our endeavours, succouring our infirmities,| strengthening our resolutions; "making with the temptation a way to escape;" promoting our improvement, assisting our progress; warning, rebuking, encouraging, comforting, attending us, as it were, through the different stages of our laborious advance in the road of salvation. SERMON XXV. (PART III.) ON THE INFLUENCE OF THE SPIRIT. Know ye not that ye are the temple of God; And as the operations of the Spirit are indefinite, so far as we know, in respect of time, so are they likewise in respect of mode. They may act, and observation affords reason to believe that they do sometimes act, by adding As all doctrine ought to end in practice, and force and efficacy to instruction, advice, or ad-all sound instruction lead to right conduct, it monition. A passage of Scripture sometimes comes, in the last place, to be considered, what strikes the heart with wonderful power; ad- obligations follow from the tenet of an assistheres, as it were, and cleaves to the memory, ing grace and spiritual influence; what is to till it has wrought its work. An impressive be done on our part in consequence of holding sermon is often known to sink very deep. It such a persuasion; what is the behaviour coris not, perhaps, too much to hope, that the responding and consistent with such an opiSpirit of God should accompany his ordinan- nion. For we must always bear in mind, that ces, provided a person bring to them serious- the Grace and Spirit of God no more take ness, humility, and devotion. For example, away our freedom of action, our personal and the devout receiving of the holy sacrament moral liberty, than the advice, the admonimay draw down upon us the gift and benefit tions, the suggestions, the reproofs, the exposof divine grace, or increase our measure of it. tulations, the counsels of a friend or parent This, as being the most solemn act of our re- would take them away. We may act either ligion, and also an appointment of the religion right or wrong, notwithstanding these interitself, may be properly placed first; but every ferences. It still depends upon ourselves which species of prayer, provided it be earnest; every of the two we will do, We are not machines act of worship, provided it be sincere, may participate in the same effect; may be to us the occasion, the time, and the instrument of this greatest of all gifts. under these impressions; nor are we under the impression of the Holy Spirit. Therefore there is a class of duties relating to this subject, as much as any other; and, more perhaps than any other, important. In all these instances, and in all indeed that relate to the operations of the Spirit, we And, first, I would apply myself to an obare to judge, if we will take upon us to judge jection, which belongs to this, namely, the at all (which I do not see that we are obliged practical part of the subject; which objection to do,) not only with great candour and mo- is, that the doctrine of spiritual influence, and deration, but also with great reserve and cau- the preaching of this doctrine, causes men to tion; and as to the modes of Divine grace, or attend chiefly to the feelings within them, to of its proceedings in the hearts of men, as of place religion in feelings and sensations, and things undetermined in Scripture, and unde- to be content with such feelings and sensaterminable by us. In our own case, which it tions, without coming to active duties and real is of infinitely more importance to each of us usefulness: that it tends to produce a contemto manage rightly, than it is to judge even plative religion, accompanied with a sort of truly of other men's, we are to use persevering- abstraction from the interests of this world, as ly, every appointed, every reasonable, every respecting either ourselves or others; a sort probable, every virtuous endeavour to render of quietism and indifference which contributes ourselves objects of that merciful assistance, nothing to the good of mankind, or to make a which undoubtedly and confessedly we much man serviceable in his generation; that men want, and which, in one way or other, God, of this description sit brooding over what paswe are assured, is willing to afford. ses in their hearts, without performing any good actions, or well discharging their social or domestic obligations, or indeed guarding their outward conduct with sufficient care. Now, if there be any foundation in fact for this charge, it arises from some persons holding this doctrine defectively; I mean from their not attending to one main point in the doctrine, which is, that the promise is not to those who have the Spirit, but to those who are led by the Spirit ; not to those who are favoured with its suggestions, but to those who give themselves up to follow, and do actually follow these suggestions. Now, though a per-structions could not come from a man who son, by attending to his feelings and conscious-placed religion in feelings and sensations. nesses may persuade himself that he has the Having noticed this objection (for it well Spirit of God; yet if he stop