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worshipper, but you cannot evade omniscience, He will never permit it; and if He comes forth with "I will reprove thee, and set them in order," it may be that in mercy you may be brought to deep repentance, and so escape hell; but if God never reproves, I know He will destroy-you may be sure of that. If God never reproves men for sin, He has given them up to hardness of heart, and will destroy them.

Mark one thing more here. How old Adam nature is scanned by God's elect, and exposed to their view, so that they may loathe themselves. If the Christian comes to the matter of serious inquiry, as I am sure he will, he will be ready to repeat that text we read at the commencement of the service, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked," exclaiming, with distressing anxiety, "who can know it?" and under a deep consciousness, by Divine illumination, that we do not know the depths of sin in ourselves, that we do not know the depravity of old Adam nature, that we do not know the lurking evils that put on a disguise, that we do not know sufficiently the amount of enormity and depravity there is in every fallen creature, Jehovah in mercy comes forth and says, "I know their hearts, and I will make them known to them;" and when He in infinite mercy opens to our view what there is within, the soul has his attention called off immediately from what he discovers in others; he has his attention immediately called away from all the motes that are in his brother's eye; and having such a disclosure made of himself to himself, he loathes himself in dust and ashes before God. One of the greatest mercies God can put forth to a poor ruined sinner is this, to show him himself, to open his eyes to his own depravity. Peradventure, previous to this the individual may have imagined that his life was very fair, his dealings very honest, his character very upright before men, his principles such as would bear examination and inspection, and his intercourse with his fellow-mortals such as even obtained for himself commendations from those that are high in the world; but, by-and-bye, God discloses himself to himself, shows him what he is, throws open the den of thieves, makes known to him the cage of unclean birds, allows him to hear their horrid chirping, and causes him to bewail himself in dust and ashes. Then the omnipotence of God is put forth and employed, if I may use such an expression, for the express purpose of carrying on a work of grace in that sinner's heart, and bringing the sinner out of himself, and out of love with himself, and so to look for everything elsewhere. Oh, the importance of these disclosures which Jehovah makes to poor worms.

Now here I must drop a cautionary hint respecting the evil I so often deprecate. When God makes this disclosure to a poor sinner's heart, and makes him deeply to feel that "every imagination of the thought of his heart is only evil continually," his first business is, not to go forth and spout about it to his fellow-worms, and appear almost to boast of what a vile wretch he is, but he lays low, he covers his mouth in the dust, he cries out before God in secret, "Unclean, unclean;" and if he prefaces his confessions before God with "Lord, I am vile," and then begins to detail the account, or enumerate the multitude of his vile lusts and corruptions, he will wish none but the allseeing God to hear him. He loathes himself, he is ashamed of himself; and it is time enough for him to let his voice be heard in public when he can speak of the remedy, and tell of the preciousness of a salvation

that can meet a case as desperate as his. I could not help dropping this hint by the way, because I love the pure preaching of the gospel, not the preaching of mere human corruptions. I have enough to do to fight with them, and mortify them, and crucify them, and subdue them, and keep them under, and put them off; all this I hear the apostle speaking of doing; but I never hear him boasting of them, or preaching about them; and as he was taught by the Holy Ghost, his rule of conduct may be adopted by me.

One thing more I cannot help naming on this part of the subject; and that is, that the heart-searching God knoweth all that is there. "God, which knoweth the hearts," knoweth that there is no spiritual life there, in an unregenerate state, and yet He knoweth that spiritual life is indispensable to the participation and enjoyment of glory. Oh, what a discovery! And He will make this to you and to me. He will make it clear and plain that under the Adam fall we have not a vestige of spiritual life left, that man is really and truly "dead in trespasses and sins," and yet that spiritual life is essential and indispensable to the enjoyment of God and the enjoyment of glory, and for an entrance to it. Down lies the sinner in the dust, low indeed in self-abasement, when God makes this known to him; and though the matter of fact is, that spiritual life is imparted when this discovery is made, yet the soul at first knows it not, cannot believe it, thinks it news too good to be true, and laments over his utter ruin, his entire depravity, his lost and undone state before God.

II. I have passed over these particulars hastily because I have been anxious to get to the gift. "God, which knoweth the hearts," knew that nothing could save poor ruined sinners but the gift of the Holy Ghost, and that without it they would eternally perish. Only think of it, "giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us. The very same religion that is apostolic, the very same teaching and teacher that are apostolic, the very same occupant of the soul as His temple that occupied the soul of the disciples and of the apostles of old, the very same mighty, life-giving power, the very same Divine Person taking possession of the soul for life-giving and life-sustaining purposes. Now here I trust my readers will discover, that we stand on infinitely higher ground, and much more stedfast and firm, than the mock pretenders to apostolical succession. Let them come forward and prove that God has given them the Holy Ghost, even as He gave it to the apostles, and we will give them some credit for their pretensions. Let them also prove that they have got the same teaching. And if you would know what was taught in the days of the apostles, take two or three features of Divine instruction, which you will find in Peter's sermon, which he preached immediately he had received the gift of the Holy Ghost. He taught, and he teaches now, things concerning God, things concerning man, things concerning the extent of ruin which sin has brought into the world, and the remedy that meets it, the glorious salvation that is in Christ Jesus.

