withdrawn his influence from them, and that, consequently, the use of them by us would never produce the developement and the "demonstration of the Spirit:" because, in the truth of the case, there is no influence of the Spirit in them to be demonstrated. This is not the case with any scripture that contains the moral will and the holy mind of God. These are still the power of God, and every conscience awake feels, in their force, that they are spirit and they are life. We think, likewise, that the influence of the Holy Spirit never was in the apocryphal writings; and that consequently the preaching and the reading of them never could be expected to prove a "ministration of the Spirit." It is true, the Holy Spirit may sovereignly direct some of the intellectual and moral influences of the truths in the Apocrypha, as he sometimes sanctifies the influences of physical events, or a line from a heathen poet, to effect spiritual good; but we can never, in their presence, feel the confidence that we have in the presence of the scriptures, that the influence of the Holy Spirit is never absent!

The Holy Spirit is ever the Spirit of the truth: the sacred "word is the truth:" and he is the Spirit of that word the Spirit that is ever in it—making it ever quick and powerful, ever living and energetic. The command "quench not the Spirit," is inseparably linked to another, "despise not prophesyings." The juxtaposition of these two admonitions, teaches us that the Spirit has his influences always in the prophesyings, and that our treatment of the prophesyings, as of Gideon's pitchers, is a treatment of the kindling energy that is in them. It is the continued presence of these influences in the word, that warrants the reverence and the homage which are always due to the scriptures; and that aggravates the sin and the danger of a contempt and rejection of them. The answer of Abraham clearly implies, that where Moses and the prophets were, there were present in them sufficient influences to persuade the brethren of Dives from going to the place of torment; and these influences abide in them for ever, as in "an incorruptible seed," the imperishable energies of vitality, power, and beauty, dwell and abide.

IV. The various phenomena, resulting from the relations between scriptural truth and the minds of men, are in full harmony with the statement, that the Word is the perpetual seat, and constant medium, of the presence and the influences of the Holy Spirit.

It is argued in this section, that the influence of the Holy Spirit is present in the word; and, by means of the word, in the church. This is his personal influence, or the influence in the manifestation of which, he, as a distinct Subsistence, exercises a personal will and personal agency, for spiritual operation and holy purposes. As in matter, mind, and truth, he is present to direct their physical, intellectual, and moral influences; so in the sacred word, he is present to direct holy and saving energies.

This illustrates a phrase employed by Paul concerning Christ "dwelling in the heart by faith." It means that Christ is present in us, by what we believe concerning him. Christ, or the Holy Spirit, dwells in our hearts, just as any other person might be there: as Rachel was in the heart of Jacob, as an absent child in the heart of a mother, and as Paul had his early converts "in his heart." In such instances it is never supposed that their essential persons were in such hearts, but that the personal mind, character, and dispositions, of such individuals, were influencing the heart, by truths believed and entertained concerning them. This belief did not consist merely in right and accurate notions of these persons, but in a due estimate and cordial approbation of the truths which revealed their character.

It is in the same manner that the Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts-by the truths believed concerning him. The belief of these truths is not a mental admission of their verity, but a belief that influences the believing mind, a belief and a "faith that worketh by love." The belief in the forementioned instances is productive of phenomena, psychological, mental, and moral: and these were produced, not by the truths themselves, but by the persons whose characters animated these truths, and gave them their energy. It is thus in one of the cases just specified. It is not by fancying that her absent son is personally present, that the mother believes her son to dwell in her heart. She feels every day, that the truths concerning him greatly affect her breast, with the emotions of love and solicitude. These truths always press on her mind, and constrain her to feel and to act as a mother. Were he bodily present, he could not influence her more effectually than he does by his letters, sentiments, and character. No one but her SON could thus affect her. The son is in every word and in every line of the letter received from him. Let her read it seven times a day for three-score years

and ten her son is ever there, and ever in her heart- and all the phenomena produced results from his influences in the letter.

Suppose the mother to become unnatural, unkind, and "estranged from the son of her womb," the letter would not thereby be losing a jot or a tittle of its original influences. They would be still present in the letter, though they would not be developed in forced combinations with harshness and apathy. Imagine her to give another reading to the letter, to have her attention arrested, and to return to right maternal feelings; the change would be effected by the influences in the letter, influences which she, by her unnatural estrangement, had excluded from access to her heart, but which she never could expel from the letter. In the change effected in the mother, the spirit of her son is not consciously present, and spontaneously acting in the influences of this letter: but in the conversion of a sinner the Holy Spirit is consciously present in the influences of the word, and exercising by them a spontaneous activity and personal volition. In the sense that he is locally present in the place where he makes a manifestation of his energy in natural phenomena, he is personally present in the individual where he manifests his influences in moral and holy results. In both cases he manifests his presence, by the influences already deposited in the means appointed.

