is in himself, and nothing in all that he has done for his people to call forth the affections of the soul,-Oh, if there are any present, thus cold, insensible, dead, their danger is imminent, their jeopardy is fearful. What is it that the wilful sinner is doing—and all who are not in Christ Jesus new creatures are wilful sinners? The wilful sinner is despising the long-suffering mercy of God-he is rejecting proffered grace-trampling under foot offers of peace and reconciliation, and spurning everlasting love. A love which neither man nor angel, nor the redeemed in glory, can fathom, is the love with which we have been loved. A love which many waters cannot quench, and which the floods cannot drown, dwells in the Saviour's bosom, and this love is, by guilty, perishing, hell-preparing sinners, forfeited. Ere yet it be too late-while you are still in the land of love-in the place where Christ gave the mightiest exhibition of his love-seek to turn unto him. His ear is not heavy that it cannot hear his hand is not shortened that it cannot save. He is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. Souls he has saved, souls he is saving, souls he will save. Ere yet you are hurried into outer darkness, which even the light of his countenance cannot illumine-ere yet you are compelled to make your bed in hell -bethink yourselves, cry mightily unto him. A lost soul, an undone eternity! everlasting exclusion from glory-perpetual condemnation to the regions of woe! Is this your willing choice-is such your deliberate selection? Oh, be wise, kiss the son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they who put their trust in him. And to those among you, of whom I hope and trust there are a goodly few-to those among you who are in Christ Jesus, walking by faith and not by sight-denying yourselves, and seeking to glorify him in your bodies and in your spirits, which are his to you would I say, remember the price that was paid for your redemption. You were redeemed, not with corruptible things, as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. Estimable in Christ's sight were your souls -he deemed not his own life a ransom too great to give for them. For the sanctifying and the beautifying of your souls, is the eternal Spirit to abide in the Church till Christ come again. Vex not that Spirit. The glory of the Saviour is seen in this, that his people are made a peculiar people, zealous of good works, Thou art all fair, says the bridegroom to the spouse in the song-thou art all fair, my love, there is no spot in thee. This perfection of beauty in the whole, depends on the perfection of every part. Seek ye then to be perfect, even as Christ is perfect! Seek to grow in deadness to this world, in likeness to Christ, in preparedness for all that he is preparing for us here, and in meetness for glory, honour, and eternal life.

SERMON XXXVIII.

THE DISPENSATIONS OF THE SPIRIT IN GOSPEL TIMES.

(Preached before the Free Synod of Perth, 15th October 1844, and published at their request.)

BY THE REV. ALEXANDER CUMMING, DUNBARNEY.

"In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried saying, if any man thirst let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive; for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.'-JOHN viii. 37-39.

THE interesting instructions of Jesus which are couched in this chapter, were pronounced on the occasion of his visiting Jerusalem, during the Feast of Tabernacles. For six months previous to that solemnity he had remained at a distance from that sacred city, in order to elude the murderous designs of the Jews; but, though exiled from the territory of Judea, the blaze of this glorious Sun of Righteousness was not withdrawn from the earth-his beams, though forfeited by the guilty citizens of the metropolis of the Holy Land, fell with genial influence on its northern frontiers. Galilee of the Gentiles, and the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, overhung with the shadow of death, revived under their renovating energy. His friends urged him to go to Jerusalem at the commencement of the festival, to perform a train of splendid miracles, such as had signalized his march through the regions of Galilee, and insinuated that, if he declined to do this, it would be from a dread that performances which had excited the wonder of the comparatively untutored inhabitants of a provincial district, could not pass through the scrutinising ordeal of the learned and the great. But he refused to go up till the middle of the feast, when the roads were no longer crowded with passengers, and when the Jews, not anticipating his arrival, would have less time to concert their plans for his death. Four or five days after the tribes were convened, at a time of the solemnity when comparatively few rites were going forward at the temple, Christ burst upon the congregated thousands in the outer court, and poured forth such a profusion of eloquent instructions, as drew the wondering interrogatory, "How knoweth this man letters, seeing he hath never learned?" Never did his addresses encounter more virulent opposition than on this occasion, and never did the yearnings of his love break forth in more impassioned ardour. They No. 39.-SER. 38.

exclaimed, "He deceiveth the people, he hath a devil; but the more wretched their cavils became, and the more opprobrious their reproaches, the more did his heart swell with emotions of commiserating tenderness. The chief priests determined to silence him while uttering such strains of melodious invitation, and they dispatched officers to apprehend him ; but on the day on which they were charged with this commission, no opportunity for executing their errand presented itself, that would not have endangered a tumult; they did not, therefore, return to their employers till the next day. No display of human malignity or murderous rage, could stop the genial current of love that flowed from Him who spake as never man spake. As man's enmity became darker, he strove with more animated ardour to woo him from folly. He is repeatedly said to have cried, that his words might be heard by the whole listening throng; and on the last and great day of the feast, he stood as well as cried. Teachers among the Jews, in delivering their instructions, affected a sitting posture, and it was only on more extraordinary occasions that they stood. Jesus, instinct with bowels of pity for those who were spurning away eternal life, wished to make a more passionate appeal than ever; and therefore, when the priests were surrounding the altar with palm-branches in their hands, and pouring out on it water, he exclaimed in kindling pathos, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink, he that believeth in me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." The wide range of this promise will be evident, if we remark that those who thirst are not merely persons thirsting after righteousness, though doubtless these are included, but all who are thirsting after happiness. Thus in Isaiah (lv. 1.), it is said, "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come to the waters, and he that hath no money ;" and where the persons athirst are not those whose desires are quickened after celestial communications, for they are said (Isaiah, lv. 2.) to be spending their money for that which is not bread, and their labour for that which satisfieth not. The word "thirst" delineates those who are tossed and restless, through cravings after felicity which they know not how to get gratified; and to persons in this dissatisfied condition, the inspiring offer of the text is uttered.

