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SERMON XXIV.

THE SPIRIT OF ADOPTION.

ROM. viii. 15.

"FOR YE HAVE NOT RECEIVED THE SPIRIT OF BONDAGE AGAIN TO FEAR; BUT YE HAVE RECEIVED THE SPIRIT OF ADOPTION, WHEREBY WE CRY ABBA FATHER."

It is very difficult to bring the unconverted heart under the influence of a reasonable alarm of future evil. It is equally difficult to rescue the converted heart from the unjust fear of that evil. Unbelief is the source both of this insensibility of and this fear. Alienation from God has deadened the moral powers of the mind, and destroyed the just balance of its original sensibility to good and evil. Hence the unawakened conscience rejects the admonitions of God. There is nothing real in all the statements of revelation to an ungodly man. He does not believe the record of God. He does not believe the depravity of his affections, nor his exposure to the condemnation of the law. He has no stan

dard of truth, and therefore has no internal conviction of the influence of falsehood upon his heart. If, however, through sovereign grace, he should be awakened to the reality of the declarations of God, his mind receives an alarm which the more consolatory assurances of the gospel are now scarcely adequate to quell. He now deems himself to be too unworthy to receive gifts so great and magnificent as those of pardon, and peace, and eternal life. The same unbelief now operates in a new direction. Before his conversion he spurned the charge of guilt and ruin, and rejected the testimony of God. Since his conversion, he adheres unduly to the estimates which he had formed of the divine character; and he disbelieves the amount of that generosity which would quiet all his fears, and bring him into the unrestrained fellowship of Jesus Christ. It is still, however, unbelief which hinders and degrades his views of God.

It is therefore of the deepest importance to open to the soul the doctrine of free and full forgiveness; to show the plain and distinct design of God in the great work of redemption; to mark the completeness of that deliverance which Jesus Christ has wrought for his people. The gospel is not intended to perplex, but to rescue; to take away "fear, which hath torment," and to produce love, which ever invites

to confidence. "Ye have not received,” says the apostle," the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God."

To elucidate this passage of Scripture, let us consider,

I. THE CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER WHICH THE HOLY SPIRIT IS A SPIRIT OF BONDAGE

IN ITS ADMONITIONS TO THE SOUL.

II. THE CHANGE WHICH FAITH IN CHRIST EFFECTS IN THOSE CIRCUMSTANCES.

III. THE TESTIMONY WHICH, UNDER THIS CHANGE OF CIRCUMSTANCES, THE SPIRIT BEARS TO THE SOUL AS A SPIRIT OF A DOPTION. And

OBSTACLES

WHICH UNBELIEF

IV. THE SUGGESTS TO THE FULL RECEPTION OF THIS TESTIMONY.

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I. Let us examine THE CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER WHICH THE HOLY SPIRIT IS A SPIRIT OF BONDAGE, IN ALL ITS ADMONITIONS TO THE SOUL. Ye have not received again the spirit of bondage." They had once received it. "I was alive," says the same apostle, "without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died." Our Saviour taught his disciples to expect the influence of the divine" Comforter," in the first instance, to

be disturbing and afflictive to the heart. "When he is come, he shall reprove the world of sin." The influence of converting grace may for a time resemble that of natural conscience. Indeed I know not but that natural conscience may be the voice of the Spirit, in relation to the charge of guilt, to the revelation of truth as to any act or series of acts, the results of ingratitude and rebellion. The remorse of an ungodly man may thus be the discovery of the Spirit to his soul, as to the quality of certain deeds perpetrated and now remembered. Hence, although contrition may contain other qualities which make it wholly dissimilar to natural remorse, it may yet lead to certain effects in themselves very similar to those of remorse. Contrition may place before the view, warnings neglected, mercies abused, laws violated, obligations broken, and penalties incurred; and the result of this moral spectacle to the mind may be distress, agitation, regret, fear, horror. And this is in fact the very result of remorse, or the discovery to the mind of evil perpetrated, and of retribution merited.

Thus the Spirit of God in its first suggestions, even to the soul towards whom it will ultimately manifest unspeakable tenderness, may be the severe and rugged spirit of bondage. The man has hitherto been wise in his own conceits; ignorant in a great measure of moral

good and evil; blinded in his understanding, and depraved in his affections. He has never

realized to his view the law of God, the authority of his Maker, the responsibility of his dependent condition, the hour of scrutiny, the day of account and of judgment. Hence he has pursued the objects of his ambition, his pleasure, or his gain without uneasiness, and without restraint. Unawed by the majesty, and callous to the kindly attractions of God, he has acted as though he were the arbiter of his own character and conduct; and has never brought his sentiments and his habits to any other standard than to the current maxims of the world around him, to the law of the land, or to the system of his own imagination. Thus situated, if his conscience has for a moment checked him, it has perhaps been easily resisted and gradually silenced. Vice has been pleasant, and its fruits apparently harmless.

But now the spirit of God has disturbed this tranquillity by instructing this ignorance. The Spirit acting unseen, but powerfully, has presented a new train of thought to his mind; has brought to his recollection the laws of God, the obligations of virtue, the claims of gratitude, the demands of obedience. Arrested perhaps by calamity, or visited by sickness, and thereby dragged to a solitary communion with his past hours of life, or brought into contact with the

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