Maker. There can be nothing plainer in direction, nothing larger in promise, than the words of our text:-we are bidden to ask and to seek; and we are assured that what is asked shall be given, that what is sought shall be found. But we are told, in other portions of Scripture, that we cannot pray, except by the help of the Spirit of God; and yet, that this Spirit is to be obtained in answer to prayer. We are, in one place, bidden to ask for the Spirit; and nevertheless, in another, we are told that we cannot ask unless we have the Spirit. There is here an appearance of contradiction which it will become us to endeavour to remove. And, besides this, a question naturally proposes itself,-Why should prayer be efficacious? Why, since our asking informs God of nothing with which he is not already acquainted, why should it be made a condition to our receiving? There are, thus, two inquiries suggested by our text, with which it may be as profitable as seasonable that we engage your attention. The first is, an inquiry as to the possibility of our asking for God's

Spirit, if, all the while, we cannot ask without the help of that Spirit. The second is, an inquiry as to the prevalence of our asking, forasmuch as God knows beforehand all that we require.

Now, we have no hesitation in pressing upon every man as an imperative duty, that he seek and ask for God's Spirit; for we can bring before him our text, containing a clear promise, and as clear a condition. But, then, we are met by the objection, that prayer pre-supposes the gift of the Spirit, and that therefore the promise is nothing, seeing the performance of the condition assumes the possession of the benefit. We do not deny the existence of a difficulty; but we assert that, on a careful examination, every appearance of inconsistency will be found to disappear. Prayer, you say, is the breathing of the Holy Spirit. We allow this: but if you go on to argue, none but the converted have the Holy Spirit, and therefore none but the converted can offer up prayer, we are wholly at issue with you, and believe you to advance

what cannot be upheld. We can go all lengths with the assertion that the only prayer which shall be hearkened to by God is prayer which has been dictated by the Holy Ghost. But we are far enough from concluding, on this account, that no acceptable prayer can be offered by unconverted men. Such men have not received the Spirit in his converting powers; but who will say that there are no other powers with which this agent acts upon humanity? Who will deny that, in unnumbered instances, though there have been a going down to the grave with an unrenewed nature, a struggle the very mightiest has been maintained by God's Spirit with the rebel, so that when, at last, the man has been given over to destruction, he has fallen fighting against convictions, which, if cherished and obeyed, would have led to immortality? If the Spirit strive, as it oftentimes does, by exciting a desire after conversion, and by urging the duty of praying for conversion; and if the man in whom this agency is at work cherish the desire, and fall down upon

his knees; we shall have the offering up of acceptable petition, and that, too, by an unrenewed man, and that too, nevertheless, through the operations of the Holy Ghost. We think it most correct, and at the same time important, thus to distinguish between the Spirit as a striving agent, and that same Spirit as a renewing agent. It is under the latter character that the Spirit is promised to and must be sought by the unconverted. But under the former character, that of a wrestler with the corrupt nature, he is already present with the unconverted; and under this character he may, and we are assured often does, urge the duty of prayer for conversion; and why, then, should there be the slightest inconsistency between the statements, that God's Spirit must dictate acceptable prayer, and that unconverted men may offer acceptable prayer? When we bid the unconverted man pray for the Spirit, he will not pray in simple obedience to our bidding. If he pray at all, it will be from a consciousness, which our bidding, indeed, may have been in

strumental in rousing or strengthening, a consciousness of the duty of prayer, and the sinfulness of its neglect. And thus, if he be sent to his knees, we are clear that, though he may know nothing or feel nothing of God's Spirit, it is verily this Spirit which has sent him; and that, whilst he pours forth petitions for the renewing influences of the Holy Ghost, the matter of fact is that the Spirit, as a striving agent, is inditing prayer for the Spirit as a renewing agent; and that thus, without the slightest impeachment, nay in the strictest corroboration of the truth, that the prayer which gains a hearing is of more than human parentage, the unconverted may be urged to the asking conversion, and to the seeking conversion, and inay so ask as to obtain, and so seek as to find.

There seems nothing wanting to the completeness of this argument, unless it be a more ample demonstration that the Holy Spirit strives with those who are yet unconverted. And there is no point upon which we should think it