religious subjects, these are erased out of men's creed which alone can be the means of freeing them from vice and folly. It was their ignorance of these things which moved the Son of God to lament the uninformed condition of the Jews in his day. To dwell on the history of Christ himself is foreign to my design. Indeed a few souls were converted during his abode on earth: But the five hundred brethren, who saw him all at one time after his resurrection, seem to have made the sum total of his disciples. But all these, and the eleven sincere apostles themselves, were possessed with notions of a temporal kingdom, the rock on which their countrymen fatally split in their expositions of the scriptures relating to the expected Messiah, and had not yet learned, with any clearness and steadiness of apprehension, to set their affections on things above.

And now was the critical moment, when it pleased God to erect the first christian church at Jerusalem. This was the first of those "out-pourings" of the Spirit of God, which from age to age have visited the earth, since the coming of Christ, and prevented it from being quite over-run with ignorance and sin. It is an unspeakable advantage, that we have the sacred narrative to unfold this to us; the want of such an advantage will appear too fully in our history of the succeeding out-pourings* of the Divine Spirit. Our duty however is not to complain, but to be thankful. If we carefully attend to this first instance, it will serve as a specimen, by which to try other religious phenomena, and whether they lead to genuine piety or not, may generally be judged from their agreement or disagreement with this.

Let us then observe the circumstances in which this out-pouring of the Holy Spirit was vouchsafed.

Note. The word "out-pouring" I have taken from the prophetical language of scripture, as expressive of a more remarkable display of divine grace at some particular season. Modern politeness, I confess, knows no such term, nor does it own the idea affixed to it.

I include not in the idea of this unfashionable, but significant term, the miraculous or extraordinary operations of the Spirit of God I mean only such as he vouchsafes in every age to his church. My plan has little connexion with the former.

As repentance and remission of sins were the leading doctrines of Christ's religion, the most ample room had been made for them by the completion of his redemption. He had offered himself a sacrifice for the sins of men, "was risen" from the dead "for "our justification," and in the sight of his disciples was just ascended up to heaven. That the gospel, the good news of reconciliation with God for penitent sinners, should begin at Jerusalem, the scene of so much wickedness perpetrated, and of so much grace abused, was itself no mean argument of the riches of Divine Goodness, and was an illustrious exemplification of the grand purpose of the gospel, to justify the ungodly, and to quicken the dead. By the order of their Divine Master the apostles remained at Jerusalem, waiting for the promised Holy Spirit, "which they had heard of him,"* and abode in mutual charity, and in the fervent exercise of prayer and supplication. What the Holy Spirit was to do for them, they seemed little to understand; if one may guess from their last question to their Master," Wilt "thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel ?" It is natural to apprehend, that they were feasting their imaginations with the delightful prospect of a splendid kingdom, attended with all the circumstances of external pomp and grandeur. Principalities and lordships were in their fancy soon to be assumed in the room of fishermen's nets and boats, and they pleased themselves with the notion of their Master's external dominion in the world. Not that they were without a genuine taste for something infinitely better. At any rate, they afford us an useful lesson; "they "continued in prayer and supplication." They, who do so in every age, shall doubtless understand, in God's due time, what the kingdom of heaven means, and find it by happy experience set up in their own souls, even "righteousness and peace, and joy in the "Holy Ghost."

During this interesting crisis, we do not find them employed in any other business than this of prayer,

Acts i. 4.

except in filling up the apostolical college of twelve, by the substitution of Matthias in the room of the unhappy Judas, who, for the love of a little gain of this world, had unfitted himself for the riches of the next, and rendered himself unworthy to partake of the marvellous scene now about to be exhibited. Behold then the twelve apostles, Peter, James, John, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James the son of Alpheus, Simeon Zelotes, Judas the brother of James, and Matthias, expecting and longing for the unspeakable blessings of true christianity.

