SERMON XLIII.

THE CHRISTIAN'S BEST FRIEND AGGRIEVED.

Ephesians iv. 30.

Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God.

IF I must doubt whether there be a trinity of persons in the Godhead, I should question the inspiration of the Scriptures. The distinct personality of the three that bear record in heaven, seems to me as plain a truth as any other in the whole Bible, and cannot be rejected without the danger of going into infidelity. In the mysterious division of the work of redemption, it became the business of the Holy Ghost to make the sinner willing, in the day of God's power, to renew and sanctify the heart, and quicken to spiritual life and action, the dead in sin. And after he has begun eternal life in his people, he dwells in their hearts, and is there a well of water springing up to everlasting life.

The Holy Spirit was promised to the apostles under the title of the Comforter, and has exerted his agency in every conversion since there was a church, and been the guide to heaven of every child of the apostacy, who has gone and took his seat at the marriage supper of the Lamb. If there is in any mind a heavenly thought, or in any heart a holy volition, it is all the work of that divine agent. Hence his favour is life. One had better grieve every friend he has, and wander homeless, and

die deserted, with none to watch him or pray for him, or bury him, than to grieve the holy Spirit of God, and be abandoned of him.

I have supposed that grieving the Spirit of God, was a deed that none but Christians can do. The enemies of God may resist his Spirit, and may quench his Spirit, but his people only can grieve him. So it is, you know, in human affairs; an enemy may insult us and offend us, a friend it is that grieves us.

It will be my object to show how the people of God may grieve his Spirit, and what the consequences that must follow.

I. How may the people of God grieve his Spirit? 1. When they limit his ability or his willingness to bless them. The Spirit of God has done so much for them already, that all cause of fear, as to what he can do, and will do, if they are ready, is out of place. It was a great sin in Israel, after they had witnessed the wonders done in Egypt, and had seen the water of the Red Sea divide, to make them a passage, to have any doubt whether he could enable them to subdue the Anakims, and whether he would give them water to drink and flesh to eat.

But that people, when they limited the Holy One of Israel, had not seen more illustrious displays of the might and the mercy of their Deliverer, than have the people of God in these days, of the amazing power and grace of the Holy Ghost. He who could subdue your hearts, ye disciples of the Lord Jesus, what can he not do for you? He who could awaken you, when you was purposed in your heart that you would never see the danger you was in; who could uncover to you the destruction that way-laid you; who could convict you of sin, of

righteousness, and of judgment to come, when you had carefully barred every avenue that would admit the light; could bring you to a Saviour's feet, and make you his willing captives; what is there now that he cannot do for you? What lust can he not conquer, and what foe of yours can he not bring to the ground and lay low at your feet? How can you doubt a moment of his ability and his mercy, to guide you, and keep you unto everlasting life?

And after the precious instances of revival that you have witnessed, and the power displayed by the Holy Ghost, in subduing to love and obedience the basest of men, and bringing scores of the ungodly to yield to the force of truth, and become willing in the day of God's power; how can you doubt but he can give you other precious revivals, and renew to you the scenes you have witnessed, and more yet? What other proofs can he give but that which he has given, that you have only to be ready and he will do his wonders before your eyes, till you are satisfied? And there is no sinner you pray for but he can be melted and subdued, and moulded over into a humble and devoted and heavenly-minded Christian? And his willingness to operate is commensurate with his ability. If he would help you when you felt that you could not do without him, and give those tokens of his mercy that you felt that you must have or die, why will he not do the same again? If you have sinned, and do not deserve his interposing mercy, so you had when he did interpose the last time. When you prayed for that child that he did save, you went to him as a

poor sinner, not deserving at all the mercy you asked, and why not expect that the Spirit of God will as readily operate now as then? Why then should we limit, and thus grieve the holy one? If such has been the power

and the mercy of the divine operations in days past, that the highest faith is due, and there is the broadest foundation for confidence that the Spirit will operate as soon as we are ready, why should Christians grieve him by limiting his power and his mercy.

2. They grieve him when they expect their comforts from any other source. The people of God often try

to be happy without him.

There are so many channels

through which joy is communicated to the heart, that we are prone to forget its source.

We may, by this means, be guilty of an idolatry, though not as gross, yet as offensive to the Spirit of God as the temporary worship of Mammon or Moloch. This is the case when even means of grace are trusted in as sure to communicate comfort. We may idolize the ministry of reconciliation, the Sabbath, the ordinances, the place of prayer, and even the closet. In young converts nothing is more common than the deep assurance, that the same place, the same practice, and the same pew, will produce the same blessedness. And often it is not till after many a sore disappointment, that they are taught to repair immediately to him whose influence is life and peace. God would have us estimate the means, and set a price as high as he has upon every medium of holy joy. But when we forget, as we are prone to forget, that we must go a little beyond the watchman, before we shall find him whom our soul loveth; must pass through the means and there is joy, and there is God, then is the Spirit grieved. His divine agency is undervalued, and the joy he would communinicate is withheld, till we are made to feel that the Spirit of God must operate, or every means must lose its influence.

3. It is equally true that we grieve the Spirit of God, when we neglect the means of grace. There is an es

tablished process, by which the Holy Spirit of God ordinarily comforts his people. Almost all his joys, and probably, did we know more fully the way of the Spirit, we should say all his joys are bestowed as a blessing on the means of grace. Here he exerts his divine influence. He lifts the soul toward heaven, when the soul makes an effort to rise in prayer. He pours in truth upon the mind, when the mind is labouring to know the truth. He generates holy affections, when he discovers in his people grief for sin, and ardent desires to be more holy. Hence the house of God, rather than any other place, has been the scene of his most frequent and his mightiest operations. Here he has fed his people, has cheered their despondencies, has raised their hopes, has strengthened their faith, has enabled them to mount on wings as eagles, to run and not be weary, to walk and not faint. Here, with a preached gospel, the word of his grace, that truth through which it was the prayer of the Saviour that the Father would sanctify his people, he has, in every age, since there was a Christian church, shed forth his richest, sweetest comforts. Here, too, he has awakened and renewed the sinner; has begun in the heart that eternal life which it is his promise, and his oath, shall be carried on till the day of complete redemption. Here all our precious revivals have begun, and have been carried on, by what has been termed the foolishness of preaching.

And God has greatly blessed the place of prayer and conference. These unnoticed retreats have been, in thousands of instances, the scenes of such divine display as have made angels glad, and have multiplied the number of the saved. Christians have dated their very best comforts in some of these consecrated retreats. swer to prayer, every comfort has dropped from heaven.

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