rther."

With such people, wise above what is written, knowing better than
Christ, practically, even if not intentionally, charging the Son of
God with folly, we desire no controversy. Let them overthrow the very
foundations of redemption if they will. Let them argue that all things
are not possible with God if they dare. We still prefer to believe
that the Spirit of God _can_ change, renew and regenerate the new-born
child. In Matt. iii. 9, we read; "_For I say unto you that God is able
of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham_," _i.e._, as the
connection shows, spiritual children of Abraham, true children of God.

We may not be able to understand the process by which God could
change the rough, hard stones of the field into true children of God,
but we believe it, because the Word says so. And believing that, it is
not hard for us to believe that He can impart His own divine life to
the heart of the child, and thus make it a new creature in Christ
Jesus.

He could, if it so pleased Him, do it without any means. By a
mere act of His will, God could recreate the human soul. He could do
so by a word, as He created the universe. Without the contact of any
outward means, without the bringing of His word to them in any way,
Christ healed the ruler's son and the daughter of the Syro-Phenician
woman. But if He can do this without means, who will say that He
cannot do the same thing through means? Since, then, He can accomplish
his own purposes of Grace either with or without means, it only
remains for us to inquire, in what way has it pleased God to work?
Does He in the present dispensation work mediately or immediately? It
will scarcely be disputed that the present is a dispensation of
means--that even in the domain of nature, and much more in the realm
of Grace, He ordinarily carries out His purposes through means. He
chooses His own means. They may sometimes seem foolishness to man,
especially in the operations of His Grace.

Our Saviour, in working miracles, used some means that must have
struck those interested as very unsuitable. When He healed the man
blind from his birth, _He mixed spittle and clay_, and with this
strange ointment, anointed and opened his eyes. Well might the blind
man have said: "What good can a little earth mixed with spittle do?"
Yet it pleased our Lord to use it as a means, in working that
stupendous miracle. When Jesus asked for the _five barley loaves and
two sm