and none shall prejudge another, but you shall have joy in the happiness one of another, seeing you shall then be perfect in love all harmony-no difference in judgment nor in affection; all your harps tuned to the same new song, which you shall sing for ever. Let that love begin here, which shall never end.

And this same union is likewise expressed in the first words of the verse. Seeing you are partakers of the work of sanctification by the same word and the same Spirit that works it in all the faithful, and are by that called and incorporated into that fraternity, therefore live in it and like it. You are purified to it; therefore love one another after that same manner purely. Let the profane world scoff at the name of brethren; you will not be so foolish as to be scorned out of it, being so honorable and happy; and the day is at hand wherein those that scoff you, would give much more than all that the best of them ever possessed in the world, to be admitted into your number.

Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit. Here is, 1. the chief seat, or subject of the work of sanctification, the soul; 2. the subordinate means, the truth; 3. the nature of it, obeying of truth; 4. the chief worker of it, the Spirit.

1. The chief seat of sanctification is the soul: It is no doubt a work that goes through the whole man, renews and purifies all; Heb. x, 22; 2 Cor. vii, 1. But because it purifies the soul, therefore it is that it does purify all. There impurity begins. Not only evil thoughts but all evil actions come forth from the heart; and therefore this purifying begins there, makes the tree good that the fruit may be good. It is not so much external performances that make the difference between men, as their inward temper. We meet here in the same place, and all partake of the same word and prayer; but how wide a difference is there in God's eye betwixt an unwashed profane heart in the same exercise, and a soul purified in some measure in obeying the truth, and desirous to be further purified by further obeying it!

2. That which is the subordinate means of this purity is, the truth, or the word of God. It is truth, pure

h

in itself, and it begets truth and purity in the heart, by teaching it concerning the holy and pure nature of God, showing it his holy will, which is to us the rule of purity; and by representing Jesus Christ unto us as the fountain of our purity and renovation, from whose fulness we may receive grace for grace.

3. The nature of this work, that wherein the very being of this purifying consists, is, the receiving or obeying of this truth. So Gal. iii, 1, where it is put for right believing. The chief point of obedience is believing; the proper obedience to truth is to give credit to it; and this divine belief doth necessarily bring the whole soul into obedience and conformity to that pure truth which is in the word; and so the very purifying and renewing of the soul, is this obedience of faith, as unbelief is its chief impurity and disobedience; therefore, faith is said to purify the heart.

4. The chief worker of this sanctification is, the Holy Spirit of God. They are said here to purify themselves, for it is certain and undeniable, that the soul itself doth act in believing or obeying the truth; but not of itself; it is not the first principle of motion. They purify their souls, but it is by the Spirit. They do it by his enlivening power, and a purifying virtue received from him. Faith or obeying the truth works this purity, but the Holy Ghost works that faith: as in the fore-cited place, God is said to purify their hearts by faith, Acts xv, 8. He doth that by giving them the Holy Ghost.

The true reason why there is so little mutual love amongst those that are called Christians, is, because there is so little of this purifying obedience to the truth whence it flows. Faith unfeigned would beget this love unfeigned. Men may exhort to them both, but they require the hand of God to work them in the heart.

Ver. 23. Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.

THE two things which make up the apostle's exhortation are the very sum of a Christian's duty-to walk as

obedient children towards God, and as loving brethren one towards another; and that it may yet have the deeper impression, he here represents anew that new birth he mentioned before, by which we are the children of God and so brethren. We shall first speak of this regeneration, and then of the seed.

1. This is the great dignity of believers, that they are the sons of God, as it is the great evidence of the love of God, that he hath bestowed this dignity on them, 1 John i, 1; for they are no way needful to him. He had from eternity a Son perfectly like himself, and one Spirit proceeding from both; and there is no creation, neither the first nor the second, can add any thing to their happiness. But the gracious purpose of God to impart his goodness, appears in this, that he hath made himself such a multitude of sons, not only angels that are so called, but man, a little lower than they in nature, yet dignified with this name in his creation; Luke iii, 38. The son of Adam, which was the son of God. He had not only the impression of God's footsteps, which all the creatures have, but of his image. And most of all in this is his rich grace magnified, that sin having defaced that image, and so degraded man from his honor, and divested him of the title of sonship, and stamped our polluted nature with the marks of vileness and bondage, yea, with the very image of Satan, rebellion and enmity against God-that out of mankind thus ruined and degenerated, God should raise to himself a new race and generation of

sons.

