those faithful guides, and to adopt precautions so wise; under a pretext of reducing metaphors to precision, never enfeeble their force; and, under a plea of not admitting imaginary mysteries, never reject the real. This was our second rule.

And here is the third. In addresses to society in general, what belongs to each should be distinguished. St. Paul here addressed the whole church: but the whole of its numerous members could not have been in the same situation. Hence, one of the greatest faults we commit in expounding the Scriptures, and especially in expounding texts which treat of the agency of the Spirit, is, the neglecting to distinguish what we had designed. This is one cause of the little fruit produced by sermons. We address a church, whose religious attainments are very unequal. Some are scarcely initiated into knowledge and virtue; others approach perfection; and some hold a middle rank between the two. We address to this congregation certain general discourses, which cannot apply with equal force to all; it belongs to each of our hearers, to examine how far each argument has reference to his case.

Applying now to the words of our text the general maxim we have laid down: you will recollect the ideas we have attached to the terms used by the apostle, to express the agency of the Holy Spirit on the heart. We have said that these terms, unction, seal, earnest, excite three ideas. And we can never understand those Scriptures, which speak of the ope rations of the Holy Spirit, unless those three effects of the divine agency are distinguished. Every christian has not been confirmed by the Spirit of God in all those various ways. All have not received the three, fold unction, the threefold seal, the threefold earnest.

To some, the Holy Spirit has confirmed the first, availing himself of their ministry for the achievement of miracles, or by causing them to feel that a religion, in favour of which so many prodigies had

been achieved, could not be false. To others, the second confirmation was added to the first; at the moment he carried conviction to the mind, he sanctified the heart. With regard to others, he communicated more; not only persuaded them that a religion, which promises celestial felicity, is true; not only enabling to conform to the conditions on which this felicity is promised, but he also gave them foretastes here below.

II. and III. I could better explain my sentiments, I dare engage in discussing the second part of my subject, to illustrate the nature, and prove the reality of the Spirit's agency on the heart. But how can I attempt the discussion of so vast a subject in one discourse, when so many considerations restrict me to brevity? We shall, therefore, speak of the nature and reality of the Spirit's agency on the heart, so far only as this is necessary to furnish matter for our third head, on which we are now entering; and which is designed to trace the dispositions that favour, and such as retard, the operations of the Spirit; a most important discussion, which will develope the causes of the anniversary of Pentecost being unavailing in the church, and point out the dispositions for its worthy celebration.

What we shall advance on this subject, is founded on a maxim, to which I solicit your peculiar attention; namely, that every motion of the Spirit on the heart of good men, requires correspondent co-operation; without which his agency would be unavailing. The refusal to co-operate is called in Scripture, quenching, grieving....resisting....and doing despite to the Spirit. Now, according to the style of St. Paul, this quenching....grieving....resisting....and doing despite to the Holy Spirit, is to render his operation unavailing.

Adequately to comprehend this maxim, and at the same time to avoid a mistaken theology, and a cor

rupt morality, concerning the agency of the Spirit, make the following reflection: that the Holy Spirit may perhaps be considered in one of these three respects; either as the omnipotent God; or as a wise lawgiver; or as a wise lawgiver and the omnipotent God, in the same character. Hence the man on whom he works, may perhaps be considered, either as a physical, or a moral being; or as a being in whom both these qualities associate. To consider the Holy Spirit in the work of regeneration as the omnipotent God, and the man for whose conversion he exerts his agency, as a being purely physical; and to affirm that the Holy Spirit acts solely by irresistible influence, man being simply passive, is, in our opinion, a morality extremely corrupt. To consider the Holy Spirit simply as a lawgiver, and man merely as a moral being, capable of vice or virtue; and to affirm, that the Holy Spirit only proposes his precepts, and that man obeys them, unassisted by the divine energy attendant on their promulgation, is to propagate a theology equally erroneous. But, to consider the Holy Spirit as the omnipotent God, and legislator in the same character, and man as a being both moral and physical, is to harmonize the laws moral and divine, and to avoid, on a subject so exceedingly controverted, the two equally dangerous rocks, against which so many divines have cast themselves away.

The adoption of this last system, (which is here the wisest choice,) implies an acknowledgment, that there are dispositions in man which retard, and dispositions which cherish, the successful agency of God on the heart. What are these? They regard the three ways, in which we said the Holy Spirit confirms to the soul the promises of immortality and life. These he confirms, first, by the persuasion he affords, concerning the truth of the gospel; causing it to spring up in the heart on review of the miracles performed by the first christians. Secondly, he con

firms them by the inward work of sanctification. Thirdly, he confirms them by foretastes of celestial delight, communicated to some christians even here below. Each of these points, we shall resume in its order.

First, the gift of miracles was a seal, which God affixed to the ministry of the first heralds of the gospel. Miracles are called seals: such is the import of those distinguished words of Christ; Labour not for the meat that perisheth; but for that meat which endureth unto eternal life, which the Son of man shall give unto you, for him bath the Father sealed, John vi. The seal which distinguished Jesus Christ, was the gift of miracles he had received of God, to demonstrate the divine authority of his mission: so he himself affirmed to the multitudes: The works which the Father bath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness that the Father hath sent me, John V. 36.

27.

The inference, with regard to the Lord, is of equał force with regard to the disciples. The miraculous endowments, granted to them, sanctioned their mission; as the mission of the Master was sanctioned by the miraculous powers with which it was accom、 panied. What seal more august could have been affixed to it? What demonstrations more conclusive can we ask of a religion which announces them to us, than all these miracles which God performed for its confirmation? Could the Deity have communicated his omnipotence to impostors? Could he even have wished to lead mankind into mistake? Could he have allowed heaven and earth, the sea and land to be shaken for the sanction of lies?

As there are dispositions which retard the agency of the Spirit, who comes to impress the heart with truth, so there are others which favour and cherish his work. With regard to those which retard, I would not only include infidelity of heart, whose principle is malice; I would not only include here

those eccentric men, who resist the most palpable proofs, and evident demonstrations, and think they have answered every argument by saying, "It is not

true. I doubt, I deny."....Men that seem to have made a model of the Pharisees, who, when unable to deny the miracles of Christ, and to elude their force, ascribed them to the devil. This is a fault so notorious, as to supersede the necessity of argument. But I would also convince you christians, that the neglect of studying the history of the miracles we celebrate to-day, is an awful source of subversion to the agency we are discussing. Correspond, by serious attention and profound recollection, to the efforts of the Holy Spirit in demonstrating the truth of your religion. On festivals of this kind, a christian should recollect and digest, if I may so speak, the distinguished proofs which God gave of the truth of Christianity on the day, whose anniversary we now celebrate. He should say to himself;

"I wish to know, whether advantage be taken of my simplicity, or whether I am addressed as a rational being; when I am told, that the first heralds of the gospel performed the miracles, attributed to their agency.

"I wish to know, whether the miracles of the apostles have been narrated, (Acts ii.) and inquire whether those holy men have named the place, the time, the witnesses, and circumstances of the miracles whether it be true that those miracles were performed in the most public places, amid the great.. est concourses of the people, in presence of Persians, of Medes, of Parthians, of Elamites, of dwellers in Mesopotamia, in Judea, in Cappadocia, in Lybia; among Cretes, Arabs, and Jews.

"I wish to know, in what way these miracles were foretold; whether it be true, that these were the characteristics of evangelical preachers, which the prophets had traced so many ages before the evangelical period; and whether we may not give another in