THE HOLY SPIRIT IN CONNECTION WITH OUR MINISTRY

I have selected a topic upon which it would be difficult to say anything which has not been often said before; but as the theme is of the highest importance it is good to dwell upon it frequently, and even if we bring forth only old things and nothing more, it may be wise to put you in remembrance of them. Our subject is “THE HOLY SPIRIT IN CONNECTION WITH OUR MINISTRY,” or-the work of the Holy Ghost in relation to ourselves as ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ. “I believe in the Holy Ghost .” Having pronounced that sentence as a matter of creed, I hope we can also repeat it as a devout soliloquy forced to our lips by personal experience. To us the presence and work of the Holy Spirit are the ground of our confidence as to the wisdom and hopefulness of our life work. If we had not believed in the Holy Ghost we should have laid down our ministry long ere this, for” who is sufficient for these things?” Our hope of success, and our strength for continuing the service, lie in our belief that the Spirit of the Lord resteth upon us.

I will for the time being take it for granted that we are all of us conscious of the existence of the Holy Spirit. We have said we believe in him; but in very deed we have advanced beyond faith in tiffs matter, and have come into the region of consciousness. Time was when most of us believed in the existence of our present friends, for we had heard of them by the heating of the ear, but we have now seen each other, and returned the fraternal grip, and felt the influence of happy companionship, and therefore we do not now so much believe as know. Even so we have felt the Spirit of God operating upon our hearts, we have known and perceived the power which he wields over human spirits, and we know him by frequent, conscious, personal contact. By the sensitiveness of our spirit we are as much made conscious of the presence of the Spirit of God as we are made cognizant of the existence of the souls of our fellow-men by their action upon our souls, or as we: are certified of the existence of matter by its action upon our senses. We have been raised from the dull sphere of mere mind and matter into the heavenly radiance of the spirit-world; and now, as spiritual men, we discern spiritual things, we feel the forces which are paramount in the spirit-realm, and we know that there is a Holy Ghost, for we feel him operating upon our spirits. If it were not so, we should certainly have no right to be in the ministry of Christ’s church. Should we even dare to remain in her membership? But, my brethren, we have been spiritually quickened. We are distinctly conscious of a new life, with all that comes out; of it: we are new creatures in Christ Jesus, and dwell in a new world.

We have been illuminated, and made to behold the things which eye hath not seen; we have been guided into truth such as flesh and blood could never have revealed. We have been comforted of the Spirit: full often have we been lifted up from the deeps of sorrow to the heights of joy by the sacred Paraclete. We have also, in a measure, been sanctified by him; and we are conscious that the operation of sanctification is going on in ‘as in different forms and ways. Therefore, because of all these personal experiences, we know that there is a Holy Ghost, as surely as we know that we ourselves exist.

I am tempted to linger here, ;for the point is worthy of longer notice.

Unbelievers ask for phenomena. The old business doctrine of Gradgrind has entered into religion, and the skeptic cries, “What I want is facts.” These are our facts: let us not forget to use them. A skeptic challenges me with the remark, “I cannot pin my faith to a book or a history; I want to see present facts.” My reply is,” You cannot see them, because your eyes are blinded; but the facts are there none the less. Those of us who have eyes see marvelous things, though you do not.” If he ridicules my assertion, I am not at all astonished. I expected him to do so, and should have been very much surprised if he had not done so; but I demand respect to my own position as a witness to facts, and I turn upon the objector with the inquiry — “What right have you to deny my evidence? If I were a blind man, and were told by you that you possessed a faculty called sight, I should be unreasonable if I railed at you as a conceited enthusiast. All you have a right to say is — that you know nothing about it, but you are not; authorized to call us all liars or dupes. You may join with revelers of old and declare that the spiritual man is mad, but that does not disprove his statements.” Brethren, to me the phenomena which are produced by the Spirit of God demonstrate the truth of the Christian religion as clearly as ever the destruction of Pharaoh at the Red Sea, or the fall of manna in the wilderness, or the water leaping from the smitten rock, could have proved to Israel the presence of God in the midst of her tribes.

We will now’ come to the core of our subject. To us, as ministers, the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential. Without him our office is a mere name. We claim no priesthood over and above that which belongs to every child of God; but we are the successors of those who, in olden times, were moved of God to declare his word, to testify against transgression, and to plead his cause. Unless we have the spirit of the prophets resting upon us, the mantle which we wear is nothing but a rough garment to deceive. We ought to be driven forth with abhorrence from the society of honest men for daring to speak in the name of the Lord if the Spirit of God rests not upon us. We believe ourselves to be spokesmen for Jesus Christ, appointed to continue his witness upon earth; but upon him and his testimony the Spirit of God always rested, and if it does not rest upon us, we are evidently not sent forth into the world as he was. At Pentecost the commencement of the great work of converting the world was with flaming tongues and a rushing mighty wind, symbols of the presence of the Spirit; if, therefore, we think to succeed without the Spirit, we are not after the Pentecostal order. If we have not the Spirit which ‘Jesus promised, we cannot perform the commission which Jesus gave.

I need scarcely warn any brother here against falling into the delusion that we may have the Spirit so as to become inspired. Yet the members of a certain litigious modern sect need to be warned against this folly. They hold that their meetings are under “the presidency of the Holy Spirit :” concerning which notion I can only say that I have been unable to discover in holy Scripture either the term or the idea. I do find in the New Testament a body of Corinthians eminently gifted, fond of speaking:, and given to party strifes — true representatives of those to whom I allude, but as Paul said of them, “I thank God I baptized none of you,” so also do I thank the Lord that few of that school have ever been found in our midst.

