its marks upon Lot, he certainly would not have thought it too hard, when he saw the fire burst on Sodom, and found himself safe in Zoar. It was the grasp of an angel's hand; firm, because friendly; and unrelaxing, because resolved to save. Well, therefore, may we trace to the love of the Spirit, any and every conviction, which drew our attention to the love of Christ. Well, may we sing, however we have smarted, "Eternal Spirit, we confess, And sing the wonders of thy grace." Another signal proof of the love of the Spirit in conversion, is, that he convinces chiefly of the sin of UNBELIEF. Remember the Saviour's own account of this characteristic feature of the work of the Spirit: "When he is come, he shall reprove the world of sin of sin, because they be lieve not in me." This being the point on which the Holy Spirit chiefly plies the conscience, the Saviour does not hesitate to call him "the Comforter," even whilst he is only convincing of sin. Conviction, like affliction, is, indeed, any thing but comfort in itself; it is not joyous, but grievous; nevertheless, afterward, it yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness unto them who are exercised thereby." Thus, although not comfort, it is preparation for it, and the only way to it. belief comes from a still clearer sight of the glory and grace of Christ; and thus the disease and the remedy are seen together at the same time. The light that reveals the baseness and ingratitude of unbelief, comes pouring down from the face of Jesus upon the face of the sinner; and although it almost blinds him for a little, as it did Saul of Tarsus, it also enables him to cry, “Lord, what wouldest thou have me to do?" You will enter into the spirit of this hint, when you pause to notice the point at which real conviction settles down into habitual penitence. It may begin at our besetting sin, and run like fire from crime to crime, through all the catalogue of our transgressions, until the conscience is in flames. But this, although it burns fiercest, is not what abides longest, nor what humbles most. It is the calm, solemn, weighty consideration, that all sin was against grace as well as law; which, like the small still voice at Horeb, wraps the face in the mantle of humility, and lays the spirit in the dust before God. The agonizing sense of individual sins subsides before the hope of pardon; but we never can forgive nor forget our long neglect of the great salvation! Nothing shames or shocks us so deeply and lastingly, as the recollection of having lived without Christ in the world. We see our hearts laid bare in that guilt and folly. We cannot palliate or soften our disregard of the Saviour. Thus the abiding conviction, by which abiding humility is produced in the soul, is, what Christ said "of sin, because of unbelief." This is not, however, the most striking fact of the case. There is love-love, wonderful in its tenderness and strength, in thus making unbelief the point at which his sword pierces deepest and oftenest. We could not bear its "piercing, to the My fellow penitent! we cannot tell nor condividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the ceive how much suffering the Spirit of grace has joints and marrow," in the case of any other sin. saved us from, by making us feel chiefly the exNo human mind could sustain a full discovery of ceeding sinfulness of unbelief. Had he shed and the entire evil of sin, either as it affects the kept as much light upon any other sin, our spirits whole character and government of God, or as it would sink for ever under it. Perhaps we must entails misery on others. Nothing but the two-be far down in eternity, before we are capable of fold immortality of soul and body conjoined, could bearing a full sight of all sin! endure to see how one sin can perpetuate itself If you understand these hints as I intend them, along all the line of a man's posterity, unto the they will suggest to you a very satisfactory reavery end of time; and run its consequences, even son why conviction is so calm and gentle in the in a visible stream, through the bottomless pit for case of many converts. Do you not see at a ever! I doubt very much, if there be one man or glance, that the Spirit's point (which is to glorify woman on earth, who could bear to see the influ-Christ) is gained, when unbelief gives way ence of even their folly, upon all who witnessed There is, then, no occasion to set on fire the their example, whilst they were unconverted. whole course of nature." Its pride and selfYes; put vicious example out of the question en- righteousness are demolished when Christ betirely for a moment; our mere indecision and for- comes precious to the soul. mality, for years, told upon every one around us, who were on the outlook for excuses, with hardening effect; and they are now hardening those around them; and thus originating a line of ruin which shall never stop. The CONVINCER of sin sees this; but he does not show it. In mercy he conceals it, and singles out the sin of unbelief for the fullest exposure, because that is the only