331 FORGIVENESS OF SIN. cial difference between the things that constitute the one stateand the other. 'Whatever there is of goodness or grace in an unregenerate person, there is in him that is regenerate something of another kind that is not in the first at all; for the difference of these states themselves is plain in Scripture. The one is a state of death, the other of life; the one of darkness, the other of light; the one of enmity against God, the other of reconcilia- tion with him. And here I shall briefly give some marks of the truly regenerate. 1. The grace of regeneration proceeds from a special spring orfountain, the electing love of God : who " hath chosen us, that we should be holy." Ephes. 1 : 4. Our holiness, whose only spring is our regeneration, is that which God works in our souls in the pursuit of his eter- nal purpose of love and good-will towards us. So again, saith the apostle, " God bath from the beginning chosen you to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit." 2 Thess. 2 : 13. God having designed us to salvation as the end, hath also appointed the sanctification of the Spirit to be the means to bring us to the attainment of that end. But the best of common grace or gifts that may be in men unregenerate, are but products of the providence of God ordering all things in general unto his own glory and the good of them that shall be heirs of salvation. They are not fruits of electing eternal love, nor designed means for the infallible attaining of eternal salvation. 2. The graces of those who are regenerate have a manifold respect or relation to the Lord Christ that the common graces of others have not. I shall name one or two of these respects.
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