It would seem that their assemblies possess a peculiar gift of inspiration, not quite perhaps amounting to infallibility, but nearly approximating thereto. If you have mingled in their gatherings, I greatly question whether you have been more edified by the prelections produced under celestial presidency, than you have been by those of ordinary preachers of the Word, who only consider themselves to be under the influence of the Holy Spirit, as one spirit is under the influence of another spirit, or one mind under the influence of another mind.. We are not the passive communicators of infallibility, but the honest teachers of such things as we have learned, so far as we have been able to grasp them. As our minds are active, and have a personal existence while the mind of the Spirit is acting upon them, our infirmities are apparent as well as his wisdom; and while we reveal what he has made us to know, we are greatly abased by the feat’ that our own ignorance and error ax in a measure manifested at the same time, because we have not been more perfectly subject to the divine power.

I do not suspect that you will go astray in the direction I have hinted at: certainly the results of previous experiments are not likely to tempt; wise men to that folly.

This is our first question. Wherein may we look for the aid of the Holy Spirit? When we have spoken on this point, we will, very solemnly, consider a second — How may we lose that assistance? Let us pray that, by God’s blessing, this consideration may help us to retain it.

Wherein may we look for the aid of the Holy Spirit? I should reply, — .in seven or eight ways. 1. First, he is the Spirit of knowledge, —“ He shall guide you into all truth.” In this character we need his teaching.

We have urgent need to study, for the teacher of others must himself be instructed. Habitually to come into the pulpit unprepared is unpardonable presumption: nothing can more effectually lower ourselves and our office.

After a visitation discourse by the Bishop of Lichfield upon the necessity of earnestly studying the Word, a certain vicar told his lordship that he could not believe his doctrine,. “for,.” said he, “often when I am in the vestry I do not know what I am going to talk about; but I go into the pulpit and preach, and think nothing of it.” His lordship replied, “And you ax quite right in thinking nothing of it, for your churchwardens have told me that they share your opinion.” If we are not instructed, how can we instruct? If we have not thought, how shall we lead others to think? It is in our studywork, in that blessed labor when we are alone with the Book before us, that we need the help of the Holy Spirit. He holds the key of the heavenly treasury, and can enrich us beyond conception; he has the clue of the most labyrinthine doctrine, and can lead us in the way of truth. He can break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron, and give to us the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places. If you study the original, consult the commentaries, and meditate deeply, yet if you neglect to cry mightily unto the Spirit of God your study will not profit you; but; even if you are debarred the use of helps (which I trust you will not be), if you wait upon the Holy Ghost in simple dependence upon his teaching, you will lay hold of very much of the divine meaning.

The Spirit of God is peculiarly precious to us, because he especially instructs us as to the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ; and that is the main point of our preaching. He takes of the things of Christ, and shows them unto us. If he had taken of the things of doctrine or precept, we should have been glad of such gracious assistance; but since he especially delights in the things of’ Christ, and focuses his sacred light upon the cross, we rejoice to see the center of our testimony so divinely illuminated, and we are sure that the light will be diffused over all the rest of our ministry. Let us wait upon the Spirit of God with this cry — “O Holy Spirit, reveal to us the Son of God, and thus show us the Father.”

As the Spirit of knowledge, he not only instructs us as to the gospel, but he leads us to see the Lord in all other matters. We are not, to shut our eyes to God in nature, or to God in general history, or to God in the daily occurrences of providence, or to God in our own experience; and the blessed Spirit is the interpreter to as of the mind of God in all these. If we cry, “Teach me what thou wouldst have me to do; or, show me wherefore thou contendest with me; or, tell me what is thy mind in this precious providence of mercy, or in that other dispensation of mingled judgment and grace,” — we shall in each case be well instructed; for the Spirit is the seven-branched candlestick of the sanctuary, and by his light all things are rightly seen. As Goodwin well observes, “There must be light to accompany the truth if we are to know it,. The experience of all gracious men proves this. What is the reason that; you shall ;see some things in a chapter at one time, and not at another; some grace in your hearts at one time, and not; at; another; have a sight of spiritual things at one time, and not, at another? The eye is the same, but it is the Holy Ghost that openeth and shutteth this dark lantern, as I may so call it; as he openeth it wider, or contracts it, or shutteth it narrower, so do We see more or less: and sometimes he shutteth it wholly, and then the soul is in darkness, though it have never so good an eye.” Beloved brethren, wait upon him for it, is light, or you will abide in darkness and become blind leaders of the blind. 2. In the second place, the Spirit. is called the Spirit of wisdom, and we greatly need him in that capacity; for knowledge may be dangerous if unaccompanied with wisdom, which is the art of rightly using what we know. Rightly to divide the Word of God is as important as fully to understand it, for some who have evidently understood a part of the gospel have given undue prominence to that one portion of it, and have therefore exhibited a distorted Christianity, to the injury of those who have received it, since they in their turn have exhibited a distorted character in consequence thereof. A man’s nose is a prominent feature in his face, but it is possible to make it so large that eyes and mouth, and everything else are thrown into insignificance, and the drawing is a caricature and not a portrait: so certain important doctrines of the gospel can be so proclaimed in excess as to throw the rest, of truth into the shade, and the preaching is no longer the gospel in its natural beauty, but a caricature of the truth, of which caricature, however, let me say, some people seem to be mightily fond. The Spirit of God will teach you the use of the sacrificial knife to divide the offerings; and he will show you how to use the balances of the sanctuary so as to weigh out and mix the precious spices in their proper quantities. Every experienced preacher feels this to be of’ the utmost moment, and it is well if he is able to resist all temptation to neglect it.

