of no other tide can ever fill. Christians become full of Divine influences, only as they are filled by "the fullness of him that filleth all in all." The church, like the moon, grows full as it is filled by the fountain of life and influence. It is prevented from being always full by the interposition of the world, which makes her light and glory to wane and vanish. As the world advances, it wanes; and as the world recedes, it waxes fuller. The church is full, only as it is filled with the influences of the Holy Spirit. It is only as the church is full that it represents the fullness of the Spirit, and exhibits its disk expanded and full to a dark and benighted world..

The Holy Spirit has at his disposal, and under his control, all the various kinds of influences which have issued from God to the universe. Man, in his complex character, is susceptible of the operations of all these influences, such as the physical, psychological, intellectual, moral, &c.; and the scriptures reveal to us, that the Holy Spirit regulates and directs the tendencies and actions of all these influences in man, so as to render them perfective of all his energies and capacities. This is different from what we have been accustomed to think and believe. We have imagined that the Holy Spirit, in training us for usefulness and glory, influenced our souls only, and we have never expected him to discipline and develope the capacities of our entire nature. This lofty conception elevated and dignified the prayers and the doctrines of the apostle of the Gentiles. In his supplication for the Thessalonians, he prays, "and the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God that your whole SPIRIT, SOUL, and BODY, be preserved blameless." In this devout and enlarged invocation, the apostle imagines a Christian to be like a chosen vessel, full of the influences of the Holy Spirit. The intellectual powers, the perceptions, emotions, and volitions, are all baptized with the Holy Spirit. The psychological sympathies and animal instincts, the sources and occasions of unhallowed propensities and unruly passions, whether light and volatile, or morose and melancholy, are moderated and subdued by the bland sway of the Comforter. Even the body itself, with all the tendencies and operations of its fluids and solids, has been brought under the control and direction of the Spirit of God: instead of being the prison of the soul, it has become its mansion; and instead of being the sepulchre of Divine influences, it has become their temple.

To this exhilarating doctrine, Paul directed the attention of the Christians in Rome: "If the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his spirit that dwelleth in you." As the resurrection from the dead in the last day is never ascribed to the Holy Spirit, the influences which he exercises on the bodies of the saints, as described here, refer to the doctrine which I have just stated. The Holy Spirit will so discipline and educate even the drossy, corrupt, dying, and clogging bodies of good men, as to make them alive and vigorous in labors and services for Christ. The enslaved members of iniquity will become laborious and indefatigable servants "to righteousness unto holiness;" the ears will be bored and fixed to the portals of truth: the eyes, covenanted searchers for scenes of well-doing; the feet, the cheerful supporters in going about doing good; and the hands, prompt to execute the plans and administer the charities of mercy and salvation.

The doctrine is of more importance to the spread of religion and the conversion of the world than may appear at first sight. It is an assertion of our Saviour that the spiritual part of man sympathizes with his animal and physical parts. The body would become more fitted for being the temple of Divine influence, if it were physically, and constitutionally, trained and disciplined for the work and labor assigned to it by the Holy Spirit. A conscientious attention to exercise, diet, and sleep, will give vigor and perpetuity to a constitutional frame that is consecrated to Jesus Christ. Christian students will become concerned, under this influence, to devote to Christ a perfected body as well as a cultivated mind. Ministers and pastors, with such disciplined constitutions, would not so soon break down under labors, to which the Holy Spirit has separated them, or shrink from efforts which the claims of perishing men demand. Why have so many of our missionaries either failed in their work through premature death, or relinquished their splendid enterprize, to lay out their life in a humbling chase after health? It is from the fact that Christian parents have never learned to discipline and exercise the bodies of their children, as well as educate and consecrate their minds, for the service of Christ. To sustain labors for Christ, Paul exercised his body as well as his spirit. Conceive of a minister preaching, with a surcharged body, to immortal spirits doting in bodies filled to repletion, and you

will have one instance of how much the success of the gospel may be checked by bodily constitutions, when they are not governed by Divine influences. Our bodies must be according to the apostle's prayer, "preserved blameless." Hitherto they have been, in countless instances, the blamable occasions of defeat and discomfiture to Christian laborers. The cedars, that are to weather the onsets of a thousand storms, are not reared in the hothouse of parental indulgence; and the mighty men, and the valiant veterans, who have to breast their power to the forces and assaults of the world, are not the pampered weaklings of air-tight nurseries. The advantages accruing to the operations and the measures of the Holy Spirit will be immense and brilliant, when Christian parents will supply the churches with pastors, and furnish our missionary societies with agents, who will not be the ready victims of every disease, or who drag out a life of dullness in half-activity, or suffer a premature dotage in the midst of their work; when the mind falls and is buried under the ruins of a body that was unbraced for long and sustained effort. Physical influences do not work out the human frame into full stature by nursing one limb, or rearing and supplying one member, but by pushing out the energies of the whole man; in like manner the influences of the Holy Spirit are intended to educe all the powers of human nature, and to produce, in an enlarged sense, a new man;" in which the spirit, the soul, and the body are, for the works of the Holy Spirit, "blameless."

