served notice,) I proceed to state the particular duties which relate to the doctrine of spiritual assistance. And the first of these duties is to pray for it. It is by prayer that it is to be sought; by prayer that it is to be obtained. This the Scriptures expressly teach. "How much more will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?" The foundation of prayer, in all cases, is a sense of want. No man prays in earnest or to any purpose for what he does not feel that he wants. Know then and feel the weakness of your nature. Know the infinite importance of holding on, nevertheless, in a course of virtue. Know these two points thoroughly, and you can stand in need of no additional motive (indeed none can be added,) to excite in you strong unwearied supplications for Divine help; not a cold asking for it in any prescribed form of prayer, but cryings and supplications for it, strong and unwearied. The description in the Epistle to the Hebrews, of our Lord's own devotion, may serve to describe the devotion of a Christian, praying, as he ought, for the Spirit; that is, praying from a deep understanding of his own condition, a conviction of his wants and necessities. He offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death; and was heard in that he feared." This is devotion in reality.

There are occasions also, which ought to call forth these prayers with extraordinary and peculiar force.

Is it superstition? is it not, on the contrary, a just and reasonable piety to implore of God the guidance of his Holy Spirit, when we have any thing of great importance to decide upon, or to undertake; especially any thing by which the happiness of others, as well as our own, is likely to be affected?

It would be difficult to enumerate the passages and occasions of a man's life, in which he is particularly bound to apply to God for the aid and direction of his Spirit. In general, in every turn, as it may be called, of life; whenever any thing critical, any thing momentous, any thing which is to fix our situation and course of life; most especially any thing which is likely to have an influence upon our moral conduct and disposition, and thereby affect our condition, as candidates for heaven, and as the religious servants of God, is to be resolved upon; there and then ought we to say our prayers; most ardently supplicating from our Creator and Preserver the grace and guidance of his Holy Spirit.

Is it not, again, a time for calling earnestly for the Spirit of God, and for a greater measure of that Spirit, if he be pleased to grant it to us, when we are recovering from some sin into which we have been betrayed? This case is always critical. The question now is, whether we shall fall into a settled course of sinning, or whether we shall be restored to our former, and to better than our former endeavours to maintain the line of duty. That, under the sting and present alarm of our conscience, we have formed resolutions of virtue for the future is supposed; but whether these resolutions will stand, is the point now at issue. And in this peril of our souls we cannot be too earnest or importunate in our supplications for Divine succour. It can never come to our aid at a time when we more want it. Our fall proves our weakness. Our desire of recovery proves, that,

though fallen, we may not be lost. This is a condition which flies to aid and help, if aid and help can be had; and it is a condition to which the promised support of the Spirit most peculiarly applies. On such an occasion, therefore, it will be sought with struggles and strong contention of mind, if we be serious in these matters. So sought, it will be obtained.

Again: Is it not always a fit subject of prayer, that the Holy Spirit would inform, animate, warm, and support our devotion? St. Paul speaks of the co-operation of the Spirit with us in this very article. "Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit maketh intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered." The specific help here described is to supply our ignorance. But the words speak also generally of helping our infirmities; meaning, as the passage leads us to suppose, the infirmities which attend our devotion. Now these infirmities are not only ignorance, but coldness, wanderings, absence; for all which a remedy is to be sought in the aid and help of the Spirit.

Next in order of time, to praying for the Spirit of God, but still superior to it in importance, is listening and yielding ourselves to his suggestions. This is the thing in which we fail.

Now, it being confessed that we cannot ordinarily distinguish at the time the suggestions of the Spirit from the operations of our minds, it may be asked, how are we to listen to them? The answer is, by attending universally to the admonitions within us. Men do not listen to their consciences. It is through the whisperings of conscience that the Spirit speaks. If men then are wilfully deaf to their consciences, they cannot hear the Spirit. If hearing, if being compelled to hear, the remonstrances of conscience, they nevertheless decide, and resolve, and determine to go against them; then they grieve, then they defy, then they do despite to the Spirit of God. In both cases, that is, both of neglecting to consult, and of defying, when they cannot help feeling the admonitions which rise up within them, they have this judgment hanging over their heads: "He that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath." He that misuses or abuses the portion and measure of spiritual assistance which is afforded him, shall lose even that.