Alas, some of our hearers do not desire to hinder the whole counsel of God. They have their favorite doctrines, and ‘would have us silent on all besides. Many are like the Scotchwoman, who, after hearing a sermon, said, “It was very well if it; hadna been for the trash of duties at the binney end.” There are brethren of that kind; they enjoy the comforting part — the promises and the doctrines, but practical holiness must scarcely be touched upon. Faithfulness requires us to give them a foursquare gospel, from which nothing is omitted, and in which nothing is exaggerated, and for this much wisdom is requisite. I gravely question whether any of us have so much of this wisdom as we need. We are probably afflicted by some inexcusable partialities and unjustifiable leanings; let us search them out and have done with them. We may be conscious of having passed by certain texts, not because we do not understand them (which might be justifiable), but because we do understand them, and hardly like to say what they have taught us, or because there may be some imperfection in ourselves, or some prejudice among our hearers which those texts would reveal too clearly for our comfort. Such sinful silence must be ended forthwith. To be wise stewards and bring forth the right portions of meat for our Master’s household we need thy teaching, O Spirit of the Lord!

Nor is this all, for even if we know how rightly to divide the Word of God, we want wisdom in the selection of the particular part of truth which is most applicable to the season and to the people assembled; and equal discretion in the tone and manner in which the doctrine shall be presented.

I believe that many brethren who preach human responsibility deliver themselves in so legal a manner as to disgust all those who love the doctrines of grace. On the other hand, I fear that; many have preached the God in such a way as to drive all persons who sovereignty of believe in man’s free agency entirely away from the Calvinistic side. We should not hide truth for a moment, but we should have wisdom so to preach it that there shall be no needless jarring or offending;, but a gradual enlightenment of those who cannot see it, at all, and a leading of weaker brethren into the full circle of gospel doctrine.

Brethren, we; also need wisdom in the way of putting things different people. You can cast a man down with the very truth which was intended to build him up. You can sicken a man with the honey with which you meant to sweeten his mouth. The great mercy of God has been preached unguardedly, and has led hundreds into licentiousness; and, on the other hand, the terrors of the Lord have been occasionally fulminated with such violence that they have driven men into despair, and so into a settled defiance of the Most High. Wisdom is profitable to direct, and he who hath it brings forth each truth in its season, dressed in its most appropriate garments. Who can give us this wisdom but the blessed Spirit? O, my brethren, see to it, that in lowliest reverence you wait for his direction. 3. Thirdly, we need the Spirit in another manner, namely, as the live coal from off the altar, touching our lips, so that when we have knowledge and wisdom to select the fitting portion of truth, we may enjoy freedom of utterance when we come to deliver it. “Lo, coals hath touched thy lips.”

Oh, how gloriously a man speaks when his lips are blistered with the live coal from the altar — feeling the burning power of the truth, not only in his inmost; soul, but on the very lip with which he is speaking! Mark at such times how his very utterance quivers. Did you not notice in the prayermeeting just now, in two of the suppliant brethren, how their tones were tremulous, and their bodily frames were quivering, because not only were their hearts touched, as I hope all our hearts were, but their lips were touched, and their speech was thereby affected. Brethren, we need the Spirit of God to open our mouths that we may show forth the praises of the Lord, or else we shall not speak with power.

We need the divine influence to keep us back from saying many things which, if they actually left our tongue, would mar our message. Those of us who are endowed with the dangerous gift of humor have need, sometimes, to stop and take the word out of our mouth and look at it, and see whether it is quite to edification; and those whose previous lives have borne them among the coarse and the rough had need watch with lynx eyes against indelicacy. Brethren, far be it from us to utter a syllable which would suggest an impure thought, or raise a questionable memory. We need the Spirit of God to put bit and bridle upon us to keep us from saying that which would take the minds of our hearers away from Christ and eternal realities, and set them thinking upon the groveling things of earth.

Brethren, we require the Holy Spirit also to incite us in our utterance. I doubt not you are all conscious of different states of mind in preaching.

