THE NEW BIRTH: OR, BIRTH FROM ABOVE. Presented in Four Sermons in Margaret's Westminster, December, 25. and January, 15. 1653. and June 11. 1654.  
By EDWARD THARPE, Minister of the Word at Street in .  Ideo Filius Dei factus est homo, ut homines faceret Filius Dei. Non nascimur, sed renascimur Christiani. 2 COR. 5. 17. 
If any man be in Christ, he is a new Creature.  JOHN 3. 3. 
Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a man be borne from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.  
LONDON, Printed for Nath: Webbe, and Will: Grantham, at the black Bear in S. Paul's Churchyard, near the little North door. 1655.   

TO HIS HIGHNESS, OLIVER, Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the Dominions thereunto belonging.  
MY LORD,  
NOt long since attending upon your Highness and the sick bed of your Dear and Noble Mother (who hath lived to see you as high in the world as ever you were in her tender & careful thoughts) with a Heart and a Tongue full of duty and thankfulness; as for your first favours in my childhood, wherein I tasted deeply of your goodness, so for your last timely favour now in my Age, wherein I tasted in part of your goodness and greatness together. And taking a solemn and submissive leave of your Highness, I entered into some serious consideration (being thereunto moved by your free, noble, and benevolent expressions (which indeed my Lord did silently command me to speak again) how I might express to your Highness, and manifest to the world some apparent testimony, as of my gratitude to you, (now sitting at the stern) so of my improvement under you in the University: And therefore immediately after my departure from you (in December last) my pains being desired in Margaret's Westm. and willingly and readily accepted, and as well approved as accepted by some worthy and judicious Auditors, I was seriously importuned and solicited for the Notes: Which opportunity, with some difficulty I waved, fearing if communicated they might steal to the Press, and so being but mean and inconsiderable in themselves, unworthy of such account, being likewise imperfect and unperused, they might by the hasty printing of them be made worse: And being persuaded, that your Lordship might hear something of them, I am bold, most Noble Lord, having viewed and digested them,▪ between hope & fear▪ Humillima cordis & corporis inclinatione, to dedicate them to your Highness, and to set them forth in your Lordship's name.  
2. It was by your Lordship's means, or your much honoured Mothers, (my worthy and noble Friend and Lady) that I was ever made capable of any Churchpromotion, or entered into this sacred and holy Function, being sent by her & your most worthy Father▪ that well deserving and esteemed Patriot, long since with the Lord) to wait upon your Highness in Cambridge; where and at whose feet I did imbibe such principles, as have in a mean and moderate way enabled me to carry some of that light which shone gloriously there, and in some splendour in Sidney Sussex College, where your Highness was a Fellow-Commoner and Student (under a godly, learned, and reverend Master) into the world. So that next to God, I own myself, (and the best of myself, my Labours) unto you (my Lord) Ingenuum est fateri per qu●s pr●fecimus, and I am in very good hope your Highness▪ will please to taste of the fruit of that tree which was of your own planting, (though the fruit be not so exquisite and pleasant as that which had a warmer and longer influence) and no● suffer it to whither, or be pulled up by the roots.  
3. They were framed under your Highness' protection, and therefore by another right they justly claim your tuition; and if there be any good at all in them, it is to be ascribed (next unto Him who is the Giver of every good and perfect gift) to your Highness' goodness, which procured me those quiet,▪ peaceable, and silent hours, in the which they were composed.  
Such therefore as these rude Meditations are, I most humbly present and dedicate to your Highness, earnestly beseeching you to credit them & me with your gracious favour and benevolent aspect, under whose countenance they will certainly find easy acceptance, and may do some good abroad.  
Thus with my fervent, frequent, and constant prayers for your Highness, that you may do as you do, (and have promised to do) make it your work to honour him who hath so highly advanced you, and abundantly satisfy the expections of many thousands of people, especially ours of the Clergy, whose eyes are upon you for good, our calling being once honourable, (and so we hope by your means it may be again) and we may live to see Trajan's days, in whose time they say a good man never wanted, nor a learned man begged: (For surely they will honour Learning, whose actions require and deserve a learned pen) though it be now abased and abused by many ignorants, faring herein like the Master of the calling, who in such eyes had neither form nor beauty. It was a Jeroboam my Lord) you know that made Priests of the lowest of the people, (which makes him carry that infamous brand and train nineteen times after him in Scripture) Jeroboam the son of Nebat, etc. by committing and imposing the trust▪ of Gods sacred Oracles into such unclean and unholy hands, and now the lowest of the people make themselves Priests; This brass coin, as Ignatius calls them, bearing their own stamp and impression. And it is not unknown to your Highness, that the despising of the Ephod was the rot of saul's Kingdom: That Israel was without God, when it was without a Priest to teach: That faithful Pastors and teachers are the guard, the safeguard, the lifeguard of a Church and State, confessed so by a King, and enemy to Zion: That it was great Constantine's word to his Clergy, Adjuvate me precibus, ego vos gladio; Help me with your prayers, I will help you with my power. That pious and devout Lord in this Land and Commonwealth, accounted the prayers of faithful Ministers the walls of his house.  
Let it be the shame, and indelible blot of the Romish Synagogue, the Malignant Church, to have Golden Chalices and Wooden Priests, Mendicant and begging Priests, or their Priest's beggars. It is the honour and dignity of a Christian Magistracy & Commonwealth, when and where they that labour in the Word & Doctrine, are accounted worthy of double honour, and have both countenance and maintenance, regard and reward. I most humbly kiss your hand, (for an Epistle, as Seneca saith, should not fill the hand) craving pardon for my prolixity & presumption, which I hope, good my Lord, having had some early experience of your Highness' candour and condescension you will easily grant, accounting it my great happiness that ever I had any dependence upon you, and my honour and credit to have been, and to be,  
(My Lord) Your most humble Orator, and at your Highness' command and service, Edward Tharpe.   

TO THE READER.  
Courteous Reader,  
I May be by some wondered at, for sending such rude and unpolished lines to the Press, which even groans under the burden of multitude of books; of the greater part whereof we may say with Socrates, The Paper is more worth than the matter: For there are scarce any that Preach that Print not, insomuch as the Press may say to the Pulpit in the words of Esau to his brother, Keep that thou hast, I have enough my brother. And secondly, it may be objected, that I make too much use of other men's sentences and sense, and so seem to boast in other men's lines made ready to my hands: To whom I answer no otherwise, than As the Spider's fine web is never the better, (it may be the sooner swept away) because it is spun out of her own bowels; So the Bees honey is never the less (it may be the more) sweet, because it is extracted and gathered out of many flowers. Thirdly, I hope the subject will make an easy way for the acceptance, treating of a through change and reformation. And it is to be hoped and desired, nay expected, that amongst so many changes and mutations which have been abroad in the great world, Man himself, that little world, will not still remain quite unchanged. For where God's judgements are out in the world, the Prophet gives it as granted God's people will learn righteousness. Again, howsoever art may move affection, it is the plain Word in the evidence and power thereof which must remove corruption. Fourthly, I could add, they were preached in a very populous, orthodox, and judicious Auditory, and desired earnestly of men of judgement and note, of worth and parts, whose respects I have rather satisfied in the printing of them, than mine own desires. Besides, I have not read any that have so fully treated or discoursed of this material and necessary subject; and therefore I request every Reader in the words of Isocrates to Nicocles, Aut hisce praeceptis utere, aut tu ipse inveni meliora: Either make use of these wholesome Doctrines and Exhortations with me, or else publish better thyself; if thou art able to publish better in the future, yet it will profit thee to make use of these for the present. I am bold therefore for the reasons aforesaid to send that to the eye which was at first presented to the ●are; hoping that some way or other they may get to the heart, and with Naaman's poor servants send some to that Jordan which may cure them of their native leprosy. Which that these distracted Meditations may help to do, I leave and commend thee in my prayers and devotions to God, and to the word of his grace, which, etc. Act. 19 32. So prays,  
Thy servant in Jesus Christ, EDWARD THARPE.   
HORAT. 
— Si quid novisti rectius ist is,  
Candidus imperti: si non, his utere mecum.  
Reader, if better things be known to thee,  
Impart them, or make use of these with me.   

THE HEAVENLY BIRTH: OR, BIRTH from ABOVE.  JAM. 1. 18. 
Of his own will begat he us by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.  
THis General Epistle of St. James so called, not because it is more general, or authentic than other of the Epistles (all being of equal authority and holiness) but in regard of the dedication (it being directed and dedicated to the twelve dispersed Tribes, ver. 1.) is full of very useful, and practical doctrine, especially this first Chapter; which treats of divers Graces and Virtues, and presses many heavenly precepts.  
1. It persuades to comfort in afflictions, nay even to joy in tribulation, and that by a sweet, loving, and insinuating compellation (My brethren:) James was the Brother of our Lord, and for his virtues and holiness called, James the just: yet out of Apostolical kindness and humility, that his exhortations might be the more prevalent and persuasive, being seasoned with meekness and love he calls them Brethren; My brethren 
Ver. 2.  count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations. That is, esteem it matter of chief joy and exultation to tread in their 
Mat. 5. 12.  Master's steps: Rejoice, and be glad; for, etc. This lesson Paul and Sylas learned out of the School of the Cross, who went away 
Acts 5. 41.  rejoicing that they were counted worthy etc. The birds of Paradise sing sweetest in a cage, knowing that to them it is given (as a great blessing) not only to believe, but to suffer for Christ's sake; and that through many tribulations we must enter into 
Philip. 1. 29.  the kingdom of God. The more we suffer, the liker Christ; and the longer, the greater will be our reward.  
Secondly: In the two next verses it exhorts to Faith and Patience, the two Legs of Christianity, the two supporters under the cross; the only cordials in heavy and calamitous times (such as those were.) For Faith believes the promises, and Patience attends and waits for the accomplishment; and indeed, as the Apostle saith, We have need of patience, that when we have done the will of God, (in doing whereof we shall find great 
Heb 10. 27.  opposition) we may receive the promise. Faith holds up a Christians head, but Patience and Perseverance crowns it: He that believes makes not haste; for he knows that in good time he shall reap, if he faint not. Knowing that the trial of your 
Ver. 3, 4.  faith, etc. And, let patience have her perfect work.  
The nature of Afflictions is, they are probations and trials. The effect of them, they work Patience, they bring the quiet 
Heb. 12. 11.  fruit of righteousness to them that are exercised therein.  
The finest Gold is put into the hottest furnace; witness the three children: Peter's faith was tried by Satan's winnowing, and Paul's by his buffeting; but Christ's prayer was sufficient for the one, and his grace for the other: And the Son of God walks with his children even in the hottest fire, and restrains the heat and flames. Therefore whatsoever our sufferings are, we ought to kiss God's rod, and to embrace his chastisements upon our knees; like the Camel, to take our load stooping, and not to make those afflictions which are bitter enough of them▪ selves, to be far more bitter by our impatience.  
3. In the 5, 6, 7, and 8 verses the Apostle directs us how we should direct our prayers to God, that we may speed in our suits, and not be sent empty away. If any man want wisdom, that is, the wisdom to behave himself quietly and Christianly under Gods correcting hand (which requires great wisdom and prudence: A Christian being so much a Christian as he is in temptations and trials) let him ask of God, who gives to all men liberally, and upbraids not, etc. But let him look to the manner of his ask which God regards more than the matter, looking not so much at the thing, and duty done, as at the mind and affection with which it is done: regarding not so much quam bonum as quam bene; looking more at the heart than the hand: My son give me thy heart. Let him ask in faith nothing wavering. They must be confident in than petitions, the heart must be firmly se●led upon God's promises without any doubting or wavering: For the crew, and effectual prayer is the prayer of 
Mat. 15. 28  Faith: Whatsoever ye ask in prayer believe and you shall receive it. This was that made those Jews prayers miscarry, they 
James 4. 4.  were unmannerly and sensual: Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye might spend it upon your lusts▪  
4 In the 9th verse it teacheth the man of low degree how to carry himself under the burden of his poverty anu want, so as to have an eye to his exaltation; Let the brother of low degree rejoice that he is exalted. Bless God with Job as well when he takes away, as when he gives. God's own dear children are often placed in the lowest forms: but here is their comfort, m●n may be base and low, in a mean▪ and despicable condition in the eye of the world, and yet be high in God's account; who looks not as man looks, man at the habit, God at the heart. Though he be re pauper, spe dives, a poor Christian may be arich Saint: Rich in inward, and spiritual endowments and qualifications, which alone God values. And many times a man hath most of these riches, when he hath least of the others; Peter had no silver nor gold, but he had that power from above to cure the cripple which silver and gold could not 
James 2. 5. Mat. 5. 3.  do. And God (as James saith) hath chosen the poor of the world rich in faith, and heirs of his kingdom. Nay, he must be poor in spirit who expects that kingdom. A poor man may be (nay often is) heir to a heavenly kingdom: If he be as poor in spirit as he is in purse.  
5. It teacheth a man of high degree, a rich man how to carry himself upon his mountain▪ and not to think with Babylon never to be moved and shaken, but in his greatest height and altitude 
Ver. 10. 11.  to think and fear he may be brought down: But let the rich rejoice that he is brought low▪ or made low, because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away: For the sun no sooner riseth with a burning heat but it withereth the grass▪ and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace and fashion thereof perisheth; so also shall, etc. In which two verses we see that all humane things stand upon two lame legs, Incertainty, and Insufficiency, or unsatisfaction. They are uncertain to continue, and unsufficient to content. Their eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing. Again, he that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver: 
Eccles. 2. 8.  They are uncertain too; trust not in uncertain riches but in the living God; and if riches increase set not your hearts upon them. How doth St. James in those two verses shadow out the uncertain and frail condition of all worldly lustre? Even Sceptres and Diadems have their periods, and the greatest Preferments, and Honours upon earth their appointed dates, Empires and Crowns have their mutations and alterations, their trepidations and terminations, and like other inferior bodies their growth, declining and expiring. Two deadly enemies do always attend all earthly Crowns, Death, and Disturbance; the one uncrowns the head, or, the other un-heads the crown. There is nothing permanent, nothing sure or certain under the Sun, nor will be in this wayning, and waxing Moon, until with the true faithful sons of our Mother (the Church) we have this 
Revel. 12. 1, 2.  Moon, this world under our feet, and be clothed with that Sun of righteousness which never sets, and crowned with that Crown which Christ the just Judge shall set upon the head of them which fight his battles, and follow the doctrine of the twelve Apostles (which do indeed embellish that Crown.) Let not the rich therefore grieve or pine that they are brought low; because as the flower of the grass they shall pass away, so easily, and so surely. The lowness of man's mould should therefore take down the highness of his mind; and the consideration of his frail and fading estate, be a strong motive to humility and lowlyness: Neither beauty, nor honour, nor riches, nor pomp, nor power, nor any outward splendour and lustre, should, or do elate a true and wel-grounded Christian, but seriously pondering the vain, frail, and fading condition of all these, he will withdraw his heart from an high esteem of all excellencies and greatness; live in a constant, and continual expectation of, and preparation for a change.  
Note this well I pray you you who pride yourselves in earthly honours, beauties and worldly braveries: All flesh is grass, and the glory, the goodness, the beauty, and comeliness as the flower of the grass. The flower is the beauty of the grass, and beauty and favour are the flowers of the flesh, but both fade 
Note.  and whither. All flesh is so; the fairest, the comeliest, the loveliest, the highest, and strongest, the honourablest: It is not only grass which continueth longest, but as the beauty and flower of the grass which fades soon; for the grass often stands and remains when the flowers are cropped and withered. And it is worth your noting too, to bring you unto the love and longing after another birth, which my Text treats of, How soon the flower fades, withers, and miscarries. The hand crops it, or the worm eats it, or the sun scorcheth it, or the wind blasteth it, or the frost pincheth it, or else those timely and early blossoms fall off of themselves, as May flowers. How soon I pray you do all earthly beauties and honours like flowers fade and whither? Even as soon almost as they are displayed, they do but open and show themselves, and are gone and vanished; just like Jonah's Gourd, doth come up in an night, and withered in a day: The Sun doth but shine, as the Apostle saith, with a scorching heat, and they whither; they, and their riches, and honour, and excellency, and power, pass, and are gone, and that with as easy a turn, and motion of providence as the flower fades. All is vanity, and it were well if men felt not the other, vexation of spirit. This was excellently, and elegantly figured, and shadowed 
Dan. 2. 30, 31.  in Nebuchadnezar's Image, Dan. 2. which had a head of fine gold, and breast and arms of silver, thighs of brass, and legs of iron, but his feet were of dust and clay. The highest, the mightiest, the noblest, the strongest, let them carry their heads never so high with Babel (the hammer of the world) build their nests in the clouds, or higher amongst the stars, and (in vain confidence) boast with her, I sit as a Queen and shall never be moved▪ yet they go● all upon feet of dirt and clay, which will quickly fail them, and lay their honour in the dust: Though they have golden beginnings, and prosperous, and successful proceed, long, and strong continuance, yet these great bodies are mortal too, they go the same way as small ones do, only they make a greater noise in their rise and fall: They have their beginning and ending, their infancy, youth and age, as those great Monarchies had prefigured in that great Image: For God sets them their bounds, as he doth to the sea, which they cannot pass and saith to them (as to that) Hitherto shalt thou come, and no further, here will I stop thy proud waves: But in this new Birth, this Birth from above of which my Text treats, we are begotten from above by a Father to an Inheritance immortal, and undefiled, which fades not away, and to a Kingdom which cannot be shaken, as all worldly Kingdoms are.  
6. In the 12. verse the Apostle shows the happy and blessed 
Ver. 12.  condition of affliction patiently born, they terminate, and end in happiness: In much sufferance is ease, and the Cross leads to the Crown: Affliction and Blessedness do often meet in the same person; an afflicted man is a blessed man, if he despise not the chastening and correction of the Lord, but patiently, and willingly welcome it, with the words of Jerem. It is my sorrow, and I will bear it. Blessed is the man▪ etc.  
The 13, 14, 15, 16 verses set forth unto us the true Father of a false child: The child is sin; the father, with some, is in some controversis: For as notorious, and common Strumpets do some times lay their Bastards at the Church door, so there are some profane, and Atheistical persons which lay their sin and iniquity at heaven gates, and would make God the author of sin: Which the Apostle takes away in the four former mentioned verses: Let no man when he is tempted, say, I am tempted of God; for God tempts no man to evil, neither is tempted: But every man is tempted, etc.  
