T h e Nature o f Regeneration An Examination o f What the Bible Teaches Concerning j Personal _Salvation, the _New Birth
By THOMAS BOSTON (1676 t o T 732)
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ANY call the Church their mother whom God will not own to be Hib children. “ My mother’s children,” that is, false brethren, “ were angry with me” (Cant. 1 :6). All that are baptized are not born again. Simon was bap tized, yet still “ in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity” (Acts 8: 13-23). Where Christianity is the re ligion of the country, many are called by the name of Christ, who have no more of Him than the name: and no wonder, for the devil had his goats among Christ’s sheep, in those places where but few professed the Christian religion. “ They went out from us, but they were not of us" (1 John 2:19). 2. Good education is not regenera tion. Education may chain up men’s lusts, but cannot change their hearts. A wolf is still a ravenous beast, though it be in chains. Joash was very devout during the life of his good tutor Jehoi- ada; but afterwards he quickly showed what spirit he was of, by his sudden apostasy (2 Chron. 24:2-18). Good example is of mighty influence to change the outward man; but that change often goes off when a man changes his company; of which the world affords many sad instances. 3. A turning from open profanity to civility and sobriety falls short of this saving change. Some are, for a while, very- loose, especially in their younger years; but at length they re form, and leave their profane courses. Here is a change yet only such as may be found in men utterly void of the grace of God, and whose righteousness
is so far from exceeding, that it does not come up to the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. 4. One may engage in all the out ward duties of religion, and yet not be born again. Though lead be cast into various shapes, it remains still but a base metal. Men may escape the pol lutions of the world, and yet dje but dogs and swine (2 Pet. 2:20-22). All the external acts of religion are within the compass of natural abilities. Yea, hypocrites may have the counterfeit of all the graces of the Spirit: for we read of “ true holiness” (Eph. 4 :24 ); and “ faith unfeigned” (1 Tim. 1 :5 ); which shows us that there is a counter feit holiness, and a feigned faith. 5. Men may advance to a great deal of strictness in their own way of reli gion, and yet be strangers to the new birth. “ After the most straitest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee” (Acts 26:5). Nature has its own unsanctified .strictness in religion. The Pharisees had so much of it that they looked on Christ as little better than a mere liber tine. A man whose conscience has been awakened, and who lives under the felt influence of the covenant of works, what will he not do that is within the compass of natural abilities? It is a truth, though it came out of a hellish mouth, that “ skin for skin, all that a man hath will he give for his.life” (Job 2 :4). 6. A person may have sharp soul- exercises and pangs, and yet die in the birth. Many “ have been in pain,” that have but, as it were, “ brought forth wind.” There may be sore pangs and
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