Some of those states arise from your body being in different conditions. A bad cold will not only spoil the clearness of the voice, but freeze the flow of the thoughts. For my own part if I cannot speak clearly I am unable to think clearly, and the matter becomes hoarse as well as the voice. The stomach, also, and all the other organs of the body, affect the mind; but it is not to these things that I allude. Are you not conscious of changes altogether independent of the body? When you are in robust health do you not find yourselves one day as heavy as Pharaoh’s chariots with the wheels taken off, and at another ‘time as much at liberty as “a hind let loose”? Today yore’ branch glitters with the dew, yesterday it was parched with drought. Who knoweth not that the Spirit of God is in all this? The divine Spirit will sometimes work upon us so as to bear us completely out of ourselves. From the beginning of the sermon to the end we might of such times say, “Whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell: God knoweth.” Everything has been forgotten but the one all-engrossing subject in hand. If I were forbidden to enter heaven, but were permitted to select my ‘state for all eternity, I should choose to be as I sometimes fed in preaching the gospel. Heaven is foreshadowed in such a state: the mind shut out from all disturbing influences, adoring the majestic and consciously present God, every faculty aroused and .joyously excited to its utmost capability, all the thoughts and powers of the soul joyously occupied in contemplating the glory ,of the Lord, and extolling to listening crowds the Beloved of our soul; and all the while the purest conceivable benevolence towards one’s fellow creatures urging the heart to plead with them on God’s behalf — what state of mind can rival this? Alas, we have reached this ideal, but we cannot always maintain it, for we know also What it is to preach in chains, or beat the air. We may not attribute holy and happy changes in our ministry to anything less than the action of the Holy Spirit upon our souls. I am sure the Spirit does so work. Often and[ often, when I have had doubts suggested by the infidel, I have been able to fling them to the winds with utter scorn, because I am distinctly conscious of a power working upon me when I am speaking in the name of the Lord, infinitely transcending any personal power of fluency, and far surpassing any energy derived from excitement such as I have felt when delivering a secular lecture or making a speech — ,;o utterly distinct from such power that I am quite certain it is not of the same order or class as the enthusiasm of the politician or the glow of the orator. May we full often feel the divine energy, and speak with power. 4. But then, fourthly, the Spirit of God acts also as an anoint ing o//, and this relates to the entire delivery — not to the utterance merely from the mouth, but to the whole delivery of the discourse. He can make you feel your subject till it thrills you, and you become depressed by it so as; to be crushed into the earth, or elevated by it so as to be borne upon its eagle wings; making you feel, besides your subject, your object, till you yearn for the conversion of men and for the uplifting of Christians to something nobler than they have known as yet. At the same time, another feeling is with you, namely, an intense desire that God may be glorified through the truth which you are delivering. You are conscious of a deep sympathy with the people to whom you are speaking, making you mourn over some of them because they know so little, and over others because they have known much, but have rejected it. You look into some faces, and your heart silently says., “The dew is dropping there;” and, turning to others, you sorrowfully perceive that they are as Gilboa’s dewless mountain. All this will be going on during the discourse. We cannot tell. how many thoughts can traverse the mind at once. I once counted eight sets of thoughts which were going on in my brain simultaneously, or at least within the space of the same second. I was preaching the gospel with all my might, but could not help feeling for a lady who was evidently about to faint, and also\ looking out for our brother who opens the windows that he might give us more air. I was thinking of that illustration which I had omitted under the first head, casting the form of the second division, wondering if A felt my rebuke, and praying that B might get comfort from the consoling observation, and at the same time praising God for my own personal enjoyment of the truth I was proclaiming. Some interpreters consider the cherubim with their four faces to be emblems of ministers, and assuredly I see no difficulty in the quadruple form, for the sacred Spirit can multiply our menial states, and make us many times the men we are by nature. How much he can make of us, and how grandly he can elevate us, I will not dare to surmise: certainly, he can do exceeding abundantly above what we ask or even think.

Especially is it the Holy Spirit’s work to maintain in us a devotional frame of mind whilst we are discoursing. This is a condition to be greatly coveted — to continue praying while you are occupied with preaching; to do the Lord’s commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word; to keep the eye on the throne, and the wing in perpetual motion. I hope we know what this means; I am sure we know, or may soon experience, its opposite, namely, the evil of preaching in an undevotional spirit. What can be worse than to speak under the influence of a proud or angry spirit? What more weakening than to preach in an unbelieving spirit? But, oh, to bum in our secret heart while we blaze before the eyes of others I This is the work .of the Spirit of God. Work it in us, O adorable Comforter!

In our pulpits we need the spirit of dependence to be mixed with that of devotion, so that all along, from the first word to the last syllable, we may be looking up to the strong for strength. It is well to feel that though you have continued up to the present point, yet if the Holy Spirit were to leave you., you would play the fool ere the sermon closed. Looking to the hills whence cometh your help all the sermon through, with absolute dependence upon God, you will preach in a brave, confident spirit all the while. Perhaps I was wrong to say “brave,” for it is not a brave thing to trust God: to true believers it is a simple matter of sweet necessity — how cart they help trusting him? ‘Wherefore should they doubt their ever faithful Friend? I told my people the other morning, when preaching from the text, “My grace is sufficient for thee,” that for the first time in my life I experienced what Abraham felt when he fell upon his face and laughed. I was riding home, very weary with a long week’s work, when there came to my’ mind this text — ” My grace is sufficient for thee :” but it came with the emphasis laid upon two words: “My grace is sufficient for thee.” My soul said, “Doubtless it is. Surely the grace of the infinite God is more than sufficient for such a mere insect as I am,” and I laughed, and laughed again, to think how far the supply exceeded all my needs. It seemed to me as. though I were a. little fish in the sea, and in my thirst I said, “Alas, I .,;hall drink up the ocean.” Then the Father of the waters lifted up his head sublime, and smilingly replied, “Little fish, the boundless main is sufficient for thee.” The thought made. unbelief appear supremely ridiculous, as indeed it is. Oh, brethren, we ought to preach feeling that God means to bless the word, for we have his promise for it; and when we have done preaching we should look out for the people who have, received a blessing.

Do. you ever say’, “I am overwhelmed with astonishment to find that: the Lord has converted souls through my poor ministry”? Mock humility’ I Your ministry is poor enough. Everybody knows that, and you ought to know it most of all: but, at the same time, is it any wonder that God, who said “My word shall not return unto, me void,’:’ has kept his promise,? Is the meat to lose its nourishment because the dish is a poor platter? Is divine grace to be .overcome by our infirmity? No, but we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us.

