or the Jews: but they will be involved, I apprehend, in a very letter of our Saviour's promise, and still less susceptible of considerable difficulty, to disprove the Personality of a Being the aid of metaphor or allegory. which was seen, which spake, and reasoned, and commanded; If Christ had intended only to assure the Apostles that, in or to prove the identity of a Visible Glory with the unseen his absence, they should become the peculiar care of God the and inaccessible Father of all. Father, it must seem a very strange and forced expression to

In this latter question, indeed, on the distinctness or identity convey this assurance in the promise of sending them another of the Father and the Holy Ghost, the controversy between Comforter. And that Christ had the power of sending God ourselves and the modern Socinians must finally resolve the Father; or that a person can be regarded as sent who does itself; since, if the Spirit of God be, as they pretend, an at- not really come; or that God the Father was actually visible tribute or operation only, he must be, as his name implies, in the tongues or flames of fire are assertions which, as our an attribute or operation of the Almighty Father. antagonists certainly will not understand them in the literal But attributes, operations, and every other species of acci-sense, so they are such as no metaphorical interpretation can, dent, as they are, in truth, no more than modes in which one apparently, render intelligible. substance produces an effect on another; so whatever is, in In prescription, indeed, and in the opinions of several anpoetry or oratory, predicated of them, is only predicated of cient sects, the Socinians may, doubtless, find authorities for the agent or patient in whom the accident itself is inherent. the identity of the Father and the Spirit far earlier than any When I say that the courage of Julius has won the victory, to which they could pretend in support of their former posior that the pride of Marcus is easily offended, I do not mean tion. The error of Praxeas, however, which, with all its that either courage or pride have any positive existence of confessed absurdity, was at least a consistent and uniform their own, or in themselves are capable of impulse or feeling; system, identified, as I have shown, not the Father only and but I desire to express the manner in which the persons who the Spirit of God, but the Father and his only begotten Son. are courageous or proud have acted on others, or themselves It may be thought, indeed, with reason, that the Persons in been acted on. whose names, without any expressed distinction, we receive Accordingly, the Spirit of God who strove with man in the the sign of baptism, must, inevitably, be either one or three: Old Dispensation, and which descended on Christ in the New; that if the Holy Ghost be merged in the Father, the Son against whose authority the Israelites rebelled in the wilder- cannot, with any colour of likelihood, be distinguished from ness, and whom the sins of Christians daily resist and grieve; him; and that the battered remains of such hostile tenets as whose amber glory was seen by Ezekiel in vision, and whose those of Noetus and Socinus cannot possibly be expected, fiery unction rested on the Apostles in the day of Pentecost; like the mutilated warriors in Strada, to coalesce into a single this Spirit must be either identified with God the Father, or combatant.

must be an intelligent Person distinct from him. For all Nor is the text of Scripture, on which their hypothesis which is said of a power, a manifestation, an influence, as if mainly depends, to be really reckoned in their favour. That these names had any essence or being of their own,-all this, text is the eleventh verse of the second chapter of St. Paul's I must again insist, is nothing else than the circuitous man- first Epistle to the Corinthians, where a comparison is instiner of stating the former hypothesis. The Spirit, who was tuted between the spirit of man and the Spirit of the Most to console the followers of Christ after their Master's de- High; and the knowledge possessed by the second, as to cease, must mean, by this interpretation, the Eternal Father certain features of the Almighty's will, inferred from the cormanifesting himself, after a certain manner, to his creatures; responding knowledge which the former is know to possess and the Spirit who is grieved, resisted, blasphemed, is the as to the intentions and affections of the man himself. same Father as he is acted on by those who, under particular "Who of men," are the words of the Apostle, "knoweth circumstances, resist, blaspheme, or grieve him. the things of a man, save only the spirit of a man which is

It is this question, then, of the distinctness or identity of in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man, save the Father and the Holy Ghost, to which the dispute as to the spirit of God."

the third section of our Creed resolves itself between the Hence it has been urged, that as the spirit of man which is modern Church and the best informed Socinians; as it was, in him is no distinct person from the man himself; so the in ancient times, the ground of difference between the primi- comparison would not be perfect, if the Spirit of God were tive Church and the followers of Sabellius. And as, with distinct from God the Father.

