and because it is through his agency alone that we are able to pray. And this Spirit Christ will " pour out" upon us. He not only has a right to send the Holy Spirit, as being God equal with the Father, but in his mediatorial capacity he is authorized and empowered to send forth the Spirit, " having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost," on purpose that he may impart to us out of his own immeasurable fulness. To him all must look for this blessingf ; and all may look with an assurance of obtaining it, provided they truly and earnestly desire itg. The great and learned, " the house of David," must submit themselves to his influence ; nor shall the poorest or most illiterate of " the inhabitants of Jerusalem" be destitute of this mercy, if they will but ask it of their heavenly Father11. Nor till this Spirit convince us of our sin, can any of us know our state, so as to be suitably and abidingly affected with it1.]
As a secondary mean, the Spirit turns our eyes unto a crucified Saviour —
[Nothing but a view of Christ as dying for us, can ever thoroughly break our obdurate hearts. But this has a powerful tendency to produce ingenuous sorrow ; because, while it shews us the malignity of sin in most awful colours, it discovers to us also the remedy provided for the expiation of sin. In the one view, we are humbled by a sense of our extreme vileness ; in the other, we are overwhelmed with a sense of the Redeemer's love : and a combination of these two effects constitutes that ingenuous shame and sorrow, which may be denominated evangelical repentance.]
We may improve this subject,
1. For conviction —
[All acknowledge that they need repentance, and profess an intention to repent. But let not any imagine that the slight acknowledgments, and faint purposes of amendment, which are usually made on dying beds, are sufficient. If the comparison in the text be just, nothing will suffice, but a heart broken and contrite under a sense of sin. And precisely such is the view which the Apostles also give of true repentance k. O that we may never rest in any thing short of such repentance, lest, instead of looking now on Christ with salutary contrition, we behold him hereafter (as we must do) with endless and unavailing sorrow1.]
2. For encouragement —
[Many are discouraged by reason of the hardness and obduracy of their hearts. Indeed we all feel, that notwith-
f Acts v. 31. ? John xiv. 13 — 17. h Luke xi. 13.
1 John xvi. 7, 8. k 2 Cor. vii. 11. Jam. iv. 9. ' Rev. i. 7.