Thus far the masters of morality and human discipline may go; they may tame and reform the outward man, clothe him with the appearance of many images of virtue, which will, some or all of them, be put off, just as time, occasion, and flesh and blood, require it. For the goodness of a living creature must be its own life; it must arise up in it as its own love, or any passion doth; just as the fierceness of the tiger, and the meekness of the lamb, are the birth of their own life. And if goodness is not our natural birth from our natural parents, we must of all necessity be born again from a principle above nature, or no goodness can be living in us. Now since goodness is a life, we have a twofold proof, that no goodness can be living in us, till we are born again of the Word and Spirit of God: for nature, as well as scripture, assures us, that God is originally the one good, and the one life; and therefore no good life can possibly be in us, but by the Word, life, and Spirit, of God having a birth in us. And from this birth alone it is, that the free, genuine works of goodness flow forth with the freedom of the divine life, wherewith the Spirit of God has made us free; loving and doing all manner of good, merely for goodness-sake; virtuous in all kind of virtue, purely for virtue-sake: then we are the natural true children of our heavenly Father, and do the works of heaven with a cheerful and willing mind. Then it is, that we are good in the manner as God is good, because it is his goodness that is born in us; we are perfect as he is perfect, we love as he loves, are patient as he is patient, we give as he gives, we forgive as he forgives, and resist evil only with good as he does.