respect to the Spirit's Personality, the Arians and Moham- But it is evident that this passage of Scripture will no less medans themselves accord with the orthodox against the accurately tally with the supposition of those Christians who disciples of Crellius and Priestley, it may seem, perhaps, his believe in a perfect union, though of an ineffable kind, bePersonality once demonstrated, no very difficult matter to in-tween all the Persons of the Trinity, and who, though they duce the Unitarians to take part with us on the point of his distinguish the Father from the Spirit, regard both Father Divinity against the followers of Arius and Mohammed. and Holy Ghost as partakers in the common Godhead. For And there are, in truth, so many strong and obvious texts it is not the things of the Father, as such, and in his parental in Scripture which ascribe the acts of the Holy Ghost to the capacity, which the Spirit is supposed to know, but the immediate agency of God; he is so often mentioned in terms things of that infinite Godhead in which the Father, the and under characters which are decidedly inapplicable to a Spirit, and the Word, are eternally and indissolubly one. created intelligence, of however exalted station, that the Arian So that by the Homoousian, no less than the Sabellian hyhypothesis, which thus degrades his nature, is, of all the an-pothesis, the difficulty, if it were one, is completely done cient shapes of error, that which, at the present hour, has away; and the objection which might, indeed, apply against fewest believers or advocates. For though, to an Angel or the Arian creed, must be quenched, like the other fiery darts any other exalted Intelligence, the name either of Holy or of of our oldest enemy, on the impenetrable shield of orthoSpirit be, doubtless, applicable; yet is the Holy Spirit, the doxy.

Spirit who is essentially and supereminently holy, a person But, secondly, it is worth our observation, that, in this obunquestionably Divine. A Holy One may be one of many;jection, our antagonists have, evidently, misconceived or forthe Holy One must be One who is above all; and the Holy gotten the peculiar opinions which those whom St. Paul adSpirit of God cannot, surely, in himself be less than God. dressed, and, not impossibly, St. Paul himself entertained as The immensity, in like manner, of the Holy Ghost, who to the compound nature of man.

is present every where; his omniscience, who searcheth all Those opinions were taken from, or, at least, accorded with, things; his dignity, against whom all blasphemy is irremissi- the doctrines of that ancient philosophy, which distinguished ble; all these, with the many other striking circumstances the rational soul not from the body only, but from those aniwhich Zanchius has collected, may well excuse me from mal affections to which the body is heir; and, which, under entering more at large into this separate and less contested the names of the heart or will, they described as a secondbranch of the present inquiry. What time remains to us for ary and mortal soul, which it was the business of its intelconsidering the nature of the Holy Ghost, may be with more lectual companion to examine, to understand, and, underadvantage devoted to an examination of what may be called, standing, to govern and subdue. perhaps, the second position of our antagonists; that hypothesis which regards the Holy Spirit of God as one of the names whereby the Father Almighty has revealed himself to mankind.

This is the "natural man" whom St. Paul so often exhorts our spiritual nature to bind, to macerate, to crucify; this the organic intellect which beasts, no less than man, enjoy: the "anima" of the Latins as distinguished from their "animus," But this hypothesis, though it be professedly an amended whose hylozoic faculties were bounded within the limits of statement of the one which I have been so long examining, is self-preservation; whose use and existence was to terminate liable, in truth, to the same and even greater objections than with the body which it loved, but from whose essence the inthe former, inasmuch as it is still more at variance with the tellectual soul was no less effectually distinct than the travel

ler from the animal which draws his carriage. I do not But though this be perfectly consistent with the mysteri mean (God forbid that I should advance so wild a proposi-ous but acknowledged economy, whereby the Son himself, tion!) that this comparison, carried to its length, would apply, though eternal and almighty, is, in the work of our redempor was intended by St. Paul to apply, to the Divine Exis- tion, subject as a Son to his Father; yet will it by no means tence: but as, in man, the spirit and the will were regarded solve the contradiction of the Father's receiving any thing as distinct persons, and as, nevertheless, the spirit of man is from the Son, inasmuch as he could not be said to receive instanced as understanding every other constituent part of that which was his own, and which had emanated from him the being to which it belongs; so the Spirit of God, which eternally.

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guided and governed his Church in the way of truth, and But, further, we find, in the same passage of Scripture, which bare witness by signs and wonders to the truth of the that the Spirit of truth was "not to speak of his own ;"" as apostolic doctrine, was a competent witness to the will and he was to hear, so was he to speak." affection not of himself alone, but of the whole eternal Trinity. Will it, then, be maintained that the Almighty Father had For the question to be solved was not, whether God knew made over all knowledge to his Son, (to the Man Jesus, be his own mind, of which no doubt could possibly be enter- it remembered, if we believe our antagonists, the man and no tained; but whether the Spirit which governed the Church more than man,) so completely as to be obliged to borrow of in the name of Christ was a sufficient pledge of the Divine him for his subsequent occasions? Or is there any blindness affections and designs. And this doubt (a doubt, it may be which can prevent our recognizing in these expressions, observed, which never could have arisen if the Spirit had that article of the Catholic faith which speaks of God the been conceived to be identical with the Father) St. Paul re- Holy Ghost as proceeding alike from the Father and the solves in a manner which, far from contradicting, completely Son, and as the sustaining and pervading Agent, by whom establishes the doctrine of orthodox Christians, by assign-both Father and Son communicate with their chosen sering to the Spirit a similar misterious relation with the Deity vants?

