cred Three stands ready to aid you; every compassion is prepared to receive you. All heaven says, Come. All the Church on earth says, Come. Come, for all things are ready. Come with all your guilt upon you and receive "without money and without price." In no way can you so gratify the compassions of a God; in no way can you so much gladden the heart that bled for you on the point of the spear; in no way can you waken up so animated a jubilee in heaven.

I have made the trial: and now if you again reject the Gospel, and the kingdom from this moment departs, all heaven and earth will say, Your blood be upon your own head. Amen.

SERMON XV.

QUENCH NOT THE SPIRIT.

I. THES. V. 19.

Quench not the Spirit.

The Spirit is compared to fire, on account of its enlightening and refining influence; and hence the implication that it may be quenched. It performs the two fold work of convincing and sanctifying. Christians for a time may quench the fervor of love produced by the sanctifying Spirit, by resisting the light thrown upon their minds by the convicting Spirit; and to Christians the text seems primarily addressed. But the general warning not to resist the Spirit, is addressed to all. The impenitent may resist the Spirit, not only by disobeying and disbelieving those Scriptures which he endited, but by rejecting the light which he throws upon their conscience. "Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in

•Preached in a revival of religion.

heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did so do ye."

I choose to consider the subject in reference to the impenitent, and in reference chiefly to the light shed upon their conscience.

All that the Spirit does to the impenitent, besides giving them the Scriptures, is to bring the truths of the Bible into contact with the sensibilities of their soul, and to make them felt, though not loved. Whether the operation is on the head or heart, or on which of the several powers ranged under these names, I cannot tell; nor how the truth that was well known before, can be brought more clearly into the mind's eye while the temper of the heart remains unchanged. All this is among the secrets of divine operations which men are probably never to understand. But thus much is certain: nothing is done in this matter but to carry light in and lay it before the eye of the mind, in a manner to make it felt. That light is susceptible of resistance, as much as the light which lies on the sacred page. It is indeed the same light, but only more distinctly seen. And that resistance may be punished by the removal of the light, and by leaving the cloud of stupid unbelief to resettle upon the mind in still darker folds.

The Spirit could doubtless conquer this resistance by sanctifying power; but his object in mere conviction is to treat with the sinner as a moral agent, or as a creature bound to improve light. It is a part of the same system that furnished him with the external light of the Gospel. It is of the na

ture of an invitation whispered in his ear. But it no more follows that he must be sanctified, than that all must be sanctified who hear the Gospel. Let us contemplate,

I. The ways in which the Spirit is resisted ;
II. The sin and danger of doing this;

III. Other reasons which ought to dissuade men from this course.

I. The ways in which the Spirit is resisted.

(1.) It is resisted by every kind of outward sin; by profaneness, by speaking against the work of the Spirit, by mocking or opposing it, by false or defamatory words, by profanation of the sabbath in conversation or conduct, by every unhallowed pleasure, by intemperance, by injustice in dealings, and by every failure to do to others as we would have others do to us.

(2.) It is resisted by harbored doubts of the truth of the Bible, of the Trinity, of future or of endless punishment, of regeneration. Disbelief of the Bible or of its leading truths, does not arise from want of evidence, but from wickedness of heart.

(3.) It is resisted by all unseasonable levity; such as levity in the house of God, or in the place of prayers, or just before entering either. A little boisterous mirth or play, or even a light word, while one is under conviction, may banish the Spirit from him. A light remark about religion at such a time may banish it forever.

(4.) The Spirit is resisted by all attempts to throw off serious impressions, arising from direct aversion to God and his ways, from a selfish wish