God."* 66 Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."+ When the Spirit of truth is come," said Christ to his Apostles, "he will guide you into all truth." "He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." + The fourth blessing which we receive from the God of mercy is, THE GIFT OF A NEW HEART. "A new heart will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you." "I will give them one heart, and one way."|| The fifth blessing which believers in Jesus shall finally enjoy is, THE GIFT OF ETERNAL life. "The gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord."** "Father,......glorify thy Son,.. ...that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him."++ "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."++ "These go into life eternal."SS Blessed Saviour, thou hast said, "My sheep shall never perish," "I give unto them eternal life."|||| ++ "By death and hell pursued in vain, To thee the ransom'd seed shall come; Shouting, their heavenly Sion gain, And pass through death triumphant home." The covenant made with Adam was broken through disobedience, but the covenant of grace in Christ Jesus is an everlasting covenant. All its requirements have been fulfilled through the incarnation, obedience, and death of the Son of God, and therefore cannot be disannulled. It is perfect, comprising every blessing; and eternal, perpetuating those blessings. Nothing can prevent the final salvation of the believer but these two things, either God's turn * 2 Tim. iii. 16. John xvi. 13; xiv. 26. ** Rom. vi. 23. + 2 Pet. i. 21. || Jer. xxxii. 39. Matt. xxv. 34. SS Matt. xxv. 46. John x. 27, 28. ing away from him, or his departing from God. Now infinite love has assured us, that neither of these shall ever happen to his redeemed people. This assurance is contained in these blessed words: "I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me."* Here salvation is secured. God in his sovereign love will not turn away from the objects of his redeeming grace. He has pledged himself by this promise, which shall be accomplished when all his sons are brought, through Christ, by the Spirit, into his kingdom and glory. The way whereby they are kept from final apostacy, to which the degenerate heart is continually prone, is by the fear of God being put into it as a holy preserving principle. Hence arise those exhortations to fear, which are scattered throughout the sacred volume. This holy fear is the beginning of wisdom; and is sweetly blended with hope and love through the whole of the believer's experience. Many precious promises are annexed to this state of filial fear. It is a new covenant blessing. Thus we find that the eighth chapter to the Romans, which describes the believer's privileges and character, begins with, "No condemnation" and ends with no separation : "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ ?" How happy, then, ought the believer to be, when he thus views the nature of that covenant, which by faith he embraces, as containing the foundation of hope, and the fountain of felicity; for Christ is the sum and substance, the sun and centre, of this covenant. Believing in Jesus, he obtains the Spirit of truth, the Comforter; and finds this blessed Spirit to be the Witness, the Seal, the Earnest of every blessing. O! that I could feel my cold hard heart renewed in righteousness, and filled with faith and love. I * Jer. xxxii. 40. seem like a lifeless corpse in the midst of living bodies; like ice in the midst of summer's heat. Oh! that I could feel something like vitality and warmth in religion. Lord, pity a poor, miserable, wretched worm of the earth. Thou couldst crush me in a moment, and send me down quick into hell. And in so doing thou wouldst be infinitely just, and thy goodness remain unimpeached. But oh! cast an eye of pity upon my soul. Thou knowest my miserable state, and my complete inability to save myself from the power of the least transgression. I am tied and bound with the chain of my sins, let the pitifulness of thy great mercy loose me. Pour down thy blessed Spirit upon me and mine. Deluge the earth with showers of blessings. Cause the living waters to flow in copious streams through all the desert places of the earth, till every heart be divinely changed, till all acknowledge thee to be the Lord. The need of prayer for the Holy Spirit's influence is allowed by all who hold the truth as it is in Jesus, but the attention of Christians in general, is not sufficiently drawn to this important subject. "Them that honour me I will honour,”* stands upon record in the word of God. We honour the Father, when we honour the Son. And we honour the Father and the Son, when we honour the Spirit. It would be daringly presumptuous in a poor worm to talk of honouring the Almighty, if he had not condescended to declare himself honoured by our unworthy praises. "Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me."+ We live in a day of great religious exertion. There is a sacred movement in the Christian Church, which bespeaks some important issue. But what are all our labours, if unaccompanied by the divine blessing? Paul may plant, and Apollos water, but God only giveth the increase. No zeal, however great; no love, however ardent; no eloquence, how * 1 Sam. ii. 30. + Psa. 1. 23. 1 Cor. iii. 6. ever persuasive; no sacrifice, however costly, can ever win over a rebellious soul to Christ, if the Holy Spirit withhold his convincing, converting grace. This is a truth which should be engraven on all our religious institutions. The more we cease from man, and trust in God, the more will success appear. Hence arises the necessity of uniting in humble prayer, that the Great Head of the Church would be graciously pleased to fulfil his own promise: "If I depart, I will send him unto you," and "he shall abide with you for ever."* O! that this divine promise may have its full accomplishment; then the weakest efforts will become powerful in operation, and God shall be glorified throughout the earth. The reason, perhaps, why so little spirituality exists among professing Christians, is owing to their not honouring the Spirit in his office-relations. He is the Sanctifier, as well as the Comforter. All means are like clouds without water, except He impart the holy influence. When He descends in gentle dews upon the soul, then the seed of the word takes root, grows up, and bears much fruit. We should therefore never read the Scriptures, hear the gospel preached, engage in pious conversation, or enter upon meditation or secret prayer, without imploring the gracious influences of the divine Spirit. The Holy Ghost descended upon our Lord in the semblance of a dove.† This bird is the emblem of purity and love, and is remarkable for its timidity. So all in whom the Spirit dwells are noted for their love and purity. But every deviation from these graces, grieves the Holy Spirit. Like the timid dove, he then retires and withdraws his comforts from the soul which dares to indulge in contrary vices. This is strikingly declared by the Apostle in the fourth chapter to the Ephesians, where the grieving of the Spirit is described as in consequence of hatred, anger, and impurity being suffered to agitate and pollute the soul. * John xvi. 7., xiv. 16. + Luke iii. 22. O! how rich in blessing is the covenant of grace! No past sins, however great, will be any obstacle to our obtaining pardoning mercy, if we only have grace to believe on the Son of God. We are commanded, yea invited, to look and be saved; to come unto Christ just as we are, because "the whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. Jesus came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. "If we tarry till we 're better, We shall never come at all. Nothing but unbelief will exclude us from the blessings of the covenant of grace, and from the benefits of Christ's death. "He that believeth......shall be saved."+"Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out."+ All who truly believe, will cordially love and fear God. Love, when first implanted in the heart, does not always produce such violent emotions as the common passion of fear. Fear has been compared to a cannon ball, which at first moves with great speed, but as it proceeds, gradually loses its force, till at last it falls spent to the ground-while love resembles the needle, which increases in velocity, the nearer it approaches the magnetic attraction. The unregenerate man cannot love. He sees no beauty in the Saviour. The lovely character of Jesus, as delineated in the Gospel, is to such a person like a beautiful picture hung up in a dark room. Its beauty cannot be discovered, till light be admitted; nor fully seen, till the room be sufficiently filled with its rays. The application is plain and practical. The regenerate love to contemplate the character of God, revealed to us in Christ Jesus, with all the high mysteries of his grace as unfolded to us in the work of redemption. This view of infinite love, when connected with the knowledge of our own state and character, as perishing sinners, will tend to melt Matt. ix. 12.; Mark ii. 17.; Luke v. 31, 32. + Mark xvi. 16. + John vi. 37. |