to that which the soul of man was thought to hold in our But the difficulties of the Sabellian interpretation will yet compound human nature, which was in certain respects the increase on us, if we recollect that the same Holy Ghost who man himself, and in certain respects distinguished from him; is here announced by our Lord as the future Advocate and at once another and the same. Patron of his Church against the malice and unbelief of the

But while the arguments on which Sabellianism depends world, is, in other places of Scripture and in the discharge may seem so little adequate to establish the confusion of of other functions, represented not only as our Defender Persons in the Deity, for which its advocates contend; the against men, but our Advocate also with the Father,—as contradictions which result from their hypothesis are so making intercession for us before God with groanings not to many, and of such a nature, that, in truth, I almost fear to be uttered. "A mediator is not the mediator of one;" he is urge them on your notice, lest they should betray me into a a middle term which supposes two contending parties; he levity unbecoming the place in which I stand, and the impor- must plead the cause of those for whom he is interested at tance of any, even the weakest opinion, in which the nature the tribunal of some other person. But with whom and beof God is implicated. fore whom is the Father Almighty to plead the cause of his

It is, in the first place, revealed, to us, in the words which creatures? To whom is he to reconcile them but to himself; I have taken as a text for these discourses, that the Holy or whose pardon is he to procure for their faults but his own? Ghost was to be sent by Christ. He was to be sent, as an- Surely the learned and ingenious men, who have involved other Comforter, to supply, in the absence of Jesus, that themselves in consequences like these, can boast with little Tapannos, comfort, or instruction, which our Lord had him- reason of explaining or simplifying Christianity! self, while on earth, afforded to his chosen followers. He But these, alas, are not the only nor the greatest mysteries was to come in Christ's name, or as his Deputy. He was of Socinian godliness, since we find, in another part of our not to speak of himself, but to receive from Christ the illu- Lord's prediction, that the Father was to give this Paraclete mination of which he was the dispenser. "He shall take of to abide with Christians for ever; Christ was to send him mine," are the words of our Saviour, "he shall take of mine. from the Father: he was to come forth, (this same Comforter and show it unto you." or Advocate,) or issue from the Father; and the Father was to send him in Christ's name. And yet the Holy Ghost whom the Father sends is the same, they tell us, with the Father who sends him!

Is it possible that a description such as this can apply to him whom all sects and parties agree to consider as the fountain of Diety, the God and Father of all? Or will not the warmest defender of our Lord's Divinity confess, that the opinion here expressed is inconsistent with that relation, which in every page of Scripture is implied, between the heavenly Father and his loving and obedient Son?

The Orthodox, undoubtedly, cannot hope to explain or understand that incomprehensible union which subsists between the Persons of the Trinity. We cannot demonstrate in what manner that is possible which is above the limits of reason; But our Unitarian antagonists! how can they be justified? but the time would be, surely, yet more completely thrown They who account the Saviour of the world a man of men, afaway, which should be bestowed in proving that what is creature like themselves, a mortal and earthly frame, without contrary to reason never can be credible.

a soul, and instinct with mechanism only! How can they To those, if such there be, who can digest even Sabellian hazard the assertion that such a being could send the Al-contradictions, it may be doubted, indeed, what argument remighty to supply his place among men? How can they mains to be offered. Shall we lead them to the banks of dream that the only wise God, in his intercourse with man-Jordan during the baptism of John, and point out to their atkind, did not speak of himself, but became, in his turn, the tention the whole Triune Godhead made manifest in the seProphet of the wisdom and doctrine of the Man Jesus of Na-veral and consentaneous characters of the Dove, the Voice, zareth? Let us return to transubstantiation! Let us em- the Beloved Son? Is it to their own baptism that we shall brace as Gospel the less disgusting marvels of the Talmud, send them back, when the waters of regeneration were the Shaster, the Edda, or the Koran! But let not learned sprinkled on their brows in the name and by the joint authormen expect us to embrace a system which must eclipse the ity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost? Or shall Koran's eminence in folly, and put the wildest fancies of the we carry them, on the wings of the Evangelical Eagle, to that Talmud to shame! tremendous throne and glassy ocean intermingled with fire, The Rabbins have taught, indeed, that, on a certain occa-where burns continually the Sevenfold Spirit of God, where sion, Elias was sent from God to ask from Rabbi Simeon the lives the Lamb who was slain for us, and where sits enthronmeaning of a passage in the Canticles: but this was not ined the Ancient of Days, the Father Everlasting and Alignorance, but in reproof of the heavenly spirits. And sure-mighty?

