A Discourse of Regeneration, Title page – Preface
A DISCOURSE OF REGENERATION, FAITH and REPENTANCE.
Preached at the Merchants-Lecture in Broad-street.
BY THOMAS COLE, Minister of the GOSPEL, in London.
LONDON: Printed for Thomas Cockerill, at the Three Legs in the Poultrey, over-against the Stocks-Market, MDCLXXXIX.
THE PREFACE TO THE READER.
WHAT hath been already published in the hearing of many by Preaching, is now put into private hands by Printing; and because 'tis easier to please many Hearers than one Reader, Let me (whoever thou art) bespeak thy Candor in a few words.
Readers should be Courteous; there is a Civility due to Books as well as Persons: 'Tis not Manners to interrupt a Man in the middle of his Discourse; and to censure a Book before you have read it our, is much the same. He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him, Prov. 18. 13. If what is here delivered, fall not in with your thoughts, I can only say this, That my design was, to write down my own Thoughts, and not other mens, submitting all to the Judgment of the Scriptures: every one knows best what he thinks, what he believes, and is persuaded of. A plain proposal of the Grounds and Reasons of our present Judgment, leaving 'em to their own weight in every Man's Conscience, is to act like men one towards another; and the best way to communicate Light to those who are willing to learn. We cannot differ about the Conclusion, when once we agree in the Premises; but to resolve upon Conclusions first, is the ready way to put a Cheat upon our selves, whilst we don't seek so much to find out Truth, as to make good our own Inventions.
To be born again, was a hard saying, Nicodemus could not receive it; knew not how to make sense of it. Had Christ intended only an outward reformation of Life, and not an inward renovation of Nature; he would not have explained our being Born again, by being Born of Water, and the Spirit, Verse 5. which are Evangelical terms of a much higher signification, and do imply a deeper change than that of Manners, which at best reduces us but to a practical conformity to those inbred Moral principles, belonging to our first birth as men; this is still but a state of Nature; we are in the same Spirit and Principle that ever we were. Where is the new Nature? that Spirit which is born of the Spirit, those supernatural Principles that are above all our natural Notions, carrying us out directly to God in Christ? 'Tis Faith that gathers up these supernatural Truths out of the Gospel, and sets 'em home upon the Conscience with power, subjecting the Soul to the Divine Authority of the Word, without consulting flesh and blood about these high mysteries. Revealed Truths are strange things to a natural Man, and will never find acceptance with him, till his mind be suited to them by a supernatural irradiation; Heavenly things cannot be seen but by a Heavenly Light: when God shines in our hearts, then we are transformed into the very Image of those Truths which that Light discovers to us, and do experimentally know what that renovation of the Spirit is which the Word speaks of: Such Gospel Truths are put into our inward parts, as were never there before; this enables us to understand the Scriptures, to Read 'em with pleasure; we delight in the Law of God in our inward Man: This Man within a Man, this hidden Man of the heart is the new creature, the genuine birth of the Spirit of God. If thou art such a Man, thou art a true Christian Reader indeed, willing to receive the witness of Christ, who speaks what he knows, and testifies that which he hath seen, Ioh. 3. 11. I have written this following Discourse to you, not because you know not the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth, 1 Joh. 2. 21. If any, who may be yet spiritually unborn, shall take up this Book, and Read it, they may see what they are not, how short they come of that Character the Gospel gives of newborn Souls: There are more Nicodemusses than one, who cannot unriddle the mystery of Regeneration; they will understand nothing by it, but what they can bring 'emselves unto, by an outward Baptism; there is no Reasoning with these men; while they live in one Nature, and talk of another, they say they know not what; 'tis impossible to have a real feeling of that Nature that is not in us: He is a Skilful Limner, who draws to the Life; tho Life it self can never be drawn, some resemblances of Life there may be; the Cast and Colour of a Living Face, but no breath; like Painted Fire, without heat; or the Picture of a Man running, without any actual Motion; he is fixed in his first step; you will always find his feet where your Pencil left them, standing still in a running Posture. Thus it is with many Professors; they are as Pictures hung upon a Wall, dressed up in all the outward Formalities of Religion; you would take 'em to be real Saints; they have a name to live, but are indeed dead, without any inward living Principle of Grace to animate and quicken those forms, filling them up with true, real Holiness.
