Christ, he is aconsuming fire? There is no other-name given under heaven among men whereby we must be saved-but the name of Jesus Christ!

Farther, the doctrine of regeneration and sanctification by the Holy Spirit, is plainly taught in the Scriptures. By his efficacy the plan of redemption is carried forward, and a multitude, which no man can number, fitted for the society and employments of heaven. But, deny the doctrine of the Trinity, and there is no Holy Spirit to which you can attach any definite meaning. Who then will convince of sin? Who regenerate the heart? Who give consolation to the trembling sinner, or to the dispirited believer? Who fit the soul for heaven?

But we must conclude. Only let us say, brethren, you have reason to love this doctrine and to hold it fast. It is that into which you have been baptized. And if there are any inhabitants from our world now in heaven, we cannot but believe that they are adoring, with ineffable joy, the one Jehovah, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. In your devotions, let this truth exert its full practical influence. When you meditate upon the one God, or pray to him, you will have in view that one Being, who possesses all the attributes of Divinity. When you think of Christ separately, degrade him not to the rank of a dependent creature, but remember, that in him, "God was manifest in the flesh;" and that "he is able to save to the uttermost," only because in his original character he is the "Mighty God." When about to bid farewell to these earthly scenes,-when friends near and dear are taking the final adieu, and you feel the want of support,-think of him who has said, "My grace is sufficient for thee." In your dying agonies, do as the martyr Stephen-"Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." And when, brethren, your hearts despond on account of sins within, or trials without, remember the Holy Spirit is the comforter and sanctifier. When you look abroad upon the world, and see wickedness abounding-when you are ready to be disheartened in your efforts to do good,-think it is the Spirit's work to convince of sin and renovate the heart; and engage in the use of all proper means for your own salvation, and for the conversion of the world, in humble dependence on his efficacious influence. And may "the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen."

CLERICUS.

PRAYER OF FAITH.

I have read many treatises upon the prayer of faith, and they have been very commonly unsatisfactory to my own religious feelings. That prayer is to be explained to be nothing more than a mode of producing a certain influence on my own mind; a preparatory process to the right use of blessings; or, to be a mere act of homage to superiority, or, a means of obtaining some indefinite good, because God had constituted a connection between asking and receiving, my own conscience, in the closet, cannot admit. That prayer involves these, I never doubted; but that these exhausted the idea of prayer, I never heartily believed. The last thought, viz. that God has constituted a connexion between asking and receiving, has been much insisted upon, but it always appeared to me to be a very cold enunciation of a part of the truth. And when it has been urged as the constraining and powerful motive to prayer, it has seemed as though the preacher was building a splendid ice palace for my soul to dwell in. I always shrink away from its frosty severity.

Nor have I, on the other hand, been able to reconcile my feelings and experience with the thoughts advanced by the opposite class of writers and preachers on this subject. They deinand, that I should believe the divine promise to be so clear, so full, and so adopted to the distinctive peculiarties of my own mind, in destinction from other minds, that whatsoever I believe, with a sufficient certainty of conviction, would be granted. That the promise of God was pledged to my faith. The two parties I have supposed were at the opposite poles of the same idea, and I have fancied the truth was to be found at the punctum indifferens, the centre point between the two. In looking at the subject, for my own spiritual benefit, I have found satisfaction in contemplating two points. They may be said to involve each other, with some truth; but they are distinct in themselves, though the thoughts issuing therefrom soon form a junction, and coalesce most delightfully.

The one point is the idea of prayer as supplication, supplicatio, supplico, sub and plico. The attitude of soul and spirit is not that of demand, as conscious, of power and of right, and therefore of unquestioning certainty; but of asking, entreating, earnestly beseeching. Now the idea of supplication forestalls that of demand as a matter of right, or of absolute certainty. The soul supplicates. Think of it, in the hour of the most fervent petition ever honored by a human heart in its closet.

How it pours forth its deep feelings, its strong and anxious desires. What earnestness of humility, so to speak, has taken possession of it. It ought not to be satisfied, and it cannot be until it obtains what it seeks. Therefore it lies at the fountain of blessing, resolved not to depart, until its cup runneth over with the possession, or the foretaste of mercies. Through the whole of this intense feeling there is still found predominant the spirit of grace and supplication. If I obtain, the soul cries, O it will be grace, grace; favor to the unworthy, to the guilty; and because it is all grace therefore, I beg and beseech, even to loud agony.

The second point I look at is the Being of whom we supplicate. In most discussions on this subject God is regarded as a Being of power, as a sovereign dispensing favors as he may choose. And as he has constituted a connection between asking and receiving, so we may hope for a favorable answer to our requests, with that strength of confidence, which we have in the certainty of the connexion between asking and receiving. I wish prayer to be supported in the soul by a richer and more sustaining element than such a meagre conception;-a conception, as it is usually exhibited, little else than power forming connexions. One thinks of power as an engine, perchance of steam, and of connexion, as a chain of iron attached to it. Such an anatomy vanishes in one's closet, or rather becomes so clothed, that you can scarcely recognize it.

