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1. Regeneration is internal, conversion external. The one is hidden except as manifested in the other. Each is a change. The one applies to character, the other to conduct; one applies to the heart, the other to the manner of life. There may not be the same room for a change in the outer life of one as in the outer life of another. A young lady, raised under the refining influences of an elegant home, does not need conversion so much as the notoriously wicked man; still, she must be born from above, else she can never enter or see the kingdom of God.

2. Regeneration is a change wrought of God in man's heart; conversion is a change wrought by the man himself in his own life. Hence the man is turned, and turns himself; the engine is reversed, and reverses itself. These two great truths, rather two sides of one truth, should be held distinct and in their proper relation. In nature are things whose workmanship surpasses the workmanship of the highest human genius. Nature everywhere surpasses art. Surely among the masterpieces which come from God's hand is His work wherein a man becomes a new creature in Christ Jesus. "We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto God's works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them."

3. Regeneration is the only sure basis of a genuine conversion. Reformation, without regeneration, is possible. Reformation is not religion; a moral life is not necessarily a religious life. A religious life is something additional to the highest moral life — beautifies, adorns, glorifies it; does infinitely more, gives it a surer basis on which to rest. A godly life, a spiritual-mindedness, a joy and delight in God's service, must have back of it a change of heart. A religious life, without regeneration, is perhaps the heaviest and most galling yoke ever worn by man. Regeneration and conversion stand to each other as cause and effect, and we must not reverse the order. We need heart back of life; regeneration back of conversion. "If you have not known yourself a sinner, you cannot know Christ as a Saviour. Some are preaching up nowadays a dry-eyed faith, and men seem to jump into assurance as if there were no new birth, no conviction for sin, no repentance." There is great need for the fundamentals in religious experience and conviction and life.

4. Regeneration and conversion together characterise a people who are God's people. "They shall be My people, and I will be their God." God's people here; and God is their God now. This interior life springs from union with Him, and finds expression and correspondence in their outer life. Good in the heart and in the life: regenerated and converted; spiritual and religious; walking in God's statutes, keeping God's ordinances and doing them, because of what God has done within; working out, because God is working within. Such are God's people, each a coin bearing this double superscription. These are God's people now, but infinitely and gloriously hereafter.

(J. M. Frost.)

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KJV: And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh:

WEB: I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh;