it is essential to the salvation of every human being. The phrase " to be born again" is undoubt edly figurative; but the thing it represents is real. As by our birth into this world we partake of human nature, so by our undergoing that change which is designated by the new birth, we are made partakers of a divine or spiritual nature, and become the subjects of a transformation, scripturally denominated a new creation. The whole man is renewed. Is the understanding, in relation to divine things, naturally dark? By regeneration it is illuminated. Is the will stubborn, perverse, and depraved? By regeneration it is brought into a cheerful subjection to the divine mind, as revealed in the Scriptures. Are the affections impure? By regeneration they are renovated and sanctified. In short, "If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature," or a new creation, as the word also signifies. He has new views of himself-of the law of the gospel-of God-of the Saviourof death of judgment-of eternity.-In fine, “Old things are passed away, and all things are become new."-But who is the Author of this change?So great, so noble, and so divine, is the renovation, that none but the Spirit of God can accomplish it. Hence in the New Testament it is always ascribed to the divine power; "Except a man be born of the Spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God."+ "Of his own will he begat us, that we ↑ John 3. 3.

2 Cor. 5. 17.

should be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures."* -What are the evidences of it? Faith in the Redeemer; love to God and man; victory over the world; and universal holiness of life.Stranger, you have cast contempt on a doctrine, an experimental acquaintance with which is necessary to your salvation. If you live and die without becoming a subject of it, it is impossible that you can either see or enter into the kingdom of God.

The next scriptural phrase which you have made the subject of your contemptuous ridicule, is, the command of God by the apostle to put off the old man, or, as you have yourself expressed it, in words nearly synonymous, the man of sin. Let us read the whole of the beautiful passage as it is recorded by the pen of the inspired writer. "But ye have not so learned Christ; if so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus: that ye put off, concerning the former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness."-The truth as it is in Jesus, of which the apostle has been speaking, taught these Ephesians, and teaches all who are the subjects of true Christianity, that they must put off, in respect of their whole former

conversation and behaviour, the old man, or that sinful nature, which they derived from fallen Adam, and which is corrupt in all its principles and affections. The outward conduct resulting from this corrupt nature must be cast off at once as a filthy garment, and the inward desires themselves must be denied, crucified, and mortified, till they are wholly abolished.-The Ephesians had also been taught according to the truth in Jesus, that they must continually be renewed more and more in the inward judgment, temper, and affections of their souls, by the power of divine grace, into the humble, spiritual, holy, and affectionate mind of Christ: that so they might put on the \new man, and that their habitual conduct might be conformed to his example, and evince that they were new created after the image of God in righteousness and true holiness-the holiness of truth, even that holiness which springs from a real belief of the truth as it is in Jesus, consists in uprightness towards God and man, and produces genuine peace and satisfaction.-These lessons they had been taught by the apostle, and by Christ himself, if they were true Christians. The corrupt conversation, including doubtless the bad habits of the heathen, is distinguished from the "old man," or the depraved nature, whence all these evils sprang. The root would still-remain, after the converts had "put off, concerning the former conversation, the old man ;" and this

would render watchfulness and diligence needful to the end, even till "the body of sin was abolished." If the "old man" signify only bad habits, as some explain it, how did it come to pass that these bad habits have always been so general, not to say, universal; while good habits have been exceedingly rare? We never read of bad habits, in any degree, among holy angels; nor would they have been heard of among men, if we had not apostatized from God, and become dead in sin, and "by nature children of wrath."-The state of the unconverted Gentiles is indeed here particularly adverted to: yet it is most certain, that the nature of the unregenerate (nay, their practice also, except in respect of gross idolatry, and some of its abominable appendages) is similar, even in those who are called Christians.*

I am, Sir, &c.

* See the note on the passage in Scott's Bible.

LETTER XII.

SIR,

In your catalogue of religious denominations existing in Reading, you have noticed the Sandemanians, of which I believe there is a small society who have a meeting-house in London-street; but, as in the case of the Universalists, you have not honoured them with any subsequent notice. The Sandemanians are a sect which originated in Scotland, in 1728. They were first denominated Glassites, from their founder, Mr. John Glass, but have since received the name by which they are now distinguished, from Robert Sandeman, who published a series of letters to Mr. Hervey, as strictures on his Theron and Aspasio. The Sandemanians consider faith as a mere assent to the truth, independent of any of its effects, and deny the agency of the Holy Spirit in its production. They consider an examination in relation to the fruits of belief, as tending to establish a personal righteousness upon frames, feelings, and acts of faith. The members of thissect, though strict in some points of discipline, are very lax on other subjects. They do not appear to lay much stress on the observance