God is no ways to be thought the Parent of such a base brat: For as Fulgentius, surely Deus non potest esse illius author cujus est ultor; God cannot be the author of that which he is the revenger. To make a hell, and to cast into that hell, stands not with the Nature, Wisdom and Mercy of God: This false, and erroneous opinion the Apostle takes away in the 16 verse; Err not dear brethren. We should be dear to one another, though divided; Dear, and Brethren in affection, though divided in opinion: For, It is a good and joyful thing for etc. But howsoever 
Psal. 13 3.  you err in other things, let not this damnable error so far possess you, as to make God the author of sin. Mistake not so far as to say, Because God concurs in sin, the action of sin, he hath any hand in the evil of it: Nor say, If God would not have me sin, why doth he not hinder me? The action indeed is Gods, because in him we live, move, and have our being: But 
Acts 14.  the evil of the action that is Satan's, and our own. The devil is the father, and sin his own, no other mother than our own lusts. Indeed nothing is so truly ours as our sin, which is evident enough by our cockering of it, and our indulgence over it, and by our lothness to part with it: we dandle it, and hug it, and feed and foster it, and cry with the Harlot, Ne dividatur, Let it not be divided, let that live though said she, although it be an eyesore to God, and a plague-sore to the soul; and if we kill not sin in us, than sin in us will kill us: Yet many men will part from their souls rather than their sin. How comes it else to pass, that Hell hath so many souls, if their sin was not dearer to them than their souls?  
Man is the active author, God the permitter, and sufferer of sin: God sustains the motion of the will, man he defiles, and pollutes the act of willing: God conforms and agrees to the action, men to the pravity and deformity of the action. As darkness necessarily follows when the Sun withdraws his light, and yet the Sun is not the cause of the darkness, but the absence of the light; so when God withdraws his grace sin follows, but not as an effect, the cause, but as a consequent to the Antecedent: Therefore, err not my dear brethren; God is so far from being the author of sin, that he is the fountain and 
August.  original of all graces and virtues. Verse 17. Every good etc. Nostra bona sunt Dei dona; Our goods are from his goodness; they are the enumerations and rays of that Sun of Righteousness. Then comes in the Text; for from whence doth every good and perfect gift proceed, but from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the good will and pleasure of God, which ●s the fountain and original of all Graces and goodness?  
This is the Inference, and Coherence of the words; wherein if I have been too tedious, and entrenched upon your patience: If I have made too long and large an entry or porch to so small a house, pardon my boldness my intent was to bring in my Text in order and method: Let us now look into that house we all desire to be of, and in.  
Of his own will he begat us with the word of truth, that we should be as the first fruits of his creatures. With reflection therefore of your eyes to the 5th verse, which is more remote, especially to the 17th verse, which is more near, and to which indeed the words of my Text have relation: Consider, I pray you▪ that of all those gifts and graces which God of his free love hath given to the children of men; of all those evidences and testimonies of Gods good will and pleasure, of all those divine expr●ssions of his goodness and mercy, this of our New Birth▪ or Birth from above is the greatest, and chiefest. Of our Regeneration I say again, or second Birth: For man in his first birth, Man born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and 
Job 14. 1.  is full of misery. His life (poor man) is not short and sweet, but short and sharp: though he hath want of days, yet he hath store of miseries. And miserable he is, not only in regard of the calamities and sorrows he is born to, but in regard of the sin, and iniquity he is born in: For being first ab immundo conceptus semine, born of unclean seed, and nursed in ● sinful womb, ubi prius incipit macula quam vita, where he is stained and polluted before he be conceived or quickened. How can that be clean which is born of a Woman? I was born in iniquity (saith David) and in sin hath my mother conceived me. As if h● 
Psalm 51. 5.  had said, True it is, O Lord, and I do freely, and feelingly confess it, that I have been overspread with corruption ever si●ce I saw the light: Nay, which is more, no sooner was the substances whereof I was framed and made, warm in my Mother's womb, but I was stained and tainted with original corruption. Therefore v●ry necessary and needful is a new, and another Birth to cover the stains and pollutions of the first, of the old: A second birth to sanctify our first; a birth from above to make holy our natural birth; Regeneration to bless our Generation; as necessary and needful as light is unto darkness, as heaven to the immunity and freedom from hell, as reparation to a ruinous and rotten building, as the soul to give life unto the body. Nay so necessary and needful, that without it we cannot see the Kingdom of God. Verily, verily I say unto you, that I had two births myself, one by an eternal 
Joh. 3. 3.  generation, which no man can declare: Another in the fullness of time being made of a woman, etc. You must have two births too, 
Gal. 4. 4.  one from Heaven, or your earthly and carnal birth can do you no good.  
The Italians have a prudent proverb, it is good to be born● wise, or twice; wise no man can be borne, Ne●● nascitur summus, or sanctus. No man is borne a Saint, but made so, virtus non est ex traduce, goodness is not by generation, it must be therefore by regeneration: Better a thousand times not be borne at all, than not borne again; we shall very bitterly curse the day of our first Birth, if we have not a second. Many solemnize & keep festival their Birthday (which they have little reason to do, if they look upon their Birth-sin.) If their natural condition be considered, they have little cause to rejoice or be merry upon their Birthday, it calls rather to Lamentation or Tears. The new borne Babe seems to cry down that joy and exaltation, who comes crying into a troublesome 
Aust.  world. N●ndum nascitur sed proph●tat, It is the day and blessed time of our New Birth, wherein we should rejoice and be glad, which we should keep holy to the Lord, wherein as in our Baptism (the Laver, and Seal, and Sign of regeneration as in our earthly Registers) our names are written in the book of life, wherein we are borne to live for ever; whereas in our Birth we are damnati antequam nati, damned before we be borne: being filii terrae we are filii irae, we must therefore be renati, if we would not be damnati, renewed and converted, if we will not be condemned.  

Doct.  From which consideration, take this observation and comfortable Doctrine; He that is borne twice, shall die but once, but he that is but once borne shall die twice.  
The second Birth shall free us from the second Death, the first, and none but that, shall make us liable both to the first and to the second death: But what do I say, that the regenerate person the Believer shall die? no, he shall not die at all: Quicunque sermones m●●s custodiverint, etc. Whosoever keeps my say, he shall not taste, he shall not see death. Death may buzz and keep a noise about his ears like an angry Wasp, but he hath lost his sting, the sting was left in Christ Jesus body, he doth victoriously triumph over it; O Death where is thy sting? O Grave, etc. He may exult and rejoice over Death; O Death, my Saviour hath been thy death, and th●u canst not be mine: My Saviour died for me, I cannot die by thee: Christ hath killed thee, and thou canst not kill me; if kill me, not hurt me. I have made my peace with my Judge, and I fear not the Bailie; my Redeemer hath made my peace with my God, and being justified by Faith, I have my Qui●tus est, I have peace with God, and therefore neither Death, nor Hell, nor he that hath the power of both can hurt me; and therefore to every regenerate person I may pronounce that blessing, which Saint John doth, to them that have part in the first resurrection (which is nothing else but regeneration.) Blessed and 
Rev. 20, 6.  holy is he that hath his part in the first resurrection; for on such the second Death shall have no power, but they shall be as Kings and Priests unto God: Of this supernatural and Heavenly B●rth doth this birth treat, and of all the 4. causes thereof. 1. The Formal, 2. The Efficient, 3. The Instrumental, and 4. the Final cause. 1. The formal cause & that is God, progenuit D●●●, God begets us.  
2. The Efficient, that is his will, he begets us of his will; for why he saves one and not another, why he softens this wax upon which he will enstamped his Image, and why he hardens that clay, which he will cast away, there is no reason can be given hereof, but the good pleasure of his will; Rom. 9 18. He will have mercy, etc.  
3. The Instrumental cause is verbum veritatis, the word of truth, called so for 4. Reasons. 1. Because it hath God, the God of Truth for its Author. 2. Because it hath Christ the Truth itself, for its Witness: 3. Because it hath the Spirit of Truth for its composer; and 4. Because it teacheth all truth, and leads into all truth: I will pray to the Father, and he shall send the spirit of truth, which shall lead or guide you into all truth.  
This word of Truth is the seed of our New Birth, By the grace of God, saith Paul, I have begotten you by the Gospel, where you have again the instrument, the means and the Author, the Instrument, I Paul for though you have ten thousand instructors, I am your Father in Christ, & ●.  
The means, the Gospel or Word, the Author Christ Jesus, whose word it is, and who himself is the supreme work in our regeneration.  
Then fourthly, here is the final cause why we are regenerate and borne again to b● holy and sanctified, to be as the first fruits of his Creatures, i. e. that as amongst the Jews in the Law, the first fruits were consecrate and set apart for God, so regenerate persons and believers amongst and above all others are sequestered and set apart for the services and purposes of God; and this end and effect of Regeneration, shows the Honour and Dignity, the privilege and prerogatives of the sons of God, as you shall here anon; otherwise as in other Births, so in this you may please to observe 4. things more. 1. Partus. 2. Vterus. 3. Semen. And 4. Fructus. The Birth, the Womb, the Seed, and the Fruit.  

1. Partus.  The Birth, and that is a holy Birth, prog●nuit Deus, God begets us. The Spirit of the Almighty over-shadowing the Soul, as it did the Body of the Virgin Mary, sanctifies it, and begets a new Creature; for as Christ was conceived by the holy Ghost, so must every Christian be.  

2. Vterus.  The Womb, and that is a holy Womb too, the Womb of the Morn, as David calls it, the dew of thy Birth is etc. or 
Psal. 110 3.  thy Birth from the Womb is as the morning dew, (a holy transposition of the words) which enlivens and exhilarates all things, 
Dr. Andr.  refreshes and renews them.  

3. Semen.  Here is Semen, the S●ed, and that is a holy seed too, We are borne, saith the Apostle, not of mortal, but immortal, not of corruptible but incorruptible seed, even of the word, etc. 1 Pet. 1. 23. A seed which Saint Paul calls living, both because it quickens them that are dead in sins and trespasses, and because it makes us heirs of eternal life. 
Note.  A seed clean contrary to humane seed, for as that begets sinful man, this kills him.  

4. Fructus.  Lastly, here is Fructus the fruit, and that is a holy and heavenly fruit too; for being regenerate and borne again unto God We have, as the Apostle saith, our fruit unto holiness, and the end is everlasting life, Rom. 6. 21.  
Thus we see in part, the nature, manner, causes, ●ff●ct, and end of our New Birth, or Birth from above.  
This unto flesh and blood seems very strange; tell the natural man of his regeneration, and new Birth, that he must of necessity be borne again, and you speak to him a parable and mystery. You can never fasten any thing upon him, but what is made evident by demonstration: He will not believe that he sees not, and therefore certainly he shall never see that which he cannot or will not believe: As Nic●d●●us before his conversion hearing Christ speak of the necessity of Regeneration, he makes it a matter of impossibility; How can a man be borne when he is old, can he enter into his Mother's womb and be borne against. A strange, nay, an impossible thing he thinks it is, to be borne again, by the word or spirit of God: Words thinks he, may beget words (as they do too often) but not creatures. And that Posthumus should be Primitiae, the last creature made the first fruits, this seems altogether impossible: But Faith is not captivated to sense, it exceeds reasons limits, it is not the Natural, but the Spiritual man. Nor the Natural but Spiritual eye, which discerns how God is our Father.  
Indeed many ways doth the Lord challenge unto himself this loving attribute of Paternity and Fatherhood, but principally three: 1. By Creation, 2. By Regeneration, and 3. Adoption; Between which there are these differences in our Creation.  
1. We were filii facti, made Sons; In our regeneration we are filii geniti, begotten Sons.  
2. Our Creation, that was out of God's council, Faciamus hominem, let us make man after our Image.  
Our regeneration, that is, out of his will, voluntariè nos genuit.  
3. In our Creation; Dixit Dens & formati sumus, God spoke the word, and we were form and made; in our Regeneration, Operatur Spiritus Sanctus & reformati sumus, God's spirit works, and we are reform, remade.  
4. In our Creation he gave us ourselves; in our regeneration, he gave himself for us, his life for us: He gave his soul a sacrifice for sin, that he might see his seed, Esay. 53. 10.  
Our Creation as I hinted, cost him but a few words, he spoke and we were made, he commanded and it was effected: But our Redemption through his blood, cost him many words and blows, many wounds and sufferings, that he might see his seed he made his soul an offernig for sin; He took upon him our sins that we might be taken for Sons.  
We were lost in Adam, by our generation in Adam we all die, but in Christ we are all made alive.  
We fell in Adam, and his fall hath wounded and bruised us, but Christi liv●r● sanati sumus, by Christ's stripes we are healed. A strange way to be healed by wounding. To kill the Physician to recover the Patient: That God should die, to preserve man from death: To tame a Lion, they say they beat a Dog, but here the Lion is beaten for the Dog, the Lord for the Servant, he humbled himself and took our nature upon him, to sanctify, nay to glorify our Nature, in which nature he suffered, for this only end, to make us accepted; Ideo filius Dei factus est homo, ut homines faceret filios Dei, Therefore was the Son of God made the son of Man, that the Sons of Men might be made the sons of God. Behold then and admire what love the Father hath showed unto us, that we should be thus made and called the Sons of God, 1 Joh. 3. 1.  

1. 'Cause the Formal cause.  But to proceed in order: I will begin with the first cause of our Regeneration: The formal cause; God.  
Progenuit Deus, God begets us: And the word the Apostle useth here to beget is worth your serious observation: it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, peperit, a word which the Learned give to the soul as well as unto the body, to the spirit as well as to the flesh of man: For we must understand that the soul and spirit of man hath its birth and children, as well as the flesh and body:  
As for example: Memory that is the birth of the Brain, thoughts they are the birth of the Heart, and Grace that is the child of the Spirit; I, and there are dolours and pangs, tribulations and sorrows, throbs and throws, gripes and convulsions in this our second Birth, as many (if not more) and as great (nay greater) than in our first. 
Note.  The mourning weed, the melting eye, the pale countenance, the voice of lamentation, the broken heart, the contrite spirit: Marry Magdalen's tears, Jerusalem's sighs and groans, who wept continually in the night, with David, who washed his bed, and watered his couch with his tears; Jacob's wrestling; Paul's combat, and complaint, Miserable man that I am, who, etc. (It being as painful for a man to be delivered of his sin as ever it was for a poor, wracked mother to be delivered of her burden) that judgement being laid upon our Spiritual conception, which was upon our Natural, I will greatly multiply the sorrows of thy conception, in labour, and sorrow, etc. All these doth the Lord cause, and raise in a man before this new man can be conceived in him, or born of him. When the eyes are red with tears, and the heart doth ache with groans, when the soul and body like the Virgin Mary's is ready to be divided as with a sword: when with David we roar and cry for the very disquietness of our hearts; with Rebecca feeling the old man and the new, ●s she did Jacob and Esau struggling in her womb, we cry out, Why am I thus? when with the woman in the Rev. 12. we cry out, and are pained, ready to be delivered; the great red Dragon striving to hinder our conversion, as he did her conception; Then, then doth this New man begin to conceive and quickend: For as no birth of the creature can be without sorrow, and pain, No death without dolour, no incision, or cutting of the flesh without sharp, bitter, or grievous dolours: So cannot the heart be circumcised, our regeneration or new birth effected without much grief and anguish of spirit. You know that the Babe that hath lain but nine months in the Mother's womb cannot be born without sharp pain, & doth any Christian think to be rid of his sin, in which he was conceived and born, which also hath conceived and bred in him, and which he hath nourished and fostered many years in his bowels, without great dolour and sorrows? No, no, but as Pharaoh then burdened, and t●xed the Israelites soarest when they were near their deliverance out of his bondage: And as the dumb Devil then vexed and tore the young man most, when our Saviour was ready to cast him out; So Satan always troubles the Godly most uncessantly and grievously when their deliverance from his bondage is nearest: and as St. John saith, Hath greatest wrath because he knows his time is but short. Which doctrinal Observation hath a threefold Application.  
1. It may comfort the dear children of God when they feel such inward pains and dolours, and assure them they are but the sanctified troubles of conscience, and the pangs of their New Birth; and therefore not to faint or be discouraged though they feel them in a plentiful manner: And if man never feel these sorrows, nor are acquainted with this bitterness of spirit, with this contrite heart, with these wrestle and fightings: If the New man and Old, the Flesh and Spirit never make a mutiny, nor are together by the ears in the members; If they find not the law of the members rebelling against the law of the mind (for they be these inward Civil Wars which make the best Reformation) surely the Enemy possesses all, all being in p●ace always, and such may fear they are not yet in the state of Regeneration. 
Fortier est qui se, etc.  And though fears and faintings, diffidences and doubtings, these inward terrors and sorrows be found and felt in a plentiful manner, the heart is not to be cast down, nor the spirit to be disquieted (although disquieted) for as I said, these pains and pinch, and contractions of heart, are but the pangs and throws of the New Birth, these tears, and gemitus columbini, Dovelike chatterings are sure evidences of a supernatural conception: for Satan's closest, and hottest, and fiercest siege is ever laid to the Castle of the most rich and precious souls.  
Secondly; It is a note of Instruction to such as think the work of their conversion to be an easy work, or such a work as may be effected with peace and pleasure (whereas that sin that was contracted with peace and pleasure must ever be dissolved with pain) Conversion is called the difficult work of Faith, and the duty of Christianity, a working out of our salvation with fear and trembling (and fear hath pain) a very hard and difficult work it is; For there must be a cutting off the right hand, and a pulling out the right eye, casting away those sins and pleasures which are most dear and near unto us. H●re must be leaving and forsaking Father and Mother, Wife and Children, Brethren and Sisters, Lands and Live, renouncing all dearest, and nearest relations, abandoning all cou●ses which have been pleasurable and profitable to us, and cleaving close to Christ and his Faith and Truth; according to St. Hieroms stout and Christian resolution; If my Mother that bore me hung about my neck weeping and wi●ling if my Brethren stood about me beseeching me to continue in my wicked course of life, I would cast my Mother to the ground, I would tread and trample upon my brethren to serve my Lord and Master; I would leave and contemn all to enjoy him; For he that loveth Father and Mother more than me is not worthy of me.  
