Love of the Spirit

Let us be instructed where to look for the cure and rectification of all the evils which afflict the church in our day ! - to the love of the Spirit . By our misimprovement and abuse of our privileges , by our unchristian temper and carriage , by our worldly spirit and untender conversation , we have provoked the Spirit to withdraw from us , and the consequence has been that the glory has departed from our Israel , and ordinances have become in a great measure inefficacious and unsuccessful . " Who hath believed our report , and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed ?" Who is convinced of sin ? Who cries out , "What must I do to be saved ?"Who receives the word gladly ?  Who brings forth fruit to perfection ?  Where are the fruits of the gospel , even where it is purely preached ? " Woe is me ! for I am as when they have gathered the summer fruits , as the grape gleanings of the vintage ; there is no cluster to eat ; my soul desired the first ripe fruit . The good man is perished out of the earth , and there is none upright among men " ( Micah 7:1) Our carelessness , our conformity to the world , and our mournful divisions , have wasted and nearly consumed the vitals of true Christianity , and left us little more than a spiritless and unsightly skeleton . " Our leanness , our leanness , woe unto us !the treacherouus dealers have dealt treacherously ; yea , the treacherous dealers have dealt very treacherously " ( Isaiah. 24:16)
   Yet there is hope in the love of the Spirit . It is divine , and therefore infinite , sovereign , and free . He is God , and not man ; he will turn again , he will have compassion upon us ; he will subdue our iniquities , and cast all our sins into the depths of the sea . Let us lament after the Lord , the Spirit , and implore his return .Come from the four winds , O breath of the Lord , and breathe upon the slain that they may live ! Wilt thou not revive us again , that we may rejoice in thee ? The love of the Spirit shed abroad in the heart would quicken , and restore , and soften , and sanctify .   Rev Thomas M'Crie

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