and

was, after hearing the gospel from the Master himself, go away sorrowful? this melancholy fact is the last you hear of him. Did Felix tremble-was Agrippa almost persuaded? the catastrophe is the same. How decisive to the same point is the parable of the sower, teaching with a plainness that supersedes all comment, that so far as any genuine effects of the gospel are to be expected, they are to be looked for under the voice of the living messenger. Such however are not the most common views entertained respecting the preaching of the gospel in our days. Such is not the honor conferred by the people on God's own institution; such is not the magnifying of their office by the ministers themselves. There is, if the more prevalent opinion be correct, an indispensable, long, progressive preparation to be made; to be made only by going away from the preaching to make up the mind elsewhere on the great question of serving God or mammon, by a subsequent process of awakening and conviction and anxiety and distress, which, were it gone through with as suddenly as in apostolic days, would be counted altogether spurious and worse than useless. There is the waiting attitude of dependent recipients, ready to take what it may please a sovereign God to give, and to hope that a sufficiently long and patient delay will bring the desired gift. But where is the active moral agent, applying his whole mental energy to the immediate work of turning to God-where is the immutable definitive purpose of renouncing the world and sin and giving the whole man to Christ and his service, taken at once-taken as it were under the power and pressure of the gospel, as it comes from the mouth of the ambassador of God? Where is the sinner, who, under this most vivid and impressive discovery of the realities of the gospel, feels himself to be in the sanctuary of the divine presence, and yields on the spot to the transforming influence, turning once for all, from idols to the living God? So was it in the days of the first preachers of this gospel; and we ask, why under the preaching of the same gospel, we do not now find a correspondence in its effects, in the particulars referred to? Shall we be told that a great circumstantial dissimilarity between the conversions under a miraculous dispensation, and those of the present age, is to be expected? We ask for the proof, that the manner of these conversions was affected at all by the fact alleged? We ask why the same gospel presented in the same form, and with equal or rather with higher evidence that it is the gospel of God, and presented too to minds not benighted and benumbed by Judaism or heathenism, but enlightened in the knowledge of divine truth from early childhood, should not

be as immediately connected with its appropriate results now as then? Or rather, we ask, why under the preaching of some men, (for we have knowledge of some whose preaching and its effects warrant the question,) are the effects of the gospel in the manner of them, in entire accordance with the effects produced by the preaching of apostles? Should it be said that a peculiar divine influence attended the gospel in the days of its first propagation; we reply, if by this is meant that an equal degree of this influence would not attend a similar combination of means, as this is made up of the truths preached and the manner of preaching them, that the assertion is wholly gratuitous, and unauthorized. Besides, it is contrary to facts, and to the analogy of providential procedure, that an equally perfect ministration of truth should be attended with a less measure of divine influence now, than in any previous time. These, like the light and heat of the ascending sun, have ever been progressive; and as the transient clouds which diminish his brightness and power are followed with the greater intensity of both, so the gospel, rescued from the imperfections of its ministration, is destined to pour its noontide splendours on the nations. The volume of inspiration is finished; and the millenial glory of the church is to be accomplished not by the revelation of any new truth or doctrine, but by a more perfect ministration of truth already revealed, and by corresponding effusions of the Holy Spirit. Nor do we well know how to keep our patience with that sloth which appeals to the sovereignty of God to justify its unfruitfulness, and never inquires after that perfection of instrumental activity, which would be in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.' There is reason why the ministry should be wise to win souls to Christ,' and to the skilfulness and abundance of its labors are we to look, under God, for the predicted glories of Zion.

We have been led into these remarks by the Dissertation before us. What we have said may be sufficient to show, that the views which are adopted respecting the subject discussed by the author, must have an important influence on the mode of preaching the gospel to sinners; and that, to some extent, these views have in fact occasioned departures from that direct and urgent inculcation of immediate holiness, which characterized the preaching of Christ and his apostles. The views of Dr. S. are evidently designed, and in some respects are fitted, to prevent such departures in the form in which they often occur. We propose to give a brief outline of the Dissertation with some passing remarks, and to present our own views of the general subject.

Assuming that there is a general agreement among evangelical men respecting the reality, the necessity, the author, the nature, and the means of regeneration, Dr. Spring justly supposes that n the last of these topics there is some diversity in the specific views of those equally attached to the doctrines of grace. The means of regeneration he comprises in the truth of God, and makes the important distinction between means as used y God with unregenerated men, and means as used by the unregenerated themselves. Remarking that the means of regeneration which God has appointed are many various, that he uses them with unfeigned sincerity and urgency, and that all who enjoy these means are under obligation to make such a use of them, as will answer the end of their appointment, he brings us to the inquiry, how do unregenerate men use the means of regeneration? This question he answers thus; that they never use them as they ought to use them,-they never use them with sincerity-their use of them is a wrong and sinful use. On the last of these topics Dr. Spring says,

He (God) neither requires nor forbids any external action separated from the heart. He requires a good, and forbids a bad heart; and he requires and forbids nothing but what is an expression of a heart which is either good or evil. But are not the hearts of unregenerate men entirely sinful? and is not all their moral conduct therefore, entirely sinful? The external conduct of men, even when it assumes the most sacred and imposing form, is just as sinful as the heart from which it flows. The only way to prove any action to be sinful, is to show that it is done from a wicked heart. And since unregenerated men always act from a wicked heart, their heart always vitiates their use of the means of regeneration. Nor let it be forgotten, that the light which unregenerated men resist in the enjoyment of means, augments and aggravates their sinfulness. pp. 13, 14.

