the Holy Ghost present with its objects partially or entirely? Because, if partially, one should be glad to know, In which of his parts-in which of the parts of that which has not any?—or if entirely; then, What limits there can possibly be to the object's perfection? It may be thought that in this case, while the Spirit is present with a man, the man must be not only like the Subject in holiness, but in omnipotence and in omnipresence, in immortality, infallibility and the like. But then it would be hard for a man either to be tried in life, or to pay the debt of nature when he had lived long enough; as reason and experience both teach that he must.

In answer to this question and inference, it appears, that the Spirit was given to One man at least without measure. For it is not said in the text, to whom particularly; but simply, God giveth not the Spirit by measure (John iii. 34). Another reading says, By PART: but the difference is none; the reading in either case amounting to the same effect, namely, that the indivisible Spirit of God, being God in fact, is not parcelled out, as some may imagine, with so much to one and so much to another; but wholly present wherever it may be in the way, and to the effect intended; in the divine person here alluded to, for example, AS THE GLORY OF THE ONLY BEGOTTEN Son of God, full oF GRACE AND TRUTH" (John i. 14): that is how the Spirit is ever present with him; while with another it may be present, as the reward of falsehood, IN "THE WORM THAT DIETH NOT AND THE FIRE THAT IS NOT

66

QUENCHED (Mark ix. 44). But even with THAT ONE, it is presumed, the divine Spirit could be present latently, as well as the human, or as that One himself was in the world unperceived from the beginning (John i. 10). And had it been otherwise, that One could never have endured temptation and torture as he did for us, nor cried "Eli, Eli; lama sabachthani?" (Matt. xxvii. 46) in his last agony. For the Spirit could never be partly with any man, however it might befal him; being in its nature, or as we say

naturally, without parts: but man consisting of parts, an indivisible subject may be present in one part of him and not in another as easily as the wind may blow to leeward. In our heart the Holy Ghost may be, for example; and be seen in the effect, or fruit as it is called, of charity" that most excellent gift of charity;" as it was with Our Saviour and St. John: in the head it may be, and be seen, in the effect of wisdom, as with Solomon: in the body, and be seen in the effect of strength, as with Sampson: in the soul, and be heard in heavenly strains, as with David. Or the same may be seen in a less complex constituent; as in the foresight of one part, the prowess of another; or in any single act or constituent; as only in one act of foresight, or one righteous act in the course of a man's life. But,

4. A second inquirer, being rather more direct, may ask perchance, What necessity there can be for understanding any such agent as this Holy Spirit in the rational economy of the universe? That "there are diversities of gifts" (Cor. I. xii. 4), he will indeed acknowledge; and may, if he be not an atheist, the same God too," dividing to every man severally as he will" (Ib. 11); but he cannot understand the necessity of this INCIDENTAL (that is with relation to the immediate performer and object of such gift) for working all in all (Ib. 6); when a combination of rectified or righteous constituents will suffice for every purpose of the subject's, that is of the said combination's, happy existence. What for example can be desired beyond a mixture of constituents like those mentioned in the forecited chapter as "spiritual gifts"?-the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge; the gift of faith, of healing, of miracles, of prophecy, of discerning of spirits, of speaking and rendering, i. e. construing, interpreting or translating divers tongues? And is not the supposition of such an incidental or accessory to confer and amplify these gifts as bad philosophy as the supposition of faculties to set them or any other properties a-going?

5. The proper end of inquiry is to elicit truth; and

here it befals most happily in unison with our doctrine of the identity of a process with its beginning: whence there can be no mistake in denying the presence of a distinct principle, or accessory either, for any of the operations above mentioned: they are all generally performed by their General Subject, and particularly in the performance of each particular, by which they are also constituted; like the primitive or essential constituent. If, for example, the breath is constituted by breathing, and the apprehension by apprehending; immortal life, one gift of the Spirit, will be constituted by immortal living; and heavenly wisdom, another gift apparently, but in fact the same, by heavenly thinking and doing. "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent" (John xvii. 3).

