Trinity, to reveal the Saviour to us, and to " fulfil in us all the good pleasure of his goodness" for our full and final salvation. Our incapacity to save ourselves was, in fact, like that of a body actually dead. So far as relates to spiritual feeling or power, we are altogether destitute either of the one or the other. Of natural feelings or powers, I forbear to speak : they may be carried to any extent ; and it will make no difference in my positions. I would not degrade man below what he really is : I am willing to allow him all that any man can reasonably wish. It is of spiritual powers alone that I speak ; and in relation to them I say, that man is altogether " dead in tres- passes and sins0." But the Spirit of God undertakes to quicken us by his Almighty power : and it is by his power alone, even by " the working of that mighty power which raised Christ himself from the dead," that any soul of man attains the least disposi- tion to serve and honour God. Having quickened our souls, the Holy Spirit proceeds to discover to us the extent of our necessities, and to humble us under a sense of them. Then he stirs us up to cry unto our God : then he reveals the Saviour to us (for it is his office to " glorify Christ ;" and to " take of the things that are Christ's, and to shew them unto usp"). He then enables us to exercise faith in Christ, and to receive him for all the ends and purposes for which he has been sent. He then fills us with a principle of love to Christ, and constrains us to live unto him. He enables us progressively to mortify all our sinful propensities, and to honour God by a holy conversa- tion. In this way he transforms us gradually into the Divine image, and makes us " meet for the inherit- ance of the saints in light."
For the same reason that I forbore to enter more fully into the offices of Christ, I forbear to expatiate upon the different offices of the Holy Spirit. This is a subject which would occupy an entire course of sermons by itself; and, if I should ever live to address another course to this assembly, would
0 Eph. ii. 1. p John xvi. 14.