to evil; and on these tendencies the enemy is ever casting the sparks of temptation, in hope that they may kindle, and burn, and sink them to the lowest death. Before these evil agencies, the strength of the mighty has often become as tow; and the wisdom of the wise as foolishness. To do evil is the work into which they have too commonly seduced whatever is brilliant in human genius, and whatever is strong in the confederacies of human power.

Who then may hope to prevail in this warfare? May we safely confide in our own wisdom, while exposed to all the false appearances that error can assume? May we trust in our own attachment to what is good, in the face of all the enticements with which evil may be attended and arrayed? The bare thought may not be endured; so manifest is the ignorance and presumption from which such a course must proceed. It would be to commit the bark of the infant Moses to the storms of the Atlantic, to urge the strength of a moth against the pressure of a mountain.

It is not on these unequal terms that we are summoned to the contest. The scriptures, which reveal to us the existence and the agency of Satan and his angels, have made us acquainted with the existence and employment of MICHAEL AND HIS ANGELS. Now, these exalted natures are with us, and are probably more numerous, certainly more powerful, than all who are against us. They possess the various attributes retained by the fallen,

1

and possess them in their unimpaired energy and loveliness. The disease of sin has shed nothing of its dark, deforming, debilitating influence upon them. Their brightness is unsullied, their beauty perfect, and their arm has all the strength of its youth. Heaven is said to be their abode. There Daniel saw thousands of thousands ministering to God, and ten thousand times ten thousand standing before him. And concerning these it is said, that they are all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to those who are the heirs of salvation.

At present, these heirs of salvation are dying creatures, beset with numberless imperfections, and often absorbed in a multitude of trivial cares and pursuits. But the angels of God know that these dying creatures must ere long triumph over death; that their many imperfections will be soon, and for ever, thrown off; and that even now, while so far busied and ensnared by the things of this vain state, there is in them the beginning of all that nobleness of principle and feeling, by which they are themselves animated.

And, indeed, were there nothing in believers, considered in themselves, to call forth the attention of holy angels, the relation in which they stand to the Redeemer, as members of his mystical body, and the high destiny to which they are in consequence appointed, would be enough to render them objects of peculiar interest with all the obedient throughout the universe. But the tendency of the gospel is according to godliness; and

the saints are the delight of angels, both on account of what they are, and of what they shall be. Accordingly, the sacred history abounds with instances in which angels have ministered to the welfare of the church; and with others in which their offices have been extended to individuals. These facts begin with the earliest ages, and multiply upon us in connexion with the proclamation and establishment of the present economy.

The extent of that ministry in which these visitants are now employed among us, is a point on which we are not qualified to form a positive judgment. But the intimations of scripture as to this particular, and the suggestions of reason, would seem to warrant the conclusion, that it is at least as considerable as that which the evil angels are allowed to prosecute. The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him. He will give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. A messenger of this kind is described as bearing the departing spirit of Lazarus into Abraham's bosom; another as appearing to the Saviour in his conflict, strengthening him. It was an angelic agency which first announced the Saviour's resurrection; nor can we have forgotten Peter's release from prison. And when the Redeemer is about to gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, he is said to send forth his angels, that it may be done.

Thus the war between the evil and the good, which began in heaven, has been transferred to our

world. The throne of God is no longer the immediate point of attack; but the destruction, or the salvation of man, is the object for which a struggle, pervading the whole earth, and reaching through the whole period of its history, has been maintained.

But, happily for us, in considering the agency employed on our behalf, we have to look above the might of angels. We read in scripture of the HOLY SPIRIT, equal with the Father and the Son, and of one nature with them, who deigns to interpose for us, and to effect within us and around us what no created power could accomplish. To the influence of the Holy Spirit the highest importance is attached in the word of God; and the work ascribed to him embraces every thing that can render us wise, and pure, and happy, and every thing that may secure us in such a state for ever and ever.

The mind is like the body, where if one member suffer, the whole system is affected. The heart, in its various passions, becoming the seat of disease, must necessarily exert an injurious influence on the understanding, afflicting it with sluggishness, obscurity, disorder, and, ultimately, with a total blindness to spiritual things. Accordingly, men are said to be alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart. It is the office of the Holy Spirit to remove this blindness. This explains the prayer of David, Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law. Hence the

statement of Paul, God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined into our hearts, to give us the light of the knowledge of his glory, as it shines in the face of Jesus Christ. Spiritual wisdom is thus declared to be the gift of the Holy Spirit. The natural man,-man in a state of unaided nature, receiveth not the things of the Spirit, they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Nor is this power to discern the truth of christian doctrine the only benefit conferred on the human mind by the Divine Spirit. There is a power given to the doctrines of the gospel, which connects them with the affections, so as to change the heart. The charge of guilt and depravity which the word prefers, is felt to be well founded, and the soul shrinks from the appalling evils to which, as the consequence, it is exposed. It is the office of the Spirit thus to convince of sin, and, having done so, to take of the things of Christ,— the mercies of his perfected salvation, and to apply them as the appointed remedy to the troubled bosom. The humbled offender is not only enabled to trust in the atonement thus revealed, but learns, in answer to his prayers, the truth of that promise, Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will