"That he

implore at the very outset of his prayer, would grant you according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man."

The Holy Spirit is the Lord and Giver of life. He infuses life into the soul of fallen man. He quickens it from "the death of trespasses and sins.” He "grants repentance unto life." This is his first gracious work. He next glorifies Christ as a Savior to the view and feelings of the penitent, unites him to this Savior by a living faith, and enables him to repose on his sacrifice for pardon and reconciliation with God. This is his second work. His third and subsequent operations are to infuse strength in all the course of the Christian life and conflict.

The Scripture frequently speaks of this might in the inner man. "In the day when I cried, thou heardest me and strengthenedst me with strength in my soul." Strengthened with all might according to his glorious power." "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me."

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It is this vigor in the inner man, like what we term strength in the natural frame, which enables the faithful soul to overcome its spiritual adversaries, to renounce the world, to mortify its members, to live and walk by faith, to grow in grace, and prepare for duty and suffering.

Especially, when strong prejudices of education or habit are to be overcome, as in the case of the Ephe sian converts; when new combinations of religious feeling are to be formed, and a stretch and expansion of faith and love to be exercised above our previous conceptions of things, and contrary to them; and, above all, when our contracted minds are to labor to " comprehend with all saints the breadth and length and depth and height, and know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge," nothing but the power of the Holy Ghost can invigorate us to the task.

We

And that in no slight or ordinary measure. require" to be strengthened with all might, according to the riches of his glory, in the inner man.' We need large accessions of light, humility, vigor, spiritual principle and habits, self-knowledge, faith, charity. Thus only can we be gradually fortified, not only to receive Christ in all his offices as the Lord of our affections, but also, to be so rooted and grounded in his love, as to be able to climb with all saints, the height of his love in Redemption; to survey and comprehend the vast proportions, and to understand the mystery of the one spiritual temple reared for the one universal body of the faithful.

Such is the order and extent of the first part of the apostle's prayer. It proceeds, as we see, from petition to petition, till it reaches all the fulness of God. The Holy Spirit first "strengthens with all might the inner man ;" "Christ then dwells," and inhabits "the heart by faith;" the soul is next "rooted and grounded in love;" and lastly, gradually comprehends "with all saints" the vast dimensions of the immea surable love of Christ. The character, extent and peculiar blessings of the New Testament Church are in this manner seen, acknowledged, received and gloried in. The native converts, like the Ephesians, thus understand that they are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens of the saints and of the household of God;" that they are built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone, in whom all the building fitly framed together, groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord; in whom they also are builded together for an habitation of God through the spirit."

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Well then may the apostle break forth into what constitutes the second division of this great act of devotion,

II. Praise; "Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us; unto him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen."

In this second part of his sublime prayer the apostle most effectually animates us, first to expect all the blessings he had been imploring; and then to ascribe them, when received, to him alone, whose glory they were designed to illustrate.

1. He animates us to the first by the particular view in which he contemplates the ever blessed God, His power and all-sufficiency. For after the gift of his only-begotten Son, the death of Christ upon the cross, his resurrection, the mission of his Spirit, the foundations of an universal spiritual Church, and the immeasurable breadths and lengths and depths and heights of his love therein, nothing remains but the gracious exertion of the almighty power of God to accomplish all the purposes of such a redemption. The sacred writers therefore frequently repose in the divine power in this view, as that which most directly tends to sustain our faith under present appearances and discomfitures. So in the close of the epistle to the Romans, "Now unto him that is of power to establish you according to my gospel ;" and in that of St. Jude, "Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy."

2. What the divine all-sufficiency is about to effect, we next learn. It is not left in general. God can "do exceeding abundantly above all we ask and think," especially with reference to the completion of the one universal Church.

Consider here the extent to which even the first step of this climax goes. For how much have the saints of God actually asked. What an extent of verbal and written petitions is exhibited in Scripture.

Take the prayers which are recorded in the several sacred books, from those of Abraham, or Jacob, or Moses, or David, to that which we have been considering in the text, and tell me what must be contained in the assurance that God is "able to do all that we ask."

But the imaginations and thoughts of men, which is the second step in the climax, open new fields of wonder in the contemplation of the divine all-sufficiency. Words are after all limited. They serve only to arouse our minds to certain topics described. They stretch our thoughts, kindle our desires, and furnish matter for repeated musings and media tations. The words of such a passage as that of the apostle, set all our powers at work; we weigh what is to be understood by the might of the Spirit, the inhabitation of Christ in the heart, the being rooted and grounded in love, the vast admeasure ments of the grace of Christ in redemption, the temple of the one universal Church of all saints, Jews and Gentiles, and the fulness of God pervading the whole abode. But the apostle here teaches us that when we have fixed our medita tions on every part, and enlarged and multiplied our thoughts to the utmost, when faith has taken its loftiest flight, and hope mounted on her boldest wing, God is able to do more than we think, or can think, or than ever "entered the heart of man to conceive." "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord; for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."

But this is not all. There is one more step in the climax. God is able to do "exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think"-He can not only fulfil the petitions recorded in words, or expressed in "those groanings which cannot be ut tered," of which the apostle speaks in another place;

but He can abundantly, far more abundantly accomplish his promises of love. The floods of grace not only rise above the level of our words and desires, but exceed superabundantly that standard; overtop it, and leave it buried in the depths below. God gives like himself. His power and love stop not where our imaginations and thoughts terminate. There is an exuberance, an all-sufficiency in him, which none of our petty aspirations can reach. He overpasses, both in the matter and manner and time of his gifts, all our preconceived notions of munificence and power.

3. But we must proceed to notice the pledge and anticipation given us of these blessings in the actual power of grace now exerted in the Church; which the apostle refers to when he further says, "according to the power that worketh in us." The work which God has already wrought, and is daily working in his Church, is the assurance to us that he will accomplish the whole purposes of his grace; he is not only able to do exceedingly abundantly above all we ask or think; but he is now doing it: the power now working in the conversion of sinners, in the reception they give to Christ into their hearts, in their holy love, and in their apprehension of the heights and depths of the love of Christ, is itself a specimen of what he will ultimately effect. The power which will be exerted in the gradual completion of the spiritual Church, and the gathering into it all nations and tribes and people and tongues, and the rendering it at last, and in the fullest sense, the habitation of God through the Spirit, is only "according to the power" which wrought in the Ephesian converts, and builded them on the foundation of apostles and prophets. It is only according to that power which is put forth in the awakening and new creating of each individual sinner. It is only according to that power which has been working in