a change in the soul : 2 Cor. v. 17, ' Therefore if any man be in Christ,, he- is a new creature.' There must be the habitation of the Spirit : Rom. viii. 9, ' If any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.' There- must be a crucifixion, not only of the corrupt affections of the flesh, but of the flesh itself : Gal. v. 24, ' They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts.'
The old nature must be killed, with all its attendants. There is no son- ship to God without likeness, no relation of a child of God without a child- like nature. Let a man be of whatsoever quality in the world, never so high, never so low, of whatsoever age, of whatsoever moral endowments, ' except a man,' every man, &c.
And simply necessary. Our Saviour doth not say he is in danger not to see the kingdom of God, or he may come short of it ; but he shall not, he cannot. Tbere is no possible way but this for any man, no other door to creep in at but by that of a new birth ; salvation cannot be attained without it, and damnation will certainly be the issue of the want of it. As there is no other name under heaven by which we can be saved but by the name of Jesus Christ, so there is no other way under heaven wherein we can be saved but by the birth of the Spirit.
It is necessary, therefore, in all places, in all professions. It is not neces- sary only in Europe, and not in Africa. Let a man be what he will, in any place under heaven, he must have a Jesus to save him, and an Holy Ghost to change him ; it is one and the same Spirit acts in all, and produceth the same qualities in all. Let men's religion and professions be what they will (men are apt to please themselves with this and that profession and opinion, but), there is no salvation in any profession, or any kind of opinion, but by regeneration. It is not necessary our understandings should be all of one size, that our opinions should all meet in uniformity, but it is necessary we should all have one spiritual nature. It is as necessary to the being of a good man that he should be spiritual, as to the being of a man that he should be rational, though there is a great latitude and variety in the degrees of men in grace, as well as their reasons. Some are of little faith, some of great faith ; some babes in Christ, some strong men. It is not necessary all should be as strong as Abraham, but it is simply necessary all should be new born, as Abraham ; no age, no time excludes it.
(1.) Righteousness was necessary before the fall. The new birth is but the beginning of our restoration to that state we had before the fall. Adam could not have been happy without being innocent. The holiness of God could not create an impure creature. Without it God could take no plea- sure in his work.
(2.) After the fall it was necessary, continually necessary from the first
20 charnock's works. [John III. 3, 5.
moment of the fall. This work of regeneration is included in the first promise : Gen. iii. 15, 'I will put enmity between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed.' Naturally we have a mighty friendship to Satan, a friendship to his works, though not to his person. But if any man had interest in that promise, he must exchange that friendship for an enmity.
If Jesus Christ, who is principally meant by the seed of the woman, had an enmity to Satan, then all Christ's seed must be possessed with the same spirit. For when the seed of the woman was to break the serpent's head, it was necessary that those that would enjoy the fruit of that conquest should be enemies to the nature of the devil, and the works of the devil, otherwise they could not join with that interest which overthrows him. It is unreason- able to think the head should have an enmity, and the members an amity ; and we cannot have an enmity to that which is the same with our nature, without a change of disposition. It is not a verbal enmity that is here meant. While we pretend to hate him we may do his pleasure, and Satan is never troubled to be pretendedly hated and really obeyed. As wicked men do the will of God's purpose, while they oppose the will of his precept, so they do the devil's will many times while they think they cross it ; there must be a contrary nature to Satan before there can be an enmity. That foolish appetite, affected sensuality, indulgence to the flesh, the cause of our first friendship with Satan, must be changed into divine desires, affection to heavenly things, a mortification of the flesh, before a man can part with this friendship. There must be a change in the conformity of the soul to the nature of the devil before an enmity against him can be raised. We are never enemies to those that encourage us in what we affect. His nature can never be altered, by reason of the curse of God upon him ; therefore ours must, if ever the league be broken. In Isa. lxv. 25 it is said, ' The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like an ox : and dust shall be the serpent's meat.' The nature of men may be changed by the gospel, but dust shall always be the serpent's meat. The saving some by water in the deluge was a figure of this inward baptism, which is the ' answer of a good conscience towards God,' 1 Peter iii. 20, 21. As the old world was so corrupt that all must be washed away before it could be restored, so is the little world of man. The cloud and sea through which the Israelites passed signified this, as the apostle informs us : 1 Cor. x. 2, ' And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and the sea.' Where- upon some think there were some sprinklings of the water upon them, as they stood like two walls, to favour their passage.
(3.) Necessary in the time of the law. By the moral law this renewing was implied in the first command, of not having any other gods before him, Exod. xx. 3. We cannot suppose that command only limited to a not serving an outward image. Is not the setting up self, our own reasons, our own wills, and bowing down to them, and serving them, as much a wrong to God as the bowing down to a senseless image ? nay, worse than the adoring of an image, since that is senseless ; but our wills corrupt, and are no more fit to be our God than an image is fit to be a representation of him. So that in the spiritual part of the command this must be included, to acknowledge nothing as the rule of perfection, but God ; to set ourselves no other patterns of conformity but God, which the apostle phraseth a being new crpated after God, Eph. iv. 24.
If all idolatry were forbidden, then that which is inward as well as that which is outward. If we were to have no other gods before him, then we were to prefer nothing inwardly before him ; we were to make him our pat-
John III. 3, 5.] the necessity of regeneration. 21
tern, and be conformed to him ; which we cannot, without another nature than that we had by corruption.
Upon this are those scriptures founded which speak of covetousness to be idolatry, Col. iii. 5 ; that ' if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him,' 1 John ii. 15 ; he doth not love God.
Now the preferring self before God is the essential part of the corrupt nature. Therefore all men, by the law of nature (which is the same with the moral law), and the Jews, to whom this law was given, were bound to have another nature than that which was derived from Adam, which essen- tially consisted in the making ourselves our god. Self-esteem, self-depend- ence, self-willedness, is denying affection and subjection to God.
By the ceremonial law more plainly. Their duty was not terminated in an external observance of the types and shadows under the law, but a heart- work God intended to signify to them in all those legal ceremonies. As sacrifices signified a necessity of expiation of sin, so their legal washings represented to them a necessity of regeneration.
Therefore God is said not to require the sacrifices of beasts : Ps. xl. 6, ' Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire ' (that is, sacrifices of beasts), ' burnt-offerings and sin-offerings hast thou not required ; ' viz. as the ulti- mate object of his pleasure, but as representations of Christ, the great sacri- fice. So neither did he command circumcision, and other legal purifications, for anything in themselves, or anything they could work, further than upon the body, but to signify unto them an inward work upon the heart. Hence they are said not to be commanded by God : Jer. vii. 22, 23, ' For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt- offerings or sacrifices ; but this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice.' That is, God did not principally require these as the things which did terminate his will and pleasure, but an obedience to him, and walking with him, which cannot be without an agreement of nature : ' For how can two walk together, unless they be agreed ?' Amos iii. 3. Hence God speaks so often to them of the circumcision of the heart, Deut. x. 16, and promises this circumcision of the heart : Deut. xxxvi. 6, ' And the Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart, and the heart of thy seed,' &c. And Paul expressly saith, Rom. ii. 28, 29, that ' he was not a Jew ;' that is, a spiritual Jew, one of the spiritual seed of Abraham, who had the ' circumcision that was outward in the flesh,' but he that had ' that of the heart.'
So among us many confide in baptism, which signifieth nothing to men grown up, without an inward renewal and baptism of the heart, no more tban outward circumcision did to them.
(4.) The obligation upon us is still the same.* The covenant made with Adam was made perpetually with him for all his posterity, therefore all his posterity, by that covenant, were perpetually obliged to a perfect righteous- ness. If God had made this covenant with Adam, that he should transfuse this original righteousness to his posterity only for such a time, then indeed, after the expiration of the term, the obligation had ceased, and none had been bound to have it as a debt required by God. The fault of wanting it had been removed without any infusion of grace, because the time being expired, and so the obligation ceasing, it had not been a fault to want it ; neither could Adam's posterity have been charged with his sin, because the want of righteousness, after the expiration of the time fixed, had not been a sin. But because there was no time fixed, but that it was perpetually of force as
* Suarez dc grat., torn. 2, lib. 7, cap. 23, numb. 3, 4.
22 " charnock's works. [John III. 8, 5.
to righteousness, which was the main intent of it, we still remain under the obligation of having a righteous nature.
Now God, seeing the impossibility of answering this obligation in our own persons, by our own strength, appoints a way whereby we may answer it in a second head, not nulling the former covenant as to the essential part of it, which was a righteous nature, but mitigating it, as the Chancery nulls not the common law, but sweetens the severity of it.
This latter covenant is called ' an everlasting covenant.' Not that the obligation of the other to righteousness is ceased, but transmitted to another head; which head cannot possibly fail, as our former did, who hath both a perfect righteousness in himself, and hath undertook for a perfect righteous- ness in his people, which he is able to accomplish, and to that purpose begins it here, and perfects it hereafter. To this purpose the Scripture speaks of the everlastingness of the covenant: Ps. lxxxix. 28, 'My covenant shall stand fast with him ;' that is, with Christ. And if his people sin, as he ex- pressed it afterwards, yet ' my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him.' In this respect Christ is called the covenant of the people : Isa. xlii. 6, ' I will give thee for a covenant of the people.' And the end of placing David his servant over his people, is not to give way to licentiousness and unrighteousness, and maintain men in an hostile nature against God, but that they might ' walk in his judgments, and observe his statutes,' Jer. xxxvii. 24 ; and that everlasting covenant of peace he would make with them is in order to sanctify them, Jer. xxxvii. 26, 28, compared together. When God would make a covenant of peace with them, an everlasting covenant, it was to set his sanctuary among them, and to let the heathen know that the Lord did sanctify Israel. And the end of the covenant is to ' put his law into the inward parts,' Jer. xxxi. 33.
Christ undertook to keep up the honour of God, which was violated by the breach of that covenant, to * make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness,' Dan. ix. 24. This obligation our second head entered into for us, and in him we are complete, even as our head, and as the ' head of all principality and power,' Col. ii. 10, who hath undertaken for our perfect righteousness ; of our persons, by his own righteousness ; of our nature, by inherent righteousness, as it follows, ver. 11, &c, ' In whom you are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh,' &c. This obligation still remains upon our head, and upon us in him, and to him we are to have recourse for a full answering of it. And this cannot be answered without a new birth here, which ends in a perfection hereafter. And Christ, by a plain precept, hath made it absolutely necessary now to all under the gospel administration.
So that no age, no time, no administration excludes it. It was as neces- sary to Adam, the first man, as to the last that shall be born. For being by nature spiritually dead, there must be a restoration to a spiritual life, if ever any be happy. « God is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living.' "What was alway necessary is absolutely necessary, and admits of no exception ; and therefore the removal of the diabolical nature is indis- pensable to him and to us, since we are all the posterity of Adam, and the inheritors of his corruption. How can any, in any age, enjoy an infinite holy God, without being changed from their impurity ?
Prop. 4. Hence it follows, that it is so necessary, that it is not conceiv- able by any man in his right wits how God can make any man happy without it. It is not for us, poor shallow creatures, to dispute what God can, and what God cannot do ; what God may do by his absolute power. But yet it
John III. 3, 5.] the necessity of regeneration. 23
seems a contradiction, and it is not intelligible by us how God can make a man happy without regeneration.
"What semblance of reason can be given that any one who is a slave of Satan, a cbild of wrath by nature, can be made the son and friend of God, without an expulsion of that nature which rendered him criminal, and restor- ing that in some degree which renders him innocent ?
Without habitual grace, sin is not taken away ; and as long as a man remains under sin, how he can be capable of any communion with God I understand not; for he cannot be at one and the same time under God's greatest wrath and his highest love. How is it possible that one can have an enjoyment of eternal life, who hath nothing in him but a relation to eternal death ?
God made man's nature fit for his communion ; man made himself unfit by guilt and filth. This unfitness must be removed by regeneration before this privilege man had by creation can be restored. Not that this restored right- eousness is the cause of our communion with God in happiness, but a neces- sary requisite to it. No doubt but God might have restored this righteousness without admitting man to a converse with him, if there had been no covenant made to that purpose. That God may give grace without glory, is intelli- gible ; but to admit a man to communion with him in glory, without grace, is not intelligible.
(1.) It is not agreeable to God's holiness to make any an inhabitant of heaven, and converse freely with him in away of intimate love, without such a qualification of grace : Ps. xi. 7, ' The righteous Lord loves righteousness ; his countenance doth behold the upright.' He must, therefore, hate iniquity, and cannot love an unrighteous nature because of his love to righteousness ; ' his countenance beholds the upright,' he looks upon him with a smiling eye, and therefore he cannot favourably look upon an unrighteous person, so that this necessity is not founded only in the command of God that we should be renewed, but in the very nature of the thing, because God, in regard of his holiness, cannot converse with an impure creature. God must change his nature, or the sinner's nature must be changed. There can be no friendly communion between two of different natures without the change of one of them into the likeness of the other. Wolves and sheep, darkness and light, can never agree. God cannot love a sinner as a sinner, because he hates impurity by a necessity of nature as well as a choice of will. It is as impos- sible for him to love it as to cease to be holy.
This change cannot be then on God's part ; it must therefore be on man's part. It must therefore be by grace, whereby the sinner may be made fit for converse with God, since God cannot embrace a sinner in his dearest affections without a quality in the sinner suitable to himself. All converse is founded upon a likeness in nature and disposition ; it is by grace only that the sinner is made capable of converse with God.
(2.) It is not agreeable to God's wisdom. Is it congruous to the wisdom of God to let a man be his child and the child of the devil at the same time ? Is it fit to admit him to the relation of a son of God, who retains the enmity of his nature against God, to make any man happy with the dishonour of his laws, since he is not subject to the law of God, neither will be : one that cannot bear him, but abhors his honour and the apprehensions of his holiness ?
Man naturally hath risings of heart against God, looks upon him under some dreadful notion, hath an utter aversion from him; alienation and enmity are inseparable : Col. i. 21, 'You who were sometimes alienated, and enemies in your minds.' It doth not consist with the wisdom of God to make any man happy against his will ; God therefore first changeth the temper of the
24 charnock's works. [John III. 3, 5.
will by his powerful grace, thereby making him willing, and by degrees fitting him for happiness with him.
It is not fit corruption should inherit incorruption, or impurity be admitted to an undefiled inheritance, and therefore God brings none thither which are not first begotten by him to a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead : 1 Peter i. 3, 4, ' Which according to his mercy hath be- gotten us again to a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you.' It cannot be honourable for the wisdom of God to give a right to eternal life to one that continues a child of the devil, and bestow his love upon one that resolves to give his own heart to sin and Satan.
