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the word cannot exist without him. As certain and as long as the mind of God is in the word, the Spirit of God is there as the Holy Spirit of the truth. It is only as he is ever present in the truth, that the character of the Holy Spirit agrees with the description, which our Lord gave of the Comforter.

II. That the presence of the Holy Spirit is in the word, is confirmed by the analogy of the Divine presence in the physical, and providential, government of the universe.

The agency of the Spirit in the laws of mind is like the agency of God in the laws of nature. Both agencies produce results by using means. The union between God and the universe is cordially believed to be real and actual, without the supposition of his exercising a direct and immediate agency in the production of phenomena. On the evidences of design, contrivance, and skill, in the structure of the universe, the Creator has demonstrated himself to be "The ONLY WISE God;" and his wisdom consists in the adjustment of all the agents and instruments of nature, as MEANS adapted to an END. If the blessed God be an immediate Agent in producing all the phenomena in the universe, then there is, in fact, no system of means: and God does nothing by MEANS. He does not produce us by means of our parents nor sustain us by means of food, nor warm us by means of heat, nor make us see by means of light:- but he himself works everything by a direct and immediate agency. On this supposition, God is, obviously, though absurdly, imagined to be the sole and unique agent in the universe, the DOER of all things.

Divines and intellectual philosophers have alike fallen into the same error as to the operations of MEANS. Whether this has come to pass by their being dazzled with the splendors of the Divine grandeur, or by their being blinded by the mists of theoretical systems, the result is the same. In order, it would seem, to secure entire the august glories of the Divine agency, it is thought the best, as it is the most summary way, to banish and destroy every other operating agency. Our intellectual philosophers have attempted this, by ascribing to matter an essential inertness, and a mere passive capacity of being acted upon, without possessing itself any active energy. Our divines have treated, in the same manner, everything suspected of rival agency — and, in their "zeal for the Lord

of Hosts," they have pronounced even the sacred word, which is the "spirit and life," to be in itself a "mere dead letter."

The doctrines of electricity, galvanism, magnetism, molecular forces, and polarity of atoms, have shown that, if the material creation be not alive, it is all active, quivering with impulses, tremulous for action, quick in evolution, brisk in energy and force, and prompt to obey its Maker's laws. These beautiful facts in nature prove and illustrate the doctrine of final causes, and the designed adaptation of means, for the production of a contemplated end. On the hypothesis that matter does not act, it is impossible to assign the reason why it was made at all. When it was made, its Maker said, "Behold it was very good." If it does not act, if it has no influence if it cannot operate towards an end, good " for what is it? All the inductions of Experience prove that fire acts on fuel, that heat acts on ice, and that the magnet acts on the needle. This acting, or agency, or influence, in nature, is not inconsistent with any of the properties of matter, except with the negative power of inertness, which has been gratuitously ascribed to it.

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If we suppose that physical agents have no efficiency as means, and that every effect transpires by a direct exercise of the Divine energy, there is no difference between ordinary events, and the miraculous; and consequently one of the strongest defences of revelation moulders into dust. It is only a conceited philosophy, and a diseased theology, that lead any men to conclude that the activity and operation of means tend to make the agency of God less real, or less manifest and glorious. He is, uninterruptedly, in intimate contact with all second causes, supplying, maintaining, and renewing their efficiency. A work is not less his, because accomplished by means for it is He that works the means themselves. The consequent effect is as much His work as the antecedent; and the final production as decidedly his work as the primary one. The power of an agent in mechanics is estimated in the direct, and not in the inverse ratio, of the complexity and the amplitude of the machinery it works. As the adjustment of multiplied means necessary to an end, displays the greater wisdom and skill in the contrivance, so the successful operations of them all express the greater power in execution. When we witness natural phenomena, we know that they are the results of the activity of second causes, which the FIRST CAUSE has put in operation, and by

which he accomplishes his will. In the influence which the magnet throws on the needle, there is an efficiency to produce effect; and, in the phenomena, God does not act immediately, either on the needle influenced, or on the magnet influencing; yet all is his work, his arrangement, his contrivance, and his agency in a series of means. So far is this process from making the agency or influence of the First Cause less real and evident, that it is multiplying the instances, and clearing the evidences, of its reality and power.

