my Juliet, most assuredly; every quickened soul will
live, and bring forth fruits of righteousness; but these works are not
attainable but in God's way and order. It follows, 'For we are his
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath
before ordained that we should walk in them.'

"My Juliet says, 'To you then I look up to teach me.' Let me then
bring you to the great Teacher and Prophet of the church, without
whose teaching all human instruction will be ineffectual. We read of
two amiable characters coming to Christ professedly for instruction.
The first you will find in Matthew 19:16. The young man asks him,
'What good thing shall I do, that I may inherit eternal life?' Jesus
answers him by referring him to the moral law: the young man, not made
acquainted by the Spirit of God, either with the extent or
spirituality of that law, or of the depravity of his own nature,
answers, as many in like circumstances still do,' All these things
have I kept from my youth up.' I do not suppose any one could
contradict him. It is added that Jesus loved him, and he was a person
of attractive character; but Jesus knew that the true principle was
not there--supreme love to God, 'with all the heart, with all the
soul, with all the strength, and with all the mind:' therefore he gave
him a test which proved that the world was uppermost in his heart. He
went away sorrowful, and we hear no more of him.

"Of the other person we read in that remarkable chapter, the
third of John's gospel--Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, and also a
teacher. Well knew he the law, as to the letter of it, both moral and
ceremonial; he must also have been acquainted with all the Old
Testament scripture types and prophecies, it being his office to
expound; and no doubt, among others, was looking for the promised
Messiah. Jesus does not send him to either the law or the prophets.
This ruler comes with a conviction and an acknowledgment that Jesus
himself was a teacher immediately from God; and Jesus immediately
takes upon himself his great office, and begins with urging that which
is a sinner's first business--'to know himself,' what he is by nature,
and the necessity of the new birth. Nicodemus, with all his learning,
was a stranger to this doctrine: 'How can a man be born when he is
old?' Jesus repeats his doctrine, 'He must be born of water and the
Spirit;' baptized with water and the Holy Ghost. 'That which is born
of the fl