This which I have now discoursed is founded upon men's natural notions in their right reason. But if we look into the Scripture it is certain there is no other way but this : a man without a new birth can have no right to happiness by any covenant of God, by any truth of God, by any purchase of Christ. God never promised happiness without it ; Christ never pur- chased it for any one without a new nature. No example is there extant of any person God hath made happy without this alteration, nor in the strictest inquiries can we conceive any other way possible ; therefore if there be any one present that hath hopes to enjoy everlasting happiness without regenera- tion, he expects that which God never yet bestowed upon any, and which, according to our understanding, God cannot, without wrong to his holiness and wisdom, confer upon any person. I beseech you, therefore, let none of you build your hopes upon such vain foundations ; you must be holy, or you shall never see God to your comfort.
Prop. 5. It is so necessary, that the coming and sufferings of our Lord and Saviour would seem insignificant without it. That this regeneration was a main end of his coming, is evident by his making this one of the main doctrines he was, as a prophet and teacher, sent from God to make known to the world, it being the first he taught Nicodemus. Jesus Christ came to glorify God, and to glorify himself in redeeming a people. And what glory can we conceive God hath, what glory can Christ have, if there be no characteristical difference between his people and the world? And what difference can there be but in a change of nature and temper, as the founda- tion whence all other differences do result ? Sheep and goats differ in nature.
The righteousness which is given through our Mediator is the same, in the essentials and respects it bears to God, as we had, at first. And his threefold office of king, priest, and prophet, is in order to it : his priestly, to reconcile and bring us to God ; his prophetical, to teach us the way ; and his. kingly, to work in us those qualifications, and bestow that comely garb upon us that was necessary to fit us for our former converse. Our second Adam would not be like the first, if he failed in this great work of conveying his righteous nature to us, as Adam was to convey his original righteousness to his posterity. As that was to be conveyed by carnal generation, so the right- eous nature of the second Adam is to be transmitted to us by spiritual regenera- tion. In this respect renewed men are called his seed, and counted to him for a generation, as Ps. xxii. 30, ' A seed shall serve him ; it shall be accounted to the Lord (MINT) for a generation,' to Christ ; it shall be accounted as much the generation of Christ as the rest are the generation of Adam, as if they had proceeded out of his loins, as mankind did out of Adam's. As God looks upon believers as righteous through the righteousness of Christ as if it were their own, so he accounts them as if they were the generation of Jesus Christ himself.
John III. 3, 5.] the necessity of regeneration. 25
(1.) Christ came to save from sin. Salvation from sin was more his work than barely salvation from hell : Mat. i. 21, ' He shall save his people from their sins.' From sin as the cause, from hell as the consequent. If from sin, was it only from the guilt of sin, and to leave the sinful nature un- changed ? Was it only to take off punishment, and not to prepare for glory ? It would have been then but the moiety of redemption, and not honourable for so great a Saviour. Can you imagine that the death of Jesus Christ, being necessary for the recovery of a sinner, was appointed for an incomplete work, to remit man's sin and continue the insolency of his nature against God ? It was not his end only to save us from wrath to come, but to save us from the procuring-cause of that wrath ; not forcibly and violently to save us, but in methods congruous to the honour of God's wisdom and holiness, and therefore to purify us : Tit. ii. 14, ' To redeem us from all iniquity,' all parts of it, ' by purifying unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works,' that we might have a holy nature, whereby we might perform holy actions, and be as zealous of good works and the honour of God, as we had been of bad works and to bring dishonour to him.
It was also the end of dais resurrection to • quicken us to a newness of life,' Col. ii. 12, 13, Eph. ii. 5, 6. If any man without a new nature could set foot into heaven, a great intendment of the death and resurrection of Christ would be insignificant.
Christ came to take away sin, the guilt by his death, the filth by his Spirit, given us as the purchase of that death. In taking away sin he takes away also the sinful nature.
(2.) Christ came to destroy the works of the devil : 1 John iii. 8, ' For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.' These works are two, sin, and the misery consequent upon it. Upon the destruction of sin necessarily follows the dissolution of the other which was knit with it. If the sinful nature were not taken away, the devil's works would not wholly be destroyed ; or if the sinful nature were taken away, and a righteous nature not planted in the stead of it, he would still have his ends against God in depriving God of the glory he ought to have from the creature. And the creature could not give God the glory he was designed by his creation to return, unless some nature were implanted in him whereby he might be enabled to do it.
Would it, then, be for the honour of this great Kedeemer to come short of his end against Satan, to let all the trophies of Satan remain, in the errors of the understanding, perversity of the will, disorder of the affections, and confusion of the whole soul ? Or if our Saviour had only removed these, how had the works of the devil been destroyed if we had lain open to his assaults, and been liable the next moment to be brought into the same con- dition, which surely would have been, were not a righteous and divine nature bestowed upon the creature.
(3.) Christ came to bring us to God : 1 Peter iii. 18, ' For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.' Was it to bring us to God with all our pollutions, which were the cause God cast us off? No ; but to bring us in such a garb as that we might be fit to converse with him. Can we be so without a new nature and a spiritual likeness to God ? Would that man who would bring another to a prince to introduce him into favour, bring him into his presence in a slovenly and sordid habit, such a garb which he knew was hateful to the prince ? Neither will our Saviour, nor can he bring sinners in such a plight to God, because it is more contrary to the nature of God's holiness to have
26 chaknock's works. [John III. 3, 5.
communion with such, than it is contrary to the nature of light to have com- munion with darkness, 1 John i. 5-7. Can it be thought that Christ should come to set human nature right with God, without a change of that principle which caused the first revolt from God ? Besides, since the coming of Christ was to please God, and to glorify him in all his attributes, as well as to save us, how can God be pleased with the effects of Christ's death, if he brought the creature to him without any change of nature, but with its for- mer enmity and pollution ? Will you say his mercy would be glorified ? How can that be without a wrong to his purity, and a provocation to his jus- tice ? Suppose such a dispute were in God, would not holiness, wisdom, justice, joined together, over- vote mercy ?
But since there can be no such dispute, how can we conceive that mercy, an infinite perfection in God, can desire anything to the prejudice of the honour of his holiness, justice, and wisdom ?
Well, then, if we expect happiness without a renewed nature, we would make Christ a minister of sin as well as of righteousness, Gal. ii. 17, &c. As there is a justification by him, so his intent was to plant a living principle in us, whereby we might be enabled to live to him. It is in vain, then, to think to find any benefit by the death of Christ without a new nature, any more than from God without it.
Prop. 6. The end of the Spirit's coming manifests it to be necessary. We are said therefore to be ' saved by the washing of regeneration, and renew- ing of the Holy Ghost,' Titus hi*. 5, 2 Thes. ii. 13. As God by his Spirit, moving upon the face of the waters, created the world, so God by his Spirit, moving upon the face of the soul, new creates all the faculties of it. Can the coming of Christ, and the coming of the Spirit, the most signal favours of God to mankind, be intended for no other end than to convey to us the mercy of God, with the dishonour of his holiness, to change our misery with- out changing our nature, and putting us in a capacity both to glorify God and enjoy him ? To what purpose doth the Spirit come, if not to renew ? What- soever was the office of the Spirit, cannot be supposed to be exercised with- out this foundation. Can there be any seal of the Spirit without some im- pression made upon the soul like to the Spirit, which is the seal whereby we are sealed ? Can he witness to us that we are the children of God, if there be no principle in us suitable to God as a father, no child-like frame ? Is the Spirit only to bring things to remembrance for a bare speculation, without any operative effect ? Is he to help us in prayer ? How can that be, without giving us first a sense of what we need, and a praying heart ? And how can we have a praying heart till our natures, so averse from God and his worship, be changed? He is a 'quickening Spirit,' 2 Cor. hi. 6, 1 the Spirit gives life.' How can that be while we lie rotting in our former death ? It is a ' Spirit of holiness.' Can he dwell in a soul that hath an unholy nature ? Though he find men so at his first coming, would he not quickly be weary of his house if it continued so ? He comes to change our old nature, not to encourage it. What fruits of the Spirit could appear with- out the change of the nature of the soil ?
Prop. 7. From all this it follows that this new birth is necessary in every part of the soul. There is not a faculty but is corrupted, and therefore not a faculty but must be restored. Not a wheel, not a pin in all this clock of the heart but is out of frame ; not one part wherein sin and Satan have not left the marks of their feet: Titus i. 15, 'Their mind and conscience is defiled.' It is clearer to a regenerate soul that it is so, since by the light of grace he discerns a filth in every faculty. The more knowledge of God he hath, the more he discovers his ignorance ; the more love to God, the more
John III. 3, 5.] the necessity of regeneration. 27
he finds and is ashamed of his enmity. And though in our imperfect re- generation here, grace and sin are in every part of the soul, as wine and water mingled together are in every part of the vessel, yet every faculty is in part renewed ; and grace and sin lie not so huddled together but that the soul can distinguish them, and be able to say, this is grace, this is part of the new Adam, and this is sin, and part of the old Adam in me.
Because there was an universal depravation by the fall, regeneration must answer it in its exteosiveness in every faculty. Otherwise it is not the birth of the man, but of one part only. It is but a new piece, not a new creature. This or that faculty may be said to be new, not the soul, not the man. We are all over bemired by the puddle of sin, and we must be all over washed by the water of grace. A whole sanctification is the proper fruit of recon- ciliation : 2 Thes. v. 23, ' The God of peace sanctify you wholly.' Recon-^ ciliation was of the whole man, so must regeneration. Sin hath rooted itself in every part ; ignorance and error in our understandings ; pride, and self- love, and enmity in our wills ; all must be unrooted by a new grace, and the triumphs of sin spoiled by a new birth.
Prop. 8. It is so necessary, that even the dim eye of natural reason has been apprehensive of some need of it. Aud, therefore, it is a wonder that there should be a need of pressing it upon men under the light of the gospel. Those doctrines that are purely intellectual and supernatural, are not so easily apprehended by men, as having no footing in reason, whereby reason is rendered unpliable to consent to them. But those doctrines that tend to the reformation of man carry a greater conviction, as having some notion of a depravation, which gives them some countenance in the minds of men, though not in their affection. Men cannot conceive any notion of God's greatness, majesty, and holiness, but they must also conceive something necessary to an enjoyment of him (wherein their felicity consists), besides those natural principles which they find in themselves. Natural reason must needs assent to this, that there must be some other complexion of the soul to fit us for a converse with so pure a majesty. The wiser sort of heathens did see themselves out of frame ; the tumult and disorder in their faculties could not but be sensible to them. They found the flights of their souls too weak for their vast desires. They acknowledged the wings of it to be clipped, and that they never came so out of the hands of God. That therefore there was a necessity of some restorative above the art of man to complete the work. And I think I have read of one of them that should say, That there could not be a reformation unless God would take flesh. They had ' the work of the law written in their hearts,' Rom. ii. 15. They knew such works were to be done ; they found themselves unable to do them. Whence would follow that there must be some other principle to enable them than what they had by nature. To this purpose they invented their purgative^ vir- tues ; and by those and other means hoped to arrive to an opoiojeig ra 9eu, which they much talked of as necessary to a converse with God. As they were sensible of their guilt, and therefore had sacrifices for the expiation of that, so they were sensible of their filth, and had their purifications and washings for the cleansing of that. Hence it was that they admired those men that acted in a higher sphere of moral virtue and moderation than others. Some of them have acknowledged the malady, but despaired of a remedy, judging it above the power of nature to cure. Certainly that which the wisest heathens, in the darkness of nature, without knowledge either of law or gospel, have counted necessary ; and since it is seconded by so plain a declaration of our Saviour, must be indisputably necessary.* Plato in * Ficinus in Dionys. de divin. nom. cap. xii.
28 chaenock's works. [John III. 3, 5.
several places saith, That there was a certain divine principle in our minds at first, but that it was abolished, and God would again renew and form the soul with a kind of divinity.
How vain then are men, how inexcusably foolish, to neglect both the light of the gospel and that of reason too ; that spend not one hour, one minute, in a serious consideration of it and enquiry after it ; in slighting their own reason as well as the express declaration of Jesus Christ. Oh that men were sensible of this, which is of so great concernment to them.
II. I come to shew that regeneration is necessary.
1. It is necesary to a gospel state.
(1.) Nothing can exist in any state of being without a proper form. That which hath not the form of a thing is not a thing of the same species. He cannot be a man that wants a rational form of a man, a soul. And how can any man be a Christian without that which doth essentially constitute a Christian ? We can no more be Christians without a Christian nature, than a man can be a man without human nature. Grace only gives being to a Christian, and constitutes him so : 1 Cor. xv. 10, ' By the grace of God I am what I am : and his grace which was bestowed on me was not in vain, but I laboured more abundantly than they all.' Grace there is meant of habitual grace, because he speaks of his labour as the fruit of it. In bodily life brutes go beyond us, in the vigour of senses, greatness of strength, temperance, natural affection. In reason and moral virtues many heathens have excelled us. There is something else, then, necessary for the con- stitution of a Christian, and that is, Christ's living in him by a new forming of his soul by his Spirit. As the body lives by the soul, which distributes natural, vital, and animal spirits to every part of the body, for the perform- ance of its several functions ; so the soul lives by grace, which diffuseth its vigour to every part, the understanding, will, and affections.
(2.) There is no suitableness to a gospel state and government without it. In all changes of government in the world there is a change in the whole state of affairs, in those that are the instruments of government, in the principles of those that submit to the government. After the fall of man God set up a new mode of government. All judgment was committed to the Son : John v. 22, ' For the Father judges no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son.' Ver. 27, ' And hath given him authority to exe- cute judgment.' The whole administration of affairs is put into his hand ; not excluding the Father, who still gave out his orders in the government, wherefore he saith, ver. 30, 'I can of myself do nothing; as I hear, I judge.' There must be, therefore, some agreement between the frame of this govern- ment and the subjects of it. As there is a new Adam, a new covenant, a new priesthood, a new spirit ; so there must be a new heart, new compacts, new offerings, new resolutions. New administrations and old services can no more be pieced together than new cloth and old garments. The gospel state of the church is called a new heaven and a new earth. Man is by the inclinations of his corrupt nature obedient to the law of sin. There must be a cure and change of those inclinations, to make them tend to an observance of the orders of this new government, and an hearty observation of it, 2 Cor. v. 17, ' Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new, and all things are of God ' (so they were before), but now in a new manner and frame ; and this is the reason rendered why every man in Christ must be a new creature.
