XXII.

A fhort and connected View of God's Difpenfations

and Revelations to Mankind.

1

AS, this world had its beginning, we may fuppofe that God forefaw all its various fituations, and had a view to its various connections among them.

In the first place, then, the great intention of this world feems to be, to make it a state of preparation for a better. God might have made all the inhabitants of it happy at once, like angels. But God's modes of happiness are as various as all his other works; and he chofe to make this his new world happy by paffing through a state of trial. Let us then fee how this world is fitted for fuch a state. God has thought fit to inform us of its origin, by authority that we cannot reject.

The first that ftrikes us is, the account we have of a paradisaical state. Many parts of it have given offence; and particularly, that a be

ing, endowed with fo many noble qualities, enriched with fuch various gifts, and furrounded with fuch a fuperfluity of happiness, should be treated only as a pageant of a day, and removed before he had taken full poffeffion of his Creator's bounty.

Among the various conjectures that have been made, and conjectures that have been offered, to reconcile these feeming inconfiftences to God's general plan of goodness, I hope it will not be taken amifs if I add one conjecture more :-As we laid it down as a pofition, that this world was to prepare us for a better through a state of trial, it does not seem difficult to link the state of paradife into this chain.

We fuppofe, then, that God never intended a state of paradise as a lasting state; but that he intended it only as a grand title-page to the world he had juft formed. Here the inhabitants might fee a state of happiness playing before them; but that it could be obtained only upon the ob fervance of certain conditions, or, paffing through a state of trial.-Now, in general, the Old Teftament feems to carry on the fame idea. Abraham's land of reft was to be entered by a trial. And all the patriarchs, and good men of those

times,

times, were taught to confider themselves as strangers and pilgrims on earth, in their paffage to their eternal mansions.

But now frail man was utterly unable to contend with such scenes of temptation as the world offered. The next step, therefore, that God took to animate his new world was, to promife heavenly aid to thofe who paffed confcientiously through their trial. Here come in the gracious terms of the gofpel. The gospel stamps its authority on all that went before. It gives the world rules to live by; and, through the atonement of a blessed Saviour, promises forgiveness to all fuch as confcientiously endeavour to live under their duty.-It, laftly, opens that glorious scene of reft, which every pious paffenger through this world confiders as the ultimate end of all his trials.

XXIII.

Except ye be born of water and Spirit, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of God.-John, iii. 5.

THIS is the introduction to the kingdom of heaven, which our Saviour tells us he expects. We are to be baptized into his gospel, and to qualify ourselves for his difciples by our obedience to it. This is what is commonly called regeneration. We must put off the old man, and put on the new. But though regeneration is a fcriptural term, yet it is fo often explained, that eafier language might be obtained than such terms as lead us more into fcholaftic ideas. I do not fee what you can make more of regeneration, than repentance, and amendment of heart and life. Yes, you fay, the regenerated man must be under the direction of the Spirit of God. No doubt of it; and fo muft the penitent man, or his repentance will come to nothing.-If we go deeper, and talk of regeneration with a mysterious air, I fhould only fay, that all we know of

it is, that we should amend our hearts and lives; and endeavour to obtain the aid of the Holy Spirit by fervent prayer. But as to any enquiries further, I think our Saviour's answer is very applicable:-The wind bloweth where it lifteth, and thou heareft the found thereof; but cant not tell whence it cometh, or whither it goeth. So is every one who is born of the Spirit.

END OF THE HINTS FOR SERMONS.