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He presents himself to his weak and ignorant creatures as ready to meet all their wants, and supply all their deficiencies; and thus condescends to solicit their confidence. He promises his Spirit to those who ask; and thus invites and stimulates them to hold frequent intercourse with himself by prayer. He declares his holy anxiety for the advancement of the truth; and thus attracts their attention and regard to it.

When the arguments of the gospel alarm or confirm or comfort the mind, the Holy Spirit is present; and the belief of this will unspeakably enforce the argument,—just as we often find that the presence and voice of a friend will give weight to reasons which would be disregarded in his absence. If God thus offers us his spiritual presence and support through the medium of his truth, ought not we ever to carry about with us the remembrance and the love of the truth, that we may enjoy much of his presence and support? If he is so watchful over the progress of Christian principle in the hearts of men, ought not we also to be watchful, lest we grieve him, and lest we lose the precious benefits of his instructions? As the gospel confines the influence of the Spirit

to the truths contained in the written word, there is nothing to fear from fanaticism.

The

Holy Spirit does not now reveal any thing new, but impresses what is already revealed.

SECTION V.

Ir thus appears that the gospel is a great store

house of medicines for the moral diseases of the human mind. It contains arguments most correctly fitted to act powerfully on our reason and on our feelings; and these arguments are in themselves naturally destructive of moral evil. They give a life and a reality to the shadowy traits of natural religion; they exhibit in a history of facts the abstract idea of the Divine character; and thus they render that character intelligible to the comprehension and impressive on the heart of man.

And is there

no need for this medicine? If it be admitted that wickedness and misery reign in this world to a frightful extent, and that nothing is more common than a strange carelessness about our Creator, and a decided spirit of hostility to the holiness of his character,-if it be admitted that there prevails through the hearts of our species, a proud selfishness of disposition which looks with indifference on the happiness or misery of others, unless where interest or vanity makes the exception, and that whilst we profess to believe in a future state, we yet

think and act as if our expectations and desires never stretched beyond this scene of transitory existence, if all this be admitted, surely it must also be admitted that some remedy is most desirable. And when we consider that the root of all these evils is in the heart,-that the very first principles of our moral nature are corrupted, that the current of our wills is different from that of God's--and that whilst this difference continues, we must be unhappy, or, at best, most insecure of our enjoyment in whatever region our lot of existence is cast,— the necessity of some powerful health-restoring antidote will appear still more imperious. And can we think it improbable that a gracious God would meet this necessity and reveal this antidote? We have advanced a considerable step when we have admitted this probability. And when we see a system such as Christianity, asserting to itself a divine original-tending most distinctly to the eradication of moral evil -harmonizing so beautifully with the most enlightened views of the character of God, and adapted so wonderfully to the capacities of man,-does not the probability amount to an assurance that God has indeed made a movement towards man, and that such an antidote is indeed contained in the truth of the gospel?

There are few minds darkened or hardened to such a degree that they cannot discern between moral good and evil. Hence it happens, that the pure morality of the gospel is gener ally talked of with praise; and this is all: They admire the dial-plate of the time-piece, and the accurate division of its circle; whilst they altogether pass over that nice adjustment of springs and weights which give its regulated movement to the index: They see not the Divine wisdom of the doctrines, which can alone embody that pure morality in the characters of those who receive them.

Exactly from the same inadvertence, it is sometimes asked, "Why so urgent with these abstruse and mysterious doctrines? It is, to be sure, very decent and proper to believe them: But the character is the great point; and if that be reformed, we need not care much about the means." These persons do not consider, that, though it may be comparatively easy to restrain the more violent eruptions of those dispositions which are mischievous to society, it is no easy matter to plant in the heart the love of God, which is the first and greatest moral precept of Christianity. They do not consider that the character is in the mind; and that this character must receive its denom

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