as is well known, of the word rendered repentance.* That change is so often treated of or referred to in the New Testament, that we need have no difficulty in understanding its nature. In St. Matthew's Gospel, for example, we find the following account of a most important conversation which took place. between Christ and his disciples, in which the words of our Lord, if considered in connexion with the occasion on which they were spoken, are sufficient to determine in what that change mainly or substantially consists:-" At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, and said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven." Now, there can be no doubt, we conceive, that the conversion which our Lord described as becoming like little children is equivalent to that second birth, the necessity of which he so impressively declared to Nicodemus :-" Except a man be † Matt. xviii. 1—5.

* Μετάνοια.

born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."* Our Lord, we say, must have referred, on both these occasions, to one and the same change of heart. The difference was, that, in his language to the disciples, he called their attention to the dispositions in which their actual conversion would be made manifest to themselves and others—namely, the dispositions of little children; whereas, in his language to Nicodemus, he made known the Divine Agent of that conversion, the Holy Spirit, whose purifying influence on the soul was symbolized by the affusion of water in baptism, and conditionally pledged to the subjects of that ordinance. But we have proposed to consider the "new creation" of the mind inasmuch as its effects are matter of human experience, or evident to our own consciousness. It will be perceived, therefore, that the agency of the Holy Spirit, and the instrumentality of external ordinances of divine appointment in effectuating the renewal of our nature, are properly distinct from, however importantly related to, the subject of the present discourse.

To proceed then-if, as we have already stated, we refer to the occasion on which our

*John iii. 5.

Saviour made the declaration to his disciples which we have just cited, we shall immediately perceive what that conversion was, which he demanded from his followers as a qualification for the privileges of the heavenly kingdom, and which he described as becoming like little children. Our Lord made that declaration to his disciples in reply to the following question: Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" They had evidently given utterance to that illusive expectation which had possessed to infatuation the Jewish nation-namely, that the redemption which the Messiah was about to accomplish for his people was of a temporal nature, and that the kingdom, which he was on the eve of establishing, was of this world. They were, obviously, coveting offices and distinction in such a kingdom: hence they had disputed who was the greatest among them. It was this low and contracted view of their reasonable and immortal nature, and the design of his own embassy to our world, which our Lord rebuked and aimed to correct in the language which has just been cited. Clearly, then, the conversion which our Lord inculcated on his disciples, and which he described as becoming like little children, consisted in being

no longer actuated by a predominating desire of the wealth, or the honours, or the pleasures of this world; but by a predominating desire of a spiritual and eternal good made known to them in the Gospel of that happiness which especially concerns the soul, in its capacity of serving God here, and enjoying his presence and favour hereafter. We contrast these desires as they predominate in the mind, because, as it is scarcely necessary to observe, our subjection to the authority of Christ cannot involve the extinction or suppression of those desires which take their impulse, and seek their gratification, from this world; but their subordination to such precepts and institutions as contemplate the renewal of our nature after the divine likeness, and our fitness for the heavenly state.

It was a vacancy of selfish and inordinate desires with regard to this world, and a readiness, in consequence, to receive his own instructions relative to an unseen and future state, and thus to begin their life anew, so to speak, which our Saviour signified by the innocence and docility of little children-an explanation which remarkably accords with his repeated injunction to his hearers, to labour, not for the meat that perisheth, but

for that which endureth to everlasting life:" "to lay up for themselves treasures in heaven, where neither rust nor moth doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through and steal."* Such admonitions of our Lord took for granted, and might suggest to our reflections, that depravation of religious and moral principles which is the natural consequence of a prevailing attachment to the interests and pleasures of the present life; and the close connexion subsisting between the rectitude of human beings, and their pursuit of happiness in a future state. What, indeed, is it but the absorbing influence of the present, that constitutes the power of temptation? and what is so effectual to obstruct the perception of moral distinctions? It must suffice, however, on this topic, to observe that a covetousness and idolatry of earthly good had darkened the understanding of the Jewish people to the import and design of their religious institutions, and the true intent of the "word of prophecy" which was read amongst them; and had caused them to substitute a precise observance of the external rites of religion, for a mental devotion towards God, and a faithful discharge of moral duties. The Heathen, * Matt. vi. 20.