We need the Spirit of God, then, all through the sermon to keep .our hearts and minds in a proper condition, for if we have not the right spirit we shall lose the tone which persuades and prevails, and our people will discover that Samson’s strength has departed from him. Some speak scoldingly, and so betray their bad temper; others preach themselves, and so reveal their pride. Some discourse as though it were a condescension on their part to occupy the pulpit, while others preach as though they apologized for their ,existence.. ‘.to avoid errors of manners and tone, we must be led of the Holy Spirit, who alone teacheth us to profit. 5. Fifthly, we depend entirely upon the Spirit of God to produce ,actual effect: from the gospel, and at this effect we must always aim. We do not stand up in our pulpits to display our skill in spiritual sword play, but We come to actual fighting: our object is to drive the sword of the Spirit through men’s hearts. If preaching can ever in any sense be viewed as a public exhibition, it should be like the exhibition of a ploughing match, which consists in actual ploughing. The competition does not lie in the appearance of the ploughs, but in the work done; so let ministers be judged by the way in which they drive the gospel plough, and cut the furrow from end to end of the field. Always aim at effect. “Oh,” says one, “I thought you would have said, ‘ Never do that.’“ I do also say, never aim at effect, in the unhappy sense of that expression. Never aim at effect after the manner of the climax makers, poetry quoters, handkerchief manipulators, and bombast blowers. Far better for a man that he had never been born than that he should degrade a pulpit into a show box to exhibit himself in.

Aim at the right sort of effect; the inspiring of saints to nobler things, the leading of Christians closer to their Master, the comforting of doubters till they rise out of their terrors, the repentance of sinners, and their exercise of immediate faith in Christ. Without these signs following, what. is the use of our sermons? It would be a miserable thing to have to say with a certain archbishop, “I have passed through many places of honor and trust, both in Church and State, more than any of my order in England, for seventy years before; but were I assured that by my preaching I had but converted one soul to God, I should herein take more comfort that in all the honored offices that have been bestowed upon me.” Miracles of grace must be the seals of’ our ministry; who can bestow them but the Spirit of God?

Convert a soul without the Spirit of’ God! Why, you cannot even make a fly, much less create a new heart and a right spirit. Lead the children of God to a higher life without the Holy Ghost! You are inexpressibly more likely to conduct them into carnal security, if you attempt their elevation by any method of your own. Our ends can never be gained if” we miss the cooperation of the Spirit of the Lord. Therefore, with Strong crying and tears, wait upon him from day to day.

The lack of distinctly recognizing the power of the Holy Ghost lies at the root; of many useless ministries. The forcible words of Robert Hall are as true now as when he poured them forth like molten lava upon a semisocinian generation. “On the one hand it deserves attention, that the most eminent and successful preachers of the gospel in different communities, a Brainerd, a Baxter, and a Schwartz, have been the most conspicuous for simple dependence on spiritual aid; and on the other that no success whatever has attended the ministrations of those by whom this doctrine has been either neglected or denied. They have met with such a rebuke of their presumption, in the total failure of their efforts, that none will contend for the reality of Divine interposition, as far as they are concerned; for when has the arm of the Lord been revealed to those pretended teachers of Christi-unity, who believe there is no such arm? We must leave them to labor in a field respecting which God has commanded the clouds not to rain upon it. As if conscious of this, of late they have turned their efforts into a new channel, and despairing of the conversion of sinners, have confined themselves to the seduction of the faithful in which, it must be confessed, they have acted in a manner perfectly consistent with their principles; the propagation of heresy requiring, at least, no divine assistance.” 6. Next we need the Spirit of God as the Spirit of supplications, who maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. A very important part of our lives consists in praying in the Holy Ghost:, and that minister who does not think so had better escape from his ministry.

Abundant prayer must go with earnest preaching. We cannot be always on the knees of the body, but the soul should never leave the posture of devotion. The habit of prayer is good, but the spirit of prayer is better.

Regular retirement is to be maintained, but continued communion with God is to be our aim. As a rule, we ministers ought never to be many minutes without actually lifting up our hearts in prayer. Some of us could honestly say that we are seldom a quarter of an hour without speaking to God, and that not as a duty but as an instinct, a habit of the new nature for which we claim no more credit than a babe does for crying after its mother.

How could we do otherwise? Now, if we are to be much in the spirit of prayer, we need secret oil to be poured upon the sacred fire of our heart’s devotion; we want to be again and again visited by the Spirit; of grace and of supplications.