Though there cannot be any holy effects without the presence of the Holy Spirit, yet it is demonstrable that he may be really present where no such effects are manifested, as is proved by the instances in which he is resisted. As far as my experience and reading avail me, it appears that all Christians believe that the influences of the Spirit, though ever present in the word, will develope themselves only in certain and adjusted combinations of mind and conscience. The philosopher does not expect magnetism to develope itself in the presence of marble, or bullion, but of iron. The agriculturist does not expect the vital glories of "the good seed" to develope themselves in the fire, or on the stony ground, or on the way-side, but in combination with good soil. The Christian does not expect the influences of the Holy Spirit present in the word, to develope themselves in the presence of "the gall of bitterness," "the bonds of iniquity," seeking of the praise of men," the love of the rewards of unrighteousness," the neglect of prayer, and the contempt of

"the

the word. In these combinations the Gospel does not cease to be the power of God; for at the very time it appeared to the Jew a rugged stumbling-block, and to the Greek a heap of absurd follies, it ever remained the power of God and the wisdom of God. The influence of the Holy Spirit was ever there, to be conveyed in given circumstances. He gave the truth, that he might give himself. He made the Gospel the vehicle in which he could visit man. Where he gives his word he gives his influences, and where his word is received or repelled, his influences are received or repelled.

It is a lamentable and awful fact, that men may have the scriptures and the means of grace, without deriving from them the influences of the Holy Spirit which they contain. This fact is thus lamentable only on the supposition that the Means, and the Word, are never presented or supplied, without the influences of the Holy Spirit being present in them, ready to be communicated to benefit any soul who uses them rightly. Means of grace have been used without a developement of the "grace," of which they were the appointed and real vehicles. This arose, not from the absence or withdrawment of the grace from the means, but it arose altogether, and solely, from the inaptitude, and repellent tendencies, of the persons who used the means. It were a fond fancy to imagine that there was "grace" enough in the means of the day of Pentecost to flow to the three thousandth convert, and that it could not reach the three thousand and one, or three thousand one hundred, because that it was suddenly checked by a sovereign stop, and arbitrary withholdment.

In the history of the ministrations of the word, there are innumerable instances in which some faithful preachers of the gospel have been more successful than others- able preachers have succeeded but painfully little - the successful minister of one season has proved unsuccessful at another - and the most unlikely agent has been honored with the most signal success. In the estimate of these perplexing incidents, some modern ministers differ greatly from the inspired messengers. Christian pastors of the present times have been tempted to soothe themselves, and their hearers, with the soporific quietus, that they are unsuccessful because the Holy Spirit is sovereign, and is not always pleased to be present with the word. Prophets and apostles, on the contrary, never seem to have imagined that the Holy Spirit had forsaken their ministry and their message:· - it was because they believed the Holy

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Spirit ever present in their ministry, that they demanded homage to it, that they persevered to maintain and enforce it, and that they branded with the marks of blame and guilt, the people who did not obey it. Let us, in every case, trace our unsuccessfulness to ourselves and to our hearers, and never to the Holy Spirit. The doctrine of the Cross, our magnet does contain the real influences ever present in it; though it may be exhibited in circumstances unlikely to develope its powerful energies. We may exhibit it wrapped in thick foldings of ornament — or encased in crusted corruptions, which hinder and prevent the diffusion of its influences: or, indeed, we may bear it, in its simple and naked power, as Stephen did, amidst crowded and applauding throngs, where, there is not one soul, like the needle, to receive and confess its mighty influences, but only hearts of stone to repel and resist the Holy Spirit.

In opposition to the whole of this reasoning, on the influence of the Holy Spirit as being present in the Divine word, it is asserted that the word is only a collection of syllables and statements that of itself it is a lifeless instrument, an empty vehicle, a mere dead letter, in every way inefficient for conversion, but as the Holy Spirit, something like the Bethesda Angel, visits it with saving Energy.

Of all flattering unctions applied to inactive Christians, the most soothing and stupefying is, the doctrine that outward means are ineffectual of themselves. By universal and unaccountable consent, the word and the ordinances of the gospel have been denominated outward means. If this phrase intends that these means are "out" of the sphere of Divine influences, or that Divine influence is out of their sphere, it deserves the severest reprobation. If it intends that the means are extrinsic of man and distinct from him, it is, as all means are necessarily and equally so, a mere truism. In no sense can they be "outward means," except as rays are the outward vehicles of heat, or the loadstone the outward vehicle of magnetism. In no case are they "outward" and external, in the sense of being void or exhausted of the influences of the Holy Spirit. It is true that means are ineffectual of themselves; because in a system, like ours, of dependences, relations, adaptations, and combinations, every agent and every energy is necessarily so. The magnet is ineffectual of itself-heat is ineffectual of itself- and even mind is of itself ineffectual. Effect supposes an agent in contact and