of himself but by the Father that dwelt in him, and being "not alone, because the Father was

with him.".

But in Adam, from the moment of his fall, and in every child of Adam, naturally born of him, this blessed consciousness of relationship to God was lost, and is destroyed. Brought under the dominion of sense, the life of the spirit was smothered. Entering into connection with the evil one, the connection with God was broken off. A sense of distance, alienation, strangeness has taken the place of filial confidence, and that bodily expulsion from the garden of God's presence, is but the type of that estrangement of mind, and separation of heart and thought from God in which man now is born, and lives, and dies, except there come upon him new life from above, a new infusion of the Spirit that he has lost. The knowledge of God is no longer the love of God: the recognition of his presence is not naturally delight in that presence: the sense of our relation to Him as his creatures, is not the sense of union and communion with Him as his children. Born of the flesh, we are flesh : children of this world we have no taste for a higher; familiar but too soon with sin, and weighed down with a conciousness of guilt, we shrink from contact with the Holy One, and dare not draw near to the Just One.

And therefore now true filial Piety is not of

spontaneous growth in man, will not develope itself by the natural expansion of the mind. The principle of it is effete and must again be quickened from above. We must be born of the Spirit before we can become Spirit. We must be invited, encouraged, drawn by God before we shall regard him as our Father and return to his bosom. The necessity for union with him still exists. The want of that union is the cause of that aching void and restless craving which all men feel, they know not why: for none but God can fill the soul of man. But the full consciousness of this want, the knowledge of the means by which it may be supplied, even the desire itself for that supply, these must come from God. And to produce these He has revealed himself. He has broken the awful silence in which he stands wrapped up in nature. He has condescended to explain himself in words of truth and love, by the patriarchs, by Moses, by the prophets, by his own beloved Son. "God, who at sundry times, and in divers manners, spake in times past to our fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son." The intercourse which sin had interrupted has been gradually renewed. Heaven has been opened. The Spirit of God has descended. The soul of man has been raised towards him from whom it sprang. Ideas of heavenly

origin have been implanted in him, and they have borne him upwards towards their native sphere; feelings and purposes have been awakened

-"whose very sweetness yieldeth proof
That they were born for immortality."

O the wondrous condescension of our Father,to come down to us in our low estate, to seek us in our banishment, to knit again the links which we had rudely torn asunder, to "speak unto us, rising up early and speaking," to " send to us all his servants the prophets rising up early and sending them, though we hearkened not unto his voice," and then to manifest himself in all his fulness in the person of his own beloved Son, that "as many as receive him may have privilege to become the sons of God," and, "whosoever loveth the Son and keepeth his words the Father may love him and come to him and make his abode with him!" This is the consummation which was predicted by the prophets, announced by John the Baptist as the special benefit of Christianity, promised by Jesus as the consequence of his exaltation, and actually bestowed by him on his disciples as the seed of the divine life, and the earnest of the inheritance of the saints in light. The Spirit of God creates us again after the divine image and makes us partakers of the divine nature, and thus becomes the

spirit of filial piety, the spirit of adoption whereby we cry Abba, Father, this spirit itself bearing witness with our spirit that we are the children of God, and if children then heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ!

Reader, let me ask you, do you feel your need of this re-union with the Father of your spirit? Are you led by all the outward manifestations of his power and his kindness, to seek the Lord if haply you may feel after him and find him, there, from whence he is not far, within yourself? Do you feel that the human heart was made for God, and cannot be in peace till it has become acquainted with him, and yielded up to him its trust, its love, its tenderest devotion? Then will you be prepared to trace with me the gracious promises which he has given of this inward life, the method of its developement, the means of its nourishment and growth, till you exclaim with David in the consciousness of its actual enjoyment, "Whom have I in heaven but Thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee! My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever!"

CHAPTER III.

THE MANIFESTATIONS OF CHRISTIAN PIETY.

We have seen that the inward life of Piety finds its due developement only in the form of filial confidence towards God, and that this filial confidence is the product of that revelation of his character and infusion of his Spirit into the heart, which Christianity—and Christianity alone-affords. For, as the leading idea of Christianity, as indicated by its one specific term, "The Gospel," is the proclamation of inheritance in the kingdom of God, so the distinctive benefit of Christianity which by that proclamation it produces in the heart of its recipients is similarly indicated by one specific term, "The Spirit," the communication of that filial disposition towards God, which is at once the indispensable qualification for that inheritance, and the certain pledge of its ultimate possession. This is that "promise of the Father," that gift of God, which the prophets predicted, and the Baptist pointed to, and Jesus actually conferred on his dis