text to be the end of which the assistance of the Holy Ghost is the means, namely, that perfection of holiness without which no man shall see the Lord.

But it must be again carefully observed that no instantaneously miraculous assistance is here meant, nothing similar to the visible communication of the Spirit as it fell upon the immediate Disciples of Christ on the day of Pentecost: for that miracle was wrought for a great and peculiar purpose; and ceased accordingly when the occasion for it ceased, that is, when the Gospel was so sufficiently promulged that natural means were adequate to its farther propagation. But if this kind of Grace were here meant, the Apostle would not exhort us to grow in it, but would rather have advised us passively to pray for it, because the term grow, as imperatively used in this place, necessarily implies some effort of our own, which effort, though it will indeed prove ineffectual without the Divine aid, yet appears necessary to be made on our part, in order that God, on his part, may be graciously pleased to afford us that assistance; and this, as I have said, plainly appears from the very word which St. Peter uses on this occasion: for to grow, when the term is applied to any thing which relates to the operations of our minds, becomes a figurative and metaphorical expression, and therefore can only be understood by referring it to its original, primary, and natural meaning. The growth, for instance, of our own bodies, or any other corporeal

substance, capable of increase and extention, we all know is a gradual and progressive property, which, though governed by different laws in different material substances, is yet in all of them a work of some certain time, and limited to some certain dimensions. To consider our own bodies, we know that several years elapse between infancy and manhood, during which our frame proceeds to its limited bulk by gradual and imperceptible intervals. In like manner the improvement of our mental faculty (which metaphorically we call its growth) has its time for accomplishment, and proceeds through the several degrees of education even more gradually than our persons do to their full stature, insomuch that the body has for some years attained to its utmost size before the understanding can be said to have reached its proper standard; indeed the understanding, if duly cultivated, and not impaired by any external accident or bodily distemper, can scarce be said to have any limit or boundary short of its existence, unless indeed the infirmities of old age, which may be rather considered as bodily maladies, are taken into the consideration. This then being the case, I would ask why are we to expect that our growth in moral or Christian perfection should be more quick and sudden than in bodily or mental improvement? We infer immediately from the text, that Grace is a quality which increases; why then should we not believe that it is a quality which increases (as the analogy we have pointed out leads us to do) not suddenly,

but by just gradations; not instantaneously, but by a regular and rational progression? For this opinion we have the authority of various passages of Scripture besides that of the text; for the contrary, we have only the unsupported assertions of a tribe of hot-brained Enthusiasts.

The first passage which I shall quote in proof of the doctrine which I here deliver, is taken from St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, where, after enumerating the various benefits conferred by Christ upon his Church, such as sending unto them Evangelists, Prophets, Apostles, and Pastors, he declares the gracious end to be this, "that they may all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." Here we see the metaphor which he uses is exactly the same with that which we have explained, namely bodily growth," the measure of the stature and full dimensions of Christ," which he justly considers as the highest degree of intellectual perfection, and plainly tells us how we are to arrive at through the medium and different gradations of faith and knowledge; which clearly intimates that St. Paul understood this arrival to the growth, stature, and fulness of Christ to be a work of time and gradual progressive improvement. Another text directly apposite to our present purpose is that well known climax of St. Peter, in which he gives us, link by link, that

chain of successively dependent moral qualifications which the Christian ought to join to his faith, in order to arrive at the perfection of holiness: "Add," says he, "to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity; for (continues he) if these things be in you and abound, they make you that you shall be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ; therefore give diligence to make your calling and election sure." On this passage I will only make the following remark; that it is plain, since the Apostle thus exhorts us to add one virtue after another (as here specified) in order that we may not be barren or unfruitful in revealed knowledge; and since he admonishes us to give diligence to make our election sure, he certainly means that Christian perfection has this in common with human science, that we must apply ourselves to the study, and habituate ourselves to the practice of it, if we would become real proficients in it, taking moral virtue, as St. Paul speaks of the law, to be our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ: If we do this with diligence, constancy, and perseverance, it is then, and then only, that we can hope for the assisting grace of God; it is then only that his Holy Spirit will help our infirmities, not by over-powering our own natural faculties, not by destroying and over-ruling the freedom

of our will; but by co-operating with our endeavours, and furnishing us with convenient and effectual aids for our farther improvement. Thus St. Paul tells us the Manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal, which, though spoken by him of the external and miraculous Manifestation of the Spirit communicated to the first Christians, is yet no less true of that general yet unseen operation of the same Spirit, which still strengthens the faith, perfects the good works of every sincere follower of Jesus, and is equally to him the Paraclete, the Comforter of his soul, the insurer of his salvation, as he was to those immediate disciples of Christ on whom he visibly descended.

And now if I have justly, and according to the true tenor of Scripture, explained the meaning of the text, it will behove such of my audience, as are convinced of the truth of my explication, to show that they are so by a conformity of belief and practice in the following particulars :

First, then, they will not wait in an ill-grounded expectation till an instantaneous illumination of the Holy Ghost, in a sensible and miraculous manner, operates upon their souls to reform and regenerate them, as some persons pretend they have experienced; but, on the contrary, they will endeavour strenuously, by avoiding all appearance of evil, and by practising every thing that