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and understood before obeyed. The impulses of the Spirit are therefore the divine precepts and rules of life found written in God's Book. To understand and obey these is most certainly to walk according to the Spirit. Not to understand and obey these, is, on the other hand, to walk in darkness, and consequently to walk according to the flesh. All, then, who walk according to the New Covenant-the Apostolic Writings, walk according to the Spirit; and all who do not, live according to the flesh. This puts it in our power to know when we are spiritually-minded-when we walk according to the Spirit. To those who imagine that there is some impulses more spiritual than the Word of the Spirit, we would say, Express them in words, in your own language, that we may understand them. But they cannot: for their views when written are not more subtle or piercing than the words of the New Covenant. There is nothing, therefore, more discriminating or more impulsive than the word of the Lord. It separates between soul and spirit-it is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

But the precepts of the Spirit are animated and enforced by the Spirit himself. We never can separate them, because, though distinct conceptions, they are nevertheless always consociated in all their scriptural representations and demonstrations. When we pray in the Spirit or sing in the Spirit, and with our understanding, we pray and sing according to the Spirit: and when we walk according to the drawings, the admonitions, and teachings of the Spirit, we walk in the Spirit. "Walk,” then, says Paul, "in the Spirit, and you will not fulfil the desires of the flesh."

But we shall be asked for specifications. We have them in abundance. The Spirit says, "Be transformed by the renewing of your mind, and approve the good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God." "Set your affections on things above, and not on things on the earth.” "Pray always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watch thereunto with all perseverance." Here are three precepts of the Spirit, to which any one can add indefinitely many such. Let any one fully obey these three, and how different will that man be from the great multitude of professors! He will differ more from them, than they differ from the world. To "walk according to the Spirit" implies even more than is expressed in these sentences. "To do justly, to walk humbly, to love mercy, to live soberly, righteously, and godlily," are fuller and farther developments of the Spirit's impulses.— "Not to forsake the assemblies of the saints" on the Lord's days-to observe the Lord's day to the Lord-to show forth the Lord's death as oft as the church meets, are other impulses of the Spirit. He that

humbly, and piously, and zealously obeys these precepts, "obeys from the heart the mould of doctrine” of which the Spirit of God is both the substance, the author, the beginning, and the end; and in obeying these he will experience the love of God poured out into his soul, by the Holy Spirit dwelling in him, and enjoy the love of God his Father, the grace of the beloved Son, and the communion of the Holy Spirit.

But the Bible will be often in his hand, oftener in his eye, and always in his heart. The things of heaven, not the things of earth, will be first, last, and midst in all his plans, operations, and communications; for 'out of the abundance of his heart the mouth must speak.' Such is the spiritual man, or the Christian indeed. This is he of whom the Lord spoke, saying, “If you persevere in my word, then are you my disciples indeed; and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free,"

But how few of the great mass of professors of this our age will bear to be subjected to these rules! and yet such only are those who walk according to the Spirit. The grosser sins are reprobated by all; but the gospel reprobates by the authority of the Lawgiver of the Universe, who is able to save and to destroy, the more fashionable and popular sins of hypocrisy, ostentation, pride, vanity, detraction, circumvention, double meanings, foolish jesting, idle and unprofitable conversation, evil speaking, with every species of falsification, guile, and deceit. It condemns all waste of time in making provisions for the flesh, to gratify its selfish, sordid, and more refined lusts and pleasures. It allows not the pomp, parade, and pageantry of the pride of life. It inculcates spirituality, humbleness of mind, meekness, the government of the passions, equanimity, gentleness, temperance, and universal benevolence.

But do we not see multitudes of professors as conformed to the world in these particulars as though they were under the same impulses and influenced by the same motives as the more civilized and accomplished sceptics, deists, and worldlings in society. Neither the Lord's day nor the Lord's house, neither "the sacred desk" nor the more sacred character of its incumbent, can protect the man of faith, and zeal, and piety of some rival institution, from the slander, false accusations, calumnies, and malignant imputations of those whose office it is to feed God's people with the pure doctrine of Christ, and to guide them not only by its heavenly precepts, but by a bright display of the Christian virtues in their own behaviour. How often on the way to and from the house of prayer, even on the holy days, and in the sacred convocations, do the affairs of state, of trade, commerce, agriculture, and every day concerns, dwell upon the tongue and fill the minds of

THE BANNER & PIONEER, AND REFORMATION. 407 those who are foremost in all the religious punctualities of a profession of religious belief! How many social boards, laden with Heaven's richest bounties, with the fruits and products of the most luxuriant soils and most delicious climes, are surrounded and devoured with thankless professors, whose lips acknowledge not God's kind providences in supplying them, nor invoke his blessing on the gifts he has bestowed. How many families blessed with health, peace, and competence, at whose head are baptized fathers and mothers, whose mornings and evenings never hear the lessons of piety and morality read from the Book of God, followed with the thanksgivings of grateful hearts, and the social melodies of joy and praise! How many households under the government and tuition of Christian parents, never see their parents bow the knee, except when some preacher visits the family, to invoke the Divine favor-never hear the voice of supplication ascending from paternal lips, imploring God's grace upon their future lives! And these are they who profess to walk according to the Spirit, whose first and strongest impulse, both of nature and of grace, to parents is, "Educate your children in the knowledge and discipline of the Lord"-"Train your son in the way that he should choose, and when he is old he will not depart from it." Parents, too, profess to believe this as their first duty; and yet, by their example, say to their children-My sons, never pray in your families, as you see I never pray in mine. Keep all your devotion for the closet and the public assemblies; but in your dwellings, except when a preacher calls, never let the melodies of joy and praise be heard. In this way you will prevent a too great familiarity with the Bible and the throne of grace, and save your children from a form of godliness without its power.' If this be living according to the Spirit, I am certainly unskilled both in the meaning of these words and in the whole spirit and scope of the sacred scriptures on this subject. Let us, however, remember that it is written, "If you live after the flesh, you shall die; but if you through the Spirit mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live;" and if we live in the Spirit, let us also walk according to the Spirit; for they that are living according to the Spirit do mind the things of the Spirit, while they that are in the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; and that is as certainly death eternal, as the minding of the Spirit is both life and joy everlasting.

