which he prized at a very high rate before he considers heaven as his country; even while he lives as a stranger on this earth, he aspires at the highest objects, and, "flying up towards heaven, with soaring wings, looks down with contempt upon the earth *" And yet, with all this sublimity of mind, he joins the deepest humility. But all the allurements of sin, "though they continue to have the same appearance they had before t," and possibly throw themselves in his way, as the very same that were formerly dear to him, he will reject with indignation, and give them the same answer that St Ambrose tells us was given by a young convert to his mistress, with whom he had formerly lived in great familiarity; though you may be the same, I am not the same I was beforet." Lactantius elegantly sets forth the wonderful power of religion in this aspect: "Give me, says he, a man that is passionate, a slanderer, one that is headstrong and unmanageable, with a very few of the words of God, I will make him as quiet as a lamb. Give me a covetous, avaricious or close handed person, I will presently make him liberal, and oblige him to give away his money in large quantities with his own hands. Give me one that udam Spernit humum fugiente penna. Etsi illis facies, quæ fuit ante, manet, At ego certe non sum ego. is afraid of pain, or of death, he shall, in a very little time, despise crosses, flames, and even Phalaris' bull. Shew me a lustful person, an adulterer, a complete debauchee, you shall presently see him sober, chaste, and temperate*." So great is the power of divine wisdom, that, as soon as it is infused into the human breast, it presently expels folly, which is the source and fountain of sin, and so changes the whole man, so refines, and, as it were, renews him, that you would not know him to be the same. It is prophesied of the days of the Messiah, "That the wolf and the lamb shall lie down together, and the leopard feed with the kid." The gospel has a wonderful effect in softening even the roughest dispositions, and "there is none so wild, but he may be tamed, if he will but patiently give attention to this wholesome doctrine t." Now, whether you call this renovation or change of the mind repentance, or divine love, it makes no difference; for all these, and indeed all the Christian graces in general, are at bottom one and * Da mihi virum qui sit iracundus, maledicus, affrænatus, paucissimus Dei verbis tam placidum quam ovem reddam. Da cupidum, avarum, tenacem, jam tibi eum liberalem dabo, et pecuniam suam propriis plenisq; manibus largientem. Da timidum dolorus ac mortis; jam cruces, et ignes, et Phalaradis taurum contemnet. Da libidinosum, adulterum, Gançonem; jam sobrium, castum, continentem videbis. + Nemo adeo ferus est, ut non mitescere possit Huic modo doctrinæ patientem commodet aurem. the same; and, taken together, constitute what we may call the health and vigour of the mind, the term under which Aristo of Chios comprehended all the moral virtues. The apostle Paul, in his second epistle to the Corinthians, describes these adopted children of God by their repentance*; in the epistle to the Romans, they are characterised by their lovet; and in the passage of St John's gospel, we have mentioned already, by their faith; but whatever name it is conveyed by," the change itself is effected by the right-hand of the most high." As to the manner of this divine operation, to raise many disputes about it, and make many curious disquisitions with regard to it, would be not only quite needless, but even absurd. Solomon, in his Ecclesiastes, gives some grave admonitions with regard to the secret processes of nature in forming the foetus in the womb §, to convince us of our blindness with respect to the other works of God: how much more hidden and intricate, and even past our finding out, is this regeneration, which is purely spiritual? This is what our Saviour also teaches us, when he compares this new birth, to the unconfined, and unknown, turnings and revolutions of the wind; a similitude which Solomon had lightly touched before, in that passage of the Ecclesiastes, to which we just now alluded. O! that we felt within ourselves this blessed change, though we should remain ignorant with regard to + Rom. viii. 28. * 2 Cor. vi. 17, 18. § Eccl. xi. 5. the manner of it; since we are sufficiently apprised of one thing, which it is greatly our interest frequently and seriously to reflect upon : "Unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." This spiritual progeny is also compared to the dew, the generation whereof is hidden and undiscovered. "Hath the rain a father, and who hath begotten the drops of the dew* ?" Good men are also called children of light, and light in the Lordt. But it is from the Father of lights himself, and from his only begotten Son, that these stars (for this title of the angels may, without injustice, be applied to them) derive all the light they enjoy. Now the nature of light is very intricate, and the emanation and the manner of its production is yet a secret even to the most sharp-sighted of those who have made nature their study, and no satisfactory theory of it has yet appeared. But whatever it is, it was produced by that first and powerful word of eternal uncreated light, "Let there be light." By the same powerful word of the Almighty Father, there immediately springs up in the mind, which was formerly quite involved in the darkness of ignorance and error, a divine and immortal light, which is the life of men, and, in effect, the true regeneration. And because this is the most effectual means of purifying the soul, it is ascribed to the water, and to the spirit. For this illumination of the Holy Ghost is, indeed, the inward baptism of the spirit; but in the primitive times of + 1 Thess. v. 5. + Eph. v. 8. * Job xxxiii. 28. Christianity, the baptism of water, on account of the supposed concurrence of the spirit, was commonly called the illumination, and the solemn seasons, appointed for the celebration of this mystery, the days of illumination or light. And in the very same manner, the baptism of the Holy Ghost, is by John Baptist called the baptism of fire, on account of the wonderful influence it has in illuminating and purifying the soul. It is, to be sure, a celestial fire quite invisible to our eyes, and of such a nature, that the secret communications of it to our souls cannot be investigated; but the sum of all is what follows. It seemed good to infinite goodness and wisdom, to form a noble piece of coin out of clay, and to stamp his own image upon it, with this inscription, "The earthly son of God:" this is what we call man. But, alas! how soon did this piece of coin fall back to clay again, and thereby lost that true image, and had the inscription shamefully blotted out? From that time, man, who was formerly a divine creature, and an angel clothed with flesh, became entirely fleshly, and in reality a brute: the soul, that noble and celestial inhabitant of his earthly body, became now quite immersed in matter, and, as it were, entirely converted into flesh, as if it had drunk of the river Lethe; or, like the son of an illustrious family, carried away in infancy to a far country, it is quite ignorant of its present misery, or the liberty and felicity it has lost, becomes an abject slave, degraded to the vilest em |
