visitation of his grace gives us to experience, what our church justly styles, that "new birth unto righteousness," which makes us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. Providential dispensations are also to be considered as visits from God. Is affliction the Christian's lot? It is a visit from heaven. Thou hast visited, thou hast tried me, says David. God never uses, the flail, but when his corn wants threshing. "Our hearts are fastened to the world Afflictions are as nails, driven by the hand of grace, which crucify us to the world. The husbandman ploughs his lands, and the gardener prunes his trees, to make them fruitful. The jeweller cuts and polishes his diamonds, to make them shine the brighter. The refiner flings his gold into the furnace, that it may come out the purer. And God afflicts his people, to make them better. "To thank God for mercies," said a pious divine of the last century, "is the way to increase them, to thank him for miseries, is the way to remove them.Afflictions are then blessings to us, when we can bless God for afflictions: whose single view, in causing us to pass through the fire, is only to separate the sin he hates from the soul he loves." And, in all his dealings with them, let them remember, that, though he cause grief, yet he will have compassion: at the worst of times, he will either suit his dispensations to their strength, or accommodate their strength to his dispensations. And when the faith of an afflicted saint is in exercise, his graces, as a good man expresses it," resemble a garden of roses, * Dr. Young. or a well of rose-water; which, the more they are stirred and agitated by the storm, the sweeter is the fragrance they exhale." I have already touched on deliverances eminently providential. May not even common preservation and support, from moment to moment, be likewise numbered among the instances of God's never ceasing mindfulness and continual visitation ?-By him, says the apostle, all things consist. His hand directs, his eye conducts, and his will sustains, the whole universe of spirits, men, and things. With regard to ourselves in particular, have we not each, abundant cause to admire the unintermitted influence and superintendency of him who is our life and the length of our days †? Thou hast granted me life and favour, and thy visitation hath preserved my spirit +. * Sanctification, or the soul's recovery of God's spiritual and moral image, is a fruit of the same condescending goodness. As redemption from the guilt of sin is owing to the past visitation of God the Son; so, exemption from the dominion of sin results from the continued visitation of God the Holy Ghost §. His transforming influence resem * "God can arm all his creatures against sinful man. and the meanest of them, if God give commission." + Deut. xxx. 20. The least, even a fly, is able to make an end of us, Is it not equally shocking and deplorable, that, to believe in the agency of the holy Spirit, as a converter, sanctifier, and comforter, should be deemed, by very many reputed Christians, the certain mark of a weak, enthusiastic mind? Arminians did not always carry matters to this dreadful excess of palpable irreligion. The departure from the doctrines of the reformation was, for a time, tolerably gradual. The deviation which began toward the latter end of James the Ist's reign, was so gentle and progressive, that the church hardly perceived her descent. In the reign of his son Charles, archbishop Laud quickened her pace, and, with an high hand, drove her still farther from herself. -I do not, however, intend to mark at present, the several waxings and wanings of Arminianism, in our church and nation. The compass of the subject is too extended, and requires more latitude than a bles the agency of some consummate painter; who does not complete his pictures at a single sitting, but 66 note will allow. I shall therefore, in this place only observe, that we seem now, to be almost got to the bottom of the hill. We have well nigh, entirely quitted Mount Sion, for the valley of Hinnom. We seem to be casting off all regard even to the modesty of appearances. No longer satisfied with deserting the bulwarks, nor with even silently sapping the foundations, multitudes among us are for openly storming the citadel as if it were a point of settled emulation, who of us should, on one hand, run farthest from the doctrinal system of the church; and, on the other, contribute most vigorously to its demolition. As one melancholy proof of this, let us instance in the doctrine of the blessed Spirit's inhabitation. By receiving the holy Spirit," some divines have told us, "is meant nothing more than the acquisition, the cultivation, and the practice of moral virtue." Is not this, sinking the religion of Christ ten degrees below heathenism? for even an heathen has taught us to distinguish between the sacred influence, which makes men good; and the goodness, which is the fruit of that influence. A distinction as obvious as that of cause and effect. The fruit of the Spirit, says old fashioned St. Paul, is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, &c. Gal. v. 22.