As to our prayers in public, let it never be truthfully said that they are official, formal, and cold; yet they will be so if’ the supply of the Spirit be scant. Those who use a liturgy I judge not; but to those who are accustomed to free prayer I say, — you cannot pray acceptably in public year after year without the Spirit of God; dead praying will become offensive to the people long before that time. What then? Whence shall our help come? Certain weaklings have said, “Let us have a liturgy!” Rather than seek divine aid thee’ will go down to Egypt for help. Rather than be dependent upon the Spirit of God, they will pray by a book! For my part, if’ I cannot pray, I would rather know it, and groan over my soul’s barrenness till the Lord shall again visit me with fruitfulness of devotion. If you are filled with the Spirit, you will be glad to throw off all formal fetters, that you may commit yourself to the sacred current, to be. borne along till you find waters to swim in. Sometimes you will enjoy closer fellowship with God in prayer in the pulpit than you have known anywhere else. To me my greatest secrecy in prayer has often been in public; my truest loneliness with God has occurred to me while pleading in the midst of thousands. I have opened my eyes at the close of a prayer and come back to the assembly with a sort of a shock at finding myself Upon earth and among men. Such seasons are not at our command., neither can we raise ourselves into such conditions ;by any preparations or efforts. How blessed they are both to the minister and his people no tongue can tell I How full of power and blessing habitual prayerfulness must also be I cannot here ‘pause to declare, but for it all we must look to the Holy Spirit, and blessed be God we shall not look in vain, for it is especially said of him that he helpeth ore’ infirmities in prayer. 7. Furthermore, it is important that we be under the influence of the Holy Ghost, as he is the Spirit of holiness; for a very considerable and essential part of Christian ministry lies in example. Our people take much note of what we say out of the pulpit, and what we do in the social circle and elsewhere. Do you find it easy, my brethren, to be saints? — such saints that others may regard you as; examples? We ought to be such husbands that every husband in the parish may safely be such as we are. Is it so? We ought to be the best of fathers. Alas! some ministers, to my knowledge, are far from thin, for an to their families, they have kept the vineyards of others, but their own vineyards they have not kept. Their children are neglected, and do not grow up as a godly seed. Is it so with yours? In our converse with our fellow men are we blameless and harmless, the sons of God without rebuke? Such We ought to be. I admire Mr. Whitfield’s reasons for always having his linen scrupulously dean. “No, no,” he would say, “these are not trifles; a minister must be without spot, even in his garments, if he can.” Purity cannot be carried too far in a minister. You have known an unhappy brother bespatter himself, and you have affectionately aided in removing the spots, but you have felt that it would have been better had the garments been always white. O to keep ourselves unspotted from the world! How can this be in such a scene of temptation, and with such besetting sins unless we are preserved by superior power? If you are to walk in all holiness and purity, as be-cometh ministers of the gospel, you must be daily baptized into the Spirit of God. 8. Once again, we need the Spirit as a Spirit of discernment, for he knows the minds of men as he knows the mind of God, and we need this very much in dealing with difficult characters. There are in this world some persons who might possibly be allowed to preach, but they should never be suffered to become pastors. They have a mental or spiritual disqualification. In the church of San Zeno, at Verona, I saw the statue of that saint in a sitting posture, and the artist has given him knees so short that he has no lap whatever, so that he could not have been a nursing father. I fear there are many others who labor under a similar disability: they cannot bring their minds to enter heartily into the pastoral care. They can dogmatize upon a doctrine, and controvert upon an ordinance, but as to sympathizing with an experience, it; is far from them. Cold comfort can such render to afflicted consciences; their advice will be equally valuable with that of the highlander who is reported to have seen an Englishman sinking in a bog on Ben Nevis. “I am sinking!” cried the traveler. “Can you tell me how to get out?” The highlander’ calmly replied, “I think it is likely you never will,” and walked away. We have known ministers of that kind, puzzled, and almost annoyed with sinners struggling in the slough of despond. If you and I, untrained in the shepherd’s art, were placed among the ewes and young lambs in the early spring, what should we do with them’!! In some such perplexity are those found who have never been taught of the Holy Spirit how to care for the souls of men. May his instructions save us from such wretched incompetence.

Moreover, brethren, whatever our tenderness of heart, or loving anxiety, we shall not know how to deal with the vast variety of cases unless the Spirit of God shall direct us, for no two individuals are alike; and even the stone case will require different treatment at different times. At one period it may be best to console, at another to rebuke; and the person with whom you sympathized even to tears to-day may need that you confront him with a frown to-morrow, for trifling with the consolation which you presented.

Those who bind up the broken-hearted, and set free the captives, must have the Spirit of the Lord upon them.

In the oversight and guidance of a church the Spirit’s aid is needed. At bottom the chief reason for secession from our denomination has been the difficulty arising out of our church government. If, is said to “tend to the unrest of the ministry.” Doubtless, it is very trying to those who crave for the dignity of officialism, and must need be Sir Oracles, before whom not a dog must bark. Those who are no more capable of ruling than mere babes are the very persons who have the greatest thirst for authority, and, finding little of it awarded to them in these parts, they seek other regions. If you cannot rule yourself, if you are not manly and independent, if you are not superior in moral weight, if you have not more gift and more grace than your ordinary hearers, you may put on a gown and claim to be the ruling person in the church; but it will not be in a church of the Baptist or New Testament order. For my part I should loathe to be the pastor of a people who have nothing to say, or who, if they do say anything, might as well be quiet, for the pastor is Lord Paramount, and they are mere laymen and nobodies. I would sooner be the leader of six free men, whose enthusiastic love is my only power over them, than play the dictator to a score of enslaved nations. What position is nobler than that of a spiritual father who claims no authority and yet is universally esteemed, whose word is given only as tender advice, but is allowed to operate with the force of law?

Consulting the wishes of others he finds that they first desire to know what he would recommend, and deferring always to the desires of others, he finds that they are glad to defer to him. Lovingly firm and graciously gentle, he is the chief of all because he is the servant of all. Does not this need wisdom from above? What can require it more? David when established on the throne said, “It is he that subdueth my’ people under me,” and so may every happy pastor say when he sees so many brethren of differing temperaments all happily willing to be under discipline, and to accept his leadership in the work of the Lord. If the Lord were not among us how soon there would be confusion. Ministers, deacons, and elders may all be wise, but if the sacred Dove departs, and file spirit of strife enters, it is all over with us. Brethren, our system will not work without the Spirit of God, and I am glad it will not, for its stoppages and breakages call our attention to the fact of his absence. Our system was never intended to promote the glory of priests and pastors, but it is calculated to educate manly ]Christians, who will not take their faith at secondhand. ‘What am I, and what are you, that .we should be lords over God’s heritage? Dare any of us say with the French king, “L’etat, c’est moi” — ” the state is myself,” — I am the most important person in the church? If so, the Holy Spirit is not likely to use such unsuitable instruments; but if we know our places and desire to keep them with all humility, he will help us, and tile churches will flourish beneath our care.