and rest in these deserved notice,) I proceed to state the parti sensations without consequential practical ex- cular duties which relate to the doctrine of spi. ertions, it can by no possibility be said of him, ritual assistance And the first of these du. nor, one would think, could he possibly bring ties is to pray for it. It is by prayer that it himself to believe, that he is led by the Spirit, is to be sought; by prayer that it is to be that he follows the Spirit; for these terms ne- obtained. This the Scriptures expressly teach. cessarily imply something done under that in- " How much more will your heavenly Father fluence, necessarily carry the thoughts to a give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?" course of conduct entered into and pursued in The foundation of prayer, in all cases, is a sense obedience to, and by virtue of that influence. of want. No man prays in earnest or to any Whether the objection here noticed has any purpose for what he does not feel that he wants. foundation in the conduct of those who hold Know then and feel the weakness of your na the doctrine of which we treat, I am uncer-ture. Know the infinite importance of holdtain; accounts are different: but at any rate ing on, nevertheless, in a course of virtue. the objection lies not against the doctrine, but Know these two points thoroughly, and you can against a defective apprehension of it. For, stand in need of no additional motive (indeed in confirmation of all which we have said, we none can be added,) to excite in you strong may produce the example of St. Paul. No unwearied supplications for divine help; not one carried the doctrine of spiritual influence a cold asking for it in any prescribed form of higher than he did, or spoke of it so much; prayer, but cryings and supplications for it, yet no character in the world could be farther strong and unwearied. The description in than his was from resting in feelings and sen- the Epistle to the Hebrews, of our Lord's own sations. On the contrary, it was all activity devotion, may serve to describe the devotion and usefulness. His whole history confirms of a Christian, praying, as he ought, for the what he said of himself, that “in labours," Spirit; that is, praying from a deep underin positive exertions, both of mind and bo- standing of his own condition, a conviction of dy, he was "above measure." It will be his wants and necessities. "He offered up said, perhaps, that these exertions were in a prayers and supplications with strong crying particular way, viz. in making converts to his and tears unto him that was able to save him opinions; but it was the way in which, as he from death; and was heard in that he feared." believed, he was promoting the interest of his This is devotion in reality.. fellow-creatures in the greatest degree possible for him to promote it; and it was the way also which he believed to be enjoined upon him by the express and particular command of God. Had there been any other method, any other course and line of beneficent endeavours, in which he thought he could have been more useful, and had the choice been left to himself (which it was not,) the same principle, the same eager desire, of doing good, would have manifested itself with equal vigour in that It would be difficult to enumerate the pas other line. His sentiments and precepts cor- sages and occasions of a man's life, in which responded with his example: "Do good un-he is particularly bound to apply to God for to all men, especially unto them that are of the aid and direction of his Spirit. In gene the household of Christ." Here doing is en-ral, in every turn, as it may be called, of life; joined. Nothing less than doing can satisfy whenever any thing critical, any thing mothis precept. Feelings and sensations will not, though of the best kind. "Let him that stole, steal no more, but rather let him labour with his hands, that he may have to give to him that needeth." This is carrying active beneficence as far as it can go. Men are commanded to relieve the necessities of their poor brethren out of the earnings of their manual labour, nay, to labour for that very purpose; and their doing so is stated as the best expiation for former dishonesties, and the best proof how much Is it not, again, a time for calling earnestly and how truly they are changed from what for the Spirit of God, and for a greater meathey were. "Let him that ruleth, do it with sure of that Spirit, if he be pleased to grant it diligence." This is a precept which cannot be to us, when we are recovering from some sin complied with without activity. These in-into which we have been betrayed? This case There are occasions also, which ought to call forth these prayers with extraordinary and peculiar force. Is it superstition? is it not, on the contrary, a just and reasonable piety to implore of God' the guidance of his Holy Spirit, when we have any thing of great importance to decide upon, or to undertake; especially any thing by which the happiness of others, as well as our own, is likely to be affected? mentous, any