(3.) All the subjects of this government have been brought in this way, not one excepted. Though God hath chosen some that he would bless for ever under this evangelical government, yet notwithstanding the purpose of
John III. 3, 5.] the necessity of eegeneeation. 29
God they are in as great unfitness for this state as the worst of men, till God exerting his power fashions them to be vessels of honour to himself. It is not God's choice of any man which puts any man into a gospel state, without the operation of the Spirit, renewing the mind and fitting him for it. All that were designed by God's eternal purpose were to be brought in by this way of the new birth, as 2 Thess. ii. 13, ' God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.' And by this they were fortified against all those workings of the mystery of iniquity, against the government of Christ and the state of the gospel, which would be damnable and destructive to many ; for he had spoken of that before, upon which occasion he brings this in. ' A chosen genera- tion, a holy nation, a peculiar people,' are joined together, 1 Peter ii. 9. Peculiar they could not be, unless they had something of an intrinsic value in them above others, and a peculiar fitness for special service, and to offer spiritual sacrifices, therefore called also a royal priesthood.
(4.) The end of the particular institutions, of initiation or admission, under the two different administrations of this government, was to signify this — of circumcision under the law, and baptism under the gospel. Both signified the corruption and filthiness of nature, and the necessity of the cir- cumcision of the heart and the purification of nature. Hence baptism is called ' the laver of regeneration,' Titus iii. 5,* many understanding it of baptism. Not that these did confer this new nature in a physical way, or that it was alway conferred in the administration of them, but the necessity of having this was alway signified by them. Therefore one of the Jews,f against the opinion of his countrymen, saith absolutely, it is a madness to think that those ceremonies, under their administration, were appointed only for the purification of the body without that of the soul. And Rom. ii. 29, saith the apostle, ' He is a Jew which is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit.' So that partaking of baptism, and being intrusted with the oracles' of God, make a man no more a Christian than circumcision, &c, did make a man a Jew. He is only a Christian that hath a Christian nature. The necessity of this nature was evidenced and signified both by the one and by the other.
In every state there are duties to be performed and privileges to be en- joyed. So likewise in the gospel state. Without a new birth we cannot perform the one or be capable of the other.
2. It is necessary to the performance of gospel duties.
(1.) There can be no preparation to any service without it. Man's soul at first could make a spiritual music to God, till the flesh disordered the strings, and no music can be made till the Spirit puts the instrument in tune again. In Jesus Christ we are ' created to good works,' Eph. ii. 10. There- fore no preparation can be before the new creation, no more than there was a preparation in the matter without form and void to become a world. What evangelical duties can be performed without an evangelical impression, without the forming of Christ and the doctrine of Christ in the heart, not only in the notion, but the operative and penetrating power of it ? The heart must be first moulded, and cast into the frame of the doctrine of the gospel, before it can obey it, as R,om. vi. 17, ' But ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered unto you,' or, ' unto which you were delivered.' The mould wherein a thing is cast makes it fit for the operation for which it is intended. The ship that wants any material
* Rom. vi. 4, Baptism signifies our burial with Christ and our resurrection to walk in newness of life.
f Maimonid. More Nevoch., part ii. chap. 33.
30 chabnock's works. [John III. 3, 5.
thing in its make cannot sail well, will not obey the directions of the pilot ; and he that wants grace will be carried away with the breath of every sin and temptation. All the motions and rollings naturally in ways of duty by other principles, cannot make an aptitude to divine services, no more than a thousand times flinging up a stone into the air can produce any natural fitness in it for such an elevation any more than it had at first, which was none at all. Where should we have any preparation ? It cannot be from Adam ; he died a spiritual death by his sin, and had no natural fitness for any spiritual service, and therefore cannot convey by nature more to his posterity than what he had by nature ; what grace he had afterwards was bestowed upon his person, not upon the nature which was to be transmitted to his posterity.
(2.) Therefore we cannot act any evangelical service without a new nature. If we have no natural preparation, we can have no natural action. The law must be written in our hearts before it be formed into the life, Jer. xxxi. 33, 34, ' I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts.' It is then, and then only, that we have a practical and affectionate knowledge of God, 'And they shall know me from the least unto the greatest.' Eestoration to a supernatural life must be before there can be supernatural actions, a just nature before a just walk, as Hosea xiv. 9, ' The just shall walk in them,' that is, in the ways of God. The motion of the creature is not the cause but the effect of life. The evangelical service is not the cause of righteousness but the effect. We cannot walk in one commandment of God till the law be written in our inward parts, Ezek. xxxvi. 14. Those that have not a new heart cannot walk in God's statutes. We can never answer the terms of the covenant without a new nature. For,
[1.] No act can transcend the principle of it. There is a certainty in this rule ; that the elevation of an inferior nature to the acts of a superior nature cannot be without some inward participation of that superior nature. The operation of everything follows the nature of the thing. A beast cannot act like a man without partaking of the nature of a man, nor a man act like an angel without partaking of the angelical nature. How then can a man act divinely without a participation of the divine nature ? Duties of a super- natural strain, as evangelic duties are, require a supernatural frame of spirit. Nothing can exceed the bounds of its nature, for then it should exceed itself in acting. Whatsoever service, therefore, doth proceed from mere nature, cannot amount to a gospel-service, because it comes not from a gospel-prin- ciple. We cannot believe without a habit of faith, nor love without a habit of love ; for this only renders us able to perform such acts. Justification is necessary to our state as well as regeneration ; but regeneration seems to be more necessary to our duties than the former ; this principally to the per- formance of them, the other to the acceptance of them.
[2.] The nature doth always tincture the fruit of it. Our Saviour, by his interrogation, implies an impossibility that those that are evil should speak good things : Mat. xii. 34, ' 0 generation of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak good things ? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.' The very hissings of a viper proceed from the malice of its nature. As the root is, so is all the fruit. From one seed many grains arise, yet all partake of the nature of that seed. Streams partake of the quality of the fountain. If the seed, root, and fountain be good, so is what- soever springs from them. There is not one righteous man by nature, neither Jew nor Gentle, all are concluded under sin : Rom. iii. 10, ' There is none righteous, no, not one;' none that 'understands and seeks God,' &c. He adds not one twice ; he exempts none, not one righteous by nature, not
John III. 3, 5.] thk necessity of regeneration. 31
one righteous action by nature : ' none that doth good, no, not one.' He applies it to all mankind. A poisonous nature can produce nothing but poisonous fruit. Our actions smell as rank as nature itself. Whatsoever riseth from thence, though never so spacious and well-coloured, is evil and unprofitable. If, therefore, we would produce good fruit, we must have a new root, seed, and spring. Our sour nature must be changed into a sweet- ness and purity. If the vine be empty, the fruit will be so too : Hosea x. 1, ' Ephraim is an empty vine, he brings forth fruit to himself,' or, ' equal to himself,' mttf\ Unless the tree be good, the fruit can never be generous : Mat. vii. 17, 18, 'Neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.' We must have the Spirit before we can bring forth the fruits of the Spirit. All good services are related to this, as effects to their cause ; so that what a man doth by an act of reason, and natural conscience, and good education, if his understanding and conscience remain wholly under their natural pol- lution, the service is not good, because the soul is corrupt ; much less are those services good which are the fruit only of humour. How the soul can be habitually sinful, and yet the acts flowing from it be good, is not easily conceivable ; it is against the stream of natural observation. It is true, in- deed, that a man that is habituated to one kind of sin may do an action that receives no tincture from that particular habit, because it doth not proceed from it ; as a drunkard gives an alms, his giving alms hath no infection inherent from that particular habit of drunkenness, but from the nature, which is wholly corrupt, it hath. ' Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean ? not one,' Job xiv. 4. Who can bring a clean service out of a miry heart ? Not one man in the world. We cannot, therefore, perform any evangelical service if those foundations be considered.
Not spiritually, because we are flesh. God must be ' worshipped in spirit,' John iv. 44 ; in a spiritual manner, with spiritual frames. The apostle speaks of ' walking in the spirit,' Phil. iii. 3, and ' praying in the Holy Ghost,' Jude 20. None can act spiritualty but those that are ' born of the Spirit ; ' and no action is spiritual but what proceeds from a renewed prin- ciple. The most glittering and refined flesh is but flesh in a higher sphere of flesh, therefore whatsoever springs up from that principle is fleshly, upon the former foundation, that nothing can rise higher than its nature. You may as well expect to gather grapes of thorns as spiritual duties from carnal hearts : Mat. vii. 16, ' Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles ? ' If a natural man ' cannot receive,' and ' cannot know the things of God, because they are spiritually discerned,' 1 Cor. ii. 14, how should he perform the duties belonging to God, since they are spiritually to be performed ? We are naturally more averse to motions upon our wills than to the illumina- tions of our minds. An appetite for knowledge, and a flight from God being both the fruits of Adam's fall, who was both curious to know, as God, and fearing to approach to God after his fall. There may be some services in natural men which may look like spiritual, but in the principle they are not so. Many acts are done by irrational creatures which look like rational acts. As the order among bees, like the acts of statesmen regulating a common- wealth ; their carrying gravel in their fangs to poise them in a storm, and hinder them from being carried away by the violence of the wind ; yet these are not rational acts, because they proceed not from reason, but from a natural instinct put into them by God, the supreme governor. So that as no action of an ape, though like the action of a man, can be said to be a human act, so no action of an unregenerate man, though like a spiritual action, can be called spiritual, because it proceeds not from a spiritual principle, but from a contrary one paramount in him. And all actions have
32 charnock's works. [John III. 3, 5.
their true denomination from the principle whence they flow. They may be fruits of morality, and fruits of conscience, but not spiritual fruits, which God requires.
Well, then, we must be first built up ' a spiritual house,' we must be a 1 priesthood ' before we can ' offer spiritual sacrifice,' 1 Peter ii. 5. We must have the powerful operation of the Holy Ghost in us before we can have a tincture of the Holy Ghost upon our services. In all human acts, we should act as rational creatures ; in all religious acts, as spiritual crea- tures. Now, as a man cannot act rationally without reason, so neither can we act spiritually without a divine spirit in us. We are indeed to serve God, and worship him as men ; therefore rational acts are due to God in worship, and we are constituted in the rank of rational beings to that pur- pose. But since our minds are defiled, they must be purified ; since our understandings are darkened, they must be enlightened. There must be a grace infused, a lamp set up, a spiritual awakening, and invigorating our reasons and wills, before we can worship God as God in a spiritual manner.
We cannot perform any evangelical service, vitally, because we are dead. Our services must be living services, if in any wise they be suitable to a liv- ing God. The apostle wishes us, Rom. xii. 1, to ' present our bodies a living sacrifice.' He doth not mean only our bodies, consisting of flesh and bones, or a natural life ; but he names the body as being the instrument of motion and service, or it may be synecdoche partis pro toto, a part for the whole. Present yourselves as a sacrifice consecrated to God, and living to him, and as living by him.
Upon the loss of original righteousness, another form or principle was introduced, called in Scripture flesh, and a body of death. Hence by nature we are said to be dead, Eph. ii. 1, and all our works before repentance are dead works, Heb. vi. 1. And these works have no true beauty in them, with whatsoever gloss they may appear to a natural eye. A dead body may have something of the features and beauty of a living, but it is but the beauty of a carcase, not of a man. A statue, by the stone-cutter's art, and the painter's skill, may be made very comely, yet it is but a statue still ; where is the life ? Such services are but the works of art, as flowers painted on the wall with curious colours, but where is the vegetative principle ? Since man, therefore, is spiritually dead, he cannot perform a living service. As a natural death doth incapacitate for natural actions, so a spiritual death must incapacitate for spiritual actions. Otherwise, in what sense can it be called a death, if a man in a state of nature were as capable of performing spiritual actions as one in a state of grace ? No vital act can be exercised without a vital principle. As Adam could not stir to perform any action, though his body was framed and perfected, till God breathed into him a living soul, so neither can we stir spiritually till God breathe into us a living grace. Spiritual motions can no more be without a spiritual. life than bodily motions can be without an enlivening soul. ' The living, the living, they shall praise thee ; ' and Ps. lxxx. 18, ' Quicken us, and we will call upon thy name.' There can be no living praise, nor no living prayer, without a renewed heart. If it be one effect of the blood of Christ to ' purge our consciences from dead works, to serve the living God,' as Heb. ix. 14, then it is clear that till our consciences are purged from dead works we cannot serve the living God ; for what suitableness can there be between a living God and dead services ? Is a putrefied rank carcase a fit present for a king ? or a man full of running sores and boils over his whole body fit to serve in a prince's chamber ? Our best services, without a new nature, though they may appear varnished and
John III. 3, 5.J the necessity of kegeneration. 33
glittering to man, yet in the sight of God they have no life, no substance, but stinking rotten dust, because coming from a dead and rotten heart.
Well, then, we must be born again ; it is not a dead nature, nor a dead faith, can produce living fruit for God. We may as well read without eyes, walk without legs, act without life, as perform any service to God without a new nature ; no, we cannot perform the least : a dead man can no more move his finger than his whole body.
Not graciously, because we are corrupt. By the same reason that we are to speak with grace, Col. iv. 6, and to sing with grace in our hearts to the Lord, Col. iii. 16, we are to do every other duty with an exercise of grace to God : and without grace, our praises are but hollowings, our prayers but howlings, as the Scripture terms them : Hosea vii. 14, ' They have not cried to me with their hearts, when they howled upon their beds.' How can there be an exercise of that which is not ? The skill of the musician cannot discover itself till the instrument be made tuneable. The heart must be strung with grace by the Spirit, before that Spirit can touch the strings to make harmony to God in a gospel service. Our tempers must be changed, our hearts fitted, before we can make melody to God. The principal beauty and glory of a duty lies in the internal workings of the heart ; and how can that heart work graciously, that hath nothing of God and his grace in it ? It is said, ' Folly is bound up in the heart of a child,' Prov. xxii. 15. So is cor- ruption in the heart of a man, like poison in a bundle of stuff; it is entered into the very composition of us. A law of sin is predominant in a natural man, Rom. vii. 23, which doth influence all his actions. Strong habits will interest themselves in all we go about, and all a man's services are regulated by it, for he hath no other law in his mind to check the motions of it, and to scent his duties, whereby they may carry a pleasing savour to God. The gift of prophecy, the understanding of mysteries, the depth of knowledge, the removing mountains, bestowing alms, dying for religion, are brave and noble acts ; but without charity, love to God, without which, no other grace can work, all these profit nothing, 1 Cor. xiii. 2, 3. There is a moral goodness in feeding the poor, but no gracious goodness without charity. A little of this would make those, as a diamond doth gold wherein it is set, more valu- able. If all those profit nothing without this grace of charity, they would profit much with it. How doth grace alter the very nature of services ? Those acts which are sensitive in a brute, were he transformed into a man, and endued with reason, would become rational. Those actions which are but moral in a mere man, when changed into Christian, become evangelical ; they would be of another nature and another value.
