what the Spirit saith," although he himself was the speaker; reminding us that this is emphatically the dispensation of the Third Person in the Glorious Trinity; that every voice in the church—even the voice of Christ himself—is in a sense subordinate to the Spirit, and can be heard with salutary effect only as the Spirit repeats it, and conveys it into the soul. Now, in attempting to describe its transforming power on the human heart, it is somewhat disheartening to reflect that we are most likely addressing those to whom the subject has become comparatively trite, and almost every mode of presenting it, perfectly familiar. The very facility with which the understanding apprehends our meaning, and the readiness with which the judgment admits it, allows no time for the sublime truth to settle down upon the heart. In order, therefore, to do any thing like justice to the subject, it is necessary that the individual supposed to be subjected to the influence in question should be taken, not from among ourselves, but from a region where the power and even the name of the gospel is unknown. Christianity is the only successful antagonist which sin has ever encountered; in order, therefore, to exhibit its influence fully, he should be taken from the darkness and distance of nature, where sin had operated on him unchecked, working out all its deadly effects, and reducing him to its dreadful purposes; and he should be brought, with all his depravity and guilt upon him, into the full light, and under the direct power, of the gospel.

Now, in this state, he is chiefly assailable at three points. Fortified in evil, as he may appear to be, there are yet three sides, so to speak, on which he may be approached, by the Spirit of truth, with irresistible effect-his immortality, his guilt, and his infinite danger. These are subjects relating to parts and principles of his nature which an abandoned world overlooks it has little or nothing by which it can appeal to them if it would and yet they lie at the very foundation of his constitution, so that whoever shall succeed in making him sensible of his immortality, in alarming his conscience to the danger to which all that immortality is exposed by sin, and then in delivering him from the whole, will necessarily acquire a master influence over his whole nature forever. Now, the gospel does this. It does not affect a part of his nature merely. It does not operate superficially on the senses; nor convince his judgment, and leave his heart uninterested; nor

move his passions merely, to the neglect of his judgment and his will. It goes in, and down, to the depths of his nature. It goes directly to move that which moves the whole man.

The world hides a man from himself-conceals from him the most important part of his nature. By shutting out the prospect of eternity, he loses sight of his immortality; and by constantly appealing to his senses, and thus keeping in exercise only the inferior parts of his nature, he tends to settle down into a mere creature of time. But the first effect, perhaps, which the gospel produces, is to reveal him to himself. But coming to him as a message from another world, he starts into a consciousness of his relation to that worldand by addressing itself to the spiritual part of his nature, he becomes sensible, however vaguely at first, that he is in some way related to the spiritual, the infinite, and the eternal. Now, it is obvious how this very first impression, by throwing open a part of the temple of his nature which had been hitherto shut up - the very sanctuary, containing the symbol of divinity—prepares him to receive with deep effect every other communication which may come to him from the same quarter.

Not only does the world conceal from a man his spiritual and immortal nature, by allowing it to fall into disuse, — it tends also to merge the fact of his individual accountableness - his distinct personal responsibility. From living in society, and finding his interests and relations inseparably complicated with those of others, he comes to think of himself only as an undistinguishable part of a great whole. He loses himself in the crowd. But the gospel individualizes and detaches. It tells him of a law by which all the laws of society are them selves to be judged, but of which his life has been an un broken violation - of a book in which his personal history is recorded moment by moment of a Being who can disentangle and detach him from all his complicated relations, and assign to his every thought and word its precise characterand of a place and a punishment so exactly and necessarily resulting from his guilt, and proportioned to it, that he is the only being in the universe to whom they could be assigned. The only way, therefore, in which it can treat with him is in person. It lays its awakening and arresting hand on his personal conscience. It demands a personal interview — a conference in the centre of his nature. It brings forward his guilt into the strong light of distinct consciousness. Even if

the gospel allowed him to act by another, his own conscience is now too deeply interested to permit it. All his faculties and powers seem collected into a point-the entire soul be comes conscience, and that conscience is against him— accuser, witness, and judge. As if the judgment had been set and the books opened, as if his personal case had been adjudged, his doom pronounced, and he himself suspended over the bottomless gulf, he feels that he is lost. His nature is now stirred to its depths, and his soul is one region of alarm. Mere sympathy now will receive his deep, deep gratitude; deliverance would secure his heart forever. The Being who shall now arrive to his rescue will infallibly acquire an influence over the whole man, and may calculate on his allegiance forever.

To ask if the world, or any person or power belonging to it, can extend the aid which the crisis demands, would be sheer impertinence. That is the very power which has brought on the crisis, and from which he requires to be rescued. So completely is he now detached from it in heart and hope, that he turns round and looks back on it, with wonder at its infatuation, aversion for its sins, and yearning pity for its state. The cloud which threatens him with its bolt, impends also over it. What must he "do to be saved"?

