a progressive course of sanctification; but it properly consists in our being made willing to comply with the Gospel call, by embracing Christ for salvation, and surrendering ourselves up to him to be taught, and pardoned, and governed, according to his revealed will; and as soon as it is accomplished in the experience of any sinner, his whole relation to God, his prospects for eternity, his views and feelings, his prevailing dispositions and habits, are totally changed; insomuch, that he who formerly sat in darkness is introduced into marvellous light-he who was at a distance from God is brought nigh-he who was in a state of enmity is translated into a state of peace-he who was exposed to a sentence of condemnation, is forgiven and accepted-he who was lost, is saved. I need scarcely add, that it is a great change which is here spoken of. That is a very great change which is wrought on an infant, when it is born into the world-when it is introduced into a new scene, and begins to have a consciousness of its individual existence, and receives a thousand new sensations, and enters on a life of which it had no experience before. So is it with the soul at the time when a new spiritual life is imparted to it; for when our Lord speaks of its conversion under the figure of its being "born again," he evidently represents it as a very great change-so great as to bear some resemblance to the first commencement of conscious existence. Many other figures are employed, which are severally descriptive of one or other of its peculiar features, but all equally significant of its greatness. It is called a renovation of the soul, or its being made new; a transformation of the soul, or its being changed into another likeness; a translating of the soul, or its being brought from one position and placed in another, and a very different one; a quickening of the soul, or its receiving a new life; a resurrection of the soul, or its being raised from the dead; a new creation of the soul, or its being created anew by Him who made it; the washing of the soul, or its purification from defilement; the healing of the soul, or its being delivered from disease; the liberation of the soul, or its being emancipated from bondage; the awakening of the soul, or its being aroused out of sleep; and it is compared to the change which is wrought on the blind, when they receive their sight, on the deaf, when their hearing is restored,-on the lepers, when they are cleansed, on the dead, when they are raised to life. Now, of this change-so great, so spiritual, so comprehensive-the Saviour himself, who alone can save, declares, "Except a man be born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God." - By the kingdom of God in this place, we are to understand, not the external dispensation of the Gospel, or the visible Church of Christ in this world, although it is sometimes used in that sense, but the spiritual and invisible kingdom of God; and the statement here made is designed to warn us, that no unconverted man is a member of Christ's spiritual Church on earth, or can by possibility obtain admission into the Church triumphant in heaven. There is peculiar emphasis in the words: it is not said that he may not, or that he shall not, but that he cannot; the IMPOSSIBILITY of any unregenerate man being admitted into heaven is declared, and that, too, by Him who came to throw the door of heaven open for the reception of sinners, and who holds in his own hands the keys of the kingdom. That we may arrive at a right conclusion on any subject, two things are necessary, a sound principle and a certain fact. In the case before us, the principle which our Lord assumes is, that a man must be spiritual if he would enter into the kingdom of God; and the fact on which he founds in connection with that principle, is, that by nature men are not spiritual but carnal, corrupted, and depraved. If these two things be certain, the conclusion is inevitable, that a great CHANGE is indispensably necessary, or, in other words, that "except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Let us first of all consider the fact which is here assumed, and then connecting it with the principle which is also assumed, evince the necessity of a great spiritual change. I. In thus affirming the necessity of regeneration, and the impossibility of salvation without it, our Lord proceeds on the supposition, that in our natural state we are fallen and depraved,—a supposition which is uniformly assumed in Scripture, and abundantly verified by experience and observation. It is implied in our Lord's words, for unconverted men are there spoken of as being out of the kingdom of God,* and incapable * CALVIN " Docemur, exsules nos ac prorsus alienos a regno Dei nasci, ac perpetuum nobis cum ipso dissidium esse donec," &c.- In Evang. Joan. of entering into it unless they be born again; and it is clearly stated in the 6th verse: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." In this comprehensive sentence, he places in vivid contrast the two great classes into which all men are divided in Scripture, I mean the regenerate and the unregenerate; but he does so in such a way as to intimate that all men belong naturally to the same class; and that, if any have been restored, it was by their being born again. When he speaks of the flesh, he does not refer to the body, but to the soul; for, although the term is sometimes used to denote our corporeal frame, as when the apostle speaks of his "living or abiding in the flesh," it is more frequently, and always when contradistinguished as it is here from the Spirit, employed to denote our whole nature, as naturally fallen and yet unrenewed; as when the apostle says, "So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God; but ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you." In this sense it corresponds to "the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;" and to "the natural man, which receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God," and is distinguished from the " new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." Hence we read of "sinful flesh," and the "fleshly mind," of which it is said, that the "carnal mind is enmity against God." When says, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh," he intimates that every human being, as he is born of he the flesh or of fallen parents, is himself flesh, fallen, corrupted and depraved; that this is his natural state, his state as he is born, and in which he remains until he is born again ; so that every man, without any exception, may say with David, "Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” And when he adds, "that which is born of the Spirit is spirit," he intimates, indeed, that there are now two classes of men in the world—the one natural, the other spiritual-the one regenerate, the other unregenerate; but that this arises not from any original difference, still less from any spontaneous separation, but from a change which has been wrought on some, while the rest remain as they were,—a change which is directly ascribed to the regenerating grace of the Spirit of God. But naturally all belong to the same class and partake of the same character; and although there may be, and doubtless there are, manifold diversities of disposition, and innumerable degrees of guilt among unconverted men, yet in the one-the only point of essential importance" there is no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Such is the supposition on which our Lord's statement rests—the supposition of the universally fallen and corrupted state of human nature; and did we really believe this truth,-did we receive it in its full scriptural import, and in its application to our own souls individually-we should have little difficulty in perceiving the necessity of a great spiritual change, and the impossibility of our being saved without being born again. But this doctrine of natural depravity, |