NEW CREATION ay REGENERATION. 121 but only a reformation of life, and the improvement of lay hid in God, Ephes. iii. 9. Some intimations were mens natural abilities in the exercise of moral virtue, through the application of outward means unto their minds and understandings, conducting and persuading thereunto; they must be granted to be obscure, beyond those of anyother writers whatsoever, as some have not feared already to publish unto the world concerning the epistles of Paul. But so long as we can obtain an ac- knowledgment from men, that they are true, and in any sense the ward of God, we doubt not but to evince that the things intended in them, are clearly and pro- perly expressed, soas they ought to be, and so as they re capable to be expressed; the difficulties which seem to be in them, arising from the mysterious nature of the things themselves contained in them, and the weakness of our minds in apprehending such things, and not from any obscurity or intricacy in the declaration of them. And herein, indeed, consists the` main contest whereunto things with the most are reduced. Some judge that all things are so expressed in the scripture with a condescension unto our capacity, so as that there is still to be conceived an inexpressible grandeur in manyof them beyond our comprehension. Others judge, on the other hand, that under a grandeur of words and hyperbolical expressions, things of a meaner and a lower senseare intended and to be understood. Some judge, the things of the gospel to be deep and mysterious, the words and expressions of it to be plain and proper: others think the words and expressionsof it to be mysti- cal and figurative, but the things intended to be ordi- nary and obvious to the natural reason of every man. But, to return, Sect. S. Both regeneration, and the doctrine of it, were under the Old Testament. All the elect of God, in their several generations, were all regenerate by the Spirit of God. But, in that ampliation and en- largement of truth and grace under the gospel, which came by Jesus Christ, who brought life and immorta- lity to light, as more persons than of old were to be made partakers of the mercy of it, so the nature of the work itself is far more clearly, evidently, and distinctly, revealed and declared. And, because this is the prin- cipal and internal remedyof that disease which the Lord Christ came to cure and take away, one ofthe first things that he preached was the doctrine of it. All things of this nature before, even from the beginning of the world, given of them in parables and darksayings, nip 'an Psal. lxxviii. 2. in types, shadows, and ceremonies, so as the nature of the grace in them was not clearly to be discerned. But, now, when thegreat Physician of our souls came, who was to heal the wound of our natures, whence we were dead in trespasses and sins, he lays naked the disease itself; declares the greatness of it, the ruin we were under from it, that we might know and be thankful for its reparation. Hence no doctrine is more fully and plainly declared in the gospel, than this of our regeneration by the effectual and ineffable operation of the Holy Spirit. And it is a consequent and fruit of the depravation ofour nature, that againstthe full light and evidenceof truth, now clearly manifested, this great and holy work is opposed and despised. Sect. 9th. Few, indeed, have yet the confidence in plain and intelligible words to deny it absolutely. Bat many tread in the steps of him who first in the church of God undertook to undermine it. This was Pela- gins, whose principal artificewhich he used in the in- troduction of his heresy, was in the clouding of his in- tentionswith general and ambiguous expressions, as some would be making use of his very words and phrases. Hence, for a long time, when he was justly charged with his sacrilegious errors, he made no defenceof them, but reviled his adversaries as corrupting his mind, and not understandinghis expressions. And by this means, as he got himself acquitted in the judgments of some, less experienced in the sleights and cunning craftiness of Denguequemado respondeat advertise, et videte latebras ambigua. tatis fulsitati prmpararerefugia, its ut etiam nos cum primum eategimus, recta vet correcta propemodum gauderemus. August. de Percas. Orig. cap. 18. Mihi pene persuaserithone ilium gratiem de quaqumtio est condteri; quo minus in mnttis ejns opuscoli lock sibiipsi contradieere videretnr. Sed cum in menus meas et olíavcntssent qua posterius latiusgne scripsit, vidi queroadmodum etiam litio gratiam nominare sed ambigua generali- tate quid sentiresabscondens, gratim temen vocabolofrangeas invidiam, offensionemque declinan. Id. de Gres.. Christ. lib. I. cap. 37. Vid. August. lib. 1. cont. Jutianum_ cap. 5. lib. 3. cap. 1. lib. de gest. Pelag. cap. 30. Epist 95. ád Innocent. EpicaImmcent. ad August. Negant etiamquern ad Sacrum Christi virginem Nemebiadem in ori- ente conscripsimus, et noverint nos ita hominis laudare enturam ut Dei semper addamus auxilium, (verba Pelagii quibis respondes Augustinus) istam sane lege, mihique pene persuaserat, ham illam gratiam de qua qua quastio est coaóteri. Id. obi supra.
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