DISCOURSE III.

ON PRAYER FOR THE GIFT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?

LUKE XI. 13.

In the preceding discourse we endeavored to ascertain what that gift of the Holy Spirit is which we are encouraged in the text to request from God; and proceeded to prove, that the special lesson of the text is, that the gift of the Spirit is a legitimate object of request from God, and is bestowed in answer to prayer. The application of the views of truth and duty exhibited was left to the present dis

course.

From what precedes we think we are fully warranted in saying,

I. In the first place, that with a view to the revival and advancement of vital godliness in the church, and the extension of the Redeemer's kingdom in the world, the duty of asking from God the Holy Spirit ought to be made the subject of faithful inculcation by the ministers of the gospel, and of serious consideration by all Christians.

We shall not enter upon any proof that the cause of religion needs to be both revived and advanced in these our times. Few, we think,

will affirm that, among the various religious communities into which the visible church is divided, vital Christianity is as flourishing as ever it has been; and whatever may be the degree of présent prosperity, who does not see room to wish that it may be increased a thousand fold? If we assent to the doctrine of the text, it must also be admitted, that true Christianity cannot be advanced without an earnest observance on the part of all Christians of the duty which it enjoins.

We do not mean that, in order to this end, those who preach the gospel ought to substitute the work of the Spirit in salvation for the work of Christ. The preaching of Christ's atoning sacrifice for the remission of sins, is the means especially ordained by God for the reconciliation and regeneration of the world. "I determined," says Paul, in describing his ministry among the Corinthians, "not to know. anything among you save Jesus Christ, and him crucified."* The special character in which Christ's apostles went forth to the world, was that of witnesses to his death and resurrection; on the ground of which they preached to all repentance and remission of sins in his name. The very gift of the Spirit, which Christ shed forth abundantly after his ascension to the Father's right hand, was designed to be subsidiary to the manifestation of the same truth; for the work of that Spirit was to take of Christ's and reveal to the souls of men. It is by the testimony concerning the mercy of God in Christ that he is honored, the guilty conscience pacified, the alienated and

* 1 Cor. ii. 2.

polluted soul of man renewed, the world reconciled, and the ransomed church of Christ prepared for being presented before the Father at last without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. Separate from the doctrine of Christ crucified, the work of the Spirit can have no place in the souls of men, and the pouring forth of his influences is language without a meaning. It would be a serious misapprehension, then, if in thought we substituted the one doctrine for the other, and put asunder what God has inseparably joined together. And it would be a practical error most contrary to the whole example of the inspired preachers of Christian truthand fraught only with delusion and disappointment—if, in endeavoring to bring others under the power of religion, we should exalt into more prominent notice the teaching of the Spirit than the work of that Saviour whom it is the office of the Spirit to glorify, in all that he declares in his written word, and in all that he discovers to the souls of men.

Nor is the duty of asking the Spirit from God to be substituted in the place of active and abundant exertion in conveying to men the