Other miracles were to be looked at, this was to be felt; other miracles were public, this was intensely personal; other miracles were material, this was moral; other miracles gave new views, this gave new life. This miracle is the only explanation of all other miracles, and until a man has undergone its power the other miracles may possibly be stumblingblocks to his reason; except a man be born again he cannot see-cannot see anything as it really is-specially cannot see the kingdom of God.

This call from outward circumstances to the deepest experience which the soul can undergo, not unnaturally suggested the question, 'How can these things be?' And the answer does not attempt to clear itself of the original mystery, 'The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth; so is every one that is born of the Spirit.' The meaning of the answer would seem to be, that we are not to deny results simply because we cannot understand processes: we may see a renewed life, but cannot see the renewing Spirit: we may gather the fruits of autumn, though we know not by what cunning the leaf was woven, nor can we follow the skill which set the blossom in its place. Jesus Christ thus gives nature an illustrative function; all its beauty, its splendour, its force, is to teach something beyond itself; there is a voice in the wind other than strikes the hearing of the body; beyond the common fragrance of the flower there is an odour which reaches the soul; the starlight comes of a fire veiled from all eyes. Jesus Christ thus finds a common law in nature and in grace; the Spirit is the same whether it direct the courses of the wind or renew the springs of the heart-the earth is but a lower heaven.

This method of reasoning from the physical to the spiritual gives great interest to life and nature; it is not meant that we should force meanings from the things which are round about us, but we are certainly taught that there is congruity between all the works of God, and that the limitation of our earthly knowledge should teach us modesty respecting the things which are heavenly. Look at the words: Thou hearest . . . but thou canst not tell.' Man occupies an outside position; even in common things God fixes a tabernacle of His own; He will not tell man the whole of His secret; He brings man to his appointed stature, and then says that man cannot even by taking thought add one cubit to it; He counts the hairs upon the heads of His saints, and tells them that they cannot make one hair white or black; He says to the master in Israel, Thou hearest the wind, but canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth.' As a mere matter of fact, then, apart from theological inquiries, there are limitations to man's knowledge. Man does

not even understand himself; on every side he touches immediately the boundary of his information and his power. The atom baffles him; the insect is only half-comprehended; the sea sounds like a great mockery; the dwelling-place of the light is yet undiscovered; and as for darkness, no man knows its habitation. The wise man knows only his folly; he cannot tell by what way the light is parted which scattereth the east wind upon the earth; he knows not whether the rain had a father, or who hath begotten the drops of dew; he cannot tell out of whose womb came the ice, or who gendered the hoary frost of heaven; Mazzaroth, Arcturus, Pleiades, and Orion take no heed of his voice; he heareth the sound of the wind, but cannot tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth!

These considerations show the spirit in which the subject of the new birth should be approached; a spirit of self-restraint, of conscious limitation of ability, and, by so much, of preparedness to receive not a mere confirmation of speculative opinion, but a Divine revelation of doctrine. The expression of wonder is not forbidden; there is, however, a wonder which belongs to the region of doubt, as well as a wonder which accompanies glimpses of new phases of truth. This wonder is one of the joys of the soul; it often forces the cry of delight, the shout of men who have come suddenly on much spoil. A great shock of surprise seems to shake everyone respecting this new life. The shock comes differently, indeed, yet it always comes. Sometimes, for example, it comes on the intellectual side, as in the case of Nicodemus, throwing into confusion the arguments and theories of a lifetime; sometimes the shock comes upon the selfish instincts, as in the case of the rich young man who could not give all his possessions to the poor; sometimes the shock comes on the natural sensibilities, as in the case of Bunyan, extorting groans and lamentations the most piteous and distressing. Such men represent the most dissimilar experience. The young man. might know nothing of the intellectual struggles of the master in Israel, and Bunyan might know nothing of the desperate hold which property may get upon the heart. Hence the folly of setting up a common standard of judgment, or of any man measuring all other persons by himself. The intellectual man has troubles peculiarly his own. Is it an easy thing to pronounce one's self a fool before God-to give up intelligence and conviction and begin again just where little children begin? A man finds it hard work to give up, one by one, the elements which he imagined were necessary to his manhood, and to start again empty-handed, as it were; or at least with nothing that bears the mark of his own wit and independence-to know as much about the great change of his heart as he knows about the

course of the wind. He would part with money rather than with theories; he would endure the laceration of his natural sensibilities rather than surrender his logical position. What then? He can only know the agony of birth by giving up what he prizes most. He might give all his goods to feed the poor, and yet remain out of God's kingdom; he might give his body to be burned, and yet keep his old heart. God will not give His kingdom other than as a revelation, and a revelation always implies the ignorance and helplessness of the man to whom it is given.

Though the mystery of regeneration may for ever remain unexplained, yet it is important to have a clear idea of the truths with which it is inseparably identified. It would appear that Jesus Christ delivered the most complete and formal gospeldiscourse to Nicodemus that he ever uttered. It occupies twenty-one verses, and touches upon the work of the Holy Ghost, the lifting up of the Son of man, faith, Divine love, salvation, eternal life. All this Jesus Christ spake to the man who came to talk about miracles; could He have said more if He had called the universe to audience? It is as if all the stars had come out together to light a trembling traveller along a lonely road.

