of their agency; just as he wields his physical influences in nature to affect plants and trees, without violating their organic and physiological laws. In renewing the face of the earth, as the dispenser of physical influences, the Spirit of God will effect no modification in the elements of heat and air and rain; he will not plant the tree; he will not take up the moisture instead of the plant, nor will he add a leaf or a flower to the plant which does not produce it. So in conversion, his agency is as personal, as distinct, as real, as efficacious, and as consistent with established laws, as in the process of restored vegetation.

I. The influence of the Holy Spirit is moral, acting on the moral principles of the mind. Some of our ablest divines have supposed that there is, in conversion, an immediate and a physical operation of the Holy Spirit. If it be physical, it must be either chemical, mechanical, or miraculous: if chemical, conversion is not spiritual; if mechanical, it is not moral; and if miraculous, it is not the duty of man. The Spirit accomplishes nothing, but what the sinner, as he is, is blamed for not accomplishing. If the work of the Spirit adds any new element to the physical character of the soul, it must be something that the sinner is constitutionally and necessarily without, and which he could not possess by any effort of his own; and consequently it must be something, for the absence of which he is no more accountable, than for not having the strength of Samson.

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From the scriptural phrases, "a new heart," "a new spirit," and "a new creature," many have been led to describe conversion as consisting in the introduction into the soul, or in the addition to it, of something new and supplemental, which was not in the soul before, but is something divine added to its original elements. This is what is denominated in religious nomenclature, THE NEW PRINCIPLE." Consequently, before a minister can realize success, it is assumed that this new principle, and adscititious and supplemental element, something like an additional sense, or a new genius, is expected to come from God, and to be infused into the mind. Now, let us ask, in all the soberness and truth of godly fear, does not this sentiment spring rather from a literal interpretation of figurative illustrations of conversion, than from the reality and detail of the case? Does not a new heart, or a new spirit, mean a new state of the heart and of the spirit, without implying an exchange of heart or spirit? For in

stance, liberality is a new state for the covetous heart, purity a new state for the voluptuous heart, submission a new state for the proud heart, and devotion a new state for the profane heart.

We call liberality, purity, submission, and devotion, principles; but is it not figuratively that we call them so? Or when we call them so, do we mean that liberality, purity, &c. are some real* elements to be introduced into souls, to make them liberal and pure? No: we do not expect a covetous soul to be made liberal, except by the action and influence of truths concerning liberality. We cannot form the shade of an idea of liberality, as some element impelled into the soul, but only as a name for the effect produced by the soul itself, in consequence of the action of certain truths upon it. A liberal truth believed will put the covetous heart in a new state, the state of liberality; in all its actions and pursuits, it will be a new heart, but all its essential elements for action remain precisely the same as before, without any addition or abstraction. In this manner God gives his people a new heart, by presenting truths calculated to bring them into a new state, and to a new class of pursuits; their free agency and their moral spontaneity remaining the same, without any addition or supplement.

The majority of our divines distinctly assert, that in conversion, the Holy Spirit gives no new power, no new faculty; yet the common style of preaching, and religious writings teach men to look for some new principle to take powerful possession of them, which shall be exactly like a new sense, and which in fact, on this showing, is a new power. No new power or faculty is wanted in the soul, or else man could not be condemned for its absence, any more than the dumb for the absence of speech. No new power, or faculty, or element is promised, but a new state of the original powers; and, in the best and the holiest man, no new faculty or power is developed, except in the new productions of the reinstated powers. Had Paul any powers of soul which were not in the soul of Plato? or Homer, which were not possessed by Zoïlus? or

*This class of errors has been left behind in theology by the two old sects of Schoolmen, the Realists and the Nominalists. The Realists supposed that what Augustinian theology called แ GRACE was some real ENS or entity. The Nominalist said that it was only a name for a result: e. g. TRANSPARENCY is a name for a certain state of matter in glass, but transparency is not a real entity. Apply this to some theological doctrines about sin, virtue, religion, grace, &c.

had Paul in the house of Ananias any power and faculty which he had not when he left Jerusalem for Damascus ? Yet he was at Damascus a new man; he had been influenced by new truths, and these affected him with influences that were new to the habits of his mind, and his mind was brought into a new state, and a new frame for new desires, new pursuits, and new actions. The author of these truths, and of the influences in them, and of the new state produced by them was Jesus Christ or his advocate, the Holy Spirit. Saul of Tarsus, and Paul the apostle, had still the same powers of perception, but each perceived a different object, and this produced different and new emotions, desires, and tastes; the old character became new, and the entire man became a new creature in Christ Jesus. Christ came to ransom and to save the old powers of the soul, and not to purchase and bestow new ones; and the Holy Spirit carries on the work of Christ, on the principles with which Christ commenced it, by bringing the entire powers already possessed by the soul, through the means of truth, into a new state for new actions and new employments. So bodily health is restored, not by adding a new nerve, or supplying a fibre or muscle that was lacking, but by putting the old ones, through the use of means, in a better tone for action.

