ing the things of the flesh." This is a marked distinction which pervades the whole passage, that between renewed and unrenewed, those who have and those who have not received the Spirit. The Apostle does not enter into a detail of the many carnalities with which the human mind may be corrupted; but at once pronounces every one to be "after the flesh," who is not" after the Spirit," and they who are not after the Spirit to be in that depraved and ungodly state which he denominates, as "enmity against God."

Out of this view of the human he art, in its corrupt state arises a weighty argument for the necessity of Divine influence in order to its change. The idea of self-change, seems to be somewhat contradictory; for, how can a principle of evil convert itself into a principle of good? How can enmity ever change itself into a principle of love, or, hatred of God, of its own accord, choose to love God? Is not this to suppose a principle acting in diametrical opposition to its proper nature, and invariable tendency?

When the Apostle speaks of " enmity against God," he must mean, enmity against his true character. If the enmity only arose from false views of God, and required but the change of these, that it might give place to love, it could not be said to be enmity against God at all. It would be enmity against that which God is not. It would therefore, in fact, be of the nature of love to God. For hatred of what God is not, is negative or hypothetical love to what God is;-a just exhibition of the Divine character to the mind, being all that is requisite to call it into exercise in a direct and positive state. This certainly is not what Paul meant to express. Such, assuredly, were not his views of the tendencies and likings of human nature. He knew full well what the carnal mind was, when he stated it to be "enmity against God." Paul, unlike the rest of the apostles, had been brought up in the very midst of the splendour and extravagant luxury of the Romans, which was then arriving at that height, which ultimately ruined its empire. He knew from experience, the influence of the world, with its pomps and vanities, upon the mind of man; he knew how impossible it was for a votary to the pleasures of that world, a servant of mammon, even in the least degree, to allow the influence of the Holy Spirit to predominate in his heart; without which he is declared to be at " enmity against God."

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He is continually battleing with the Spirit, which worketh within him, for, no sooner does an individual do an evil action, than the Holy Spirit reminds him of it, and he experiences a twinge of conscience, which, spite of himself, causes him to feel uneasy; he endeavours to quiet its workings by a thousand worldly occupations or amusements, but all is of no avail; it will not let him rest; the hideousness of the last sin, is still staring him in the face at every turn; even should he fly to the jovial board, and endeavour to steep his mind in oblivion by swallowing the intoxicating draught- even in the midst of revelry and laughter, while the giddy and light-hearted throng that surrounds him is hastening down the stream of pleasure, the memory of his transgressions, the horror of his sinfulness, falls heavy and damp upon his soul, and a superior power continually thunders in his ear," repent! lest thou likewise perishest; but his mind being carnal, he listeneth not to the voice of warning-he is too much enthralled in the meshes which Satan has intertwined even with his very heart-strings, to attend to what he knows he ought; so, he still keeps whirling forward, waging a miserable war with that Being who would fain conduct him to happiness; "at enmity with that God" who invites him to a mansion in the skies; till his "ears having waxed dull of hearing," the Spirit ceases to strive with him, upon which he heedlessly plunges headlong into what he vainly imagines is the pool of pleasure, but which he soon finds to be that dark and bitter stream from which so few are ever extricated-that stream of wickedness which leads to the gloomy gulph of perdition.

It may perhaps be objected to this view of the workings of the Holy Spirit, that it is disparaging to the Word of God, implying, as it does, its inadequacy to the work of converting the

sinner.

The fallacy of these opinions may be sufficiently evinced by the following quotations from Dr Wardlaw on this subject.

First. "We cannot justly be considered as disparaging the Word of God, when we give it, in this matter, the place which it assigns itself. If the Scriptures represent the Gospel as a means or instrument, we do not underrate its value, or its power, when we view it or speak of it in this light." Secondly. "The Word is not disparaged, when, as an instrument, it is acknowledged to be eminently fitted for its end. That cannot be considered as disparaged, which is represented as fully answering

the purpose for which it is intended. It is wrong indeed in point of expression, to speak of the word of God as a dead letter. For, "the word of God is quick (living) and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow; and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." Yet there is no inconsistency in saying, that this view of the Divine word assumes, or supposes the accompanying influence of the Holy Spirit. The word of God is "the sword of the Spirit." And we no more derogate from the excellence and efficacy of the word, when we affirm that it cannot pierce, and divide, and lay open, except as used by the power of the Spirit, than we should detract from the excellence of the best tempered sabre, by saying it can do no execution, unless wielded by the arm of the warrior."

