What is the change effected in regeneration? Is it a mere resolution to forsake the ways of sin and death? Is it the mere preference of religious duties and a religious life to the world? What then prevents the anxious and convinced sinner from being converted, when he forms resolution upon resolution to becomie the child of God, and when, amid the agonies of his conviction, the world to him is a mere cypher? What prevents the dying sinner from being converted, when he would give ten thousand worlds for one smile of mercy? What prevents the benighted sinner from being converted, when, in contempt of every worldly interest, he prostrates himself beneath the idol-car? What prevents the self-righteous sinner from being converted, when he "gives all his goods to feed the poor, and his body to be burned," in order to obtain the favour of God? Regeneration lies deeper than this, else might it indeed be effected by moral suasion. It consists in a "new heart and a new spirit." It is a state of mind that hates sin and loves holiness ; that believes the record that God has given of his Son, and trusts in him alone for salvation; that not only resolves to love God, but loves him,-more than the world, more than self, more than every thing. In effecting such a change, there are difficulties which no influence merely suasory, be it human, angelic, or divine, can remove. There is not a consideration in the universe sufficiently alluring to win, or weighty enough to break, a supremely selfish heart. The Holy Spirit imparts no omnipotence to motives; he exerts it himself. They do not open the eyes of the blind, but he opens them. They do not take away the heart of stone and give the heart of flesh; he does it, himself" working in men, to will and to do of his own good pleasure.

But you will naturally ask, Is this influence effec

tual, wherever it is exerted? It is effectual. It overcomes resistance. The struggle of the depraved mind, and all its angry conflict with truth and motives is over, when the mighty Spirit speaks. No sooner does he touch the heart, than the work is accomplished. The effect is produced just as certainly as the influence is exerted. The cause is controlling and decisive. It acts upon the will and destroys resistance. It is "effectual calling." And it is a signal act of mighty power; a power that speaks into being, what had no being before; a power that lays its commands on things that do not exist, and effectually enforces obedience. No laws of matter or of mind can accomplish this mighty work. No means, no second causes can accomplish it. Parents cannot accomplish it by all their solicitude and faithfulness. Christians cannot accomplish it by all their expostulations and counsel. Ministers cannot accomplish it by all their preaching. Bibles and Sabbaths cannot accomplish it by all their combined and concentrated energy. The law cannot accomplish it by its terrors, nor the gospel by its tenderness. The selectest mercies cannot accomplish it, nor the heaviest judgments. Wars, earthquakes and pestilence cannot accomplish it. The rending rocks, the deep thunder, the vivid lightning, cannot accomplish it. Angels cannot accomplish it by all their watchfulness and guardianship. The Spirit of God alone accomplishes it, and by the excellency of his power.

It is not unnatural also to inquire, whether this influence is extended to all. If it were, one thing is certainly true, that all would become holy, and finally saved. It is therefore a sovereign influence. It is imparted and withheld, not without reason; not without the best of reasons; but for reasons unknown to us In this, as in other things, the Sovereign Arbiter does

not treat all alike. It is not extended to all to whom God is able to extend it, but to all to whom he is pleased to extend it. There is a theory which affirms that God shows mercy to as many as he is able to show mercy to, while the theory of the Bible unequivocally and in strong contrast affirms, that he extends this agency to as many as he sees best, and "hath mercy on whom he will have mercy." It required no more effort in Omnipotence to create the world, than to create an atom; and it requires no more effort from him to regenerate one man, than another. If you ask why he ever withholds this gracious influence, I must cover my face and be silent; or if I give utterance to a single thought while dwelling on this inscrutable. mystery, can only say, "Even so, Father! for so it seemed good in thy sight." This is one of the "secret things which belong to God."

Will any think it strange that with this last characteristic of the Spirit's influence, I still say, that it is one of the distinguishing glories of the Bible? It has no greater glory; nor has the Divine mind any greater mercy than is here unfolded. And those who deny him this, take away the only ground of hope. We may say of this great truth, what the great Reformer so justly said of another. It is the "Articulus, aut stantis, aut cadentis ecclesiæ." With it the Church and the Bible stand, or fall. The denial of it is a virtual subversion of the whole gospel. Though too searching a principle, and too humbling to the pride. of man not to be frittered away, unless there be great self-renunciation and simplicity of spirit, and great union of heart, of effort, and of prayer; yet can it never be too highly appreciated. Every holy affection and purpose that finds a dwelling among men, and that is cherished in the cold bosoms of this low world, is from this eternal source. The holy and happy

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emotions that light up so many smiles within the otherwise cheerless and curtained chambers of the soul; the benignant designs that diffuse such a charm over this otherwise desponding world, and throw their perspective into the far vale of futurity, would all be turned again into gloom and darkness, but for this power o. the Highest that overshadows them. "Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and briers; yea, upon all the houses of joy in the joyous city. The pastures shall be forsaken; the multitude of the city shall be left a joy of wild asses, a pasture of flocks, until the Spirit be poured from on high." The shades of night will never be chased away; the rigours and silence of winter will lock up the world in its icy chains, until this Sun of Righteousness arise. It is the pre-eminence of the Bible that it discloses this dispensation of the Spirit.

May we not easily see in view of this great peculiarity of the Scriptures, why it is that the gospel of the Son of God has made such progress in our world? The strength of false religions lies in the power of custom and habit, in the most unworthy appeals to the passions and interests of men, in the constraints of human authority and in the sword. They have all failed for want of some inherent power, some attendant influence upon the mind to render them effectual; an influence which they could not secure because they were false. Not one of them has been able to stand forth alone, and perpetuate itself unaided by artifice, or arms, or the power of the civil government; and none of them could look to any higher source for aid. Mahomet was occupied three years in making fourteen converts. After seven years effort, when he fled from Mecca to Medina, he numbered but one hundred and one followers. Neither the re1igion of Mahomet, nor any of the forms of paganism

carried with them their own inherent evidence of their truth, and of their divine origin; nor has that great and almighty Being who governs the moral as well as the natural world, given them any testimony of his approbation. The Bible on the other hand, carries with it this evidence of its divine origin, that it is attended with the mighty power of God. When the despised Son of Mary hung upon the cross, who would have thought that the religion of which he was the Author was destined to cover the earth as the waters cover the sea? Who would have thought, that contrary to all human probabilities, in opposition to all human power, and striking as it did a deadly blow to all the idolatry of self, it would have so triumphed over error, superstition and wickedness, changed the heart of man, the form of human society, and the religion of the world? Look a moment at this wonderful fact. Here is a system, the leading principles of which are not discoverable by the lights of nature and reason, a system that is to be propagated not by force, but by conviction, becoming the living religion of all the nations of the earth. At the expiration of forty days after the death of its founder, it numbered one hundred and twenty followers; immediately after, three thousand; and soon after, five thousand more. In the progress of a single century, it extended itself over Syria and Libya, Egypt and Arabia, Persia and Mesopotamia, pervaded Asia Minor, Armenia and Parthia, and even large portions of Europe. Unfolding as it did God in human nature, declaring as it did the substitution of the inocent for the guilty, insisting as it did upon a radical transformation of the human heart, principles which are to the Jew a stumbling block, and to the Greek foolishness, it entered upon the conquest of the world. The learning of Athens, the wealth of Corinth, the pride of Rome,