on the heart the everlasting truths that now sound in the ears.

Behold the great privilege of the people of God! They are summoned to come near to God himself; the Holy Spirit is sent from God to bring his children by Christ to the presence of God. No earthly element or sacrament may come between; this is a blood-bought prerogative; "a stranger" may "not intermeddle" with it. We need not the lenses of the priest - - the Spirit of God has touched the eye of our souls with eye-salve; we need not the anointings of man- for we have the unction of God; we need not the canonized urn—for we have access to the deep and illimitable sea; we can do without the priest's farthing candlefor it is our privilege to look upon the great central and celestial sun. In short, we are not left dependent for eternal life on any order of men; "that our faith may stand, not in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God."

"These words are faithful and true."

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III.

The Work of the Comforter.

THERE can be no real prosperity in the Christian church, unless the Spirit of God create it; and that Spirit will not create amongst us true spiritual prosperity, unless we honor him by imploring it, pleading at the throne of mercy the promise of our blessed Lord, that when he should depart, "he would send him unto us." If I read the Scriptures aright, every grace with which the Christian character is inlaid, derives all its beauty from his smile, and all its fragrance from his breath. He creates it. He nourishes it. He perfects it. His is the authorship, his the glory, and ours only all the comfort.

One of the very first offices of the Spirit of God, referred to in Holy Scripture, is that of enlightening the minds of his people. This is a most important work. By nature we are insensible alike to the glory of the Saviour and to the excellency of the gospel-to our own deep necessities, and to our real peril-to the duties that devolve upon us, or to the difficulties that beset us; but the Spirit of God, when he comes to us, in the energy of his grace, and in the exercise of his peculiar office, "turns us from darkness to light, and from the

power of Satan unto God." He rends the veil that obstructs our perception of celestial glory; he dissipates the blindness that clouds the natural man's mind, and that makes spiritual things foolishness to his eye, and strengthens its powers, and extends its focus. Hence, saith Scripture, "he translates us from the power of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear Son." Because of his work, it may be said of us, "Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things." He proclaims at the commencement of the new, what he proclaimed at the commencement of the old creation, "Let there be light;" and the beams of an eternal Sun we never saw before, fall upon the human heart, and imprint with photographic instancy and accuracy upon every portion of that heart, the lineaments and likeness of Jesus. Great, therefore, is the difference between reading the Bible in the exercise of ordinary reason, and reading the Bible under the enlightening influence of the Holy Spirit: the natural man reads it as a critic, the spiritual man reads it as a Christian: one sees in it what he sees in any authentic history the presence and the portraiture of the creature; the other feels in it the touch, and participates through it of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ: the one sees eternal things through the hazy medium of prejudice and passion, the other in the still clear light of everlasting truth.

In the second place, the Spirit is represented in Scripture as the Spirit of adoption, making those in whom he dwells the "sons of God." We shall see the importance of this, if we consider that in Scripture we are represented as naturally "aliens and strangers from the commonwealth of Israel," "enemies of God,

without God, and without Christ, and without hope in the world." And this is not merely the state of the most depraved; it is that of all by nature without exception; be we born in the lowliest hut, or in the noblest hall,-be we born where and from whom we may, we are all, without exception, born beneath the shadow of that curse, which was first projected from Paradise, and which remains the just and terrible inheritance of the whole family of man, in all lands and in all ages. We are all born, without exception, in a house, from every wall, and porch, and rafter of which, we have wickedly labored to efface the name and to extinguish the memorials of Deity, and every recess and avenue of which we have striven to render vocal with the praise and glory of man. But when the Spirit of God comes, and re-consecrates our hearts to be fanes for his residence, he makes ourselves "the sons of God." We "receive the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." "The Spirit beareth witness with our spirits, that we are the sons of God." Hence, if there be a reader of this work who is a Christian indeed, he is so "not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." Man can make a theologian -God alone can make a Christian. I can argue-the Holy Ghost alone can convince and create.

In the third place, the Spirit of God is represented in Scripture as teaching us to pray. By nature we can no more express our spiritual wants than we can feel them. We are dead and dumb, and he who gives us the life of prayer, must give us the language too. will pour upon the house of David the spirit of grace and of supplications." "We know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit itself maketh in

tercession for us, with groanings which cannot be uttered." Throughout the Bible that blessed Spirit is represented as opening to our minds all the depths of their inherent weakness — awakening our souls to the multitude of our wants and our miseries, and unfolding to us the illimitable fulness of light and love treasured up in Jesus Christ. He inclines us to seek supply there, where alone our unutterable necessities may all be supplied.

In the fourth place, the Spirit of God is represented in Scripture as the Comforter. His name is, emphatically, "the Comforter." Hence it is said of the primitive Christians, "They walked in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost." Again, he is spoken of as the author of "all joy and peace in believing." David, in his deepest affliction, prays, "Take not the Holy Spirit from me." Those torn feelings that the losses of the world have left behind, he alone can mitigate and remove. That aching vacuum which the departure of the dear, the near, and the cherished creates, he alone can supply. Those "ashes" he only can exchange for "beauty;" that broken heart he alone can bind up. Those tears which man may wipe away, but which will flow again in more full and frequent floods, the Spirit alone can wipe out. He only can awaken in the human heart the echoes of the glad tidings of everlasting joy-echoes so musical, so holy, that they shall not be spent upon the earth, but shall live and be audible until they touch the confines of heaven, and mingle with the jubilee of the blest for ever. He is the Comforter; and all the real comfort that is in the world is from him.

The Spirit of God is represented as operating not a