Thirdly, it is a note of confutation and reproof to them who think they can by their own power and strength induce or incline their hearts to grace and goodness; We cannot reform ourselves: Indeed easily enough (God knows) we did, and do deform ourselves, but none but God can reform us: It is Gods only proper and peculiar work to regenerate and reform▪ By him we are renewed into our first image. Non● can change the heart but he that made the heart; none but the hand that made us can mend us. It is God's work, and it is marvellous in our ●yes, or should be so. It is he that brings to the birth, and gives strength to bring forth: For, Shall I cause others to bear, saith God, and myself remain barren? No, I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh▪ etc. I● is God that worketh in us to will and to do● of his good pleasure: It is he that doth create in us new hearts▪ and renews right spirits within us, Dabo illis cor novum, I will give them a new heart and spirit, and cause them to walk in my statutes. It is not in the power of man to add one cubit to his spiritual stature, to make a hair white which is black: Far less can he change his heart to make that clean which is foul, holy which is unholy, and naturally the sink of sin and all uncleanness. It is from God we become his Sons: He sends his spirit into our hearts, his spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father, Rom. 8. 15. But Adoption is where there is no geniture or begetting, that doth filium facer●, not gign●r●: It makes a son, it begets none, it is not after likeness but liking; it is not of nativity but nuncupation▪ Adoption, that is God's acceptation of sons: Generation is the impression of the Image God in those sons adopted. Now Generation is twofold, according to Nature, and according to Grace: According to Nature, and so Christ alone is the natural begotten Son of God: According to Grace, and so every man is his son: Obedience to God's Commandments, conformity to his will be apparent Testimonies of our Sonship. To as many as b●le●v● his word to them he giveth power to be the Sons of God.  
From that that hath been spoken arise two general propositions to be spoken of out of the first cause of Regeneration. 

1. That the state of a Christian is a new Gen●niture and Birth.  
2. That God himself is the author and cause of this Birth.    
1. That the state of a Christian is a new Geniture and birth: Whosoever is in Christ, is a new, or another creature.  
Poets feign of Baccbus, that he was the son of Semele, and the son of Jupiter, of Semele an earthly Woman, and of Jupiter a God. And Plautus writes of Hercules, that he was the son of Amphitruo, and so mortal; and the son of Jupiter, and so immortal: What was but feigned in them, is true in us. In every Regenerate man, there are two men:  
The first is from the earth, earthly, as St. Paul speaks, and so he may say to corruption, thou art my father, and to the worm, thou art my sister and mother. The second is from heaven, and so he may call God Father, and hath full interest and power to call Christ his elder brother: Being the first born amongst many brethren.  
2. In our first birth we are born men by the will of men; In our second birth we are begotten Christians by the will of God.  
In our first birth our mortal fathers beget us to succeed them; we are born to die: In our second our immortal Father begets us to live and abide with him forever.  
In our first birth our Fathers must die before we the sons can inherit. In our second the children must die before they can obtain their heavenly Father's Inheritance.  
3. In our first birth we are conceived and born in sin, and so by nature are children of wrath. In our second we are the workmanship of God, created in Christ to good works, and so consequently the heirs of grace and glory: In a word, a double Pedigree is in every Saint, one of mortality, another of eternity. Cum peccatorem dico duo dico, saith St. Austin, when I speak of sinner, I mean two men, a sinner and a Saint, a man, and a Christian man: One born after the flesh, called the old man, another after the spirit, called the new.  
From which Doctrine arise three considerations, or observations. 

1. The verity and truth of our new birth.  
2. The similitudes and likenesses between our first and second birth.  
3. The eminency and dignity of a Christians new birth.    
1. The verity and truth of our new birth: We are as truly said to be renati, as nati, born again, as born at all. For if the wicked be damna●i antequam nati, damned before they be born; is it a harder thing, being once born, to be born again? Surely in sense and reason it is harder far to make something of nothing, then to make that better which was something. It is as easy to mend as to make, especially when God is the workman; else it is a great deal easier to mar then to make or mend: Difficilius est struere quam distruere. I know (as I said before) that this unto flesh and blood seems very strange, because the natural man's faith goes not beyond his eye: But (as a Father well notes) If in the second resurrection (the raising of the body out of the grave) God can restore that which was consumed to nothing, and make it a more perfect and sound body then ever it was. Surely in the first resurrection from sin to grace, he can renew and reform that body and soul which he first made and inspired, and he that first created them, can renew and amend them.  
Strange it seems to the eye of reason, but consider the agent, and the wonder will cease: Ille suscitabit te qui creavit te, saith the Father; Ille reformabit qui formavit te, say I, ille reficiet te qui fecit te: he that form thee▪ will reform thee; he that made thee will mend thee: Reason sees not this. But ubi ratio desinit, fides incipit, where reason ends, faith gins, and therefore crede quod non vides, & videbis quod non credes; Believe what you see not, and you shall one day see what you would not believe. But is there no Sun, because he that wants his sight sees it not▪ so is there no regeneration or new birth, because the carnal man wants faith, which is the souls eye▪ by which it is discerned. Stephen when he was going to be stoned, he saw Christ sitting at the right hand of his Father (which none of his persecutors could do) In like manner the regenerate man (even in his most heavy afflictions, and at the point of death he) sees how God is his Father, which the natural man cannot see, because it is spiritually discerned.  
But since the knowledge of regeneration is so needful, and the work so secret and mystical, how may any Christian know that he is regenerate, and what are the truest signs and evidences thereof? For the first who require and request to be instructed and taught in this saving doctrine; and which the Disciples demand what is the meaning of this Parable? I answer, First by defining, secondly by showing the evidences and infallible signs and tokens of it. Regeneration then is this; It is the change of the whole man from one thing to another, the change of the body and soul from sin to sanctification, from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God, Acts 26. 18. It is a Sanctifying throughout, as St. Paul speaks, Now the very God of peace, etc. But not any ways to confound Regeneration with Sanctification (for that may be a mistake) Regeneration is defined by the Learned to be this, It is an act or work of God's wonderful power, begetting the elect by the Ministry of the word (through the operation of the spirit of God) that of children of wrath by the desert of sin, we are by grace made the sons and daughters of God; or more briefly, It is a grace of God whereby the corruption of nature in believers is daily renewed to the image of G●d; it is I say again, a grace of God, 1 Pet. 1. 3. Who according to his abundant grace hath begotten us to a lively hope, by which (corruption of nature (for that is the proper object of it, called in Scripture the old man, or flesh) is renewed▪ which is a word of religion opposed to the old corruption drawn from the old Adam (for so is the new birth by the spirit opposed to the old birth by the flesh, John 3.) to the image of God, see Phil 3. 10.  
Again, the word (renewed) importeth a complete work upon the whole subject; for as in the birth of a child, not one part, or more parts and members, but the whole child is born; so is this new birth, the whole man is born again; as we are sanctified (and as David prays to be purged and washed) so we are regenerate throughout, the whole man must be a new creature (for whosoever is in Christ is so) which is not the framing of something out of something, but of something out of nothing. And I pray you consider, that as in every mutation and change, one thing removes, and another succeeds. So in this generation or new birth, one thing comes in the room of another; and in this birth from above, one thing dies which is corrupt nanture, which must die, or we must die (if we kill not the sin in us, the sin in us will kill us.) (This is called the old man) that which is changed, renewed, and quickened, is the new man, and therefore whosoever is in Christ will put off the old man which is corrupt through deceivable lusts, and will put on the new, which after Christ is created in righteousness and true holiness True holiness, note the word, for there is great emphasis in the word true, and a great deal of feigned and false holiness in the world. The Axiom of the Politician being too much in request, Religio ad morem non ad rem attinet. True religion is for the manners, not for the main, 'tis something for his credit, nothing for his profit, Machiavels lesson is learned over and over, the show of goodness and virtue is profitable and needful, but the use and practise a trouble, it doth aggravare animam, burden the soul, and hinder men's projects too much. Beloved, it will ask a long time, and much labour in many, to unlearn those two Lessons. But this let me tell them who live by them, Dediscere quod malum est, est doctrina optimo. To unlearn what is evil, is the best learning; and without all question, Piety is the best Policy; or as a King once said, Honesty is the best Policy; and as David, though a man after Gods own heart, saith that the best wisdom is to be wise to salvation; The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, a good understanding have they that do thereafter. A man never gins to be intelligent until he gins to be obedient, and the best plot is to save a soul, to lose which, he that knew the price of souls well tells us, the gain or purchase of the whole world cannot recompense; he that to gain the whole world would lose his soul, makes but an unwise bargain; which bargain was wise enough, were not the poorest despised soul of a greater value, the regenerate and true Christian knows the value and worth of his soul and therefore desires to be renewed in the spirit of his mind, and he desires to know what the good and acceptable mind or will of God is.  
And indeed in the mind, or spirit of the mind, the work of regeneration is first wrought; as God in the creation began first with the light, Fiat lux, Let there be light: so in our new creation he gins with illumination, he first strikes up one light into the mind, and they that were once darkness, are now light in the Lord Christ Jesus, speaking to the mind and understanding, as he did once to the blind man in the Gospel, Ephatha, be opened, and this new created light instantly banisheth all the darkness of the mind and understanding (blinded before by the god of the world) as the rising of the Sun dispels all fogs and mists, and as the Apostle speaks in another place, Phil. 3. 10. He presently puts off the old man with his deeds, and puts on the new man, which is created in knowledge after the image of God: Oportet enim eum qui alteram vitam incepturus est pecori fineas imponere: It behoves him who is beginning a new life, to put an end to the old.  
And give me leave I pray you a little seriously and earnestly to insist upon this Point, this saving Point.  
Conceive I pray you that to be regenerate and new born, to be a new creature, or as my Text saith, the first fruits of God's creatures, is not to become new in substance, but in qualities, and doth not consist in multiplying bodies by generation, but in changing of souls or minds into a new form: For non nascimur, sed nascimur Christiani nec tam generatio quam regeneratio spectanda est: We are not born, but we are made Christians; neither is generation so much regarded as regeneration, because in our new or second birth we are not made the sons of man, but the sons of God.  
As when the spirit of magnanimity and valour, and Princely Government came upon Saul, it carved him into a new man.  
So when the spirit of sanctification and holiness descends upon any, it quite changes and turns them into new creatures, it makes them, as we say, new men, and they will answer their former sins and pleasures, their wanton and vain dalilah's, with whom they have formerly spent too much of their precious time, as that young Convert answered his enticing and tempting Mrs▪ soliciting him to their wont folly, Ego non sum ego, I am not I, I am not what I was, I was not what I am; he was changed in his mind, or his mind was changed in him. They will resolve with St. Peter's converts, The former part of our time, or the time passed of our lives, is enough to have spent, or rather misspent after the lusts of the Gentiles, we will spend the rest of our time to the honour and glory of him that died for us. Beloved Christians, thus is a man in his regeneration converted and changed quite and clean into another man, as Christ when he gave sight to the blind man in the Gospel, he made him no new eyes, but gave sight and light to them he had, and as when he raised Lazarus and the widow's son, one out of his grave, another going to it, he created no new bodies, but put life and spirit into the sad.  
So in our regeneration and new birth, God makes us no new souls or bodies, but renews, reforms, amends, and changes them we have. He takes not the eyes out of our heads, but the vanity, lust, and sin of the eyes, moving us inwardly to make a covenant with our eyes, not to look upon any tempting object, and we will pray earnestly with David, Turn away mine eyes lest they behold vanity; and indeed David might well pray to God to turn away, open, or amend his eyes, for both were naught▪  
One was bloudshot with the murder of Vriah, and the other had Bathsheba the Pearl in it; and indeed occuli sunt in amore deuces, as in love, so in lust, the eyes are as leaders or windows to let sin into the soul, Eve saw the beauty of the fruit before she lusted after it, and Achan the wedg of gold, and the Babylonish garment before he c●veted it.  
Not our ears but the pravity and sin of our ears, the deafness and dulness thereof; and to say truth, the first sense sanctified in our regeneration, is the sense of hearing, because it was the first that was corrupted; our first parents by harkening and listening what the Serpent said, were brought into a love and liking of sin, and a regenerate Christian by hearing what the spirit saith, is brought into an hatred and detestation of sin: These are the senses of discipline and knowledge, therefore of▪ grace: God opens our ears before he opens our eyes, if we will not hear God, we shall never see him: The ear is the principal sense sanctified to receive spiritual and saving instructions, as you may read in the Proverbs; and St. Paul makes it an impossible thing to believe, if we will not hear: The speech of Lactantius is worth the noting and quoting too, Plus est in auribus quam in oculis situm quoniam doctrina & sapientia percipi auribus s●lis potest occulis solis non potest. The Lord gins his Sermons to his people, Hear o Israel, Deut. 6. and upon the condition of hearing and harkening, all blessings are promised, If thou wilt hearken unto my Commandments, all these benefits or blessings shall overtake thee. And when God had sent his Son (whom he promised long before to send) the great Doctor and Preacher of his Church. All the entertainment and receipt of him all the reverence and respect called for, is but audience, ipsum audite: Hear him, Hear my beloved sons, and it will make you sons dearly beloved, Mat. 17.  
Hear then and your souls shall live. If the Prophet should bid thee do some great matter, says Naaman's servant to his Master, wouldst thou not do it to be cleansed of thy Leprosy, muchless when he bids thee but wash and be clean (when he went away in a puff and snuff (as too many do from the saving word) So if God should command us (and we his poor Ministers beseech you in his name) to do some greater matters than we do, would you not do them to save your precious souls? muchless would we hear and be happy, Hear and our souls shall live; hear him here, whom we desire to see hereafter. Beloved, auditus est gradus ad visum: Hearing is a degree to seeing; if we will not hear God, we shall never see him; and therefore as John the Divine exhorts like a Divine, so do I, but in his words, He that hath an ear let him hear, and he that will not hear what the Church, saith, let him be anathema, accursed.  
Indeed, omnis habent aures audiendi pauci, obediendi: All have ears to hear with, but few to obey with, ears of attention, with Samuel, Speak Lord, for thy servant heareth; or like David, I will hear what the Lord will say unto me; or with Mary, who sat at Christ's feet to hear his Preaching, or like the Spouse in the Canticles, Hark, it is the voice of wellbeloved.  
We see in my Text, what an honour and dignity God hath put upon his word, to beget us to himself; of his own will he begets us with the word of truth; and shall not we willingly give it the hearing? The Apostle in the next verse makes the only use and application of the Doctrine and lesson here taught. Since the word of truth is the seed of our new birth, therefore let every man be swift to hear, of a tractable, docible, and meek spirit, ready to wait upon God in his Ordinances, and to receive with meekness the ingra●fed word, which being so received, is able to save the soul, Jam. 1. 21.  
Again, God takes not the tongue out of our heads, but he takes away the sin and iniquity of the tongue (within a man unregenerate, is a world of wickedness (as St. James saith) The world is not fuller of wickedness, than the tongue of sin, if unreformed; he takes away therefore in our regeneration, and pulls out the venom and sting, and violence of the tongue (which is indeed a small member, but doth great mischief, blasphemies, oaths, rail, revile, curses, imprecations, lies, perjuries, dissimulation, all corrupt communication, filthy and frothy speeches, which are not once to be named amongst Saints.  
And as the holy Ghost when he came down upon the Apostles, they spoke with new tongues (as the spirit gave them utterance) So whom the holy spirit sanctifies and regenerates, it gives a new and another language, and though it gives them no new tongues, yet it gives the tongues they have a new dialect, their tongues are touched with a coal from God's Altar, neither have the gift given them of praising God, and speaking well of their neighbour: As the regenerate person will not listen to false tales, or tale-bearers, which are flabellum Diaboli & flagellum justi, the Devils Bellows, and the Saints scourges (for the tongue kills more than the sword, the sword of the mouth, more than the mouth of the sword) as he will not receive a false report against his neighbour (as David speaks, and makes one of the ten notes of a righteous man, of a Citizen of heaven;) So he will not rashly nor hastily judge him before he know him, or hear him speak, knowing that he that carries a false report, and he that receives and believes it, the one carries the Devil in his tongue, the other in his ears: And therefore they which are born from above, will set a watch before their mouths, and guide the door of their lips, as the Kingly Prophet saith, They will take heed to their ways that they offend not in their tongue, and they will utterly purpose that their mouth shall not offend. They will therefore open their mouths with wisdom, and guide their words with discretion, as Solomon speaks of the good housewife, as she will keep herself, so she will keep her words at home within her own doors: The tongue indeed hath a double hedge, teeth and lips, to show it should not easily or commonly straggle or wander, or run over. The law of grace, as Paul saith▪ will be in the lips of the righteous▪ his mouth will show forth Gods praise▪  
'Tis worth noting, that David will take heed to his ways, that he offend not in his tongue; intimating, that the safety and security of a man's ways of his whole life and conversation consists much in the government of his tongue: Qu● facile violate, quae facile volat, as easily sins as moves, and it moves often too easily, no arrow or bullet out of a gun, or bow▪ wounds more speedily or quickly, or pierceth more deeply or deadly, than a tongue primed with the powder, and set on fire with the fire of hell. And therefore James tells us, that he is a perfect man (that is) in a great part regenerate, that can rule it; for it is the opinion of a Father, That half the sins committed in the world, are committed through the licentiousness and unrulines of the tongue. Qu●tidiana fornax is humana lingua, The tongue of evil men is a continual Furnace wherein the names of righteous men are tried. And therefore to end this point, The government of the tongue is an infallible note and evidence of some progress and perfection in grace: But a regenerate heart, and a wicked tongue, a sanctified heart, and a virulent, venomous, blasphemous tongue, never go together: For if the spring or fountain the heart, be clear and pure, needs must the streams be so; for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. When Socrates would know the disposition and condition of one that came to be his Scholar, he bid him speak that all might know him: Sermo virum indicat, the speech shows the man, it is animi index, the interpreter of the mind.  
We may easily know what is in the heart▪ by that which comes out of the mouth: He is of Galilee, saith the girl of Peter, for his speech bewrayeth him: A man is easily discerned by his language what Countryman he is, of Canaan, or Ashdod.  
Certainly beloved, a stinking and strong breath doth not more evidently declare ill lungs, and corrupt inwards, then evil language an evil liver; Metals are known by their tinkling and sound, and men by their tunes, and tongues, by their languages.  
