is life eternal.

SERMON VIII

"Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee,
Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." John
iii. 3.

As we have in the last three sermons dwelt particularly on a salvation
by _faith_, we will take the liberty to introduce the subject of the
new birth next in order, as it will be, more readily, retained by the
reader, in this connexion than otherwise. Indeed, it hears a strong
resemblance to them so far as the subject of faith is concerned in our
present exposition. But whoever is a careful reader of the New
Testament, will discover that the subject of faith, and the genuine
repentance which that faith produces, is not of trivial moment.

There is no subject of divine revelation, on which more has been said,
preached and written than the one, which we are now about to consider.
It has been brought forward by men of talents and erudition as an
insuperable barrier against Universal Salvation, and their several
adherents have taken it for granted, that it can never be explained in
harmony with the sentiment, that all men shall eventually obtain
eternal life through the Redeemer of men. But these impressions have
arisen from the fact, that they have taken their own views and
explanations to be scripturally correct, and from these premises, they
have drawn conclusions utterly opposed to the final holiness and
happiness of God's intelligent creation. They have supposed the new
birth to be some mysterious change produced by some mysterious
operation of the divine spirit on the mind, and that it is in