they be not the index of serious and devout feelings. The God we worship presides in his earthly temple: he is far off, but he is nigh also at hand. Intimately acquainted with the thoughts and feelings of our mind at the present moment, he requires to be loved, and feared, and obeyed: and if you have come into his house to-day with no intention to cherish these affections, with no desire to yield him more implicit obedience, you affront the majesty of heaven. What, my dear hearers, were he to contend with you; were he to say, as he does in his Holy Writ, "How long will ye pollute my sanctuary? how long bring abomination for sacrifice? how long worship me with feigned lips? Is this the homage I require?" "He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" and remember, "I am he who searcheth the heart and trieth the reins of the children of men."

The doctrine of the omnipresence of the Deity should also teach us, that religion is a habit of mind. It consists not in isolated acts of worship; not in our regular attendance on the Sabbath in the house of prayer: but the conviction that God seeth us at all times should make us religious in all places. Frequently the piety of men is confined to the sanctuary, like the fawning homage of the earthly courtier to the presence-chamber of the king. But if God is every where; if he is in your shops and counting-houses, in the market and on the exchange, in the domestic circle and at the convivial meeting, a Sabbath-day religion will neither be an honour to God nor a source of happiness to you. Religion must be, my dear hearers, the staple of life; it must regulate all your conduct, it must influence all your actions. We must live in the divine presence; we must set him always before us. The abiding conviction of his presence is the life, the spirit, of all piety, the great safe-guard against temptation, the strongest incentive to holy actions. If we realize this truth, how often shall we in the hour of our soul's peril be able to say, "Is it better to please God, or to please man? How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?" How frequently would it urge us to duty, if we remembered that God was with us! Job maintained his integrity, because he lived under this impression-" Doth he not see my ways?" And the Psalmist could say, "I have kept thy precepts and thy testimonies: for all my ways are before thee."

Our subject is full of consolation to the good man. O, it is a delightful and cheering thought, that my heavenly Father is never absent from me. His power and wisdom, his grace and goodness, would be of little value to me, were they confined to the heavenly world. But though he is "the high and lofty One, that inhabiteth the praises of eternity, with that man he will dwell who is of a pure and contrite spirit, and who trembleth at his word." He is ever near me, because he is at my right hand I shall not be moved. He is essentially present every where; but he stands not in the same relation to all men: he is the Father only of those who possess a filial spirit: he is reconciled only to those who trust in his Son. He is the source of the world's preservation but he is the overflowing fountain of the Church's grace and consolation. He exercises perfect control over all the affairs of the world; but he is in his Church to delight in it. He manifests a tender pity and concern for it. He has said, "I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it I will keep it night and day." The Keeper of Israel "neither slumbers

nor sleeps." O what a privilege, then, it is to be a Christian; to have God always with me, to fulfil his promises, to guide me in difficulty, to sustain me in trial, to comfort me in sorrow, to cheer my fainting spirit, to impart strength to me when I have no might, to dissipate my fears, and to increase my hopes! Am I in temptation?" With every temptation God maketh a way for me to escape." Am I in weakness and fear, and trembling? His eyes run to and fro throughout all the earth, to shew himself strong in behalf of them whose hearts are perfect towards him." O there is no calamity which he cannot make to work together for my good; there is no enemy from whom he cannot completely protect me. O, then, bind this truth about your heart, that God is every where. Whatever be your condition, let it cheer thee, faint-hearted Christian. God is every where; therefore he can hear the faintest cry, and he can hear the deepest groan. The sigh of the prisoner enters into his ear; yea, he catches the unexpressed petition; for "Before you call," he says, "I will answer you; and while you are yet speaking, I will hear."

