ted; that with this aid and assistance sin may be successfully encountered, and such a course of duty maintained, as may render us accepted in Christ and farther, that to impart the above described assistance is one of the ends of Christ's coming, and one of the operations of his love towards mankind :-if, I say, these propositions be doctrinally true, then follow from them these three practical rules: first, that we are to pray sincerely, earnestly, and incessantly, for this assistance; secondly, that by so doing, we are to obtain it; thirdly, that being obtained, we are to yield ourselves to its agency, to be obedient to its dictates.

First: We are to pray sincerely, earnestly, and incessantly for this assistance. A fundamental, and as it seems to me, an unsurmountable text, upon this head, is our Saviour's declaration.* "If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?" This declaration, beside expres sing (which was its primary object,) God's benignant, prompt, and merciful disposition towards us; which here, as in other places, our Saviour compares with the disposition of a parent towards his children. Beside this, the text undoubtedly assumes the fact of there being a Holy Spirit, of its being the gift of God, of its being given to them that ask him; that these things are all realities: a real spiritual assistance, really given, and given to prayer. But let it be well observed, that whensoever the Scripture speaks of prayer, whensoever it uses that term, or other terms equivalent to it, it means prayer, sincere and earnest, in the full and proper sense of these words, prayproceeding from the heart and soul. It does mean any particular form of words whatever; s not mean any service of the lips, any utor pronunciation of prayer, merely as

Luke xi. 13.

such; but supplication actually and truly proceeding from the heart.-Prayer may be solemn without being sincere. Every decency, every propriety every visible mark and token of prayer may be present, yet the heart not engaged.This is the requisite which must make prayer availing; this is the requisite indeed, which must make it that, which the Scripture means, whenever it speaks of prayer. Every outward act of worship, without this participation of the heart, fails, not because men do not pray sincerely, but because, in Scripture sense, they do not pray at all.

If these qualities of internal seriousness and impression belong to prayer, whenever prayer is mentioned in Scripture, they seem more peculiarly essential, in a case and for a blessing, purely and strictly spiritual. We must pray with the Spirit, at least when we pray for spiritual suc

cour.

Furthermore, there is good authority in Scripture, which it would carry us too widely from our subject to state at present, for persevering in prayer, even when long unsuccessful. Perseverance in successful prayer is one of the doctrines and of the lessons of the New Testament.

But again; we must pray for the Spirit earnestly; I mean with a degree of earnestness, proportioned to the magnitunde of the request. The earnestness, with which we pray, will always be in proportion to our sense, knowledge, and consciousness of the importance of the thing which we ask. This consciousness is the source and principle of earnestness in prayer; and in this, I fear, we are greatly deficient. We do not pos sess or feel it in the manner, in which we ought; and we are deficient upon the subject of spiritual assistance most particularly. I fear, that many understand and reflect little upon the importance of what they are about, upon the exceedingly great consequence of what they are asking, when they pray to God, as we do in our liturgy, " tę

212 THE SPIRIT'S

ted; that

successf

ty ma Chris scrib com

wa d

hearts

214 THE SPIRITS ADD TO BE cleanse the

SOUGHT

ration of his shady the inspi

hearts with w

it from

make clean our to take his Holy Spir

us increase of

grace; to grant

that his Hair Spirit may in all things direct and These are momentous petitions, little as we

rule our hearts.

may perceive, the time.

when we

or

think, or account of them, at It has been truly said, that we are

hardly ever certain of praying aright, except pray for temporal blessings, we do not know, though God does, whether we ask what is really

pray for the Spirit of God.-When we

for our

good: when we ask for the assistance and sanctification of God's Spirit in the work and warfare of religion, we ask for that, which by its very nature is good and which, without our great fault, will be good to us.

But secondly, We must obtain it. God is propitious. You hear that he has promised it to prayer, to prayer really and truly such, to prayer, viz. issuing from the heart and soul; for no other is ever meant. We are suppliants to our Maker for various and continual blessings; for health, for ease, it may be, for prosperity and success. There is, as hath already been observed some degree of uncertainty in all these cases, whether we ask what is fit and proper to be granted; or even, what, if granted, would do us good. There is this, likewise, farther to be observed, that they are what, if such be the pleasure of God, we can do without. But how incapable we are of doing without God's Spirit; of proceeding in our spiritual course upon our own strength and our own resources; of finally accomplishing the work of salvation without it; the strong description, which › given by St. Paul, may convince us, if our own experience had not convinced us before. Many of us, a large majority of us, either require, or have required, a great change, a moral regeneration. This is to be effectuated by the aid of God's Spirit. Vitiated hearts will not change themselves;

not easily, not frequently, not naturally, perhaps, not possibly. Yet " without holiness no man shall see God." How then are the unholy to become holy? Holiness is a thing of the heart and soul. It is not a few forced, constrained actions, though good as actions which constitute holiness. It must reside within us; it is a disposition of soul. To acquire, therefore, that which is not yet acquired; to change that which is not yet changed; to go to the root of the malady; to cleanse and purify the inside of the cup, the foulness of our mind, is a work for the Spirit of God within us. Nay, more; many, as the scripture most significantly expresses it, are dead in sins and trespasses, not only committing sins and trespasses, but dead in them: that is, as insensible of their condition under them, as a dead man is insensible of his condition. Where this is the case, the sinner must, in the first instance, be roused and quickened to a sense of his condition; of his danger, his fate; in a word, he must, by some means or other, be brought to feel a strong compunction. This is also an office for the Spirit of God. "You hath he quickened, who were dead in traspasses and sins."*"Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." Whether, therefore, we be amongst the dead in sin; or whether we be of the number of those, with whom, according to St Paul's description, to will is present, but to perform that which is good they find not; who, though they approve the law of God, nay delight in it, after the inward man, that is, in the answers of their conscience, are nevertheless brought into captivity to the law of sin, which is in their members; carnal, sold under sin; doing what they allow not, what they hate; doing not the good which they would, but the evil which they would not: which ever of these be our wretched estate, for such the Apostle pronounces it to be, the grace and influence of God's Spirit must be † ID. v. 14

Eph. ii, 1.

obtained, in order to rescue and deliver us from it, and the sense of this want and of this necessity lies at the root of our devotions, when directed to this object.

To those, who are in a better state than what has been here described, little need be said, because the very supposition of their being in a better state includes that earnest and devout application by prayer for the continual aid, presence, and in-dwelling of God's Holy Spirit, which we state to be a duty of the Christian religion.

But thirdly: The assistance of God's Spirit being obtained, we are to yield ourselves to its direction; to consult, attend, and listen to its dictates, suggested to us through the admonitions of our conscience. The terms of Scripture represent the Spirit of God, as an assisting, not forcing, power; as not suspending our own powers, but enabling them; as imparting strength and faculty for our religious work, if we will use them; but whether we will use them or not, still depending upon ourselves. Agreeably hereunto St. Paul, you have heard, asserts, that there is no condemnation to them, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. The promise is not to them who have the Spirit, but to them who walk after the Spirit. To walk after the flesh, is to follow whereever the impulses of sensuality and selfishness lead us; which is a voluntary act. To walk after the Spirit, is steadily and resolutely to obey good motions within us, whatever they cost us: which also is a voluntary act. All the language of this remarkable chapter* proceeds in the same in; namely, that after the Spirit of God is

remains and rests with ourselves whethail ourselves of it or not. "If ye through t do mortify the deeds of the flesh ye "It is through the Spirit that we are to mortify the deeds of the flesh. But hether we mortify them or not, is our act;

* Rom. vii.