PART III.

THE NEW MAN.

IF ANY MAN BE IN CHRIST, HE IS A NEW CREATION. —

""T is a new life: thoughts move not as they did,
With slow, uncertain steps across my mind;
In thronging haste, fast pressing on, they bid
The portals open to the viewless Wind,
Which comes not save when in the dust is laid
The crown of pride that gilds each mortal brow,
And from before our vision melting fade

2 Cor. v. 17.

The heavens and earth, — their walls are falling now!

Fast sweeping on, each thought claims utterance strong,
Storm-lifted waves swift rushing to the shore;

On from the sea they send their shouts along,

Back from the cave-worn rocks their thunders roar,

And I a child of God, by Christ made free,

Start from death's slumbers to eternity." -JONES VERY.

CHAPTER I.

REGENERATION.

"Most of us are fragments and divorces, the products of some former violence or convulsion, but such is not he [the new man], but rather a fair planet on which Eden continues. Things to us the most irreconcilable are his sweet harmonies. He is most wilful when he is doing God's will. His human reason is most independent when he is recipient of a divine revelation; his truth and God's belong all the more severely to each, because they are the other's. The efforts of his genius are his obedience to a divine commission. . . . Whatever he thinks is a thought enriched; whatever he does is a marriage deed. Thenceforth his doctrines embodied and illuminated are sights and sounds,-things seen and heard."-J. J. G. WILKINSON.

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We propose now to display, in as clear a light as we can, the nature of regeneration, and the means by which it is accomplished. We devote this chapter to the first of these topics, Who and what is the new man?

We trust the preceding chapters have partly anticipated the answer, and rendered the path of our present inquiry open and clear. Regeneration implies three things: first, a cleansing away of all hereditary corruption; secondly, a restoration of the natural powers and affections to their appropriate service, or changing their inclination from self and making them incline to God; thirdly, receiving the divine life through those capacities that open upward towards God, and towards his angels. It is

obvious, however, that the divine work is accomplished in an order exactly the reverse of the one now stated. For the first ground of our regeneration is the spiritual nature, the immanence of the Divine Spirit in the human soul. Its commencing dawn is the coming on of that light that visits our infant being, until God shines within like another sun, diffusing warmth and radiance through our whole nature, and drawing us towards himself in the bonds of an all-attractive love. Then God becomes the prevailing force within us, and he bends our natural powers towards himself, and draws them all into his service. Appetite, affection, intellect, active powers, all yield to him and serve him. The end of animal appetite is not animal pleasure, but manly development; the end of parental instinct is not its own indulgence, but the highest good of offspring; intellect serves God and not self, and genius no longer sings war-songs and bacchanals, but is the prophet of God's hidden truth, and lifts its hymn to his praise. The possessory instinct is guided to new ends, and property is acquired and held, not for self-aggrandizement, but for beneficent activity and useful living. All the instrumentalities of earth are converted into a means for the highest culture, and the highest culture is a solemn preparation to serve God and humanity. So the whole object of life is changed; and the natural powers, whose balance inclined towards the selfish nature, have that balance reversed and all the faculties bend towards God. Lastly, all hereditary evil is expelled, that

gang of lusts and passions, and the brood of lies which they engender, which require to be killed, since they cannot be converted; to be scourged out of the temple, since they cannot be made fit for its service. They are the native savages that must not be spared, but exterminated, when God's chosen ones come in to take possession. They are what Paul calls the "old man with its lusts," which is to be "put off," or which is to be "crucified" and "buried." These are opposed to the Divine nature; and as God comes within us with growing effulgence and power, they are driven out before him,not without man's effort and coöperation. It is the denial of these evil tempers and instincts, that causes the struggle in his nature, and costs him painful vigils and conflicts, as if his soul were the battle-ground between the hosts of heaven and the hosts of hell. But victory succeeds to victory, and when the last foe is slain, he walks in the strength and peace of God, free and joyous as the angels.

This spiritual change, when all its inward processes are laid open and displayed, appears as the pilgrim's progress from the city of Destruction to the city of God. And here let us guard from error. No one is regenerated unless he comes to something more than "indulging a hope," or so long as the land of promise lies off in the distance, and is not a present possession and fruition. The new man is not one who has got some mystic title-deed to the heavenly country hereafter. He is the man whose foot already is planted on its ground, and who