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Regeneration, brethren, is that mighty change whereby a natural man is made a spiritual, or new man; and he that was a child of the devil, becomes by grace a child of God. For, as by natural birth we are of fallen Adam, called the old man, the first man; so by this spiritual birth we become new creatures-spiritual men-and sons of God in Jesus Christ, the second Adam.

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The work of grace, whereby we are thus born again, is so great that St. Paul calls it a new creation; and it deserves that name, for thereby the soul of man is renewed throughout, with all the powers and faculties thereof; his carnal, sensual, earthly disposition is turned into a spiritual and a heavenly one; his blind understanding is enlightened with the knowledge of God, and Jesus Christ; his stubborn and perverse will becomes obedient and conformable to the will of God; his conscience, before seared and benumbed, is now quickened and awakened; his hard heart softened, his unruly affections crucified, and his body, whose members were before instruments of unrighteousness, is now ready to put in execution the good intentions of the mind. Thus is he restored to that happiness, to that image of God, wherein he was at first created, though before, on account of his corruption through the fall, he was altogether destitute of it. Oh! how great, how inconceivably great must man's depravation be by nature, since God cannot fit him for glory by mending or repairing the Divine image in which he first made him; but must thus, as it were, create him a second time, and cause him to be born again, and made anew.

But to be a little more particular concerning the nature of regeneration. It has two parts, as says our church, a death unto sin, and a new birth unto righteousness.

By a death unto sin we must understand, that casting off and crucifying the old man; that destroying the body of sin, on which St. Paul so often insists. "Mortify," says he, or put to death, "your members which are upon earth, uncleanness, covetousness, and the like:" whence it appears, that by those members upon earth, he means, all sorts of sins and unholy desires, whereunto a natural man is given. Nor is it enough to curb and hold them in, but their life must be taken--they must die. And, indeed, it is impossible to put on the new man, till the old man is cast off: nor can a new birth unto righteousness follow, but where a death unto sin has taken place. But when a man, tired of the body of sin, has yielded it up to be crucified with Jesus and feels the power of his death; then, and then only, does he experience a new birth to righteousness, and becomes a partaker of the power and benefit of Christ's resurrection.

This second part of regeneration is called in Scripture a passage from darkness to light; from death unto life; God's quickening us, and making us alive; a rising together with Christ, and walking in newness of life.

Whence it is plain that we must understand by regeneration, not only the destruction of sin in our souls, which is the devil's image stampt upon every child of Adam, since the fall; but the bringing in again into our souls that conformity to the Divine nature, that unspotted holiness, that image of God, wherein Adam was first created, and which Jesus Christ, the second parent of mankind, is ready to stamp again upon every sincere believer. Let us observe here the dangerous mistake of some who judge that they are regenerate because they are reformed, and commit no longer those sins wherein they formerly lived. No, it is not enough to be able to say, "I am not what I was, unless we can add, "I am what I was not." It will signify but little for a man to plead that he is not a drunkard, that he swears no more, and no longer walks after the flesh, unless he can also say, that by the grace of God he walks after the Spirit, in faith, love, and holy obedience. You are not unjust, do you say; Very good. But do you shew mercy? You are no longer unclean, nor sensual: but are you spiritual and heavenly-minded? You no more break out into raging fits of anger: but does "the peace that passes all understanding" keep your soul in the meekness, gentleness, and long-suffering of Jesus? You are no longer swelled with that overbearing pride which made all around you look on you as a tyrant. But, instead of getting the humble mind that was in Christ, do not you rest in what the world calls a decent pride, a proper pride? You think it now below you to curse, swear, and lie: but do you bless and intercede, reprove and exhort? You scorn to tell a lie: but do you boldly stand for the truth as it is in Jesus? You no longer laugh at the despised followers of a crucified God; but do you take their part, and confess Christ in his members, who are rejected of men as he was himself? You no more make a mock at the word of God. Very well. But do you "meditate therein day and night?" and is it "sweeter to your soul than honey to your taste?" You are convinced that it is a dreadful sin to take God's name in vain: but do you rejoice with reverence, whenever you pronounce his sacred name? You detest profaneness, and daily lament the overflowings of ungodliness: but do not you rest short of piety, and lie down in a state of lukewarmness and presumption. You pity those who never go to church, and never worship in God's house: but when you are there, are you sensible of the presence of the God on whom you wait? And does the apprehension of his Majesty make you cry out. as Jacob, in the deepest act of adoration, "This place is dreadful; surely it is the temple of the Most High." You cry out against those who never say their prayers, and with much reason: but when you pray is the intercourse opened between God and your soul, and do you find in your heart what you profess to ask daily, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost?" If you do not, you are not yet regenerated in the Gospel sense. You know something, it may be, of the first part of regeneration, a death unto outward sin; but you are yet an utter stranger to the second part thereof: you never experienced a new birth unto righteousness, unto true inward holiness.

Having thus shewn the nature and parts of regeneration, I come now to show, in a few words, what causes concur to effect that important change.