thing which is to fix our situation and course of life; most especially any thing whicle is likely to have an influence upon our moral conduct and disposition, and thereby affect our condition, as candidates for heaven, and as the religious servants of God, is to be resolved upon; there and then ought we to say our prayers; most ardently supplicating from our Creator and Preserver the grace and guidance of his Holy Spirit. is always critical. The question now is, whe-even that which he hath." He that misuses ther we shall fall into a settled course of sin- or abuses the portion and measure of spiritual ning, or whether we shall be restored to our assistance which is afforded him, shall lose former, and to better than our former endea- even that. vours to maintain the line of duty. That, The efficacy of the Spirit is to be judged of under the sting and present alarm of our con- by its fruits. Its immediate effects are upon science, we have formed resolutions of virtue the disposition. A visible outward conduct for the future is supposed; but whether these will ensue; but the true seat of grace and of resolutions will stand, is the point now at spiritual energy is in the heart and inward issue. And in this peril of our souls we can- disposition. Whenever, therefore, we find not be too earnest or importunate in our sup- religious carelessness succeeded within us by plications for divine succour. It can never religious seriousness; conscience, which was come to our aid at a time when we more want silent or unheard, now powerfully speaking it. Our fall proves our weakness. Our de- and obeyed; sensuality and selfishness, the sire of recovery proves, that, though fallen, we two grand enemies of salvation, the two great may not be lost. This is a condition which powers of darkness which rule the natural flies to aid and help, if aid and help can be man-when we find even these giving way to had; and it is a condition to which the promised support of the Spirit most peculiarly applies. On such an occasion, therefore, it will be sought with struggles and strong contention of mind, if we be serious in these matters. So sought, it will be obtained. the inward accusing voice of conscience; when we find the thoughts of the mind drawing or drawn more and more towards heavenly things; the value and interest of these expectations plainer to our view, a great deal more frequent than heretofore in our meditations, and more Again: Is it not always a fit subject of prayer, fully discerned; the care and safety of our souls that the Holy Spirit would inform, animate, rising gradually above concerns and anxieties warm, and support our devotions? St. Paul about worldly affairs; when we find the force speaks of the co-operation of the Spirit with of temptation and of evil propensities not exus in this very article. "Likewise the Spirit tinct, but retreating before a sense of duty; also helpeth our infirmities, for we know not self-government maintained; the interruptions what we should pray for as we ought; but the of it immediately perceived, bitterly deplored, Spirit maketh intercession for us with groan- and soon recovered; sin rejected and repelled; ings that cannot be uttered." The specific and this not so much with an increase of confihelp here described is to supply our ignorance. dence in our strength, as of reliance upon the But the words speak also generally of helping assisting grace of God; when we find ourselves our infirmities; meaning, as the passage leads touched with the love of our Maker, taking us to suppose, the infirmities which attend our satisfaction in his worship and service; when devotion. Now these infirmities are not only we feel a growing taste and relish for religious ignorance, but coldness, wanderings, absence; subjects and religious exercises; above all, for all which a remedy is to be sought in the when we begin to rejoice in the comfort of the aid and help of the Spirit. Holy Ghost; in the prospect of reaching heaNext in order of time, to praying for the ven; in the powerful aids and helps which are Spirit of God, but still superior to it in import-given us in accomplishing this great end, and ance, is listening and yielding ourselves to his the strength, and firniness, and resolution, suggestions. This is the thing in which we which, so helped and aided, we experience in fail. our progress: when we feel these things, then may we, without either enthusiasm or superstition, humbly believe that the Spirit of God hath been at work within us. External virtues, good actions will follow, as occasions may draw them forth; but it is within that we must look for the change which the inspiration of God's Spirit produces. Now, being confessed that we cannot ordinarily distinguish at the time the suggestions of the Spirit from the operations of our minds, it may be asked, how are we to listen to them? The answer is, by attending universally to the admonitions within us. Men do not listen to their consciences. It is through the whisper ings of conscience that the Spirit speaks. If With respect to positive external good