ly the boldest Rabbin of them all would start and tremble at Our knowledge, indeed, is small, our ideas are limited; we the conclusion which follows from Socinianism, that the Al- behold, as yet, the things of God through the dusky medium mighty Father, in his intercourse with mankind, has received of mortality, and, oh, how feebly do we reason! Yet, surely, inspiration from an earthly prophet. if the Spirit of truth have not deceived us in the literal ac

It will be urged, perhaps, in reply, that our Saviour him-count which he has himself afforded of his person and characself explains, and, in some sort, apologizes for the phrase on ter; if there be any certainty in logical inference, any preciwhich this objection is grounded, by reminding his hearers, sion in the most solemn words of Scripture, the Spirit whom in the following sentence, that those things only were his the Father sends forth must needs be distinct from the which he had himself received of the Father. "All things Father; if Christ, the first Comforter of fallen man, be a which the Father hath are mine; therefore I said unto you, Person, that other Comforter whom he promises must be a that he (the Comforter) will take of mine, and show it unto Person also; if, in the baptismal office, the Son be distinct, Jou." the Holy Ghost cannot be identified with the Father, to whose

name his name is joined. As, then, their inconsistency has which those terms convey; and, as ye honour the gift of reabeen shown, who would reduce the Spirit of God to a quality son, and as ye love the privilege of revelation, reject not an or abstract name; let those explain, who apply to the Father inference legitimately drawn from premises admitted by all; whatever of action or passion is predicated of the Holy Ghost, despise not the wonders of the gospel, because their heavenly let them explain by what subtility of distinction they can nature transcends the grossness of our present faculties! evade one half of the Sabellian system, while they contend so Nor fancy that we are leading you from practical truths strongly for the other; and deny the Divinity of the Son along the dreary track of useless, perhaps of impious, specuwhile they assail the Personality of the Comforter. Or let lation: or that the time is wasted which is employed in disnot them, at least, revile the Orthodox as teachers of contra- cussing rather than improving the spiritual graces vouchsafed diction and absurdity, who can themselves believe and main-to us by the Almighty.

tain that the Father sent himself,-poured forth himself,-1 In our religion is no truth so exclusively speculative, but maketh intercession with himself, that the allwise God it is connected with, and terminates in, practice. We study could require or receive inspiration from a mortal Prophet,-God's nature, in order that the more we know of him, he may and that it is reasonable to believe a contradiction in terms, offer a shape more tangible and more accessible to our faith, rather than assent to that which is beyond the limits of our our affection, and our prayer. The more firmly the Personal experience. Existence of his Spirit is imprinted on our minds, the more Oh miserable perversion of human intellect, portentous conviction do we feel of our own spiritual and immortal nablindness of pride, which can forsake the pure well of Salva- ture; the warmer gratitude to that eternal and almighty tion, to hew out for itself those broken cisterns, of which the Redeemer, by whose merits and whose power this heavenly rents and the chasms are ridiculous and offensive in the eyes guest is brought down to dwell in the hearts of men. of that reason which they loudly call on us to adore! For In that Redeemer, indeed, as in the former Adam of Cabourselves it is no new trial, that the God whom we worship balistic Mythology, all the rays of the celestial Sephiroth should be accounted foolishness; but it may well afford some meet and terminate; all the splendours of revelation are emcomfort to those who are accused of following after supersti-bodied in him; and every minor difference of creed or discitious vanities, to witness how soon these preachers of a ra- pline is extinguished in this central light, with those who tional religion, professing to be wise, are become blind. offer up at the basis of his cross, their hopes, their doubts, Let me not however be mistaken. The comfort which a their merits, their infirmities! Christian may feel in exposing the inconsistencies of his err- From that most holy and most happy company; from that ing brethren, is not derived from pride, and is far, very far innumerable multitude who, with more or less of knowledge, removed from the exultation of malice or of scorn. Sensible and amid less or greater errors, have sought redemption as we are of our own transgressions against reason and through the sufferings of Christ, and shall find it in his final Scripture; sensible as we must be of our natural ignorance triumph, the Socinian is self-excluded! Like the wind of and weakness; creatures of education and habit; we cannot the desert, where his doctrines pass, the fruits and flowers of notice the mistakes of other men without recollecting, at the Eden vanish or decay; and in that self-confidence which same time, by what school, what example, what providential counts the blood of the eternal covenant a worthless thing, chain of circumstances, our own eyes have been opened to and doth despite to the Spirit of Grace; in that strength of the things which belong to our peace; to those hopes and prejudice which would rend from Scripture whatever page or grounds of hope which we feel and know are as necessary to passage contravenes his previous opinion; in that gloomy our comfort here, as the truths on which they depend are to materialism which turns identity into illusion, and degrades our eternal salvation hereafter. Call it ignorance, call it our nature to the level of a speaking automaton, he stands hardness of heart, call it reprobate blindness, which prevents alike anathematized by the primitive Faith and the soundest our brother from agreeing with us in the essentials of reli- Philosophy; rejected alike from the Academy and the Temgion, we feel that what he is we also might have been; and ple.