I have given you a lengthened catalogue of matters wherein the Holy Spirit is absolutely necessary to us, and yet the list is very far from complete. I have intentionally left it imperfect, because if I attempted its completion all our time would have expired before we were able to answer the question, HowMAY WE LOSE THIS NEEDFUL ASSISTANCE? Let none of us ever try the experiment, but it is certain that ministers may lose the aid of the Holy Ghost. Each man here may lose it. You shall not perish as believers, for everlasting life is in you; but you may perish as ministers, and be no more heard of as witnesses for the Lord. Should this happen it will not be without a cause. The Spirit claims a sovereignty like that of the wind which bloweth where it listeth; but let ins never dream that sovereignty and capriciousness are the same thing. The blessed Spirit acts as he wills, but he always acts justly, wisely, and with motive and reason. At times he gives or withholds his blessing, for reasons connected with ourselves. Mark the course of a river like the Thames; how it winds and twists according to its own sweet will: yet there is a reason for every bend and curve: the geologist studying the soil and marking the conformation of the rock, sees a reason why the river’s bed diverges to the right or to the left: and so, though the Spirit of God blesses one preacher more than another, and the reason cannot be such that any man could congratulate himself upon his own goodness, yet there are certain things about Christian ministers which God blesses, and certain other things which hinder success. The Spirit of God falls like the dew, in mystery and power, but it is in the spiritual world as in the natural: certain substances are wet with the celestial moisture while others are always dry. Is there not a causer The wind blows where it lists; but if we desire to feel a stiff breeze we must go out to sea, or climb the hills. The Spirit oŁ God has his favored places for displaying his might.

He is typified by a dove, and the dove has its chosen haunts: to the rivers of waters, to the peaceful and quiet places, the dove resorts; we meet it not upon the battle-field, neither does it alight on carrion. There are things congruous to the Spirit, and things contrary to his mind. The Spirit of God is compared to light, and light can shine Where it wills, but some bodies are opaque, while others are transparent; and so there are men through whom God the Holy Ghost can shine, and there are others through whom his brightness never appears. Thus, then, it can be shown that the Holy Ghost, though he be the “free Spirit” of God, is by no means capricious in his operations.

But, dear brethren, the Spirit of God may be grieved and vexed, and event resisted: to deny this is to oppose the constant testimony of Scripture.

Worst of all, ‘we may do despite to him, and so in-suit him that he will speak no more by us, but leave us as he left king Saul of old. Alas, that there should be men in the Christian ministry to whom this has happened; but I am afraid there are.

Brethren. what are those evils which will grieve the Spirit? I answer, anything that would have disqualified you as an ordinary Christian for communion with God also disqualifies you for feeling the extraordinary power of the Holy Spirit as a minister: but, apart from that, there are special hindrances.

Among the first we must mention a want of sensitiveness, or that unfeeling condition which arises from disobeying the Spirit’s influences. We should be delicately sensitive to his faintest movement, and then we may expect his abiding presence, but if we are as the horse anti as the mule, which have no understanding, we shall feel the whip, but we shall not enjoy the tender influences of the Comforter.

Another grieving fault is a want of truthfulness. When a great musician takes a guitar, or touches a harp, and finds that the notes are false, he stays his hand. Some men’s souls are not honest; they are sophistical and doubleminded.

Christ’s Spirit will not be an accomplice with men in the wretched business of shuffling and deceiving. Does it really come to this — that you preach certain doctrines, not because you believe them, but because your congregation expects you to do so? Are you hiding your time till you can, without risk! renounce your present creed and tell out what your dastardly mind really holds to be true? Then are you fallen indeed, and are baser than the meanest slaves. God deliver us from treacherous men, and if they enter our ranks, may they speedily be drummed out to the tune of the Rogue’s March. If we feel an abhorrence of them, how much more must the Spirit .of truth detest them!

You can greatly grieve the Holy Spirit by a general scantiness of grace.

The phrase is awkward, but it describes certain persons better than any’ other which occurs to me. The Scanty-grace family usually have one of the brothers in the ministry. I know the man. He is not dishonest, nor immoral, he is not bad tempered, nor self-indulgent, but there is a something wanting: it would not be easy to prove its absence by any overt offense, but it is wanting in the whole man, and its absence spoils everything. He wants the one thing needful. He is not. spiritual, he has no savor of Christ, his heart never burns within him, his soul is not alive, he wants grace, We cannot expect the Spirit of God to bless a ministry which never ought to have been exercised, and certainly a graceless ministry is of that character.

Another evil which drives away the divine Spirit is pride. The way to be very great is to be very little. To be very noteworthy in you,: own esteem is to be unnoticed of God. If you must needs dwell upon the high places of the earth, you shall find the mountain summits cold and barren: the Lord dwells with the lowly, but he knows the proud afar off.

The Holy Ghost is also vexed by laziness. I cannot imagine the Spirit waiting at the door of a sluggard, and supplying the deficiencies created by indolence. Sloth in the cause of the Redeemer is; a vice for which no excuse can be invented. We ourselves feel our flesh creep when we see the dilatory movements of sluggards, and we may be sure that the active Spirit is equally vexed with those who trifle in the work of the Lord.

Neglect of private prayer and many other evils will produce the same unhappy result, but there is no need to enlarge, for your own consciences will tell you, brethren, what it is that grieves the Holy One of Israel.