Such is the life of faith: also of peace and good works according to an authority before cited, "Lord, thou wilt ordain peace for us: for thou also hast wrought all our works in us" (Isai. xxvi. 12). And "all things are of God" (Cor. II. v. 18). "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained, that we should walk in them” (Eph. fi. 10). The presence of the Holy Spirit is the constitution of the general state of righteousness and peace, which he forms by conversion, and continues in being by his operation: so that it might be said of this Third Mediate as well as of the Second, with which it is One in the unity of the Godhead, "He is before all things, and by him all things consist" (Col. i. 17). Albeit in cases of futile operation there is no certain constitution to be sure of any kind; as with insincere professors, for example: "but they are like the chaff which the wind scattereth away from the face of the earth" (Ps. i. 5); "because they seeing, see not; and hearing, they hear not" (Matt. xiii. 13). They are no part of the body: the Spirit that animates it, breathes not in them; the blood that circulates therein, flows not through their hearts.

VOL. III.

S

There have been men (materialists in effect)* who carried their legatine notions to the extent of supposing an accessory issuing or detached from "the Father of lights," for the formation or qualification of his Holy Spirit; which is one with him. Whereas we need not suppose an accessory even for righteous living in man, any more than we had for the right going of a clock. As a clock is modelled and regulated it will go by its own allotted momentum, with an occasional winding up: and so his nature and spirit, which is a man's going and momentum, the sum of his thinking and doing, or in short, of his existence, will also answer to his mode, word or description as elsewhere observed +. And hence it may be easy to comprehend, not only what is not nécessary to righteousness with us as the case stands, but also what is; to wit, not any sort of incidental or accessory, as some may suppose; nor any divine faculties either, to set the human constituents in motion, but (what is often wanted in commonwealths) A NEW CONSTITUENCY; David intimates, when he says, "Make me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me" (Ps. li. 10), that is, restore the spirit which thou createdst upright to its primitive rectitude.

as

The cause of this renovation is another thing. We own that nothing can happen without a cause: but may there not be a cause without an addition? May a clock be made to go more regularly without a new wheel, only by a judicious modification of its structure, perhaps in some part only, and may not the human genius, which is thoroughly disordered, be set right in the same manner without any new incidental or accessory; being like what St. Paul tells the Ephesians, "That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit (nature, power, elasticity) of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and Sabellius and others.

+ Vol. I. pp. 50, &c. Vol. II. pp. 353, &c.

We often see one

true holiness" (Eph. iv. 22-24.)? man compel or persuade another, by infusing into his soul the spirit of hope or fear, to do what he would not do of himself: and may not the First Cause likewise still operate in this manner? as he says in the Son "My Father worketh hitherto; and I work" (John v. 17). Considering the frailty and imperfection of human nature, what can be thought more worthy of that First Cause than his changing in this manner the law of nature, and substituting the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus for the law of sin and death; to do himself by this means what the law could not by any means, in that it was weak through the flesh, "that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled (says the apostle) in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit" (Rom. viii. 4)? Or if the fruit which the same apostle elsewhere deduces from the same Spirit (Gal. v. 22, 23) can be plainly traced to a foreign cause whatever it may be; may not that relation be understood without an incidental, accessory or any thing supplemental to the subject?

6. With respect to minuter questions or difficulties on the nature and beginning of the Spirit's presence, one needs not feel much apprehension, the two former being decided; as with respect to the necessity of our Saviour's absence or departure thereto, with its commencement from that period, as seemingly intimated in a saying of our Saviour to his disciples, "Because I have said these things unto you, (namely respecting his departure,) sorrow hath filled your heart. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is expedient for you that I go away. For if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you" (John xvi. 6, 7). For this, being rather a reciprocity of these two Chief Mediates with each other, than of either of them with the Objects hitherto compared, will find a more suitable mention hereafter.

* It would be a work of time, to enumerate distinctly