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SERMON XXIII.

THE CARNAL AND THE SPIRITUAL MIND.

ROMANS viii. 6.

"For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace."

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SERMON XXIV.

THE SPIRIT OF ADOPTION.

ROм. viii. 15.

"For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba Father." 388

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"Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that

we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need."

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SERMON S.

SERMON I.

THE POWER OF THE WORD OF GOD.

1 THESS. ii. 13.

FOR THIS CAUSE ALSO THANK WE GOD WITHOUT CEASING, BECAUSE WHEN YE RECEIVED THE WORD OF GOD WHICH YE HEARD OF US, YE RECEIVED IT NOT AS THE WORD of men, BUT AS IT IS IN TRUTH THE WORD OF GOD, WHICH EFFECTUALLY WORKETH ALSO IN YOU THAT BELIEVE.

THE message of the gospel is in itself wonderfully calculated to excite attention and to awaken interest. It is connected with the highest and the dearest interests of mankind. It speaks alike to the hopes and fears, the sympathies and the affections of every one whom it addresses. If there be gratitude, or generosity, or the desire of happiness in the human breast, the gospel applies itself to these and kindred emotions. And yet the mere adaptation of the gospel to the actual wants of the soul would be wholly inefficient to insure

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its favourable reception, if the Spirit of God did not enlighten the mind as to the real value of the message which it conveys. Sin possesses a deceitful and hardening power, by whose influence the moral faculties are diseased and crippled. No man is aware of his real condition before God, until God himself has taught him to discern it. Our Lord once wept over his ungrateful countrymen because they would not come unto him, that they might have life." They discerned not their need of his mediation; they lived in habitual ignorance of their real wants; they were "full, and increased with goods" in their own esteem, and knew not that they were poor, and naked, and blind, and miserable," in reference to all their spiritual relations with God. The kindness, the generosity, the compassion, the power which Jesus Christ daily evinced, might have been supposed to have been effective to excite the deepest emotions in those who heard his instructions, and who marked his mode of life: but the result was destructive of these expectations. There was no responsive movement to the voice which cried so loudly and yet so softly, "Come unto me ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest." A fatal insensibility as to the whole of their intercourse with God, nullified the worth of all the counsel of the Redeemer: and, like the deaf adder,

they refused the "voice of the charmer, charmed he never so wisely." It becomes, therefore, a subject of very interesting inquiry, under what circumstances the word of the Lord proves to be mighty over the moral feelings, and to penetrate to the very core of the human heart. For we find the apostles of the Saviour to have produced an effect which their Lord had failed to produce. The words of the Disciples gained an attention which the wisdom of the Master had not gained. He wept over the moral darkness, while they could rejoice over the illumination of those whom they addressed. "For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because when ye received the word which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.' Let us here observe

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I. THE REAL NATURE OF THE WORD WHICH THE APOSTLES TAUGHT.

II. THE ACTUAL POWER WHICH THAT WORD EXERTED OVER THE MINDS OF THOSE WHO

RECEIVED IT; and

III. THE GROUNDS OF

THANKSGIVING

WHICH THE EXPERIENCE OF THIS POWER SUGGESTED TO THE APOSTLE WHO WITNESSED

IT.

I. Let us notice THE REAL NATURE OF

THE WORD WHICH THE APOSTLES TAUGHT.

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