Here, then, is an all-sufficient treasury, an undecaying plenitude of influences. Here is a spring unexhausted and inexhaustible, an undrained fountain, whose fulness is never diminished by the largest communications. "My God will supply all your need by Christ Jesus," was the language of Paul, who had drawn largely upon this resource.

The copiousness of the provision of divine influences is a proof that they are accessible, otherwise the full and clear exhibition of them would be a vain parade. See in nature and providence, the light that you have is more than you can appropriate, the time given to you is more than you can employ, and the health you have is much more than you improve. Why is this? It is to give you a hint of the bounty and liberality of God in diffusing all his blessings. Will he who is thus profuse in providence, be slack and niggardly in gracious influences? "Is the Spirit of the Lord straitened." No, answers the apostle, "ye are straitened in yourselves." The incapacity for more, and the reluctance for more, is in you. Oh, what influences you have neglected, or abused, or thrown away! Where is the man who has improved all the suggestions of the Spirit? What hearer of the gospel can ever persuade himself that he perishes because divine influences are not accessible to him?

III. God has established a system of means to enable sinners to participate in the influences of the Spirit.

If we wish for the divine blessing or the divine in fluences for the growth of a plant, or for the support of our life, we know well that there are certain means established for securing them, and that it would be sheer madness to expect the influences without the use of such means. The establishment of such means prove that the necessary influences are accessible if we really wish for them.

Gracious influences are also communicated in a stated course, not arbitrarily or capriciously, either as to time,

manner, or degree. I would not say that God has bound and limited himself to this stated course; what I mean is, that he will NEVER fail it. The Holy Spirit has been pleased to pledge his blessings to certain rules, and this does not diminish the grace and freedom of them any more than in natural influences. The blessings which descend on the labors of a farmer or a physician do not lose their grace and freedom because they are conveyed in a stated course. The establishment of an aqueduct proves that a supply of water is intended, and that of a pump that water is to be had; so the establishment of "means of grace" proves that grace is obtainable.

These means must be used. No man will become religious as a stone gets warm in sunshine, or wet in a shower of rain. He must be an Agent as well as a subject. He must use the appointed means. The connecting link between divine influences and human agency is hid in the hand of God, but he has revealed enough to show us that, according to his arrangement of the universe. He cannot convert a man unless that man exercise his own agency. When "cannot" is ascribed to God, of course, it is meant that such a thing cannot come to pass without changing the course of nature. For instance, as we find the world, he cannot make a man live unless he breathe, or see unless he open his eyes. In the like manner he cannot effect faith unless the sinner himself believes, or repentance unless the sinner himself repents. If this be disputed, the disputer must show that in the production of faith and of repentance it is God himself that believes and repents, and not the sinner. In all the arrangements of gracious influences, the agency of man only reaches the means, it is divine influence that effects the product.*

* On divine influences as exercised in relation to the condition of man, and to the ways of God, see a very able volume published in 1830, entitled, "The Work of the Holy Spirit in conversion," by HoWARD HINTON, A. M, of Reading. English theology has no volume like it, in

IV. Men are commanded to live under the influences of the Spirit.

"This then I say, Walk ye in the Spirit.' It is utterly unreasonable to command a man to walk in sunshine at midnight; therefore the commands of a just God that men should walk in the spirit, suppose that the influences of the spirit are accessible to them. "While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light." Here the light is declared to be accessible, even to those who were walking in darkness. The command, "Walk ye in the Spirit," is urged with all seriousness and authority. A command thus given and thus pressed supposes that the influences of the Spirit shall go forth, as necessary to the persons thus concerned. Indeed, divine influences are used as a reason to urge upon men, the great duty of using their agency in holy exertions. in holy exertions. "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, FOR God worketh in you to will and to do of his good pleasure." The argument is, work, for God works; use your agency, for God is using his; labor in your salvation while divine influences. may be obtained.

V. Men are blamed for not having the influences of the Spirit.

Jude mentions some characters with deserved reprehension and blame, as "not having the Spirit." My reader may have thought himself, ere now, blameable for many things, but never yet thought himself blameable "for not having the Spirit." This is, evidently, charged upon these characters as a blame, a crime, a reproach. Yet they were not blameworthy if the influences of the Spirit were not accessible, but arbitra

which the agency of the Holy Spirit is so scripturally explained, and so highly honored, in full harmony with the ample powers and obligation of human agency, and with the tremendous blameableness of human negligence. Dr. OWEN and HOWE in their respective excellent works on the Spirit, treat of divine influences more in their relation to the ways of God, than to the condition of man; though Howe indeed, has some sound and powerful arguments to demonstrate the criminality of "not having the Spirit."

rily suspended, or capriciously withdrawn. The sluggishness and the inactivity of man is always charged upon himself; and if these influences were not accessible to him, to be without them would be his misfortune rather than his crime, and he would be an object of pity rather than of blame. God, both for his own glory, and for the other ends of probation, has not left the matter so, as that man may say, "I did not obey, it is true; but it is not my fault, for the influences necessary to obedience were not to be obtained, or they were arbitrarily withdrawn and held back."

VI. The most ample encouragements are given to prayer for divine influences.

It would be the height of unreasonableness and mockery to teach men to pray for an incommunicable and an ungrantable thing. If man is taught to ask for a thing, it is an assurance, that that thing is of great concernment to him, and is obtainable by him.

Prayer for the influences of the Spirit is encouraged from the nature of God, Luke xi, 13. God will give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him, as readily and promptly as parents give bread to their children. There are, indeed fathers who have not a father's love, but this unnaturalness belongs not to our heavenly Father. He pities us as a father pitieth his children; and pity in him is pity in eternal and inexhaustible plenitude. He is invariably "plenteous in mercy." Suppose a child had to undertake a business or a trade at the request of his father, he would say, "I know my father -if I attend to my business, all needful supplies will be forthcoming-I shall not fail or break, for he has promised to supply me in every time of need." We know that a father, if he were able, would not fail such a son. Thus should every man argue, and feel persuaded, that in prayer and the use of means, the "supply of the Spirit" shall not be lacking.

God has given many exceeding great and precious promises, that he will supply all our need. "The Spirit" is the foremost promise of the New Testament,

and it is thus made prominent because if this be fulfilled, all the others will follow. All these are "yea and amen in Christ to the glory of God," because the "God that cannot lie," has confirmed them by an OATH, that we might have strong consolation. All such solemn declarations would be vain pompousness, if these strong consolations were not accessible to us.

VII. The scriptures represent the influences of the Spirit as accessible to every sinner, as is the atonement of the Son.

We have seen that the atonement makes the salvation of all men possible, and that it is the duty of every man to believe that the death of Christ is available for his soul in propria persona. The same train of argument might be successfully used, as to the relation of man to the influences of the Spirit, for an accessible remedy supposes the cure accessible, and an accessible city of refuge supposed the safety ac

cessible.

The atonement of Christ is the medium and the honorable ground for dispensing and communicating the influences of the Spirit. Gracious influences, like all sovereign favors, come to the sinner through the blood of Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus himself dispenses these influences by an authority founded on his atonement. "If I depart, I WILL SEND him to you." He fulfilled this promise most signally on the day of Pentecost. He then showed that he had received gifts for men, and he issued them forth in such wide-spread largesses, and so soon after his departure, that the world might see the connection between them and his death, and ascension.

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