What Jesus Christ has left as a mystery it would be presumptuous in any man to attempt to explain. We hear only the sound of the wind; we cannot follow it all its way. Yet we know the analogy of intellectual life. Can we explain the origin and succession of ideas? How did they begin, expand, mature? Do we know where the child was displaced by the man? The wind bloweth where it listeth, thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit,'—so are many of the processes of the mind. As with thoughts, so with affections. Can we make plain all the secret processes of the heart, and trace the transitions through which the soul passes from distrust to confidence, or from indifference to admiration and love? 'The wind bloweth where it listeth, thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit,'-so are the troubles and changes of the heart. All birth is mysterious. 'Thou knowest not how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child.' Can we say why one grain brings forth thirty, another sixty, and another a hundredfold? If we cannot understand these earthly things, how can we understand things that are heavenly? Yet, as the sound of the wind is heard, so there are results which prove the fact of regeneration. Jesus Christ says that if any man is in Him, that man bringeth forth

much fruit, as a branch that abideth in the vine. The Apostle Paul says that if any man be in Christ Jesus, that man is a new creature living in a new world, all old things gone. The Apostle John says that men know that they dwell in Christ, because Christ has given them of His Spirit. This is the practical side of the doctrine of regeneration—thou hearest the sound thereof.' 'Secret things belong unto the Lord our God.' The regenerated man is known by the spirit which animates his life, for it is the motive which gives quality to character. The regenerated man lives by rule, but it is the unwritten and unchanging rule of love; the regenerated man advances in orderliness, but it is the orderliness, not of mechanical stipulation, but of vigorous and affluent life; the regenerated man is constantly strengthened and ennobled by an inextinguishable ambition to be filled with all the fulness of Christ; his new life springs up for ever as a well of water that cannot be exhausted.

It is important to dwell upon the signs of regeneration, lest the doctrine be classed with merely speculative or metaphysical theology, a study of deep intellectual interest, but powerless in the life. It is quite conceivable that an unregenerate man may do many outwardly decent or even beautiful things, just as it is conceivable that a watch may be altered by the hands, and not by the regulator, or as it is conceivable that the ruddiness of the cheek may be artificial and not natural. If an unregenerate nature can produce the same quality of moral life as the nature that has been born again, the testimony of the inspired writer is simply untrue, because it declares that the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither, indeed, can be; so, then, they that are in the flesh cannot please God.' The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.' Thus, on the explicit authority of Jesus Christ and His Apostles, the broadest possible distinction is made between the first birth and the second birth- that which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the Spirit is spirit ;' 'marvel not that ye must be born again.'

In making this great claim on behalf of regeneration it is easy to see the ground upon which a condemnatory charge may be urged against those who bear the name of Jesus Christ. How is it that new-born men often walk as the children of this world? The answer is that man has not only a soul, but a body; that while the soul is renewed, the body remains in its old condition; consequently, though the Christian delights in the law of God after the inward man, yet he sees another law in his members warring against the law of his mind, and bringing

him into captivity to the law of sin, which is in his members'the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.' It is undoubtedly true that the Spirit may attain great mastery over the flesh, so much so as to explain Paul's words, 'Ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.' Still, as a matter of fact, the body is dying; an inexorable law condemns and hastens it to the grave; what, if in going down it should trouble and vex the spirit? The Christian man is an anomaly; in a sense, which unregenerate nature can never understand, his body and soul are at constant war. What, then, is the complement of regeneration? The complement of regeneration is resurrection, and not until resurrection has done for the body what regeneration has done for the soul, can men be perfect in the stature and quality of Jesus Christ.

JOSEPH PARKER.

MEMOIRS OF EXTINCT LONDON CHAPELS.

IV.-SURREY CHAPEL.

PASSING along Blackfriars Road a few weeks ago, in anticipation of writing this memoir' I stepped into the large octagonal, domed, brick building known so many years as Surrey Chapel. It is now a show-place for agricultural instruments, and around the pagoda which crowns the dome is written, in large characters, SURREY WORKS.' It might certainly have been applied to worse purposes; yet, as I gazed around the vast, airy, and even now handsome building, with its fresh coat of paint in various tints, I was conscious of something like a pang that dear old Surrey Chapel had ever been diverted from its original use. What memories gather around the old walls! What scenes come back as one casts one's eye over the place! So painfully vivid were they that for the moment one could have said, 'Blessed is he that hath no topographical imagination.' Yet, apart from the loss of the place, there is much that is pleasurable in recalling the scenes of Evangelical interest which old Surrey Chapel has, in its day, presented; and some of which many of my readers, in common with myself, will have witnessed.

A FIRST VISIT.

I have the most vivid recollection of the first time I entered within its walls. I had been taken there as a little lad by a lady friend who had gone to reside in the neighbourhood. I had never been in the midst of so vast a congregation before—