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when they are dedicated to God. And the Spirit of God is called "the Holy Spirit," because he is dedicated, in all his mental energies, his intellectual energies, his spiritual energies, to setting forth the glory and the excellency of God. And what is the reason that he obtaineth to the Church the epithet of the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit? Ah! dear friends, it is because the unholiest thing between earth and heaven is spirit. O, there is nothing so unholy as a soul alienated from God. Flesh is a most unholy thing; but it is a truly corruptible thing, and it will dissolve into its primitive element of the dust, from which it was taken; and the condemnation of God will be enstamped in its dissolution. But the spirit that dwells in the bosom of an ungodly man, that is the unholy thing, for it is an immortal unholiness. Remember, moreover, the energies of the body are soon worn out by sin; but the energies of the soul, longing after sin, survive the body. And when men are lying on beds of sickness and torture, the spirit, the unholy spirit, that is within them, is longing after their evils; they are like the Israelites when they came out into the wilderness, when they were assailed by want and misery, their souls were worse than their bodies. They went back to Egypt, and they longed after the flesh-pots of Egypt; the flesh they had eaten, the vegetables which had pandered to their lusts and excited their appetites. Even so the most unholy of all things is an unholy understanding, an unholy body; the very image of God polluted into the image of the devil. That is really an unholy thing; and therefore it is, that the Spirit of the living God is at once brought before the Church as a Holy Spirit, to shew spirit in God, and of God, altogether separated from sin, and dedicated unto God.

I pray you, remember, how many matters make the body comparatively holy? I speak of outward holiness. Why you know there is not a body in this house that is not outwardly holy. We are all here in the house of God; and we have dedicated our hour to God's worship. We sit before God as God's people sit: we listen to the Word of God as God's people listen; we speak of God as God's prophets speak; we praise God as God's people praise. The word, the church, the very ordinances of this day, the Lord's day, have given the body an outward holiness. Ah! who knoweth what our spirits have been doing since we came into the charmed circle, as it were, of the outward holiness of the house of God? Our bodies are here, but our souls may have been at the ends of the earth: our bodies have been worshipping God, but our souls may have been bowing down to Moloch and to Baal. Our bodies have uttered, with our voices, prayer to the Eternal; but our souls may have been uttering imprecations, deep and dark, against the children of men. O, the body, aye, the body, may put on outward holiness because of the restraint of the world, while the spirit is revelling in all its abominations and sin, alienated from God. Therefore the Lord introduces the Spirit as holiness, to shew to the church how, in the very nature of that, as he comes unto the church, dedication to the Lord is the thing that is required, and not the mere outward service of the place, of the attitude, of the lip, and of the knee; but the inward service of the soul given up to God, and entirely yielded to his glory.

These things must suffice for our present word of instruction; let us improve, by one or two thoughts, in a very few words, the thing that has now been spoken.

Now the first word of moment that I would endeavour to speak to your ear

and to your heart, is this, to ask, Have you ever felt your need of the Spirit of God in his office of Comforter? We all have our share of trouble in the world; but, O! when trouble comes we are like the king of Israel: we think of Egypt, the land of our slavery; we think of Assyria, the land of our captivity. There are those who run back upon the world for comfort; and those who look forward beyond the grave as a mere time of oblivion. Ah! dear friends, miserable comforters are they all; worse than the sad and irrational comforters of Job. Our past worldly enjoyments are Egypt; our escape by the grave is but the captivity of Assyria and Babylon. O, the true duty and privilege of Israel's king would have been, to draw nigh to God: the true privilege of the believer in trouble is, the Spirit testifying of the crucified Saviour, of the risen Saviour, of the reigning Saviour, the interceding Saviour, the judging Saviour: this is the comfort. O, then, whenever you are in sorrow, from any cause arising, neither go back to Egypt, to the world, nor look forward to the Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylon of death: but look to the Spirit of God, the Comforter, that dwelleth with you, and abideth with you, testifying of Jesus.

Secondly: If you need comfort, do not deceive yourself by having recourse to a spirit of mere impression and of imagination: but at once have recourse unto the Spirit of God as the Spirit of Truth. Look the truth of God in the face; look every truth in the face: look happiness in the face-look heaven in the face: O! above all, look the Judge, the Saviour, in the face. Be not deceived; there is no comfort plucked off the tree of life, but what arises from the root of death.