-" The Spirit of God and moral virtue are the same." I suppose, we shall be told next, that the atonement, propitiation, and sacrifice of Christ, are only other words for repentance. Let us, with the clue of the modern explication in our hand, make trial of its value; and see, whether it will not lead us into a labyrinth of nonsense and impiety, instead of extricating us from that of supposed enthusiasm. Jesus was led up of moral virtue into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, Matth. iv. 1. And he saw moral virtue descending like a dove, and lighting upon him, Matth. ii. 16. God is a moral virtue, John iv. 24. They spake, as moral virtue gave them utterance, Acts ii. 4. Then moral virtue said to Philip, go near, and join thyself to this chariot, Acts viii. 29. Ye have received the moral virtue of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. Moral virtue itself beareth witness with our virtue, that we are the children of God, Rom. viii. 15, 16. God hath revealed them to us by his moral virtue; for moral virtue searcheth all things, even the deep things of God, 1 Cor. ii. 10. God hath sent forth the moral virtue of his Son into your hearts, Gal. iv. 6. The communion of moral virtue be with you all, 2 Cor. xiii. 14.-Applied to those parts of our church offices, likewise, wherein mention is made of the holy Spirit, the clue will be equally serviceable to the argument of those rational expositors.-If we do, in true earnest, wish for the return of moral virtue, we ourselves must first return to the doctrines from whence we are fallen. We must believe them, as well as subscribe them; and preach them, as well as believe them; and gives them the gradual improvements of his pencil, till he has touched each of his elegant performances into a master-piece of propriety and beauty.Philip, king of Macedon, is said to have rejoiced, not so much at his having a son (Alexander), as at his son's having Aristotle for a tutor. A Christian is not so thankful to God, for the gift of an immortal soul, as for the still superior gift of the sacred Spirit, to renew, to comfort, and to sanctify that soul, and render its immortality a blessing. In the means of grace, also, are the saints visited of God. The ordinances of the gospel (such as public and private prayer, attendance on the Lord's table, reading the word, and hearing it preached) are a kind of half-way house, where God meets and communes with his children on their road to heaven. These are the windows and the lattice*, through which the king of saints displays part of his beauty and glory to the eye of faith. of faith. When our king Edward IV. had practically adorn them, by our own lives, as well as preach them; or moral virtue, which already seems rising on the wing, will totally take her flight. I will recompence the religious reader, for the horror which the interpretation just refuted, must have given him, by transcribing two passages from the learned Dr. Stanhope, dean of Canterbury. Every body, who knows any thing of this respectable writer, knows that he was, in the main, extremely remote from those of our established doctrines, which now go by the nick-name of Calvinism: a term, by the way, which, like raw head and bloody bones, seems merely calculated to frighten the children of Arminius from the Bible and the church.In Dr. Stanhope's translation of bishop Andrews' Devotions, this eminent prelate, and his worthy translator, thus express themselves : "I do also believe, that, by the illumination and powerful operation of the Holy Ghost, a peculiar people has been called from all quarters of the world, to be knit into one society, united and distinguished by belief of the truth and holiness of life. Transl. p. 20. "In the Holy Ghost, I believe a power from on high, by operations, supernatural and invisible, but yet with efficacy undeniable, transforming and renewing the soul to holiness." Ibid. p. 60. May my hearers, my readers, and myself, experience the reality of these blessed truths, more and more, to the perfect day! *Cant. ii. 9. an interview with Lewis VIII. of France, on Pequigny bridge, the two monarchs conversed through a grate-work of iron interposed between them. In a manner something similar, do believers on earth, carry on their intercourse with God. They see a little of his loveliness, and they hear a few comfortable whispers of his voice: but still there is a barrier between. Hence, they believe, they hope, they love, they rejoice, they obey imperfectly: they know but in part, and they are happy but in part. By and by, the interposing vail will be entirely done away and from catching a few occasional drops of blessedness, at the channel of outward ordinances below, they shall derive for ever, the fulness of uninterrupted joy, from the fountain head above. Sweet, indeed, and inestimably precious, are the minutest, the most glimmering, and most transient views of interest in the Father's electing grace, and in the unsearchable merits of Christ. For the holy Spirit to visit us with the light of his countenance, and to bless us with the knowledge of salvation, by bearing witness with our spirits that we are the children of God; is at once, the certain earnest, and the richest foretaste of that consummate bliss, prepared for the vessels of mercy, before the foundation of the world.-But it may be that you walk in darkness; that your views, or even hopes, of interest in Christ are few in number, and of short continuance; so that you experience very little of the holy Spirit's visitation in a way of joy and comfort. This was often the case with David himself, the penman of this sweet Psalm: Even from my youth up, says he elsewhere, thy terrors have I suffered with a troubled mind. But let me ask, did you ever, at any time, or under any ordinance, so much as once, experience fellowship with God, or a moment's peace and joy in believing? If you have, be thankful for it. It was a token for good. It was a visit from above. God is thine, even though (which, how |