a dark cloud conceals from us his perfections-if we can have God present to our thoughts without perceiving his glory, this is at once the evidence and the description of our melancholy fall.

This darkness is not only the deadly shade under which our enmity to God finds a shelter and covering, but it is in some sense the cause of that enmity, inasmuch as it gives rise to innumerable prejudices against God, which feed it and keep it alive, and also to multiform delusions, varying from the barest atheism up to the most awful forms of superstition; and if those prejudices and these delusions are to be swept away, and if the enmity which they beget and nourish is to be slain, it must be by Him who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, shining into our hearts, to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

This illumination of the Spirit has reference to all Gospel truth, but is given in greater and less degrees, while in every instance it embraces whatever is necessary to be known and believed in order to salvation. "Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things." "The anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you; and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him." From these words it is plain, that every one who is taught of God, knows whatever is necessary to be believed in order to salvation, and that he is not left absolutely to depend on mere human teaching; but it

is equally clear from the context, that this anointing does not supersede the use of such helps, and such means of information as God has graciously provided for his Church; on the contrary, the same apostle says, "I write unto you fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning; I write unto you little children, because ye have known the Father;" “I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it." The apostle's letter was designed and fitted for their instruction, and was useful, not only in "stirring up their pure minds by way of remembrance," but also in helping them to apply the truth to the exigencies of their condition, as one that exposed them to the seductions of false teachers, and in enabling them to grow in the knowledge of God; for among Christians there are degrees of spiritual light, as among natural men there are degrees of secular knowledge; and the one kind of knowledge admits of growth and increase, and depends on the use of ordinary means, not less than the other. We may know the Lord, like Apollos; yet we may be brought, like him, to "know the way of the Lord more perfectly." As the knowledge which is common to all who are taught of God embraces whatever is necessary to be known and believed in order to salvation, while being imparted in greater or less degrees, there may be a diversity of opinion even amongst true Christians on points of minor importance, we see at once the origin and the nature of that wonderful uniformity of sentiment amongst them which marks the unity of Christian faith, in regard to

all the fundamental truths of God's Word, while we may reasonably expect to find a variety of opinions, arising from different degrees of light, even amongst such as are in the main and substantially at one. And this consideration ought to be improved as a lesson of universal charity and of mutual forbearance among the disciples of Christ.*

It is a precious Bible truth, that the enlightening grace of the Holy Spirit, although it be specially promised to the Gospel ministry as that by which alone their peculiar functions can be successfully exercised, is not confined to them, nor to any one class or order of men, but is common to all believers. Every private person-every humble man, who takes his Bible in his hand, and retires to his closet to read and meditate on it there, is privileged to ask and to expect the teaching of the Spirit of God. "If ANY man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him." The direct communication of every soul with God as "the Father of lights," with Christ as "the light of the world," and with the Holy Ghost as "the Spirit of truth," shows what standing the Christian people have in the Christian Church; and that, although God has graciously provided for them ministerial helps and spiritual guides, he has not left them absolutely dependent on any order of men,-still less has he subjected them to mere human authority in matters of faith: "their faith must stand not in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God."

* Love's Letters, p. 318.

CHAPTER V.

THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT IN CONVINCING THE CONSCIENCE.

Ir is part of the Spirit's work to convince the soul of its sinfulness.

I. There is, indeed, a conscience in man, which fulfils alike the functions of a law, by prescribing the path of duty, and the functions of a judge, in pronouncing sentence against transgression,-a conscience which impresses every man with a sense of right and wrong, and which often visits the sinner with the inward pangs of conviction and remorse.

But conscience, while it exists, and while it serves many useful purposes, is not sufficient in its present state to awaken the soul to a full sense of its real condition, although it be amply sufficient to render it responsible to God as a Judge, and to make it a fit subject for the convincing operations of his Spirit.

That in its present state it is not sufficient of itself, nor even when it is surrounded with the outward light of the Gospel, to awaken the soul to a due sense of its own sinfulness, appears from various considera

tions: It is manifest that conscience has shared, like every other faculty of our nature, in the ruinous effects of the fall; and the natural darkness of the soul prevents it from seeing its own corruption. It must be so, indeed, if by the fall we have lost the perception of God's glory, or can no longer discern the excellency of his holiness; for our views of sin stand connected with, and must be affected by our views of God; one vivid view of his glorious character being sufficient to make the sinner tremble at the sight of his own vileness, and to exclaim with Job, "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth thee: wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." In as far, then, as the fall has "alienated us from the life of God through the ignorance that was in us, because of the blindness of our hearts," in the same proportion must it have weakened that power of moral perception, or that principle of conscience which should convince the soul of its own sinfulness; and never, till it is restored to a spiritual acquaintance with God, will it come to see its guilt in all its loathsomeness and aggravations. 2. That natural conscience, unaided by the Spirit of God, is not sufficient of itself to bring a man to a right sense of his own sinfulness, appears farther from the tendency of habitual sin to sear and deaden the conscience, whereby it comes to pass, according to the sovereign appointment of God, that conscience becomes weaker, in proportion as sin grows stronger in the soul, till the sinner may arrive at a point of degeneracy at which he is wholly given over to a