hinderance to the pardon of all other sins, and because the conscience itself has no natural tendency to take alarm at mere unbelief. y? Were this duly considered, you would not be afraid lest your convictions, if they have been gradual and gentle, be not the work of the Holy Spirit. He does not work for the sake of working; but in order to bring the soul to the Saviour as its only refuge, and as its supreme example: and therefore, if you have given your heart to Christ, you have as little occasion to doubt your own conversion as to question Lydia's, whose heart the Lord opened without tempest or terror. On the other hand, if your convictions were deep and distracting, that only shows how deep The love manifested in this is unspeakable. We and stubborn your unbelief was. The Spirit shot both require, and can bear, to see a great deal of no more arrows into your conscience than just the the sinfulness of neglecting the Saviour; for, al- number necessary to subdue your aversion or inthough no discovery of the evil of sin is more difference to the Saviour. He wounded only in humbling, or so melting, no discovery brings with order to heal; and, therefore, only deep enough it so much to balance itself. A clear sight of un-to make the cure certain. It was all bad blood tions. you lost, however much you bled under his operaWhat do you think now of the love of the Spirit in conversion-in your own conversion? Are you not ashamed, as well as astonished, that you should never have traced nor marked his love thus minutely before? If so, do follow out the manifestation of it by reviewing still more closely his dealings with yourself. You are only on the threshold of his love yet, even as conversion shows it your own conversion can furnish more lamps to illuminate it. Consider; what but love could have induced the Holy Spirit to strive with you at all? There was nothing about your heart to attract his hand. He might have justly passed you by: he might have left you for ever when you resisted his first strivings. Oh, were not the Spirit love, equally with God and the Lamb, he would never have tried to make a holy temple of your heart or mine! also the love of the Holy Spirit in it. His love, too, reigns conspicuously in that great act of grace, although not exactly in the same way. He does not, indeed, pass the act of justification: "It is God that justifieth." Nor does he furnish any part of the righteousness, for the sake of which we are treated as righteous: it was Christ that died and rose again "for our justification." But still the Spirit does something, whatever it | be, which so connects both his hand and heart with the reign of justifying grace, that the apostles do not hesitate to identify him with the Father and the Son in this transaction. Paul said to the Corinthians, "Ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God!" to the Galatians, "We, through the Spirit, wait for the hope of righteousness by faith." The Saviour himself said of the Spirit," He shall convince the world of righteousness." Observe, also, how prominent the place is which Paul gives to the work of the Spirit, when explaining to Again; what but love gave power enough to Titus the process by which believers are justified your convictions, to render them strong enough by grace, in order that they may be heirs of glory: to send you fully to the Cross of Christ for relief?"Not by works of righteousness which we have There are terrors and stings of conscience which done; but according to his mercy, God saved us, drive some, like Judas, away from Christ, and on by the washing of regeneration and the renewing to destruction: yours have brought you to your of the Holy Ghost; which he shed on us abunright mind, and set you down where a sinner never dantly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour." Why? yet perished, at the foot of the cross, and under "That, being justified by his grace, we should be the shadow of the mercy-seat. made heirs according to the hope of eternal life." Tit. iii. 4-7. In like manner, Peter connects the sanctification of the Spirit" with the "sprinkling of the blood of Christ," which is the meritorious cause of justification. 1 Pet. i. 2. Do speak well of the Holy Spirit to those of your friends who have not yet asked for him. Some of them may be afraid of him. So little is said of his love by many who say much of his power, and the need of it, that not a few are discouraged. Do speak a word in season to those who are thus weary and heavy laden. It will increase your own love to the Spirit, and the Spirit's love to you, to commend him as love to others. No. III. THE LOVE OF THE SPIRIT IN JUSTIFICATION. To justify a sinner is more than pardoning his sins, much as that is: it is also to accept and treat him as righteous, or as if the righteousness of Christ were his own personal virtue. This is a wonderful plan of saving the guilty! Well may it be called "the manifold wisdom of God." How sublime, and yet how simple, is this plan! Paul felt all this, when he said of God, For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we (who knew nothing but sin) might be made the righteousness of God in him." As if the apostle had said,-For the sake of sinners, God treated his own Son as if he had been guilty; and now, for the sake of Christ, he treats sinners, when they believe, as if they were innocent; not imputing unto them their trespasses, but giving them the full advantage of the righteousness of Christ, just as if it were their own property. "BEHOLD what manner of love the Father hath bestowed on us, that we should be called the sons of God." It will not divert you from admiring the love of the Father or of the Son in justification, to behold Thus, it is not without the warrant of precept or of example, that I invite you to trace the love of the Spirit in justification. The apostles never overlooked or forgot it; nor can any believer be unaffected by it when he studies it. It may not strike you at a glance, but it will amply repay fixed attention. Now, it is no part of the official work of the Father or of the Son, to convince sinners of their need of a justifying righteousness. The Son has brought in an everlasting righteousness by his mediation, and the Father hath set it forth by his authority; but neither officially apply it to the soul, nor stir up the soul to apply for it; that is left to the love of the Spirit to do; and the love which does that cannot be weak or wavering. It is a task which nothing but real love would undertake, and which nothing but great love could accomplish; for we are not soon nor easily convinced of our need of either an imputed or a personal righteousness: both are against the grain of our nature. Indeed, except a man's character be very bad, it is not easy to convince him of the necessity of being better. Many speak as if they actually dreaded, as well as disliked, to be very righteous; thus deeming it not only unnecessary, but in some way dangerous, or discreditable, to be so. No wonder, therefore, that a justifying righteousness should be far from their thoughts, seeing a personal one is thus lightly valued, and even laughed at, when it is zealous of good works. This is the bent of human nature: I cannot, therefore, but trace much of both the love and power of the Spirit even in convincing us of the necessity of being more righteous than the aver age of our neighbors. This is not a natural conviction, nor a convential maxim: it is a divine persuasion wherever it is a deep feeling. It is a transition, not, indeed, into "marvellous light," but still out of that gross darkness which covers the people (and they are many) who are satisfied with not being worse than others. I would not attach undue importance to even a deep conviction of the necessity of being better than others; but I must say, that it is a march (and not a dead march either) gained upon mere conscience, and thus a good sign. The man who is led thus far in judging for himself how good he ought to be, is, to say the least, in the fair way to discover his need of a better righteousness than his own. Indeed, this discovery is usually made by trying to be good. That effort is either so unsuccessful, or its success, in a few small things, is accompanied with such failures in great things, and with such a sight of the many things which must be added, that the reforming man becomes afraid, and begins to doubt whether his own power is able to carry out his own purposes. consulted than their comfort, at first. Full submission to the righteousness of Christ, as well as counting all things but loss to be found in it, must be produced, before we are prepared to sing meekly or prudently, "Thou hast covered me with the robes of righteousness and the garments of salvation." No lips ever sung this well, until they had often sighed in the dust of self-abasement, and breathed in fervent prayer, the cry, "Unclean, unclean! God be merciful unto me a sinner." The Spirit is, however, convincing of righteousness, when he convinces of sin, because of unbelief: for then, our felt need of pardon, and our felt unworthiness of the pardon we need, equally tends to draw and fix our attention upon the question-how can a just and Holy God pardon me? We are not far from being convinced of righteousness, when we are convinced that God, for Christ's sake, can pardon us, without dishonoring his law, or his character. More seals than one or two, of the book of righteousness are opened to us by the Spirit, if we see clearly that God can be just, and yet the justifier of the ungodly, when they believe in Jesus. Any one can say thus: but he who can see its truth in his own case, whilst looking at all his own ungodliness, sees "afar off," and has had the eyes of his understanding enlightened by the Spirit of wisdom and revelation. It is often at this point that the need of a perfect righteousness begins to be felt. The sinner, with all his trying, cannot make his own robe broad enough nor long enough to cover him. Place it and stretch it as he may, it leaves some part naked; and the more it is drawn upon one Can you see "this great sight," after looking