This is very certain, God's children have always Godly language, and their speeches and words are seasoned with wisdom as with salt, as St▪ Paul saith (For wisdom seasons our actions; as salt doth our meat) their words ever tend to edification, to the building up their brethren in the faith of Christ.  
In a word, in the work of regeneration, God takes not the heart out of our bodies, but he takes corruption out of our hearts: He heals by his spirit and grace, that deadly and poisoned fountain, as Elisha by his handful of salt cured the unwholesome waters of Jericho: And indeed their sanctification and regeneration begin ever: As Nature in forming, so grace in reforming gins at the heart, and makes a through change there; as when the Adulterer and Fornicator becomes chaste, and considers that his body is, or aught to be, the Temple of the holy Ghost, and therefore not be made a stable for Bacchus, or a s●ew for Venus, but to be preserved in purity, in holiness, and honour, and not in the lust of concupiscence, as the heathen which knew not God, abstaining from all appearance of evil, not entertaining lust into his heart by any inordinate desires, Mat. 5. 26. Nor into his eye by wanton and lascivious looks (for you shall read in 2 Pet. 1. 14. of eyes full of Adultery, or the Adulterers) nor into the tongue by filthy and rotten speech, nor by any means into the act by committing that great wickedness, as Joseph calls it, Gen. 39 and therefore will daily sweeten and perfume this Temple of God with the incense of prayer and supplication, watering it often with the unfeigned tears of contrition and sorrow with David (that devout penitent) who made his bed to swim, and watered his couch with his tears, and sweeping it with the bosom of repentance, leaving no foul corner or spider's web within the heart or house.  
2. When he considers, that in other sins a man may peccare, and perire solus, sin and perish alone, but in this sin of uncleanness, he carries company to hell with him.  
3. That the arms and lips of a harlot are like the Iron Idol, which crushed the cursed sacrifice to pieces; or like the Ivy which embracing the Tree, kil● it.  
4. That in these sins, he sins, first against God the Father who created him in holiness and righteousness, and in that manner to serve him. Secondly, against Christ the son which redeemed him by the inestimable price of his most precious blood, and to this end he redeemed him that he might glorify him in his soul and body, who had redeemed both. 3. That it is against the spirit of Christ, which is a pure and clean spirit; and none but the pure in heart shall see God.  
5. That it is against our reasonable service of God, for in all reason we should make them the members of righteousness which are thus redeemed, and give up ourselves, souls and bodies, a living sacrifice unto God, which is our reasonable service of him, glorify him both in our souls and bodies, which hath redeemed both.  
6. That it is against our Covenant in our baptism, and against our calling, for having as the Apostle saith, such precious promises, as to be called the sons and daughters of God, we should cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, 2 Cor. 6. last c. 1. and perfect holiness in the fear of God.  
7. Lastly, that it is against a man's own body, which no other sins are, and gives a deep stain and blemish, not only to his own name, but to the name of his seed: and that they that do such things shall not enter into the Kingdom of God. But the fire of lust shall have the fire of hell, and the sins of uncleanness, shall be punished in Gehinom, a place of unbelievers: Secondly when the glutton and intemperate person puts a knife to his throat, as Solomon adviseth, moderateness, and restraining his appetite in full provocations, remembering even that moderate precept of St. Paul, Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever else ye do, do all to the glory of God, 1 Cor. 10. 31.  
3. When the drunkard becomes civil and sober, walking honestly as in the day, not in surfeiting or drunkenness, accounting them dear pleasures which we repent on the morrow, and remembering that saying of the Poet, If the pains and aching, and grief of the head came before drinking, as they come after, no man would be drunk. If the Rheums, Catarrhs, Apoplexes, Dropsies, and infinite other Diseases, the natural offspring of that unnatural sin were considered, no man would exceed.  
Fourthly, When the covetous and worldly man, who made his money his God, and gain his godliness, the tenacious and griping miser is become merciful and liberal, and of a lover of the world, a lover of God and his word, and concludes that godliness is the best gain, having the promises of this life, and of that which is to come, and trusts to that word of truth, primum quaerite, regnum coeli, etc. First seek the Kingdom of God, etc.  
Caetera aut aderunt aut non oberunt, other things shall not be wanting, or if they be, the want of them shall not hurt us: For if we have not wealth, the riches of the world, we shall have contentation and patience, the riches of the mind: For he is not rich that hath much, but he that is contented with that he hath.  
5. When the envious and malicious man is become loving and charitable, considering that God is love, and the more loving any man is, the liker God; that envy and malice are the very characters of the Devil (you are of your Father the Devil, saith Christ's to the envious Jews) for his works ye do.  
6. When the angry, froward, and wrathful man is become meek and patiented, possessing his soul in patience, in the midst of the greatest troubles, knowing that by faith we possess Christ, by love, our brethren, but by patience ourselves, that anger resteth and abideth in the bosom of fools, and suffers not therefore the sun to go down in his wrath, remembering that he which sleepeth in anger or malice, hath the devil for his bedfellow; is therefore slow to anger and wrath, considering well that the wrath of man doth not accomplish the righteousness of God, v. 20.  
7. When the proud man is become lowly and humble, knowing that God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble; that the meek shall possess the earth, and the humble God will teach his ways, that they are they shall find rest to their souls. That pride cast the Angels out of heaven, Adam and Eve out of Paradise, the King of Babel out of his name and nature, and therefore cannot bring any man to heaven; for humility goes before honour; but pride goes before a fall: Humilitas claritatis meritum, claritas humilitatis praemium: Humility is the desert of glory, glory the reward of humility: si vis capere celsitudinem Dei prius cape humilitatem Dei. In a word, when every sin doth return as he is commanded from his evil way, doth cease to do evil, and learn to do good, when in a holy anger and indignation that they have been the servants of sin so long; they cast off their old Livery of sin, as blind Bartemeus cast off his old Cloak, and with Ephraim, smite upon their thigh, ask and enquiring, what have we done, wretch as I am, I am in way to be undone? when he smites upon his breast with the Publican (his breast the ark and chest of all iniquity) and in faith and feeling cries out, Lord be merciful to me a sinner, when weary of his sinful course, he doth resolve with the prodigal, to leave it and return home to his Fathers, with words of unfeigned sorrow and contrition, I will go to my Father, a happy thing we have a Father to go to, and such a father, tampater nemo.  
When with Eliphas in Job, a man seriously resolves, and resolvedly purposes, If I have done wickedly, I will do no more (which was the caveat Christ gave to them he healed) considering that Inanis est paenitentia quam sequens culpa coinquinat, That true repentance is not only a repentance for sin, but a repentance from sin, as the Apostle calls it, Repentance from dead works, then is this great work wrought, this man is a new creature.  
2. To assure ourselves that we are regenerate and born of God, observe farther, that as Elizabeth, John the Baptists mother did assure herself that she was with child, when she felt the babe to leap and spring in her womb.  
So when we find our wills conformable to Gods will, when it is our meat and drink to do our heavenly Father's will, when we are ready to answer to the call of every heavenly motion, as the echo to the voice of man, and answer with Samuel, Speak Lord, thy servant heareth. With David, It is written I should do thy will, I am content to do it, O my God, thy Law is in my heart. When the word of God is to us as it was to him, our longing and our love, this is a sure evidence of our new birth; for where there is a new birth, there will be a new life; where there is a spiritual and heavenly birth, there will be a spiritual and heavenly life, if we be born of God, we will with Enoch walk with God, and will be followers of God as dear children. The natural child, they say, lives not until forty five days after the conception be expired; but the regenerate and newborn Christian gins to live assoon as he is conceived, there will no longer be a life led after the will of the flesh, or of our own lusts, but after the will of God, and the will of God is our holiness.  
He that is born from above, will resolve to spend the remainder of his short time to the honour of him that died for him, and it will appear whose heeiss by a life led in holiness and righteousness, in faith and a good conscience, he will walk worthy of the calling whereunto he is called, and will say with David when he was moved to some undecent and uncivil action: Is it nothing to be son in Law to a King? If we be the sons of God, our carriage and conversation will be according; Our light will so shine before men, etc. Mat. 5. 14:  
God begets to holiness and righteousness, and by this heavenly generation we are made partakers of the Divine nature, having escaped the corruption which is in the world through lust.  
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, We are the offspring of God, and therefore the life led after our conversion, is called the life of God, to which the unregenerate are strangers. And it is called the life of Christ too; now that is after my conversion, I live no longer, but Christ liveth in me, 1 Cor. 4. He that is God's son, will do Gods work, and the work of God is constant and universal obedience.  
A second note and evidence of our regeneration is, a through change and reformation of heart and life. The new man is of a renewed mind, old things will be cast away, and all things will become new, he will cleanse himself from all wickedness of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.  
1. As first, there will be a new light struck up into the mind and understanding, they will be illuminated to conceive the things which be of God (which the natural man cannot do) as the further obduration or occecation, and banding of a man is the note and sign of a reprobate, when the God of the world blinds the eyes, as▪ St. Paul speaks.  
So it is an evident note of one begotten of God, of one born from above, when he is renewed in knowledge and understanding, and knows the mind of Christ, Col. 3. 9  
2. Secondly there will be a new quality in the will, ready to hearken to the voice of Christ in all things, and to obey it, He that is born of God, heareth God's word, saith the Apostle.  
3. Thirdly, there will be a new conversation in the life, and this holy conversation will be manifested by the fruits and effects of the spirit, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, patience, meekness, etc. characters and stamps of holiness, still led in the practice of any reigning sin, after the lusts of the flesh, is a manifest note of a carnal man; but he that is born of God sins not, as you shall hear anon; sin is in him, but it reigns not in him; Inest, but non praeest or obest, it is in him, but not over him, nor doth he obey it in the lust and power thereof; he sins indeed, but yet not he, but the sin that is in him. In his mind he serves the law of God, though in his flesh the law of sin; it is against his heart and intention, his will and purpose. Again, he liveth not, nor lieth in any known sin, but his course and endeavour is after the Commandment.  
4. There will be new affections, as the love of God, hatred of all sin, for it is not enough to leave sin, but to loathe it and hate it; as Ammon (when he had satisfied his lust upon his sister Thamar) it is said, He hated her afterward more than ever he loved her. Thus will God's child deal with sin, and desire to purify himself, as God is pure, cast off his sin as a menstruous cloth, and say, Get thee hence.  
5. There will be constant and holy means used to preserve and improve all these graces, to keep alive this heavenly fire▪ is the spirit of prayer and supplication the bellows of the Sanctuary.) The child of God will speak the language of God. Prayer is the Saints language on earth, as praise is in heaven. An infant is no sooner born into the world, but presently it cries after the breast for the mother's milk (that which doth not, is still born, or a dead child) So a man is no sooner born of God, but he will desire the sincere milk of the word, that he may grow thereby. It is the note of a wicked man▪ of one dead in sins and trespasses (that he calls not upon God) that is, casts off the fear and worship of God. If some were tried by this rule, it would appear of what breed and birth they are, they are of Babel's breed, and therefore the Church of Rome (above all) withhold their milk (this word from the people) which withdraw these two Paps of the two Testaments (which are as the dugs to nourish God's children) or gives them this milk mingled with their own traditions (pretend and boast as she will) is but a strumpet and stepmother, and not the true spouse of Christ.  
So much of the verity and truth of our new birth, and of the evidences and signs thereof.  
Come we now to similitudes and likenesses between our first and second birth, which are many, but I will reduce them to seven.  
1. In our first birth there is mutatio à non ente ad ens, a change from a no being into a being. Thus it is in our second birth; there is a change from a no being in grace, to a being in grace; new seeds of grace are sown in the heart, where before they were not, and the man which was dead in sins and trespasses, is now quickened; mutat quod erat & incipit esse quod non erat. It changes what it was, and gins to be what before it was not. I know the Papists allege this saying of the Father to prove and uphold their Idol of Tran▪ substantiation, but the Father useth it to prove the manner and truth of our regeneration.  
2. In our first birth there is many times the similitude and likeness▪ the form and favour of the parents (of them that do beget) this always holds▪ true in our second birth (in our birth from above) God begets no son or daughter, but he begets them after his own Image and likeness, as we read Gen. 5. 3. That Adam begat Seth after his own image and likeness, that is, sinful and corrupt, and mortal as he was, and needs must be, for that which is born of the flesh is flesh. So whosoever are begotten of God, whosoever are his offspring and image, his sons and daughters, are as Peter saith, made partakers of the Divine nature, 2 Pet. 1. 4. or as Paul, We are the offspring of God, Acts 17. 28, 29. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, That which is ●orn of the spirit is spirit; but herein stands the difference between heavenly and earthly generation, between the natural and spiritual birth between the adoption of God and man; man in adopting man to be his son, may bestow upon him his lands and goods▪ but he cannot communicate to him his graces or goodness; but God's adoption hath not only in it an approbation and acceptation for ●ons, but he instamps upon them his own nature and image, he makes them (as I said) partakers of the divine nature. They are merciful as their heavenly Father is merciful, holy as he is holy; holy so, not so holy, merciful, and holy according to the manner▪ not the measure of God's holiness, or mercy, according to the quality, not the equality; perfect as their heavenly Father is perfect, in aim, intent, purpose, endeavours and desires; they pray and petition with David, O that my ways were made so direct that I might keep thy statutes. They press hard towards the mark of their high calling, they serve God truly and sincerely, though weakly and infirmly; and what is wanting in the perfection of their obedience, is made up in the truth and sincerity of it. Neither will God see weakness where he sees truth in the inward affections, where the heart is right and good, the obedience thereof is graciously and mercifully accepted, for God looks at, and calls for the heart, My son, give me thy heart, Give it me, who first gave it thee, give me thine, who gave thee mine nay, the blood of my heart, Non minus tuum quia meum, It is nevertheless thine if it be mine; nay it cannot be thine comfortably, except it be mine perfectly; for as Samuel saith, this is all that God requires of his people, only to fear the Lord, and to serve him with all their heart, 1 Jam. 12. 24.  
Again, they that are Gods sons are loving as God is loving, God is love, and the more loving any man is, the liker God, the liker their Father which is in heaven; they are loving and peaceable that are born of God, peacemakers, and peacetakers; and S. John gives it as granted, that whosoever loves not his brother, is not born of God, for God is the God of love and peace; 
Note.  the multitude and number of believers are of one heart and of one mind. They question their saintship and sonship, who are enemies to love and peace.  
Let us therefore for application of this point, for it needs close application, in these divided times, take St. Paul's council, Be followers of God as dear children, and walk in love Eph. 5. 1, 2. Love is the Christians walk, not his talk▪ God's children, as John saith, love not so much in word and in tongue (which is most of the love in these days, a little warm breath) as indeed and in truth. Let us follow him in these paths of love and mercy, and truth, and holiness; and though we cannot go his path, let us go as fast as we can, Let us run the race that is set before us, and if we cannot run, go, if not go, creep, follow God though it be but slowly, and easily, though it be with limping and halting, as Peter followed Christ along afar off, and as Ascanius his father Aeneas, Non passibus aequis, with no equal paces. If we cannot write after our copy, yet let us look to it and upon it, endeavour our best, and God will accept the will for the deed.  

Applic.  A Note of Doctrine to be taken of in this hateful and hating age, wherein iniquity abounds, and the love of many (as Christ the truth prophesied) is grown cold, so cold that it cannot be felt. Brothers at dissension (as if they were no brethren) Christians without love and charity (as if they were no Christians.) It would make the heart of a righteous Lot to lament and bleed, when there wants no more instance than what Philip said to Nathanael, veni & vide, come and see. Love is the badge and cognizance of God's children▪ By this ye are known to be my Disciples, if etc. It is the Christians Cloak and Livery, therefore the Apostle bids us put on love. This Cloak will cover many sins, it is both indumentum and ornamentum, not only a cloak to cover and hid, but an ornament to adorn; it was wont in times past to be the comprimis●r and determiner of all Lawsuits; Let not us fall out, for we are brethren, says Abraham to Lot, the greater to the lesser: What brethren and fall out? No, it is a good and joyful thing for brethren to dwell together in unity. It was the harlot would have the child divided, the true mother would have it live: they show of what house they came, of what descent they are who love to live in envy and malice▪ in hatred and division▪ you are of your father the devil, saith Christ to the envio●● Jews, for his works ye do; profess wh●●●●●●y all, they have not God for their Father, nor the Church of God for their Mother, nor Christ for their Saviour who are enemies to peace▪ for as I said, True belie●●● are of one heart, and of one mind, of one soul. Give me leave to give you a strong, pathetical, and effectual motive to love and peace, the character of God's children. God is the God of peace, Christ Jesus is the Prince of peace, the holy Ghost is the Spirit of peace, the Gospel is the Gospel of peace, your calling in general is a calling of peace ye are called to peace: Ours who are the poor despised Ministers of Christ, is a calling and commission of peace; and we are commanded, nay charged, into what house soever we come, to preach and pray for peace to that house (how well and faithfully some have done their errand, let the world judge.)  
When Christ came into the world he brought it; there was peace over all the world, the Temple of Janus was shut, and wars were ceased at every gate, and the blessed Angels of heaven sang at his birth and nativity, Glory be to God on high, on earth peace, good will towards men (and therefore surely there is heavenly music in it) David saith, God will give unto his people the blessing of peace: So that peace is a blessing; nay the blessing of blessings, the sugar and sweetening of all blessings; for nothing is a blessing without it; what are our sweetest comforts, our dearest and nearest relations, our riches, honour, magnificence, or any worldly accommodations, if not enjoyed in peace? It was therefore prophesied in Esay, That when Christ should be born (Christ the Prince of Peace) the peacemaker, that men should break their Swords into Ploughshares, and their Spears into Pruning-Hooks; that is, there should be unity and peace in the world, all animosities and hostilities should be laid aside (and so they are where Christ is born in us.) Nay even the Soldier with a sword in one hand, and fire in the other, he cries and speaks aloud, Sic quaerimus pacem. Thus we look for and seek for peace, peace being the end of war; when Christ lived in the world he taught it, Beati pacifici, Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another. And if a man smite thee upon one cheek, etc. And if he take away thy Cloak; etc. When Christ went out of the world he made peace, his Legacy, Peace I give you, my peace I leave unto you; and when he risen again, he made it his salutation: He came in unto them, the doors being shut, and said, Peace be unto you; and when he had so spoken, he shown them his hands and his side, as if he had said, see here, my dear friends, how dear your peace cost me (even these wounds in my hands and side) ne rumpatis eam, break not that so easily which cost me so dear, upon every poor and slight occasion, or for the love of every base sin or pleasure, make not me to bleed again: Enough I think to cool the fiery spirits.  