Finally, however forgotten and contemned may be the doctrine of God's omnipresence, it is an awful truth to ungodly men. Most men do not think and live as in the presence of God. There is a fearful degree of practical infidelity in the world. Wicked men are perpetually saying, "God hath forgotten he hideth his face; he will never see it." Hard as man's heart is, bitter as his enmity to God is, he would not dare to commit open and notorious sin, if he could but see God: because then he could not rid himself of the conviction, "Thou, God, seest me." Men cannot commit aggravated crimes, which violate the social compact, before their fellow creatures: O, no, they choose the darkness, that their guilty deeds may be done in secret. Night is the theatre of crime; and they fancy themselves screened and sheltered by its impenetrable gloom. Then it is the thief violates the sanctuary of home. then it is deeds of violence are committed: then it is lewdness leaves her secret chamber, and lust seeks its unhappy victim: then it is that sin riots, and crime is rife in the world. But "is there not a God that judgeth in the earth?" Is there not an eye that "runs to and fro, and beholdeth the evil and the good, to which the darkness and the light are the same?" "Can any hide himself in secret places that God shall not see him?"

O, my dear hearers, that you would know, that you would realize this truth -that there is no darkness, nor the shadow of death, where the workers of iniquity can hide themselves! This truth will be known and will be felt at a future day it will make its present despisers to tremble; it will fill the minds of those who now forget it with shame, and confusion, and fear. To their irreparable and eternal ruin it will be found that God is perfectly acquainted with all the works of darkness; that every sinful deed, and work, and thought, will be brought into judgment in that day when God shall award to every man according as his work shall be. Amen.

THE HOLY SPIRIT AS AN INSTRUCTOR.

REV. J. COOke, v.d.

SURREY CHAPEL, JUNE 14, 1835.

"And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you."-JOHN, xiv. 16, 17.

"But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you."-Chap. xiv. 26.

"But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me."-Chap. xv. 26. "It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you, &c."-Chap. xvi. 7-15.

THE subject that is immediately before us in the words that I have read is, The Spirit of God as the Instructor of the Church: and our object is to bring before you the nature of the education, as it were, which the Spirit, the Instructor, bestows upon the family of God, bringing before you, first, the title whereby the Spirit is revealed to the Church as instructing and educating the family of God.

In speaking of this matter I require to remind you of one thing: that as God always makes himself known to the Church, he always makes himself known by names suited to the Church's necessity. All the names and language of the world would not be able to express the fulness of God: if God were to employ all human language it would not be sufficient to describe him. How is it then that God does describe himself? Why he describes just as much of his own fulness as is calculated to fill up the Church's emptiness. For instance: when God revealed himself to Abraham, he did not reveal himself by the title JEHOVAH, but he revealed himself by the title GOD ALMIGHTY. And why did he do so? Because the great matter that the faith of Abraham wanted was, to understand the power of God, and the covenant of God. He was taking Abraham from his own friends; therefore Abraham wanted a friend in covenant, and God made himself known by the name of GOD, referring to his covenant relation to his child. But Abraham also was going forth into a land of strangers, and probably enemies; and his faith wanted to perceive God as endowed with power; therefore God revealed himself to Abraham by the title of THE ALMIGHTY.

But when Moses and the Israelites desired to see God, they had, written in the history of Moses, broad and large, the remembrance of the covenant through more than three hundred years; and they had in the whole transactions

in the land of Egypt beheld the mighty power and the outstretched arm of God: they were now carried into the wilderness, and the emptiness of their faith desired a new exhibition of the fulness of God: therefore unto Moses and unto the elders God brought out a new representation of himself—the representation of himself as GOD, JEHOVAH, including the was, the is, and the coming; as "the Lord God merciful and gracious"—that mercy because they were a rebellious generation, and that grace because they were a most polluted generation; "long-suffering"-for they would have worn out the suffering of any but the God of glory; "slow to wrath"-for they were a people deserving wrath even to burn against them; "keeping mercy for thousands"—for they were now a mighty people; "forgiving iniquity"—for they added iniquity to iniquity; "transgression and sin"-for their rebellions were multiplied into all forms; " yet by no means clearing the guilty"—they required to see that God was not one like unto themselves. Therefore, you perceive, that just as was the emptiness of their faith, God, in giving unto himself a name, brought out of his own fulness what was calculated to supply their necessities.

Now applying this principle, you will see how God writeth by his Son "a new name unto himself; not because it is new to Him, but because it is new to the Church; and not because, in one sense, it is new to the Church, but that a new circumstance and necessity has arisen up in the Church: and it is God's purpose to shew how, whatever form of emptiness can be found in man, there is a form of fulness in God that can occupy it; that whatever poverty there is in the Church, there are in the inexhaustible and incalculable riches of the Lord Jesus sufficient to fill the treasury; and that whatever the Church requires, there is in the excellence of God what will supply the Church's wants, and accomplish all her desires.