point, the more naked others are made. He may at all the greatness of your guilt and unworthinot yet think it a "filthy" rag, but he cannot help ness? Does your eye turn to it, and repose upon feeling that it is only a "rag," both in its dimen- it, even with hope, after having read the catalogue sions and strength; for it tares when it is stretch- of your sins from top to bottom, and seen all the ed, and falls off when let alone. This is not more plagues of your heart, and all the weakness of quaintly expressed than it is literally true. We your character? Is this your Goshen of light, try to establish our own righteousness until we when all around you is Egyptian darkness? If so, weary or despair of it: and then, did not the Spirit you may well admire the love of the Spirit, and of God turn our attention to Christ, we should warrantably believe that he has convinced you of give up religion altogether, as a hopeless under-righteousness, in no small or superficial degree. taking, in our own case. It is only by seeing But, perhaps, your conviction of it does not go something suitable or encouraging in the Saviour all this length yet. You may rather be looking at that this is prevented. Religion would be aban- your own need of a justifying righteousness, than doned by every man who had tried hard and fail- at the sufficiency or freeness of the righteoused utterly, did not the Spirit step in at the moment ness of Christ. Well; even in that case, the of extremity, and show him something of the per- love of the Spirit towards you, is no doubtful matson and work of Christ. ter. For, who opened and salved thine eyes to see the need of "white raiment," to clothe thy naked soul? The time was,-when you did not see that you were naked, or poor, or wretched. "There may be help for me yet, in him who is mighty to save," is the candle which Peradventure holds to Hope, and Hope to Resolution, at this crisis. Our first cheering views of Christ seldom amount to more than this. It is not at once that the Spirit convinces the soul that Christ is "the end of the law for righteousness" nor is it exactly in the way we expected, even when he does so. He leads us into all truth now, very much in the same manner as he made the apostles and disciples wise unto salvation, step by step, as we can bear the truth. Every Christian both needs and finds a day of Pentecost, to enlarge, mature, and confirm, his knowledge of justification through faith. Perhaps no one ever understood this grand truth of the gospel at once. Even when it is understood, it can hardly be believed for joy! It seems too good news to be true. This is, I have no doubt, one reason why it is so gradually opened up to the penitent. They must be kept penitent. Their safety must be more You You once took for granted, that you had only to try, in order to be as good as the best; or, at least, as good as could be expected in your case. expected to look well, and to feel very warm too, in the robe you were manufacturing for yourself. And now you are as much ashamed of your righte ousness, as of your unrighteousness; and more afraid of being judged by your good works, than the natural man is of being judged by his evil works. This is no accident. It is a conviction which even your utter failure, when trying to establish your own righteousness, did not, and could not produce. He is convinced by the Spirit, who is convinced that he himself can do nothing towards his own justification. He is "taught of God," who sees and feels that God must justify him, entirely and freely, if he ever be justified at all. This is not untrue nor doubtful, even if the con victed sinner has but a very slender hope, at first, I can sympathise with you, in this uncertainty and of being clothed with the righteousness of Christ. suspense. Let us not, however, question the love His deep sense of his need of that "spotless robe," of the Spirit, even if he has not yet been our and his strong desire to be clothed with it, are comforter in this matter. There may be love in both produced by the power of the Holy Ghost. his delay. There is love in delaying comfort, on That power has wrought mightily and graciously the question of justification, if the kind of comfort in the man, who lies self-condemned and self-emp- we have been seeking is not promised, or if the tied at the feet of God, saying nothing but, promised comfort is looked for from a wrong quar"Guilty, guilty; vile, vile; unworthy, unworthy: ter. The comfortable hope of our justification, -mercy, mercy! for the sake of Christ!" The can only come from the same source, that our conSpirit is not exactly his comforter then; but even viction of the need of a justifying righteousness then, he is as much his friend, and as truly his came from. Now that conviction came from the helper, as when he commanded the angel to "take word of God. The Holy Spirit fastened our ataway the filthy garments" from Joshua, the high tention upon the revealed fact, "that, by the deeds priest, and to "clothe him with change of raiment," of the law, no flesh living can be justified;" and