exhausted the resources of his inspiration, attempts to dilate their minds to an enlargement and comprehension adequate to the vastness and amplitude of the subject, and solemnly informs them that all the apparatus of holy energies and measures among them, were arranged and designed for this high end, "that they might be filled with all the fullness of God." The apostle did not mean, by this splendid conception, that the infinite essence of the eternal Being was to be embodied in the scanty frame of man; nor that a Christian, in these circumstances, was to acquire and wield all the resources of Omnipotence. Christians are the seat and theatre of this fullness, as they are "the habitation of God through the Spirit;" which means, that they are filled with this fullness in the proportion, and to the degree, that they are replenished with the supply of the influences of the Holy Spirit. Hence, Christians are commanded to be filled with the Spirit; and the apostles and others are described as being "full of the Holy Ghost." It has been proved, in a former chapter, that to be filled with the Spirit is not to be deified with the Divine person of the Holy Spirit; but, like Elisha filled with the spirit of Elijah, it is to be furnished and to be replete with the influences, the gifts, and the graces of the Spirit.

I. Christians are filled with the Spirit when, in their views, sentiments, and estimate of him, they take in the whole and entire elements of his character.

When the tragic bard of England used the phrase "take him all in all," he meant, that, in forming our estimate of the man, we were to consider his entire character in all its bearings, workings, and aspects. Certainly, then, in surveying the character of the greatest, the most glorious, and the most benign Agent in the universe, we must embrace all its evolutions, principles, and achievements. There is a proneness in the human mind, even when disciplined by religion, to submit the official character of the Holy Spirit to a discriminating and separating analysis, and then, either from individual predilections, or from love of system, concentrate all its emotions of attachment to a selected variety and class of influences and operations. Some are willing to welcome his consolations as a Comforter, who stifle his convictions as a Monitor; and many would cherish him as an earnest of heaven, who refuse to yield to his impressions as a seal. This partial estimate of his character has led to defective

research and prayer for his influences, to timid zeal for their manifestations, and to divided, unconnected, and unequal efforts for an abundant, full, and copious communication of them to the world. The "holy spirit" of many is a poetical creation of their own fancy, or a cold deduction of their own metaphysics, and not the real, the living, the glorious, and the Holy Spirit of the New Testament. Compared with the majesty and glory of the Holy Spirit of promise, what a different personage is the fitful visitor of Mystic theology, the supernumerary help of Pelagian abstractions, or the soft and flexible soother of Antinomian visions, and even the substituted doer of all duties, which many good and pious men have mistaken for the Spirit of truth and the Spirit of Christ.

To form an accurate and enlarged estimate of his character, the Holy Spirit has not left us to logical conclusions or metaphysical conjectures: he leads us for information to sources which are certain, large, full, and ever fresh. He guides into all truth concerning himself, as well as into all the doctrines concerning Christ. He has no official employments which he would wish to veil, nor favorite operations which he would wish to parade; when he guides, he leads and directs into ALL truth, to the entire range of his influences, and to the whole field of his operations.

He has unveiled his entire character in his word. In the sacred scriptures he himself has pronounced what he is, what are the attributes of his person, and what are the perfections and virtues of his office. "He is worthy of all acceptation," in his entire character, as revealed in the Bible. The attributes of his person, and the aspects of his office, are not revealed that we might make a choice and selection of such elements as suited our taste and habits; but we are to receive all of them, and to accept him in all, and to resist or to grieve him in neither. He has not only revealed, but worked out all the glories of his character in the person of Jesus Christ. In our Lord the Holy Spirit was without measure. There was nothing in the nature of Christ to check, to oppose, or to cramp his holy influences. In Him they were in an outline which they could fill, which they alone could fill, and which even they, immense as they were, could only fill. The Holy Spirit worked out its attributes in the temper, the disposition, the feelings, and the actions of Jesus Christ, so as to exhibit them with a radiance and a mildness, which would allow our vision to contemplate them, without being dazzled and over

powered with their splendor. Our Saviour was full of the Holy Ghost, and was a specimen and model of the manner in which holy influences are to fill the minds, and imbue the characters, of all his followers. The Holy Spirit has been pleased to give more numerous developements of his character than those in Christ only; namely, in the benign and stupendous works which are detailed in the gospel narratives, and in the Acts of the apostles, all of which, in all their variety, fullness, and glory, are ascribed to his agency. If we expect the Holy Spirit, we ought to have definite conceptions of what we expect; and we ought to expect him in the fullness and grandeur of his character, to be what he was, and to act what he has manifested by his ordinary influences in his word, in the person of Christ, and in the conversions of the early Christians. Let him be manifested in all his glory, as the dove that descended on Christ, as the rivers of water springing up into life everlasting, or as the lambent fires that rested on the apostles; let us welcome him in them all, and prepare his way for the enlarged and multiplied manifestations of them all.