that there have, perhaps, been moments in which many in- That these renowned and venerable seats of learning and consistencies, which are now apparent to us, were in like piety may, as they have embraced, continue long to hold fast manner hidden from our eyes. If we rejoice, then, in detect- the better part both in philosophy and religion, may he accord ing the misapprehensions of our religious antagonists, if we to our prayers from whom all wisdom and godliness flow; the are anxious to unravel his sophisms, if we are fervent in re- Author of every good and perfect gift to man; the Ruler and pelling his calumnies, it is not, I repeat it, in anger or in Patron of that church which the Son hath purchased by his pride, but because we thereby confirm in ourselves that faith blood; who, with the same most blessed Son, and the Alwhich is necessary to our happiness, and prevent, perhaps, mighty and Eternal Father, liveth and reigneth ever one in those whose opinions are yet undecided, the extension of God, world without end.

the mischief which we deplore.

If any such there are, (and such their doubtless must be among the younger part of this assembly) whose opinions are not yet confirmed by time or inquiry in those doctrines which our church with reason inculcates as essential to our holiness here and our happiness hereafter; if such there be, let me exhort them not to shun those studies on which their

LECTURE IV.

faith must hereafter [repose, nor (if such studies are begun I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you that I go away: for if with proper feeling, and continued with proper perseverance) to entertain any doubt as to their issue.

go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.-John xvi. 7.

But let them recollect, during such their inquiry, that what is above reason is not, therefore, unreasonable; that, where Having shown that the Comforter whom Christ was to difficulties are found on either side, the word of God is the send is an Intelligence or Person distinct from God the Faonly sufficient arbiter; and that the best means of understand-ther, and having incidentally also shown the Deity of that ing any single passage of Scripture, is to acquire an accurate Person; I may leave to our antagonists the task of discoverand long acquaintance with the whole of the sacred Volume. ing by what rational hypothesis, excepting that contained in Yet, though Scripture be the test by which every doctrine the usual confession of the church, their ingenuity can reconis tried, it is by the sense and not the terms of Scripture that cile Scripture to itself, or make the strong assertions which are the conformity of an opinion to God's will may be most fairly found there as to the divinity of more persons than one, conestimated. It is no objection to a solemn truth that it should sist with those equally forcible passages which inculcate the be conveyed in barbarous language; and, if our adversaries unity of God.

have compelled us to define, with scholastic precision, our For when we find on the one side, the Father, the Son, the faith in the Triune Deity, the fault, if fault there be, must Holy Ghost, all three alike invested with the loftiest titles rest with them by whom we are daily and falsely accused of and attributes of Eternal, Almighty, Allwise, it would be idolatry. reasonable, no doubt, in the first instance, to suppose that But, brethren, I speak as to the wise; a name, ye know, these three divine Persons were distinct and independent diis nothing; nor have ye so learned Christ (God forbid you vinities.

ye should have so learned him!) as to believe his religion to But when, on the other hand, Jehovah our God is expressly be a system of sounds and syllables; or to fancy that a Scrip- asserted to be one Jehovah; when the Son instructs us that tural doctrine cannot be contained in unusual or unscriptural he and the Father are one; and when the presence of the Holy language. Bear with us, then, in this our infirmity! Attend Ghost with the church is identified with the presence not only not so much to the terms which we use, as to the meaning of the Father but of the Son; no conclusion can remain for

us, but that we must either reject entirely all belief in Scrip- would not deceive you must be your evidence of things unture, or that we must understand the words of Scripture in a seen.'

different manner from that in which we should understand the Nor is the utility of a revelation disproved, should its cirsame expressions in any other treatise, or, lastly, that we cumstances and detail exceed our present capacity, and should must acknowledge the Persons thus identified and distinguish- our faith be tried by information which we as yet imperfectly ed to be, in certain respects, at once united and separate, in comprehend. Snch information, like the elements of a science, certain relations with each other, at once subordinate and has reference, we may conclude, to a future state of progressequal. ive knowledge and inquiry. Byfthe glimpses of truth which Nor will this appear, on sufficient testimony, incredible, to it affords, we are induced to expect far brighter discoveries any one who recollect how often in the works of nature an hereafter, and to contemplate with less of terror than of apparent contradiction is solved and rendered consistent by a anxious hope, that period at which all our doubts shall be more perfect discovery of relations and circumstances; how removed, and when those things which we now see through many peculiarities there are in those things which are most a glass darkly, we shall be permitted to look on face to face. obvious to our senses, which we believe to exist in contradic- Dissolve this tabernacle, rend but this fleshy dungeon in tion, utter contradiction, to the testimony which those senses twain, and all shall at once be clear which now perplexes us; all shall be light which now appears obscure, and

offer.

