eternal Spirit, inhabited, sanctified, sealed by God the Holy Ghost. O exalted state! O holy privilege! O happy people! Pressing on, it may be, through strong corruptions, deep trials, clinging infirmities, fiery temptations, sore discouragements, dark providences, and often the hidings of our Father's countenance, and yet, "the children of God" now, and soon to be glorified hereafter.

My reader, in closing, suffer me to inquire—have you the witness of the Spirit? Has he convinced you of sin by the law? Has he made you acquainted with your guilt and pollution? Is it written upon your conscience as solemnly and as undoubtedly as it is written in the Bible, that you are guilty and condemned, lost and undone, and must finally and awfully perish, without Christ? Have you sought a secret place for humiliation, and confession, and supplication before God, the eternal and holy God, the Sovereign of all worlds, the Judge of the quick and the dead, at whose tribunal you must soon stand? Ah, solemn, searching questions! You may

evade them, you may frame some vain excuse, — you may wait for a more convenient season,'-you may even seek to stifle the seriousness and the thoughtfulness which these interrogatories have occasioned, by another and a deeper plunge into the world, but they will follow you there, and will be heard amidst the din of business and the loud laugh of pleasure, and they will follow you to your dying bed, and they will be heard there, amidst the gloom and the silence and the terror of that hour,—and they will follow you up to the judgment-seat, and will be heard there, amidst the gatherings and the tremendous disclosures of that scene, and they will follow you down to the abode of the lost, and will be heard there,

amid the 'weeping, and the wailing, and the gnashing of teeth.' Sinner! from an enlightened, but guilty and accusing conscience, you can never escape. It will be the worm that never dies!' From the wrath of God, once lost, you can find no shelter -it will be the 'fire that never shall be quenched.' Again we earnestly inquire, Have you the witness of the Spirit? Has he testified to you of Jesus, of his renewing grace, pardoning love, sin-cleansing blood, justifying righteousness, full redemption? Have you joy and peace in believing?

To the child of God we would say, -covet earnestly the witness of the Spirit. Be not cast down, nor cherish rash and hasty conclusions as to your adoption, if you possess it not so fully and clearly as others. The holiest believer may walk for many days without the Sun. Read the record of the experiences of David and of Job and Jeremiah, and the last moments of our dear and adorable Immanuel, and mark what shadows at times fell upon their souls, how sensible comforts failed them, how joys fled, and they mourned an absent God. But were they the less dear to the heart of Jehovah, less his beloved children because thus tried? No! God forbid! Still, we plead for the full enjoyment of the witness of the Spirit. It is the high privilege of the children of God-let no one rob them of it-to look up to God, and humbly yet unceasingly cry, 'Abba, Father!'

were they the

CHAPTER VIII.

THE SPIRIT THE AUTHOR OF PRAYER.

THE BELIEVER DRAWING NEAR TO GOD,

"Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered."- Rom. viii. 26.

THAT God should have erected in this lower world a throne of grace, a mercy-seat, around which may gather, in clustering and welcome multitudes, the helpless, the burdened, the friendless, the vile, the guilty, the deeply necessitous, that no poor comer, be his poverty never so great, his burden never so heavy, or his case never so desperate, should meet with a refusal of a hearing or a welcome, does greatly develope and magnify the riches of his grace, his wisdom, and his love to sinners. What a God our God must be, thus to have appointed a meeting-place, and audience chamber for those upon whom all other doors were closed! But more than this,

That he should have appointed Jesus the door of approach to that throne,—should have given his only-begotten and well-beloved Son, to be the 'new and living way' of access, thus removing all obstruction in the way of the soul's coming, both on the part of himself, and on the part of the sinner; that the door should be the cru19* (221)

cified Saviour the wounds of the Son of God, - - that through blood, and that blood the blood of the incarnate Deity, the guilty should approach, wonder, O heavens, and be astonished, O earth! Shall we say even more than this? For there is a yet lower depth in this love and condescension of God-that he should have sent his Spirit into the heart, the Author of prayer, inditing the petition breathing in the soul-implanting the desire

convincing of the existing necessity — unfolding the character of God-working faith in the heart — and drawing it up to God through Jesus, seems the very perfection of his wisdom, benevolence, and grace.

It must be acknowledged by the spiritual mind that all true prayer is of the inditing of the Spirit-that he is the Author of all real approach of the soul to God. And yet, how perpetually we need to be reminded of this! Prayer is one of the most spiritual employments that can possibly engage the mind. It is that holy act of the soul which brings it immediately in contact with a holy God. It has more directly to do with the "high and lofty One" than any other exercise. It is that state of mind, too, that most deeply acknowledges its dependence on God. Prayer is the expression of want, it is the desire of need-the acknowledgment of poverty, - the language of dependence, the breathing of a soul that hath nothing in itself, but dependeth on God for all it wanteth. It must therefore be a highly spiritual and holy exercise. But still more so will this appear, if we consider that true prayer is the breathing of the life of God in the soul of man. It is the Spirit dwelling and breathing in him. It is the new nature pouring out its vital principle, and that into the ear of the God whence it came. It is the cry of the feeble child turning to the

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Father it loves, and in all its conscious weakness, dependence, and need, pouring out the yearnings of its full heart into the bosom where dwells nothing but love. In a word, it is God and the creature meeting and blending in one act of blessed, holy, and eternal fellowship.

Now, that on a subject so spiritual, and involving so deeply the happiness and the holiness of a child of God, the believer should at times be greatly and seriously harassed and tempted, as much by the weakness of his nature, as by the influence of Satan, is not to be wondered at. We desire therefore, before going into the consideration of the Spirit's operation in this holy exercise, to glance at some of those peculiar infirmities which so frequently and so painfully lessen the habit, and weaken the power, and keep back the answer of prayer. May the Spirit now teach us.

There is a state of mind often enfeebling to the exercise of prayer, arising from the difficulty of forming proper views of the spiritual nature of the Divine Object of prayer. The spirituality of God, through the weakness of our nature, has been felt to be, by some, a stumbling-block in the approach of the soul. "God is a Spirit," is a solemn announcement that meets it at the very threshold, and so completely overawes and abashes the mind, as to congeal every current of thought and of feeling, and well-nigh to crush the soul with its inconceivable idea. Nor is this surprising. Prayer is the approach of finity to Infinity; and although it is the communion of spirit with Spirit, yet it is the finite communing with the Infinite, and that, through the organs of sense. Is it any marvel, then, that at periods, a believer should be baffled in his endeavour to form some just conception of the Divine existence, some faint idea