upon it, but in the soil that receives the seed. It is so in the preaching of the Gospel: it is not a change in the Gospel, which is good seed, that is required; nor in the means of grace, which are also good, abundant, and scriptural; the change required is a direct action upon the soil, or the heart, that receives the seed, and then the seed will germinate, and there will be golden prolific harvests. The Spirit of God must first, prior to the scattering of the seed, or the shining of the sunbeams, change the heart and make it meet for the reception of the seed. Or, to present this truth in another point of view: suppose a wall intercepted the light of the sun from my window, and therefore from my room; what would be required in order to enable me to have the full sunbeams playing into my room. would be, not that they should shine with greater intensity upon that wall—which would only harden it the more - but that the wall should be pulled down. It is so with the preaching of the Gospel: it is not that the Spirit of God should make the truth more vivid, or its motives more glorious, but that he should remove the wall of prejudice and passion, which obstructs the entrance of that word which "giveth light." It is plain, then, that the Spirit of God first influences the heart, before it can receive spiritual things. Hence, we read, that "holy men of God. spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost;" moved first by the Spirit, then speaking what they were taught. We read again, "The Holy Ghost shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." And again: "The Holy Spirit shall teach you in that same hour what ye ought to say:" implying, clearly, the

previous influence of the Spirit before they can say what ought to be said, or know what is necessary tɔ salvation.

I may also notice, that the Holy Spirit, thus promised by the Saviour, abides with his church for ever. Its great and most illustrious pillars may be swept away; its ornaments and its props may totter, and its lights fade; but the Spirit of God is to "abide with us for ever."

IV.

Special Mission of the Comforter.

I Now enter upon some of the personal offices of the Holy Spirit. One chief office which he is represented as sustaining is that of the Comforter.

The propriety or justice of the translation of the original word for Comforter has been the subject of dispute. In the original it is, literally rendered, the Paraclete. The very same word is also applied to our Lord, in the Epistle of St. John, where it is said, "If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father." The original word is-"Paraclete with the Father;" not the word usually applied to our blessed Lord, denoting that he is an Intercessor, but another, which denotes that he is a Comforter. The strict meaning of Paraclete is something like that which we attach to the name "advocate" in Scotland- one that identifies himself with another, takes up another's cause, throws all his energies and sympathies into it, and makes that cause his own, and upholds or proves it a good and a righteous one. But this is not all. There is embodied in it the element of comfort or consolation also; and this attribute is so interwoven with our convictions of the office of the Holy Spirit, that we should not be willing to part with so precious a thought.

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There is in this world great necessity, not merely for such comfort as the promises of the Gospel may convey, but for comfort so vast and varied, that it needs nothing short of a divine person to convey and to impress it on the sad and sorrowing heart. We live in a world in which we need a Comforter. Much there is that is beautiful on earth, but much also that is forlorn. There is no street in this world without its sickbed; there is no corner of the city without its physician; there is no turning that leads not to a cemetery ; and there is no cemetery that is without its graves of all lengths and durations. There is not a pillow, in the happiest home on which the sun shines, that has not a thorn in it; there is not a heart in which there is not some cankering and vexing feeling, known best and most intimately to itself. One great lesson disclosed by Christianity is impressed upon the experience of every man, in some shape,-"Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward." We are prone to fancy that every man's lot is better than our own: and the reason of this is, that we are dazzled by the mere spangles and glare of circumstance; whereas, if we could penetrate the purple, or look beneath the ermine, or see under the lawn, we should find that there are unhappy and restless hearts beating there, just as heavily as anywhere else. Poor men are often happier in their cabins than royal men are in their palaces, or noblemen in their halls. But be we where we may, there is only one thing that can make us really happy — that thing which quells all fears within, and triumphs over all fightings without the possession of the promised Comforter, the Holy Spirit of God.

The promise that is here given by our blessed Lord

shows us that we are, in this world, however varied may be its afflictions, capable of comfort. In the regions of the lost there is no capacity, as well as no possibility of comfort; but as long as we are amid the means of grace, there is no sorrow so severe that it cannot be assuaged; there are no tears that can be sown in spring, which shall not bloom in autumn into harvests of joy. As the great revelation of the Gospel is, that there is no sin which cannot be forgiven, so there is no sorrow which cannot be assuaged; as there is no sinner, whose crimes are so deep in their dye that the blood of Jesus cannot take them all away, so there is no weeper whose wound is so painful, and whose sorrow is so poignant, that the blessed Comforter cannot heal it.

The Holy Spirit is not only capable of affording comfort, but able and willing to afford it. That he is able, is evident from the fact which I have shown, that that Spirit is God. His consolations are omnipotent consolations. All earthly comfort is represented by a cistern, a thing of finite dimensions, and which needs continually to be filled; nay, it is represented, even when sweetest and purest, by "a broken cistern," that leaks and lets out its comforts hour by hour: but the consolations that the Gospel ministers to those that need them, are represented by the illimitable and exhaustless main, or the great, the self-originating and overflowing fountain. The consolations of the world are the consolations of the footstool; those of the Gospel are the consolations of the throne; the former evaporate like the dew, beneath the beams of the approaching sun; the latter grow and increase in quantity, the