To this, in its popular import, we do most unhesitatingly subscribe. Nothing is plainer to our conviction, than that every act of body and of mind, which can be truly said to be dictated by the heart or governing purpose of the mind, is properly moral, and is either good or evil, as the governing affection or purpose of the heart is good or evil. Nor do we question at all, that unregenerate men commit much sin in what is often termed using the means of regeneration; and we always welcome as of salutary tendency, an unsparing and bold exposure of their guilt in so doing. They read the word of life, they hear it preached, they sit in the sanctuary of God with their thoughts more or less directed to the objects which his truth there discloses to the mind, and still maintain their opposition to its demands; they may retire to their closet under the alarms of conscious guilt, and when alone with their Sovereign and Judge, abhor the necessity of submission to his will, and cherish a heart unshaken in its sordid attachment to the crea

ture, in the very presence of their Creator. Even a protracted process of conviction, with all its anxieties and tremblings, may still leave an opposing heart struggling against the known obligations of duty and the rightful claims of God; and in this manner, as Dr. Spring justly remarks, unregenerate men often commit more sin than ever before. We cannot suppose that any language when used in its ordinary popular import, can too strongly depict the guilt of men in such transactions with their Maker. For the purpose therefore of popular instruction and useful effect this view of our author, respecting the sinfulness of these doings, is imperiously demanded. It is also abundantly authorized by the Scriptures. In respect to moral character the Bible knows no neutrality. "No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon."—"He that is not for me," saith the Saviour, "is against me.' The common and necessary employments of life, the very acts of visible worship done by wicked men, are pronounced an abomination to the Lord. Indeed every specific voluntary action, which is dictated by a heart in which the love of God is wanting, is a violation of the precept "whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God."

We are aware that there are those who disapprove of this popular form of speaking as too unqualified, and who to exempt the sinner from the charge of sin in using the means of regeneration, insist that he may perform actions, even while his heart is actively fixed on the world, to which no moral quality pertains; actions dictated not by the selfish principle of the heart, but simply by constitutional emotions and feelings. Such a distinction, however, we think is not known either in the popular phraseology or in the ordinary conceptions of men. It is, if we understand the case, resorted to for a purpose; and the purpose is really to exempt the sinner from the charge of sin while the sinful, selfish principle remains as firm and active in the heart as ever. Let it then be supposed that there may be external actions dictated merely by constitutional emotions and feelings, and that there is no sin in such actions or feelings, still it is an important question whether the selfish principle remains in full power and dominion in the heart? If so-if a supreme affection for any other object than God is cherished, whether it flow out every moment in overt action or not, then plainly the man is chargeable with present sin. You may suppose him to be cultivating his field to obtain support for a dependant family, -to be eating his necessary food merely to satisfy the cravings of natural appetite-or to be supplicating deliverance from

the wrath to come, merely from the constitutional dread of suffering, and not to subserve any selfish purpose whatever; but, if while so doing he cherishes a stronger affection for any other object than for God, there is an idol in his heart.' No matter what the external action is, nor what constitutional feelings prompt it, the affections of the heart are actively given to some object, in perpetual violation of the claims of his Maker. To what purpose then except that of deception, is it, to turn the mind of the sinner merely to external actions or constitutional emotions as sinless,when in the heart, sin is as truly active as in the perpetration of overt iniquity; to what purpose except that of ruin to the soul, are sinners thus led to palliate, or as the case often is, to overlook and disregard what constitutes the essence of all sin. If they are to be told that things sinless are not sin, in proof that real sin is not, why not specify the circulation of the blood, or the breathing of the air, to prove that there is no sin in loving mammon more than God? The truth is, that in the active state of his moral affections, the man has a master, and since that master is not God, Him he hates; and the fact is too palpable and too momentous to be palliated, concealed, or in the least obscured by any expedient.

Dr. Spring next proceeds to show, how such a use of means is connected with regeneration. Without now entering on the question whether the use which he describes is connected with regeneration at all, what he says to show that it is not acceptable to God,-that it does not interest in the divine promises, -that it is not making any approximation to holiness,-and that it does not always terminate in regeneration, is to us quite convincing. These views also, as we shall attempt more fully to show hereafter, are decisively called for, and fitted to be highly useful, not only as opposed to errors which are taught by some preachers, but especially as exposing some of the more prevalent and dangerous presumptions of impenitent men.

After some incidental remarks on this part of the subject, the author gives specific affirmative answers to the above leading inquiry, amplifying it thus; "What end do the means of regeneration answer? If the Spirit of God is the cause of holiness, why should not his agency be exerted alone? What is the use of means, if it is not expected they will exert an efficiency in producing a new heart?" To this he answers, that they enlighten the understanding-impress the conscienceillustrate the obduracy of the heart, and exhibit their own. powerlessness and the omipotence of the Holy Spirit.

The encouragement given us to use the means of regeneration with our fellow men, and the great importance of using those which God has appointed and no other, are topics