the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Nicodemus is taught, that it is not enough to believe Jesus to be the Christ, but that his followers must publicly acknowledge him. The adult believer, then, who declines to be baptized, cannot be regenerated; for though he calls Christ, Lord, he obeys not his positive command; but he who comes in faith to that ordinance, is translated out of the kingdom of Satan, and is at the same time born again of the Spirit by water, as an instrument, and obtains the remission of his sins, and the sanctifying influence of the Holy Spirit.

The distinction between regeneration and renovation is thus stated by Waterland". "Man does not regenerate himself, whatever hand he may otherwise have (but still under grace) in preparing or qualifying himself for it. God makes the grant, and it is entirely his act; man receives only and is acted upon, though sometimes active in qualifying himself, as in the case of adults, and sometimes entirely passive, as in the case of infants. The thing granted and received is a change from the state natural into the state spiritual; a translation from the curse of Adam into the grace of Christ. This change carries in it many privileges, but all reducible to two; remission of sins, and a covenant claim, for the time being, to eternal happiness. These blessings may all be forfeited or finally lost, if a person revolts from God, either for a time, or for ever; and then such person is no longer in a regenerate state, with respect to any saving effects; but still God's original grant stands in full force to take place as often as any revolter shall return, and if he desires to be as before, he will not want to be regenerated again, but renewed or reformed. The grant once made continues always the same; but the reception may vary, because it depends upon the condition of the recipient. Renovation is rather a capacity or qualification (in adults) for salutary regeneration than the regeneration itself; in them it may and it should be before, in, and after baptism. Preventing grace must go before, to work faith and repentance afterwards in baptism, the Holy Spirit fixes, as

b Regeneration stated and explained.

it were, his dwelling, renewing the heart in greater measure, and, if his motions are more and more complied with, the renewing grows through the whole course of the spiritual life. Therefore, though we find no Scripture exhortations made to Christians (for Nicodemus was a Jew) to become regenerated, yet we meet with several to those to be renewed.

This doctrine Jesus calls earthly, because the nature of the new birth may be illustrated from earthly objects, and may be understood from its results; but he proceeds to observe, that he has heavenly truths to disclose, such as his own incarnation and propitiation, which, not falling under the cognizance of experience, are more hard to receive.

He then explains, that the Messiah would not be as Nicodemus expected the avenger of Jewish wrongs, and the restorer of their liberty, but, by his crucifixion, the author of eternal salvation. This doctrine, which he could not then bear, Jesus expressed figuratively, which would be understood after the event, and he purposely chooses a figure from the Old Testament, to shew that this doctrine, as well as that of regeneration, was taught in the Scriptures. To us the brasen serpent is a most significant type of the Redeemer; for as the Israelite who looked to that was cured and lived, so he that believeth on the Son of man lifted up on the cross hath eternal life. It appears to have been already the tradition of the Jews, that as the bites of the fiery serpents were cured by looking up to this image so shall the bites of the old serpent inflicted on Adam and his posterity be cured in the time of the Messiah; and the Book of Wisdom says, xvi. 6. “ He that turned himself towards it was not saved by the thing he saw, but by thee who art the Saviour of all." Jesus declares, that the object of the Son of God in coming into the world was to save it, but that it would not receive his testimony, and as that was supported by sufficient evidence, the world alone was to blame. The light had come into the world, and men preferred darkness because their deeds were evil. He that shuts his eyes and remains in voluntary darkness, is inexcusable.

22. John again bears testimony to the superiority of Jesus. John iii. Mark i. vi.

JESUS now left Jerusalem, but continued some time longer in Judæa, and his disciples baptized with water unto repentance like the Baptist; but Jesus himself baptized not, because the baptism he was to institute, as the rite that was to introduce members into his Church, was the baptism of the Spirit unto regeneration, and was not to take place until after his resurrection. The spot chosen was probably Bethabara beyond the Jordan, where the nation had entered their own land, and from which John had removed, we presume, that he might not interfere with his Master, to Ænon near Shalem, remarkable, as the name implies, for its springs, and consequently well suited to his purpose. A dispute arose here between John's disciples and the Jews concerning purifications. The question seems to have been, why Jesus, who had himself been baptized by John, should, by delegating this office to his disciples, assert his own superiority, and so virtually declare the inefficacy of his baptism. John's disciples, not comprehending the subserviency of their master's ministry, were unable to give a satisfactory answer; and by proposing to him the question, gave him, before its close, an opportunity of bearing his final testimony to the preeminence of the Bridegroom of the Church, of whom he announced himself to be no more than the paranymph, that is, the friend and attendant, who, according to the custom of his age and country, presented the husband to his bride, and continued with them during the seven days allotted to the wedding festival. The marriage union is employed in the Psalms and the Prophets to represent the intimate connection that subsists between Jehovah and his people; and the same figure occurs in the New Testament, when Paul declares that he is jealous with a godly jealousy over the Corinthians, that he may present them as a chaste virgin unto Christ; and when John in the Apocalypse describes the New Jerusalem as a bride prepared for her husband. Isaiah (liv. 5.) tells God's