The Pentecost, one of the Jewish festivals, was the era of the Divine Visitation. The apostles were all in harmony assembled together; when lo! suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. Their Master had, in his conference with Nicodemus,* compared the operations of the Holy Spirit to the wind, and the sound from heaven on this occasion was a just emblem of the power of the Divine Influence now commencing. And there appeared "unto them cloven tongues like as of fire and "it sat upon each of them :"+ Another emblem no less just, which the church of England uses in her hymn to the Holy Ghost in the ordination-office,

Thy blessed unction from above
Is comfort, life, and fire of love.

In truth they now found they were "baptized with "the Holy Spirit and with fire." And the effects in purifying their heart, in enlightening their understandings, and in furnishing them with gifts, and zeal, and boldness, hitherto unknown, were very soon exhibited. They were all filled with the "Holy Ghost, "and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance." Of the many miraculous gifts now imparted, this of tongues, at once so useful for the propagation of the gospel, and so striking an attestation of its truth, first displayed itself to the

amazement of a number of Jews, out of every nation under heaven, who heard these Galileans speak each in his own language. There is reason to believe that, as many of them were devout men, they had been prepared by Divine Grace for the effectual reception of the gospel, and that a considerable part of the first converts were of their body.

While many were expressing their admiration at this strange event, others, whom we may suppose to have been chiefly the native Jews, who understood not these several languages, derided the apostles as intoxicated with wine; and now the zeal of Peter was stirred up to preach both to those who admired, and to those who scorned. He begged them to have so much candour, as not rashly to suppose them to be men overcome with liquor, which the very time of the day would forbid, the third hour of the day, answering to our nine in the morning, when it seems no Jew was ever known to be in that situation. And as his audience professed a regard for the sacred oracles, he pointed out to them a remarkable prophecy in the second chapter of Joel, then fulfilling, the promise of an "outpouring" of the Spirit upon all flesh, attended with dreadful punishments on those who should despise it; yet that whoever, in the deep sense of his sinfulness and misery, should call on the name of the Lord, should be saved. He then shews them at once how God had fulfilled his own purposes in the death of Jesus, while they had been executing the dictates of their own malice he proceeds to testify also of his resurrection, according to the testimony of David, in Psa. xvi. and cx. in both which Psalms it was evident, that not David himself, but Christ was the subject of the prophecy. He openly declares, that he and his brethren were witnesses of the resurrection of their Master, that he was exalted to heaven, and had received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, which he had now shed forth on the apostles, and concerning which they now had the plain demonstration of their senses. The conclusion which he draws from

this chain of argument, supported by the mutual strength of facts and prophecies, was this, that the despised person, whom they had thought unworthy to live, and had exposed to the most painful and ignominious death, was owned by the God of their fathers to be the Lord and Messiah, who was the expectation of the Jews, and through whom alone salvation was exhibited to sinful men.

The design of the whole sermon was evidently to beget conviction of sin in the hearers; and it pleased God to crown it with success. Multitudes were pricked in their hearts; they found themselves guilty of murdering the Christ of God; and so powerfully were they struck with a sense of their extreme unworthiness, that they found themselves also destitute of all resources in themselves. "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" they cry to Peter and to the rest. This is indeed the beginning of all true repentance, when men find themselves really lost, helpless, and willing to be led in any way which God shall please, because they have no ability in themselves, and "there is no health in them."* Peter said unto them, Repent and be baptized every one of you in the "name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and "ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For "the promise is unto you, and to your children, and "to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our "God shall call."

Thus the doctrine of repentance and remission of sins, in the name of Jesus, began at Jerusalem. Let them loath themselves for their past iniquities, and give themselves up to God for an entire renovation of soul; the grace of God in Christ was offered to every one of them. He exhorted them all to receive this grace, by believing on Jesus for the remission of sins, with a submission to his ordinance of baptism as an emblem of washing away their sins, and assured them, that God would receive them into his favour in this way; that however guilty they were, all their sins should be pardoned, as if they had never

* The Church of England Confession.