born again

Except a man be born again, says our Saviour, he cannot see the kingdom of God.10 Surely they that are not born again, shall one day wish they had never been born. What a poor wretched thing is the life that we have here ! a very heap of follies and miseries ! Now if we would share in a happier being after it, in that life which ends not, it must begin here. Grace and glory are one and the same life, only with this difference, that the one is the beginning, and the other the perfection of it ; or, if we do call them two several lives, yet the one is the undoubted pledge of the other. It was a strange word for a heathen to say, that that day of death we fear so, mterni natalis est (is the birth-day of eternity). Thus it is indeed to those who are here born again : this new birth of grace is the sure earnest and pledge of that birth-day of glory. Why do we not then labour to make this certain by the former ? Is it not a fearful thing to spend our days in vanity, and then lie down in darkness and sorrow for ever ; to disregard the life of our soul, while we may and should be provident for it, and then, when it is going out, cry, Quo nunc abibis ? ( Whither art thou going, O my soul ?) Robert Leighton

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