Well, then, look after the new birth, since it is so necessary. There cannot be gracious practices without gracious principles. Can anything fly to heaven without wings ? We are to walk as Christ walked ; how can we do it without a principle of kin to that which Christ had ? We are bound to act from a principle of righteousness ; Adam was, and his posterity are ; and should we not look after that which is so necessary a perfection, re- quisite for our services ? No doubt but the devil could find matter enough for prayer, and from the excellency of his knowledge, frame some rare strains, as some word it ; but would it be a service which came from such a nature ? As long as we are allied to him in our nature, our services will be of as little value. He transforms himself into an angel of light, but is still a devil ; and many men do so in their religious acts, yet still remain un- regenerate.
Not freely and voluntarily, because we are at enmity. A natural man's
vol. hi. c
34 chaenock's works. [John III. 3, 5.
services are forced, not free. The aversion of our natures from God is as strong as their inclination to evil. We have no fervent desires to love God, and there- fore no desires to do anything out of affection to him. When sensual habits are planted in the soul, there is an enmity to God in the mind : it will not be ' subject to the law of God,' Rom. viii., and whilst that habit sways, it cannot. This inclination to sin, and consequently aversion to good, is incor- porated in nature, like blackness in a negro, or spots in a leopard ; they are accustomed to sin, and cannot do good, Jer. xiii. 23. There is no agree- ableness between God and man's soul, whilst there is a friendship between the heart and sin ; he affects the one, and is disgusted with the other : one is his pleasure, the other his trouble ; he hath no will, no heart to come to God in any service, and when he doth, he is rather dragged, than sweetly drawn. The things of God are against the bent of a natural heart ; there is nothing so irksome as the most spiritual service ; when men engage in them, they row against the stream of nature itself. There must, therefore, be something of a contrary efficacy to overpower this violent tide, a law of grace to renew the mind and turn the motions of the will, to another channel. Restraining grace may for a while stop the current, but not turn and change the natural course. A carnal mind conceits the things of God and his spiritual service to be foolishness, and therefore contemns them, 1 Cor. i. 23, 24. The eye of the mind must be opened to discern the wis- dom of God in them, before he can affect them. The heart should be lifted up in the evangelical ways of God. Can mere flesh be thus ? Force can never change nature. You may hurl lead up into the air, but it will never ascend of itself while it is lead, unless it be rarified into air or fire. Keep up iron many years in the air by the force of a loadstone, it will retain its tendency to fall to the earth if the obstacle be removed ; the natural gravity is suspended, not altered. Till the nature of the will be altered, it can never move freely to any duty ; there must be a power to will, before there is a will to do, as Philip, ii. 13, ' It is God which works in you both to will and to do.' A supernatural renewing grace must expel corrupt habits from the will, and reduce it to its true object. When faith is planted, it brings love to work by ; when the soul is renewed, there is an harmony between God and the heart, between the mind and the word, between the will and the duty ; when the appetite and true taste of the soul is restored in regeneration, then spring up strong desires to apply itself to every holy service : 1 Peter ii. 2, 3, ' The sincere milk of the word ' is fervently desired, after it is spiritually tasted.
Well, then, there must be a change in us, or in the law. The law is spiritual, man is carnal, Rom. vii. 14. The law can have no friendship for man, nor man no friendship for the law in this state, since their natures are so contrary. What the law commands is disgustful to the flesh, what the flesh desires is displeasing to the law. There must then be a change ; the law must become carnal, or man become spiritual, before any agreement can be between them. Where do you think this change must light ? It can never be in the law, therefore it must be in man. The wound in our wills must be cured ; the tide of nature, that never carries us to God, must be turned, and altered by a stream of grace, to move us to him and his service. Man hath been a slave to his lust by the loss of grace, and is never like to be restored to his liberty in the service of God, till he be repossessed of that grace, the loss of which brought him into slavery. The gospel is a ' law of liberty,' James i. 25 ; a servile spirit doth not suit a free law, neither is it a fit frame for an evangelical service.
Nor delightfully. We can never perform spiritual services with delight,
John III. 3, 5.] the necessity of regeneration. 35
because we are alienated. This we are to do. Paul ' delighted in the law of God,' Rom. vii. 22 ; and the law was the ' delights ' of David, Ps. cxix. 92 ; his whole pleasure ran in this channel. Now, because of that aversion to God, there is no will and freedom in his service, much less can there be a delight. A corrupt nature can have no divine strains ; a diseased man hath no delight in his own acts, his distemper makes his very motion unpleasant to him. Things that are not natural can never be delightful. There is a mighty distance between spiritual duties and a carnal heart. Things out of their place can never be an rest. Sin is as much a natural man's element as water to a fish or air to a bird ; if he be stopped in the ways of the flesh, he is restless till he return. He may indeed have some delight sometimes in a service — not as it respects God as the object, or God as the end, there is no such friendship in a natural man's heart to him — but there is an agree- ment between a service and some carnal end he performs it for. His delight is not terminated in the service, but in self-love, self-interest, or some ex- ternal reward, anchored in it by some hopes of carnal advantage, not springing from a living love or a gracious affection to God. He hath no knowledge of God, and therefore can have no delight in God or in his ser- vice. It is impossible we can come before him without pleasure and delight, if we know how amiable he is in his person, and how gracious in his nature ; but we naturally think God a hard master, and man having no delight in God, he can have none in those means which lead him to God, and as they are appointed to bring God and his soul together. He hath wrong notions of duties, looks upon them as drudgeries, not as advantages : Mai. i. 13, ' Ye said, Behold, what a weariness it is,' &c. Without a change of nature, we cannot desire communion with God, and therefore cannot delight in the means of it. We can no more do any service cheerfully than the saints without it could ' receive joyfully the spoiling of their goods,' Heb. x. 34. We can never be in a holy ecstasy without this inward principle, to make the gospel services connatural to us. This only makes high impressions upon the soul. It is the law within our hearts, which only makes us delight to do his will : Ps. xl. 8, ' Thy law is within my heart,' in my bowels. He had a natural affection to it, and then a high delight in it. It made our Saviour delight to do his work ; and it was the inward man of the heart, wherein the apostle's delight in the law was placed. Unless we have a divine impression of God upon us, we cannot hear his word with any joy in it; as our Saviour saith, John viii. 47, 'Ye therefore hear them not,' that is, the words of God, ' because you are not of God.' Unless we have God's light and his truth sent forth into us, we can never make God our exceeding joy, or go to his altar with such a frame, Ps. xliii. 3, 4.
Well, then, there is a necessity of the new nature, to have a warm frame of heart in evangelical duties. What is connatural to us is only delightful. So much of weariness and bondage we have in any holy service, so much of a legal frame ; so much of love and delight, so much we have of a new cove- nant grace. A spirit of adoption and regeneration only can make us delight to come to our father, and to cry Abba to him.
Without regene/ation we cannot perform evangelical duties sincerely, because we are a lie, and in our best estate vanity. We must worship God ' in truth ' as well as ' spirit,' John iv. 24. God is a Spirit, and therefore must be worshipped in spirit. God is truth, and therefore must be worshipped in truth. Without a new nature we cannot worship God in truth. The old nature is in itself a He, a mere falsity, something contrary to that nature God created. It was first introduced by a lie of the devil (' ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil,' Gen. iii. 5), and thereupon a fancy that God
36 chaknock's works. [John III. 3, 5.
lied in his command. How can we serve God with this nature, which had nothing but a lie for its foundation, — a lie of the devil, a lie in our fancy ? Therefore our old nature is no better than a lie. How can we serve God with that nature which is quite another thing to that of his framing ? Man in his fall is a liar : Rom. iii. 4, ' Let God be true, and every man a liar,' a covenant-breaker, that kept not his faith with God. God, in respect of truth, and man, in respect of lying, are set in opposition by the apostle there. No man but would slight and scorn that service from another, which he knew to be a lying service in the very frame of it. There is no truth can be in any service which is founded only upon an old nature, and performed by one that is acted by the father of lies; and so is every unregenerate man, every 'child of disobedience,' Eph. ii. 2.
Now, sincerity cannot be without a new nature,
(1.) Because there are no divine motives which should sway the soul. Most services of natural men have such dirty springs, so unsuitable to that raised temper men should have in dealing with God, that they produce sacri- fices not fit to be offered to an earthly governor : Mai. i. 8, ' If you offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil?' &c, 'offer it now unto thy governor, will he be pleased with thee ?' Had they had divine motives, they had never brought such sickly services. What was not fit for themselves, they thought fit for God. Did but princes know what motives many had in their services, they would with as much scorn reject them as they do ignorantly receive them with affection. But it is otherwise with God, who knows all the springs and wards in that lock of the heart of his own framing. Do not most ser- vices take their rise from custom, or from an outward religious education barely, or at best from natural conscience, which though it be all in a man, which takes God's part, yet it is flesh, and defiled ? And what pure vapours can be expected from a lake of Sodom? Titus i. 15, ' To them that are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure ; but even their mind and conscience is defiled.' The mind, which is the repository of natural light, and the con- science, which is the advocate of natural light, and applies it upon particular occasion, are defiled, and that in every unbelieving person. Can the motives which conscience takes from a dark and defiled principle, as the mind is, be divine ? It is fear of death, wrath, and judgment which it mostly applies. These are the motives of defilement. Fear is the natural consequence of pollution; without sin and corruption we never had had any fear of hell. That cannot be gracious which springs naturally from the commission of sin, and can this be divine ? Were there no punishment feared, there should be no duty performed. Conscience hath naturally no basis to stand upon but this. What is the principle of his fear ? Self. It is not therefore obedience to God, but self-preservation, sways a man. Fear is but a servile disposi- tion, and therefore cannot make a service good. All such extrinsic motives which arise not from a new life, are no more divine than the weights of a clock may be said to have life because they set the wheels on running. The same action may be done by several persons upon different principles and motives, for which one may be rewarded, the other not ; as Mat. x. 41, 42, ' He that receives a righteous man, in the name of a righteous man, shall receive a righteous man's reward. And whosoever shall give unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, he shall in no wise lose his reward.' One may receive a member of Christ out of respect to Christ and the relation the person hath to him, another may re- ceive the same person out of a common principle of humanity ; the action is the same, the good redounding to the object is the same ; nay, it may be greater in him that acts from a commiseration of him, as a man, than a cup
John III. 3, 5.J the necessity of regeneration. 37
of cold water from the other, because his ability is greater ; but the inward respect to the object is different. One respects him as a man of the same nature with himself in misery, the other respects him as a member of Christ in misery ; one respects him as a man, the other as a righteous man. The principle is different : one relieves him out of a natural compassion, common to a heathen with him, the other out of a Christian affection to his Head. The actions are therefore different, because of their motives : one is reward- able, and promised to be rewarded, the other not ; one may be from grace — I do not say it always is, unless there be a constant tenor of such motives in our actions ; for a natural man, under the preaching of the gospel, may do such a thing out of a present and transient respect to Christ, whom he hears so often of, and hath some presumption to be saved by, but it is not his con- stant frame — I say, one may be from grace, the other from nature.
Therefore from hence results a necessity of the alteration of the frame of our souls, to furnish us with divine and heavenly motives for our actions. A man may do a thing by nature from a good principle, a principle of common honesty, good in its kind (brass is good in its kind, but not so good as silver), but not evangelically good, without a renewed affection to God : John xiv. 15, ' If you love me, keep my commandments ;' keep what I command you, out of affection to me. Where ' the imagination of the heart is evil, and only evil, and that continually,' Gen. vi. 5, all the service a man in that state performs riseth from this spring, and hath some infectious imagination in it, highly abominable to God ; either wrong notions of God in it, or wrong notions of the duty, or corrupt motives, something or other of the evil imagination of the heart, mixes itself with it.
(2.) Without a renewed nature, as there are no divine motives, so there can be no divine ends. We are bound to refer our natural actions, much more our religious services, to the glory of God. The end is the moral prin- ciple of every action. It is that which confers a goodness or badness upon the service : Luke xi. 34, ' If the eye be evil, the whole body is full of dark- ness ' (this is commonly understood of a man's aim). If the intention be evil, there is nothing but darkness in the whole service. The perfection of everything consists in answering the end for which it was framed. That which was the first end of our framing, ought to be the end of our acting, viz. the glory of God. But man hath taken himself off from this end, and hath been fond of making himself his chief good and ultimate end. Men naturally have corrupt ends in good duties. Pride is the cause of some men's virtue. And they are spiritually vicious in avoiding crimes, because they intrench too much upon their reputation. The pharisees made their devotion contribute to their ambition : Mat. vi. 5, « They pray to be seen of men,' and Mat. xxiii. 5, 'But all their works they do to be seen of men.' Not one work wherein they had not respect to this. Their works might well be called the works of the devil, whose main business it was to set up pride and self. All their pretences of devotion to God, were but the adoration of some golden image. Have not many in their more splendid actions, the same end with brutes : the satisfaction of the sensitive part, covetousness, pride, emulation, sense of honour, qualities perceivable in the very brutes, as the end of some of their actions ? The acting for a sensitive end is not suitable to a rational, much less can it be the end of a gracious creature. Have not men sinful ends in their religious services ? in their prayers to God, in their acknowledgments of God ? The devil could intreat our Saviour's leave to go into the herd of swine. Was this a prayer, though directed to Christ, when his end was to destroy and satisfy his malice in it? At best, a man without grace is like a picture in a room which eyes all, and hath no
38 charnock's works. [John III. 3, 5.
more respect to a prince than his attendants. A natural man's respect to God is but equal to a respect to all his other worldly concerns. Indeed it were well if it were so. He parcels out one part for God, one part for him- self, and one part for the world ; but God hath the least share, or at best, no more than the rest. And truly, as a picture cannot give a greater re- spect, to fix its eyes more upon a prince than a peasant, because it hath no life ; so neither can a natural man pay a supreme respect to God in his ser- vice, without a spiritual life. There is a necessity then of removing those depraved ends, that man may answer the true end of his creation. The principles then upon which such ends do grow, contrary to the will of God, must be rooted out, that the soul may move purely to God in every service. We are come short of the glory of God : Rom. iii. 23, ' All have sinned and come short of the glory of God ;' short of aiming at it, short of his approba- tion of our acts. Being thus come short, our ends cannot rise higher than the frame of our soul. Grace, grace only can advance our wills to those supernatural ends for which they were first framed. We can never aim at the glory of God till we have an affection to him. We can never honour him supremely, whom we do not supremely love. An affection to God can never be had, till the nature, wherein the aversion is placed, be changed into another frame. We are to glorify God, as God. How can we do this with- out the knowledge of him ? How c?n we know him but by the gospel, wherein he discovers himself? How can we have right conceptions of the gospel, till gospel impressions be made upon us ? How can we act for the glory of God, to whom naturally we are enemies ? There is none of us born with a spiritual love to God. There must be an alteration of the end and aim in us ; our actions cannot else be good, though ordered by God himself. God employs Satan in some things, as in afflicting Job ; but is his perform- ance good ? No, because his end is not the same with God's. He acts out of malice what God commands out of sovereignty, and for gracious designs. Our end without it, is not the same with the end of the action ; for moral acts tend to God's glory, though the agent hath no such intention. So the action may be good in itself, but not good in the actor, because he wants a due end.
