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about such an important matter, coming with so much evidence from him, and upon his authority, cannot be believed; when men do so ordinarily and easily believe one another, about matters wherein they take themselves to be very much concerned.

Thus much then is to be said for it; as to the little which can be said against it, see the close of the foregoing discourse. This is the first use of this truth, I should proceed to the rest, &c.

SERMON VI.*

WE E have at large opened the words, and made some progress in the use. We have inferred from hence,how strange it is that so plain and important a doctrine as this cannot obtain to be believed: that we insisted somewhat largely upon. We proceed to another inference,—that it is evident the design of regeneration is to prepare and fit men to be of God's kingdom.-This is that which he hath in his eye and aim, when he begets souls by his own Spirit in a holy spirituality, suitable to the productive cause. It is very becoming a reasonable creature when he observes some great work is to be done, and there is great apparatus for the doing of it, to inquire, What doth all this mean? What is all this for? We are plainly told, that such a work as this is to be done upon men, as begetting them anew; we see great preparations are made for it; the gospel sent down from heaven on purpose; an office constituted and set up to dispense it; time sanctified and made sacred; solemn ordinances appointed, a frame of worship instituted. It would certainly be great inadvertency not to consider within ourselves, What is all this for? Why all this is for regenerating men first; and what is that for? Why to bring them into God's kingdom. I doubt it is not seriously considered as it

* Preached January 16th, 1677. at Cordwainer's Hall,

ought to be, how great a design this is, and how intent the blessed God appears upon it, by begetting men of the Spirit, to form them for his kingdom. And from hence arrives several subordinate instructions. As

I. That when a man comes to be regenerate, he is born to very great things. If God hath given us to understand so much of his design, that it is on purpose, and in order to the iustating them into his kingdom, that he hath begotten them spirit of spirit; certainly it is a very great and glorious estate, that every regenerate person is born to. We commonly measure our judgments concerning the fortunes of this or that person by his birth: we say concerning the son of a rich or great man, of a nobleman or prince; that he is born an heir to great and ample possessions, and will certainly be a possessor of them; though there are many things intervening which may cut off a person born to great things from ever being the possessor of them. But here the case is sure, and not liable to contingences, which can infer frustration and disappointment. `It is very unreasonable all this while that we so little consider this, and have so mean low thoughts of the business of regeneration, or regenerate persons: certainly they ought to appear very venerable persons in our eyes. Here is one, as it is meet for us to judge, who is born of God, spirit of spirit; a refined being is begotten in him, which entitles him to eternal glory, an everlasting kingdom. Indeed it is not strange that such persons are obscure unto the most of the world : The world is said not to know God's sons: "What manner of love is this, that we should be called the sons of God?" that is, made such; for God's calling, is making them, what he calls them. He calls things which are not, and makes them existent things.. It is subjoined, Therefore the world knows us not, because it knew not him, 1 John 3. 1. There is a heavenly progeny among them, whom the world do not know; but though the world do not know God's sons, methinks, they should know one another, and not think so meanly of one another's state and condition as the rest of the world think of them. It is a most emphatical scripture, 1 Pet. 1. 3, 4. Being begotten again to a lively hope-unto an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and which fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for us. A regenerate person is no mean person, if you consider his great parentage and high extraction; or the inheritance to which he is born, and the high and glorious hopes which are before him.

II. This instruction also proceeds hence, that we are to look upon it as a very unbecoming thing, when we regret what God further doth, in the prosecution of this design. He hav

ing begotten persons on purpose for his kingdom, and to partake of the glory and blessedness of its consummate state, doth gradually, as he hath prepared and adapted them for it, translate and take up into that kingdom, such as were before born into it, and begotten to it. It is unreasonable to regret this, whether we ourselves are the spectators only; or whether we also come to be the subjects of this dispensation.

When we are spectators of it as to others, and see him transuming and taking up some out of this lower state of his king, dom, into the more glorious state of it, whom he hath begotten thereto before; why are we to regret this? What, that God should have the disposing of his own children, whom he hath begotten, as the Father of spirits, spirit of spirit? Indeed whatsoever there is of displeasure towards us in such dispensations, ought to be considered and entertained by us, with a due sense of it; but what there is of divine good pleasure expressed in it, ought also to be submitted to with an awful and complacential subjection. How unreasonable a thing is it, that we should grudge him his own children whom he hath begotten? We should think it very hard, if we dispose of any child of ours in sickness to be nursed abroad, and we cannot have it home without a quarrel when we think fit to have, it home.

And how unworthy is it when men regret to be the subjects of this dispensation of God; and cannot endure the thoughts of going into his kingdom, the most perfect and glorious state of it, unto which if they are regenerate, they were born? What, to be unwilling to go to our own Father, and have our spirits return to him, when he hath begotten them for himself? How vile a thing is this! What terrene, dunghill hearts are ours which so cleave to this vile earth? We should think it a most unnatural thing in a son, who has been long in a foreign country, especially if in straits and wants there; and who is not so as to spiritual concernments? and yet should regret to be called home by his father: for that would carry this signification with it, that he counts any miseries more tolerable than his father's presence. Certainly it must needs speak what is very unlike and unworthy of a child. I know not what we can have to say for ourselves, that there should be so few unfeigned desires, after our Father's house and our own home; and when we say, we belong to his family, and have been born into it, and begotten of him; that yet we never care to come there. Still a little longer, a little longer, we would be here below, in this mean and abject state; as though we were contented to endure any thing of misery and calamity and turmoil, and all the impurity of this world; rather than be at home

with our own Father. There is an aptness to regret God's known purpose; we struggle and shrink at the thoughts of dying: but certainly that must argue a very great distemper of mind; for what, would we not have the end attained; would we have the design defeated and blasted, for which we were born? if we were ever born spirit of spirit, the design of it was to prepare us for that kingdom into which we regret to go; we were born on purpose for it, and yet we would not come there.

III. We further learn this instruction hence, that it is a most highly becoming thing for the regenerate, very much to mind that state for which they have been born. No one is wont to

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be blamed for minding things no higher than what he was born to. Many times we reckon it a piece of unwarrantable and unbecoming arrogance among men, when they aspire to things beyond their sphere and compass, and aim at things above their birth: but a christian is not to blamed, when he aspires to immortality and eternal glory, and all the felicity and blessedness of God's kingdom above; for it is that he is born to. is justly blamed when the spirits of any are found visibly to sink below their birth and state to which they were born, and the grandeur of their families; when men born of noble parentage, who have that which they call generous blood running in their veins, do mind only mean things, and discover themselves to be of abject ungenerous spirits; this is reckoned a great incongruity among men. And certainly there is nothing more unbecoming than that a christian should mind and be intent upon things which are of a mean and base allay, and forget the kingdom he was born to. We may aspire high; our birth and state will justify us in it; for we are born of God, and born to a kingdom. Why, to let our thoughts grovel, and our affections be scattered in the dust of the earth, to embrace dunghills; we have nothing whereto to impute it, but an ignoble and mean temper of spirit; which certainly when we know, and can reflect upon, it should be far from us to allow; and wherein we find ourselves guilty, we should lay our hands upon our mouth, for it is unaccountable, and nothing is to be said. See how the persons are described whom God sorts out and distinguishes from the rest of men, for eternal blessedness Rom. 2. 6. It is said that God will judge every man according to his works. God is represented there in the person of a judge, and as undertaking the work of judgment upon all this world; and the world accordingly is divided into two parts, as the judgment of God finds them, and will distinguish them; that is, they are distinguished by their final states. There are some who are for life, as that which by the determination of

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