every act of disobedience is reckoned a sin, and will meet its reward. If man is not called to obey in his own strength, he should not be required to obey while he has no strength but his own; the additional strength which obedience requires should be issued simultaneously with the command. But neither is this the case; since it is manifest that the commands of God are laid upon men for a long period before the Holy Spirit, which is supposed to convey the additional strength, is communicated. Besides, if God does not call men to obey in their own strength, then the strength which he does require them to use should be communicated by him unsought, and not only promised in answer to prayer; and in cases in which that strength is never given, it follows that he never calls for obedience at all. The only thing which, upon this principle, he can be said to require, is prayer, and prayer for strength; which is never enjoined, though many other things are which this imagination supersedes; and which, moreover, is quite as much beyond our own strength as any other spiritual exercise, and therefore ought as little to be required, until the additional strength

is given which we are thus expected to seek. It may be added that the objection quite overlooks the fact, which we have elsewhere noticed, that God actually makes our own strength the measure of his demands; for thus it stands in the grand expression of his law, and the same qualification doubtless attaches to every individual precept of it, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy strength." And if the whole that he requires be that to which our own strength is competent, why should he wait for our obedience till we acquire more strength than our own?

In the next place, we do not see how the condescending kindness of God in encouraging us to pray for his Holy Spirit at all countenances the idea that he does not call us to obey in our own strength. For, in truth, the operation of the blessed Spirit has no relation to our strength, but solely to our disposition. Our strength to do the will of God consists in the possession of our rational faculties, which we have, if we are sane, independently of gracious influence; that which hinders us is a wrong disposition, and for the correction of this the Spirit's aid is to be implored. His object is not to impart strength, but to inspire

resolution; so that even if it were true, which it is not, that God does not require us to obey without the Spirit, still it could not be said that he calls for no obedience in our own strength. Even when he gives the Spirit, he gives no more strength; and if, therefore, we are ever called upon to obey his will, in our own strength, and in that alone, it must be. Besides, when we come to pray for the help of the Spirit in order that we may obey our Maker's commands, what does this very act and attitude imply? Surely, that obedience to these commands is our duty, whether we obtain the aid that we seek or not. If it be not our duty, why should we seek help to perform it? Our doing so seems clearly to indicate that we have felt ourselves called upon to render obedience before we came to the throne of grace, and that, finding impediments, we are come for relief: but, if it be true that we are not called upon to obey while we have only our own strength, then we have been labouring under a delusion, and ought rather to return from the mercy-seat with this consolation, that, until strength is given, we are not expected to obey. The truth is, that, by encouragements to pray for the Spirit, God is making no

allowance for supposed weakness, but showing himself willing not to abandon us to our wickedness. He requires obedience of us as we are; and if we find resistance from a desperate heart, he permits us to hope that he will take even that away.

CHAP. VIII.

Of the divine use of means independently of the Holy Spirit :-The argument from the limited communication of the Spirit.

WE have already adverted to the fact, that what is, on one hand, ascribed to the operation of the Holy Spirit, is, on the other, enjoined upon man as his duty; and hence we have inferred the power of man to perform it. But we may go further than this. God has not only issued commands; he has also used a variety of means to induce us to comply with them. Of this character are all the invitations and promises, the warnings and threatenings, the doctrines and examples, contained in holy scripture; all of them addressed to the understanding, and in some way or other appealing to the heart, and constituting together an immense apparatus of motive and persuasion. Many of these portions of holy writ are unquestionably directed specifically to ungodly men, and, by shewing the necessity, reasonableness, import