good; and, therefore, upon the general rule that the son inherits the moral character of the father, the sons of God are good. Thus our Lord says to the Jews, "If God were your Father ye would love me1;" and He adds, "He that is of God (or a son of God) heareth God's words,”—¿.e. hears them with an obedient and earnest mind, so as to practise them. Thus the merciful who imitate the forbearance of God "in making His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sending rain on the unjust and on the just," are said to be "the children of their Father which is in heaven." Thus, the peacemakers are called the children of God, their work being eminently a holy and Divine work. St. Paul says, that "as many as are led by the Spirit of God,"-i.e. follow the direction of the Spirit"are the sons of God 4;" that men 66 are children of God by faith in Christ Jesus","-i.e. by a life of faith and holiness; and he speaks of the glorious liberty of the children of God,-i.e. their freedom from sin; and of the "blameless and harmless who are the " sons of God."7 In these texts the test of sonship and birth of God is obviously actual holiness of life. Accordingly in the text "by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost," "regeneration" and the "renewing of the Holy Ghost" are put together as if they were the same thing; such renewing evidently meaning a renovation of the heart in fact, not a mere power given of attaining such renovation. And St. Peter speaks of the effects of the new birth, as being "a lively hope, and an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away," thus identifying the new birth with an actual state of goodness and holiness, together with all its hopes and prospects. On the other hand, a mere power of leading a holy life is never called in Scripture a new birth, nor are men ever supposed to be the sons of God because they simply have the capacity for attaining a high 1 John viii. 42. 2 Matt. v. 45. 3 Matt. v. 9. 4 Rom. viii. 14. 5 Gal. iii. 26. 7 Phil. ii. 15. and spiritual character. If it were so, it is obvious that our Lord's whole argument with the Jews would fall to the ground. The Jews that persecuted, calumniated, and killed our Lord, would be just as much the sons of God as those who believed in Him and became His disciples. And, in the same way, those that were not led by the Spirit of God would be just as truly the sons of God as those who were; and those who had not faith would as really be the children of God as those who had. But, in the next place, to be a son of God means, in Scripture, not only to be good, but to be necessarily and finally good. That which belongs to sonship in general only metaphorically, belongs legitimately to sonship of God; for God is good by nature; and therefore a son of God, in inheriting the nature, inherits properly and really the goodness of his Father. And this involves a peculiarity in the goodness itself which is inherited; for if God is good by nature, or necessarily, that goodness which a son of God inherits from his Father is a perfect and necessary goodness. Accordingly St. John describes sonship, or being born of God, as involving a perfect and necessary goodness in the creature. Our Lord is, indeed, the only Son of God by nature; and therefore He is the only Son of God who derives naturally from the Father a necessary goodness. The creature, however, is represented in Scripture as receiving, by a wonderful act of Divine condescension and mercy, a sonship of adoption analogous to the natural sonship of the true and only Son; and this sonship of adoption includes a perfect and necessary goodness upon the basis of adoption, as the natural sonship includes it upon the basis of nature. St. John says, "Every one that doeth righteousness is born of God1;" "Every one that loveth is born of God";""Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God;" "Whatsoever is born of God overcometh 1 1 John ii, 29. 21 John iv, 7. 3 1 John v. 1. There the world';" "In this the children of God are manifested, and the children of the devil; whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God2,"-i.e. is not a child of God. could hardly be plainer language to show the general sense in which the expressions "child of God" and "born of God" are used in Scripture, viz. that they are used in the sense of real goodness and holiness, and not of a mere improved or enlarged power of becoming good and holy. Regeneration, or the new birth, is here plainly spoken of as identical with the practical reign of faith and love in the soul; such a dominion of spiritual motives and principles as quite supplants the influence of the world in man's heart, ejects its lusts and appetites, and thus overcomes and triumphs over it. But the Apostle further proceeds to describe this actual goodness and holiness as also necessary and perfect; it being impossible that a son of God should sin, because a son inherits the nature of the father; and the nature of God is necessarily holy and good. "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him; and he cannot sin because he is born of God."3 "Whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not."4 To be born of God, then, or to be regenerate, means in Scripture to be perfectly and necessarily good; it is as being "partakers of the Divine nature 5" by adoption, to share, by virtue of such adoption, the Divine immutable goodness. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit."6 That is to say, that which is born of the Divine Spirit is itself Divine, by reason of its birth, which communicates to that which is begotten the nature of that which begets. Thus the Fathers speak of the Christian as being "made a God," and receiving a "perfect Deity" in baptism; evidently on the ground that regeneration, which 1 1 John v. 4. 31 John iii. 9. 4 1 John v. 18. 5 1 Peter i. 4. 6 John iii. 6. takes place in baptism, is a birth from God, and that the offspring has a common nature with the parent. 2. The new birth is spoken of in Scripture as regeneration, or being born again; and under this form of expression it equally signifies actual holiness and virtue, as distinguished from any mere power of becoming good and holy. A second state of existence has an obvious reference to a first one, and its nature and quality will be seen from the nature and quality of that first state with which it is contrasted; for whatever the first state was, it is plain that the second is the opposite of it. Now, the first or the natural life, and that which the old man lives, is evidently not described in Scripture as a condition of mere capacity for sin, but as a state of real and existing sin; it is not a state of free will which is only determinable to evil, but it is an evil and a sinful state. The second life, therefore, into which the new birth admits us, is not a state of mere capacity for goodness, but a state of real goodness. Again, the new birth implies the termination of the life which precedes it; but the life which preceded it was a life of sin; the new birth, therefore, implies the cessation of sin, and the cessation of sin is goodness; for no one who continues a moral agent at all can cease to sin without becoming good: the negative of sin implies the positive contrary of it. This is another aspect, then, in which regeneration is put before us in Scripture, and especially in St. Paul's Epistles. A certain spiritual state is there described, into which all Christians are supposed to have been admitted, which is evidently the state of regeneration, and this is described as a divine life; those in it being spoken of as "sons of God," the "children of God," the "heirs of God," and as having "received the Spirit of adoption whereby they cry, Abba Father."1 But what this state is principally described as being is a second life, succeeding a former or past one, those 1 Rom. viii. 14, 15, 16, 17. who are in it being said, first, to "have died with Christ'," and their "old man to have been crucified 2; to "have been planted together in the likeness of His death 3," and to "have been buried with Christ4;" and, next, " to have been raised with Christ," and "made to sit in heavenly places in Christ ";" to be "alive from the dead," "alive unto God." And this description also is evidently one of the regenerate state, for a new and second life is a state of regeneration. How, then, is the nature of this state described, and what are its tests and characteristics? Is it described as consisting in the possession only of new powers and faculties for a holy life, new opportunities, new means of grace? By no means; it is plainly described as a state, not of capacity only for holiness, but of holiness itself. For it is described as a state in which men "are dead to sin 8," "freed from sin" by that death'; made" the servants of righteousness 10," by that freedom from sin; "yielding their members as servants to righteousness unto holiness 11," and "having their fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life." 12 Those who are in this state are said to "have been made free from the law of sin and death 13," "to fulfil the righteousness of the law,” to “be in the Spirit," to "walk in the Spirit," and to be "spiritually minded." 14 Their life is said to be "hid with Christ in God." 15 They are called "the children of light, and the children of the day." 16 They are said to be "quickened 17," "reconciled 18," "delivered from the power of darkness, and translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son." 19 17 All this is described as a state not only in which Christians ought to be, and in which they have the power to be, but as the state in which they are. For it must be particularly |