the name of the Lord of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel!" Would you, then, "crucify the flesh with the affections and lusts?" Would you press forward, through every obstacle, to destroy the dominion of sin ?-Would you have mountains sink before you into plains, and raise at last the shout of victory and triumph ? "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts!"

SERMON XVIII.

SPIRITUAL POWER, ITS SUFFICIENCY,

ye

ROMANS viii. 13.

If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body shall live.

THE two primary notions annexed to the word Spirit are those of Refinement and of Power. As the air or wind (from which both the idea, and the name of Spirit are derived*) is at once of subtle purity, and of sweeping energy, so it has been adopted to express, by the best analogy which man can form, the perfections of that Great First Cause, in whom we live and move and have our being, and who is all-pure and invisible in nature, yet all-penetrating and irresistible in operation.

And since all our notions of Deity are neces

*, VEUμa, animus. (quasi aveμoç.)

the name of the Lord of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel!" Would you, then, “crucify the flesh with the affections and lusts?" Would you press forward, through every obstacle, to destroy the dominion of sin ?-Would you have mountains sink before you into plains, and raise at last the shout of victory and triumph? "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts!"

sarily formed upon the same principle of comparison, a similar analogy has extended the use of this borrowed term to indicate further the person and the operations of Him, who in the mysterious economy of the Godhead, becomes specifically the Author of Spiritual refinement, and Spiritual power. As the breath* which we inhale from the universal atmosphere becomes in us the source of natural life and motion; so by the same term† do we designate Him who "proceeding forth" from the fulness of the Godhead, dwells in the soul as the stirring principle of spiritual life and vigour.

And as indispensable as is the natural breath to the production and the maintenance of animal vigour, so essential also are the breathings of the Divine Spirit to the production and the maintenance of spiritual vigour.

This is the point which I endeavoured to commend to you on Sunday last by showing you the insufficiency both of law, and of reason, to produce obedience; and the consequent necessity of that Power from on high by which alone we can "mortify the deeds of the body," and do good works pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ.

But I stated then, that the words of our

* Πνευμα.

† Το πνευμα.