have been different, and probably disastrous. If amid the ruins of the shipwreck, it were discovered that the seat and medium of the magnetic influences were either under a cover, or lay neglected in an obscure nook of the vessel, such circumstances would be deemed a sufficient reason why their energies had not been effectual, in successfully bringing the ship safe to the haven. The failure was not in the magnet itself.

Saving influences sometimes fail through the mere negligence of men. The means of Divine influences are treated with great neglect by those, who indulge in habits of indecision, dalliance, and procrastination, and who are always deferring and putting off compliance with the suggestions and tendencies of the Spirit of God. Never was there more egregious trifling than in this case. They profess to be convinced of sin, but not convinced enough, and therefore they wait for more conviction. Yet the more they are convinced the more they rebel and resist; and they madly expect that the more they resist, they shall be favored with stronger and greater convictions. They profess to repent, but do not repent enough. They profess to believe, but they do not believe enough. Such pretensions, if palmed upon a fellow-man, would be an insult; but when presented to God, and presented under the solemn mockery of apologizing for the neglect of homage and obedience, they are atrocious beyond all endurance, but that of His own long suffering. The means of grace which they have, have not, they think, sufficient grace for them; they want more. They are not sufficient to persuade them to love God, to believe in his Son, and to hate sin: they will wait to see whether he can furnish more until they become sufficient even to convince THEM that he deserves their love. They profess that there is, indeed, a cheering light in the gospel, but it is not cheering enough for them, and they wait for more. They profess that God is willing to save them, but they do not think that, as yet, he is willing enough, and they therefore hope, by a little longer dalliance in guilt, he will become more willing to save them, and even so sufficiently willing that they must be saved. They profess that God asks and invites them to be reconciled to him, but he does not, as yet, ask them enough, or invite them sufficiently, or call them pressingly enough. They cannot comply with invitations so weak, and calls so feeble, and expostulations so mild, and they hope by a little longer trifling

and procrastination, that these solicitations will become more pressing, and his entreaties more urgent, until at last they cannot help complying. Was there ever preposterousness so extravagant, so mad, so offensive, and so insulting? Men profess to be waiting to obey God, by telling him that, as yet, he has neither done enough, nor said enough, to persuade them to obey him. They profess to be piously waiting for Divine influences by impiously neglecting them. They profess to wait for their manifestations by resisting their operations. It is no mystery at all that in such cases, saving influences are not manifested.

V. In all cases, the influences of the Holy Spirit are not more largely manifested in the church than they are, because 'there is a lamentable absence of practical prayer for them. Practical prayer bears the same relation to saving influences in the word, as philosophical research bears to physical influences in nature. Neither of these brings in any influence to the subject concerned; they both only bring out the influence already there. The difference between them is to the advantage of prayer; for research has to discover whether any influence be or not in a given subject, but prayer is previously informed that the influences are truly there, and that they are certain to be developed to a praying mind. In the present day there is an exuberance of sentimental invocations, and doctrinal supplications, for the Holy Spirit, and there is much also of practical prayer, but we want this spirit as Christ had it, "without measure." The prayer that is active, assiduous, laborious, expectant, is the prayer that makes it becoming and suitable for God to manifest to us his Spirit. It was never the design of prayer to invite God to work, and to leave us idle; or to keep us unemployed, or constitute us dignified lookers-on. In what manner prayer derives and receives Divine influences, we do not know; because we only know facts and results, but are completely ignorant of the processes. There is no doctrine of which we have clearer evidences than that prayer produces in the mind an aptitude for the reception of Divine influences and blessings. There is always a readiness in God to manifest them, and there is always in the means an aptness for communicating them: the inaptitude which is in us is removed by practical prayer. Philosophical research, is asking the God of nature to manifest what is in nature; and prayer, is asking and seeking

the God of the gospel to manifest the influences that are in the gospel. The asking and inquisitive search of the philosopher is not the sentimental desire and wish of some fervid emotions, but a practical inquiry and trial of the case. He inquires and asks by trials, perhaps on the wheel of electricity, or by actual experiments in the galvanic battery. This is like the inquiring prayer that God encourages. How are we to ask God to convert a relative or neighbor? It is by attempting it by trying what his gospel will do. Practical prayer for the conversion of the world is the devotion that

attempts that conversion. The prayer that is not practical is as useless, as longing to discover the sources of the Nile without attempting it, or to identify lightning with the electric fluid without attempting it. When the prophets prayed for the Jews in any emergency, they attempted what could be done to recover them. When the apostles prayed for the Gentiles, they essayed what the gospel could accomplish for them. When prayer becomes, instead of a sentimental longing, a devotional research into the practical energies of the gospel, the influences of the Spirit will be manifested with the copiousness of the waters that fill the channels of the

sea.

We cannot demonstrate whence prayer derives its efficacy. In the Divine arrangements, prayer is truly as indispensably necessary to success, as is contact between two chemical agents in a physical process: it is as much a fixed law, in the communications and operations of Divine influences, as is opening the eyes to see, or seeking a thing to find it. We do not err when we assert that all discoveries in experimental philosophy are the results of physical influences, imparted from the First Cause to second causes and instrumental means. Very few, if any, of these results, would have been produced, or come into facts, had it not been for inquiry and spirit of research. We know the fact, that inquisitive research has put second causes into contact with the physical influences of the First Cause; but to show how the link of connexion was formed is beyond our powers of scrutiny. Suppose we imagine this spirit of research to be a tacit seeking or asking the God of nature to reveal its secrets-this would be prayer. There is nothing more perplexing, in a fact transpiring in answer to prayer, than in a phenomenon resulting from search and inquiry. The influence of prayer

144 WHY SAVING INFLUENCES ARE NOT MANIFESTED.

no more changes the God of revelation, than experimental inquiry changes the Author of nature. In the age of research and inquiry, which followed the days of BACON, more of the influences of nature have been developed than at any preceding period; and we believe that as the improved age of experimental seeking, and of practical prayer, shall advance in the church, will be the abundance and the variety of the manifestations of the Holy Spirit.

BOOK II.

On the Union between the Holy Spirit and the Church in the administration of Divine influences.

CHAPTER I.

ON THE UNION OF DISPOSITIONS AND FEELINGS BETWEEN THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CHURCH.

SECTION I.

On being filled with the Holy Spirit.

THE influences of the Holy Spirit give, to the mind that is the sphere of their operations, an expansion and elevation, a splendor and a fullness, which unspeakably transcend all the forms of majesty, wealth, and brilliancy, with which worldly glory could invest and furnish it. To these ennobling tendencies and adaptation, the apostle directed the attention of the Christians of Ephesus. Did the Ephesians admire temples, of whose majesty and beauty they had a peerless specimen in their own city? He shows that the Ephesian believers were themselves "living temples." Were the priests the guardians of the splendid wealth of Diana? Paul and his fellow laborers were the ministers of "the unsearchable riches of Christ." Did they regard with supreme veneration and profound amazement, the dimensions, the loftiness, the deep foundations, and the imposing grandeur, of their temple? The Christians of Ephesus themselves enshrined principles and influences, that had a "breadth and a length, a depth and a height, which passeth knowledge." Was Diana the glory and the pride of this incomparable edifice? The God of infinite heavens, and of ineffable glory and excellency, furnished and inhabited the believing heart: they themselves were the habitation of God through the Spirit." He, then, by every form of imagery and mode of thought, as if he taxed and

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