Finally Remember your desire in your affliction, from whatever source arising, to obtain comfort. Remember it can but be obtained from the Holy Spirit. What was the reason that Israel fled before the enemy? Achan in the camp the Babylonish garment, and the wedge of gold. One wedge of gold was the ruin of the army; one Babylonish garment smote down all the shields of Israel. And so one sin, one unholy imagination, cherished, preserved, protected, will be like Jonah's worm at the root of the gourd; it will be eaten away, it will wither, it will die. There is no comfort from the Holy Spirit but as a Spirit of Truth, and as he is holy. "Be ye holy as I am holy." "Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man can see the Lord." Be not deceived with the morality of this generation: there is no morality but holiness; and there is no holiness but when the Spirit of God taketh the things of Jesus and shews them to us, and abides within us, shewing them for ever.

May the Spirit be known in all his names, by all his attributes, and by all his gifts, and to the name of our God be the praise.

THE BLESSING OF THOSE WHO HEAR AND KEEP THE WORD OF GOD.

REV. J. RUdge, d.d.

HAWKCHURCH, APRIL 26 and MAY 3, 1835.

"But Jesus said, Yea, rather blessed are they that hear the Word of God, and keep it." LUKE, xi. 28.

I THINK it cannot be denied that there are few chapters in the Word of God which are more important than the one from which I have taken this text; first, because it contains that most beautiful prayer called the Lord's Prayera prayer which possesses the rare felicity and excellence of condensing in few but comprehensive words, every thing which can identify the case, and express the wants and desires of man, here and hereafter; and, secondly, because the chapter details the account of one of the most remarkable of the miracles which either the might or the mercy of Jesus ever performed.

Prayer was an exercise in which our Lord was constantly employed; and by his engaging example, we are enlightened and instructed in the performance of this most necessary and important duty. It appears that on a certain occasion upon which he had ceased from praying and communing with God, he was solicited by one of his disciples to prescribe a form of prayer which might be applicable to every condition of life, and fit for every description of character, and for every future generation of men to use. The resuit of this application was, that Jesus taught his disciples that form of sound words which we designate from him by the title of our Lord's Prayer; and, I think, that it is not improbable that it contains the substance of what he himself was wont to use, and perhaps had used in "the certain place," and at the very time, in which the application had been made by one, in the name, it may be, of all his other disciples. Whether or no this was the case, is not important; it is only a probable conjecture of my own, and, therefore, entitled to little weight But the fact is, whenever we pray, we have his sanction and authority for the use of this inimitable prayer.

After assuring us that the munificent Being to whom this and every other petition are addressed, will give us every good thing for which we pray in the Holy Spirit, the account of the very remarkable miracle to which I have above alluded, is detailed. "He was casting out a devil, and it was dumb;" or, in other words, a dumb demoniac, to whom he gave, or restored, the organ of speech. The people, when they saw this phenomenon-that is, the expulsion of the devil from the person so possessed, and the faculty of speech imparted to the dumb man, wondered. Before the coming of our Lord, the devil had been permitted to exercise a tyrannical power over the bodies of men, from which it was one object of his advent to rescue them, and to establish upon the ruins of that power the kingdom of God and his Christ.

But upon this point I am not now to insist. The miracle here recorded-the cure of this demoniac-was a powerful demonstration, and a convincing evidence of our Lord's divinity, seeing that by a word only he cast out and expelled this unclean spirit. But here we behold the force and the baneful effects of prejudice. The Pharisees, by whom the phenomenon was witnessed, and by whom, therefore, the fact of the miracle could not be denied, instead of magnifying the divine power by which it had been wrought, maliciously ascribed it to the aid and assistance of Beelzebub, and accused the holy Jesus of being in league and confederacy with the prince of devils: a monstrous supposition, which implies that the devil made over and delegated his own power for the purpose of its ruin and demolition; or, as our Lord justly argued, that he lent it for the express object of waging war upon himself *. Our Lord having refuted this improbable supposition and vile calumny, by the strongest. arguments and the most triumphant reasoning, and having sufficiently demonstrated that it was not from Satan but from God himself that he derived his power of working miracles, one of the multitude, and a woman, too, upon whose heart malice and prejudice had made no impression, ravished with the justness as well as the beauty of the things he had uttered, and indignant, perhaps, at the treatment he received, lifted up her voice, and said unto him, "Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked!" in other words," Blessed, and highly-favoured among women is the mother that bare thee who may now be truly called the Prophet of the Highest, the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth!" Then occurs the text, or the reflection made by Christ in answer to this pious remark of this female: "But he said, Yea, rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it !"

