The Fundamentals fluences of the Spirit, that a person may thereby be turned into another man, as Saul was, (1 Sam. 10: 6,) who yet never becomes a new man. But in regeneration, nature itself is changed, and we become partakers of the Divine nature; and this must needs be a supernatural change. How can we, that are dead in trespasses and sins, renew ourselves, more than a dead man can raise himself out of his grave? Who but the sanctifying Spirit of Christ can form Christ in a soul, chang ing it into the same image ? Who but the Spirit of sanctifica tion can give the new heart? Well may we say, when we see a man thus changed:. “This is the finger of God.” 3. I t is a change into the likeness of God. “We, behold ing, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image” (2 Cor. 3: 18). Everything that generates, generates its like; the child bears the image of the parent; and they that are born of God, bear God’s image. Man aspiring to be as God, made himself like the devil. In his natural state he resembles the devil, as a child doth his father. “Ye are of your father the devil” (John 8 :44 ). But when this happy change comes, that image of Satan is defaced, and the image of God is restored. Christ Himself, who is the bright ness of His Father’s glory, is the pattern after which the new creature is made. “For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate, to be conformed to the image of His Son” (Rom. 8 :29 ). Hence He is said to be formed in the regenerate. (Gal. 4:19.) 4. I t is a universal change; “all things become new,” (2 Cor. 5:17). Original sin infects the whole man; and regen erating grace, which is the salve, goes as far as the sore. This fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness; goodness of the mind, good ness of the will, goodness of the affections, goodness of the whole man. He gets not only a new head, to know religion, or a new tongue to talk of i t ;but a new heart, to love and embrace it in thewhole of his conversation.
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