II. To be filled with the Spirit is to receive and partake largely of all Divine influences in all their variety, power, efficacy, and harmony.

In the supply of the Spirit there are a discrimination and variety, that impart a distinct character, and produce a separate impression, on the various faculties of the mind; and Christians should seek to be, like the wax, impressed with all the characters in the seal of the Holy Spirit. "There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord; and there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all." God is the God of all grace, and it is his will that Christians should abound in all graces. We have no authority or encouragement to covet and to pray for the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit; but for the fullest share of his ordinary influences there is nothing to limit the extent of our desires, or the vehemence of our aspiration. An effusion of the influences of the Holy Spirit implies the rich abundance and the copious fullness of a shower: one drop descends after another in constant succession; and, in every drop of blessing, there is the "sound of abundance of rain." God waters his vineyard every moment with the exuberant rivers of his pleasure. The fountain of living waters is in

constant action, wave gushing after wave, replenishing every rill, and supplying every stream, that refreshes his heritage when it is weary.

The same shower blesses various lands in different degrees, according to their respective susceptibilities; it makes the grass to spring up in the mead, the grain to vegetate in the field, the shrub to grow on the plain, and the flowers to blossom in the garden; and these are garnished with every hue of loveliness, the lily and the violet, the rose and the daisy; all these worketh the same spirit that renews the face of the earth. The influences of the Holy Spirit, descending on the moral soil, produce "blessings in variety,"-convictions in the guilty, illumination in the ignorant, holiness in the defiled, strength in the feeble, and comfort in the distressed. As the Spirit of holiness, he imparts a pure taste; as the Spirit of glory, he throws a radiance over the character; as the Spirit of life, he revives religion; as the Spirit of truth, he gives transparency to the conduct; as the Spirit of prayer, he melts the soul into devotion; and as the Spirit of grace, he imbues with benevolence, and covers the face of the earth with the works of faith and labors of love. A man not under these full influences will not be fully blessed. A character formed under some of these will be partial, without proportion, without symmetry, without energy. Christians must seek of these influences, not merely enough to secure their religious credit, or just sufficient to save them from hell, but a plenteousness and a fullness that will make them rich and happy and useful.

A Christian is not filled with the Spirit, unless he receives all these influences in their highest degree and largest exercise, as well as in their fullness and variety. He should aspire after the "demonstration" of the Spirit, and not something like it. As the Spirit was given to Christ without measure, so there is nothing to limit the communications of his influences to us. There is nothing in the heights of glory to check our lofty hopes; nothing in the dimensions of the universe to limit the expansion of our love; nothing in the profound abyss of eternity to measure the depths of our holy fear. When the Spirit was manifested on the Pentecost, it is said that "great grace was upon them all." This is what we need now. We have a great God to serve, whom we wish greatly to glorify; we have a great work to do, a great part of which remains undone; we have great difficulties and great opposition to master; we therefore need great grace,

grace in the highest degree, in the fullest action, in the largest exercise. We need great love to melt us into great compassion for the world; great faith to give us an intrepidity that will not cower before high iniquity; great activity where so much is to be accomplished; and great hope where there is so much to weary and depress. God expects us to be in advance of the world, and in advance of the predecessors into whose labors we have entered. It will not become us to offer cheap, low, scanty, mutilated service to him who is greatly to be feared. He gave a great price and ransom to redeem our energies from thraldom, and they were emancipated and unshackled, not with silver and gold, but with the precious blood of his own Son; this miracle of love is not to be requited with divided affections, half-formed resolvedness, trifling labors, and reluctant devotion. He has entrusted us with a great charge and a noble enterprise; he has furnished us with rich, approved, and diversified means and helps for our arduous work; has given us exceeding great and precious promises that shall give us buoyancy in conflict and fatigue: what manner of men then ought we to be? God expects, and the world expects, that men, thus supplied and animated, will be increasing in strength, expanding in capacity, and advancing in stature, until we all come "unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ," having every grace in possession, every grace cultivated to the ripest maturity, and every grace in the fullest energy, and in the most strenuous activity, for the glory of Christ and the conversion of the world.

III. The mind is filled with the Spirit when holy influences affect every power of man to the highest attainment of excellence.

We sometimes seem to ourselves to magnify the influences of the Holy Spirit, when we represent them as having a sufficiency that can gratify all the desires of the mind of man, and fill the entire range of his capacities. It were a small honor to the Atlantic, that its flood of waters could fill all the sinuosities and windings of a shell, and satisfy the cravings of a marine insect. This sentiment, while it very inadequately represents the amplitude and glory of Divine influences, powerfully bespeaks the nobleness and boundlessness of our mental capacities; for though we are nothing compared with the immense grandeur of the Divine fullness, we have such conceptions and comprehensions as the swellings