are a thirsty people. They are travelling in a wilderness, and therefore they need the rock to follow them. Oh! it is a bad sign of a soul when there is no thirst. True Christians are like new-born babes-they desire the sincere milk of the Word-they need nourishment, and need it oftenthey cannot live without it. Oh, then, hear the word of Jesus: “Come unto me, and drink.” (1.) Remember you must come to Christ before you can drink. It is only when you have a believing view of the Saviour that you can receive the Spirit. It is only when your eye is fixed on the smitten rock that you can drink of the living water. Are there not some Christians hearing me who seem to receive very little of the Spirit of God? Are there not some Christians among you who often exhibit a mean, worldly spirit ?-some who are easily betrayed into a fiery, passionate spirit? Why is this? Ans. You do not come to Jesus to drink-you do not keep the eye of faith on Jesus Christ-you do not live by faith on the Son of God. You are thinking to walk holily without coming unto Jesus day by day, and hour by hour. You do not look on the Lord our strength at God's right hand; therefore you receive little of the Holy Ghost. (2.) Remember when you come to Jesus you must drink. O how many seem to come to Jesus Christ, and yet do not drink! How few Christians are like a tree planted by the rivers of water! What would you have thought of the Jews, if, when Moses smote the rock, they had refused to drink? or what would you have thought if they had only put the water to their lips? Yet such is the way with most Christians. It pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell. The Spirit was given to him without measure. The command is given to us to draw out of his fulness; yet who obeys? Not one in a thousand. A Christian in our day is like a man who has got a great reservoir brimful of water. He is at liberty to drink as much as he pleases, for he never can drink it dry; but instead of drinking the full stream that flows from it, he dams it up, and is content to drink the few drops that trickle through. 0 that ye would draw out of his fulness, ye that have come to Christ! Do not be misers of grace. There is far more than you will use in eternity. The same waters are now in Christ that refreshed Paul-that gave Peter his boldness -that gave John his affectionate tenderness. Why is your soul less richly supplied than theirs? Because you will not drink: "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink." IV. Lesson. The change on all who drink-they become fountains like Christ: "He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water."-John vii. 38. The Holy Spirit is an imperishable stream. It is not like those rivers of which you have heard which flow through barren sands till they sink into the earth and disappear. Not so the stream of grace. When it flows from Jesus Christ, it flows into many a barren heart; but it is never lost there. It appears again—it flows forth from that heart in rivers of living water. When a soul is brought to believe on Jesus, and to drink in the Spirit, it often appears as if the Spirit were lost in that soul. The stream flows into such a barren heart, that it is long before it makes its appearance; but it is never lost. The Scripture must be fulfilled: "He that believeth on me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." will come 1. A new motive for coming to Jesus. If you to Jesus and drink, you shall become a fountain-you shall be changed into the image of Christ. Are there none of you living in a godless family? O come to Jesus and drink! You will become a fountain of grace to your family. Through your heart-through your words-through your prayers the stream of grace will flow into other hearts. Those you love best in all the world may in this way receive grace. O come unto Jesus and drink! Many of you live in a godless neighbourhood-come to Jesus and drink, and you will become a fountain of grace to your neighbourhood. From you shall flow rivers of living water. all of you that know the Lord Jesus would only drink out of his fulness, even this neglected place might become as the garden of the Lord, well watered everywhere! O if 2. New test if you have come to Jesus. If you have believed on Jesus, then you have received the Spirit, and from you there must be flowing rivers of living water. Is this the case Alas! how many of you must answer: No; we know not what you mean. (1.) Are there not some hearing me whose heart is more like a sink of iniquity than a fountain of living water? Are there not some who send forth from their heart rivers that pollute and poison every place where they go? Are there been brought to Jesus! The river of grace turned into that foul bosom. has 1 (2.) Are there not some who are like a founta They seem to come to Jesus, but they do not giv living stream. I stand in doubt of you. Every one that believes on the Lord Jesus my the Spirit. Every one that receives the Spirit it manifest by sending forth rivers of living wate deceived, my dear friends. He that doeth right righteous. If you are living a dead, useless lif no Christian. "Examine yourselves whether ye faith. Prove your ownselves. Know ye not selves how that Jesus Christ is in you, except y bate?" St Peter's, October 22, 1837. SERMON XLIV. CONVICTION OF SIN. "And when he [the Comforter] is come, he will convince sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment."