This is not animal life—it is not intellectual lifesince man may be a perfect animal and reasonable being, and yet exhibit a total destitution of holiness. He may live utterly regardless of the majesty of God, and uninfluenced by his mercy; he may have no desires after his favour, do nothing in respect to his will, desire no intercourse with him, and yet lack no property which constitutes human nature. From whence then does that change arise, which gives him tastes the reverse of any he was ever before conscious of? fears as to unseen objects, which, though known before, excited no alarm? and strong desires after moral deliverance from the guilt and bondage of a state in which he was before content to live in peace ? How is it, that new trains of thought occupy his spirit, and a new language flows from his lips? that he now courts a new society," the saints and excellent of the earth, who exceed in virtue;" and that he "loves the brethren," whom before he ridiculed and despised with all the contemptuousness of that "carnal mind which is enmity to God?" that prayer and thanksgiving to God, and the habitual actings of faith in the atonement of Christ, by whom he has access to God, have taken the place of those lifeless services of an occasional and merely external devotion in which he trusted? Here are phenomena to be accounted for. Some strange thing has happened: he is not what he was; he is become even the reverse of all that before constituted character in its moral sense, and perhaps so suddenly, that nothing has surprised his immediate friends more than this visible, palpable, and, often, this lamented transformation. He was gay, and he steals from the circles

of pleasure to mourn his sins before God. His eye was roving, and his manner listless in the sanctuary, now he hears and prays as feeling that eternal consequences hang upon the result; he was absorbed in the cares of this life, he now, for the first time, feels the weight of his soul's concerns, and the solemn question of salvation. Scoffers resolve all this into fanaticism; and so far they conclude well, that it must be referred to some new principle, under the influence of which, by some strange means, the heart has been brought. It is not necessary to stay to show, that real fanaticism can no more produce such effects than animal magnetism, and that whatever does produce them, is too high, too hallowed, to be injured by an opprobrious name. If we believe the Scriptures in truth, the case is there explicitly determined, and their decision is, that the new principle which has formed this new character is the communication of SPIRITUAL LIFE from God. "And you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins." "God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he hath loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ; and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." Of the resurrection of the body, it is obvious that St. Paul does not here speak; and he must therefore be understood to assert, that, in consequence of the resurrection and ascension of Christ, events which were followed by the effusion of the Holy Spirit, a quickening influence is exerted upon the souls of men, previously dead in trespasses and sins, the effect of which is to produce that spiritual mindedness which is so strongly

and beautifully expressed by our "sitting together with Christ in heavenly places." There the thoughts of a true believer are henceforward habitually placed; there his whole trust and hope repose; and to this new and spiritual class of objects his affections are now effectually allured. The manner of this mysterious communication of a new principle so marked in its effects, is not explained to us. How the Holy

Spirit takes our faculties into his own hands, and gives them this direction, and by planting new principles within us, such as the filial fear of God, and filial love to him, places upon them a new and powerful, and even contrary bias, is a matter which would probably prove more curious than useful to us, did we even know it; but that the influence by which the effect is produced is direct from the Holy Spirit, and that it must be permanent in order to maintain the effect, is so manifestly the doctrine of Christ and his apostles, that we must resort to the most unlicensed interpretations and unbridled paraphrases to make innumerable texts give out a contrary sense. For how

shall we understand the “union of the vine and the branches," if we do not admit, that it teaches the communication and the supply of the principle of life, growth, and fruitfulness? How is it that Christ "manifests himself to his disciples as he does not unto the world," unless in the direct influences of his Spirit? For if this manifestation were but the unveiling of the truth of his doctrine to them, it would render wholly unintelligible the promise which immediately follows, that "he and the Father would come to them, and make their abode with them." How, too, shall we understand the Spirit's office, on

the theory of indirect influence?

Shall we confine it to the apostles, and confound ordinary with extraordinary operations; and come to the conclusion, that the Holy Spirit, who was to abide "for ever" with the church, has now left it, because" prophecies have ceased," "tongues have failed," and miraculous powers have been no longer vouchsafed? And if we, on

the contrary, admit, that "the promise of the Father" is still shed upon them that believe, what does the misleading, and indeed the absurd doctrine of the indirect influence of the Spirit mean, more than what might be expressed in better and more honest phrase, the influence of the word? A notion which involves the proud and self-righteous conclusion, that whatever the word is to me more than it is to another, whether of direction, comfort, or sanctity, it becomes so solely, because I, by my own unaided efforts, give it its efficacy; and that, instead of being regenerated by a divine power using the word as the instrument, (which is the way in which St. Paul states the case,) I have regenerated myself by its instrumentality. Such glorious truths as, that Christ" dwells in the hearts" of true believers " "by faith" that he is the vital "Head" which gives vigour to every member of his body mystical; that by him "we draw near to God;" and that there is "a communion of the Holy Spirit,"-cannot be so reduced and neutralized, so long as we apply the same principles of interpretation to the Bible, as by the common consent of all are applied to all other writings. They shine there with an effulgence which nothing can darken, and they are, in their obvious meaning and import, a blessed part of the daily experience of

all truly devout and spiritual persons, and have been so in all ages. So they have been understood from the very days of the apostles, and the church has never wanted witnesses, even in the worst ages, to confirm the truth of a conscious indwelling of God as the fountain of life in man, by their own experience.

There is however no small danger, lest, whilst we admit the important truth, that Christ is so "the way to the Father," as that through faith in him we rise into a real and vital fellowship of spirit with God, we should hold it too generally, and with too much dependence upon the means by which that state is attained and confirmed. We are prone to self-dependence, and are too often led to place some instrument between ourselves and God, under the influence of those plausibilities which this creaturely spirit is so ingenious to devise. Much of what is often said, for instance, on the adaptation of certain instruments and aids of piety to effect the purposes for which they are instituted, leads undesignedly, no doubt in many, to detach the soul from its simple and direct dependence upon God, and in that proportion to interrupt or weaken its intercourse with him, in whom are all our

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springs," and from whose immediate communications alone our spiritual supplies can be received. The very truth which is contained in the notion of the adaptation and fitness of that class of instruments which are commonly called "the means of grace," to effect their ends, does itself become dangerous unless clearly apprehended, and held under its proper limitations. There is in them an infinite and adorable wisdom. The nature of the truths which the written word of God exhibits-the varied style and