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IV. When the emotions and actions of Christians correspond, to the largest extent, with the character and dispositions of the Holy Spirit, they are filled with Divine influences.

1. There are a manifestation and a demonstration of the spirit in the present day, as well as in the age of miracles, which evidence themselves in right feelings, as well as in right conduct. The operations of the Holy Spirit manifest themselves, not in man's actions only, but also in his emotions. Men are constituted to be as much affected, and in countless instances large multitudes are as much influenced, by the emotions of others, as they are by their words and actions. At present it seems to be a canon, and a general rule of the church, to train Christians to repress all the deep-toned language of religious emotion, and studiously to conceal all the symptoms of powerful feeling and of a wounded and broken heart. To exhibit them to public notice as scenes for display and attraction is, indeed, a sin of enormous atrocity, the very crime

which Simon Magus attempted: but the oscillation to the other extreme is equally sinful; for quenching the spirit by the formalist, is not less aggravated than parading spiritual gifts by the sorcerer.

2. The objects which are exhibited to our minds by the Holy Spirit, are calculated to impress the affections and excite the emotions. The Gospel presents truth in every form, and with every appendage that is calculated to render it impressive. Every Divine truth has a majesty, a solidity, a seriousness, a beauty, and a certainty, which give weight and edge to the discoveries of the spirit. Nothing can be more full of majesty than the representations of God; of beauty, than the character of Christ; of seriousness, than the aspects of eternity; of weight and certainty, than the decisions of the judgment day.

3. The religion of the scriptures cannot be properly and fully manifested without the production and exercise of the emotions. Religion does not consist in the emotions themselves, but in what is to be produced by these emotions, upon the mind which is their sphere, and upon the minds of others. When we expect obedience in a child, it is not the mere performance of the given act that we regard, but the manner in which it is done, and the feeling which appears in the thing fulfilled. In all the actions of men, God looks at the heart, at the state of the emotions, and marks and records whether that corresponds with the homage and the service offered; and without the heart and the appropriate emotion, the obedience, however invested with splendor, is not acceptable. The Bible implies everywhere that true religion is expressive of emotion. A religious state towards God cannot be manifested without what the scriptures call, "the fear of the Lord," "the love of Christ," "the hope that maketh not ashamed," "the desire of the soul towards His name," "the joy unspeakable and full of glory," "the sorrow after a godly sort,” “the bowels of mercies," &c. These are all emotions, which must manifest themselves to prove their presence. Religion claims the priority and preeminence in every man; and these it will not attain until it gains the affections. Then the heart "burns within," and the man becomes "fervent in spirit." It is the burning heart that bears all the sway in the soul, and marshals and influences all the energies of the mind and body. If the heart does not burn, though the understanding be clear, and the judgment sober, the man will not be fully religious.

He understands that God is great, but he fears him not. He understands that şin is an evil, and he will yet live in it. He understands that Christ is worthy, and still will reject him. If the heart feels under these truths, and burns under their influences, the actions will correspond. The burning heart burns everything else. The eye will look, the foot will move, and the hand will act, as the heart on fire directs them. Religion will never become the master principle, to sanctify every-day life, to adorn the parlor, to regulate the countinghouse, to invent methods of benevolence, to subject everything to Christ, until it warms, dilates, purifies, and inflames the affections and the emotions of the heart. In all rational pursuits, except religion, we admire fervid zeal, and even enthusiasm. What is a poet without fire? an orator without fervor? a sculptor without ardor? He is a faint resemblance of the abominated figure of a Christian without fervency of spirit.

4. The effects of the influences of the Holy Spirit on the mind are represented in the scriptures by images which imply great and powerful emotions. Men are to flee from the wrath to come; to run the race that is set before them; to strive to enter into the straight gate; to fight the good fight of faith; and to take the kingdom of heaven by force and violence. From these images, every thought of formality, listlessness, lukewarmness, torpor, and inactivity, is excluded to the farthest possible remove. Here are implied no subdued efforts, no half measures, no suppressed ardor, no sentimental languor; all is quick, all is life, energy, effort, earnestness, agony, and publicity. We cannot acquire eminency and mastery in any pursuit, much less in religion, without fervor and unflinching energy. Mark the men who are described in the scriptures as being "full of the Holy Ghost," and ponder, whether the churches and the pastors of the present day are prepared for such awakening and disturbing ministrations, as those of John the Baptist; for the unshackled address of Peter on the day of Pentecost; for the stirrings of spirit in Paul; or for the labors, the self-denials, the tears, the travels, and the devotion of Him, who went about doing good, and who melted in pity over the sinners of Jerusalem.

5. In men who are without the spirit, all irreligion is traced by the inspired writers to the absence of right feelings, or to the presence and power of bad emotions. The influences of the Holy Spirit benefit man only so far as they affect his heart. A man is never converted unless he is affected by