Thirdly. The disparagement attaches not to the word of God, but to the nature of man. Certainly no considerations can be conceived more powerfully persuasive, none more admirably fitted for subduing to submission and grateful affection the rebellious heart of man, than the exhibition given in the Gospel, of the love and grace of the Godhead in the mediation of Jesus Christ. This is, in every view, inconceivably more touching, and melting, and overpowering to the heart, than the views of the Gospel, (if according to these views it merited the name) which are held by our Unitarian opponents. And when admit that even this will not, of itself, unaccompanied by Divine energy, overcome the obduracy of the will and affections of unregenerate men, we throw no disparaging reflection on the Gospel of God; but we freely acknowledge that it bears hard (alas! that it should be so justly hard;) on the nature which we possess in our fallen state. The word if pondered and weighed by the influence of the Spirit in our hearts, produces the effect so necessary to our salvation, a regeneration and change of heart.

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When speaking of the Spirit of God working within a sinner, and prompting him to repentance, we do not mean to imply that he can ever be radically converted without means; this would be to agree with all the extravagancies of that wild enthusiasm, which has been so often mistaken by its votaries for true religion. The Scriptures give us sufficient warrant for asserting, that the word must go hand in hand with the Spirit,

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and that no man can be a subject to its regenerating power, who is ignorant of the truths made known in the Gospel. We are fully convinced that no man is free, altogether, from the workings of the Spirit, yet it is obviously necessary that he be made to feel the value of the great scheme of his salvation, before he can sufficiently see how greatly he has sinned, to bring forth any "fruits meet for repentance;" before he can undergo the process (if we may be allowed so to term it), of regeneration. We may further observe, that the help promised us from the Spirit does not exclude the necessity of the use of means on our part: the Spirit though it works in us, requires so much exertion on our part, that it may work by us, being a duty on our part, and a grace on his. It is requisite that by diligent watching and prayer, by continual remembrance of the mercies that have been extended to us, through the continued watchfulness and bounty of Jehovah, that we help the Spirit, and guard ourselves against temptation and actual sin. We should ever keep in mind how much the flesh is at war with the Spirit, and endeavour by every means in our power, to strive against carnal allurements.

Some men have carnal views of the Gospel, and instead of receiving it as "good news to all men," universal "glad tidings" of our salvation, regard it as nothing but a matter of history of the old rites, laws, and symbols of the Jews, in the first instance, and, in the second, of the birth, miracles, and death of Jesus Christ, just given as a set of mere precepts left on record as rules for our conduct in life. St. Paul might have had these men in his eye, with the whole tribe of Socinians and Unitarians, when he made the following remark (1. Cor. ii. 14.) "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness to him. Neither can he know them, for they are spiritually discerned." This is precisely true. The great doctrines of faith, grace, righteousness, holiness, and the influence of the Holy Spirit, are all laid open before them ; yet do they choose to disbelieve, or expunge them; or to put their own most silly, and fallacious construction on them; and with blind arrogance and presumption, they dare to tell us, that the Gospel does not agree with their ideas of reason; that they cannot comprehend the influence of the Holy Spirit; therefore they will act up to, and believe but just what they think proper. Thus do petty men, worms of God's creation, and the creatures

of his bounty, puffed up with the pride of the atom of shortsighted wisdom which he has mercifully granted to them, take upon themselves to turn it against himself, and to bring forward their puerile arguments to prove that his bountiful scheme of salvation is not right, because their feeble comprehension cannot take in all its parts. Let us ask these wise men, these keen sophists and never-ending snarlers at the truths of the Gospel, what part of God's works is it that you can understand? Have you ever dared to shoot out your imagination into the interminable limits of space?-Can you comprehend it?—Are not your thoughts lost in amazement ere you reach the limits of the comparative atom which forms our own universe? Perhaps you will dare, because you cannot comprehend this, to pronounce it wrong:-no, you dare not! for your very reason, which prompts you to deny the other incomprehensible, forces you to acknowledge this, or you would run the risk of being thought mad, were you to hold such strange doctrine. Eternity or duration, will puzzle you quite as much; yet God has not assisted the feebleness of your mind in one, more than the other. Yet you dare to deride the mysterious doctrines and truths of the Scriptures, to set at nought the words of men and angels,-nay of God himself; and what overwhelming weight of reason do you bring to counterbalance them? truly the weight of your own opinions, founded on arguments, deduced from the judgment and reason of arrogant man. We most willingly allow that the doctrines of the Holy Trinity are mysterious and difficult of solution, but as before observed, so is every other thing connected with the incomprehensible Jehova; and until man can find out how, and where are laid the foundations of the heavens and the earth, let him not presume to carp at, and vilify the doctrine of the Godhead as set forth in the divine revelation.

It has been the practice of the Unitarians and Socinians, the latter especially, to say much on the progress of science, and of the lights which modern criticism have cast upon the Holy Scriptures. As if divinity were to be treated like a human science, and were capable of continued progressive improvement. They do not consider that all the articles of Christianity are so clearly revealed in the oracles of God as to stand no need of their pigmy criticism in order to their illustration and establishment, and He has not left them involved in such am