The efficacy of the Spirit is to be judged of by its fruits. Its immediate effects are upon the disposition. A visible outward conduct will ensue; but the true seat of grace and of spiritual energy is in the heart and inward disposition. Whenever, therefore, we find religious carelessness succeeded within us by religious seriousness; conscience, which was silent or unheard, now powerfully speaking and obeyed; sensuality and selfishness, the two grand enemies of salvation, the two great powers of darkness which rule the natural man-when we find even these giving way to the inward accusing voice of conscience; when we find the thoughts of the mind drawing or drawn more and more towards heavenly things; the value and interest of these expectations plainer to our view, a great deal more frequent than heretofore in our meditations, and more fully discerned; the care and safety of our souls rising gradually above concerns and anxieties about worldly affairs; when we find the force of temptation and of evil propensities not extinct, but retreating be

subjected; but it means a spiritual death, or that! perdition and destruction to which sin brings men in a future state." The wages of sin is death;" not the death which we must all undergo in this world, for that is the fate of righteousness as well as sin, but the state, whatever it be, to which sin and sinners will be consigned in the world to come. Not many verses after our text, St. Paul says, "carnal mindedness is death:" "to be carnally minded is death;" leads, that is, inevitably to that future destruction which awaits the sinful indulgence of carnal propensities, and which destruction is, as it were, death to the soul. The book of Revelation, alluding to this distinction, speaks expressly of a second death, in terms very fit to be called to mind in the consideration of our present text. "I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of those things which were written, according to their works: and the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and hell (which last word denotes here simply the place of the dead, not the place of punishment) delivered up the dead that were in them; and they were judged every man accord ing to their works; and death and hell were cast into the lake of fire;" (that is, natural death, and the receptacle of those who died, were thenceforth superseded.) This is the second death. "And whatsoever was not found written in the book of life, was cast into the lake of fire." This description, which is exceedingly awful, is given in the last three verses of the 20th chapter. In reference to the same event, this book of Revelation had before told us, viz. in the 2d chapter and 11th verse, that he who overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death; and in like manner in the above quoted 20th chapter, "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in this resurrection: on such the second death hath no power." Our Lord himself refers to this death in those never to be forgotten words which he uttered, "He that liveth, and believeth in me, shall not die eternally." Die he must, but not eternally: die the first death, but not the second. It is undoubtedly, therefore, the second death which Saint Paul meant by the word death, when he wrote down the sentence "the body of this death;" and the second death is the punishment, perdition, and destruction, which the souls of sinners will suffer in a future state. It is well worthy of observation, that this was indeed the only death which those who wrote the New Testament, and probably all sincere Christians of that age, regarded as important, as the subject of their awe, and dread, and solicitude. The first death, the natural and universal disease of the body, they looked to simply as a change; a going out of one room into another; a putting off one kind of clothing, and putting on a different kind. They esteemed it, compared with the other, of little moment or account. In this respect, there is a wide difference between the Scripture apprehension of the subject and ours. We think entirely of the first death: they thought entirely of the second. We speak and talk of the death which we see they spoke, and taught, and wrote, of a death which is future to that. We look to the first with terror: they to the second alone. The second alone they represent as formidable. Such is the view which Christianity gives us of these things, so different from what we naturally entertain.

You see then what death is in the Scripture ense; in St. Paul's sense. "The body of this death." The phrase and expression of the text cannot, however, mean this death itself, because he prays to be delivered from it; whereas from that death, or that perdition understood by it, when it once overtakes the sinner, there is no deliverance that we know of. The "body," then, "of this death," is not the death itself, but a state leading to and ending in the second death; namely, in misery and punishment, instead of happiness and rest, after our departure out of this world. And this state it is, from which St. Paul, with such vehemence and concern upon his spirit, seeks to be delivered.

Having seen the signification of the principal phrase employed in the text, the next, and the most important question is, to what condition of the soul, in its moral and religious concerns, the apostle applies it. Now in the verses preceding the text, indeed in the whole of this remarkable chapter, St. Paul has been describing a state of struggle and contention with sinful propensities; which propensities, in the present condition of our nature, we all feel, and which are never wholly abolished. But our apostle goes further: he describes also that state of unsuccessful struggle and unsuccessful contention, by which many so unhappily fall. His words are these: "That which I do, I allow not: for what I would, that 1 do not; but what I hate, that do I. For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not for the good that I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do. I find a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man. But I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members."

This account, though the style and manner of expression in which it is delivered be very peculiar, is, in its substance, no other than what is strictly applicable to the case of thousands. "The good that I would, I do not; the evil which I would not, that I do." How many, who read this discourse, may say the same of themselves! as also, "what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that I do." This then is the case which St. Pauĺ had in view. It is a case, first, which supposes an informed and enlightened conscience: "I delight in the law of God." "I had not known sin but by the law." "I consent unto the law that it is good." These sentiments could only be uttered by a man who was in a considerable degree at least, acquainted with his duty, and who also approved of the rule of duty which he found laid down.