If this will not serve to take the sting of envy and malice out of the minds of many, but still like Salamanders they will live in the fire and heat of contention, I will send such down to the place of utter confusion, for an argument of peace, and they shall hear even the Devil himself pleading hard for that which he continually breaks, Mat. 8. 30. What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God, art thou come to torment or trouble us before the time? They that trouble all the world, you see, would not be troubled themselves. Enough to cool the fiery spirits of such as make division their music, and love to fish in troubled waters, nay that fir●t trouble the waters themselves, and then complain of the Lamb that comes to drink of them; let me send such to meditate upon that speech of Christ, That Belzebub is not divided against Belzebub, if he were, his kingdom could not stand; That seven devils agreed in Mary Magdalen, a legion in another; whereas with grief be it spoken, three scarce agree with us in a Family, or ten in a Parish. But were our State and Commonwealth as strong as the kingdom of Satan, division and contention (if continued) must needs bring it to desolation and ruin.  
As Joseph therefore when he sent his brethren home to their father, gave them this godly advice, Fall not out by the way, the same I exhort and beseech in the bowels of our blessed peacemaker (looking all towards Jerusalem, let not Babylon have our hearts) let us go on in love and peace, and the God of love and peace will be with us: O let not division of hearts hinder the building of Christianity, as division of tongues hindered the building of Babel. Filia dissentionis desolatio, The daughter of dissension is dissolution, yea and desolation. The factions and divisions between Simeon, Eleazar, and Jehochanon, foretold and prophesied by Christ, and faithfully recorded by Josephus, a fellow-sufferer and eye-witness, laid the Temple and City, and the houses of Jerusalem desolate, and not one stone upon another. The Temple of Solomon, you know (who was a Prince of peace, and type of Christ) was built in peace, there was not the sound of an Axe, Hammer, or any other instrument heard in the erecting of it: Indeed it was beaten down with Axes and Hammers (as David dolefully complains) but it was set up without them. The mystical and spiritual sense you easily apprehend. The spiritual Temple and house of God in us, is, or should be built in peace and unity, without clamour, stir, or noise, we should, as the Apostle saith, edify one another in love and peace: for Si collidimur frangimur, If we be broken and unbound, we are undone, signified by Scelurus faggot, a known story, Divisum est c●●●orum jam jam interibunt, saith the Prophet. Their accord is gone, their cord is untwisted, they cannot stand, Iscovedo the Spanish Poet, being demanded by his Master, Philip the third, by what means he might become Master of the Low Countries, he gives him this shrewd and subtle council, Divide them amongst themselves, according to Machiavels precept to his Caesar Borgia, Divide & impera, make a division and get the Dominion. It is observed by many learned men (and lamented by more) that the unkind and needless division of Christian Princes amongst themselves, have added more Lands and Territories, more Dominions and Principalities unto the Turks Empire, than their own Sword and Bow, As Phrahartes, one of Pompey's chief Captains said of Julius Cesar's Conquests, Nostra ruina factus est magnus, By our ruin he is raised and made great, his gain hath been our loss, his rise our downfall; our breaches and divisions (which like Reubens) have caused great grief of heart, have been his utmost advantage: Whilst we wory and fight, and sheathe our swords in one another's bowels; they say with the Edomites, There, there, so would we have it: they sing and laugh with Nero (having set Rome on fire) When I am dead, let all the earth burn: And therefore (for conclusion of this point) in which I have been something earnest and long (being very seasonable and needful to press in the condition we are in) let us but advisedly and soberly consider the many mischiefs which factions and divisions have brought into the world, and closely lay them to heart, and it cannot but warm us with that heavenly fire of love (the image of our Father) and account it with David (who though a fortunate and valiant Warrior, yet a man of peace, nay altogether for peace) a man much versed in battle, and sing it with him, It is a good and joyful (or a pleasant and joyful thing) for brethren to dwell together in unity: For our own particular, let the men of our famous Nation give me leave to speak to them, and put them in mind of their own strength and honour, in intimating unto them the memorable words and observations of Henry the fourth, the Champion of Christendom, Monsieur Rouen, the Champion and Marshal of France, in the beginning of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth of blessed memory, walking in his Gallery with Rouen, and being in serious discourse of the unity of the Queen with her Subjects, of their unanimity and strength, of the wealth and strong situation of the Island (which he said was impregnable, and unaccessible, being walled with a Wall of Brass) (he meant environed and compassed with Seas) Rouen answered like a prudent observer, Angle le terra grand animal. The Land of England is a strong and mighty body, which can never die except it kill itself.  
And surely they deserve more than one death, who willingly and desperately go about to be their own murders, with Nero, to kill, and rip up the bowels of their own Mother.  
And to me it seems a mystery (indeed the mystery of iniquity is in it) that many have, and will have order in their own houses, and it is the Item and injunction they give to their servants, (when they hire them) this is the order of my house, and thus and thus you must do and obey; and yet would have none in the great House (the Church and Commonwealth) neither Magistrate nor Minister. I will say no more to such, than the great Apostle hath spoke before me, If any man be contentious, we have no such custom, nor the Church of Christ, and that God is the God of order, not of confusion: And how can he serve God that is the God of love and peace, without peace and love: His Name is love, and his Law is love.  
And therefore to conclude this Character of a Christian, and strongly (once more) to move to unity and peace. Take three pathetical and emphatical motives and persuasions from the Doctor of the Gentiles.  
The first is, 1 Cor. 1. 10. Now I beseech your brethren, by the name of the Lord Jesus Christ (by which you are named or called) that you all speak the same things, and that there be no divisions amongst you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind, and the same judgement. Love and unity are the Cement and Glue of Christianity and Religion, the unity of the spirit is best kept in the bond of peace.  
The second is Phil. 2. 1, 2. If there be any consolation in Christ, any comfort of love, any fellowship of the spirit, any bowels of mercy, fulfil my joy, and be ye like minded hrving the same love, being of one mind, and of one accord, and let nothing be done in strife or contention (for that undoes all) God came to Adam in the cool of the day, and to Elias, not in the thunder, or fire, or storm, or tempest (but in the quiet sound) 1 Kings, 19 11. And it is worth your noting upon what persons, and at what time the holy Ghost came down, Acts 2. 1, 2. He came down upon the Apostles whilst they were all in supplication and prayer, and (of one mind) in an upper Chamber in Jerusalem.  
The spirit of unity descends upon none, but upon such as have unity of spirit. Beloved, if ever we find an enlargement of spirit, or feel the descent of spiritual blessings in an ample and plentiful manner, we shall find it to be when we are in unity and unanimity: And therefore if we will have a sensible apprehension of the spirits communion and benediction, let us (in the name of God) meet in one Assembly in the same mind of those primitive Christians ●to which we pretend did, and be in the same posture and devotion they were, Acts 4. 31. Who being of one heart, and of one mind, the place moved where they met: When we hold one of Paul, another of Apollo, another of Cephas, are we not divided? and divided prayers are fruitless (when the River is divided into many streams and currents, it cannot carry our Vessels) our hearts wanting love and unity, and our Altar fire, the incense of our prayers cannot ascend.  
3. Note that place well, 2 Cor. 13. 11. Finally my brethren farewell: be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace, and the God of love and peace shall be with you; and if God be with us, and for us, we need not care who can be against us: God is the God of love and peace, and the Godly are peaceable, and loving. By those characters, men show their heavenly birth, their birth from God, whose name is Love, and whose Law is Love.  
3. In our first birth, Generatio unius est corruptio alterius, the generation and begetting of one, is the death and corruption of another: until the old man be dead, the new man cannot quicken, As it was prophesied of Jacob and Esau when they were in their mother's womb▪ that the elder should serve the younger: So until the elder man be brought into subjection to the younger, there can be no peace in the members, neither is this work wrought.  
4. In our first, some are more easily conceived and brought forth into the world, some with much more difficulty and pain, with greater sorrows and anguish, with many throbs and throws, crying and roaring, and (being pained with the woman in the twelfth of the Revelations, ready to be delivered.) Thus it is in our second birth, some are more easily converted and turned to God, as the Jews at Peter's first Sermon; and Lydia and the Gaoler at Paul's. Acts 16. Some cost their spiritual Parents a great deal more pain and labour, as the Galathians Paul, My little children, cries he, of whom I travel in childbed again until Christ be framed in you, Gal. 4. 19 and the Prophet Jeremiah considering and grieving at the obstinacy and rebellion of God's people, cries out, Ah my belly, my belly, how am I pained? which complaint signified nothing else but the extreme sorrow and heart-breaking which the Prophet suffered, to reduce and bring the disobedient Jews into the Fold of Christ, to regenerate and convert them.  
5. In our first birth there commonly goes an espousage and contract before the marriage, to make the issue and act legitimate and lawful: So Christ, to make himself a lawful seed, marries himself first unto the Church; Conglutinabo, or desponsabo te mihi fide, I will marry thee, unto me in faith; faith is as it were the marriage-ring (and that is the reason I think after the covenant and contract, that the Ring was given in marriage.) Now being thus married unto Christ, we are no more two, but one flesh, Gen. 2. 24. and never did any man hate his own flesh, Ephes. 5. 29.  
6. In our first birth we grow and are framed in our mother's womb by degrees: first the heart (for that is primum vivens) then the brain, than other arteries and members, until we come to be a perfect and entire birth: Thus it is in our second birth (as Nature in forming, so grace in reforming, gins at the heart) that is first reform, and renewed, and then all the parts of the body, and faculties of the soul, will be amended and reform: David therefore (though polluted and defiled throughout, yet he prays for the sanctifying and purging of no part but his heart. Create in me, etc. Purge my heart, and I am clean all over. As therefore Jehu said, in his travel, to Jonadab (when he met him in the way) est ubi cor rectum, is thy heart right as mine is? The same in effect God speaks in truth, est vobis cor novum.  
Is your heart good, is it renewed? Then come up into my Chariot, come ye blessed children of my Father, etc. For the new heavens, nor the new name (the name of Filiation and Sonship) are for none but new creatures.  
7. Lastly, in our first birth we are born babes, and ●ot men. It were a monstrous thing to see a new borne child at his full growth the first day or week: Thus it is in our second birth, we are born babes▪ and not men: Babes, and need the sincere milk of the word; and then come to be stronger men by degeees, and to have need of stronger meat: N●mo nascitur artifex, No man is his Craftsmaster the first day. This I note, against the sudden growth of many, who boast of their soon acquired grace and goodness, and think they are at the height of religion, before they know the foundation, or have learned the Principles: There were steps and stairs to Solomon's Throne, and so there are to Gods, to heaven: No man can step thither at one stride; we come to heaven per gradum, non per saltum; by degrees, not by leaps. How comes it to pass then that many think they are at the highest pitch of grace, when they have scarce made one motion or step towards it.  
Certainly many that are such Saints on a sudden, that think they are so high above others, are carried up, or rather hurried by their own fancy and imagination: For neither holiness nor heaven are got, but by gradual and orderly walking; God's Statutes being a way, continually leading to some glorious end.  
There is an orderly going up the stars in jacob's Ladder, a leisurely going forward by degrees, a daily profiting, and proceeding in grace and goodness, as the young babe grows daily and hourly towards his full pitch and growth, see 2 Pet 2., 6, 7, 8.  
Add to your faith virtue, to your virtue knowledge, to your knowledge temperance, to your temperance patience, to your patience godliness, to your godliness brotherly kindness, to your brotherly kindness love Sudden growthes are ever suspicious: Remember Jonas' gourd; what came up in a night, withered in a day: Come but a little persecution for righteousness lake, and this forward seed is scorched, this hasty corn is blasted, they have no root, as our Saviour speaks, Mat. 13. or as Saint Paul, They are not rooted in knowledge, nor well principled, and therefore can never come to perfection: As Isaac therefore demanded of Jacob in another sense, How is it you found it so quickly my son? Gen. 28. 20. So may I say of these forward ones, which like young lapwings run into the world with the shell on their heads; how is it you found grace so quickly, that you are so good, and heavenly so suddenly, that you know more in a day, than your Teachers in all theirs. Heaven is a penny, and it must be wrought for; he must endure the heat of the day, that will have the wages at evening: It is a Pearl that must be digged for, he must sweat and take pains that will find it; it is a Garland that must be run for, a Crown that must be fought for: it must be got sudore, not sapore, by sweat, not by sloth, superantibus dabitur: To them, and none but to them that overcome shall this Crown of life be given: Be thou constant, or faithful unto death, and etc. None but conquerors over sin and Satan, shall ever wear this Crown. And this fight is not easy or short, we must resist unto blood: There is the Law of sin in the members rebelling, etc.  
Christianity (as I told you) is called the difficult work of faith, and a working out our salvation with fear and trembling: It is no easy thing to believe; but so hard, that when the Son of man comes he shall hardly find faith upon earth.  
From this that hath been spoken, an useful Doctrine presents itself; Namely, That there must be a growth in grace; a proceeding and going forward in holiness and righteousness: For children and babes grow in stature as they do in years; so must Christians. It were a wonder, nay a miracle almost (for any) to see a young child born to day, at the same growth and pitch seven years hence: And very lamentable I am sure it is to see many aged men, and men well stricken in years, going out of the world before they knew why they came in: to die before they knew how to live to see elementarium sem●n, an old man in his A. B. C. young, old men: Grey before they are good (as we say) a man well gone in years, not at all improved in grace. The Prophet Esaiah speaks in his time of children of an 100 years old, 65. 20. We may apply his Prophecy to our times; And Seneca, that divine Heathen tells us, That it is a shame for a man, an old man, who to show he hath lived long in the world, hath no other witness to produce but his grey hairs. And Diogenes the Cynic▪ as bitterly as wittily, told one that boasted of his age and eldership (and therefore scorned to be reproved) that he had put off pueritiam, but not puerilitatem, he had put off his childhood, but his childishness he had not put off. Beloved, though we should be as new born babes (in desire to the sincere milk of the word) yet we should not always be as babes new born, stand at a stay like a horse in a Mil, which is all the day going about, and yet at night in the same place he was. If we proceed not, nor make any progress in grace and goodness, we have no grace nor goodness at all; like Scullers, or Oars, if we go not forward, we go backward Examine we then the truth of our spiritual birth, by this of our natural (I mean by this likeness and similitude to our natural) Art thou a stronger man in Christ now then formerly, this day then yesterday? are thy sins more mortified and weakened, and thy graces more strengthened? is it between thy old man and new, the flesh and spirit, as it was between the house of David and Saul? Doth David's house grow stronger and stronger, saul's weaker and weaker? Doth the old man die daily, and the new grow and quicken? Try and sift thy heart and the graces thereof by this rule, for minime sane est bonus, qui melior esse non vult: good that man or woman cannot be, which endeavours not every day to be better: Si dixeris sufficit periisti: if thou ever say thou art good enough, thou art in a manner undone; for in the ways of virtue and goodness not to go forward, is to go backward: Grace and goodness never were in us, if they are not improved in us, as I said; He was never good at all that desired not every day to be better. And therefore though we be never a day good as we should be, yet let us be every day better than we were; every day break one thread of that net in which we are ensnared, every day grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, the second of Peter, the 3. and last: For howsoever we shall not find it profitable▪ nor it may be commendable, in these evil days (wherein grace and goodness is ashamed of itself, and the name) yet I am sure we shall find it comfortable: Indice nos sentire meliores, every day to find ourselves better and better. For faith and a good conscience, a regenerate and holy life, had it no further or future reward, it is itself praemium sui, it's own reward, and gives such unspeakable peace and quietness to the soul and mind, that none know it but they that have it. It was the commendation of our blessed Saviour, Luke 1. That as he grew in years, he grew in favour with God and man; and it will be our exceeding comfort to see, that our last days be our best days, and that our latter end be better than our beginning. They that are planted in God's house saith David, are flourishing and well liking, and will bring forth most fruit in their age. Yea and even thenws hen their Almond Tree doth flourish, their hearts will be (as near as they can) as white in innocency, as their hairs are with age; and indeed herein is our heavenly Father glorified, if we &c. Jo. 1●. 8. As the little child, then grows in every member of the body, so the regenerate grows in every affection, in every grace: for graces and goodness (like the babes milk) are so sweet to the souls of them that taste it, that they do, they must needs long for more.  
As Then the woman of Samaria, when she heard Christ speak of a water of which whosoever drank, should never thirst more, cries out, Lord give me evermore of this water. And the Disciples hearing Christ speak of a bread of which whosoever did eat, should never hunger more, desire, Lord give us evermore of this bread. So whosoever doth once taste how good and gracious the Lord is (as David speaks) must needs pant after him as the hart, etc. and as a new born babe desires the sincere milk of the word, that he may grow thereby: for no growth, no grace.  
So much of the similitudes and likenesses between our first and second birth. Follows now the eminency and dignity of a Christian new born, and truly very superlative, and great is the dignity and honour of a Christian born of God; as the Ambassadors of Pyrrhus said of the quondam Senators of Rome, Quod vidi Senatores, tot vidi reges: So many Senators as I saw, I saw so many King.  
The same, and more, we may say of them that are born of God, Quot vidimus in terris renatos, vedebimus in coelis regnantes: So many as we see on earth converted, we shall see in heaven crowned. See a little into this dignity.  
He that is born from above hath God for his Father, and Jerusalem which is from above, to wit, the Church for his Mother, Christ Jesus the son of God's love for his Brother; the Noble blood of Jesus Christ runs in the veins of every true Christian: He is of the bloud-Royal. For as I told you before, they are by this heavenly birth, made partakers of the Divine Nature, 1 Pet. 1. 4. and so a noble generation, a royal Priesthood, a peculiar people, etc. the noblest born of any in the world, are they that are born from above. It was the religious and pious speech of Theodosius, an Emperor of Rome, Mallem esse membrum Christi quam caput im●erii, I had rather be a member of Christ then Head of an Empire. And Luther to that purpose, Mallem esse Christianum rusticum, quam paganum Imperatorem: I had rather be a Christian clown, than a Pagan King. Rejoice not (saith Christ) in these and these things, that you have preached in my name, and in my name have cast out devils▪ but in this rejoce, that your names, etc.  
