God? Is he not a Spirit indeed to thee, quickening thy soul. and renewing thy strength? Is he not the Holy Spirit or Spirit of boliness, willing in thee all holy inclinations, stirring in thee all holy desires, prompting to thee all holy words, effecting in thee all holy works? Hast thou a thought, a wish, an affection, a work, holy in the least degree without him? Thy spirit will witness for him in all this matter-will witness, his kindness, and mercy, and power, and Godhead everlasting. His own word proclaims his divinity; thy heart feels it. If others doubt this glorious truth, thou canst not. Thou art taught by himself, as well as by his word, that none but almighty power could have raised thee from the death of trespasses and sins, and none but invincible grace have protected thee when raised, And thou hast seen in manifold instances (and thy memory can furnish both the times and occasions,) how readily he has come in to thine aid; when, but for his aid, thou must have sunk under thy various temptations, and fallen into the snare of the devil. He furnishes thy mind with knowledge, not notional or speculative knowledge only, but with such full intelligence of necessary truth, as enables thy spirit to receive it as something belonging to thee, and to relish and enjoy it. He sanctifies thy affections, and prevents their intanglement with things beneath him and below thyself. He gives thee sweet complacency of beart, many a happy hour, which no eye but bis beholds, and no mind but a Christian's can conceive. How kindly doth he bend down the old man of sin, and conquer those harsh and rugged dispositions, which no created strength could subdue! What meek resignation, what placid contentment, what abstraction from the world and from self, doth it introduce into a heart, which, before, was like an untamed beifer, unaccustomed to the yoke, and which only sought SELF, and SIN for self, in all it thought or did! How powerfully, yet how graciously, doth he sustain thy spirit in every trying hour; and, though he suffer thee to flip, perhaps, that thou mightest remember where thy strength lies; with what increase of fervor and holiness doth he raise thee up again, and with what sense of his unmerited mercy and love!* O what a debtor, what a daily debtor, art thou to this Holy Spirit's wisdom, power, and grace! 'Tis indeed, a salvation, which thou canst not number; a rich salvation, which all heaven

and

* Bernard elegantly says of these fruits of the Spirit, that they are Spei quadam seminaria, charitatis incentiva, occultæ præ destinationis indicia, futuræ felicitatis præsagia; "Nourishments of hope, motives of love, discoveries of God's secret predestination, and sure progpostics of everlasting felicity." De Grat. Lib. Arb. WITs. Irenic. f. xiv. §. 15.

cannot count.

Thou wilt be counting it to eternity, and all the while be perceiving, more and more clearly, that thou art and must be an everlasting debtor. 'Tis a blessed debt, and thou wilt for ever be welcome to increase it. O come, let us add something to it even here! We have a bad world indeed; but still grace is to be obtained in it; and we can augment our stock in this valley of Acbor for our heavenly Canaan. Soon, soon shall the hour come, when the shadows shall disappear, when the day of Christ shall dawn, and the full effulgence of the divine glory shall irradiate, and fill, and make unalterably happy, our redeemed souls. Soon shall we see JESUS as he is, and by the love of the FATHER, and power of the SPIRIT, be for ever like unto him.

Wonderfully saved art thou, O Christian! Wonderfully redeemed from the earth! All things here are full of wonders, when we survey the visible creation as we ought: But how surpassing in wonder, how unutterably amazing, must the redemption of thy soul appear, when thou shalt be able more perfectly to trace it out, as it began in heaven, was carried on upon earth, and completed in glory!-when the wonders of God shall burst forth upon thy ravished soul in those realms of bliss, where mortality is swallowed up of life. There, even there perhaps, in the perfect illumination of spirit and life, without one cloud to obscure, thou mayest justly take up the apostle's words to proclaim the ineffable theme; O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of GOD! how unsearchable are his judgments, and bis ways past finding out! Of HIM, and through HIM, and to HIM, are all things: to Him, be glory for ever.

AMEN.

*

ETERNAL SPIRIT.

TERNITY!--How short a word for an infinite mean

tures can only apprehend the succession of parts, and which its author and cause alone can comprehend, without succession, as a whole. It depends upon the existence of God; and it necessarily exists, because He necessarily exists. As it is

impossible that there should be no being, no place, no duration; so, on the contrary, there must be that BEING, by whom and in whom all being, place, and duration subsist. For it is absurd to say, that a non-entity endures, or that the And as duration must cause of duration doth not endure.

have been eternal a parte ante, or before the present now; so it must be eternal a parte post, or after any given moment of time. Consequently, the author of duration, in both these respects, is from everlasting to everlasting also.

This idea is included in the peculiar name of God, JEHOVAH, which says in its original four letters, what perhaps no four words of any language beside the Hebrew can express, that the ESSENCE NECESSARILY EXISTING IS, and WAS, and IS TO COME, without beginning of days or end of life. He, who can fully conceive this, may likewise fully compre hend the sense of the word ETERNITY, which bears the same relation to God, as time doth to the creatures. But, as no created being can thus dilate itself to infinitude [nullum minus continet in se majus ;] so none by searching can find out God, or explore the height and depth, which is unbounded.

