vours without any such doctrine. If it be true, in fact, that the feebleness of our nature requires the succouring influence of God's Spirit in carrying on the grand business of salvation: and in every state and stage of its progress, in conversion, in regeneration, in constancy, in perseverance, in sanctification; it is of the utmost importance that this truth be declared, and understood, and confessed, and felt: because the perception and sincere acknowledgment of it will be accompanied by a train of sentiments, by a turn of thought, by a degree and species of devotion, by humility, by prayer, by piety, by a recourse to God in our religious warfare, different from what will, or perhaps can, be found in a mind unacquainted with this doctrine: or in a mind rejecting it, or in a mind unconcerned about these things one way or other.

SERMON XXIV.

ON THE INFLUENCE OF THE SPIRIT.

(PART II.)

1 CORINTHIANS, iii. 16.

Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in

you.

T is undoubtedly a difficulty in the doctrine

of spiritual influence, that we do not so perceive the action of the Spirit, as to distinguish it from the suggestions of our own minds. Many good men acknowledge, that they are not conscious of any such immediate perceptions. They, who lay claim to them, cannot advance, like the apostles, such proofs of their claim as must necessarily satisfy others, or, perhaps, secure themselves from delusion. And this is made a ground of objection to the doctrine itself.

Now, I think the objection proceeds upon an erroneous principle, namely, our expecting more than is promised. The agency and influence of the Divine Spirit are spoken of in Scripture, and are promised: but it is no where promised that its operations shall be always sensible, viz. distinguishable at the time from the impulses, dictates, and thoughts of our own minds. I do not take upon me to say that they are never so; I only say that it is not necessary, in the nature of things, that they should be so: nor is it asserted in the Scripture that they are so; nor is it promised that they will be so.

The nature of the thing does not imply or require it; by which I mean, that according to the constitution of the human mind, as far as we are acquainted with that constitution, a foreign influence or impulse may act upon it, without being distinguished in our perception from its natural operations, that is, without being perceived at the time. The case appears to me to be this: The order in which ideas and motives rise up in our minds is utterly un

known to us, consequently it will be unknown when that order is disturbed, or altered, or affected; therefore it may be altered, it may be affected, by the interposition of a foreign influence, without that interposition being perceived.

Again; and in like manner, not only the order in which thoughts and motives rise up in our minds is unknown to ourselves, but the causes also are unknown, and are incalculable, upon which the vividness of the ideas, the force and strength and impression of the motives, which enter into our minds, depend. Therefore that vividness may be made more or less, that force may be increased or diminished, and both by the influence of a spiritual agent, without any distinct sensation of such agency being felt at the time. Was the case otherwise; was the order, according to which thoughts and motives rise up in our minds, fixed, and, being fixed, known: then I do admit the order could not be altered or violated, nor a foreign agent interfere to alter or violate it, without our being immediately sensible of what was passing. As, also, if the causes, upon which the power and

strength of either good or bad motives depend, were ascertained, then it would likewise be ascertained, when this force was ever increased or diminished by external influence and operation: then it might be true, that external influence could not act upon us without being perceived. But in the ignorance under which we are concerning the thoughts and motives of our minds, when left to themselves, we must, naturally speaking, be, at the time, both ignorant and insensible of the presence of an interfering power; one ignorance will correspond with the other: whilst, nevertheless, the assistance and benefit derived from power, may, in reality, be exceedingly

that

great.

In this instance, philosophy, in my opinion, comes in aid of religion. In the ordinary state of mind, both the presence and the power of the motives which act upon it, proceed from causes of which we know nothing. This philosophy confesses and indeed teaches. From whence it follows, that when these causes are interrupted or influenced, that interruption and that influence will be equally unknown to