So boast not so much that you are born of these and these houses, of that high and noble blood, as that you are born from above. Look not so much to your natural generation, as to your spiritual regeneration, Civis aequat omnes impares nascimur, &c The dust equals all. Look therefore to that birth by which we are made heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ. The true honour (I say again) is to be born again; by which birth we are allied to Christ, and made of his alliance and lineage: For he that doth the will of my Father (which is in heaven, saith Christ) the same is my sister and brother, and mother; and when some came and told him that his mother and brother were without to speak with him; he answers (as I told you) Mat. 12. and Luke 8. by pointing to his Disciples, Mat. 12. 49, 50. He stretched forth his hands towards his Disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren; for whosoever doth, etc. The same Luke 8. My mother and my brethren are they that hear the word and do it, verses 21. By which places of Scripture we see plainly and evidently, that Christ's respects are greater, and he is dearer and nearer to them that are united▪ to him by faith, than by blood, by spiritual regeneration, than by natural generation. And St. Austin from hence is bold to affirm, Felicior Maria credendo in Christum quam concipi●ndo carnem Christi: Mary was more happy in believing in her Son, than in bearing him, in believing in him in her mind, than in bearing him in her womb. They are dearer and nearer to Christ, that are allied to him by faith, than by the flesh: and this our Saviour mildly intimated to the woman, who looking too carnally and sensually upon his outward and natural generation; and crying out, blessed the womb; and he corrects her in these words, Nay more blessed are they that hear the word of God and do it. It is not the conception of the body, but the conception of the mind, which unites us to Christ; for howsoever by the body we are born at first, by the mind we are born again: The womb, of which conception lies higher, namely in the heart, where the seed of the word is sown to receiv the ingraffed word, and to conceive the new man, and by faith to impregnate and bring him forth. This is the work of regeneration, and this unites us to Christ, makes us bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh. The word of God (which is called the seed of our new birth) goes in at our ears, from thence down to our hearts, and there (as I said) it doth impregnate and fructify, and bring forth the new Men. God begets us of his will by the word of truth. I will conclude this Point with the Prayer of St. Augustine before one of his Sermons, beseeching God that Quicquid meditatum est cor meum: whatsoever my heart hath profitably meditated upon this divine Subject, may enter (from my mouth into your ears, from your ears into your hearts, from your hearts spring forth in your lives and be fruitful; so that receiving the engrafted word with meekness, it may be able to save your souls.  
As you have in part seen the eminency and dignity of a Christian (of which you shall hear more anon) so I pray you note three great and singular privileges and prorogatives of one born of God; they are worth your noting and observation.  
I. First, They that are born of God, sin not, 1. John. 3. 9 He that is born of God, doth not commit sin: Sin not (may some say) how can you make that good? since the most righteous sin seven times a day; and there lives not a man upon earth that sins not? If we say we have no sin, saith St. John, We, I for one, we are not only deceivers, but liars, 1 John 1. In many things we offend all (saith James, We, he puts himself in, James, called the Just) puts himself into the number of sinners (We offend all) all of us in many things, and many of us in all things.  
Verebar omnia opera mea, saith Job, I feared all my works, knowing that in the best of them is weakness, in the worst, wickedness, error in all.  
David cries out, Who knows how often he offendeth? (The highest form of believers are not without the actings of sin, though the lowest forms are not under the dominion of sin) And what were Noah's drunkenesses, Lot's incest, Abraham's dissimulation, David's Adultery, Solomon's Idolatry, Peter's Apostasy, Thomas ●●s incredulity, were not these sins? Noah was a just man in his generation, Abraham the Father of the Faithful, and friend of God; David was a man after Gods own heart, nay the Father of Christ (according to the flesh) Solomon, a type of Christ and Prince of Peace. Peter the prime Apostle, upon whose faith Christ did build his Church. Thomas vouchsafed that never man was to put his finger into the hole of our Saviour's side, and to handle his wounds; yet these tall Cedars were not only shaken, but overthrown: Et si non timuit lupus illum gregem intrare: If the Wolf feared not to enter into the ●old of which Christ was the Shepherd, how may we fear our standing, since these strong ones were ever taken with faults, no small ones, and infirmities, not a few: Let him that standeth take heed. 'Tis true, peccatum inest in electis, non praeest, It is in them, not over them; remanet non regnat, it remains in them, it reigns not in them; Vivit, non vincit, it lives in them, but it conquers them not, bellat, not debellat, it wars, but it wins not. They are not so perfect, so throughly sanctified here in this life, that ye fail not, or fall at all, nor sin at all, that peccatum non sit, or nisit, that sin should not be; or be in them; but they are so upheld and preserved by the power of God unto salvation; ut peccatum non praesit non obsit, that sin should not reign in them, nor ruin them; because (as I said) God keeps the feet of his Saints, and his seed, that is, his spirit and word remains in them. So that though they fall, yet they fall not foully, or finally, though sin be in them, yet it reigns not in their mortal bodies, that they should obey it in the lusts and desires thereof; because they be born of God, and by faith lay hold upon the Lamb of God, which hath taken away, etc. and they have an Advocate with the Father, etc. But we are to know that this Advocate, this Jesus who was so called because he should save, though he hath taken away the strength and sting of sin, the guilt and condemning power thereof, yet he hath not taken away the being of sin: The site of sin, that Christ hath not stirred▪ but the spite and might of it, that he hath quelled; the might that it should not regnare, reign; the spite of it that it should not damnare, damn: Sin is in the best and holiest, but it condemns not them that are in Christ, Rom. 8. 11 They commit no wickedness (saith David) that walk in thy ways, that is willingly, purposely, or resolvedly: They sin indeed out of weakness and frailty, and error, out of negligence and carelessness, and rashness, but not out of wickedness, intention, or presumption, out of infirmity, and inadvertency; they sin, but not delightfully, or desperately, willingly, or constantly; they sin not finally, or to death, with their mind they obey the Laws of God, though with their flesh the Law of sin: or as one says upon the place, They live not unto sin, but unto Christ who died for sin; or (which is the truest and the most comfortable exposition of all) They sin not, because their sin is not imputed nor laid to their charge. They are looked upon in the face of Gods Anointed, and so God sees no iniquity in Jacob, etc. Thou art all fair my love, saith Christ, and there are no spots in thee: spots she hath, as there be spots in the Moon, she hath sin in act, but her sins are not imputed: Thou are fair saith Christ, through the beauty that I have put into thee. In this sense they that are born of God, sin not; they have sin in them, but not ruling or reigning in them, Rom. 6. 4▪ As Christ said to his Disciples when he found them asleep, The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak: And the Spouse of herself and her drowsiness, I sleep, but my heart waketh: So the Saints of God, the best have their nods and neves but the heart wakes when the eyes are closed; even in their falls and weaknesses they have a desire to stand and to be strong in the Lord: and as I said, With their mind, etc. Rom. 7. last. They sin, I sry again, but i● is not their work or trade; It is not they, as St. Paul saith, but sin that remains in them. Secondly, It is their desire and intention to do good; 3. They lie not, they continue not in sin, but their course is after the Commandment, and a walking in and by the spirit: whereas the wicked and unregenerate, they sin purposely with delight and pleasure, and they continue in their sin, making it their work end trade; they make it their Plough (as Job saith) They plough iniquity (and therefore they must needs reap misery,) They work it, and cannot sleep except they commit it; they love it, and live by it; it is not only their love, but their life: and as it is their trade and their work, so it is their sport and pastime, their mirth and recreation, this fool (the sinner) makes a sport of sin: a fool indeed; for have they any understanding that work wickedness (saith David) whereas the regenerate man grieves and mourns, and laments for it, his righteous soul is vexed at it; and he never finds rest or quietness, until he feels in his conscience the assurance of his pardon in▪ Christ. Augustin in his Book de civitate Dei, sets forth the difference between the sins of the regenerate and unregenerate, very learnedly and comfortably, by a comparison and instance in Tarquin and Lucrete, where speaking of her ravishment by him, he saith thus, There were two bodies▪ and yet but one Adulterer, and concludes, peccatum factum est de illa, non ab illa: sin was done with reluctancy and striving, and strong opposition upon her; it was not done willingly or delightfully by her: The same may we say concerning the sins of the regenerate; sin is done with reluctancy, and striving, and opposing, and resisting upon the Godly, it is not done willingly, or purposely, or readily, or pleasingly by them: Like men spiritually oppressed by the potency and power of the enemy, by the strength and power, and violence of Satan, The good they would do they cannot do it, but the evil, etc. Rom. which makes them heavily and dolefully to complain, Miserable men that we are, who etc. and concludes the point, having showed the difference between the sins of the godly and ungodly, in two sentences, which deserve your observation: 1. Verus p●nitens semper est in timone & dolore; a true penitent is always in fear and grief. In fear lest he sin; 2. In grief for sinning. Try thyself by this; Art thou afraid when thou goest forth into the world (where men walk as amongk snares) lest thou sin, and be ensnared; and if thou be'st overtaken with a fault, dost thou grieve and lament thy folly and weakness, and art never at rest until thou hast made thy peace with thy God? It is a certain sign of thy sonship, that thou art the child of God: thy sin shall not be imputed. The second observable note of the Father there, is this, Peccata non nocent quae non placent: T●●se sins do never hurt, which do not please; they damn not any man that delight him not, because they be not committed with the heart, mind, or will, for it is a true rule, Quod cor non facit non fit: What the heart doth not, is not done. So much of the heart and mind, as is in any sin, so much it is a sin, where they are not, there is no sin, formally or evangelically, at least condemnatory: These things I writ unto you, saith St. John, that you sin not, which is an impossible thing in a strict and legal sense, as I have said; but in an evangelical and Gospel sense, it is possible: You must not sin as wicked men do, who do nothing else but sin. (Their life being a continual and continued course of sinning) who make it their work and trade, work it with both their hands, and all their heart, earnestly and constantly, which they do not who walk in God's ways, and who are Gods children; but he that is born of God, doth righteously, 1 John 2. 29. And he that is born of God, heareth God's word, John 8. 47. He carrieth a flexible and docible heart unto the word, which is the seed of our new birth, and preserves a man from sin.  
Carry we ourselves therefore like holy persons, like men born from above: and if David thought it a great honour to be son in-law to a King, Let Christians think it a transcendent dignity and honour to have God the King of Kings for their Father. ●hall such a man as I fly, saith Neh●miah? So shall such a man as a regenerate man sin wilfully, or presumptuously offend such a Father as God is to him? whose eyes are over him to protect him, and his hands under him to support him, who numbers his very hairs, and si sic curat superflua in quanta securitate est anima: They that are Gods children cannot, will not sin: they have the blessing of impotency and weakness in their regenerate part, that they cannot sin strongly: though they have not that blessed liberty in the regenerate part, that they cannot sin at all. Mephibosheth, though he was lame in his feet, yet he was of the bloudroyal, son to a Prince, and grandson to a King so may a Christian be the child of God though he be lame and weak in holy duties and performances. He walks uprightly, that walks sincerely, and with a good heart. And as I said before, God will not se● 〈◊〉 where he sees truth in the inward affection's: It was the happiness of Adam in Paradise, P●tuit non peccare: He could not have sinned: God gave that power and strength unto the soul in the Creation, that he was able to have preserved himself from sinning: It is our unhappiness now after his fall: Non possumus non peccare: We cannot choose but sin, being born in iniquity and conceived in sin: sinners from the womb.  
It will be our happiness in heaven, Non possumus peccare: We cannot sin at all. In a word Not to sin at all is the happiness and holiness of heaven: Not to sin wilfully or presumptuously, is the holiness and happiness on earth.  
This than consider and apply, for the conclusion of this comfortable privilege, That to be preserved from sin (from the hurt and danger of sin) is a great privilege and blessing: He shall give his Angels charge over thee to uphold thee, etc. And this blessing and privilege God promised, Job 5. his faithful servant, and obedient child, That he should not sin, which is the greatest comfort the world can afford: It is (if considered) the next privilege to God, and the highest privilege of man, of mortal man: And when in a full sense man shall be taken from sin, he shall be received to joy, to fullness of joy, and the more we empty of sin by repentance, the more we are filled with joy, which is found and felt here by the testimony of our own consciences, which is the very beginning of heaven and of happiness in this life: The more holy, the more happy. Pray we then to God who is the only cleanser and purifyer of the heart, our only sanctifier, and pardoner of sin: To make us so happy here as to be holy (that is, not to have our sin imputed▪ For blessed is he whose iniquity is forgiven, etc.) and so holy here, that hereafter we may be eternally happy.  
The second Privilege.  
He that is born of God, doth overcome the world. It is Saint John's Doctrine too, 1 John 2. The world is too base for their high-calling in Christ Jesus: They are born from above, and therefore should not mind things below▪  
The world God set and placed under man's feet to tread and trample upon, not to set his heart upon: God made the world for man, and therefore he made man himself, for a better thing than the world is, for himself and his Kingdom: and therefore the Church of Christ, the mother of us all is described, Rev. 12. 1. To be clothed with the sun, and to have the moon under her feet, and upon, etc. the meaning is, she was clothed with Christ the Sun, that is, with Christ the Sun of righteousness, according to that saying of St Paul, Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ: Indeed he is indumentum & ornamentum, our garment and our glory: She had the moon under her feet, that is, she had all earthly and worldly things under her, which are compared to the moon for its waxing and waning, changing, decreasing, and increasing, for her continual variations and uncertainties, she treads them all under her feet, she makes light of them, knowing that she is born fr●m above, and there is her inheritance, she therefore regards not, nor values earthly things in comparison of heavenly: for he that is clothed with the sun, cares not for the light of the moon, which hath all her light from the sun: So he that hath God, what need he care for the world: he that dwells in the sun, what need he care for any light from the moon, which is God's creature, and made only for man's use and service: God hath set all things under his feet, as David saith, Given him rule and authority over all the creatures: He hath given the earth to the sons of men: It was the observation of the Poet, 
Os homini sublime dedit coelumque tueri  
Jussit, & erectos, etc.  Whereas all other creatures were framed with dejected and cast-down countenances, with faces hanging downwards: he made man with an erect, lofty, and stately countenance, that he might by the consideration of his feature and composition, be put in mind of the end of his creation: and as S. Paul saith, Quae sursum sunt quaerere, Seek those things which are above: So that these Eagles (Christians) should not catch at flies, nor these Herculese, the offspring of God. Sat at a distaff, and do such drudgery and base services as the world and flesh (like Omphale) shall prescribe unto them▪ The world I say God placed under man's feet, that his head and heart should not be where his feet troad and trampled.  
Since then the Creatures were all made for Man's use and delight, for their encouragement to, and in God's service, making them all constantly and willingly to serve Man, that Man might so serve his Maker with cheerfulness and willingness; Shall Man make himself so base, so dishonour his high calling, so degenerate, as to make himself a slave to his slave, a servant to his servants, with cursed Cham whose curse it was to be a servant of servants: Amare res suas plus quamse, to love the Creature more than the Creator, which is blessed for ever?  
No marvel then that God, who is a jealous God, and will not give his honour to another, nor love, affect, or este●me any thing in the world more than him, or above him, many times drops gall and bitterness into our creature-comforts, and imbitters our earthly blessings, when he sees us dote too much upon them, and place that contentment and satisfaction in them, which we should place in him; set them in his throne, and make Idols and images of them, falling down to them, and worshipping them, as Israel did to the Calf, as the covetous man doth to his Gold, calling it his god, and the wedge of gold his confidence, the amorous and lustful man (the Sampson to his Mistress) the proud man to himself and honour.  
Beloved Christians, the next way to lose any thing is to love it too well; and ' Almighty God when he sees us set too deep an ●ff●ction and love upon any creature, and prefer any earthly creature in our affections before him, he either takes it quite away from us, or else drops some bitterness into it to make it dis●●stfull.  
Let God therefore have the prime and principal, the strength and constancy of our affections, and let us love all other things with a subordinate and inferior love, and all he gives us to enjoy, let us love for the giver's sake (as his gifts and blessings) and so we cannot err in our love. Let us love other things with a subordinate affection to him, and with a willing resignation of them to his Divine will and pleasure to his disposal: But the only measure of loving God is to love him without measure; we cannot love God too much.  
Secondly▪ Remember thyself (O Man) whence thou art & the place whither thou aimest and tendest. Thy face is towards Jerusalem let not Babylon have thy heart. For wilt thou, which art borne for a better inheritance, which shalt one day feed of the food of Angels, which shalt sit with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of God, wilt thou so far disgrace and debase thyself, thy Father, Friends, and Country, as to spend they self and lay out thyself upon earthly and transitory things? Lay out thy labour for that which is not bread, etc. Isa. 55. 2. No, let Babylon feed upon these dishes, let the Prodigal eat these husks. The testimony of Christ hath given thee no such legacy, his Kingdom, as himself a testifies, is not in this world, and so consequently ours, and therefore not our Crown. Thou art borne from above, therefore set not thy affections on things below. They are below thy birth and breeding, thy condition and calling. Set them not therefore above thee, make not thy Servant thy Lord, (the World, and the things therein l●ke Fire and Water, are good Servants, but bad Masters) let them not therefore rule over thee.  
But say what we can or will, men will, most men set their affections upon these worldly things, which S. Paul (upon good grounds) dissuades we will fasten our minds upon these transitory substances, we will spend our shafts at these flying fowls, which have wings like an Eagle, and are vanished as soon as possessed; like little children we will hunt these shadows, and let real, substantial, and enduring substances go. Persuade we what we can, (had we the tongues of men and Angels) we could never persuade men from doting upon these vain, transitory, deceitful, and uncertain riches. But we will build where we cannot stay, and anchor where we cannot harbour, and feign would we set our rest here in this restless place, this troublesome and unquiet world, (whose whole composition is nothing but commotion and tumult) although Saint Paul tells us, That we have no continuing City here, and the Prophet calls upon us to arise and be gone in our affections, for here is not our rest. And notwithstanding that urgent precept and counsel of Saint John, Love not the world, nor the things of the world, If any man, etc. But his words are but wind, and spoken only to the air, What not love the world, nor the things of the world? You shall as soon get the heart out of men's bodies, as the love of the world out of the heart. They are as impatient for riches, as Rachel was for a better wealth and substance, Give me children or I die: So give me Riches or I die, (and in deed many die in the too eager pursuit of them, (as she did in her travail.) God gave her children, but one was her death: So God gave some Riches, but it is for their ruin: As God gave Israel a King in his anger, and took him away in his wrath. Thus though we call God Father, and profess ourselves his children, yet in our courses and ways we show our, self Terr● filios, Earth-bred and worldly minded men.  
