* * * * *
=_Joseph S. Buckminster, 1784-1812._= (Manual, p. 480.)
From the "Sermons."
=_28._= NECESSITY OF REGENERATION.
Look back, my hearers, upon your lives, and observe the numerous
opinions that you have adopted and discarded, the numerous attachments
you have formed and forgotten, and recollect how imperceptible were
the revolutions of your sentiments, how quiet the changes of your
affections. Perhaps, even now, your minds may be passing through some
interesting processes, your pursuits may be taking some new direction,
and your character may soon exhibit to the world some unexpected
transformation. Compare with this the spiritual regeneration of the
heart. So is every one that is born of the Spirit. Perhaps the following
may not be an imperfect description of the process that takes place in
a mind which is the subject of a radical conversion. The motion of the
wind is unseen, its effects are visible; the trees bend and fields are
laid waste; though the altering sentiments and affections are unnoticed,
the altered character obtrudes itself upon our observation. Truths
before contemplated without concern, now seize the mind with a grasp
too firm to be shaken. The world which is to succeed the present is no
longer a subject of accidental thought, of wavering belief, or lifeless
speculation; a region to which no tie binds us, and which no curiosity
leads us to explore.
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