istence. If he in whom we believe is gone into heaven, and those who "inherit the promises" shall follow him, there we must look for our rest forever. Our best interests, our eternal abode, our life, are there. We are here but passengers of an hour; "strangers and pilgrims" seeking a better country. Of course, to loiter amid the vain delights of this transient state, is to forget our business and our home.

That "we have here no continuing city," we know. Time is hurrying us unceasingly to leave this earth; yea, earth itself is fast hastening to be dissolved, and the element of our abode to pass away. How delightful the reflection, that in the ark the Redeemer hath prepared, our nature shall survive the general wreck. Amid the havoc of death, and the solemn awe which the approach of judgment inspires, how solacing the thought, that the faithful "look for a new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." But if we do indeed believe that our hopes, our conversation, our treasures are in heaven, will not our hearts be there also? Shall we be absorbed in the pleasures, vanities and vices of this world, which everything reminds us we must leave, while our Head, our Master, is calling us to his glory, and we have this momentous calling to secure? Shall we, in the outset of our journey, encumber ourselves with burthens, which we must relinguish when we have scarcely got under way, while we neglect the habits, the affections, and the graces for which we shall have need in our eternal and exalted existence? "If ye, then, be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God."

Let us then be induced by what has been said, rightly to conceive, and faithfully to improve, that sublime and most gratifying part of our faith, the ascension of our Master into heaven. Let it establish our confidence in the gospel, rejoice our hopes, and lead us to fit ourselves for an entrance "into the joy of our Lord." Though he is taken from our view, he is mindful of our conduct; and "shall so come," for the consummation of his work, "as we have seen him go into heaven." While deprived

of his presence, are we anxious that his Spirit may rest upon us, to guide and support us on our difficult way? Let us take up the mantle he has left, in his word and his sacraments, and seek on every emergency "the Lord God of Elijah." So shall we be of the number for whom "it was expedient that he should go away." Our journey of life shall be conducted to our satisfaction. And when we are brought, at length, to the waters of that Jordan, which lies between us and the abode of the Prophets, shall be able in the power of the Spirit of our Master, to smite, and pass dry shod, between its divided waves.

SERMON VI.

ON WHITSUNDAY.

JOHN, iv. 14.

"But the water, that I shall give him, shall be in him a well of water, springing up into everlasting life."

obtain the true meaning of our Lord in this animated passage, we will recur to a similar declaration made by him on another occasion. Standing amidst the assembled Jews, on the last day of the feast of tabernacles, when water from the pool of Siloam was poured out as a drink offering unto the Lord, Jesus cried: "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." Upon the record of this declaration, there follows an inspired exposition: "This spake he of the Spirit, which they who believed on him should receive." The passage is so evidently parallel with my text, that the comment upon one may be considered as a comment upon the other; and we may learn from it, that by the water which Christ mentioned to the woman of Samaria, we are to understand the grace of the Comforter or Holy Spirit; of which he was the great distributor appointed by the Father, having purchased it by his mediation for the children of men. Accordingly we find, that when the woman had expressed her surprise that he, "being a Jew," should ask of her, a Samaritan, a draught of the water which she had come to Jacob's well to draw, he replied, "If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldest have

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asked of him and he would have given thee living water." if he had said, Hadst thou known the riches of that grace which God will pour out upon those who seek it, and that I, who speak unto thee, am the Messiah, to whom the distribution of this inestimable gift is committed, thou wouldest have asked, and I would have given thee truths and influences of the Holy Spirit, which would be in thee as a well of water, perpetually springing up and refreshing thy soul, allaying thy thirst forever and nourishing thee into eternal life.

In an age when finite reason and human philosophy are made the standards of truth; when many Christians content themselves with a cursory acquaintance with the precepts of the gospel, and even some of those who are set as angels of the gospel pool, “forsake the fountains of living water, and hew out to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, which can hold no water," the dispensation of the Spirit, with the doctrine of its operation on the heart and importance to salvation, is not a very popular theme of discourse, nor, it is feared, a subject of very frequent contemplation. Yet, it is an essential, peculiar, and most comfortable part of the "faith once delivered to the saints;" and, happily for us, we are annually brought by the excellent economy of our Church, to acknowledge and consider it in the solemnities of the Whitsuntide feast. To-day we commemorate the fulfilment of the Redeemer's promise, before his Ascension, in the actual and visible descent of the Comforter upon his assembled disciples; with which is connected the interesting doctrine of our participation with them, of the heavenly gift, though in a mode that is dissimilar, and for purposes not precisely the same. With your indulgence, my brethren, I will improve the opportunity to bring to your consideration, in the first place, the reality and necessity of the gift of the Spirit to all true believers, in every age; secondly, to call your attention to the inestimable value and important uses of it; and, in the third place, to point you to the channels, through which this gift, this living water, ordinarily flows. Topics these, which may suggest reflections that will be

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pertinent to the joy of this season; and not unprofitable, in the cause of righteousness, if thou, O Holy Ghost! vouchsafe to descend, to consecrate our labours, and, by thy quickening influences, to fertilize our souls!

That the extraordinary manifestation of the Holy Spirit, and the supernatural powers which accompanied it, are continued in the Christian world, is what no considerate person, at the present day, will advance. For the visible descent and miraculous operations of the Comforter, on the day of Pentecost, there were reasons which belonged to the time, and the events of it; reasons peculiar to that age, which no longer exist. And the "sound as of a rushing mighty wind," and the "cloven tongues, like as of fire," have subsided to an invisible influence of the Spirit upon the hearts and lives of men. So, once, it was expedient that the Almighty should descend with tremendous majesty of clouds and fire, wind and thunder, and the shaking of Sinai to its base. But, afterwards, when the prophet waited for his instructions, "the Lord was not in the wind,” nor the fire," nor "in the earthquake;" but in "a still small voice." From the change of mode, which we acknowledge, we are not to infer the absence of the substance. That the holy fire, which sat visibly upon the apostles, is extinguished; that the Comforter, who descended on the day of Pentecost, has returned to the Father; that Christians are not all partakers of the heavenly gift, is contrary to reason; to the declarations of Scripture, and to actual observation. From each of these sources may be deduced the certainty of his invisible abode with all true believers, and the reality and necessity of his operation in their hearts.

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Man is now, what he ever has been since the fall, a feeble being; ignorant, by nature, of his God and duty; living daily in trespasses and sins. While he remains unenlightened by the communications from on high, darkness encompasses his mind, When this darkness is dispersed, and the points of true excellence are clearly revealed, to raise himself to them by his own strength is not in his power. It is with anguish and humiliation that, in proof of this, I point you to the heathen sage; per