of his Spirit." Of what Spirit hath Christ given us of that all-pervading and incomprehensible essence just supposed? No: but he has revealed to us the character of this Spirit; and this character, LOVE, has reached our minds, and has influenced them to such a degree, that they become of the same character with him.

Our Lord's revelation of the Holy Spirit is of the same character and extent as his revelation of the Father. In neither case has he given any description of the essence, and subsistence, in the Godhead. The abstractions of metaphysical science, and the creations of theological fancy, are, therefore, not to interfere with our search for the Comforter, as he is revealed by Christ. It is for him we inquire, and for him, only as revealed by our Lord. The revelation that declares the Holy Spirit, pronounces his agency to be incomprehensible: its effects are known, but we know not whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth. Various classes and groupings of imagery are frequently employed to aid our conceptions of him, while he himself remains in a profound and unfathomable mystery. The Holy Spirit is neither wind nor breath, neither sound nor water neither a dove, nor yet cloven tongues like as of fire, though he is represented by all these. Therefore we are not inquiring for anything that has form and figure, that is visible or tangible, or that can change place. The Spirit revealed by Christ is not a personification of that Divine energy which influences matter, nor yet of that Divine favor which influences mind; but THE COMFORTER of the New Testament is a distinct personal agent, who voluntarily influences others, and who produces and sustains moral character in them. He is a Spirit of holiness a Holy Spirit. It is not, then, the personal essence of the Comforter, but those moral attributes, which belong to the Comforter, and which tend to affect and influence moral character in men, that we find declared in the revelation of Jesus Christ.

The attribute of character in which this holy agent was promised to the disciples was "THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH." The disciples knew already all the doctrines and all the facts which Jesus Christ taught and performed. They knew the facts as events that had really transpired, but did not understand their adaptation and design as means to an end. They knew the doctrines as a collection of sentiments and parables actually delivered by Christ, but of the latent energies in those truths, and of the evidences of moral contrivance in them for

the salvation of the world, they had no conception. They little apprehended, that, from the confused and chaotic crowd of facts and doctrines which were in their possession, there should rise, through holy influences on their minds, a beautiful system of harmony and power, complete in adjustment and adaptation, and all tremulous with energies, for the conversion and the salvation of the world. They in fact had never believed the truths: they had only believed Christ. After the Ascension they believed the truths as well as Christ: they saw then the demonstrations of the truths, as much as they had before seen the authority of their teacher.

The Lord Jesus Christ promised that the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Truth should come to the disciples, and descend on them. Coming and descending, as applied to the Holy Spirit, does not signify a change of place, but an evident manifestation of his agency and influence in certain persons, and at certain times. This promise was fulfilled at the given time, in the given persons. On the day of Pentecost the person of the Holy Spirit did not come down on the apostles, because it was not as the spirit of essential deity that he was promised, but as the spirit of truth. He neither on that day, nor at any future period, made any personal appearance: his person, as we have seen, was neither in the sound of the rushing wind, nor in the cloven tongues of fire. He was to be seen and known in the same way as truth is seen and known, for it is as the spirit of truth that he was to be received. As the spirit of truth, his operations on the pentecostal day were complicated; conducted partly in a manner miraculous and extraordinary, and partly in the manner in which they should be perpetually and ordinarily exemplified in the Christian church. Besides unfolding and expanding to their minds every truth, and every act, pronounced and performed by Christ, the Holy Spirit communicated to them, by immediate access to their minds, new truths which they were not able to bear under our Lord's personal ministry. The Holy Spirit influenced the minds of the apostles by inspiring into them new truths; but influenced the three thousand converts, only by the instrumentality of the truths delivered by the apostles. The converts were not affected by any new truths distinct from those in the apostles.

Let us now consider the promise of Christ's Spirit. Immediately on the eve of our Lord's ascension, He informed his disciples, that his spirit, as the spirit of his truth, should

66

influence their minds so largely and so fully, that it would be like a baptism; and that his influences would affect them with all the abundance, copiousness, and extent of a shower. Having received these influences, or power of the Holy Ghost" coming upon them, they were to become witnesses to testify the reality of these influences, and to diffuse them to others, both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. To understand this clearly let us suppose any illustrious teacher of truth to make a similar promise; and, to explain great things by little, we may take the following case.

In the latter part of the scriptural history of the Jews, we do not know of any mere human spirit that exercised so powerful and so extensive an influence upon the spirits of the Israelites, as the spirit or soul of ELIJAH. Imagine him to promise his disciples that, some centuries after his translation, his spirit, as the spirit of religious zeal, in order to influence and to guide men to religious truth, should affect their minds in a very abundant measure, and should diffuse itself with all the enlarged plentifulness of a shower. In this case we would not understand by Spirit, the essence which constituted the subsistence, and individual personality, of ELIJAH. His spirit as an individual person would, by the time in question, be in Heaven, but all that constituted that agency, by which the spirit of ELIJAH could act upon other minds, and influence their dispositions, were not in heaven, but in the truths which he delivered, whether contained in books or not. All his feelings and dispositions, all his perceptions and sentiments, were living in those truths. His spirit, therefore, as to its power to influence mind, was as much and as truly in those truths, as it had been in his body. While it was in the body, it could influence other spirits only by the truths and the feelings which it developed and this it does with equal fulness, power, and efficacy, in those truths. In both cases, his spirit was read; for reading is not seeing syllables but receiving the communications of another mind.

