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the church of Christ, and of the individual believer, may not always be manifestly present. The prayerless, unholy, and trifling walk of a believer, will cause him to withdraw his sensible presence. The coldness, formality, worldliness, and divisions of a church, will compel him to withhold the plentiful rain, or the gentle dew of his precious influence. He may be so disowned, dishonoured, wounded, and grieved, as to retire within the curtains of his secret glory, leaving for a while the scene of worldliness and strife to the curse and the reproach of barrenness. To impress the mind more deeply with the glory of his person, and with the necessity and value of his work; and to awaken a more ardent desire, and more earnest and constant prayer for a greater manifestation of his influence, and a more undoubted evidence of his glory and power in the church and in the believer, is the object of the writer in the following Treatise. All we want, brethren beloved in the Lord, is, a richer and more enlarged degree of the reviving, sealing, and witnessing influence of the Holy Ghost. This will sanctify and bless the learning, the wealth, and the influence, now so rich an endowment of Christ's redeemed church, and but for which, that learning, wealth, and influence, will but weaken her true power, impede her onward progress, and beget in her a spirit of human trust and vain glory. This, too, will consume in its holy fire, the unhallowed spirit of jealousy and party strife now the canker-worm of the one body; and, without asking for the compromise of truth, will yet, in the love it shall enkindle, so cement the hearts of the brotherhood, and so throw around them the girdle of a heaven-born and uniting charity, as will establish such an evidence of the truth

of Christianity, the last that Christ will give, as all its enemies shall not be able to gainsay or resist. Descend, holy and blessed Spirit, upon all thy churches, thy ministers, and thy people! Descend thou upon Jew and Gentile; everywhere, and among all people, manifest thy glory, until the church, scattered up and down the earth, shall acknowledge, receive, and welcome thee, her ever-blessed and ever-abiding Indweller, Sanctifier, and Comforter!

It is with much reluctance that the Author, in consequence of the unexpected size to which this Treatise has grown under his hand, has been compelled to omit some important aspects of the Spirit's work, two subjects especially, the one on "Grieving the Spirit;" the other on the "Outpouring of the Spirit." It is his intention, however, to introduce them in a work now in preparation, to be entitled, "Personal Declension and Revival; a Plea for the Outpouring of the Spirit," to appear in a short period, if the Lord permit. The third volume in this series will be entitled, "THE INQUIRER DIRECTED TO AN EXPERIMENTAL AND PRACTICAL VIEW OF THE GLORY OF CHRIST."

The Author would only add, that it would afford him peculiar pleasure to communicate with any to whom the Spirit may make this humble unfolding of his work a blessing, and to ask, in return, a personal interest in their intercessions at the throne of grace, that the truths he opens to others, may be increasingly the sanctification, consolation, and support of his own soul, and all the glory shall, through time and through eternity, redound to the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

LEAMINGTON, May, 1840.

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CHAPTER I.

THE GODHEAD AND PERSONALITY OF THE

HOLY SPIRIT.

THE NATURE AND THE NECESSITY OF EXPERIMENTAL

RELIGION.

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'Go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Matt. xxviii. 19.

It is essential to a proper and just exhibition of the work of the Holy Spirit, that, in the outset of the discussion, the basis of that work be deeply and broadly laid. He is not a "wise master builder," who, in rearing the great structure of divine truth, commences not with a clear and scriptural exposition of the foundation. While every portion of God's Word, whether it be a doctrine, a precept, or a promise, must be regarded as bearing upon the salvation, sanctification, and consolation of the believer, there yet are doctrines, which have ever been held and maintained, as forming the ground work, essential to the very existence, security, and harmony of the entire system of revealed truth. For example, the self

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