God alone, in Christ, is the first cause and author of it; wherefore the regenerate man is said in Scripture to be born of God; And if you ask why he does not leave us in the state of sin and misery into which we plunged ourselves by the fall, but offers to create us again in his image; whereas there is no regeneration for the fallen angels upon whom Divine justice passed at once sentence of eternal damnation; "I must answer in the words of the prophet Jeremiah; " It is of the Lord's mercy that we are not consumed: it is because his compassion fails not:" that, as Adam was once placed in a state of trial, either to remain holy, like angels, or to fall into the sin and misery of devils: so we have, during this life, our trial too. Though God might, with justice, have suffered the sentence of eternal death to take place in all men, since all have sinned, he bids us choose whether we will remain fallen with devils or rise again, by regeneration, to that blessed and holy life which Adam lost. The mercy of God is then the only original and moving cause of our new birth, by the gospel of Jesus Christ. "Of his own will," says St. James, "he begat us by the Word of Truth." And St. Peter, that "God has begotten believers again according to his abundant mercy."

But the immediate worker of regeneration is the Spirit of God, which our blessed Lord obtained for us by the merits of his death. In this respect, true Christians are said by Christ to be born of the Spirit; and St. Paul calls regeneration the renewing of the Holy Ghost, Tit. iii. 5.

Yet the ordinary instrumental cause is the Word of God, when applied to the soul by his Spirit. In this sense the apostle says, that believers are begotten by the Word of Truth (James i. 18); or the Gospel, said by St. Paul (Rom. i. 16.) to be "the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." This is "the incorruptible seed," as St. Peter terms it, which Christ's ministers sow in the church of God; and when God raises it up with power in any soul under their ministry, we may look upon them also as instrumental causes of our regeneration, in the lowest sense of the word. Thus St. Paul tells the Corinthians that he was their father, and had begotten them in Christ through the Gospel.

You see, brethren, how all these causes, in subordination to the first, concur to the Divine work of our regeneration. God's mercy contrives the scheme of man's redemption: our Lord Jesus executes it. His ministers are sent to cast the seed of his word into men's souls, and to water it; but the Spirit of God alone gives the increase, and quickens the souls dead in sin and unbelief, when they are truly willing to be quickened. Thus the glory of our regeneration ought to be wholly ascribed to God's mercy in Christ, since it is the only source of that unspeakable blessing; and we are bound to exalt the free grace of God continually, and to call upon our souls to praise the Lord, since as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy towards them that fear him.

(To be concluded in the next.)

Biography.

From the London Methodist Magazine.

A SHORT ACCOUNT OF MR. STEPHEN BUTLER, DECEASED; LATE PREACHER OF THE GOSPEL IN THE METHODIST CONNEΧΙΟΝ.

By Mr. John Hodgson.

MR. STEPHEN BUTLER was born at Peasmarsh, in the county of Sussex, on the 29th of June, 1781.

In a brief manuscript written by himself, he makes honourable mention of the guardian care of his parents over the morals of their children. "My parents," he says, "were strenuously attached to the Church of England, and consequently brought up their children to attend uniformly on the public services of that church, and maintained their authority in restraining them from those evil habits and immoralities into which many children fall." And such, indeed, appears to have been the good effects of these restraints, that Mr. Butler remarks, "during my early years, I never heard but one oath from any of my brothers."

It is a fact, that when children are trained up to the worship of God, and instructed in those things which belong to their everlasting salvation, the happiest consequences frequently are the result; but, in many instances, it is painfully otherwise: and hence Mr. Butler laments the misimprovement that he made of the instructions that he received; for though he was frequently visited with Divine impressions, when a child, and moved through the fear of death and hell to cry unto God, yet, to use his own expression, he "became proof against these impressions, and avoided as much as possible being brought into bondage thereby; violating, in some instances, even the appearance of external morality."

The circumstances attending Mr. Butler's conversion to God, he relates as follows: "Our village had been favoured with the preaching of the Gospel, by the Methodists, for many years, but with little success, until Mr. E. Banister opened his house to the ministry of the word. From this time many attended the preaching, and several experienced the gospel to be the power of God unto salvation. My parents attended also, with all their children, myself excepted; and, in a few years, my mother, (who is since gone to God) three brothers, and a sister, were brought to the knowledge of the truth, and joined the society. At this time I was seeking death in the error of my ways, and was seldom found at the preaching of the word: but if at any time I attended, it was either because the family were accustomed to hear, or through an undue attachment to created objects. At this time satan was my instructer, unto whom I too willingly yielded obedience; and, yet, however impure were my motives in hearing the gospel, I was often constrained to tremble under the word. For this reason I determined not to hear the Itinerant preachers, lest I should yield to the force of their arguments; supposing it possible to hear the local preachers (of whom my brother was one,) and still enjoy my sinful pleasures. That satan might fully secure me to himself, he induced me to form an intimacy with a young person who, as my companion, was instrumental in strengthening my hands in wickedness, to whom I felt a greater attachment than to my own brothers, and through whose example and instructions I abounded in iniquity more than ever. In this state of dissipation and enmity against God, when the family have been attending the ordinances of God, I have frequently wandered into the woods and fields, inexpressibly miserable and wretched, and feeling, in an awful degree, the bitterness of sinning against God; for, though through the restraints of my parents, and the light which God had given me, I was in general preserved from notorious sins, yet great was my vileness before the Lord.

"Being arrived at my eighteenth year, my intention was to have cast off the restraints of my parents, to follow the example of my companion in prodigality and dissipation, under the hope that at a future period, when the days of my youthful pleasures were closed, I might reform my conduct, and give my heart to God. But at this time, the Holy Spirit, whose longsuffering had borne with my levity and trifling, convinced me deeply of sin, and of the necessity of a present salvation.