In the absence of all the objects he has been accustomed to confide in, in the clear and open space which their withdrawment has left around him, behold the cross! All the forms of terror and ministers of justice which his sins had armed against him blend and melt into a form of love dying for his rescue. The cross has received the lightnings of the impending cloud, and has painted upon it the bow of hope. To his anxious inquiry, "What he must do to be saved?” the cross echoes back, Be saved, and every object around him joyfully repeats, Be saved. Then God is love! and the cross is the stupendous expedient by which he harmonizes that love with the rectitude of his government! Then the sinner need not perish! and this is the amazing means of his salvation! Had it ever been his lot to gaze on the appalling spectacle of an ordinary crucifixion, the sight would probably have left an image on his mind never to be effaced. Is it possible, then, that he can behold "Jesus Christ, evidently set forth crucified before his eyes;" that he can know the dignity of the sufferer, as God manifest in the flesh; can believe that he hates the sin as deeply as he loves the sinner;

can reflect that the effect of his death is to be his own deliverance; and can look into the heart of this great mystery and find it to be love, without experiencing a change? If every word which he hears spoken even by a fellow-man leaves some impression on his mind, can he hear that he is saved, and believe that the voice which assures him of salvation is the voice of God, without feeling it thrill through every faculty of the soul? If every object and event he may witness produces some effect on his character is it possible that the event which is to affect his whole being foreverwhich for him shuts forever the gate of hell, and throws open and fills with visions of glory the ample spaces of eternity, should produce only a transient and slender impression? Must he not, by necessity of nature, love him, without whom he would soon have had nothing in the universe to love, but have been eternally hateful even to himself? render obedience to him, without whom the slavery would soon have been riveted forever? for a reply; he needs not a command. mastery of a principle which is its own law boundless gratitude and love. The power of the cross has moved the primary forces of his nature- the mysterious springs of Hope and Fear, of Adoration and Love. The world has lost him. His heart is at the feet of Christ. He dates life and happiness from the transition. Henceforth he

He

Must he not chains of his He waits not is under the a principle of

moves in a region of which the cross is the central object, and where the benignant and attractive influences which stream from it in all directions, hold him in willing and delighted allegiance.

Here, then, is the secret of that supreme influence which the gospel exercises over the man whom the world had debased and sin had ruined; and this is the line of truth along which the Spirit of God delights to operate. By acquainting him with his immortality, it, in effect, gives him a soul, and gives it on the threshold of a new and eternal world. By acquainting him with his responsibility and guilt, it calls his conscience from the dead; and by unveiling to him the mys tery of the cross, by which that guilt is cancelled, and that immortality entitled to heaven, one overpowering sentiment subjects his whole nature to the authority of Christ. The Spirit has taken of the things of Christ, and has shown them to him with so transforming an effect, that he is a new creature in Christ Jes s."

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We are to suppose, then, that the gospel has, in this way, won its first convert; that the transforming effects, which the Savior ascribed to his being lifted up from the earth, have taken place upon him. Here is a man imbued with the spirit of the cross, and ready to sacrifice life in its service—how is he to be employed? He is not to live to himself; for by the sentence of a law which has gone forth from the cross, he who lives to himself is not a Christian. He has not been "created anew in Christ Jesus" for mere self-enjoyment or idle show that the act might terminate in itself. Every thing in nature exists for a purpose. Even the atom of the rock has its appointed place, and its definite end. Surely man — and, of all men, the Christian-is not exempt from this law! What, then, is his destiny?

Here is evidently a fitting agent for Christ to employ. No other being in the universe has the shadow of a claim to him, beyond that which his new proprietor may choose to grant. Every part and property of his nature, and every moment of his future existence, have been bought-paid for with "precious blood." And as the new interest to which he is pledged is opposed by every other, he cannot yield to any other claimant, even for a moment, without lending himself, during that moment, to a hostile party; so that he has no alternative but that of devoting himself unreservedly to Christ. Accordingly, the Savior claims him for himself. From the moment he felt the power of the cross, his duty became definite, imperative, one. If every other member of the human family were abandoned to live without control-if the sun itself were abandoned to wander through infinite space-his course would yet be minutely prescribed. As if he alone held the great secret of the cross, and were consequently the most important being on the face of the earth, his every moment is charged with an appointed duty. As if he had been recalled from the state of death; yes, not merely as if he had been called out of nothingness into existence - not merely as if he had been selected and sent down from the ranks of the blessed above but with stronger motives still, as if his guilty soul had been recalled from perdition, where the undying worm had found him, and the unquenchable flame had enwrapped him, and his dissolved body recalled from the dust of death and as if he had literally come out of the tomb with Christ, and had received life and salvation together at the mouth of the sepulchre at the hand of Christ-all his new-found