we are not justified in expecting the accomplishment of what is promised. Of many proofs let the following suffice: "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments and do them. And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers," &c. &c. "Thus saith the Lord God; I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them."9

This instance might suffice to show the impropriety of the objection; but when the practical importance of the point contended for is borne in mind, I may well be excused in multiplying proofs.

Surely, that Spirit for whom we are taught to pray; after whom we are required to walk; whose influence we are commanded not to quench; and whom

9 Ezek. xxxvi. 25-37. Comp. ch. xviii. 31, &c.

we are not to grieve,1 can never be supposed to supersede our efforts. So far from it, that it is adduced by St. Paul as one of the most forcible motives to diligence. "Work-for it is God who worketh in you, both to will and to do of his good pleasure."2

Nor can the threatening, "My Spirit shall not always strive with man;" or the description of the Jews, "rebelling against, vexing, and always resisting the Holy Spirit," resulting as their conduct did in the destruction of their civil and ecclesiastical polity and subsequent dispersion among all nations ;-or the possibility of being in some sense "partakers of the Holy Ghost, and yet falling away;" and the "sorer punishment which awaits those who have done despite unto the Spirit of grace;"-be viewed in any other light than as so many beacons erected at different points in the moral

history of man, to warn us of the consequences of such conduct. They are powerful appeals to our hopes and fears.

Like causes, moreover, produce in this as in other instances, like effects. "That which is born of the Spirit is spirit ;"-it bears a resemblance to its divine original. The streams partake of the nature of the fountain: or, to adopt the reasoning of St. James, "Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Can the fig-tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine figs? So can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh. Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him show out of a good conversation his works, with meekness of wisdom."5

The genuine tendency of the Spirit's influence may not appear so conspicuously in a person whose disposition is constitutionally rugged, though it smooths many of its asperities, as in a person of a naturally amiable one; still, "the wisdom that is from

4 John v.6.

5 James iii. 11-13.

H

above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace." And "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance."

I am far, however, from asserting, that without the sanctifying agency of the Holy Spirit, there can be no moral excellency whatever. For the page of history exhibits many an illustrious action performed by the heathen, worthy of the golden age of Christianity; and even among the advocates of infidelity there may be "many worthy deeds done," as here and there may possibly be seen a flower even on the margin of a stagnant lake. The former, by multiplying the objects of their veneration betwixt contending qualities, so divide the force of their motives as to deprive them of any

6 James iii. 17, 18.

7 Gal. v. 22, 23.

moral advantage; while the latter removing every motive, capable of effectually, and under every circumstance, influencing the mind, necessarily leads, in its consequences, to an entire disruption of morals. It is not then in the arid desert of paganism; nor in the frozen regions of infidelity, where we may naturally expect to meet with even moral excellency; but in the warmer climate and more genial soil of Christianity. For it is there only that aid can be met with, which is necessary to its production and growth. Without the influence of the Spirit there can be no renouncing of self; no love to Christ; no esteeming him

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precious;" no due estimate of him as "an unspeakable gift," or of his "unsearchable riches;" no choice of him as our "Mediator ;" and by consequence no genuine piety.

Let it be granted that the Deity is exhibited on the page of revelation in an amiable light, and our duty to him is distinctly marked; that its precepts in