And now, let me entreat you, listen to this word : — Do you know what may happen if the Spirit of God be greatly grieved and depart from us?

There are two suppositions. The first is that we never were God’s true servants at all, but were only temporarily used by him, as Balaam was, and even the ass on which he rode. Suppose, brethren, that you and I go on comfortably preaching a while, and are neither suspected by ourselves nor others to be destitute of the Spirit of God: our ministry’ may all come to an end on a sudden, and we may come to an end with it; we may be smitten down in our prime, as were Nadab and Abidu, no more to be seen ministering before the Lord, or removed in riper years, like Hophni and Phineas, no longer to serve in the tabernacle of the congregation. We have no inspired annalist to record for us the sudden cutting off of promising men, but if we had, it. may be we should react with terror — of zeal sustained by strong drink, of public Phariseeism associated with secret defilement, of avowed orthodoxy concealing absolute infidelity, or of some other form of strange fire presented upon the altar till the Lord would endure it no more, and cut off the offenders with a sudden stroke. Shall this terrible doom happen to any one of us?

Alas, I have seen some deserted by the Holy Spirit, as Saul was. It is written that the Spirit of God came upon Saul, but he was faithless to the divine influence, and it departed, and an evil spirit occupied its place. See how the deserted preacher moodily plays the cynic, criticizes all others, and hurls the javelin of detraction at a better man than himself. Saul was once among the prophets, but he was more at home among the persecutors. The disappointed preacher worries the true evangelist, resorts to the witchcraft of philosophy, and seeks help from dead heresies; but his power is gone, and the Philistines will soon find him among the slain.. “Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askielon! ye daughters of Israel weep over Saul! How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle I” Some, too, deserted by the, Spirit of God, have become like the sons of one Sceva, a Jew. These pretenders tried to cast out devils in the name of Jesus, whom Paul preached, but the devils leaped upon them and overcame them; thus while certain preachers have declaimed against sin, the very vices which they denounced have overthrown them. The sons of Sceva have been among us in England: the devils of drunkenness have prevailed over the very man who denounced the bewitching cup, and the demon of unchastity has leaped upon the preacher who applauded purity. If the Holy Ghost be absent, ours is of all positions the most perilous; therefore let us beware.

Alas, some ministers become like Balaam. He was a prophet, was he not?

Did he not speak in the name of the Lord? Is he not called “the man whose eyes are opened, which saw the vision of the Almighty?” Yet Balaam fought against Israel, and cunningly devised a scheme by which the chosen people might be overthrown. Ministers of the gospel have become Papists, infidels, and freethinkers, and plotted the destruction of what they once professed to prize. We may be apostles, and yet, like Judas, turn out to be sons of perdition. Woe unto us if this be the case!

Brethren, I will assume that we really are the children of God, and what then? Why, even then, if the Spirit of God depart from us, we may be taken away oh a sudden as the deceived prophet was who failed to obey the command of the Lord in the days of Jeroboam. life was no doubt a man of God, and the death of his body was no evidence of the loss of his soul, but he broke away from what he knew to be the command of God given specially to himself, and his ministry ended there and then, for a lion met him by the way and slew him. May the Holy Spirit preserve us from deceivers, and keep us true to the voice of God.

Worse still, we may reproduce the life of Samson, upon whom the Spirit of God came in the camps of Dan; but in Delilah’s lap he lost his strength, and in the dungeon he lost his eyes. He bravely finished his life-work, blind as he was, but who among us wishes to tempt such a fate?

Or — and this last has saddened me beyond all expression, because it is much more likely than any of the rest — we may be left by the Spirit of God, in a painful degree, to mar the close of our life-work as Moses did.

Not to lose our souls, nay, not even to lose our crowns in heaven, or even our reputations on earth; but, still, to be under a cloud in our last days through once speaking unadvised][y with our lips. I have lately studied the later days of the great prophet of Horeb, and I have not yet recovered from the deep gloom of spirit which it cast over me. What was the sin of Moses!? You need not enquire. It was not gross like the transgression of David, nor startling like the failure of Peter, nor weak and foolish like the grave fault of his brother Aaron; indeed, it seems an infinitesimal offense as weighed in the balances of ordinary judgment. But then, you see, it was the sin of Moses, of a mart favored of God beyond all others, of a leader of the people, of a representative of the divine King. The Lord could have overlooked it in anyone ,else, but not in Moses: Moses must be chastened by being forbidden to lead the people into the promised land. Truly, he had a ,glorious view from the top of Pisgah, and everything else which could mitigate the rigor of the sentence, but; it was a great disappointment never to enter the land of Israel’s inheritance, and that for once speaking unadvisedly. I would not shun my Masters service, but I tremble in his presence. Who can be faultless when even Moses erred? It is a dreadful thing to be beloved of God. “Who among us shall dwell with devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? He that walketh righteously and speaketh uprightly “-he alone can face that sin-consuming flame of love. Brethren, I beseech you, crave Moses’s place, but tremble as you take it. Fear and tremble for all the good that God shall make to pass before you. When you are fullest of the fruits of the Spirit bow lowest before the throne, and serve the Lord with fear. “The Lord our God is a jealous God.” Remember that God has come unto us, not to exalt us, but to exalt himself, and we must see to it that his glory is the one sole object of all that we do. “He must increase,, and I must decrease.” Oh, may God bring us to this, and make us walk very carefully and humbly before him. God will search us and try us, for judgment begins at his own house, and in that house it begins with his ministers. Will any of us be found wanting? Shall the pit of hell draw a portion of its wretched inhabitants from among our band of pastors?