The apostles were taught all things pertaining to God; His selfexistence, His Trinity of Persons, His Divine perfections, His glorious display of covenant relationships, His absolute sovereignty over all worlds, His amazing, eternal, and unchangeable love to His Church and His dear Son, revealed and shed abroad by His Holy Spirit. The apostles loved to dwell upon this. And is this the theme that pretending

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apostolical successors" of the present day delight to set before their hearers? I trow not, in but very few places. Rather, is not the God we serve represented by such beings as a God fickle and changeable, a God helpless, and destitute of omnipotence, a God dependent upon His creatures, waiting on their caprice, anxious that their free will should join with His wishes, but not able to command anything Himself-thus leaving Him a disappointed God? I would neither preach, worship, nor own such a God.

Moreover, the Holy Ghost taught the apostles what man was, "dead in trespasses and sins." And this is in exact accordance with the declaration of the Son of God concerning man, that "the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live." So that the ruined race of Adam is destitute of every vestige of spiritual life, breathing 'power, feeling or capacity, a depraved, ruined, helpless rebel, "alienated from God by wicked works." No complimenting of human nature, no deceiving of mortals by telling them how much they can do, and how much they can please God, and that God will meet them half way and do the rest for them! The Holy Ghost never taught such lies; He teaches man's utter ruin and total depravity, while teaching God's absolute sovereignty and impeccable holiness.

Moreover, the Holy Ghost taught the apostles to set forth man's utter ruin; not only destitute of dignity and honour, but destitute of possession and property, destitute of credit and honesty, destitute of even clothes, except "filthy rags," destitute of all hope of glory in himself, and destitute of a friend; just like the man that went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves. No man cares for his soul, eternal imprisonment awaits him; everlasting despair is yawning to receive him; and he incapable and unwilling to extricate himself.

And then what shall we say of the remedy, "giving them the Holy Ghost, even as He did unto us?" What is it? Love, blood, and grace. Love, to choose, adopt, and demand the soul away from the pit of destruction and despair it deserves; blood, to pay the ransom, wash the filthy sinner, and cleanse him from all sin, to present him pure and perfect before God; grace, to subdue his proud heart, to conquer his wandering and his waywardness, bring him to the feet of Jesus, and create in him a capacity to enjoy God. Now let us appeal to the hypocritical pretenders to apostolic succession, and ask whether their sermons consist of love, blood, and grace-whether eternal, immutable, sovereign, discriminating love, sin-conquering, and sinatoning blood, and omnipotent, invincible, all-conquering grace, are set forth, insisted on, and magnified in all their sermons? I trow not. I fear that, instead of this, the remedy proposed by these. quacks, is, for the dead to quicken themselves, the blind to create for themselves new eyes, the prayerless soul to begin praying, and the unbelieving soul to set about believing with its unbelief. What a

mockery! What an insult to God and Scripture! Yet I dare assert, without fear of contradiction by all the Popish cardinals and prelates in the world, that my God has placed me in the line of apostolical succession, and I will not give it up-I cannot give it up.

Talk they of antiquity? Suppose Popery could prove its seniority, which I know it cannot, does it follow that that which is oldest must be best?—then Judaism must be better than Christianity, because it is

older. Yea, by this false and foolish mode of reasoning, the devil is better than the Pope, because he is older, and perhaps this latter conclusion might be safely drawn from better premises. But to return, sure I am that those to whom God has given the Holy Ghost as He did to the apostles, at the first teaching them experimentally the same truths, will never betake themselves to such pitiful subterfuges to prop up a carnal system. The Holy Ghost is expressly called "the Spirit of truth;" and, saith Jesus, "when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth," and that is the errand He comes upon when He enters into the sinner's heart, and especially when He calls and qualifies His ministers of the everlasting gospel; hence they all speak the same things, having tasted and handled them experimentally.