Now, though we are unable to fathom what is necessarily unfathomable to us, it is however expedient, that we should know it to be so, and in consequence not presume to launch out into an immense ocean, without chart or compass. Man, in every sense of the term, is placed upon an island, to which there is an appointed shore; and he can see but a very little space beyond it-far enough, however, to know, that there is, beyond his small circle of perception and conception, a wide circumference of time, place, power, and wisdom; which, like circles, including others ad infinitum, grow in immensity and compass, the wider they are extend

ed from him.

As man can go but a very little way towards the knowledge and apprehension of God; it hath pleased the divine goodness to bring into his narrow reach such notices of what lies beyond it, as may serve to fill him with a due understanding of his own minuteness and dependence, to make him humble, teachable, and submissive in those things, which are only to be known by divine communication, though absolutely necessary for his being and well-being.

Much of these notices concerning God and his revealed truths, is to be found in the titles and terms, by which they are conveyed. 'Tis a poor attempt to extend theology, even as a science, by any methods which can be found, out of the language and sense of the Bible. God is to be known only by God: And he has directed to his law and testimony for this knowledge. His word contains all the true divinity, which ever appeared in the world. They are, therefore, to be pi

tied for their pride and presumption, who talk of the "Improvements which later ages are making in theological knowledge;" which improvements, if they are inquired into, are mean and unsatisfactory compilations of metaphysical, ethical, and philosophic opinions, collected from antient heathens, modern infidels, and other human authorities; having no real connection with God's own revelation, or the fallen state of man, but in most respects, entirely inconsistent with both. This mode of pursuing religious knowlege has been the occasion ofall the heresies and absurdities, which ever appeared in the world, & possibly of most of the infidel & sceptic futilities of the present time. If Origen had not studied Plato, instead of St. Paul; it is probable, that the world had not heard of Arius, nor of the various tribes which have descended from him. Men of easy principles, or who do not trouble themselves to search into the right well, where alone truth leis at the bottom, and from whence only it can be drawn; seeing such flimsy and dry discourses upon subjects, which Cicero, Seneca, and other heathens, have treated, at least, as rationally as most later authors; are tempted to believe, that Christianity and heathenism are nearly of kin, that their morality is much alike, and that the works of the philosophers are very enlightened commentaries upon the Bible. Others, from such hints, have gone further, and treated the Bible itself as one of those old and obscure books, which are hard to be understood, and not even worth the labor of understanding. Fromthis mode of treating religious subjects in protestant countries, and from the mummery and ridiculous varnish with which they are disfigured in popish; deism has gained its principal ground, and in most companies can now be professed and maintained with an open front. They who know the state of religion in France, easily tell us, that its first ecclesiastics are almost universally deists; and that those who are not lax, at least in religious principles, are smiled upon as bigots or fools. And, with respect to England, it is quite enough to say, that neither oaths nor subscriptions can restrain men from disputing against the established articles, founded as they are upon the firmest basis of the Scriptures; nor yet from maintaining, even within the church itself, opinions which the church abhors. Than such Christians, it must be owned, that fair and open deists are at least honester and more laudable men.

As these people neither lead themselves nor others to the knowledge of God, because they either forsake or use not his own revelation; we must beg to leave them, and inquire, what God hath said of, and what He calls himself. names, communicated to us, are various; because the doctrines, which those names teach us, have a relation to our

His

various wants, infirmities, and dependences upon him. One name would serve as well as ten thousand; if we had but one relation to, or but one idea of God. For instance; could, we, being perfect creatures, as angels, only depend upon him as our great Creator; that name would have been sufficient for us to declare him: But, being sinful creatures, yet creatures to be redeemed, our Creator stood immediately in many relations to us, according to our several conditions of sinfulness, recovery, redemption, and salvation, which it was necessary for us to know, that we might apply to him under those relations and receive every benefit and blessing we need. He hath, therefore, suited himself (as it were) to us in the revelation of his names, that, by the doctrines they contain, we might apprehend or be brought into those relations to him, which those names were intended to signify. And as He hath been pleased to inform us, that He exists in himself as Jehovah, or one everlasting and almighty essence, and as the Alebim, or three persons in that essence, which his word stiles Father, Son, and Spirit; so He hath shewn us, bow this Son became our Redeemer as well as Creator, and bow this Spirit is our Sanctifier, as well as our Maker. These two divine persons in the essence being the declared agents of our salvation; they have taken many titles upon them to shew us, in what sense they are those agents, and how they become the fulfillers of that salvation. By them we are led to communion with the first person, or Father; who is not called first from any priority of person or existence, but only by way of distinction; for we find the Son placed first, and also the Spirit, and the Father last, in the same texts, on purpose to shew (as it seems) that in this Trinity none is afore or after another, none is greater or less than another, but that the whole three persons are coeternal together, and co-equal." We have considered many of the divine names, with respect to the agency of the divine persons; and the present denomination before us is held out to our minds, that we may hold communion with the person of the SPIRIT, and receive that comfort which it proposes to our souls; even everlasting consolation, because He is everlasting.

That GOD is a Spirit, Christ declares; that the SPIRIT is, a Spirit, his name signifies; and that he is the ETERNAL Spirit, the word of God expressly proclaims, Heb. ix. 14. If the Holy Spirit, then, be the Eternal, it will follow, that he is true and very God; because God only is properly eternal, and none of the creatures are called by that name. No creature could be so; for there was a time, when, whatever creaVol. II.

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