The promise embodied in these words refers to the Holy Ghost, whose living waters could be imparted in only a stinted measure, under the Old Testament, seeing the Saviour was not yet glorified. Accordingly, it is observed by Dr Owen, that those passages in the prophetic Scriptures which speak of the Spirit being " poured out," always refer to New Testament times-the term "pouring out" indicating an exuberant abundance, such as could not be granted till the great sacrifice was offered. The increased measures of spiritual influence attest God's

acceptance of Christ's expiation. A holy God granted straitened supplies under the legal system, to intimate that the great atonement was not offered; and then, after it was presented, to show it was embued with infinite intrinsic merit, his gifts and graces were showered down in unrestricted copiousness.

When it is said, "the Holy Ghost was not yet given," this does not mean that his sanctifying influences were never diffused over the hearts of men. Christ uses similar phraseology, when, in his parting address to his disciples, he says (John xvi. 16, 17), "I will pray the Father, and he will give you another comforter, even the spirit of truth," &c.: "but ye know him, for he dwelleth in you, and shall be in you." What he did when inspiring the prophets, and imparting gifts and graces in former times, was ascribed to Jehovah; but after Christ left the world, and he remained the only person of the Godhead, iminediately working in the Church, all his operations were attributed to himself, as the Third Person of the glorious Trinity. He was to step forth with a kind of visible pomp, to manifest himself as the agent who was to apply to the Church what Christ had purchased; and we are, therefore, to expect from him such an effusion of living water, as will constitute an unequivocal evidence that Christ is now seated at God's right hand.

The words of the text imply, not only the communication of the Spirit's influence, as the sun's beams animate the earth, though the residence is aloft in the firmament above our heads-they imply the inhabitation of the Divine agent himself—the Sun as well as the sunbeams must be introduced into the soul. The Spirit is the well, and his quickening and sanctifying operations, creating the virtues of the Christian character in us, are the waters bubbling up in us. No stock of grace in a saint has such elements of durability, as that it could be called a perennial spring. Our heavenly frames, on a Sabbath or Sacramental season would be succeeded by blighting worldliness, or utter decay, were it not that the Spirit, with his vital energy, abides in us-the fountain is ever flowing, because the Spirit is ever abiding in the soul.

Now, it was on the last day of the feast, after enduring a series of harassing provocations, that Christ stepped forward and gave vent to his love, in this benignant statement. While a vast confluence of worshippers thronged the court of the temple, Jesus stood and cried, as if to make the high festival day a real and substantial feast, by the generous and unbounded welcome he was to issue. The solemnity of tabernacles was the most gladdening of all the feasts, and Christ felt prompted by the impulses of kindness to make it a festival indeed; and as it was on the last day, when many were collected who must soon retire to their own abodes, he was the more urgent in pressing his favours on

their acceptance, that those who might never enjoy another opportunity of hearing him might accept his offers.

There is something intensely interesting, both in the freeness and fulness of the promise comprised in these words, "if any man thirst.” Its comprehensive range includes in it even the officers who were sent to apprehend him, that he might be murdered. If any man, however depraved or hostile to me-if any man, though actively meditating my death, come unto me, out of him shall flow rivers. And it would seem as if to stamp a glorious significancy on this prodigal offer, that he conferred his spirit on some of the most degraded of his audience, even on the agents of justice who were sent to capture him; for when, after returning to their employers, they were interrogated as to why they had not dragged Christ as a criminal into their presence, they replied, "Never man spake like this man." It did not seem enough to say, that they had no opportunity of taking him-that would not have embroiled the area of the temple in a tumult; or to frame any plausible excuse to shelter themselves from blame and punishment. Though previous to this time they might, through the agency of their masters, have been so much entrenched in prejudice against Christ, as to become their willing tools in apprehending him, they were so melted and overpowered by his strains of eloquence, far surpassing what David's harp had ever breathed, that they exclaimed, "Never man spake like this man ;" he is superior to you, or any teacher who ever lived. Christ had made captives of those who came to make him a prisoner, by uttering a few words of commanding energy, and made noble witnesses for his cause out of those who had come to crush it. At the very time when offering the superabundant measures of his grace to the dense assemblage in the temple, he seems to have singled out some of his most obdurate hearers, to shew how extensive a class his promise could reach.

And there was a peculiar propriety in Christ's stepping forth to enliven the Feast of Tabernacles with such an endearing promise as that contained in the text. It commemorated the fact of the Israelites pitching their tents in the wilderness, while God's pavilion was spread in the centre of their encampment. Moses had, for two prolonged periods of forty days, held sublime converse with God on the blazing peak of Sinai; at the expiration of the second interval of forty days, he descended to intimate that his intercession had procured the favour of God, and that, though Jehovah had ordered his tents to be removed afar off from their habitations, he was now reconciled, and was willing to dwell in the midst of them. "The day of his descent," says President Edwards, was the first day of the seventh month. He then issued directions for rearing Jehovah's tabernacle, and fixing it permanently in the midst of