That the sun is stationary, and that the earth is in constant all which we doubt of now shall be known even as God and rapid motion, a motion more rapid than the swiftest bird, knoweth us. This is the gate of knowledge; from this poiut the dolphin, or the cannon-ball, some of us believe, because our discoveries begin; and, the darkness of the grave once it has been demonstrated to us: but many more there are who traversed, we shall enter into a refulgence of day which no acknowledge it against the evidence of their eyes and feelings, cloud shall obscure, no evening terminate! on no stronger ground than that they have heard the fact from Meantime, however, though it be worse, perhaps, than others, of whose information and integrity they entertain a merely idle to weary our souls by a fruitless curiosity after better opinion than of the extent of their own knowledge and undiscoverable secrets, or to attempt to reconcile with our the accuracy of their own observation. Let but so much of bodily apprehensions those truths which are not the objects credence be given to the Omniscient, as we usually in facts of sense; yet is it a delightful and a holy exercise to ascerbeyond the limits of our own research accord to our fallible tain, as far as possible, the limits to which the words of Revfellow creatures, and we shall hear no more of the impossi-elation extend, to meditate often on the abstruser oracles of bility of any doctrine which is explicitly revealed in, or cor- God, and to collect with humble and patient scrutiny those rectly deducible from, those writings which we confess to be scattered facts which he has incidentally communicated respecting his own mysterious nature.

the oracles of God.

Of those, indeed, who assign as a sufficient ground for un- Nor is it any imputation on the truth or importance of a belief in a Divine Revelation, that its circumstances surpass doctrine, that we discover it, like the Trinity in Unity, not so our mental comprehension, it may be asked, in return, whether much from the direct assertions as from the implied meaning they themselves believe in the existence of a Divine and In- of Scripture; that it is a consequence deducible from revelafinite Being, who fills all space, who is Allwise, Allpowerful; tion, rather than, itself, in express terms revealed. whose justice and mercy are alike without end? Such a For this is not the only instance in which the oracles of God Being they will, doubtless, answer that they acknowledge; convey most important information through circumstances yet how many circumstances apparently impossible in them- seemingly indifferent, by an arrangement which contents itselves or inconsistent with each other, are involved in this self to disclose the grounds on which our faith is to be founded, short and usual definition! and which permits us from these grounds to infer the belief If the presence of God be infinite, then must we acknowledge, for ourselves. with Spinoza all things to be God; or more than one indivi- When the Almighty announced himself to Moses in Horeb dual must, at the same moment, be in the same portion of as the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and Jacob, it is evident that space. If his power and wisdom be infinite, where is the in these expressions no definite assurance was contained of a freedom of the human will? and if the will be not free, how life beyond the grave. Yet, inasmuch as this opinion might can the Almighty judge the world? When these questions be reasonably though incidentally collected from the premises are answered, and the innumerable other mysteries are ex-afforded, our Lord, we know, referred to this single passage plained which beset the first entrance not of revealed only, as sufficient to confute the Sadducees, and reproved them but of natural religion; it may then be time to inquire, whether sharply for a culpable error in not having themselves made it be impossible that an Omnipresent Being should be mani- the right application.

fested in more than one hypostasis; or that three distinct hy- Nor is there any thing in this manner of instruction at vapostases should be capable of a connexion so intimate as to riance with those methods which we might previously have be only one Divinity. expected the Almighty to adopt in the illumination of his But to apply to spiritual existences, of which we know creatures, or different from the usual tenour of that more imnothing, illustrations or objections taken from those bodily mediate intercourse which he has at times carried on with substances with which only we are acquainted, is to apply our mankind.

knowledge to an end which it was never intended to answer; The soul of man is not only delighted with knowledge, but it is to measure space with the thermometer, or heat with the if she be in a healthy and natural condition, she is delighted compass and square. To what extent, indeed, those glorious also with the act of learning. But that this act should be but finite beings who behold the face of God, are enabled by either agreeable or efficacious, it is necessary that we should that blessed intercourse to understand the mode of their do it for ourselves. What is merely didactic is always weaMaker's existence, we know not, nor does it greatly import risome; and the most effectual advances are made and our us to inquire. But one thing we know, that we are, ourselves, progress is then most pleasurable, when, with no more assistas yet, in a state of pupilage; in which whatever we believe ance from others than is absolutely necessary, we master as to our future destinies, or the Being on whom we depend, every difficulty by our own resources, and associate in our reis founded on testimony only. The state of the Sceptic is not collection the beauty of truth with the triumph of successful dissimilar from that of a human being born and educated in a inquiry.