The Holy Ghost never teaches opposites; and as we have on record the doctrines which he taught the apostles, we take them as the standard of orthodoxy, and reject as heresy all that teaching which is not in accordance with those doctrines; for no man can have any just claim to apostolic succession, unless all his doctrines, his experience, and his life, are apostolic: then, indeed, he may claim the succession which God has promised, and which God preserves, in perfect contrast with that which Antichrist has fabricated, and which Popish priests know to be a fabrication, but without which they cannot keep up their lucrative farce, by which millions of their fellow-mortals are plundered, poisoned, and perish. Oh, how deeply it is to be lamented that any man should presume upon the sacred office of the gospel ministry without the gift of the Holy Ghost, and consequently without the true apostolic qualifications. God has such in His Church even now, who are made ministers, as Paul was, "according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of His power' (Ephesians iii. 7). These are the successors of the apostles, whom God owns and honours. All others are impostors.

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Let me advance a step further. "Giving them the Holy Ghost, even as He did unto us.' What for? To occupy their souls as His temples. "Know ye not that your bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost, that dwelleth in you?" Oh, beloved! what does He find in a poor sinner's heart, when He comes to dwell there? He leads the soul to such discoveries as He led Ezekiel into; He shows him "the abominations that were done in secret;" and before he has time to recover himself, the Lord says, "Turn again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these;" and the "God, which knoweth the hearts," gives His Holy Spirit to enter, and take possession, and occupy where all these abominations were found. Oh! what subduing, what rejecting, what conquering, what banishing work must go on when the Holy Ghost comes in as the Father's gift, to occupy a sinner's heart. Something like this is represented by our Lord's entering the temple when on earth, and driving out all the buyers and sellers. The temple is to be occupied by God. Recollect what the apostle says, "The temple of God is holy, which temple ye are ;" and when Jehovah bestows His Holy Spirit, to take possession of the sinner's heart, it is just to take and bring into use all the powers and faculties that the poor sinner possessed in creation, and which were used for the service of the devil, and engage them in the service of God, as it is written, "As ye have yielded your members servants of unrighteousness unto uncleanness, so now yield those very members servants of unrighteousness unto holiness." I cannot conceive of any

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thing more glorious than this gift, as regards its mighty effects and precious communications, even on earth, because the "spoil" is so "divided" in the soul that receives the Holy Ghost as the Father's gift, that all its powers and faculties are brought under the controlling, sovereign influence of the graces of the Holy Spirit, and the thoughts, the motives, the desires, the affections, the judgment, the will, all being parts of the temple, and occupied by the Holy Ghost, are employed to glorify God.

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I pity the man (nay, I suspect his Christianity) who can willingly allow his natural powers to be given up to Satan's service or the world's pleasures, or the toys that only bring "leanness" into the soul. all probability, I shall be censured as a legalist, or something worse, for preaching this discourse; but I am quite clear of your blood. Speak as evil of me as you like, I will only tell my Father of it. I could not rest in my bed if I kept back anything which God has given me, and which I suppose may be profitable for you. I entreat of you to examine this point, whether the Holy Ghost, having entered your soul, has consecrated all its powers and faculties to the service of God. I think He has done enough for me to set me panting after this. This is the purpose for which He gives His Holy Spirit.

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Pass on to remark, that this gift of the Holy Ghost is a life-giving and life-sustaining principle. There is no life in a dead sinner until he has received the Holy Ghost. This is strikingly set forth in the vision of the dry bones. The prophet preached to them, according to God's direction; and the question was asked, "Can they live?" His reply was, "Thou knowest," for thou "knowest the hearts." They were dry, and scattered over the valley; yet, when the prophet preached, there was a shaking, and "bone came to his bone, and sinew to his sinew, and the flesh came upon them, but there was no breath in them." A striking picture of a very large portion of what passes for Christianity in the present day! Persons have been shaken in conscience; bone comes to its bone in something like symmetry and form, in profession and in creed, and flesh comes upon them, as if there were mighty doings to be done; but there is no breath in them. Now Ezekiel could not make one of the carcases stand or walk, until the Lord gave the command; and then they "stood up, a mighty great army.' So, after all I have said to you this morning, I am just brought to this point-I cannot give you life, I cannot give you Divine grace, I cannot make you a new creature; but my cry shall be, "Awake, O wind, and blow upon these slain, that they may live." Sure I am, no life Divine is possessed till the Holy Ghost takes possession of the soul; and equally sure I am, that whenever He does takes possession of the soul, a life Divine is imparted, which can never die, but which He Himself is pledged to sustain. And therefore He gives "grace for grace," supply upon supply, "strengthening with might in the inner man," feeding and nourishing His people with the words of eternal life, and causing them to grow up into "the fulness of the stature of Jesus Christ." Oh, that you and I may be more sweetly satisfied! I really do not know whether I can be; but if there are any doubting ones present, oh! that you may be more fully satisfied that God has given you the Holy Ghost, that He has really taught you what He taught the apostles, that He is really occupying your hearts as He occupied the hearts of the apostles, and that He has really given you life, and is sustaining it day by day.

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