We savour and sm●l too much of the earth, our very breath is earthy, and our language and talk of nothing but the world and worldly things. All our labours, talk and discourse tend downwards, and earthwards. We bury ourselves almost alive, and dig and delve like moles and hogs, and aunts in the earth; and all for that which cannot profit us or fill us, (except it be with cares and crosses, with troubles and vexations.) We make our way through thorns, to get nothing but thorns, which pierce us through with many sorrows; and many times like slippery and false friends, forsake us when we have most need of them; like Physicians, fail us and forsake us at the point of death; or like Absoloms' Mule, which ran from him when he had most need of him. I dare say, many men had been more happy if they had been less great and rich. The greatness and riches of many have been their ruin. The rich travellers life and money have often been a prey to the cruel and covetous thief.  
Remember therefore thy original, O Man, it is from Heaven; Let thy thoughts therefore be heavenly, thy speeches heavenly, thy conversation heavenly. In all thy earthly businesses, carry a heavenly mind, and when thy hands be upon thy work, let thy heart be above, where thy Father is, thy Redeemer is, where thy Country▪ Friends, and inheritances all are: For as Noah's Dove (being out of the Ark) could find no rest for the sole of her foot until she returned to the Ark again; so the soul being come out of heaven from God, can find no rest or content here in this troublesome world, in this sea of glass, until it return to God that gave it.  
The third Privilege.  
Thirdly, If God be our Father, and we his children, then are we sure of paternity and fatherhood; we are sure of a Father, though departed this life; we are sure of friends, and patrons, though gone before us; and it may be their affections gone before them; we have a provident, and able Father in heaven, though we be here many of us forlorn and forsaken, and none cares for us; which makes Christ give that Cordial to his Disciples, when he left them (as sheep amongst Wolves) I go to my Father, and to your Father, etc. And though you wander up and down on earth as pilgrims and strangers, as all your Fathers were, yet in Heaven you shall have a Father and an inheritance which cannot be taken from you.  
Again, I go, saith Christ, to prepare you a place, and in my Father's house, (who by my merits I have made yours) are many Mansions: mansions à manendo, from continuing, for we have no continuing City here, but we look for one to come: Houses I confess we have, as Foxes have their holes, and Birds their nests, and Beasts their Dens, quickly to be turned out of them: But in Heaven are eternal and everlasting habitations prepared for God's children.  
Here (in this strange Country) we have hunger, and want, and necessity enough, but in our Father's house we shall have plenty and abundance; we shall do well therefore (with him) having such ill usage here to resolve: I will go to my Father, A blessed thing it is we have a Father to go to, tam pater nemo, tam pius nemo, This was David's comfort, when Father and Mother forsook him, God took him up: when my Father, etc. Again, I was poor and needy, and the Lord cared for me; And indeed this Father God forsakes none, until he be forsaken, if he do then; for I am sure he raines his blessings unto the mouths of them that are open to blaspheme him: Again, David tells us, that when his people were hungry and thirsty, and their souls fainted in them, when being in this case, they cried unto God in their trouble, he delivered them out of their distress, he brought them forth into a wealthy place, set their feet in a large room, and when they wanted ●read, gave them bread enough; He reigned Manna, and Quails, and feathered fowls as the dust of the earth: was best to them in the worst times, and when they were bad enough to him (God knows) murmured and complained, even when their mouths were filled and stuffed with plenty.  
And for his own particular he tells us, that after many sensible experiments of God's mercy and loving kindness, his mighty and constant protection, and providence (in his preservation) all the days of his life, when the hands of his people were ready to stone him, and destroy him (they knew not why) than David com●o●ted himself in his God, and was delivered. And in the 23. Psalm, he thankfully acknowledges, that in his greatest extremity and need, and in the most barren place (the Wilderness) God spread him a Table, and replenished i●, and filled his Cup. And the children of Isra●l, Gods choose and children, with whom he had made a covenant, when they were all at the red Sea (at the very brink of destruction) and when there was but a st●p between them and death, whom he had led as a Father his children by the hand, in the day time by a pillar of a cloud, and in the night by a p●llar of fi●e, guiding him by the special providence; sh●w●d himself a careful and powerful Father indeed, who when the earth denied them bread) reigned it upon them from Heaven as dust, and feathered ●ouls▪ as I said, as the sand of the Sea etc. when they were not only thus miraculously supplied in their hunger, but in their thirst brak● and clavae the rocks, and gave them water out of the rocks as out of a River; clothed them with garments which waxed not old, but endured without mending or wearing 40 years, made great and mighty Kings to give them room, and the Sea to give them way; I say again, when they were in this great straight, and exigence beyond all hope and expectation of deliverance; before them the S●a roaring, behind them Pharaoh (the cruel tyrant) raging and following them with a mind ben● to destroy them: on each side the H●ls and Mountains inaccessible: Then I say again, did they pray unto the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them, etc. and they did see the goodness of the Lord, in their sudden and unexepected deliverance: Necessitas humana, opportunitas divina, man's necessity is God's opportunity, and then doth God commonly lay to his hand, when all other hopes and expectations of any assistance from the arm of flesh are past: Who would not honour such a Father, that honours them that honour him? He that serveth me, him will my Father honour, who would not honour such a Father, and trust in such a God, who so undeservedly dignifies, and so mightily defends and preserves, and so carefully and indulgently provides for them?  
If then he be our Father, let us give him our honour, and if our Master, our fear; This is that he calls for by his Prophets, and presses it strongly and powerfully. 1. By way of concession, A Son honoureth his Father, etc. 2. By way of exprobration or redargation: If I be a Father where, etc. as if he had said, I will be neither Father nor Master to them that will not give me honour or fear: But now this very term of paternity and Fatherhood, and the thought of these transcendent prerogatives, 1. That he preserves us from sin. 2. That he purchases an immortal and glorious inheritance for us in Heaven. 3. That (as a Father) he leads us through all the change and chances of this life, should the more stir us up to constant filial and universal obedience; At all times to serve him, who at all times and turns (every day hour and minute) serves us, cheerfully to serve him in reverence and fear, and whose eye is on us and over us, and whose promise is richly and liberally to remunerate our short service, and imperfect obedience into our bosom. This was a spur to Moses faithfulness, he had an eye to the recompense of reward, and it is a part of the Catechism and Creed, which S. Paul taught the Hebrews, to believe that God is a plentiful rewarder of them that serve him: Without this hope and faithful assurance, a man can perform but a dull and faint obedience and service to God, therefore Christ made it a motive, not only against distrust and carefulness, but to ready, diligent, and faithful obedience: If an earthly Father knows how to give, etc. Thus we see the honourable relation we are invested with, in our regeneration we have God for our Father, we see our honour and privileges, and let this serve for them, and for the first doctrine, That the state of a Christian is a new geniture and birth.  
Come we now to the second, that God himself is the Author and cause of this Birth. 11. H● begets us, It is the work● of God, his proper and principal, and peculiar work; We are his workmanship, saith the Apostle, created to good works, Gal. 2. 10.  
We say in Philosophy, that Sol & homo generant hominem, That the Sun with the help of Man, doth generate and beget a Man: But Christ alone, (the glorious Sun of righteousness) begets us without the help of any Lunary or sub-lunary substances: we are not able of ourselves, so much as to think a good thought towards our regeneration, how much le●●e can we perform the work: we cannot change a hair of our heads, much less the frame of our hearts, or convert ourselves. Convert us O Lord, cries Jeremiah, and we shall be converted, chang● us, and we shall be changed: we cannot tell many times when we have grace, much less can we affect it: No Man living can make a living Fly, much l●sse a living Soul, an immortal essence: It is God alone that forms and frames us after his own Image, which worketh in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure. We are begotten, saith John, not of Blood, nor of the will of Man, nor of the Flesh but of the will of God: Not in any outward impure way of the flesh, or in any carnal manner, as Nichodemus conceived, which is meant by Blood and by the will of the Flesh but by the will of God: It is the work of the Spirit in which we are merely passive, ask again, we work, being wrought upon: It is God that makes us, and not we ourselves. But why then saith the Apostle, by the grace of God that is begotten in you; 1 Cor. 4 15. 'Tis true, Ministers of the Gospel may be called spiritual parents, and said instrumentally to beget; as Paul speaks of our Sins, whom he begets in his bonds, so that many times the Word is full, when the Preacher is not, and runs when he cannot, Phil. 10. God useth sometimes to pull that dignity and honour upon the instrumental, which works with him, and for him. As he g●ves them (sometimes) his own name, and calls them Gods, and accounts the neglect and disesteem done to them, as done to him. So he sometimes gives them his Son's name, calls them Saviour's, Obadiah the last, I will raise up a Saviour saith God, in the last days; because as Paul saith, By giving diligence to reading, exhortation and doctrine, he saves himself, etc. 2 Tim. 2 last. And in the Acts you read, that God daily added unto the Church (by the Ministry of the word) such as should be saved, Act. 4 last. Thus (you see that God himself is the Author and cause of our new Birth, it is the proper and peculiar work of God to beget, voluntariè nos genuit, of his will he begat us. And yet you may please to observe, that as this act of regeneration is attributed to God the Father, as it is in this place: So sometimes it is attributed to God the Son, as Esai. 53. 10. Believers are called his seed, that he might see his seed, he made his soul a sacrifice for sin: Sometimes to the spirit of God, as in Jo. 3 6. That which is borne of the flesh, is fl●sh, and the wind bloweth it, so is every one that is borne of the spirit▪ It is God the Father's will, he begets us of his will: Christ the Son's merit, Gal. 4 4. When the fullness, etc. to redeem them that were under the Law, that we might receive the Adoption of the Son. God the Holy Ghosts efficacy and power, by the Spirit of Gods sanctifying and over-shadowing the Soul, the new Man is quickened and made; sometimes it is attributed to all the three persons in Trinity together▪ as in that notable place, Tit. 3▪ & 7. By his mercy he saved us, by the renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he abundantly shed in our hearts through Christ Jesus.  
There we have the three persons together in two verses, and here all the cause of our regeneration in one, a parallel whereunto you sh●ll hardly find in the whole New Testament.  
But God (as I said) he is the principal author and cause; His Ministers but instrumental: yet as his Ministers, they are and may very well be called Fathers. And this near relation should warm the hearts of Ministers with an indulgent and paternal care and affection to bear great good will towards them, and (as Moses is commanded) to carry them in his bosom: And as Aaron when he went up to pray▪ or to sacrifice, he went up with the names of the twelve Tribes written upon his breast▪ plate. So the Ministers of the New Testament (the Pastors of Christ's Church) according to that Typ●, aught to put up in all his devotion, the prayers and supplications, the wants of his people, with his own: As Saint Paul calls his people his Epistle written in his heart; so shall the people be in their Pastors. A● S. Paul's ●●●●ts desire and prayer to Israel wa●, etc. Indeed the New Testament is nothing else but Jesus Christ's Letter, and Epistle writ from Heaven unto his Church; the mind of God expressed to Man by Christ, who sit● at the right hand of the Father, making those Prayers and Petitions of ours which are imperfect in themselves, to be more perfect by his mediation. And as these instruments of Regeneration are called Fathers both in the Old Testament, (My Father, my Father, etc. cries Elisha to Elias, Jehoram to him, a wicked man, yet h●s had more grace than some have now, to call the Prophet his Father. (Worse names now must be digested.)  
So Saint Paul calls them Nurses, or Mothers too, 1 Thes. 2. 7. There he put● upon himself the indulgence of a Mother, as afterward the affection of a Father, v●r. 11. showing that as he did not occasionally forget to use the gravity of a Father in his exhortations and instructions, so other whiles he puts upon him the meekness, and softness, and tenderness of a Mother, or of an affectionate Nurse; Mothers and Nurses having a sympathy and fellow-feeling of their children's estates; the Mother knowing by natural instinct when the child is sick, and diseased, when it is distempered and pained, and will accordingly apply herself to give it ease, and not always give it its humour, nor what it cries for: So God's Ministers should be willing to free their people from distemper and disorder, from th● corruption and error of the times, feeding them with wholesome and sound doctrine, with the sincere milk of the Word, that they may grow thereby, not with fancies and humours, and their own inventions and imaginations, (for with grief be it spoken, we are fall'n from the worshipping of Images, to the worshipping of Imaginations) which as it breeds sicknesses in young children to let them ea●● what they will, so it breeds factions, and divisions, and extreme distemperatures in States▪ when they are suffered to b● carried about with every wind of doctrine, and every windy doctrine, (as the Israelites by Aaron's permission and sufferance worshipped the Cllfe of their own making.)  
And it teacheth the people again, since they stand in so n●●r a relation to their Ministers, (as Children to Parents) to carry a filial and dutiful affection towards their Pastors, as they carry a loving, careful, and paternal heart and eye towards them and their good. The want of which reciprocal loving kindness and affection, when Father and Children, Minister and People, Master and Servant, have had a greater desire to have their humours fed, than their souls edified, have not only caused great r●nts and divisions, (which with R●●bens caused great graefe and sorrow of heart) but I dare say hath gr●●ved the blessed and holy Spirit of God, the sole worker of our Regeneration, and by whom we are sealed unto the day of Redemption, the Spirit of God witnessing to our spirits, that we are the sons of God, Rom. 8.  
Thirdly, this calls upon the great Fathers of the Commonwealth, who are called Gods, (being next to him) and Patres Patriae th● Fathers of this Country▪ nay of the Commonwealth and State, to see with what meat their Children, their Subjects are fed: for as I said, they are Pastors and Fathers too. Isaiah calls them Nursing fathers, and Nursing mothers, and prophecies that in the great Reformation, Kings should be nursing fathers, and Queens nursing mothers. That is, God would raise up the great Potentates and Princes of the ●arth, to provide that the people should be fed with wholesome food, that living waters should flow abundantly from the threshold of the Sanctuary▪ and that all people should know the Lord, from the greatest to the least.  
Hence it follows necessarily, that the Supreme Magistrate ●e seasoned with Religion, and what a sweet perfume follows such Princes, see in the ●xamples of Moses, Joshua, David, Solomon▪ Asa, Josiah, H●z●kiah, etc. and not irreligious or Popishly affected, but sound and firmly grounded, (for which we may bless God) that he be a sincere worshipper, and server of God, the fear of God being the beginning of wisdom, and a man being never truly intelligent, until he be obedient. The best Plot is to save a soul. For if that be true which they say in nature is true and certain, That what disease or infection the Nurse hath, the sucking child will partake of; and as the Parent is affected, so for the most part is the Child's inclination and disposition; Surely, and without all question it will far so in this: If God please to give us a Magistrate which is godly and religious, (and which he promiseth to give to his people) Zealous and forward in the Duties of Christianity, a lover and maintainer of the truth. Certainly, for the most part, the people will be so affected: That way which the Master Be ●●es, all the rest follow, and it is as true as old: Regis ad exemplum▪ Nothing is mor● effectual, or persuasive with the vulgar, than the example and precedent of their Governors; who, if they be godly and religious, are notable means to draw men to Religion and Godliness. Confessor Papa, Confessor populus (how true that is in the letter, let the world observe:) But surely where the Prince or Governor is a true Protestant, all will be of his profession; Josuah is an excellent example and pattern for a Ruler to walk by (and certainly his holiness made him without compare, successful in this life, and happy in the other) who in the midst of an Idolatrous, froward, humorous and pe●v●sh people, resolves like a pious Ruler indeed, I and my house will serve the Lord: walk others which way they will, I will walk this way, the way of God's Commandments. When Religion, or (as into Zacheus) Salvation is entered into the great house, it cannot be long out of the little ones. Having spoke something largely of our Father, let us spend a word or two about our Mother, because there is great controversy about her in the world; some repudiating her, some spitting in her face, some making her an Idol and Puppet, some a Slut, some Nothing; I dare say most of the controversies of this late age, have been about dressing the Bride, some would have her a painted and gaudy Puppet; a finer Religion than the Protestants, as a vain Lady once said, some a homely Slut, without Form and Beau●y, (as her Husband was accounted in the days of his fl●sh) whereas, as God will be worshipped of all in his holy Temple, and (as David saith) in the beauty of holiness: so he would have comeliness and order, decency and beauty in his house. The spouse of Christ being indeed black, but comely; something obscured in her Beauty by the morphew of Faction, and the Sun of Affliction, and the Tan of Persecution, but amiable and lovely for all that: we are begotten (you see) and by whom, by God the Father, and by the Word of Truth: but of whom are we begotten? I answer, As God is our Father, so the Church is the Mother of us all, Gal. 4 16. Of all the Children of God, so saith Saint Paul▪ Jerusalem which is from above, is Free and Mother of us all: What is Jerusalem but the Church? For as the City was the Seat of David, Psal. 12▪ 2. 5. so is the Church, the throne of Christ signified, and figured by the Kingdom of David, Rev. 3. 7. Therefore of both these God proclaims, here shall be my rest for ever, Psal. 132. And rightly and justly, is the Church called our Mother.  
First, Because her Maker is her Husband, Esay 54. she is the spouse of our Father betrothed to him in Faith, Hos. 2. 19 I will marry thee unto me in Faith and Righteousness, coupled together and made one, by the unity and bond of the Spirit, Love being the matrimonial bond: I am my Beloved, and my Beloved is mine, (he feeds among the Lilies) amongst the Innocent and Faithful, not amongst Briars and Thorns▪ Hemlock or Nettles.  
And secondly, Because we are children borne of her: This teacheth us to honour our Mother, and like little children, hang upon her breasts for maintenance and succour, Esa. 66. 14. Suck and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolation, milk out and be delighted with the abundance of her glory: It is the Church, which by the blessing of God brings forth Children unto God (by the Ministry of the word) as it is in my Text, he begets us by the word of truth. And if we be her children, we must feed of that milks, the word, which still holds forth to us: As new born● babes, 2 Pet. 2. 2.  
In a word, out of the Church there is no Salvation, who have not the Church for their Mother, shall not have God for their Father, was the saying of old; and good reason, for out of the Church, there are no means of Salvation: No word to teach, no Sacrament to confirm, no Prayer to bless: But all these (and all other means) are in the womb of the Church. It is here (and here only) where the spirit of immortal seed begets grace, and holiness in the heart, and so a man is new borne, 1 Pet. 1. 23. we are borne not of mortal, etc.  