For this design was the Word made flesh, the Son made man, to make men the sons of God. And it is by him alone we are restored to this. They who receive him, receive with him and in him this privilege. And therefore it is a sonship by adoption, and is so called in scripture, to distinguish it from his eternal and ineffable generation, who is and was the only begotten Son of God. Yet that we may know that this divine adoption is not a mere outward relative name, the sonship of the saints is here and often elsewhere in scripture expressed by new generation and new birth. A new being, a spiritual life, is communicated to them; they have in them of their

Father's Spirit; and this is derived to them through Christ, and therefore called his Spirit. They are not only accounted of the family of God by adoption, but by this new birth they are indeed his children, partakers of the divine nature, as our apostle expresseth it.

Now though it be easy to speak and bear the words of this doctrine, yet the truth that is in it is so high and mysterious, that it is altogether impossible, without a portion of this new nature to conceive of it. Corrupt nature cannot understand it. What wonder that there is nothing of it in the subtilest schools of philosophers, when a very doctor in Israel mistook it grossly? It is indeed a great mystery, and he that was the sublimest of all the evangelists, and therefore called "The Divine," the soaring eagle, as they term him, he is more abundant in this subject than the rest. And the most profitable way of considering this regeneration and sonship, is certainly, to follow the light of those holy writings, and not to jangle in disputes about the order and manner of it, of which though something may be profitably said and safely-namely, so much as the scripture speaks-yet much that is spoken of it and debated by many is but a useless expense of time and pains. What those previous dispositions are, and how far they go, and where is the mark or point of difference betwixt them and the infusion of spiritual life, I conceive not so easily determinable. If naturalists and physicians cannot agree upon the order of formation of the parts of the human body in the womb, how much less can we be peremptory in the other! If there be so many wonders in the natural structure and frame of man, how much richer in wonders must this divine and supernatural generation be! Things spiritual being more refined than material things, their workmanship must be far more wonderful and curious. But then it must be viewed with a spiritual eye. There is an unspeakable lustre and beauty in the new creature, by the mixture of all divine graces, each setting off another, as so many rich several colors in embroidery; but who can trace that invisible Hand that works it, so as to determine of the order, and to say which was first, which second, and so on; whether faith, or repentance, &c.?

This is certain, that these and all graces do inseparably make up the same work, and are all in the new formation of every soul that is born again.

To contest much, how in this regeneration he works upon the will and renews it, is to little purpose, provided this be granted, that it is in his power to regenerate and renew a man at his pleasure; and how is it possible not to grant this, unless we will run into that error, to think that God hath made a creature too hard for himself to rule? And shall the works of the Almighty, especially this work, wherein most of all others he glories, fail in his hand, and remain imperfect? Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth? No; no sinner so dead, but there is virtue in his hand to revive him. Though the most impenitent hearts are as stones within them, yet he can make of them children to Abraham. He can dig out the heart of stone, and put a heart of flesh in its place; otherwise he would not have made such a promise. If his sovereign will is not a sufficient principle of this regeneration, why then says the apostle St. James, Of his own will begat he us? and he adds the subordinate cause, by the word of truth, which is here called the immortal seed of this new birth. Therefore it is that the Lord hath appointed the continuance of the ministry of this word, to the end that his church may be still fruitful, bringing forth sons unto him; that the assemblies of his people may be like flocks of sheep coming up from the washing, none barren amongst them.

Though the ministers of this word, by reason of their employment in dispensing it, have, by the scriptures, the relation of parents imparted to them, as St. Paul calls the Galatians his little children of whom he travailed in birth again till Christ were formed in them; yet the privilege of the Father of spirits remains untouched, which is effectually to beget again those same spirits which he creates, and to make that seed of the word fruitful in the way and at the season that it may please him. The preacher of the word, be he never so powerful, can cast this seed only into the ear; his hand reaches no further; and the hearer, by his attention, may convey it into his