acmen then are wilfully deaf to their consciences, tions, we have said that they must depend in they cannot hear the Spirit. If hearing, if some measure upon occasions, and abilities, and being compelled to hear, the remonstrances of opportunities, and that they must wait for opconscience, they nevertheless decide, and re-portunities; but, observe, it is not so with the solve, and determine to go against them; then breaking off of our sins, be they what they they grieve, then they defy, then they do de- will. That work must wait for nothing. Unspite to the Spirit of God. In both cases, that til that be effected, no change is made. No is, both of neglecting to consult, and of defy-man, going on in a known sin, has any right ing, when they cannot help feeling the ad- to say, that the Spirit of God has done its ofmonitions which rise up within them, they fice within him. Either it has not been given have this judgment hanging over their heads: to him, or, being given, it has been resisted, "He that hath not, from him shall be taken despised, or, at least, neglected. Such a per son has either yet to obtain it by prayer, or,, relax in our opposition to them, and struggles The next duty, or rather disposition, which flows from the doctrine of spiritual influence, is humility. There never was a truer saying than that pride is the adversary of religion, lowliness and humility the tempers for it. Now religious humility consists in the habit of referring every thing to God. From one end of the New Testament to the other, God is set forth and magnified in his agency and his operations. In the greatest of all businesses, the business of salvation, He is operating, and we co-operating with him. "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling ;" and why?"for it is God that worketh in us to will and to do, according to his good pleasure." He is not superseding our endeavours, (the very contrary is implied by commanding us to exert them,) but still nothing is done without him. If we have moral strength, we are strong in the inward might of the Holy Ghost: consequently all boasting, all vanity, all selfsufficiency, all despising of others, on the score of moral and religious inferiority, are excluded. Without the grace of God, we might have been as the worst of them. There is in the nature of things, one train of sentiment belonging to him who has achieved a work by his own might, and power, and prowess; and another to him, who has been fain to beg for succour and assistance, and by that assistance alone has been carried through difficulties which were too great for his own strength and faculties. This last is the true sentiment for us. It is not for a man, whose life has been saved in a shipwreck by the compassionate help of others; it is not for a man, so saved, to boast of his own alertness and vigour ; though it be true, that unless he had exerted what power and strength he was possessed of, he would not have been saved at all. We against them, at last consenting to our sins, SERMON XXVI. SIN ENCOUNTERED BY SPIRITUAL AID. IN THREE PARTS.—{PART L.) O, wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death ?—Rom. vii. 24. BEFORE we can explain what is the precise subject of this heavy lamentation, and what the precise meaning of the solemn question here asked, we must endeavour to understand what is intended by the expression, "the body of this death," or, as some render it," this Lastly: This doctrine shuts the door against a most general, a most specious, and a most deceiving excuse for our sins; which excuse is, that we have striven against them, but are overpowered by our evil nature, by that nature which the Scriptures themselves represent as evil; in a word, that we have done what we could. Now, until by supplication and prayer we have called for the promised assis-body of death." tance of God's Spirit, and with an earnestness, Now, let it be remembered, that death, in devotion, perseverance and importunity, proportioned to the magnitude of the concern; until we have rendered ourselves objects of that influence, and yielded ourselves to it, it is not true, "that we have done all that we can." We must not rely upon that excuse; for it is not true in fact. If, experiencing the depravity and imbecility of our nature, we see in this corruption and weakness an excuse for our sins, and taking up with this excuse, we surrender ourselves to them; if we give up, or Saint Paul's epistles, hardly ever signifies a St. Paul says, "carnal-mindedness is death :" to that. We look to the first with terror: "to be carnally minded is death;" leads, that they to the second alone. The second alone is, inevitably to that future destruction which they represent as formidable. Such is the view awaits the sinful indulgence of carnal propen- which Christianity gives us of these things, sities, and which destruction is, as it were, so different from what we naturally enterdeath to the soul. The book of Revelation, tain. alluding to this distinction, speaks expressly You see then what death is in the Scripture of a second death, in