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intercourse with him; we will resign everything that has offended him, we will renounce all rivals to his claims; we will entertain him like God; we will wait on him with our "loins girt about," ready to obey every suggestion; we will keep his temple undefiled, and keep alive the holy fire on his altar; and we will say, "O the hope of Israel, the Saviour thereof in time of trouble-thou, O Lord, art in the midst of us, and we are called by thy name, LEAVE US NOT."

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CHAPTER VI.

ON THE ANALOGY BETWEEN MODERN REVIVALS AND THE REVIVAL WHICH TOOK PLACE ON THE DAY OF

PENTECOST.

A RELIGIOUS revival operates on the interests of devotion in the same manner as the revival of literature has influenced the interests of philosophy and science, and as a revival of trade affects the commercial interests of a country.

Revival in religion is that process by which there is in the minds of men throughout a church or a district a return from a religious languor, or recovery from moral apathy, to a universal and general sensitiveness to the influences of the Holy Spirit operating by religious truths and ordinances. Sometimes a whole church is simultaneously awakened to the vast importance of religion. All the members feel and mourn their languor and their lukewarmness. A deep and unusual confession of sin gives a powerful tone to all their devotional exercises. All their sympathies quiver with lively anxiety for the conversion of sinners, especially of their relatives, con

nexions, and neighbours, and even of all nations. Their minds are duly and properly excited by the magnitude, the force, and the beauty of religious truths. An excited mind is always calculated to excite other minds; and the Holy Spirit makes use of these relations and dependencies of psychological sympathies to awaken a general concern for salvation in a district that resembled a valley of dry bones, and gives to religion a revival and a resurrection where it was likely to meet a grave.

A revival is the Spring of religion, the renovation of life and gladness. It is the season in which young converts burst into existence and beautiful activity. The church resumes her toil and labour and care with freshness and energy. The air all around is balmy, and diffusing the sweetest odours. The whole landscape teems with living promises of an abundant harvest of righteousness and peace. It is the jubilee of holiness. A genial warmth pervades and refreshes the whole church. Showers of "vernal delight and joy" descend gently and copiously. Delightful influences are wafted by every breeze. Where the dead leaves of winter still linger, the primrose and the daisy spring up in modest loveliness. Trees long barren put forth buds of beauty and power. The whole valley is crowned with fragrant and varied blossoms. Zion is the joy of the whole earth. If the spirit that renews the face of the earth is a spirit of beauty, in the elegance of the germs, the tints of the buds, the verdure of the foliage, the splendour of

the blossoms, and the witching glories of the matured fruits of nature, "how great is his beauty," when acting out his lovely and holy perfections in revivals of religion. "In that day shall the Lord of hosts be for a crown of glory, and for a diadem of BEAUTY unto the residue of his people." This is his promise concerning these seasons of refreshing from his presence: "I will be as the dew unto Israel: he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive-tree, and his smell as Lebanon. They that dwell under his shadow shall return, they shall REVIVE as the corn, and grow as the vine: the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon." These passages are redolent with the influences of the Reviving spirit. They make the reader feel himself in the midst of their charming odours and beautiful glories.

Such a season to the church of Christ was the day of Pentecost. Since that day the church has been favoured with many days of kindred glory and similar results. When it is asserted that there is an analogy between the results of the effusion of the Holy Spirit in the present day, and those produced on the day of Pentecost, the miraculous gifts are excepted, as being only necessary for that occasion, and as being an accident rather than an essential part of that spiritual phenomenon. By modern revivals I understand such seasons as have been produced in the sixteenth century by the Reformation in Europe; in the seventeeth by

the ministry of the Puritans in England; in the eighteenth by the labours of WHITFIELD and WESLEY in England, by President EDWARDS and BELLAMY and the TENNENTS in America, and by the ERSKINES and the noble band of the Seceders in Scotland; and in the nineteenth century by the religious societies and institutions of England, and especially by the faithful preaching of the gospel in the Welsh and American churches. The acts of the apostles supplies us with a permanent and sure test by which we can try and prove the genuineness or the spuriousness of modern revivals. The revival of the day of Pentecost was indisputably a genuine production of the Holy Spirit. If we reject any modern revivals for any developements which appeared in the revival of Pentecost, we reject a true and real work of the Holy Spirit. If any element mingle with a modern revival which was not an ingredient in the pentecostal renovation, it is so far to be rejected. In tracing the analogy between the early and modern revivals, it is not intended that their character is identical, but similar.

I. They both originate in a spirit of humble,, united, and expectant prayer. The revivals of modern days have generally sprung from a painful sense of worldliness, apathy, and indifference, an earnest longing for a better state of things, a holy separation from everything injurious to devotion, a solemn renewal of covenant consecration to God, a serious concern for wholesome doctrine and salutary

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