Well then, those actions only can be said to be evangelical, when the great end of God's glory, which was his end both in creation and redemption, hath a moral influence upon every service ; when we have the same end in our re- deemed services, as God had in his redeeming love.
Not humbly. We cannot without regeneration perform gospel duties humbly, because of natural stoutness and hardness. Evangelical duties must be performed with humility. Self-denial is the chief gospel lesson, and is to run through the veins of every service. Therefore God speaks of giving 'a heart of flesh,' in gospel times: Ezek. si. 19, 'I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes, and keep my ordinances, and do them.' Gospel duties require a pliableness and tenderness of heart. Adam's over-valuing himself, and swelling with designs of being like God, brought an incapacity upon him- self of serving his creator. And man ever since, is too much aspiring and too well opinioned of himself, to perform duties in an evangelical strain, with that meltingness, that nothingness in himself, which the gospel requires. Our swelling and admiring thoughts of our own natural righteousness, hinders Christ from saving us, and ourselves from serving him. There must then be an humble, and melting, and self-denying frame. The angels are said to cover their faces before God, Isa. vi. 2, as having nothing to glory in of their own. And the chief design of the gospel is to beat down all glorying in our- selves : 1 Cor. i. 29, 31, ' That no flesh should glory in his presence ; let him
John III. 3, 5.] the necessity of regeneration. 39
that glorieth, glory in the Lord.' And indeed it humbles us no more than what, upon due consideration, will appear very necessary. Nature then must be changed before this pride be rooted out. Old things must pass away, that God may be all in all in the creature. We cannot without a new nature make a true estimate of ourselves, and lie as vile and base in the presence of God. A stone, with all the hammering, cannot be made soft. Beat it into several pieces, you may sever the continuity of its parts, but not master its hardness ; every little piece of it will retain the hardness of its nature. So it is with a heart of stone. The nature must be changed before it be fit for those services which require melting, humble, and admiring frames. There is a necessity of a residing grace, like fire, to keep the soul in a meltiug temper.
Not constantly. Without a new nature, we cannot perform gospel services constantly, because of our natural levity. Where the nature is flesh, the heart ' minds the things of the flesh,' Rom. viii. 5. The mind thus habitu- ated, will not be long employed about the things of the Spirit. There is a natural levity in man's nature. Do not many seem to begin in the Spirit and end in the flesh ? seem to arise to heaven, and quickly fall down to earth ? Do not our very promises vanish with the next wind of temptation, and like sparks, expire as soon as they be born, unless grace be in the heart to keep them alive. The Israelites are accused of not having a heart sted- fast with God: Ps. lxxviii. 37, ' Their heart was not right with him, neither were they stedfast in his covenant.' Are our natures better than theirs ? Do we not all lie under the same charge ; so uncertain naturally, about divine things, as if there were nothing but wind in our composition ? Nothing can be kept up in motion against its nature, but by force. A top hath no in- ward principle of motion, but is moved by some outward force. When that is removed, the motion languisheth. Any motion that depends only upon outward wires, expires upon the breaking of them. When external motives, which spurred men on to this or that service, cease, the service dies of course, because the spring of the motion falls. If fear of hell, terrors of death, some pressing calamity, be the spring of any duty ; when these are removed, there will be no more regard to the duty they engendered. But what is natural, is constant, because the spring always remains. Interest changeth, conscience is various ; and therefore the operations arising from thence, will partake of the uncertainty of them. Stony ground may bring forth blades ; but for want of root, they will quickly wither : Mat. xiii. 5, 20. A man may mount high in religion, by the mixture of some religious passion, as meteors in the air ; but by reason of the gross and earthy parts in them, will not continue their station. There is no being without, stable, but God ; and no principle stable within, but grace : Heb. xiii. 9, ' It is a good thing that the heart be established with grace.' Whatsoever service is undertaken upon changeable motives, is as changeable as the bottom upon which it stands. If credit, slavish fear of God, worldly interest, inspire us with some seeming holy resolutions, they will all fly away upon the first removal of those props. There is therefore a necessity of a change of nature and disposition. Where there is no approbation of things that are excellent, there can be no constant operation about them. All action about an object, continues according to the affection to it, and delight in it. We shall then be filled with the fruits of righteousness, to the glory of God, when we have a sincere approbation of the excellency of them: Philip i. 10, 11, first, 'approve things that are excellent ; and then follows, ' without offence, till the day of Christ.' A stately profession can no more hold out against the floods of temptation, than a beautiful building can stand against the winds without a good foundation
40 charnock's works. [John III. 3, 5.
under ground. It is the Spirit of the Lord within, as well as without, can only maintain the standard against temptation, Isa. lix. 19.
Well then, upon the whole, there is a necessity of regeneration for the performance of gospel duties. We cannot else perform them spiritually, because we are flesh ; nor vitally, because we are dead ; nor graciously, because we are corrupt ; nor voluntarily, because we are enmity ; nor delightfully, because we are alienated ; nor sincerely, because we are falsity ; nor humbly, because of our stoutness ; nor constantly, because of our levity. Our natures must be changed in all these respects, before we can be fit for any gospel service.
(2.) Eegeneration is necessary for the enjoyment of gospel privileges.
[1.] For the favour of God, and his complacency with us. We are not fit for God's delight, without it. That person who hath his love, must have his image. If ever God could love an old nature, which he once hated, and delight in that which he once loathed, he must divest himself of his immutability. He never hated the person of any of his creatures, but for unrighteousness. And upon the removal of this cloud of separation between him and them, the beams of his love break out in their former vigour. God's love is not straitened, nor his kindness exhausted, no more than his hand is shortened, or his ear grown heavy, that he cannot hear : Isa. lix. 1, 2, ' But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.'
For, first, what did make the first separation, was it not sin ? God told Adam before, what the issue would be, upon his eating the forbidden fruit : Gen. ii. 17, • In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.' It is not a temporal death there only meant ; for he should then have died that day wherein he fell, the word surely importing so much. And the punishment of a temporal death was pronounced afterwards : Gen. iii. 19, ' Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.' Thou shalt surely die ; thy integrity and righteousness will expire that very moment, and thou shalt die in my just displeasure. It is a spiritual death that is most properly meant. The punishment of sin is death ; the chief part of this death is an ' alienation from the life of God,' Eph. iv. 18; that is, not to have God, and the righteousness of God's image living in him ; but to be impure, cor- rupt, a hater of God, and servant of sin. Now from this punishment no man can be freed, but by a contrary regeneration, the proper effect whereof is to love God, to know his name, to partake of his holiness, to imitate his virtues.* Man forfeited all God's favour upon his fall, and can challenge nothing of it.
Secondly, What then can restore man to God's favour ? Can that which first deprived us of it ? The cause of our destruction can never be the means of our restoration. Did the loss of Adam's integrity make him unfit for paradise, the garden of God, from whence he was expelled, as a token of God's disfavour ? And can the continuance of that loss be a means to regain that love which cashiered us ? It was a spiritual death ; and is the carcase of a soul fit for God's complacency ? There must be not only a satisfaction to his justice for the re-instating man into his favour (this is done by Jesus Christ) ; but a restoring of his image, this is done by the Holy Ghost. It is as impossible the soul can be beautiful without life, and with- out holiness, as for a body to be beautiful without a good colour and pro- portion of parts. Take away this, beauty must cease, and deformity succeed in the place. It is impossible, therefore, that where sin remains in its full vigour, where there is nothing of an original integrity residing, but that the * Cocceius; More Nevoch, p. 65.
John III. 3, 5.] the necessity of regeneration. 41
soul must be monstrous, vile, and deformed in the eyes of God. To make it therefore a fit object for God's favour, it is necessary it be beautified with a holy nature, and adorned with its due proportions and vigour. The righteousness of Israel must go forth as brightness ; he must be called by a new name, that is, a new nature ; for what is a name without a nature ? And then it should be Hephzibah, ' the Lord delights in thee.' Isa. lxii. 1-4, ' The righteousness thereof shall go forth as brightness, and the glory thereof as a lamp that burns.' Righteousness is the glory of a soul, as well as of a church : ' Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory : thou shalt be called by a new name ;' a new nature wrought by the word of God; ' which the mouth of the Lord shall name.' Then she should be in favour with God, ' a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of her God.' Righteousness is the glory of a soul, and God's delight and complacency is the consequent of a righteous nature.
Thirdly, The elect themselves have no interest in God's favour of delight without it. This follows upon the former ; God cannot love the very top of mankind, his own choice, with a love of complacency, without regeneration, without a righteous nature. There is a favour of intention and purpose before it ; there is also an executive love in the very infusing the habits of grace, which is a supernatural favour, because there is both a purpose and then an actual conferring a supernatural good. God is free, and may will to give his gifts how, and to whom he pleases. But an elect person, whilst he continues in a state of nature, is not simply beloved, though there be a purpose of love, because there is no gracious quality in him, which is the object of God's special favour. It is regeneration only which is the object of God's delight in us.
Fourthly, Hence will follow, that no privilege under heaven, without it, can bring us into God's favour ; no, not if any man were related to Christ according to the flesh. The apostle Paul would not think the better of himself for a fleshly relation to Christ, for being of the same country, descended of the Jewish nation : 2 Cor. v. 16, * Though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet henceforth know we him no more. Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.' Though it be an honour to be of the same descent with Christ, according to the flesh, to be of the same nation and country, yet this doth not make a man any more beloved of God. Nothing avails in Christ, but a new creature ; and our Saviour him- self pronounceth it so. It was the highest privilege to be the mother of our Saviour, according to the flesh ; yet this had been nothing, without her being born again of the Spirit : ' "Who is my mother ? and who are my brethren ? Behold my mother and my brethren,' pointing to his disciples, Mat. xii. 48, 49. ' My mother and my brethren are those which hear the word of God, and do it,' Luke viii. 21. Those that hear the word, that have the gracious effect of the word wrought in them by the Spirit, are equal to my mother, and my brethren, and superior to any of my fleshly relations, if they be without it. There is a necessity of regeneration upon this account.
[2.] As there is no favour, so there is no union with God and Christ with- out it. Man hath some kind of natural union with all things in the world ; he hath being with all creatures, rational faculties with angels, sense with animals, vegetation with plants ; he wants cnly that with God which would beautify all the rest. And this can only be by partaking of the image of God's holiness by a new birth. There must be a capability for this union on man's part. A superior and inferior nature may be united together, but never contrary natures. There must be some proportion between the sub-
42 chaenock's woeks. [John III. 3, 5.
jects to be united, which proportion consists in a commensuration of one thing to another. What proportion is there between God and our souls ? There can be none without a supernatural grace infusing a pure nature. As we come out of the quarry of nature, rough and unpolished, we are not fit to be cemented with the corner-stone in the heavenly building ; we must be first smoothed and altered by grace.
First, How can things be united to one another which are already united to their contraries ? Separation from one body must make way for union to an- other. Naturally we are united to the devil as the head of the wicked world. We are by nature his members. Our understandings and wills were united with his in Adam, when Adam gave up his understanding and will to him ; and ever since he ' works in the children of disobedience :' Eph. ii. 2, 'Who now works in the children of disobedience,' mpyovvrog h lioTg. Working and working in, as a united nature to him, and principle in him. It is necessary this union should be broken before we can partake of the influence of another head. The diabolical nature and principle, therefore, which we have got by sin must be removed, and another nature, which is divine, put in the place first (in order of nature), before we can be united to Christ, and enjoy the benefits of union with him.
Secondly, How can things of a contrary nature be united together ? Can fire and water be united, a good angel, and an impure devil ? can heaven and hell ever meet friendly and compose one body ? We are united to the first Adam by a likeness of nature ; how can we be united to the second, without a likeness to him from a new principle ? We were united to the first by a living soul ; we must be united to the other by a quickening Spirit. We have nothing to do with the heavenly Adam, without bearing an heavenly image, 1 Cor. xv. 48, 49. We are earthly as in the first Adam ; we must be heavenly to be in the second, because his nature is so. If we are his members, we must have the same nature which was communicated to him by the Spirit of God, which is holiness. This nature must flow from the same principle, otherwise it is not the same nature ; an old nature can- not be joined to a new Adam. There must be one spirit in both ; as 1 Cor. vi. 17, ' He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit ;' and if it were an union barely of affections, as some would only make it, it is not conceivable how it can be without a change of disposition. But since it is an union by in- dwelling of the same Spirit in both (Rom. viii. 9, ' If any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his '), it is less intelligible, how it can be with- out an assimilation of our nature to the nature of Christ. It can never be supposed the Spirit should unite a pure head, and impure members. Such an union would make our blessed Saviour like Nebuchadnezzar's image ; an head of gold, arms of silver, and feet of clay. Shall we loathe to have nasty things about us, and will the holy Jesus endure a loathesome putrefying soul to be joined to him ?
