the variety and fulness of those gifts which distinguished the first preachers of the Gospel. But all these branches of the office of the Spirit, so necessary for confirming the truth, and for diffusing the knowledge of Christ, were only the pledges of those ordinary influences, by which the same divine person continues in all ages to act his part in the economy of grace, or promoting the kingdom of Christ in the world.

The necessity of divine influence, or of the ordinary operations of the Holy Spirit, in order to apply the blessings of Christ's redemption, is either expressed or implied in every page of the New Testament. We there read that the carnal or unrenewed mind is enmity against God, and cannot be subject to his laws : that the natural (or animal) man, receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God"—that "they are foolishness unto him," and are only discerned through the illuminating influence of the Holy Spirit: that "no man can call Jesus Lord, but by the Holy Ghost." Our Lord assured Nicodemus that "except a man be regenerated, or born of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God;" and again, he said to the Jews, "No man can come unto me, except the Father, which hath sent me, draw him ;" and this drawing he explains to mean divine teaching, or the illumination of the mind through the operation of the Holy Spirit, whereby sinners are enabled to believe on Christ to the salvation of the soul; and thus they are created anew, quickened from a death in trespasses and sins, drawn to Christ, and made willing in a day of divine power.

It is a great mistake, which some persons have run into on the subject of divine influence, or the operations of the Holy Spirit, to consider them as superseding the means which God hath appointed for bringing men to the knowledge of the truth. The first saving effect of the Holy Spirit's influence upon the mind of a sinner consists in producing faith-which, we are told, is the gift of God, and comes through divine illumination, but even this "faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God:" for "how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard?" It is very true that the Holy Spirit's influences are above and beyond all human tuition, even of revelation itself; for they alone can give efficiency to human instruction and crown with success the out

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ward means, which are of divine appointment: Paul may plant the seed of the kingdom, and Apollos may water it, but it is God that giveth the increase. Accordingly we find Christ himself owning the Sovereignty of God, in communicating the knowledge of the saving truth to whom he pleases: "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth," were his words, "because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight," Matt. xi. 25, 26.*

* The learned Dr. Mosheim appears to me to overlook this subject altogether, when accounting for the rapid spread of the Gospel, in the early ages of Christianity :-I mean the ordinary influences of the Holy Spirit in converting men to the faith. Thus he writes:

"It is impossible to account for the astonishingly rapid propagation of the Christian religion amongst so many different nations, part of them of a savage and ferocious character, and part entirely devoted to licentiousness and sloth, otherwise than by receiving with implicit credit the accounts which are given us, by profane as well as sacred writers, of the miraculous gifts by which the apostles were distinguished; namely, that they possessed a faculty of persuasion more than human; that they predicted future events, laid open the secrets of men's hearts, held the operations of nature in control, enacted wonders beyond the reach of any human power, and lastly, were capable of transmitting these supernatural endowments to any on whom they thought proper to confer them, simply by the imposition of their hands on them, accompanied with prayer. Let these things be considered for a moment as false, and we shall at once find how utterly out of our power it is to assign any rational cause that could have prevailed on so large a portion of mankind, within so short a period, to turn their backs on the allurements of pleasure-to forsake the religion of their ancestors, and voluntarily to embrace Christianity, at the hazard of life, fortunes, honours, and every thing else that could be dear to them." Commentaries, &c., vol. i. p. 152.

This view of the matter appears to me to be liable to more objections than one. For instance, it entirely omits the ordinary influence of the Holy Spirit, in the way of illumination, conviction, regeneration, &c., to which we find the apostles invariably attributing the success of their ministry at the beginning: Acts xi. 21, ch. xvi. 14, and xviii. 27; 1 Cor. iii. 6; 2 Cor. x. 4; and which is the common privilege of all the subjects of the New Covenant, or Kingdom of Christ, John vi. 44, 5.

But, further this learned writer appears to attribute more to the effect of these miraculous powers than he is warranted to do. It is not denied that there is an extrinsic evidence for Christianity, arising from miracles, &c., which may stop the mouths of gainsayers, make men attentive to the Gospel, and render those inexcusable who openly reject it. This external evidence may be, and is, clearly perceived by men who are no way influenced by the Gospel in their practice, having never discerned the glory, nor felt the power of divine truth. But the faith of the real disciples of Christ does not stand upon this external evidence merely, but on the light which shines in the divine testimony itself-in contemplating the divine per

These observations, on the nature and necessity of the ordinary influences of the Holy Spirit, I have made with the view of presenting a more consistent outline of the system of doctrines on which the church of Christ is founded, and you will do well to keep them in recollection as we proceed with the history. It would be incompatible with the plan of these Lectures to enlarge much on a subject of this kind-we now proceed to their application.—