Second causes are not limited to the material universe. Towards the production of psychological, intellectual, moral, and spiritual phenomena, there are second causes, of corresponding adaptations, in active operation. If a system of second causes in physics does not exclude, but display, the reality and power of the Divine agency, it is evident that in other departments of the universe, such as the work of the Spirit in conversion, the operation of second causes is of the same character. Truth, in the intellectual or moral department, has an efficiency as real and as influential and adapted for its end, as physical causes have in nature. In both cases, the efficiency is a derived one; and it is derived from the First Cause. The results of truth on any mind are no more miraculous, than the effects of the magnet on the needle, or of an "engrafted" scion upon a stock. This is evident from the apostle James' description of the scriptures, which he designates as "the engrafted word which is able," i. e. which has in itself a tendency and an efficiency, "to save souls." (James i. 21.) If such moral effects were miraculous they could not be enforced on man as a duty, and as what ought to take place in him; nor could man be blamed when such phenomena were not produced. The agency of God, distinguished by wisdom and power, is as active, and as evident, in the adjustment, tendencies, and adaptations, of the moral apparatus, as in the arrangement of physical means; while his instituting and conducting the complicated operations of such powerful and diversified influences on the mind, in a manner so suitable to the capacities of men, and so fitted for securing the end, unfold and multiply the demonstrations of his presence, contrivance, and activity.

The Blessed God maintains an intimate contact with the physical universe by means of second causes, in efficient activity with which he is ever present, without exercising a direct and immediate agency. This analogy warrants the

conclusion, with equal clearness and power, that the Holy Spirit maintains a perpetual union with the church by means of the word in which he is always present.

III. The manner in which the inspired writers speak of the word, and of the Holy Spirit, obviously implies that they regard the Holy Spirit as ever present in the word.

The word and the Holy Spirit are identified, not in substance, but so far as that the word is the manifestation of the Spirit, and the medium in which his influence is borne and unfolded. The sacred writers frequently speak of the Spirit and of the word as if they were of the same character.

Psalm xxxiii. 6. "By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all the hosts of them by the spirit of his mouth." Here, I conceive, the Psalmist alludes not to the Third Person in the Trinity, but to the exercise and active efficiency of the Divine energy. He evidently intends "the word of the Lord" and "the Spirit of his mouth" to mean the same thing. Had we read "the Spirit of the Lord" and "the word of his mouth," the meaning would have remained unchanged. The influence that produced the universe was in the command, in the word. It was not the word that formed the heavens, but the energy to which the word was the vehicle. The energy did not operate to produce the creation without the word, nor would the word have acted without the presence of the energy of the Lord. In our estimate of this magnificent product, we never think that the intervention of the instrumentality of the word of fiat, was any derogation from the glorious energy of the Supreme Agent.

Isa. xi. 4. "He will smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath [spirit] of his lips shall he slay the wicked."

Of the same class are Isa. xxxiv. 16; Prov. i. 23.

2 Sam. xxiii. 2, 3. "The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue." Here David alludes to the Holy Spirit, by whose influence and inspiration he spake. The "Spirit of the Lord" and "his word are identified.

Neh. ix. 30. "Many years didst thou forbear them, and testifiedst against them by the Spirit in the prophets." The Ministry of the prophets is supposed here to be the seat and medium of the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit.

Micah ii. 7. "Is the Spirit of the Lord straitened? Are these his doings? Do not my words do good to him that

walketh uprightly?" To propose the first question in this passage with a reference to the person of the Holy Spirit, would have been absurd, for he is as unlimited as he is invisible. Here then the "Spirit of the Lord" is identified with "his doings," and "his words," which were the manifestations of his energy and influence.

This train of deduction is farther strengthened, by the manner in which the New Testament writers quote the Scriptures of the Old Testament. They seem to have considered the Word and the Spirit of God as identified. "Wherefore the Holy Ghost saith, this day since ye hear his voice," &c. (Heb. iii. 7.) "The Holy Ghost this signifying," (Heb. ix. 8.) "Let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches," (Rev. iii. 22.) "The Spirit and the Bride say come," (Rev. xxi. 17. In all these, and some other passages, the "Holy Ghost " and "the Spirit" mean the Scripture revelation by prophets and apostles.

On the principle of the influence of the Holy Spirit's being ever present in the word, the infinite importance and transcendent worth ascribed to the Scriptures are alone to be established. I believe in the Protestant and Christian doctrine of "the Sufficiency of Scripture:" but if the influence of the Spirit is present in the word of Life, only occasionally, fitfully, and uncertainly, I should like some Protestant Divine to show "sufficient " for what would the Scriptures be in such à case. Its sufficiency, I think, consists in its "supply of the Spirit." The word is professedly an inspiration of God. As man can express his mind and will in breath emitted in a trumpet to give it a certain sound, and can breathe his mind in words,* God has condescended to employ our modes of conveying thought to explain the transmission of his will. He calls his revelation an inspiration. "All Scripture is given by inspiration;" signifying that what holy men had written in words had been first breathed into their own minds as the organs of conveying them to others. They were the voice of ONE speaking by them. Should the Spirit that breathed these words ever forsake them, or withdraw his influence from them, they would become, in the written document, possessed of no other force and worth than those of an antique manuscript. As Christians, we think that the Spirit who breathed the words of the ceremonial law has

* Γραφὴ θεόπνευστος, 2 Tim. iii. 16.

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