dungeon, who should deny the existence of light because his Accordingly, to confer on his creatures rather the means of organs had never perceived it, and because the properties as- knowledge than knowledge itself; to encourage them to elicit cribed to it appeared, as to such an one they might naturally the truth by their natural faculties from data supernaturally appear, inconsistent and contradictory. And if the distinc- communicated, is that conduct which we should, a priori, and tion of colours should seem impossible to one with whom every in a gracious conformity to the frame of our nature, most reathing alike was gloomy, if the fair variety of this upper sonably expect from an allwise and beneficient instructor. world should militate against all the prejudices of him who Such indeed, we find is the course which, in his arrangehad grown old and obstinate within the narrow compass of ment of the physical world, the maker of that world has folhis four stone walls, what ground of conviction could his in-lowed. He does not feed us, but he furnishes us with the structor offer but the pledge of his own integrity? means of procuring food; and how dull and inanimate would

"You cannot," might be his words, "I know you cannot that existence become, which was never diversified by the as yet understand me; but if these prison walls were away, ardour of pursuit, never stimulated by the craving of anxiety, you would be at once convinced of my truth. On that truth, nor rewarded with that luxury of repose which is the offhowever, and on the opinion which you entertain of my spring of successful labour? What wonder then, if there are knowledge and veracity, must the certainty of all these won- certain truths which he has reserved as the reward of an atders at present repose; and the faith which you retain that I tentive consideration of those which he has expressed more

clearly; what wonder if many remarkable features of his na- were promised as a peculiar Comforter to the Apostles only, ture and government are revealed to us by implication only? or to the universal church of Christ; and in what respects Accordingly, in the types, the prophecies, the parables of and by what perceptible benefits, he was to evince, if I may Scripture, the frequency of such a process is obvious even to use the expression, his title to the name of Paraclete. a careless reader of the Bible. The religion of the Jew from And, of these inquiries, the first, apparently, need not dehis cradle to his tomb, conveyed in all its ceremonies a per- tain us long; since the same Divine Teacher by whom the petual allusion to the future sacrifice for sin in the person of promise of a Paraclete was given, has promised also that he the Messiah, and the prophecies of the old and the parables should remain for ever with those who were to be the objects of the later covenant, are each of them an exercise of that na-of his care. But that this expression, "for ever," is not pertural faculty, by which we reason to things from their resem-sonally applicable to the immediate hearers of Christ, and blances. that the promise cannot therefore be confined to them, is apWe find, nevertheless, that the meaning of such expressions parent from the very fact of their mortality. For the words was not to be neglected with impunity; nor, when all who of our Saviour do not, it may be observed, imply that the desired to understand them might easily find the key, could continuance of the Comforter with them was to be to the end those plead ignorance as an excuse, whose indifference or of their lives. If this had been the case, we might reasonably prejudice was the real cause which had kept them thus ex- have doubted whether succeeding generations were included cluded. in the promised benefit. But it was not "till death," nor

It was, therefore, at their own tremendous peril that the "always," nor "continually," that the Paraclete was to Pharisees refused to understand the ancient prophecies in abide with those to whom he was promised. It was "for their natural application to our Saviour; and the Sadducees ever," "eternally," or " to the end of the world," sis Tèv aiuva, and were reproved by him as guilty of a grievous error, in ne-it answered in purport to the remarkable expression whereby, glecting to attend to the deduction which followed from the after his resurrection from the dead, and immediately before words of God in Horeb. his return to heaven, our Lord assured them of the perpetual

Not only, then, is it possible that a doctrine may be true continuance of his own protecting care. But an eternal which is incidentally only, and not in explicit terms revealed; guardianship and comfort can only be exercised on an eternal it is, moreover, possible that such a doctrine may be of the subject. It is therefore as a collective body, and as an endhighest and most vital importance to our conduct here and less succession of individuals, that the church of Christ reour eternal hopes hereafter; it may be such an one as, in ceived the promise here recorded and it will follow that it itself or in its consequences, may affect our everlasting salva- was communicated to the Apostles, not as its exclusive intion. Nor, though it be presumptuous to decide as to the heritors, but as the representatives of all who in after ages, by lowest degree of knowledge or of faith to which the mercy of their means, should believe on the Son of God. our father may extend, can it be doubted that those doctrines

