cess varies according to circumstances. Some of these circumstances lie within the undiscovered purposes of God concerning individuals, families, cities, and nations. Others, we can ascertain in the characters and qualifications of those who preach the truth, and in the spiritual condition and conduct of the church at large, at different times, and in different places of the world. And amongst these circumstances we must, if we understand the Scriptures, give a prominent place to the neglect or the observance of God's own ordinance of prayer, with which he has emphatically connected the obtaining of blessings from himself; and to the absence or the exercise of the spirit of devout dependence on his power, by which God is honored, and which he has ever honored in return.

3. In the third place, the Scriptures themselves furnish a still better answer to objections, and enforcement of duty, than any reasonings of ours. There we find prayer for this blessing recommended at once by precept and example, both under the old dispensation and the new.

Notice, in the first place, some references to prayer for this blessing of a direct and explicit kind. There is the example of David to which we have already referred ; "take not thy Holy Spirit from me, uphold me with thy free Spirit." There is our Lord's express encouragement in the words before us, in which the Holy Spirit is promised to them that ask him. There is the example of Jesus himself on the memorable occasion of his baptism; to him, when praying, "the heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily form like a dove upon him."* He who thus prayed for the baptism of the Spirit to himself, makes that gift the subject of special petition in his intercessions with his Father for his disciples. The passage which intimates this merits particular attention -" If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it. If ye love me keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive.....but ye know him, for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you."† Surely he who encouraged his disciples to ask from him with the assurance of receiving-who

promised to send to them a Comforter as the most valuable gift which he could confer-who told them that he would become a suppliant himself to the Father, on their behalf, for that gift-surely he designed that they, setting their heart on what he promised, and imitating his own example of prayer, should become petitioners for it to himself and to the Father in his name; and that, receiving it, their joy might be made full.

Their subsequent proceedings inform us of the meaning which they put upon their Lord's directions, and present an instructive example of apostolic practice in the propagation of Christianity. While Christ had commanded them to go and teach all nations, he had instructed them to wait first in the city of Jerusalem for the promise of the Father, that is, for the baptism of the Holy Ghost.* In expectation of this, they continued with one accord in prayer and supplication; the blessing expected being, without doubt, the subject of their many petitions. It may be said that the endowment for which they looked was miraculous. It was so only in part; and the miraculous communications of the Spirit, it must be remembered, were not the most essential in the work of converting men. There were other influences desired and waited for, in respect to which alone the words of Christ could be fulfilled, that the Comforter should abide with them for ever; and by far the most precious fruits of this gift to the apostles, whether as disciples or as preachers, were those by which they were sealed to the day of redemption, and fitted, from the experience and love of the truth, to commend it with effect to men. And certainly, if they prayed for the gift to themselves, they comprehended in their petitions its outpouring upon the world, while they preached the message of reconciliation. It would indeed be in the highest degree unreasonable and unscriptural, in our conceptions of duty on this subject, to separate the one from the other.

Nor did their prayers cease with the descent of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost. They continued to abound in it for one another, and for the progress of the truth; and with their prayers the gift of the Spirit is not obscurely

associated in the inspired record. Of this we have an interesting proof in the account given of their supplications, and the answer returned to them, after an occasion of escape from persecution. Lifting up their voice to God with one accord, they said, " And now, Lord, behold their threatenings, and grant unto thy servants that with all boldness they may speak thy word, by stretching forth thine hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy Holy Child Jesus." The answer was, "the place was shaken where they were assembled together, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, amd they spake the word of God with boldness."*

That the first effusion on the day of Pentecost did not exhaust the promise of Christ, or render farther supplication for the Spirit superfluous, appears farther from many of the intercessory petitions of the Apostle Paul. "Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost."† I cease not, he says, to make mention of you in my prayers,