Selected Sermons of George Whitefield Author:George Whitefield Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: II REGENERATION1 ' If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.'—2 Cor. v. 17. THE doctrine of our regeneration, or new birth in Christ Jesus, though one... more » of the most fundamental doctrines of our holy religion ; though so plainly and often pressed on us in sacred writ, ' that he who runs may read '; nay, though it is the very hinge on which the salvation of each of us turns, and a point too in which all sincere Christians, of every denomination, agree ; yet it is so seldom considered, and so little experimentally understood, by the generality of professors, that were we to judge of the truth of it by the experience of most who call themselves Christians, we should be apt to imagine they had ' not so much as heard 'whether there be any such thing as regeneration, or not. 1' The second sermon I ever made, the second sermon I ever preached,' says Whitefield, 'was on this text.' This sermon was preached at the Church of St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol, and was published in August 1737. It is true, men for the most part are orthodox in the common articles of their Creed ; they believe ' there is but one God, and one Mediator between God and men, even the man Christ Jesus'; and that there is no other name given under heaven, whereby they can be saved, besides His : but then, tell them they must be regenerated, they must be born again, they must be renewed in the very spirit, in the inmost faculties of their minds, ere they can truly call Christ ' Lord, Lord,' or have an evidence that they have any share in the merits of His precious blood ; and they are ready to cry out with Nicodemus, ' How can these things be ? ' or with the Athenians, on another occasion,' What will this babbler say ? ' He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange doctrines, because we preach unto them Christ, ...« less