Nor can it be reasonably urged in answer to this position, in which the objects of our adoration are concerned, are ques- that the Apostles, though exposed to death, and destined, tions of the highest practical moment. each of them, in a few years to die, were, each of them,

It cannot be safe to neglect whatever God reveals to us nevertheless, in a certain sense, immortal, and that admitted, respecting his own mysterious essence; nor can it be regard- as they doubtless are, to a yet closer intercourse with the ed as grateful to refuse whatever of prayer or praise is autho- Spirit of Truth, it is improbable that such spiritual advantages rized and commanded in Scripture to be rendered to the Son as they in this life enjoyed, have in the succeeding life been by whom we are redeemed, and the Spirit by whom we are taken from them. For it is not, we should observe, a spiritual communion simply speaking, it is not the presence and

sanctified.

And, so far is the indirect species of proof from incurring, favour of the Holy Ghost abstractedly considered, which is as our antagonists pretend that it incurs, the charge of weak- the subject of our Saviour's prophecy; it is in his capacity ness or insufficiency, that, in written documents, (and docu- of Paraclete that the Spirit was then about to descend; he ments above all which have descended to us from distant was promised as an Intercessor for their infirmities at the ages, and have been exposed, as all such must be mere or throne of grace, as a Comforter under that distress which the less exposed, to the injuries of time or the misuse of men.) a departure of their Lord occasioned, as an advocate and orator legitimate inference from unsuspected premises will often in the cause of Christianity against the violence and prejudice more avail in the establishment of an ancient opinion, than of men.

even the strongest positive testimony.

But in paradise they need no Intercessor, for by their enThere is always a greater chance when such positive as-trance there the object of intercession is obtained. In parasertions are produced, that the text may have suffered by dise they require no Comforter, for Christ is there, and has indiscreet or fraudulent zeal; and the more expressly and wiped away every tear from every eye: in paradise what closely any passage corresponds with the faith or wishes of room can be found for an advocate or a defender, for the aca particular sect, so much the greater reason will there be to cuser of the brethren is shut out from thence, and the storms apprehend, that those who anxiously desire to convince of the world roll far from that asylum.

others, have not been always content to bring forward those It is plain, then, that the office of Paraclete had respect to proofs by which they have been convinced themselves. this world only, and that if the continuance of that office be

But, when a proposition is presented incidentally to our commensurate with the world's duration, it is one to which notice; when it is elicited from recorded facts, or from asser-every race of believers have a right to look up in all humble tions so circumstanced as to be a necessary part of the treatise confidence for the fulfilment of our Saviour's promise. or history in which they occur; when it follows as a neces- As the promise, then, of the Comforter is to ourselves and sary corollary from arguments of which the immediate refer- our sons and our sons' sons for evermore, it is natural and it ence is to another subject; there is no longer room to appre- is necessary to inquire with all becoming eagerness, the purhend the collusion of partizans or the wilful inaccuracy of port of an assurance in which we are so nearly and greatly transcribers, and the proof has the same advantage over the concerned, and to ascertain the nature of that goodly heritago strongest positive assertions, as that which is ascribed by to which the word of God is our title. lawyers to circumstantial, over direct but unsupported evi- Before, however, we proceed to ascertain, in the third place, by what display of power, what gracious and benignant

dence.

It may seem, then, that the Scriptural proof of the Holy agency Divine and Eternal Spirit was to evince himself the Ghost's personality, and of the existence of that Triune God- Comforter of Christians, it is an inquiry neither in itself unhead to which he belongs, is of the kind least obvious to important, nor irrelevant to the general subject, to ascertain rational suspicion, as being least open to fraud or negligence; the part which that good Spirit had sustained in the scheme and that the faith which the church confesses in her public of God's providence as previously displayed in the Patriarformularies is, in truth, no other than that eternal rock on chal and Mosaic dispensations. which, though it be a stone of offence to worldly wisdom, he For, in all the works of God, and more particularly in that that hopeth shall not be ashamed. process of salvation, of which, from the beginning of the Having determined, then, the Personality, and ascertained, world, the Old and New Testaments are the continued and though briefly and incidentally, the divine nature of that connected history; so much prevails of general harmony, that Comforter whose advent our Saviour foretold; it remains that no single period can be otherwise than most imperfectly comwe examine, secondly, who were the objects of that promised prehended, unless such period be considered as a part of, and appearance; and, thirdly, what were those effects which in reference to the whole. And we may expect, therefore, to were to be anticipated from so awful a visitation. In other find, on inquiry, the distinct operation of the third Person in words, we have yet to ascertain, whether the Holy Ghost the Trinity, in his character of the Christian Paraclete, in VOL. II.-2 K