REGENERATION. 851 its actings, it consists in all the gracious operations of the mind, will and affections, in the duties of obedience which God has required. This is that which gives life to our duties, (without which the best of our works are but dead works,) and renders them acceptable unto the living God. It is not my business at large to pursue these things. I only mention them, that persons who are kept back from the consolation tendered from.the forgiveness that is with God, because they cannot comfortably conclude that they are born again, may know how to make a right judgment of themselves, and that it is such per- sons alone to whom these consolations truly and really belong. Let such persons, then, not fluctuate up and down in generals and uncertainties, with heartless com- plaints, which is the ruin of the peace of their souls, but let them really put things to the trial, by the examina- tion of the causes and effects of the work they inquire after. It is by the use of such means that God will be pleased to give them all the assurance and establish- ment concerning their state which is needful for them, and which may give them encouragement in their course of obedience. "But granting all that has been said, what if a man, by the utmost search and inquiry that he is able to make, cannot attain any satisfactory persuasion that in- deed this great work of God's grace has been wrought in his soul ; is this a sufficient ground to keep him from accepting support and consolation from the truth that there is forgiveness withGod ?" I say, then, further, that, 1. Regeneration does not, in the order of time, precede
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