Jesus such a Prophet came. When Christ left the world, he promised his disciples not to leave them comfortless, but to send them another Comforter. And, as on this day," the Holy Spirit was poured out upon all flesh. The same Spirit, which visibly descended upon the Apostles on the day of Pentecost, still invisibly aids, strengthens, and supports the faithful Christian in the discharge of his arduous duties. The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities, and maketh intercession for But as the assurance, that God's Holy Spirit is ever present with us, represents the Christian's life as full of comfort, it also represents it as a state of peculiar responsibility. "Know ye not," says the Apostle, that ye are the temple of God; and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" The body of man is henceforth a living temple, devoted to the service of God, in which his Spirit continually dwells. It may not, without great sin, be profaned by deeds of unholiness and impurity; it may not be made the lurking-place of passion, nor the abode of lust. "If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy: d John xiv. 16, 26. e This Lecture was delivered on Whitsunday. Rom. viii. 26. 81 Cor. iii. 16. for the temple of God is holy; which temple ye are." The Christian is no longer his own: he is bought with a price: and therefore is commanded to glorify God in his body, and in his spirit, which are God's. These commands are addressed to all Christians in all ages: to the young as well as to the old. They bend not to the sudden impulse of headstrong passion, nor to the stubborn obstinacy of habitual vice. They represent our members as members of Christ; and our personal offences, as direct offences against him who is of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on iniquity. By a life of purity God is glorified by a life of impurity he is set at nought. k "I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service." Pray to him to set a watch before your mouth, and to keep the door of your lips," that all things which offend and defile the man may be rejected, and that ye may be "builded together for an habitation to God, through the Spirit. " n LECTURE VII. CHRIST FULFILLED THE PROPHECY AND TYPE OF COMMUNICATION WITH GOD: MOSES; -1. IN 2. IN MIRACULOUS POWER: 3. IN AUTHORITY. JOHN V. 46. Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me; for he wrote of me. IN the Scriptures of the Old Testament, we are not only taught that a prophet should be raised up, who should fulfil the verbal prophecy of Moses, and therefore complete the type of his person; but we have also an intimation of some of the features of resemblance, which the predicted prophet should possess: 1. That he should, as Moses did, know God face to face: 2. That he should perform signs and wonders, such as the Lord sent Moses to do in the land of Egypt: 3. And that he should be endued with Deut. xxxiv. 10, 11, 12. visible authority, as Moses was, in all the great terror which he shewed in the sight of all Israel. That Christ was, in the fullest sense of the words, a prophet like unto Moses, has been already proved. Our Lord, therefore, appealing to signs of future events which accordingly came to pass, fulfilled the very conditions, which no false prophet could fulfil; and, consequently, was a Divine teacher, to whom those who were addressed were required, at least, to hearken. This one proof of inspiration invests all his words with the character of infallible truth. We may now, therefore, use the assertions of Christ himself as evidences, not merely that he declared himself to have been similar to Moses, but as proofs that the facts which he states were certain, and his inferences just. I. The first criterion of similarity, which the Scriptures of the Old Testament teach us to expect, in him who should fulfil the prediction of Moses, is, that he should have a more intimate communion with God, than any other inspired prophet. This was the marked distinction of the type; and must, therefore, be the distinction of the antitype. Now in the whole series of prophets re b John xiii. 19. xiv. 29. c Deut. xviii. 22. corded both in the Old and New Testament, Moses and Christ alone are found to have held communion with God, without the intervention of dream or vision. Moses was permitted to converse, face to face, with the angelic Being who represented the invisible God: and at his own earnest request, was favoured with some more clear revelation of the glory of God, than was at any other time vouchsafed to man." Upon the authority of Moses, known to be a prophet of God by the wonders which he performed, we believe and know that these things are so. Upon the authority of Christ, similarly attested, we also believe and know that what he declares of himself is true. It is not necessary, for our present purpose, to dwell on the mysterious union of two distinct natures in the person of Christ, which is so clearly revealed in Holy Writ. But the passages which declare that doctrine, necessarily imply that the intimate communion, which subsists between Christ and his heavenly Father, is incomparably superior even to that which Moses enjoyed. Of them that were born of woman there was not a greater than John the Baptist; and he declares of Christ, e d Exod. xxxiii. 18... 23. • Matt. xi. 11. |