Thirdly, How can anything be vitally united to another without life ? It is a vital union, by virtue of which believers are called Christ (1 Cor. xi. 12, ' As all the members of that one body, being many, are one body ; so also is Christ') ; and it is compared to the union of the members of a natural body, Rom. xii. 4, 5. Members have not only life in their head, but in themselves, because the soul, which is the life of the body, is not only in the head, but in all the parts of the body, and exerciseth in every part its vital operations. The Spirit therefore, which is the band of this union, communicates life to every member wherein he resides, as well as in the head. What man would endure a dead body to be joined to him, though it were the carcase of one he never so dearly loved ? If a man were united to Christ, without regenera-
John III. 3, 5.] the necessity of regeneration. 43
tion, Christ's body would be partly alive, partly dead, if any one member of it had not a spiritual life. A dead body and a living head, a member of Christ with a nature contrary to him, is an unconceivable paradox. Did God ever design such a monstrous union for his Son ?
Upon these accounts doth result the necessity of regeneration ; without it, no union with Christ.
(3.) There can be no justification without it. We are not justified by an inherent righteousness ; yet we are not justified without it. We cannot be justified by it, because it is not commensurate to the law by reason of its im- perfection ; we cannot be justified without it, for it is not congruous to the wisdom and holiness of God, to count a person righteous, who hath no- thing of righteousness in him, and whose nature is as corrupt as the worst of men. With what respect to God's honour, can it be expected that God should pardon that man's sins, whose will is not changed, who still hath the same habitualness in his will to commit sin. though he doth not at present act it. It is very congruous in a moral way, that the person offending should retract his sin, and return to his former affection. There is a distinction between justification and regeneration, though they never are asunder. Justification is relative; regeneration internally real. Union with Christ is the ground of both ; Christ is the meritorious cause of both. The Father pronounceth the one, the Spirit works the other ; it is the Father's sentence, and the Spirit's work. The relative and the real change are both at the same time : 1 Cor. vi. 7, ' But you are sanctified, but you are justified ;' both go together. We are not justified before faith, because we are justified by it, Rom. v. 1 ; arid faith is the vital principle whereby we live : Gal. ii. 20, ' The life which I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God.' It is the root-grace, and contains the seeds of all other graces in it; it is habitu- ally and seminally all other grace ; so that unless we be new born, no justi- fication can be expected ; no justification can be evidenced. God never pardons sin, but he subdues iniquity: Micah vii. 18, 19, 'Who is a God like unto thee, that pardons iniquity ?' He will subdue our iniquities. Tbe conquest cannot be made, while the nature, the root of the rebellion, remains. When he turns his compassion to us, he will turn away our hearts from ini- quity. If a man were justified before he were regenerate, then he was right- eous before he was alive ; being • in Christ,' as free from condemnation, is alway attended with a ' walking after the Spirit ;' and walking is not before living, Rom. viii. 1. Pardon would be unprofitable, unless he that were pardoned were made righteous inchoatively here, and had a right to, and hope of, a perfect righteousness hereafter. If righteousness hereafter were not imparted in this manner, it would be an argument a man were still under the law, which saith, ' He that doth them shall live in them ' (which is im- possible in a man that hath once sinned, though his sins are remitted). But it is clear that righteousness is imparted, since there is no man in the world whose sins are pardoned, but finds some principle in him whereby he is en- abled to contest with sin more than before he was. Therefore do not deceive yourselves ; there is no pardon without a righteous nature, though pardon be not given for it.
(4.) There is no adoption without regeneration. We can no more be God's sons, without spiritual regeneration, than we can be the sons and daughters of men, without natural generation. Adoption is not a mere relation without an inward form. The privilege, and the image of the sons of God, go both together. A state of adoption is never without a separation from defilement : 2 Cor. vi. 17, 18, ' Come you out from among them, be you separate, and will be a father unto you, and you shall be my sons and daughters.' The new
42
CHAENOCK S WORKS.
[John III. 3, 5.
jects to be united, which proportion consists in a commensuration of one thing to another. What proportion is there between God and our souls ? There can be none without a supernatural grace infusing a pure nature. As we come out of the quarry of nature, rough and unpolished, we are not fit to be cemented with the corner-stone in the heavenly building ; we must be first smoothed and altered by grace.
First, How can things be united to one another which are already united to their contraries ? Separation from one body must make way for union to an- other. Naturally we are united to the devil as the head of the wicked world. We are by nature his members. Our understandings and wills were united with his in Adam, when Adam gave up his understanding and will to him ; and ever since he ' works in the children of disobedience :' Eph. ii. 2, ' Who now works in the children of disobedience,' hspyovvrog h vioTg. Working and working in, as a united nature to him, and principle in him. It is necessary this union should be broken before we can partake of the influence of another head. The diabolical nature and principle, therefore, which we have got by sin must be removed, and another nature, which is divine, put in the place first (in order of nature), before we can be united to Christ, and enjoy the benefits of union with him.
Secondly, How can things of a contrary nature be united together ? Can fire and water be united, a good angel, and an impure devil ? can heaven and hell ever meet friendly and compose one body ? We are united to the first Adam by a likeness of nature ; how can we be united to the second, without a likeness to him from a new principle ? We were united to the first by a living soul ; we must be united to the other by a quickening Spirit. We have nothing to do with the heavenly Adam, without bearing an heavenly image, 1 Cor. xv. 48, 49. We are earthly as in the first Adam ; we must be heavenly to be in the second, because his nature is so. If we are his members, we must have the same nature which was communicated to him by the Spirit of God, which is holiness. This nature must flow from the same principle, otherwise it is not the same nature ; an old nature can- not be joined to a new Adam. There must be one spirit in both ; as 1 Cor. vi. 17, ' He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit ;' and if it were an union barely of affections, as some would only make it, it is not conceivable how it can be without a change of disposition. But since it is an union by in- dwelling of the same Spirit in both (Kom. viii. 9, ' If any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his '), it is less intelligible, how it can be with- out an assimilation of our nature to the nature of Christ. It can never be supposed the Spirit should unite a pure head, and impure members. Such an union would make our blessed Saviour like Nebuchadnezzar's image ; an head of gold, arms of silver, and feet of clay. Shall we loathe to have nasty things about us, and will the holy Jesus endure a loathesome putrefying soul to be joined to him ?
Thirdly, How can anything be vitally united to another without life ? It is a vital union, by virtue of which believers are called Christ (1 Cor. xi. 12, ' As all the members of that one body, being many, are one body ; so also is Christ') ; and it is compared to the union of the members of a natural body, Rom. xii. 4, 5. Members have not only life in their head, but in themselves, because the soul, which is the life of the body, is not only in the head, but in all the parts of the body, and exerciseth in every part its vital operations. The Spirit therefore, which is the band of this union, communicates life to every member wherein he resides, as well as in the head. What man would endure a dead body to be joined to him, though it were the carcase of one he never so dearly loved ? If a man were united to Christ, without regenera-
John III. 3, 5.
THE NECESSITY OF REGENERATION.
43
tion, Christ's body would be partly alive, partly dead, if any one member of it had not a spiritual life. A dead body and a living head, a member of Christ with a nature contrary to him, is an unconceivable paradox. Did God ever design such a monstrous union for his Son ?
Upon these accounts doth result the necessity of regeneration ; without it, no union with Christ.
(3.) There can be no justification without it. "We are not justified by an inherent righteousness ; yet we are not justified without it. We cannot be justified by it, because it is not commensurate to the law by reason of its im- perfection ; we cannot be justified without it, for it is not congruous to the wisdom and holiness of God, to count a person righteous, who hath no- thing of righteousness in him, and whose nature is as corrupt as the worst of men. With what respect to God's honour, can it be expected that God should pardon that man's sins, whose will is not changed, who still hath the same habitualness in his will to commit sin. though he doth not at present act it. It is very congruous in a moral way, that the person offending should retract his sin, and return to his former affection. There is a distinction between justification and regeneration, though they never are asunder. Justification is relative; regeneration internally real. Union with Christ is the ground of both ; Christ is the meritorious cause of both. The Father pronounceth the one, the Spirit works the other ; it is the Father's sentence, and the Spirit's work. The relative and the real change are both at the same time : 1 Cor. vi. 7, ' But you are sanctified, but you are justified ;' both go together. We are not justified before faith, because we are justified by it, Rom. v. 1 ; and faith is the vital principle whereby we live : Gal. ii. 20, « The life which I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God.' It is the root-grace, and contains the seeds of all other graces in it; it is habitu- ally and seminally all other grace ; so that unless we be new born, no justi- fication can be expected ; no justification can be evidenced. God never pardons sin, but he subdues iniquity: Micah vii. 18, 19, 'Who is a God like unto thee, that pardons iniquity ?' He will subdue our iniquities. The conquest cannot be made, while the nature, the root of the rebellion, remains. When he turns his compassion to us, he will turn away our hearts from ini- quity. If a man were justified before he were regenerate, then he was right- eous before he was alive ; being ' in Christ,' as free from condemnation, is alway attended with a ' walking after the Spirit ;' and walking is not before living, Rom. viii. 1. Pardon would be unprofitable, unless he that were pardoned were made righteous inchoatively here, and had a right to, and hope of, a perfect righteousness hereafter. If righteousness hereafter were not imparted in this manner, it would be an argument a man were still under the law, which saith, ' He that doth them shall live in them ' (which is im- possible in a man that hath once sinned, though his sins are remitted). But it is clear that righteousness is imparted, since there is no man in the world whose sins are pardoned, but finds some principle in him whereby he is en- abled to contest with sin more than before be was. Therefore do not deceive yourselves ; there is no pardon without a righteous nature, though pardon be not given for it.
(4.) There is no adoption without regeneration. We can no more be God's sons, without spiritual regeneration, than we can be the sons and daughters of men, without natural generation. Adoption is not a mere relation without an inward form. The privilege, and the image of the sons of God, go both together. A state of adoption is never without a separation from defilement : 2 Cor. vi. 17, 18, ' Come you out from among them, be you separate, and will be a father unto you, and you shall be my sons and daughters.' The new
44 charnock's works. [John III. 3, 5.
name in adoption is never given till the new creature be framed. * As many as are led by the Spirit, they are the sons of God,' Rom. viii. 14, gutoi, those very persons ; that is the signal mark, that they are led by the Spirit; therefore first enlivened by the Spirit. A child-like relation is never without a child-like nature. The same method God observes in declaring the members his sons, as he did in declaring the head his Son, which was ' according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead,' Rom. i. 4. So he declares be- lievers to be bis sons, by giving them a spirit of holiness, and by a resur- rection from sin, and spiritual death. The devils may as well be adopted sons of God, as we, without a change of nature. To be the sons of the living God, was the great promise of the gospel prophesied of: Hos. i. 10, ' Ye are the sons of the living God.' How well will it suit, a living God and a dead son ? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. Our Saviour's argument from* the immortality of the soul will evidence not only a resurrection, but a necessity of spiritual life. What advantage is there in being sons of the living God, if we had no more life in us than his greatest enemies ? Regeneration, as a physical act, gives us a likeness to God in our nature. Adoption, as a legal act, gives us a right to an inheritance ; both the great intendments of the gospel, both accompanying one another. No sonship without a new nature.
(5). There is no acceptation of our services without it. We are not fit to perform any duty without it, and God will never accept any duty from us without it. In the 1st of Ephesians, 1. election, 2. regeneration, expressed by being holy, 3. adoption, 4. acceptation, are linked together : ver. 4-6, ' He hath chosen us that we should be holy, and without blame before him in love, having predestinated us to the adoption of children ;' after follows grace ' wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.' Our acceptation is only upon the account of Christ ; but the acceptability is upon the account of grace. Faith makes our persons and our duties acceptable, and Christ makes them both accepted. Acceptability ariseth from grace, as damnability ariseth from sin. God damns none, unless they be damnable ; neither doth God accept any in Christ, unless they be acceptable.! The papists that plead for merit, acknowledge nothing of it before grace, but after grace, be- cause then the services have a greater proportion to God, from the dignity of the person, they being acts of God's children, and wrought by his Spirit. God can love nothing but himself, and what he finds of himself in the crea- ture. All services, without something of God's image and Spirit in them, are nothing. As the product of a million of cyphers, though you still add to them, signifies nothing ; but add one figure, an unit, the Spirit, grace, it will make the product to be many millions, of high account with God. All the significancy depends upon the figure, which, if absent, the rest would be no- thing. All moral perfections, without a new nature, are but cyphers in God's account: Heb. xi. 6, ' Without faith it is impossible to please God.' Grace is only a good work : Philip, i. 6, ' He which hath begun a good work in you, ■will perform it till the da}' of Christ ;' intimating that their morality and their natural wisdom, before their regeneration, were not good works in the sight of God. They were good in their kind ; as a crab may be said to be a good crab, but not a good pippin. It is not good, unless it be fruit brought forth in Christ ; neither is it ordained as good to the day of Christ, to appear glorious at the time of his triumph. God looks into our services, whether the Spirit frames them, and Christ presents them ; all that we do must go through their hands before they can reach God's heart. Acceptation can never be without a renewed nature. The services of the flesh cannot please * Qu. 'for'? — Ed. f Lessius de Perfect. Divin. p. 56.
John III. 3, 5. J the necessity of regeneration. 45
God : Rom. viii. 8, ' They that are in the flesh cannot please God.' Their persons cannot, therefore their actions cannot, because they are the products of a nature at variance with him, a nature that is not, nor cannot be sub- ject to his law ; so that God must be displeased with his own spiritual law ; yea, with his own holy nature, and change his judgment, and change his nature, before he can be pleased with fleshly services, for at the best, thoy are but refined brutishness. The image of the devil can never be grateful to God. Services flowing from nature, may seem in the outward form of them, to be as acceptable as the duties of a good man ; but considering what a dunghill of filthiness the heart is, from whence they proceed, they cannot be so. Good water is sweetest, and bad water corruptest, nearest the spring or fountain ; the streams may lose some of their corruption in their passage. A gracious man's duties are most pleasant to God nearest the heart ; a natural man's services are most distasteful nearest the spring. When the heart is a good treasure, what comes from it is regarded as a rich gift, be- cause it comes from a valuable treasure, Luke vi. 45 ; hence it is that a less work, coming from a pure and holy principle in a renewed man, is more ac- ceptable to God, than a greater work (in respect of the external glorification of him in the good of mankind), coming from an impure principle in a natural man ; as a cup of cold water given to a disciple is more valuable than the gift of a prince from another principle. In the one, God sees a conformity of affection with his holiness ; in the other, only a conformity with his pro- vidence. One intends God's glory, and the other only acts it, proposing some other end to himself; and we use to value gifts, rather by the affec- tion of the friend, than the quantity of the gift. Well then, consider it ; without a new nature, all our services, though they should amount to many millions in number, have no intrinsic value in them with God. For where the nature is displeasing, the actions flowing from that nature can never please him : ' He that turns away his ear from hearing the law,' that is, from a spiritual obedience to the law, ' even his prayer is an abomination,' Prov. xxviii. 9 ; it is formed by a noisome soul.