It will now be my object, from this text of Scripture, to deduce the instruction with which it abounds, and endeavour to shew you, first, the necessity of knowing the Word of God; to point out, secondly, how that knowledge is to be acquired; and to impress upon your minds, thirdly, that it is not sufficient to know, and to hear the Word of God, but that you must also keep it, and do it. Lastly, I shall suggest some reflections on the blessedness and happiness which they shall experience by whom this divine Word is heard and kept. I need scarcely observe that so many points, or divisions as I have mentioned, will embrace a wide field of observation, and that the limits of a single sermon will hardly admit of that ample examination to which a text, so full of important matter, is entitled. Therefore, not to overburthen your memories, and to occupy too much of your attention, I shall the better consult your improvement by making each head the subject of a separate discourse. This I shall do, and, with respect to each, I shall make it my devout and ardent petition to God, that, by his good Spirit, he would open the eyes of your understanding to see the wonders of his law-that he would open your ears to divine instruction; your hearts to receive knowledge; and impart to you celestial aid to perform his righteous commandments! Even so, Lord Jesus, let it be !

I am, first, to shew you THE NECESSITY OF YOUR KNOWING THE WORD OF GOD

See Horsley Vol. i. Sermon x.

Now to know God, and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent, is life eternal. But how shall we know God unless he be revealed to us? For how can a finite mind conceive and comprehend a Being that is infinite? From the works of nature, and of Providence, we may indeed be led to the belief of a God, and also discern that he is possessed of those attributes of infinite power, and wisdom, and goodness, &c. which we ascribe to him. It must, however, be confessed, that all the knowledge to which we attain of God from nature is exceedingly imperfect and deficient; as is abundantly evident from the state of the world before it was blessed with the sacred writings; and from the state in which it remains at this day in those countries in which the Holy Scriptures are literally a Gospel hid, and a book sealed. Then, and there, we learn what unbecoming, what mean, and what degraded notions men entertained of God and his government. But, allowing that "the invisible things of him may be seen and understood from the creation of the world, even his eternal power and God-head," yet, from thence we should never have learned any thing of Jesus Christ the Redeemer; or of what he hath done to ransom us from misery, and to purchase for us life and salvation. It was, therefore, requisite for our happiness, that God should give us some clearer revelation of himself. Now this he has done by his Word, which he has declared to the world, and by which we are instructed in the knowledge of every thing necessary for us to know. By these Sacred Oracles we are informed who, and what this Saviour of sinners is; what he has done and what he has suffered for our sakes; what return he requires us to make; what we may expect from his kindness, if we follow him in the road of duty; and what we have to fear from his avenging justice, if we refuse to hearken to his voice-if we disobey his commandments, violate his laws, and do those things which he has forbidden. Surely knowledge like this is necessary to be revealed to all who would obtain life eternal. "Whatsoever things were written," saith the Apostle, written for our learning." "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works." If we would know our Master's will, and do it, we must consult the oracles of truth; and if we would be saved, we must "know the Holy Scriptures which are able to make us wise unto salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus."

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I need scarcely mention how that God, in numberless places of Scripture, has expressly commanded the reading and studying of his Word. From a great number of well-known passages in reference to this duty, I shall select a few; and this selection is made as much to refresh your memories, as to stimulate your practice. Hear the command which God gave to his ancient people of Israel, Deuteronomy, vi. 6-9: " These words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart. And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them, when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and thev shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house and on thy gates." "Search the Scriptures," saith the Divine Teacher. "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in ail wisdom saith St. Paul to the Colossians. "Blessed is the man," saith David, whose

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