In the course of centuries, the spirit of ELIJAH was poured forth to a very great extent, and with very great power, in the zealous ministrations of John the Baptist. In this case it was not his essence that manifested itself, but all the attributes of that essence by which he was able to affect and influence the minds of others. The consequence was a great and extensive revival of the religion of the Theocracy. The

spirit of ELIJAH was diffused and shed abroad by the promulgation of his doctrines.

In one illustrious instance, an instance which forms the imperishable glory of the Gospel, this analogy completely fails. In the revival of Religion which took place under the Baptist, the spirit of ELIJAH did not exercise any spontaneous desire and personal agency. It had exercised personal desire and will when producing and promulgating the religious truths which he taught, and in those truths his personal volitions remained unrecalled, undiminished and unspent. At the season of the revival, the spirit of ELIJAH was exercising a personal influence, though not a spontaneous and conscious activity. The influence that affected the minds of men, was not the influence of the religious and moral truths themselves only, for these would have the same energy by whomsoever they were announced, but it was the influence of ELIJAH. Hence John the Baptist is said to have carried on his ministrations "in the power and might of ELIJAH."

This case may help us to understand how the influence of an intelligent spirit may be promised. In applying this analogy to the effusion of the Divine Spirit, we must exercise great caution and reverence; for we tread on holy ground. To aid our conceptions of the Holy Spirit, we must employ the three methods which the Scholastic Divines employed to describe the nature of God. They described him, 1. xarά pio or via causalitatis, by ascribing to him every desirable and agreeable perfection: 2. xarà oɣέow, or via eminentiæ, by ascribing to him these perfections in the highest possible degree: and 3. zar' ¿qalqsow, or via negationis, by abstracting from these perfections every thing defective and finite, as found in men. If, in contrasting the "power and might of. ELIJAH" in John the Baptist, with "the power of the Holy Ghost" in the apostles on Pentecost, we make use of the last two methods, we shall be likely to come to intelligible and sound conclusions. In the contrasted cases, it will be seen at once where the analogy fails. In the revival of John the Baptist, ELIJAH was not essentially present; but in the events of Pentecost the Holy Spirit was. In the preaching of John, ELIJAH exercised no personal will or voluntary action, but in the ministry of the apostles, the Holy Spirit did. In the conversions under the Baptist, ELIJAH was not conscious of exercising a power on the faculties of men, but in conversions under the Gospel, the Holy Spirit is, and wishes all men to

be saved. "The power of ELIJAH" influenced the minds of John's converts, only by the truths which John preached, the "power from on high" influenced the converts of Pentecost in the same manner, though it influenced the apostles themselves miraculously.

In the revival of the day of Pentecost there was nothing miraculous except the concomitants of the inspiration of the apostles, which were the supernatural tokens of the presence and of the immediate agency of the Holy Spirit on their minds. In the influence which the Holy Spirit exercised on the three thousand there was nothing miraculous and supernatural, for they were neither inspired nor impelled mechanically. See then, apart from the process and accidents of inspiring the apostles, how truly and how fully the promise of the Saviour concerning the Spirit of truth was accomplished. Ever since the ascension of Christ the disciples had thought much on the truth which Jesus Christ had declared unto them; they kept their attention fixedly to this one subject; and they revolved it in their minds. All of them were intensely thinking of it at the same time, which wrought powerfully on their psychological and moral sympathies: and, as they were always "together with one accord" they interchanged their thoughts on this grand subject. The operations of their minds were conducted in a temper of profound devotion, and of earnest prayer. The great truth, thus in steeping in such minds, germinated, and developed energies and influences that greatly affected their hearts. In the entire series of these operations, the Spirit of truth exercised a spontaneous agency to affect and direct the current of their attentive thoughts. Thus affected themselves, they proceeded forth to address the crowded thousands of the Pentecostal visitors at Jerusalem. Their own souls baptized with fire, and kindled by the Spirit of truth, they kindled the minds of others, and conveyed and diffused the glowing influences of that Spirit to all their converts. The same truths sinking into similar minds, developed the same mighty energies, and manifested the same influences in the converts as in the apostles themselves. The truth was there; and the Spirit of the truth was there. There, unlike the finite and limited spirit of Elijah,—the ever-living and ever-present Spirit of Christ was in conscious activity, affecting intentionally, and influencing thinkingly, the minds and hearts of men. This blessed agent is never absent from the word. He can exist without the word, but