Thirdly, Having God for our Father, and the Church for our Mother, we ought to be children of peace: For our Father is the God of peace, and our Saviour the Prince of peace, and the Gospel a Gospel of peace, and our Calling a Calling of peace▪ etc. ut dixi▪ It was the Harl●t would have the child divided, etc. you know what Church it is that delights in blood, which make themselves drunk with the blood of Saints, and with the Martyrs of Jesus.  
They that are Gods children are of one mind, in one house, (and all believers are so as those primitive were, Act. 4. the last.) They will not fall out because they are Brethren, for we know it is a good and joyful thing, etc. But my sheets swell to a bigger bulk than was intended, what is spoken therefore shall suffice for the proof and demonstration of the two doctrines, out of the first cause of our Regeneration.  
First, That the state of a Christian is a new geniture and birth, a new formation or Creation.  
Secondly, That God himselfeis the Author and cause of this Birth: He begets us, no farther have I gone, no farther dare I or will I go, until I see what entertainment these poor and unpolished meditations shall receive in a froward and carping age. But yet out of these two doctrines, I shall desire two things more to be obsered, for use and application. 1. The Christians Dignity. 2. His Duty, and then I shall commit you to God and the Word of his Grace, the Word of Truth, which is able to build you farther, etc. Act. 19 32.  
First then for the Christians dignity, which is three fold, To be regenerate and born again. 

1. Dignity above men.  
2. It is a dignity above the Angels.  
3. It is a dignity above the Creatures; I will begin with the last.    
First, It is a Dignity above the Creatures, for all the Creatures which God made have not his Image; but all that he doth bege● have: he made Man Lord, and Master of all his Creatures; he made them for Man, but Man himself for himself.  
Secondly, It is a Dignity above all Men, the wicked have nothing to do with this honour, (such honour have all Gods, etc.) none ●lse. They are the Lords portion, his peculiar people, his first fruits. Israel is my first borne, Jer. 2. 2. The first fruits of my increase, Israel is holiness to the Lord. They are his treasure, the people that he only looketh at and after, upon whom he sets his love, his eyes are always upon them for good. The eye of the Lord is over the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayers, The World are his goods, th● Earth is the Lords, and all that therein is, the round world, etc. But they are his treasure: and as where a man's treasure is, there his heart will be: so is God's heart upon his treasure upon his secret ones, upon his peculiar. He writes them upon the palm of his hand, he s●ales them upon his heart, they are as dear and near unto him as the Apple of his Eye; A book of remembrance is written for them that fear the Lord, Mal. 3. 16. God will certainly remember the services of his children, and not forget the labour of their love, nor the good they do, Heb. 6. 10. Saint Peter, as you you have heard, gives the Jews an eminent and transcendent Title, having honoured them with these Denominations; a chosen generation, a royal Priesthood, a holy Nation; he adds (what the Apostle here intimates) a peculiar people: populus acquisitionis, a peculiar people.  
And two reasons may be given of this appellation:  
1. They are a peculiar people, because God hath every way fashioned them for himself.  
2. Because (as I told you) they are a peculiar people, or the first fruits of his creatures; set apart and consecrate for his service and worship. They are his treasure, his only treasure▪ all he hath, the righteous comprehend all Gods getting: All other men are Gods creatures, but these are the first fruits of his creatures; and as they are consecrate to him, so they often consecrate and bless them: and (I am sure) if they be not bettered by their conversation, they are blessed by their protection.  
3. Which is a bold assertion, it is a dignity above the Angels, to be the sons of God by regeneration, and to be redeemed by Christ. For,  
1. The Angels fell, he lets them lie in their fall, he reserves and keeps them in chains of darkness till the judgement. Man fell, and God presently sends him, nay gives him (by word of mouth) a promise of a Redeemer, That the seed of the woman, etc. So that God did more in our restauration, and redemption in our regeneration, than he did for the Angels of Heaven.  
2. To which of the Angels said he, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? He (that is, Christ) took not the seed of Angels, but the seed of Abraham. And again, He was made of the seed of David, Rom. 1. 3. He in no sort took the seed of Abraham, Heb. 2. Christ (to fit himself for Man's salvation) took upon him an humane body, (the nature of Man) and in this kind dignified and honoured Man's nature above the Angels. And this (I dare say) seemeth to be a greater pre-eminence and dignity of the children of God above the Angels, in regard there is a nearer conjunct on between Christ and us, than between Christ and the Angels, (I mean in nature and person, not in place.) In place indeed the Angels are nearer unto God than Man, being in Heaven, and seeing the face of God, his glorious face; but in nature the children of God are nearer than they are; for you have it expressly said, That Christ was made of the seed of David.  
3. Add hereunto that he took upon him this seed in the womb of the blessed Virgin in his Incarnation, so that by his Conception and Incarnation, he was made one with us, and we w●th him. And why did he take our nature upon him, and not ou● nature only, but the contumelies of our nature, (so base and mean that they are not to be named) why did he this, but to redeem us that were lost, when our fall in Adam made us liable to eternal death, and left every mother's child of us in the merit and guilt of condemnation? When he took upon him to deliver Man, he did not abhor the Virgin's womb.  
Surely the Virgin's womb was not so pu●e or clean a plac●, but the glorious and great God might have abhorred and despised it, (but when he took upon him to deliver Man, he did not.) Blessed be his Name therefore, who was borne that we might not die, who was made the Son of Man, that we might be made the sons of God. Ide● Filius Dei factus ●st homo, ut homines faceret filios Dei.  
Add hereunto, that the Angels of Heaven desi●e earnestly to look into this mystery of our Redemption, and do attend it, 1 Pet. 1. 11. it doth them good at the heart to see their places filled and supplied by men, from which the evil Angels by their Apostasy and pride fell.  
Lastly, (to honour the Regenerate yet farther) the Angels are charged and commanded to attend and wait upon them, He hath given his Angels charge over thee, etc. Psal. 91. 11. They are not only Fellow-servants with the Angels (as john the Divine calls them) but they are servants to the children of God, for it is said, They are ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to them that are heirs of salvation, Heb. 1. last.  
Thus have you seen the dignity of the Regenerate, the superlative honour of the children of God in some kind above the Angels. For  
1. Christ took not the seed or nature of Angels, but the s●ed of Abraham and David, (men subject to infirmities.)  
2. He was conceived in the womb of a Virgin, and in the fullness of time made of a woman, and made under the Law, etc. So that by his blessed Incarnation he is made one with us, and we with him; he sits at the right hand of his Father glorified and blessed in our nature: Vexit in coelum carn●m nostram, etc. He took our flesh into Heaven with him, as the pledge and token of his love and favour, and hath sent down his Spirit unto us, as the pledge and seal of his love. Now Gloria capitis est sp●● corporis, The glory of the Head is the Members hope; and if the Head be crowned, the whole Body is honoured.  
3. The glorious Angels, and them blessed Spirits in heaven, desire to look into the mysteri● of our Redemption, and indeed they themselves receive some benefit by it, for they are thereby confirmed, that they cannot fall.  
4. The Angels are commanded to be our Guardians and Protectors. Never had any King or Prince such Protectors as the sons of God have: For the heavenly Angels pitch their tent● about them, Psal. 34: 11. and they have charge given them (of their Father which is in heaven) to bear them up in their hands, that they dash not their feet against a stone. Oh how fearful should we be to offend, having such eyes over us, and such hands under us, and such glorious spirits about us! Who cannot but admire the great love and mercy of God, in the words of Da●id, Lord what is man? Psal. 8. Thou madest him little lower (in some degrees higher) than the Angels, and hast crowned him with dignity and honour: And in the word● of john 3. 1. Beh●ld we love the Father, etc.  
Well, considering our transcendent and high Dignity, let us observe now some duties yet; for surely that God▪ that so much honours us, we ought by some duty to give him the honour due unto his name. Since he hath done so much for us, let us do something for him, namely, give him our homage and service; for Christ will be a Jesus and Saviour to none, but to such to whom he is a Lord and King: Magnes amoris am●r: The loadstone of Love, is Love, and Durus est qui amorem non rependet, He is hard-hearted, who will not return Love for Love.  
1. Then let us do● nothing to make our heavenly Father ashamed of us: It is not for Kings O Lemuel, it is not for Kings to drink wine, nor Princes strong drink, Prov. 31. 2. It beseems not Saints to be sinners, it becomes not us to call God Father, as the Jews called Christ King, and spit in his face and revile him: You know how Jacob chid and reproved his Sons, coming from the murder of the S●ch●mites. You have made my name to stink▪ Gen. 34. the last. Num est haec tunica fratris vestri, (saith Jacob to his Sons) Is this your brother's coat? Is it the Livery and guise of Brethren of the Sons of God to be hard-hearted, and cruelly minded, one towards another? When Caesar was stabbed in the Senate house ●y Brutus and Cassius, he cries out unto Brutus, what wilt thou my Son? as if he had said, The cruelty of others I regard not, I care not for so much but for (Brutus) my adopted Son, one whom I have made my heir, for thee to lift up thy hands against me. O hold thy hand, thou killest me without a blow. So for Indians and Pagans, Turks and Barbarians, and such as were heard of Christ, for such to deny and blaspheme him, and so shoot out their arrows, oaths are bitter words (as they say the Indians do at the Sun because they feel no heat of it at noon day) it is not so much: But for Christians, for professed Christians, such as call God Father, to abuse the name of their Father in cursing and swearing, and fearful imprecations, and lies, and perjuries, how unfit and uncongruous is it to them?  
2. If we be the children of God, we will meekly bear our heavenly Father's corrections, we will as I said, kiss his rod and embrace his chastisements upon our knees: for if we endure chastening, and deal with us as with Sons, for what Son, etc. Heb. 12. 7. There is no Son whom the Father chastiseth not. Even the beloved Son (the Son in whom he was pleased) was Vir dolorum the man of sorrow, and one experienced in infirmity: Vnicum Deus habet filium sine peccato, nullum sine flagello: God had one Son without sin, but never had he Son without sorrow; even Christ the Son of God's love, and of his desires, Qui peccatum non novit, Qui peccatum non fecit, He that knew no sin, nor did no sin, knew sorrow enough from his Cradle to his Cross, from his Birth to his Grave, and he learned (and taught) us obedience by those things he suffered (although he was the Son.) Now shall the General suffer, nay bleed, and shall we that fight (or at least pretend we fight) under his banner go free? shall the head suffer, and the Members scape? No▪ pudeat membrum deliciari sub capite spinis coronato, It is a shame for the members to spor● and play under the head, which was crowned with Thornes. A delicate and fine member, doth not well agree with a crucified head. If then the world crown Christ with Thornes, shall we think it will crown us with Flowers? If it Crucified Christ, do we think it will glorify us? No, he that is exempted from the number of them that are corrected, he is exempted from the number of Sons; and they are not Sons but Bastards▪ whom our heavenly Father chastiseth not: Heb. 13. Afflictions are sure evidences of our sactification.  
3. If God be our Father, and we his children, let us live as always in God's presence, and so living fear to offend him: we must observe this towards our natural and civil parents, that we dare not offend b●fore their face: No man will steal in the face of his judge, who hath power & authority to punish him, and (fools as we are) do● dare commit sin in the presence of our heavenly Father, commit any evil in his sight, who will certainly bring every work into judgement, etc. we dare do that in the face of Heaven, which we dare not do if a child s●es ●s. It was a holy practice of David, I set the Lord always before my eyes, therefore I shall not fall: And it was Asephs' holy and pious resolution, How can I do, etc. Gen. 39 It is (without question) a strong Bit and Bridle to restrain the most licentious and wicked man living from sin, when he considers that he sees him that shall judge him, and that he acts and does all under his Father's eye: God is in this place, saith Jacob, and I was not ware of it, so God sees us, though we will not see it nor know it: Went not my heart with thee whilst thou goest after Naaman for a bribe, saith Elisha to Gehezi, 2 Kings 5. So go● not Gods eyes with us, whilst we go into such and such places, and about such and such sins.  
Quaere locum, saith Austin, seek out if you can, O sinne● a place where God sees you not, and sin and spare not. But if God's eyes be in every place, his 7. eyes go throughout the world. As a well-drawn picture (which seems to eye all in the room) God looks upon and beholds all the world. Cave quid agas Deus t● vidi●. Take we heed what we do for God ●ees us, and what need we care, if no man sees us doing any evil, when he sees us that shall Judge us.  
4. If God be our Father, and we his Children, let us often pray unto our heavenly Father, fall upon our knees and ask him blessing: we expect this, and teach it our children daily to crave our blessing; shall we expect, and desire that from our children, which we will not do to God? look that our children should do it daily to us, and we do it so seldom to him. God loves to see us daily and constant suppliants, to behold us upon our knees; and if we know not how to pray as we ought, his spirit will help our infirmities, etc. Rom. 8. He that bids us take words into our mouths, puts words into our mouths, and bids us say no more than this in faith and full assurance (or to this effect) Take away our iniquity, and receive us graciously.  
But some may object, what needs words, since our heavenly Father knows whereof we have need (as Christ saith) before we ask, what need words to God, who knows the secrets of all hearts, and tell us by his Prophets: Antequam clametis ego exaudiam, Before you call or cry I will hear; and David did but cry, he would confess his iniquity, and God forgave him his sin, Psal. 32. It is true, 1. God needs no words, but we do, to stir up our hearts and affections to God: and 2. Because he would have us take shame and confusion to ourselves. 3. He hath given us our tongues as Instrments to glorify him, and therefore God will have our glory, our tongue (as David calls it and often awakens it) used in our Petition and thanksgivings, our affections and desires are the more enkindled and freed by words, and Gods graces are excited by prayer. And though God knows the heart, yet he will leave the hid M●n of the heart manifested to man, for his edification and example. 4. Besides God will be glorified by the inward as well as by the outward Man, he made both, and redeemed both, and therefore will be glorified with both. By Prayer we entertain Familiarity with our heavenly Father, it is the language of the Saints, yea his children's Dialect, such a prevailing language it is, that it ever prevails, and is never sent empty away: what was vain gloriously spoken by a King's Favourite, may be truly spoken of the King of Kings, God can deny prayer nothing: It is the hand that takes any thing out of God's treasury, it is the Key that opens Heaven, by it Elias opened and shut Heaven as his private chest: There is much spoken of it, that I can add nothing but a desire to learn to be so well exercised in it, (as some as have wrote very worthily of it) only give me leave from a Father to say thus much of it: It is, Deo sacrificium, ●ranti subsidium, Diab●lo flagellum, A sacrifice to God, who styleth himself a God that heareth prayers, a succour to the Soul, and therefore to thee (saith David) shall all flesh come: It is a scourge to the D●vill, for as one well, Gravis aequidem nobis est illius tentatio, sed longe illi gravior nostri ratio: His temptations are griaevous to us, but our prayers are more grievous to him, what shall I say? If we pray unto God, he accounts it a desert, and if we praise him, a reward; he that will not give thus much (or rather thus little) to his heavenly Father, deserves nothing at all from him: For Rivers of God's goodness, let us give him some drops of our thankfulness, and follow him with our prayers, who follows us with his blessings. This is all he requires at our hands, who receive all from him.  
Lastly, if God be our Father, and we his children, Let us as Christ counsels us, Mat. 6. and God commands us Cast our care upon him, (for he careth for us) and hath given his word five times in his holy Book, That he will never fail us nor forsake us. Which for the comfort and confidence of God's children is so often pressed and repeated, Whosoever trusts in God, (saith David) wants nothing that is good; and he speaks it by his own experience, I have been young, etc. Read the 6. of Matthew, and you shall see there, how our Saviour chides and reproves the diffidence and distrust of his children, by sending them to the fowls of the air the grass in the field, the sparrows upon the house top, to the ravens and lilies etc. A sparrow, nay a hair of our heads falls not to the ground without God's providence. Et si sic curat super●lua, in quanta securitate est animal ● If God care thus much for our superfluous things, in what great security and safety are our souls! And if he feeds the young Ravens that call upon him, will he not much more feed you▪ O ye of little faith? Certainly he that provides meat for the fowls of the air, will cause the fowls of the air to provide meat for Man, before he shall starve or want. And he that clothes the lilies of the field with a far more glorious mantle than ever covered the corpse of Solomon; shall he not much sooner clothe you? etc. We profess that we rest upon God and trust in him for remission of sins, for the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting: Certainly (for conclusion) I shall never believe that those persons do or can trust in God for these spiritual blessings, who will not trust him for a piece of bread, or lock of wool. Cast therefore your care upon God, who hath begot you by his Word, and feed upon that Word, and let that Word feed you. Man liveth not by bread alone etc. Vita vera est vita fidei, The true life is the life of faith, and the Just shall live by faith. Trust in the Lord, and be doing of good, walk diligently and carefully in your callings, and you shall be fed. David spoke it by experience, I was poor and needy, etc. Trust I say in him, commit thyself to him, and he will bring it to pass.  
Surely if men that are evil, know how to give good gifts unto their children, (and a bad man may be a good father) shall not the God of all comfort and consolation, the Father of Spirits, provide for us? Yes, God hath given his Word, (and good is the Word of the Lord, or the Lord will be as good as his word) (in which word let us rest and repose) I will never fail nor forsake thee.  
Thus if we bear filial and dutiful respects to our heavenly Father, who hath begotten us to an inheritance immortal, undefiled, and which fadeth not away, 1. By being obedient to him, 2. By doing nothing to make him ashamed of us, 3. By meekly bearing his chastisements, 4. By living in his presence, and so living in fear to offend him, 5. By daily praying unto God, for by daily praying we shall learn to love and to fear him: Lastly, by relying and depending upon him for all things necessary both for body and soul: when we shall go hence to be no more seen, we shall go to our Father, receive and obtain the inheritance of sons, and be welcomed with that blessed Venite of Christ our Judge and elder Brother, Come ye blessed children of my Father, inherit, etc. Mat. 25.  
To which Kingdom, he for his Name sake bring us, which so dearly bought us, and that Kingdom for us, Jesus Christ the righteous. To whom with the Father and the blessed Spirit, be all honour, praise, power, might, majesty and domonion, now and for evermore. AMEN, AMEN.  
Soli Deo gloria.