66

from beholding vanity and quicken thou me in thy way.I have longed after thy precepts, quicken me in thy righteousness.-Let my heart be found in thy statutes, that I be not ashamed.-Quicken me after thy loving kindness, so shall I keep the testimony of thy mouth.-I am afflicted very much; quicken me, O Lord, according unto thy word.-Plead my cause and deliver me quicken me according to thy word.-Consider how I love thy precepts: quicken me, O Lord, according to thy loving kindness.Quicken me accorcing to thy judgments.-Hear my voice according unto thy loving kindness: O Lord, quicken me according to thy judgment." "Quicken me, O Lord, for thy name's sake." "Incline not my heart to any evil thing." "Turn thou me and I shall be turned." "O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years; in the midst of the years make known; in wrath remember mercy." "Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." "And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment; that ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ; being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ." "The Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another and towards all men ;-to the end he may stablish your hearts unblamable in holiness." "Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God even our Father,—stablish you in every good word and work.” "The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the patient wait

ing for Christ." "The God of all grace-make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you."*

Thus, under these six divisions, you see how the general tenour of Scripture, in its most simple form, supports the doctrine that God is the Author of holiness, and that, without the slightest allusion to any instrumentality of the word, and with no more reference to the mode of operation than we find in the first chapter of Genesis. Such a flood of testimony cannot be set aside or explained away by a few texts which speak of an instrumentality no wise inconsistent with divine efficiency. But this is only the first head. I proceed to more special testimony.

II. The Spirit, so far from standing without and sending in truth like another pleader, is represented as dwelling in the heart as a habitation or as the seat of empire. "Ye are not in the flesh but in the spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you; he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you." "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of

* 1 Chron. 29. 18, 19. Ps. 80. 18, 19. and 85. 6. and 86. 11. and 90. 17. and 119. 5, 25, 32, 36, 37, 40, 80, 88, 107, 149, 154, 156, 159. and 141. 4. and 143. 12, 13. Jer. 31. 18. Ezek. 16. 14. Hab. 3. 2. Eph. 6. 23. Phil. 1. 9-11. 1 Thes. 3. 12, 13. 2 Thes. 2. 16, 1 Pet. 5. 10.

17. and 3. 5.

God, him shall God destroy

"What

for ye are

for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are." "Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you?" agreement hath the temple of God with idols? the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk in them." "In whom all the building, fitly framed together, groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit." "Christ as a Son over his own house; whose house are we." also as living stones are built up a spiritual house." that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him and he in him and hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us.". "Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.-Hereby know we that we dwell in him and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.-Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him and he in God."*

"Ye "He

III. Instead of merely persuading men to be good, God positively declares that he will take away the bad heart and put a good one in its stead. "Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you and 1 Cor. 3. 16, 17. and 6. 19. 2 Cor. 6. 16. Heb. 3. 6. 1 Pet. 2. 5. 1 John 3. 24. and 4. 4,

*Rom. 8. 9-11.

Eph. 2. 21, 22. 13, 15.

cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments and do them.-I will also save you from all your uncleannesses." "And I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord; and they shall be my people and I will be their God; for they shall return unto me with their whole heart."*

And in the most express manner we are told that God's efficiency in giving a good heart does not prevent blame for exercising a bad heart. "I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh and will give them a heart of flesh; that they may walk in my statutes and keep my ordinances and do them and they shall be my people and I will be their God. But as for them whose heart walketh after the heart of their detestable things and their abominations, I will recompense their way upon their own heads, saith the Lord God."+

On the supposition of merely inducing, without an absolute control by motives, the work of God differs from that of Satan only as the motives are different and his skill is greater. Both persuade and do no more. But it is no where said that Satan takes away a good heart and gives a bad one; but merely that he puts evil thoughts "into the heart," as in the case of Judas.‡

IV. God not only claims to make the heart new, but by absolute covenant engages to do it, and even inserts that promise among the essential stipulations of the covenant of grace. "Behold the days come, saith the Lord,

Jer. 24. 7. Ezek. 36. 25-29. Ezek. 11. 19-21. John 13. 2.

that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah; not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; (which my covenant they brake, although I was a husband unto them, saith the Lord :) but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel: After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts, and will be their God and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour and every man his brother, saying, Know ye the Lord for they shall all know me from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord."*

After these covenant stipulations of what God himself would do, shall it be said that every thing is left to the casual decisions of the self-determining power, certain only as they are foreseen by God!

"So

V. This independent potency of the will is flatly contradicted. "" 'Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy.' "

VI. Nor is this dependence on divine efficiency any discouragement, but the only encouragement we have to hope for success. "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure."

* Jer. 31. 31-34. John 1. 13. Rom. 9. 16. Phil. 2. 12, 13.