The second point I look at, as I said, is the Being, whom we supplicate. And in him I find not power or sovereignty alone, but wisdom and goodness and love and mercy as shades and lights and proportions, which make the impressions upon my spirit. And what is the impression, which is made? Why, all that wisdom and love and mercy wishes to be given, wil be given, and all that they would withhold, it would be satanical for me to desire, and dreadful for God to bestow. By being regenerate, and thus a "partaker of the divine nature," it is supposed that my prayer is the offspring of this nature—an instructive call of the spirit of the parent in the child for more of the spirit of the parent, either in itself, or in others. And because my mind is weak and limited, I may not accurately judge of the law, which bounds love; of the sin and guilt that might result, if this or that should take place; and if it could be supposed that I saw the effect of the gift I sought, the very spirit that prompted the regard might cry out, "That be far from thee, O Lord; shall not the judge of all the earth do right?" Let us then suppose that prayer is not a form of words, a collection of sounds, but the utterance of the "divine nature"

within us, in reference to our peculiar circumstances; and then ask, Will it plead with confidence? It would deny itself if it did not!! Itself is of God; and is the bosom of everlasting love shut against its own compassions? Does God deny his own Spirit? Never; and when I thus think, I rest in confidence, that prayer will be heard. God must be different from what he is, before my confidence can be shaken. Doubts, fears, difficulties, or dangers, so long as my mind rests in this covert, cannot move ine. I think of Gideon, and Baruch, and Sampson: I think of David, and Daniel, and John, and Paul; and I feel girt about by the same strength, and standing on the same foundation-the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob. The utterance of such prayer would be the prayer of faith; the prayer, that was founded, built up, and uttered in faith. And what would be granted to it ?—All that it, viz. the regenerate, germenant principle of faith desired; and that is all that any holy soul can desire, unless having baptized its wishing-cap of sense and sin by the name of faith and holiness, it call that the prayer of faith.

But I seem to hear some one say, Will my friend, for whom I pray, be converted? I wish to have the prayer of faith in relation to him. Can I have it? Such an inquirer wishes for a certainty of conviction, that the friend will be converted, that he may feel more at rest, and that his progress may be more earnest from the prospect of a speedy answer. Now the very putting of such a question involves a spiritual absurdity; a contradiction in one's Christian experience. The inquirer wishes for the prayer of faith in relation to a particular object, but is not willing to have his confidence grounded where all faith must be grounded, viz. in the character of God;—not in God's power merely, not in his naked sovereignty, but in the spiritual, holy excellence of God. He is not willing to trust that, and be at rest; but demands that his own sight shall be gratified in the conversion of his friend; and if not converted, he cries out, "I have no faith." Now, this is demanding to walk by sight, and, were it possible, would destroy faith itself. It would make our confidence strong in our own faith, and not in God, or in the promise of God; as the mere utterance of authority, and not confidence in the promise, as the word of wisdom, truth, and love, as it is, and as it was intended we should receive it. Any faith in God, that is not founded in wisdom, truth and love, is no faith in God;-it may be faith in the figment of the imagination. And all genuine faith must, in every act of anticipated fulfilment, be subject to the

condition, the variations, changes, &c., that pertain to wisdom and love, as they go forth to accomplish their purposes.

In this world of sense and sin, there is always the temptation to confirm our wishes, under the name of faith, by outward effects; to reduce them to the certainty of a visible accomplishment. Increasing faith has, however, less anxiety about these material, visible changes; and delights more in the free, liberal, angelic confidence, which is found in studying the character, and in reposing upon the arm of Him, who is from everlasting to everlasting, and who, as to the ends and purposes of wisdom, and truth, and goodness, is without variableness or shadow of turning. Our minds, occupied with the cares of this world, do not love to rest on the ever-growing, and ever-expanding manifestation of God in all his word, and in all his works; our hearts do not return as to their rest, to the substantial, but spiritual attributes of his character. We do not look at the promise, as a rent in the veil of flesh, through which we may behold the holy character of the promises, and dwell upon the cloudless beauty of the spiritual world that is thus open to our view. We ask for something more visible, more tangible. "Our soul loatheth this light food." "O, for the flesh-pots of Egypt!" the gout of something addressed to our senses. And this, in despite of that awful declaration, "To be carnally (sensually) minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." The life of faith, is the life which God demands; and the life of faith will be more or less filled with the prayer of faith; but it is not a life bounded by something standing out to the senses, as completed and perfected in this world. If it was, it would cease to be a life of faith. Nor is the prayer of faith bounded by the accomplishment of particular individual requests; nor does the soul in its exercise dwell with self-appropriating minuteness and spirituality upon its own wishes. No, it rather seeks to hide itself in the fulness there is in God to bestow; the love there is in God to lead him to bestow; the wisdom there is in God to guide him in the bestowment; and the unchangeable truth there is in God, that he will not fail to bestow all that wisdom and love and truth can desire.

J. M.