ancient Church that her Maker is her husband, the Lord of Hosts is his name; and since from the beginning, the Israel of God, under various dispensations, has been ever one and the same Church, under the same Head, we cannot doubt that this title of Bridegroom, when applied to Jesus, identifies him with Jehovah. Our Lord himself afterwards assumes it; and it was probably with a reference to this idea that, in describing the state in which he should find his followers at his second advent, he chooses the comparison of virgins waiting for the bridegroom's coming, in preference to others equally apposite. The Baptist declared, that this marriage, which had for his sake excited envy in them, on the contrary completed his joy. He reminded them, that he had never claimed any higher dignity than that of the herald of the Messiah, and foretold the increase of Jesus, and his own decrease. He confessed, that he, a mere man, could announce only earthly things, but that Jesus who came from heaven testified to the truth of what he had seen and heard, that is, heavenly things, yet that, generally speaking, no man received his testimony. Yet those who did receive it, thereby acknowledged the veracity of God, in performing his promise through the prophets of redemption, by sending his Son, to whom he gave-not as unto them, that is, sparingly, by degrees, and at certain seasons, but—without measure the Holy Spirit. Whoever believed in him should have eternal life; but on those who disobeyed him, the original curse laid upon Adam, and which through him alone could be removed, would abidea.

This explains our Lord's declaration, that he came not to condemn the world, but that through him it might be saved, for the world was condemned already. All who come to him for salvation, he will deliver; and those who refuse to hear him, were before in a state of perdition. His coming, therefore, while it saves all who believe and obey him, causes the ruin of none, only the wrath of God, under which all were before, still remains on those who will not come unto him for life; as the diseased, who reject the medicine that would cure them, die in consequence of their own obstinate want of faith in their physician. A due consideration of this statement, which might be enforced by similar passages both from the Old and the New Testament, would silence some of the most specious objections of the infidel.

Our translators have not preserved the distinction in the original between he who believeth and he who disobeyeth; a variation, as Doddridge observes, not to be overlooked, since the latter word explains the former, and shows that the faith to which the promise of eternal life is annexed, is an effectual principle of sincere and unreserved obedience. Thus John fulfilled his ministry, by directing his disciples again to Christ, as the only Saviour, and by showing that eternal life was suspended upon faith in him. He was soon after cast into prison by the tetrarch Herod, at the investigation of Herodias his brother Philip's wife, who was incensed at his reproof of their incestuous connection. His desertion of his wife was soon after avenged by her father Aretas; and the Jews considered the defeat of his troops, a judgment for the murder of the Baptist. The real cause of John's imprisonment we learn from the Evangelists; Josephus states the ostensible one. He describes the Baptist as a good man, who persuaded the Jews to be religious and just, and to come to his baptism; and Herod, fearing his influence with the people, for they seemed ready to do any thing he should advise, first imprisoned, and then put him to death. This speedy termination of his ministry was designed by Providence, that the people might not be divided in their opinions between him and Jesus: and his imprisonment was the epoch from which our Lord commenced his office more publicly.

23. Jesus, on his way to Galilee, passes two days at Sychar, in Samaria. John iv.

THE next discourse of our Lord that has been preserved, was with a person as much despised as Nicodemus was respected; a woman in low life, of bad character, and moreover a Samaritan. On John's being cast into prison, Jesus deemed it prudent to retire into Galilee, and Samaria lay in his way, which he could not have avoided, without a considerable circuit. Probably, however, though his own mission was only to the Jews, and he would not suffer the seventy disciples to preach to the Samaritans any more than to the heathen, he