(6.) There is no communion with God without a renewed soul. God is uncapable on his part, with the honour of his law and holiness, to have com- munion with such a creature. Man is uncapable on his part, because of the aversion rooted in his nature. What way can there be to bring God and man together without this change of nature ? what communion can there be be- tween a living God and a dead heart ? God loathes sin, man loves it ; God loves holiness, man loathes it. How can these contrary affections meet to- gether in an amicable friendship ? what communion with so much disagree- ment in affections ? In all friendship there must be similitude of disposition. Justification cannot bring us into communion with God without regeneration ; it may free us from punishment, discharge our sins, but not prepare us for a converse, wherein our chief happiness lies. There must be some agreement before there can be a communion. Beasts and men agree not in a life of reason, and therefore cannot converse together. God and man agree not in a life of holiness, and therefore can have no communion together. We are by sin alienated from the life of God, and therefore from his fellowship, Eph. iv. 18 ; we must have his life restored to us before we can be instated in communion with him.
[1.] God can have no pleasure in it. God took a delight in the creation, and did rejoice in his work. Sin despoiled God of his rest. It can give God no content, no satisfaction ; for to be in the flesh, is to be in that nature which was derived from Adam, which brought the displeasure of God upon all man- kind. Regeneration by the Spirit restores the creature to such a state
46 charnock's works. [John III. 3, 5.
wherein God may take pleasure in him, and strips him by degrees of that sin which spoiled his delight in the work of his hands ; as it grows, com- munion is enlarged. God made man at first after his own image, that he might have communion with him. Since the loss of that, what fitness can there be for communion, till the restoration of that which God thought fit for his delight ? Suppose that some one work of a natural man may be good and pleasing to God, it will not argue a communion of God with the person : he may be pleased with the work, but not with the man ; for all the good- ness he hath being in the act, and the act being transient, when that is past, his goodness is as the morning dew, vanished. He cannot be the object of God's delight, because he hath no habitual goodness in him. If a man be abominable and filthy naturally, he cannot have a converse with God with- out a nature suitable to God, and a nature so animated, as that God may put some trust in it, and not be at uncertainty : Job xv. 14-16, * What is man, that he should be clean ; he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous ? Behold, he puts no trust in his saints,' &c. No man is clean, but those that delight in sin are much more abominable, that ' drink up iniquity like water.' Now God being infinitely holy, can have no com- munion with that which he doth abominate ; and he cannot have a fixed and a delightful communion with that which he cannot confide in. It must be therefore such a nature as is produced and preserved by his own Spirit. If the heavens are not clean in his sight, we must have a nature purer and cleaner than the heavens, before God can delightfully behold us, and pleas- ingly converse with us.
[2. J As God can have no pleasure in it, so man is contrary to it. Man, as he is by corruption, is at variance with God, and cannot but be at vari- ance with him. An uncircumcised heart will not love God, or at least, will not pay him such a proportion of love, and love of such a quality, as is due to him ; for if the end of the circumcision of the heart be to love the Lord with all our hearts, as Deut. xxx. 6, ' And the Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart, to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,' then it will neces- sarily infer, that he whose heart is not circumcised, doth not love God with all his heart. Holiness and iniquity are so contrary, that no agreement can be made between them. God must deny his nature before he can deny his hatred of sin, and man must be stripped of his' nature before he can leave his affection to sin. It is equally impossible for wickedness to love holiness, and for purity to love pollution. There can be no fellowship with God, whilst we walk in darkness, and he is light, 1 John i. 6, 7.
[3.] Nay, thirdly, man naturally resists all means for it. It is the Spirit only which is the bond of union, and consequently the cause of communion. The Spirit can only bring God and us together. Walking in the Spirit hin- ders us from fulfilling the lusts of the flesh, which make us uncapable of communion : Gal. v. 16, « Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh.' But every man by nature (as well as the Jews) ' resists the Holy Ghost,' Acts vii. 51. And while this resistance of the great medium of it remains, this communion can never be. This resistance, therefore, must be removed, and there must be a divine stamp and impression upon our very nature, to make it pliable. You see more and more the necessity of regeneration.
(7.) As there is no communion with God without it, so no communica- tions of Christ to our souls can be relished and improved without it. All the communications of Christ relish of that fulness of grace which was in his person, and therefore cannot be relished by any principle but that of the same nature. Whenever Jesus Christ comes to bless us with the great
John III. 3, 5.] the necessity of regeneration. 47
blessings of his purchase, he turns away our hearts from iniquity, Acts iii. 26.
[1.] Ordinances cannot be improved. The word hath no place in them, John viii. 37. There is no footing naturally for any divine and spiritual truth. The nature of the soil must be changed before this heavenly plant will thrive. Plants grow not upon stones, nor this heavenly plant in a stony heart. The vine and the weed draw the same moisture of the eartb, wbich in the vine is transmuted, by tbe nature of the plant, into a nobler substance than that in the weed. The new nature of a good man turns the juice of the word into a nobler spirit in him ; and according as the nature of a good man is enriched with grace, the more doth he concoct the word, and improve it, to the bringing forth fruit, and fruit of a diviner nature than another. The juice it affords to all is the same, but the nature of the creature turns it in the concoction. Nature must be changed then, to make any profitable improvement of the word and other institutions. A stone receives the water upon it, not into it ; it falls off, or dries up as soon as ever it falls : but a new heart, a heart of flesh, sucks in the dew of the word, and grows thereby The new birth and nature makes us suck in the milk, and grow thereby 1 Peter ii. 2.
[2.] There can be no communication of comfort. The Spirit comforts by exciting grace, and by discovering grace, not by flashes and enthusiasms. What comfort can there be when grace, the foundation, is wanting ? Can the Holy Ghost ever speak a lie, and give any man comfort, and tell him he is a child of God, when he hath the nature of the devil, so contrary to him ? This were to witness not with our spirits, but against the frame and habit of them, which is not the Spirit's work, Rom. viii. 16. Jesus Christ will not trifle away his comforts upon such as have no conformity to him. This were to put a jewel in a swine's snout, a crown upon a beast's head. Those that are not heirs by a new nature to heaven, cannot claim any title to the first- fruits and clusters of it, the comforts of the gospel. As there is a necessity of a likeness to Christ, to make us capable of communications from him in a state of glory, so it is as certainly necessary to the lower degrees of it in this world. Vessels of wrath must be changed into vessels of honour before they are capable of being filled with spiritual comforts. Our blessed Saviour keeps his choicest flowers and richest beams for his dressed garden, not for the wild desert.
(8.) We cannot be in covenant without it. This should have been first, as the foundation of all. Had not Adam had an habitual righteousness in his nature, he had not been a fit person for God to have entered into cove- nant with. There must therefore be a restored righteousness, that we may come into the bond of the new covenant for eternal life. The very terms of it are, a new heart, a heart of flesh, a new spirit, the law written in the heart. Without this new nature, we cannot depend on him by faith, which is the condition of the covenant. For we cannot confide in him to whom we have an enmity, and of whom we have a jealousy. We cannot have God to be our God unless we be his people, have the nature and disposition of his people, turn to him, act towards him as our God ; whereas in our first defection we made the devil our God. God requires righteousness still to our being in covenant, but dispenseth with the strictness of the first cove- nant, and gives our Saviour a power to that end, in committing all judgment to the Son. As the covenant is spiritual, so there must be a spiritual life to answer the terms of it. Without it, we cannot walk in the way wherein we engage by covenant to walk, neither can we have any right to the pro- mises and benefits of the covenant. Doth God promise to be our God ? It
48 charnock's works. [John III. 8, 5.
is upon the condition we be his people. Doth he promise never to leave us nor forsake us ? It is upon condition we continue not in our original apos- tasy. Doth he promise to be present with us ? It is more than his holiness will endure, while we continue in our filthy nature.
2. The second general. As regeneration is necessary to a gospel state, so it is necessary to a state of glory. It seems to be typified by the strength and freshness of the Israelites when they entered into Canaan.* Not a decrepit and infirm person set foot in the promised land : none of those that came out of Egypt with an Egyptian nature, and desires for the garlick and onions thereof, with a suffering their old bondage, but dropped their carcasses in the wilderness ; only the two spies, who had encouraged them against the seeming difficulties. None that retain only the old man, born in the house of bondage, but only a new regenerate creature, shall enter into the heavenly Canaan. Heaven is the inheritance of the sanctified, not of the filthy : Acts xxvi. 18, ' That they may receive an inheritance among them which are sanctified, through faith that is in me.' So our Saviour himself phraseth it in his discourse to Paul upon his conversion by faith, the great renewing principle. Upon Adam's expulsion from paradise, a flaming sword was set to stop his re-entry into that place of happiness. As Adam, in his forlorn state, could not possess it, we also, by what we have received from Adam, cannot expect a greater privilege than our root. Had Adam retained the righteousness of his nature, he had been fit for that place, and that place for him ; but poor decrepit Adam could have no leave to enter. The priest under the law could not enter into the sanctuary till he were purified, nor the people into tbe congregation ; neither can any man have access into the holy of holies till that be consecrated for him by the blood of Jesus, and he sprinkled by the same blood for it, Heb. x. 19, 22. It is by the blood of Jesus sprinkled upon our hearts that we enter into the holiest by a way which he hath consecrated ; ' for there shall in nowise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever works abomination or a lie,' Rev. xxi. ] 7, as every unclean thing was prohibited entrance into the temple. Whosoever shall enter into the rest of God, must cease from his own works of darkness and corruption, as God did from his works of creation, Heb. iv. 10. If man fell the sixth day, the day of his creation, the rest of God in his lower works was disturbed by the entrance of sin upon them, as well as it had been disturbed by the sin of the angels in heaven. God rested from his works of creation, but not in them, but in Christ, the covenant of redemption, and restoration by him. We must therefore cease from our own works, to enter into his rest. This entrance we cannot have in an unbelieving, unregenerate state, because by unbelief we approve not of that for our rest, wherein God settled his own repose ; and by unregeneracy we oppose the great intendment of it, the restoration of the creature to be a fit object for God's rest and complacency. It is necessary to a state of glory.
(1.) Not that there is a natural connection between a regenerate state and glory, that in its own nature gives a right to heaven, but a gracious connec- tion by the will of God.f Though it be morally impossible in nature that a man can have communion with God without a renewed state, yet when he hath a new nature, it is not absolutely necessary that God should love him so intensely' as to give him an eternal reward, but conditionally necessary, upon the account of the covenant wherein God hath so promised. Though it be absolutely unavoidable to God to love goodness (for, because he is per- fectly good, he cannot hate it), yet it is not absolutely necessary he should
* Fuller Pisgah, book \v. chap, xxxvi. 9, p. 45. t Suarez de grat., lib. 7, c. 1, numer. 12.
John III. 3, 5.] the necessity of kegenebation. 49
instate it in so unconceivable a glory. A new nature, indeed, makes a man capable of eternal glory, without which it is not possible for him to have it; but it gives him not a right to it, nor instates him in it in its own nature, but by the gracious indulgence of God. For, as I have said before, in the general foundation of this doctrine, that God may give grace without glory, is intelligible ; but how he can admit a man to glory without grace is uncon- ceivable. The very having of grace is a reward in itself. It is an ennobling of our nature, a setting us in our right station (the purity of the body is a pleasure, though a man hath no hopes upon it to be preferred to a better condition), which may appear to us upon the banishment of Adam from paradise. Had there been any natural connection, he had not been dispos- sessed, supposing him to have faith infused into him at the time of the pro- mulgation of the promise ; or if afterwards, he would have had a re-entry, had there been a natural connection between a new nature and a state of glory.
(2.) Nor is there any meritorious connection between a regenerate state and glory, because there is no exact proportion between a new nature and eternal glory. The papists say, that before habitual grace a man cannot merit, but after it is infused by the Spirit of God into the soul, a merit doth result from the dignity of the person brought into a state of grace. No such thing. Glory indeed is merited, but the merit results, not from the new nature, but from the new head, our Lord Jesus Christ. That righteousness whereby God is engaged to give us a crown of glory for a garland of grace, is not a commutative justice ; as if grace were of equal value to glory, and heaven no more than a due compensation : 2 Tim. iv. 8, ' There is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day.' But it is the veracity and faithfulness of God which is meant by righteousness there, and otherwhere in Scripture. It is a justice due to the promise, not to the nature of the grace, and due to the covenant made with Christ, which was, that he should have a seed to serve him ; upon which compact our Saviour so peremptorily demands his people's being with him in glory : John xvii. 24, ' Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am.' As much as to say, Father, I will not remit a tittle of that article, which is part of the covenant between thee and me ; I will have that performed to the full. And it is observable, though he mentions their faith, and their keeping his word, in other parts of the chapter, as arguments for God to take notice of them, and preserve them, yet his desire of the state of glory he founds upon his will, which must be grounded upon some antecedent agreement, whereby he had a right to plead for it. So that it is from the faithfulness of God to his promise, and the full merit of Christ, and thereupon his fixed resolution to have it per- formed, not from any meritorious dignity in the new nature itself. Grace only fits for glory, but doth not merit it.
(3.) It is necessary by a fixed determination of God. Supposing that God could in his own nature, congruously admit of an unregenerate dead creature to a fruition of him in heaven; yet since he hath decreed otherwise, and appointed other methods, God is now by his own free resolution under an immutable necessity not to admit him. As God having by a determinate counsel ordained the death of Christ as the medium to redemption, could not in our apprehensions afterwards appoint another way, because his counsel had pitched, not only upon the redemption of man, as the end, but the death of Christ as the means ; and had there been a change, it must either be in the end or in the means. If in the end, and he would not have nun
50 charnock's works. [John III. 8, 5.
redeemed, there had been an alteration in his love and kindness ; if in the means, it must be either a worse or a better means ; if a worse, and not so fit to effect redemption, it had still implied a change in his kindness ; if a better means, it would argue a defect of wisdom in his first choice, that he did not foresee the best. By the like counsel and wisdom he hath settled this of regeneration as the way to glory : ' Without holiness no man shall 6ee the Lord,' Heb. xii. 14. Without a fixed and permanent holiness, which must be an holiness of nature, not only of action. Supposing any holiness in an action, without a new nature, it is yet but a transient holiness, and though it may make the action acceptable to God, yet it can never make the person that did it acceptable to him.