Secondly: The case before us also supposes an inclination of mind and judgment to perform our duty. "When I would do good, evil is present with me: to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good, I find not."

Thirdly: It supposes this inclination of mind and judgment to be continually overpowered. “I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members;" that is, the evil principle not only opposes the judgment of the mind, and the conduct which that judgment dictates, (which may be the case

since he had occasionally likewise endeavoured to bring himself to an obedience to this law, however unsuccessful his endeavours had been; above all, since he had sincerely deplored and bewailed his fallings off from it, he might hope, I say, that his was a case for favourable acceptance.

St. Paul saw it not in this light. He saw in it no ground of confidence or satisfaction. It was a state, to which he gives no better name than "the body of death." It was a state not in which he hoped to be saved, but from which he sought to be delivered. It was a state, in a word, of bitterness and terror; drawing from him expressions of the deepest anguish and distress: "O, wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"

SERMON XXVII.

sensible sinner.

Nor, fifthly, as it cannot belong to an original insensibility of conscience, that is, an insensibility of which the person himself does not remember the beginning, so neither can it belong to the sinner who has got over the rebukes, distrusts, and uneasiness which sin once occasioned. True it is, that this uneasiness may be got over almost entirely; so that whilst the danger remains the same, whilst the final event will be the same, whilst the coming destruction is not less sure or dreadful, the uneasiness and the apprehension are gone. This is a case too common, too deplorable, too desperate; but it is not the case of which we are now treating, or of which St. Paul treated. Here we are presented throughout with complaint and uncasiness; with a soul exceedingly dissatisfied, exceedingly indeed disquieted, and disturbed, and alarmed, with the view of its condition.

Upon the whole, St. Paul's account is the account of a man in some sort struggling with his vices; at least deeply conscious of what they are, whither they are leading him, where they will end; acknowledging the law of God, not only in words and speeches, but in his mind; acknowledging its excellency, its authority; wishing also, and willing to act up to it, but, in fact, doing no such thing; feeling in practice a lamentable inability of doing his duty, yet perceiving that it must be done. All he has hitherto attained is a state of successive resolutions and relapses. Much is willed, nothing is effected. No furtherance, no advance, no progress, is made in the way of salvation. He feels indeed his double nature; but he finds that the law in his members, the law of the flesh, brings the whole man into captivity. He may have some better strivings, but they are unsuccessful. The result is, that he obeys the law of sin.

This is the picture which our apostle contemplated, and he saw in it nothing but misery: "O wretched man that I am!" Another might have seen it in a more comfortable light. He might have hoped that the will would be taken for the deed; that since he felt in his mind a strong approbation of the law of God; nay, since he felt a delight in contemplating it, and openly professed to do so; since he was neither ignorant of it, nor forgetful of it, nor insensible of its obligation, nor ver set himself to dispute its authority; nay,

THE SPIRIT.

(PART II.)

O, wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?-Rom. vii. 24.

HE who has not felt the weakness of his nature, it is probable, has reflected little upon the subject of religion. I should conjecture this to be the

case.

But then, when men do feel the weakness of their nature, it is not always that this consciousness carries them into a right course, but sometimes into a course the very contrary of what is right. They may see in it, as hath been observed, and many do see in it, nothing but an excuse and apology for their sins. Since it is acknowledged that we carry about with us a frail, not to call it a depraved, corrupted nature, surely, they say, we shall not be amenable to any severities or extremities of judgment for delinquencies to which such a nature must ever be liable; or, which is indeed all the difference there is between one man and another, for greater degrees or less, for more or fewer of these delinquencies. The natural man takes courage from this consideration. He finds ease in it. It is an opiate to his fears. It lulls him into a forgetfulness of danger, and of the dreadful end, if the danger be real. Then the practical consequence is, that he begins to relax even of those endeavours to obey God which he has hitherto exerted. Imperfect and inconstant as these endeavours were at best, they become gradually more languid and more unfrequent, and more insincere than they were before: his sins increase upon him in the same proportion: he proceeds rapidly to the condition of a confirmed sinner, either secret or open; it makes no difference as to his salvation. And this descent into the depths of moral vileness and depravity began, in some measure, with perceiving and confessing the weakness of his nature; and giving to this perception that most erroneous, that most fatal turn, the regarding it as an excuse for every thing; and as dispensing even with the self-denials, and with the exertions of self-government, which a man had formerly thought it necessary to exercise, and in some sort, though in no sufficient sort, had exercised.