own, supports itself, and flands in its own strength, and brings forth its own fruit—And so does every bad man in respeã of the wild and four fruit of a vicious and corrupt heart. —According to the resemblance,— if the apostle intended it, he is a tree,_has a root of his own, and fruitfulness, such as it is, with a power to bring it forth without help. But in respect of religion, and the moral improvements of virtue and - goodness, the apostle cais us, and reason tells us, we are no more than a branch; and all our fruitfulness. and aft our support,-depend so much upon the influence and communications of God,—that without him, we can do nothing.—as our

If we consider the many express' declarations, wherein our Saviour tells his followers, before his crucifixion,—That God would send his spirit the comforter amongst them, to supply, his place, in their hearts; —and, as in the text,--that without conceive them as spoken to his discipies with an immediate view to the emergencies they were under, from their natural incapacities of finishing. the great work he had left them, and, building upon that large foundationhe had laid-without some extraor

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dinary help and guidance to carrys them: through, -no one can dispute, that evidence and confirmation which was after given of its truth;—as our Lord's disciples were illiterate men, consequently unskilled in the arts and acquired ways of persuasion.—Unless this want had been supplied,—, the first obstacle to their labours must have discouraged and put an end to them for ever. As they had no language but their own, without the gift of tongues they could not have preached the gospel except in Judea ; —and as they had no authority of their own, without the supernatural one. of figns and wonders, t-they, could not, veuch for the truth of it. beyond the limits where it was first;