terms very fit to be called sense; in St. Paul's sense. "The body of to mind in the consideration of our present this death." The phrase and expression of text. "I saw the dead, small and great, stand the text cannot, however, mean this death itbefore God; and the books were opened; self, because he prays to be delivered from it; and another book was opened, which is the whereas from that death, or that perdition unbook of life; and the dead were judged out derstood by it, when it once overtakes the sinof those things which were written, accor-ner, there is no deliverance that we know of. ding to their works: and the sea gave up The "body," then, "of this death," is not the dead which were in it, and death and hell the death itself, but a state leading to and (which last word denotes here simply the ending in the second death; namely, in miplace of the dead, not the place of punishment) sery and punishment, instead of happiness and delivered up the dead that were in them; and rest, after our departure out of this world. they were judged every man according to their And this state it is, from which St. Paul, works; and death and hell were cast into the with such vehemence and concern upon his lake of fire;" (that is, natural death, and the spirit, seeks to be delivered. receptacle of those who died, were thenceforth Having seen the signification of the princisuperseded.) This is the second death. "And pal phrase employed in the text, the next, and whatsoever was not found written in the book the most important question is, to what conof life, was cast into the lake of fire." This dition of the soul, in its moral and religious description, which is exceedingly awful, is gi- concerns, the apostle applies it. Now in the ven in the last three verses of the 20th chap- verses preceding the text, indeed in the whole ter. In reference to the same event, this book of this remarkable chapter, St. Paul has of Revelation had before told us, viz. in the been describing a state of struggle and conten2d chapter and 11th verse, that he who over- tion with sinful propensities; which propencometh shall not be hurt of the second death; sities, in the present condition of our nature, and in like manner in the above-quoted 20th we all feel, and which are never wholly abochapter, "Blessed and holy is he that hath lished. But our apostle goes further: he depart in this resurrection: on such the second scribes also that state of unsuccessful struggle death hath no power." Our Lord himself and unsuccessful contention, by which many refers to this death in those never to be for- so unhappily fall. His words are these: "That gotten words which he uttered, "He that which I do I allow not: for what I would, liveth, and believeth in me, shall not die eter- that I do not; but what I hate, that do I. For nally." Die he must, but not eternally: die I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelthe first death, but not the second. It is un- leth no good thing: for to will is present with doubtedly, therefore, the second death which me, but how to perform that which is good I St. Paul meant by the word death when he find not: for the good that I would, I do not; wrote down the sentence," the body of this but the evil which I would not, that I do. I death;" and the second death is the punish- find a law, that, when I would do good, evil ment, perdition, and destruction, which the is present with me. For I delight in the law souls of sinners will suffer in a future state. of God after the inward man. But I see anoIt is well worthy of observation, that this was ther law in my members warring against the indeed the only death which those who wrote law of my mind, and bringing me into captithe New Testament, and probably all sincere vity to the law of sin which is in my memChristians of that age, regarded as important, bers" as the subject of their awe, and dread, and so- This account, though the style and manner licitude. The first death, the natural and of expression in which it is delivered be very universal disease of the body, they looked to peculiar, is, in its substance, no other than simply as a change; a going out of one room what is strictly applicable to the case of thouinto another; a putting off one kind of cloth-sands. "The good that I would, I do not; ing, and putting on a different kind. They the evil which I would not, that I do." How esteemed it, compared with the other, of lit-many, who read this discourse, may say the tle moment or account. In this respect, there same of themselves! as also," what I would, is a wide difference between the Scripture ap- that do I not; but what I hate, that I do." prehension of the subject and ours. We think This then is the case which St. Paul had in entirely of the first death: they thought en-view. It is a case, first, which supposes an intirely of the second. We speak and talk of formed and enlightened conscience: "I dethe death which we see they spoke, and light in the law of God." "I had not known taught, and wrote, of a death which is future sin but by the law.” “I consent unto the law |