There must be a Divine alteration of disposition

(John Angell James)  LISTEN to audio!  Download audio

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"Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
 The old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new!"
    2 Corinthians 5:17

There must be a Divine alteration of disposition. Our . . .
  views and tastes,
  pains and pleasures,
  hopes and fears,
  desires and pursuits
—must be changed!

We must be brought to love God supremely, for His holiness and justice, as well as for His mercy and love; to delight in Him for His transcendent glory, as well as for His rich grace.

We must have a perception of the beauties of holiness, and love Divine things for their own excellence.

We must mourn for sin, and hate it for its own evil nature—as well as its dreadful punishment.

We must feel delight in the salvation of Christ, not only because it delivers us from Hell—but makes us like God, and all this in a way which honors and glorifies Jehovah.

We must be made partakers of true humility and universal love, and feel ourselves brought to be of one mind with God, in willing and delighting in the happiness of others.

We must be brought to feel an identity of heart with God's cause, and to regard it as our honor and happiness to do anything to promote the glory of Christ in the salvation of sinners.

We must feel a longing desire, a hungering and thirsting after holiness—as well as come to a determination to put away all sins, however gainful or pleasant.

We must have a tender conscience, that shrinks from and watches against little sins, secret faults, and sins of neglect and omission—as well as great and scandalous offences.

We must love the people of God, for God's sake, because they belong to Him and are like Him.

We must practice the self-denying duty of mortification of sin, as well as engage in the pleasing exercises of religion.

Nothing less than such a view of Christ in His glorious mediatorial character, and such a dependence by faith upon His blood and righteousness for salvation—as changes the whole heart, and temper, and conduct, and throws the world as it were into the background, and makes glory hereafter, and holiness now, the supreme concern—is saving religion!