and to "set a fair mitre upon his head." It is in- thus upon the experimental fact, that all our own deed, other work, to humble and empty the soul: righteousness is as filthy rags. Thus it was truth, but it is the same mighty hand, guided by the same warm heart, that lays the soul down at the foot of the rock of ages, and that lifts it up to the summit, or into the munitions of that rock. The weeping penitent, and the rejoicing saint, are equally the workmanship" of the Holy Spirit. They are stars, differing from each other, in the degree of grace; but showing equally the glory of the Spirit's love. You would, of course, prefer such a conviction of righteousness, as would enable you to sing, "He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness." This is a very natural, and not at all an improper desire, after having passed through many painful exercises of mind, by turning over and over the question, how can I be just with God? It is not wrong, after having thus suffered awhile from the terrors of law, and the sting of conscience, to wish, even very much, to be established, strengthened, and settled in the hope of pardon, and acceptance through the beloved. They have not suffered much yet, from law or conscience, who are not very anxious to "know" that they "have eternal life." Let us not forget, however, that hope would never have been so very dear to us, had we not suffered a good deal from the want or from the weakness of it. We should have been farther off from "a good hope through grace," than we now ' are, had we not been led so far down into the valley of humiliation. The Spirit has led and kept us there, not for the sake of paining us, nor yet to try our patience merely; but chiefly, that we might be driven out of all refuges of lies, and even out of sight of them all, until we saw nothing between us and perishing, but just the cross of Christ. For his work, be it for ever remembered, is to "glorify Christ;" and Christ is not fully glorified in us or by us, until he becomes "all in all," in our hope and desire: and that, we do not make him, until we come fully to the point and spirit of the cry, "Lord, save; I perish.' Have you come to this point and spirit often, and yet never been able to lay hold upon "the hope of righteousness by faith?" Are you still, after all your renunciations of your own righteousness, and, after all your prayers to be justified freely by grace, quite uncertain whether you have found mercy to pardon? Is it the case that, whilst you can hardly doubt that you have found "grace to help in time of need," you yet doubt very much whether you are "justified by grace?" that he plied our understanding and conscience with, in convincing us of our need of justification by grace. He made our belief of this, stand on the word of God. He showed us our guilt, and danger, and weakness, as we had never seen them before: but still, only as they are depicted in the Bible. He did not reveal to us a law, not written there; nor a curse, not threatened there; nor a want, not declared there: he just made us wise up to "what is written" of sinners, and against sinners; and led us to apply that to ourselves. Well; is it not likely, yea, more than probable, that he comforts, just as he convicts, on the subject,-by the truth? Consider! The facts and promises of the gospel are as able to comfort, as the demands and threatenings of the law to alarm. Why then should not the Spirit speak peace to the conscience by the gospel, as well as terror to the conscience by the law? The glad tidings of the former, are as true as the sad tidings of the latter. The heart can be healed by cheering truth, as well as broken by awful truth. Has this, however, been the way in which you, "through the Spirit," have "waited for the hope of righteousness by faith?" Have you not rather waited for some impulse-emotion-or inward sense of pardon, apart from the outward, or written promise? Have you not waited for the Spirit, rather than on the Spirit? Have you "minded the things of the Spirit," (which are chiefly his promises and counsels) as much as you have minded his sweet influences, which are the dew of them? Have you sown to the Spirit the good seed of hope and holiness, as well as looked for the early and latter rain of his grace, to make it fruitful? This is close, almost cross, questioning: but it is wanted. For, how unlike the Saviour's own account of the way of bringing home the hope of righteousness to the heart, is the creed-the scheme (what shall I call it ?)