(4.) Regeneration is necessary in a way of aptitude and fitness for this state. A fitness in both subjects is necessary to the enjoyment of one another. Since therefore our happiness consists in an eternal fruition of God, and that naturally we are a mass and dunghill of putrefied corruption, there must be such a change as to make an agreement with that God whom to enjoy is our happiness ; for all aptitude is a certain connection of the two terms whereby they may touch and receive each other. We cannot enjoy God in his ordinances without an holy nature, much less in heaven. As we are under the condemnation of the law by reason of our guilt, so we are under an unfitness for heaven by reason of our filth. We have a remote natural capacity for it, as we are creatures endued with rational faculties. But we have a moral unfitness, while we want a divine impression to make us suitable to it. Justification and adoption give us a right to the inherit- ance, but regeneration gives us a ' meetness to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light,' Col. i. 12. We are not meet for it while we are unholy, and while we are darkness, because it is an inheritance of saints, and an inheritance in light. As the body cannot be made glorious without a resurrection from a natural death, so neither can the soul, which is immortal, be made glorious without a resurrection from a spiritual death. Our corruptible bodies, 1 Cor. xv. 50, cannot possess an incorruptible king- dom unless made like to the glorious body of Christ, much less our souls, which are the chief subjects of communion with him in heaven. A depraved soul is as much unfit for a purified heaven as a corruptible body is for an incorruptible glory. Our Saviour ascended not into heaven to take posses- sion of his glory till after his resurrection from death, neither can we enter into heaven till a resurrection from sin. As Jesus Christ became like unto us, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest for us, Heb. ii. 17, ' It behoved him to be made like unto his brethren ; ' so it behoves us to be made like unto him, that we may be fit offerings in the hand of our high priest, to present to God, for him to take pleasure in. The father of the prodigal forgave him at the first meeting after his return, but before he admitted him into the pleasure of his house he took away his garments that smelt of draff, and put other robes upon him. God is said there- fore ' to work us to this thing,' xungyd^ifdai, polish, that we may be fit to be clothed upon with our heavenly house, 2 Cor. v. 5. If God be happy in his nature, man cannot be happy in a nature contrary to him ; for we can never expect to enjoy a felicity in such a nature, which if God himself had, he could never be happy in himself. It is holiness in God which fits him to fill heaven and earth with the beams of his glory, and it is an holy nature in us, which makes us fit to receive him. As without holiness God could not be glorious in himself : Isa. vi. 3, ' Holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts : the whole earth is full of his glory ; ' so without holiness in our natures we could not be glorious with God. We are no more fit for
John III. 3, 5.] the necessity of regeneration. 51
heaven in a state of nature than a piece of putrefied flesh is fit to become a star. In heaven there are duties to be done, and privileges to be enjoyed. The work cannot be done, the reward cannot be received, without a new nature. The glorifying God, and enjoying him, is the glory of heaven. How can we do the one or receive the other without the change of our affections ? Can God have a voluntary glory from his enemy, or can his enemy delight in the enjoyment of him ?
[l.J Regeneration and the new nature is necessary to the duty of heaven. Eternity cannot free us from duty. Some duties are essential to the relation of a creature; some result only from this or that state of the creature. The alteration in the state changeth the duty proper to that state ; but no place, no state, can exempt a creature from those duties which are essential to him as a creature. It is impossible to conceive any relation, without some new debt or service. From every change in relations in the world there doth arise some new duty which was not incumbent upon a man before. The relation which a regenerate man hath to God here is the same which it is in heaven, but it is manifest there in an higher degree, and a choicer fruition. Thence therefore will arise, though not any new duty that we can conceive, yet fresher obligations to those services which are proper for that place. Without a change of nature it is not possible for any man (were he admitted thither) to perform the duties of heaven. Holy work is troublesome to a natural man here ; and the more heavenly it was in itself, the more disgust- ful to corrupt nature. What was in a little measure holy was a drudgery upon earth ; and what is in a greater measure holy cannot be a satisfaction in heaven to an old frame. There are some natural motives to some duties here, and our indigency takes part with them (as in that of prayer) ; but those of a more elevated strain, as love, and praise, and admirations of God, our natures are more averse to. What duty can be performed without a will ? It is concluded by most, that the happiness of heaven consists as much, if not more, in the frame of the will, than in that of the understanding. If the will be not new framed, what capacity is there to perform the service requi- site to that happy state ? We must first be made just here before we can be made perfect above : Heb. xii. 23, ' Spirits of just men made perfect.' Just by an imputed righteousness, holy by an inherent righteousness, before they were transplanted to a state of perfection. Without a perfect frame none can perform the choice duties of heaven, and without righteousness here, we cannot be made perfect there.
Quest. What are the duties of heaven, that cannot be performed without a new nature ?
Ans. First. Attendance on God. Some kind of service which we cannot understand in the state here below. The angels stand before God, and wait his commands ; there is a pleasure of God which they do : Ps. ciii. 21, ' Ye ministers of his that do his pleasure.' There is a will of God done in heaven, as well as upon earth. There are acts of adoration performed by them ; they cover their faces, Isa. vi. ; they are commanded to worship the Lord Christ, Heb. i. 6. Their holiness fits them for their attendance ; therefore called ' the holy angels.' It is against the nature of devils to perform such acts as those which the holiness of angels fits them for. Glorified souls shall be as the angels of God in heaven : Mat. xxii. 30, ' But are as the angels of God in heaven.' Equal to angels in their state, as they are angels in heaven ; equal to angels in their work, as they are angels of God, attend- ing on God, and ministering unto him, Dan. vii. 10 ; though what that ministry shall be is not easily known in the extent of it. Is it usual in this world to take up a person from under an hedge, and bring him to an imme-
52 chaknock's works. [John III. 3, 5.
diate attendance on a prince, without cleansing him, and begetting other dispositions and behaviour in him by some choice education ? God picks some out for an immediate attendance on him in heaven ; but he sends his Spirit to be their tutor, to breed them up, and grace their deformed souls with beautiful features, and their ulcerous and cancerous spirits, with a sound complexion, that they may be meet to stand before him. When God calls any to do him service in a particular station in the word, he gives them an- other heart ; so he did to Saul for the kingdom, 1 Sam. x. 9. Is there not much more necessity of it for an immediate service of God in heaven ? A malefactor, by pardon, is in a capacity to come into the presence of a prince, and serve him at his table ; but he is not in a fitness till his noisome gar- ments, full of his prison vermin, be taken off. Can one that is neither par- doned nor purified, one with the guilt of rebellion upon him, and a nature of rebellion in him, be fit to stand before God ?
Secondly, Contemplation of God is a work in heaven. There shall be a perfect knowledge ; therefore a delightful speculation. The angels behold his face, Mat. xviii. 10, and that alway. The saints shall see him as he is, 1 John iii. 2. It is not a stupid sight, but a gazing upon the face of this sun, with a refined and ravishing delight. For this work there must be,
First, A change of judgment. The eye must be restored. It is as pos- sible for a blind eye to behold the sun, or a blear eye to stare in the face of it, without watering, as for a blind understanding to behold God ; for it is not a being in the place of heaven, but having a faculty disposed, which doth elevate us to the knowledge of him. Things that are corporal cannot know things that are spiritual. We cannot in this sensitive body view the face of an angel, and understand his nature ; much less with a body of a total death, see the face of God, which is above all created beings, more than any spi- ritual creature is above sense. ' In heaven the saints shall know him, as they are known of him,' 1 Cor. xiii. 12, perfectly, as far as the capacity of a creature can extend. Has God any scales upon his eyes ? Doth he not know perfectly what he knows ? So shall the glorified saints. But if a natural man were admitted into heaven, what prospect could he have with a blind understanding ? As men under the gospel administrations cannot see the kingdom of God, even in the midst of it, without a new birth, so neither *ould they see the kingdom of God in the midst of heaven itself without a new frame ; if not see it, much less enjoy it.
Secondly, There must be a change of will. Men like not to retain God in their knowledge, when he is represented to them in the dark, yet pleasant glass of nature, Rom. i. 28. The apostle there speaks it of the heathens, and the wisest of them, their philosophers, who, though pleased with the contemplation of nature, yet were not pleased with the contemplation of God in nature ; much less will they like him, when he discovers himself clothed with the light of holiness as a garment. Tbat vicious eye, which is too weak to behold with any delight the image of the sun in a glass, or a pail of water, will be much more too weak to gaze upon it in its brightness in the firmament. If there be no delight to know God here, what pleasure, what fitness can there be in the same frame to contemplate him above '? Let me ask you, Have you any pleasure in the study of God ? What is the' reason, then, that in your retirements, when you have nothing to do, your thoughts are no more upon him ? What is the reason that if any motion doth offer to advise you to fix your thoughts upon him, you so soon shift it off as a troublesome companion, and some slight jolly thought is admitted with gladness into those embraces which the other courted ? Can such a temper be fit for heaven, where nothing but thoughts of God run through
John III. 3, 5. J the necessity of regeneration. 53
the veins of glorified souls ? If the discovery of God's glory in the gospel is accounted no better than folly by natural men, and therefore not received, 1 Cor. ii. 14, the manifestation of it above would meet with no better valua- tion of it, unless the temper both of judgment and will were changed. They are spiritually to be discerned here, and no less spiritually to be discerned above. The weak and waterish eye must be cured by some powerful me- dicine before it can stare upon the light of the sun, or delight itself in its glory.
Thirdly, Love is a duty in heaven. Love is a grace that shoots the gulf with us, and attends us not only to the suburbs, but into the very heart of heaven, when other graces conduct us only to the gates, and then take their leave of us, as having no business there. ' Charity never faileth,' 1 Cor. xiii. 8. And, indeed, it is so essentially our duty in every place, that it is concluded that God cannot free us from the obligation of it, whilst we remain his creatures ; be- cause God being infinitely good, and therefore infinitely amiable and infi- nitely gracious to them, it would seem unrighteous, and inconsistent with supreme goodness, to forbid the creature an affection to that which is infi- nitely excellent, and a gratitude to its benefactor which can be paid only in love. Now, though we are bound to love God in the highest degree, yet every new mercy adds a fresh obligation to return our affection to him. So when we shall have the clearest beams of God's love darting upon us from heaven, we shall also have higher obligations to love him, both for his excel- lency, which shall be more visible, and his love, which shall be more sen- sible. Now, can the heart of a natural man cling about God ? Can it forget its father's house, and be wholly taken up with the Creator's excellency ? Can he that loved pleasures more than God in the world, 2 Tim. iii. 4, love God more than pleasures in heaven, without an alteration of his soul ? No. The heart must be first circumcised by God, before we can love God with all our heart, Deut. xxx. 6. If we will not be subject to the law of God here, how can we be subject to the love of God, which is the law of heaven ? How can we cleave to God without love, or relish him without delight ? No man in a natural estate could stay in heaven, because he doth not love the per- son whose presence only makes it heaven. How can there be a conformity to God in affection, without a conformity to his holiness ? A choiceness of love, with a perverseness of will ; a supremacy of delight, without a recti- tude of heart ; a love of God, without a loathing of sin ; a fervency of love, with a violence of lust : all these are contradictions. He that hath a hatred of God, cannot perform the main duty of heaven ; and therefore what should he do there ?
Fourthly, Praise is a service in heaven. If a pure angel be not sufficient for so elevated a duty, how unfit then is a drossy soul ? What is the angels' note, ' Holy, holy, holy, Lord God,' Isa. vi. 3, can never be a natural man's ; for how can he possibly praise that which he hates ? What is the note of glorified saints ? It is Hallelujah, Rev. xix. 1, ' Salvation, and glory, and honour, and power unto the Lord our God.' And again they said, Hallelu- jah, ver. 3. ' Hallelujah, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth,' ver. 6. Nothing but hallelujah four times, ver. 1, 3, 4, 6. How can that heart frame an hallelujah, that is stuffed with jealousies of him ? How can he exalt the honour of God, who was always pleased with the violations of it ? How can he rejoice at the Lord's reigning, that would not have one lust sub- dued by his power ? How can a natural man, as natural, ever be wound up to a height fit for such strains, since ' out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks' ? The tongue can never be framed to praise while the heart is evil. Our blessed Saviour must be glorified in us, before he can be glo-
54 chaenock's works. [John III. 3, 5.
rifled by us, 2 Thes. i. 10, 12. If a man in a mere natural state be unfit for this heavenly work, how unfit are then their tongues to sound his praise, which are always filled with reproaches of God ? And how can their ears endure to hear it from others, which were never offended with the blasphe- mies of him ? They could never rejoice in this heavenly concert were they admitted. Nay, their enmity to the work would not permit their stay. The smoke of pure incense is fitter rather to drive a swine out of the room than to invite his continuance.
[2.] The new birth is necessary, as to the duty, so to the reward of heaven. As the reward is exceeding glorious, the preparation thereto must be exceed- ing gracious. The rewards of heaven are something incorporated with us, inlaid in the very frame of our souls, and cannot be conceived enjoyable without a change in the nature of the subject. Man was first formed before he was brought into the garden of Eden, or pleasure : Gen. ii. 8, There he ' put the man whom he had formed.' Man must be new-formed before he be brought into that place, which is the antitype of Eden, the place of eternal and spiritual pleasure. A natural man can no more relish the rewards of heaven, than a dead carcase can esteem a crown and a purple robe ; or be de- lighted with the true pleasure of heaven, than a swine, that loves to wallow in the mire, can be delighted with a bed of roses. A disorder in nature is a prohibition to all happiness belonging to that nature ; a distempered body, under the fury of a disease, can find no delight in the pleasures of the healthful ; a wicked man, with a troubled and foaming sea of sin and lust in his mind, Isa. lvii. 20, would find no more rest in heaven than a man with his disjointed members upon a rack can in the beauty of a picture. We must be spiritually-minded before we can have either life or peace, Kom. viii. 6. Righteousness in the soul is the necessary qualification for the peace and joy in the kingdom of God : Rom. xiv. 17, ' The kingdom of God is not meat and drink ; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.' While malice remains in the devil's nature, were he admitted into heaven he would receive a torment instead of a content. A wicked man would meet with hell in the midst of heaven as long as he carries his own rack within him, boiling and raging lusts in his heart, which can receive no contentment without objects suitable to them, let the place be what it will. Heaven, indeed, is not only a place, but a nature ; and it is a contradiction to think that any can be happy with a nature contrary to the very essence of happiness.
The pleasure and reward of heaven is,
First, A perfect likeness to God and Christ. This is the great privilege of heaven, which the apostle, in the midst of his ign