A. C.

"THE BANNER & PIONEER" AND REFORMATION. JOHN L. WALLER, of the Baptist Banner, a name of no sweet odor among the more intelligent and pious of the Baptist fraternity, has

recently delivered himself of some two massive columns of abuse on the subject of the late Union Meeting at Lexington. If proof were yet wanting that the imposition of holy hands on the heads of aspirants after clerical honors is not always accompanied with either spiritual gifts or graces, it may be furnished from the manifestations of the spirit that yet reigns in this not long since consecrated ex-editor preacher of the Banner & Pioneer: or if any one wish to have a practical exemplification of how much bitterness, of how much of the pure wormwood and gall of sectarian hatred can dwell in a person of but humble dimensions, he may find two striking demonstrations in the Banner & Pioneer of the 22d and 29th of July. I notice these effusions not to make any reprisals from such a quarter, inasmuch as it has been duly admitted that neither the tongue nor the pen of J. L. Waller is scandal or reproach to any person or to any cause; but with a reference to a proposition made by Elder Peck, some weeks since, concerning which I have not heard any thing since my notice of it, I cannot but regard these recent ebullitions against the Union Meetingagainst all who took an active part in it—the special abuse of myself, and the peculiarly malicious arraignment of my motives in attending it, &c. as intended, together with his advice to all the Baptist preachers to take no farther notice of me or the cause of reformation, (a favor indeed for which we would be most sincerely thankful)—I say, I must regard the whole assault and manœuvre as intended to prevent the proposed discussion from going on, and thus to exclude my views first from the Banner, and then from the Baptists generally. Upon the premises now in my horizon, I predict that my Essays on Spiritual Influence will never appear in the Baptist Banner; and I presume Mr. Peck has been, or will be, advised not to meddle with the subject, seeing every discussion of these questions has only tended to increase our numbers, and to weaken the strength of opposition. That Mr. Waller has more in his eye than he dares to express, is farther evident from his assault the very next week upon myself and Bethany College in despite of his advice to his writing brethren to let us alone. He fears that discussion will be as likely to build up Bethany College as it has advanced the cause of reformation. Perhaps he is right. And we shall soon see whether his advice will be taken, and whether we shall be permitted to go forward without molestation. He and such spirits, however, may as successfully bark at the rising stars and forbid their rising, as successfully withstand the cause of reformation. It must go forward. We shall be truly glad of a respite in order to discipline the forces in the field. We have an immense number of infant societies that need much teaching, much instruction and discipline in

THE BANNER & PIONEER, AND REFORMATION. 409

the ways of the Lord; and before friends and enemies I say it, If there be not more teaching and less preaching—more building up of the converts in the faith and manners of Christ's gospel, and less effort to increase their numbers by the mere force of much preaching and protracted meet-` ings, the cause of reformation will rather be injured than benefited by a continued augmentation of numbers in the present mode of induction into the Christian profession. Five hundred churches, intelligent in the scriptures, exemplary in their moral righteousness; walking in peace, love, and the fellowship of the gospel; meeting regularly every Lord's day; keeping the ordinances with all zeal, diligence, and solemnity; training up their families in faith and piety; and following "peace with all men, and holiness, without which no one shall see the Lord," would, in twenty years, do more in every way to convert the world, than five thousand churches such as I could now find in some parts of this country, and in the ranks of reformation too.

Brethren, embrace the coming respite to reform. The wars of the adversary have hitherto in some measure prevented your best efforts. They tie up your hands, and then laugh at your weakness to assail them by the power of bright and convincing examples. If Mr. Waller and those with him will let us alone for ten years, the Lord blessing our efforts, what a change would be in the face of society!

If they proclaim a universal silence on the subject of our errors, and notice us no more for seven years, from the press, from the pulpit, or from house to house-we shall, I doubt not, be greatly blessed. They have, indeed, offered us many indignities; they have misrepresented, defamed, maligned, and caricatured both us and our sentiments. Even the "Cross and Journal," a paper of more respectable morality than most of the Western Journals, has associated our name and profession with Joe Smith and the Mormons! and yet they cry out against the Presbyterians because of their reminding them of the Anabaptists, the Munster fanaticism, and the fifth monarchy insurrectionists. Well, we remember that some one once asked Paul, "Art thou not that Egyption which before these days madest an uproar and leddest out into the wilderness four thousaɛd men that were murderers?" And some one once said to Paul's Master, "Thou art a Samaritan and hast a demon." Talk on, gentlemen! There is a day when it will be known what our motives are, and what our principles and character; and it will not be in your power to blind or prejudice the Judge of all! You are determined on a new war against us. You have no idea of fellowshipping our persons or our principles. You go for the Baptists. Adhere, then, to your Baptist principles, and tamper not with

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