-the notion of many, who, in other respects, are as willing as Paul or Peter, to be entire debtors to Christ for justification! The whole soul is set upon owing every thing, as to the ground of their acceptance, to his cross; but, as to the knowledge of their acceptance, they seem, somehow, unwilling to be indebted to his word for that; or doubt whether his word be warrant enough, for taking up and cherishing a good hope through grace. Do, look again, to the Saviour's own account of the process by which the Comforter is promised to convince of righteousness. "He shall convince | Now, I will not ask, what feeling, impulse, or inward sense, can compare with this outward fact. I durst no more allay your solicitude to feel aright than I dare refrain from calling upon you to judge aright. Whoever has no concern to feel hope, peace, and comfort, is not much concerned about his guilt or danger. I want you and myself,-and I avow it, and proclaim it, without apology to theological stoics or worldly maxims,-to feel the good hope of pardon and acceptance: I should, however, only perplex or mortify you, were I to call for such feelings, without reminding you that the facts and promises of the gospel, both create and warrant them. By nothing else does the holy Spirit produce in the heart, love, joy, peace, or any of the peaceful fruits of righteousness. He is too much a comforter-too concerned for our real comfort and has too much love to the Saviour's glory and our good,-to make impressions on our minds by mysterious impulses, when he can make them, equally well, by plain and glorious truths, which are always at hand to be read, and always easy to be understood. Besides; he will "glorify" Christ; and not your faith, nor your feelings. You want to have a very high opinion of your own faith-as livingand saving-and of divine "operation:" and he wants you to have a very high opinion of Christ; without whom faith would just be as unequal to your justification, as works. And as the Spirit will "not testify of himself," he will not,-depend on it-testify of you, (even to yourself,) that there is any thing in the nature or the degree of your faith, which is any cause of, or claim for, your justification but he will so shut you up to the ful'ness, and freeness, and sufficiency of Christ to save, that Christ himself, and not your faith, shall have all the glory; and you, yourself, shall attach no importance to your faith, but just as it thinks of nothing-realizes nothing-rests upon nothing but the doing and dying of Christ. I will not, therefore, mediate for you, upon the Saviour's reason for the hope of justification. It is before you, as before myself. He returned to the Father and was welcomed by him, as the grand proof that we may "return, and welcome" to the Father by him. I, therefore, leave you with the word and the Spirit before you, to ponder and pray over that oracle-"He that believeth is justified:" for the righteousness of God "is unto all, and upon all, them who believe." Rom. iii. 22. No. IV. THE LOVE OF THE SPIRIT IN RECONCILIATION. PAUL says, that "the carnal mind is enmity against God:" and it is neither a contradiction nor an exception to this awful truth, that some persons, who make no pretensions to spiritualmindedness, and others who deny the very being of the Holy Spirit, yet profess a high regard and veneration for God. For, it is not God, as he has revealed himself whom they admire or love; and, therefore, the more they admire and love the character they ascribe to God, the more they hate his real character. It is not very easy to see this, when men of genius, science, or taste, pay high compliments to the wisdom, power, and benevolence of the Deity for the same language from the lips of a Christian, would be an expression and a proof of his love to God. How, then, is it a proof of enmity against God, when a mere philosopher, poet, or sentimentalist utters it? God is as wise, as mighty, and as glorious as they say. His eternal power and godhead are to be seen in all the works of creation, which they examine and admire. And they do admire and enjoy what they praise. They are not pretending, when they say, "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork." How, then, can they be traitors, whilst they utter truth?— Why does revelation class them with the haters of God, seeing they love the works of God, and speak well of the divine perfections displayed in these works? Are they not, at least, less averse, and more reverential to God, than those who study neither the Bible nor nature? Now there certainly is a difference of form, between the enmity of the philosopher to God, and that of the sensualist; and between the enmity of the man of taste, and that of the worldling. The latter are "enemies in their minds by wicked works ;" and the former, “by vain and evil imaginations:"-a difference, however, amounting to nothing more, so far as God and eternity are concerned, than that which subsisted, in ancient times, between the idols of savage and civilized nations. The polished Greeks and Romans, who worshipped no idols but such as were cut from Parian marble, with statuesque perfection, were as much idolaters, as the barbarians who bowed down to hideous monsters, and vile reptiles."The glory of the incorruptible God" was equally changed, whether, as in Athens and Rome, it was "changed into an image made like unto corruptible man;" or, as in Egypt and Babylon, "unto birds, and beasts, and creeping things." The Jupiter of Rome, and the Juggernaut of India; the Apollo of ancient Greece, and the Thor and Woden of ancient Britain, are equal proofs, that the |