Acts flowing from a living Principle within, do carry their own evidence along with 'em, giving a pleasing sensation of their Truth and Reality, as the genuine off-springs of the heart, which nothing that is forced or counterfeit can do; The heart flows out with those actions that come from it, but secretly turns away, as unconcerned in every thing that doth not correspond to the inward Sense and Inclination of the Soul: This will help us to judg of our Regeneration, by observing the consent of our Minds to those outward acts of Religion we pass thorow; what Complacency and Delight we have in them, or what secret aversion to them, which we must needs be privy to; all mere imitations of Nature, are defective somewhere; this is more easily discernable, when we practise upon our selves, seeming to be what we are not; as Actors upon a Stage, under a Disguise, who know we are not the Persons we go for: When the New Nature comes into us, how kindly are the motions of our Hearts towards Christ? How welcome is he to us? We are never more in our own Element, than when we are in closest Communion with him; our Joy is then full, because we have the very desire of our Hearts; we are where we would be, we have what we longed for. Every unregenerate man, in the very height of his outward Profession, be-lies his own Sense and Experience, and says that of his Heart, which he knows he doth not speak from his heart.
When a humbling, overwhelming Sense of Original Sin comes upon us, discovering the Universal Pravity of our Degenerate Nature, how is the glory of all flesh stained? How vile and mean a thing is Man, born of a woman! he may well lye down in his own shame, stand behind the whole Creation of God, and blush at the mischief he hath done the World, groaning with all his fellow Creatures to be restored to the glorious Liberty of the Children of God. Serious thoughts of our lapsed estate, must needs beget this self-abhorrency in us, that we should thus unman our selves, and become like the Beasts that perish, nay worse than they, because we cannot so perish, as to cease to be; the immortality of our Souls making us naturally capable of a miserable Eternity; how should we then be consounded in our own sight, and be yet more vile in our own Eyes? We cannot presently take in the full sense of our wretched state; the grossest sins of our Lives, are not to be compared to the sins of our Nature; they might pass for particular acts of folly, which we were hurried into by the violence of some sudden Temptation; we might hope that Nature would recover it self; but that being poysoned and turned into a root of Bitterness, what fruit unto Holiness can ever grow upon such evil Trees as we naturally are? 'Tis not any improvement of Nature by Art or Industry, that will recover us; there must be a real Change of Nature wrought in us; and how few are convinc'd of the necessity of this? A Toad may as soon complain of his Poysonous Nature, as Fallen Man of his Corrupt Nature; we are reconciled to every thing that is natural to us, else it could not be natural; whatever is a part of our selves, can be no burden to us. 'Tis a sign the Spirit of God hath been at work in that Soul, who is grown into a dislike of himself, hating what he is, and what he doth from a carnal Principle. Tis a sign there is another Spirit and Principle stirring in him. 'Tis impossible there should be true Grace in that Man, who hath no afflicting sense of indwelling sin. The flesh is flesh still, even after Regeneration; the New Creature is raised up in the presence of the old man, they live together awhile, tho' at continual variance, till the fleshly part be abolished; then the new creature will stand up by it self in a perfect state of Glory, in the stature of a perfect Man in Christ. Sin, tho it cannot hinder the Birth of the New Man, yet it hinders his growth, and depresses that for a season, till Mortality, with all that belongs to it, be quite swallowed up of that Eternal Life, which we derive from Christ in our Regeneration; if we dye strangers to this life of God and Godliness, we with all our Forms, Names, and specious Pretences to Religion, shall be swallow'd up of Eternal Death, and never see the Kingdom of God. Verily, verily, except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.
T. C.
A DISCOURSE OF Regeneration. &c.
From IOHN iii. 3.