II. The agency of the Holy Spirit is indispensably needful to the conversion of man. The necessity of the influences of the Spirit does not arise from the depravity of human nature, any more than the necessity of physical influences arises from any wrong direction or defective operation in nature. A corruption or monstrosity, in nature, produces and presents an inaptitude to the healthy action of physical influences; but it is not this that makes these influences necessary, for this only interrupts their course, or stops their communication. Divine influences are necessary to the wellbeing even of angels who have never sinned. Its necessity in them arises from their intellectual, moral, and spiritual constitution. Even without having sinned, their natures can be sustained, and their functions discharged, only as they are replenished by the influences of their Maker. We are apt to say that the influences of the Holy Spirit are necessary to convert the soul of man; but they are necessary to him, even if his soul had never needed conversion; for they are the life of his moral welfare. They were necessary to Adam in his first estate, perfectly as necessary as physical or psychological

influences were to the birds of the air, and the beasts of the field. Without these influences he could not obey spiritual laws, or maintain spiritual intercourse with his Maker. These influences did not consist in some immediate efflux from the Deity to the soul, but they were lodged in man's moral and spiritual circumstances, of motives and means, of truths and laws, with which his soul was in communication, as his sensations were with those of nature. Even then, these influences were under his control: he could then act freely, while he was acted upon by them; and he could refuse to act according to them. He could do this in his holy state, for, in that state, he did it.

When man does not yield to the action of this influence, he is in a wrong state, wrong for the ends of his creation, and wrong for his own welfare; as wrong as, for the beasts of the field not to comply with the psychological influences of their instinct. Conversion is putting a man in a position or condition for Divine influences to have their due course on his powers, and their native tendency on his character; it is putting him in a train of direct communication with "the supply of the Spirit." In Adam, sin obstructed the influences which were indispensably necessary to his welfare. It was, therefore, not the obstacle that rendered them necessary; for, suppose the obstacle or the obstruction removed, we never suppose that then they would be no longer necessary; they would be just as necessary to man then, as when he came forth from the hand of God.

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Sometimes by an incautious use of the word "needful," for the word "necessary," we convey a wrong idea, and produce an erroneous impression of the influences of the Spirit. In the religious phrases Iwe need Divine influences," or we stand in need of the Holy Spirit," the meaning of such aphorisms is understood to be, not that the influences of the Holy Spirit are indispensably necessary, but that they are really lacking and absent; and that there is a famine and a dearth of them; or that, when all the series of means are in orderly and full operation, these influences are wanting and needed. In opposition to such representation, I have endeavored to show that the influences of the Spirit are never absent from the word of God, and that consequently they are ever present to the church and to the world, and never were lacking, and never will be lacking, where the gospel is. The fact

of the case is, that the manifestations and developements of these influences are lacking, and not forthcoming; but this is not owing to the absence of the influences themselves, but to the improper, unapt, unsuitable, and repulsive manner in which they have been either exhibited by the church, or met by the sinner.

The man or the Christian that says he "needs" Divine influences, in the sense of lacking them, only pronounces his own guilt, and avows his crime of "not having the Spirit." The ever-continued treasures of the "supply of the Spirit" in the gospel, and the ever-ready disposition of the Holy Spirit to grant them for our advantage, throw the guilt of "needing" or lacking them altogether at our own doors. It was the maxim of the Old Testament saints, that they who trusted in God were never put to shame, and it must become the ruling maxim of New Testament saints, that they who trust the Holy Spirit are never disappointed.

III. The POWER which the Holy Spirit puts forth in his saving agency, is not the omnipotence which is one of his natural perfections as God. In order to illustrate the subduing and successful efficiency of the Holy Spirit, in opposition to the headlong and determined violence of sinful habits, a force or an impetus, somewhat mechanical, has been ascribed to the operations of his influences in conversion. This force is described not only as giving a kind of momentum to the hammer of the word and to the sword of the Spirit, but also as putting forth a potent effort, to effect a change in the bent and the character of the mind. In behalf of this statement the language of Paul is quoted, in which he wishes the Ephesians to know "what is the exceeding greatness of God's power towards us who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead." From this language some writers have asserted conversion to be the greatest instance of omnipotent energy in action and hence the influence of the Spirit is imagined to come upon the mind like the impulsive momentum of a moving body, rushing with accelerated velocity against another, and giving it an impulse or a shock which overpowers and prostrates all opposition.

Hence, sinners are taught to expect some overwhelming process to take place in them, something which they are not able to resist; and since they find that they can resist every