Here now the Spirit is written unto us by three names. He was known unto the Church as the Holy Spirit; he had revealed unto the Church the truth; by types and shadows had he comforted the Church. But he was not known in the Church by the special exercise of his powers through the crucified flesh of the Son of God: all was but in type, in figure, in shadow. As a Comforter, in a particular manner, he had not yet come into the Church; he had sent nothing but shadows of comfort before him. But now he was to come into the Church as a Comforter; and having a particular work to do, he is in these three characters revealed; the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Truth, the Comforter.

Our particular business is first to deal with the title of the Comforter, because this name is the first title that is given to him: "I will pray the Father, and he shall send you another Comforter."

Now, although as the Holy Spirit he was known to the Church, as a teller and revealer of the truth, our Saviour expressly tells us, that never as a Comforter had he yet come into the world: and he tells us more—he could not come into the world unless our Lord went away. I pray you to look at this point as raised in xvi. 7. "I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you that go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you." Our Lord then makes his going away essential to the coming of the Spirit of God as a Comforter, and he declares that if he did not go away the Spirit would not come unto them, but if he

departed he would send him unto them. From which you must clearly perceive that the Spirit had not yet come into the world as a Comforter, that he had not yet received this new office which he was to derive from the crucified flesh of our Lord—that is, from our Lord "going away," as he calls it, out of the world of life into the world of death.

Now what is the reason of this that unless our Lord go away the Comforter will not come? You will perceive in this matter, that a Comforter is one required for a world of sorrow. You could not comfort a person that was in joy-you could only comfort a person that was in sorrow. Therefore the Spirit

of God taking to himself this office of Comforter, has intimated that he was coming to them who were in trouble and sorrow. Consequently you find the fourteenth chapter begins with trouble: "Let not your hearts be troubled." And now our Saviour says, "I will pray the Father, and he will send you another Comforter:" which words clearly intimate that our Lord was one Comforter. Now what was our Lord's comfort? Our Lord's comfort, first, as appears in the fourteenth chapter, was faith: "Ye believe in God, believe also in me." You believe in God invisible-believe in me visible in the flesh. You believe in God infinite in power-believe in me infinite in love. You believe in God's capacity to save-believe in me as carrying that capacity into effect. You believe in God as the God of the living-believe in me as your Saviour and your life.

Our Lord adds another comfort: "In my Father's house are many mansions:" which place is the world of God and of glory. And then he says, "I will come again, and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also." The comfort of Jesus the Lord is two-fold-it is faith below, and heaven above; it is simple faith in him as God manifest in the flesh, and the honour and glory prepared above. But now he says, "I will give you another Comforter." And how is it that he doth comfort? Why the difference between the comfort that the Saviour gave, and the comfort that the Holy Ghost gives through the flesh of Jesus, is, that as our Saviour gave faith as the germ of comfort, and heaven above as the enjoyment of comfort—it is the business of the Holy Ghost to establish heaven here within; for he says "He will abide with you and shall be in you." Our Saviour's comfort was only permanent in the principle of it in the established seeds of faith, and it was only hopeful as looking to the glory above. But he says, "I will give you another Comforter." Our Saviour's comfort was, the future glory of the throne; the comfort of the Holy Ghost was, the present enjoyment of the throne, having made the believer, through the crucified flesh of the Son of God, understand how his sin was taken away-how the Spirit of God dwelleth in him-how Father, Son, and Holy Ghost dwell in him, testifying unto him that heaven is not merely a futurity, but that heaven is a present enjoyment, having made us sit together in heavenly places in Jesus Christ.

But how comes it to pass that this comfort cannot come to a man unless Christ go away? This you will, perhaps, more easily understand through a parable drawn from nature, than you would from any lengthened argument.

The office of a comforter is not merely a property essential, but it is an office derivable—a property, and a circumstance. As I have said to you, you could not comfort a person who was in joy; whatever argument you could adduce, you could not impart comfort because he needed none. Therefore it