which, although referring primarily to ancient Israel, must be applicable in the same sense, and for the same reasons, to the general progress of the gospel among the nations of the earth; "Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and briers; yea upon all the houses of joy in the joyous city.....until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest: then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness remain in the fruitful field: and the work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever."* And with the same blessing are connected spiritual fertility, and multiplication to Zion's children, in another part of Isaiah's prophecies; "Fear not, O Jacob, my servant, and thou, Jesurun, whom I have chosen: for I will pour water on him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring; and they shall spring up as among the grass, and as willows by the water courses :

one shall say, I am the Lord's, and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob; and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord, and surname himself by the name of Israel."*

We have thought it proper to refer you to so many testimonies from the word of God to the place which the Spirit occupies in the work of redemption, because it is necessary not only that we should comprehend the doctrine of Scripture on this subject, but have our minds adequately impressed with truths to which consequences deeply important to us, and to the cause of God on earth, are plainly attached. The value of that gift of which our text speaks, is indicated by all that our Lord and his apostles say respecting it. It deserves to be remarked, that in a passage parallel to the present in the gospel by Matthew, the conclusion of the argument employed by our Lord is How much more shall your Father who is in heaven give GOOD THINGS to them that ask him as if the gift of the Spirit comprehended the chief blessings which deserve to be made subjects of petition by a sinful creature in his intercourse with God. And so in reality it does; since through his enlightening and renewing power alone it is that all the benefits of Christ's free salvation, from first to last, are applied to the soul of any saved sinner. It is the legacy which Christ left to his church, as far more than a compensation for the want of his personal presence.* It was the promise of the Father. It was that gift which the apostle Peter specially held forth to the multitudes on the day of Pentecost, as the blessed consequence of faith and the pardon of sin; " And ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost; for the promise is unto you, and your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." It was the promise in Christ by the gospel, of which it was the highest privilege of the Gentiles to become partakers. It was the blessing of Abraham which, through Jesus Christ, came upon the Gentiles by faith.|| It is that by which the exalted Redeemer fulfils his assurance to his church through all ages, "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world."*

You are aware that among the various operations of the Spirit of God, both under the old and new dispensation, were those which communicated miraculous powers of different kinds. These, however, can hardly, if at all be referred to in a promise so unlimited as that in the text. It applies to his more common, and still more precious influences in the souls of all whom he renews; and to these the various passages above quoted will be found to have a pointed, although not always an exclusive, application. These are his regenerating and saving influences; by which he imparts to the understanding just perceptions of divine truth, begets a real and operative faith in it, and brings the affections of the soul into such a correspondence with it as to produce a cordial consent and willing obedience to all God's laws.

In conceiving of these influences, we are not on the one hand, to confound them with the truth or word of God; nor, on the other, are we to suppose that they ever operate independently of that truth or word. Against the first error may be adduced every passage of Scripture which represents the Spirit as having a distinct personality, and a separate voluntary agency in the work of saving man, in the same " When he, sense as the Father and the Son. the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth. He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine and shew it unto you."* " And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption."† The distinction between the words employed by the Spirit, and the agency by which he gives these words effect in the soul, is very strikingly indicated in the two following passages, both singly, and taken in connexion with each other. "Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual; but the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he