When the Son of God had accomplished the object of his mission into the world, and was about to resume his seat on high, he commissioned his twelve apostles to "Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature,” adding, that " he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved--he that believeth not shall be condemned." And, we are told, "they went forth, every where, preaching the word, the Lord (the Spirit) working with them, and confirming the word with signs following." Their great object was to bring men to the faith, or the knowledge of the truth; and, to accomplish this desirable end, they proclaimed the amazing love of God towards a guilty world, in giving his only begotten Son, "that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life; for God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved." They did not call upon men to do any thing with the view of placating the divine favour, or making their peace with God, as it is called-on the contrary they assured them that every thing of this kind was already done by him who came into the world to save sinners: and that so perfectly well-pleased was the Divine Father with the obedience and sufferings of his beloved Son, that he had, as a proof of it, raised him from the dead, and rewarded his humiliation with the highest glory in the heavens. By manifestation of the truth, therefore, they commended themselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. Instead of calling sinful mortals to a round of religious duties, with the view of preparing them for the divine favour, they testified of the personal dignity, the dying love, and the rising power of the Saviour, and their addresses ran in this way: "Be it

fections gloriously harmonizing in the plan of salvation by Christ Jesus, and which, when beheld, and so far as it is perceived, effectually changes men, and conforms them to itself in heart and life, according to Rom. vi. 17, and 2 Cor. iii. 18.

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known unto you, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins, and by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses."-"This is the word of faith which we preach, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." Declarations of this kind abound in the holy Scriptures, and they abundantly show that "sinners are saved by grace, through faith, and not of works, lest any man should boast;" for it is of the sovereign distinguishing grace of the Most High, that one man comes to the faith, whilst another is left in unbelief and impenitency of heart: it is of his own self-moved good pleasure that he takes out of the nations a people for his praise.

The account which the inspired writers give us of the state of the human heart, before the word of the truth of the Gospel gets access into it through the power of the Spirit of God, is that it is strongly fortified by presumptuous reasonings against the knowledge of God-by culpable ignorance both of his character and of their own-by prejudices which pre-occupy the judgment, and which lead them to account the Gospel foolishness, and also by evil dispositions and worldly lusts. These are what the Scriptures call "strong holds," or impregnable fortresses, and they are what the apostles and first ministers of the word had to contend with in preaching the everlasting Gospel; but they were wonderfully successful in casting them down. The weapons of their warfare were mighty to this end; but they were mighty only through God, or the power of his Spirit. They had recourse to no carnal weapons: the power of the civil magistrate was everywhere against them; and, had the case been otherwise, they could not, consistently with the nature of their Lord's kingdom, avail themselves of it-they had no recourse to worldly motives, or inducements, to influence the minds of men, or entice them to profess Christianity. The only weapons which these heralds of salvation made use of were the doctrines and motives of the Gospel, accompanied by a corresponding conversation. They set before men their

lost and undone state by nature and practice, and at the same time exhibited the full and free redemption which there is in Christ Jesus, for the very chief of sinners; and they plied both their hopes and their fears, by a consideration of the amazing grace of God on the one hand, and by the terrors of the Lord on the other; at the same time confirming their doctrine by miracles-by an appeal to numerous prophecies, now fulfilled in the coming and kingdom of the Redeemer-by the purity of their lives, and by their patient suffering for Christ's sake. But, in all the success that attended their ministry, they acknowledged the excellency of the power to be of God, and not of themselves. "Tis he that grants to his own word the energy of "a fire, and a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces." The ministers of it are but as the sounding of the ram's horns at the taking of Jericho, or as the earthen pitchers which contributed to Gideon's victory, in both which instances the excellency of the power was entirely of God, and not of man. 2 Cor. iv. 7.

I just now said that the leading object of the apostolic ministry, as it respected the world at large, was to bring men to the faith, or to convince them that Jesus of Nazareth, whom the Jews had taken, and by wicked hands had crucified and slain, was the true Messiah, the promised seed, the Son of God, the Saviour of the world. And the reason why so much account was made of their believing this doctrine seems to be, that it formed a cardinal point, a line of demarcation, as it were, between the church and the world; for, in the apostolic writings, it is common to find the whole human race divided into two classes-believers and unbelievers.* But it is proper to add, in this place, that another reason why so much stress is laid upon faith, in the apostolic writings, is, that wherever it takes place in the mind-whereever it is unfeigned and genuine, it never fails to draw a train of other virtues along with it. Thus it is said to purify the heart, Acts xv. 9—to give the victory over the world, 1 John, v. 4, 5-and to work by love, Gal. v. 6; for the apostle John affirms that "whosoever believeth that Jesus

* John iii. 36; Acts xvii. 4, 5, xxvi. 18, xxviii. 24; 1 John v. 19, 20.