—JOHN WHEN friends are about to part from one anothe far kinder than ever they have been before. It Jesus. He was going to part from his disciples. till now did his heart flow out toward them i streams of heavenly tenderness. Sorrow had heart, and therefore divinest compassion filled "I tell you the truth, it is expedient for you away." Surely it was expedient for himself that he away. He had lived a life of weariness and painfulness, not having where to lay his head, and surely it was pleasant in his eyes that he was about to enter into his rest. He had lived in obscurity and poverty-he gave his back to the smiters, and his cheeks to them that plucked off the hair; and now, surely, he might well look forward with joy to his return to that glory which he had with the Father before ever the world was, when all the angels of God worshipped him; and yet he does not say: It is expedient for me that I go away. Surely that would have been comfort enough to his disciples. But no; he says: "It is expedient for you." He forgets himself altogether, and thinks only of his little flock which he was leaving behind him : "It is expedient for you that I go away." O most generous of Saviours! He looked not on his own things, but on the things of others also. He knew that it is far more blessed to give than it is to receive. The gift of the Spirit is the great argument by which he here persuades them that his going away would be expedient for them. Now, it is curious to remark that he had promised them the Spirit before in the beginning of his discourse. In chap. xiv. 16-18, he says: "I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you." And again: "But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.' -Verse 26. In that passage he promises the Spirit for their own peculiar comfort and joy. He promises him as a treasure which they, and they only, could receive: "For the world cannot receive him, because it neither sees nor knows him;" and yet, saith he, "he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you." But in the passage before us the promise is quite different. He promises the Spirit here, not for themselves, but for the world-not as a peculiar treasure, to be locked up in their own bosoms, which they might brood over with a selfish joy, but as a blessed power to work, through their preaching, on the wicked world around them not as a well springing up within their own bosoms unto everlasting life, but as rivers of living water flowing through them to water this dry and perishing world; for he does not say: When he is come he will fill your hearts with peace and joy to overflowing; but: "When he is come, he will convince the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment." But a little before he had told them that the world would hate and persecute them: "If ye were of the world, the world would love his own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you."-John xv. 19. This was but poor comfort, when that very world was to be the field of their labours; but now he shows them what a blessed gift the Spirit would be; for he would work, through their preaching, upon the very hearts that hated and persecuted them: "He shall convince the world of sin." This has always been the case. In Acts ii. we are told that when the Spirit came on the apostles the crowd mocked them, saying: "These men are full of new wine;" and yet, when Peter preached, the Spirit wrought through his preaching on the hearts of these very scoffers. They were pricked in their hearts, and cried: "Men and brethren, what must we do?" and the same day three thousand souls were converted. Again, the jailer at Philippi was evidently a hard, cruel man toward the apostles; for he thrust them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks; and yet the Spirit opens his hard heart, and he is brought to Christ by the very apostles whom he hated. Just so is it, brethren, to this day. The world do not love the true ministers of Christ a whit better than they did. The world is the same world it was in Christ's day. That word has never yet been scored out of the Bible: "Whosoever will live godly in the world, must suffer persecution." We expect, as Paul did, to be hated by the most who listen to us. We are quite sure, as Paul was, that the more abundantly we love you, most of you will love us the less; and yet, brethren, none of these things move us. Though cast down, we are not in despair; for we know that the Spirit is sent to convince the world; and we do not fear but some of you who are counting us an enemy, because we tell you the truth, may even this day, in the midst of all your hatred and cold indifference, be convinced of sin by the Spirit, and made to cry out: "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" I. The first work of the Spirit is to convince of sin. |