Comforter is come, he shall bear witness of me" the assertion is nearly tantamount to that of the disputed text in St. John. And it must be admitted that Father, Son, and Spirit are spoken of as separate witnesses; a mode of speech which is wholly inconsistent with the idea that the Spirit is only an attribute of the Father, and which, if the Father be a Person, must, we think, be allowed to prove that the Spirit is also a Person.

We have yet, however, to show you the Divinity of the Holy Ghost. Proving that Spirit a Person and not a quality does not of course prove him a Divine Person. Turn, however, to the scriptural proofs of the essential Deity of the Holy Ghost, and you will find that such proofs strengthen at the same time those of his personality. And first, we may observe, generally-and every student of the Bible will attest the truth of the observation-that whatsoever God is said to have spoken, performed, or made, that also the Holy Ghost is said to have spoken, performed, or made. And if, as we have shown you, the Holy Ghost is a Person; and if, of this Person, the same words, works, and acts are affirmed as of God.; does it not irresistibly follow that between the beings denoted by the names of God and of the Holy Ghost there must be an essential identity or unity? We will, however, adduce one or two particular arguments which appear conclusive on the point that the Holy Ghost having been proved to be a Person, must be also a Divine Person. When St. Peter rebuked Ananias, he said-" Why hath Satan filled thy heart to lie to the Holy Ghost?" adding immediately afterwards-" Thou hast not lied unto men but unto God." So that lying unto the Holy Ghost is the same thing as lying unto God. Therefore, the Holy Ghost must be God. Again, according to St. Matthew, Christ said"If I by the Spirit of God cast out devils." But according to St. Luke"If I by the finger of God cast out devils." Thus, the power of working miracles might be referred equally to God and the Holy Ghost. Does it not, then, follow that the Holy Ghost is God? Besides the incommunicable properties and perfections of the Divine nature are attributed to the Spirit. St. Paul speaks of Christ offering himself through the eternal Spirit. Hence eternity is ascribed to the Spirit. David asks" Whither shall I go from thy Spirit?" Then the Spirit is Omnipresent. St. Paul says "The Spirit searcheth all things:" therefore, the Spirit is Omniscient. It is further asserted by Eli-"The Spirit of God hath made me :" and by Job-" By his Spirit he hath garnished the heavens." And since creation is thus referred to that Spirit, that Spirit must be Omnipotent. Who can this person be? For the spirit is no mere property, we have demonstrated that. Who can this person be? If he is Eternal, Omnipresent, Omniscient, Omnipotent, can you deny him to be a Divine person? Can he be a creature, and yet possess the perfections which belong only to Deity? Must it not rather be admitted, unless you will convict the Scriptures, either of absurdity or of blasphemy of absurdity in describing an attribute as though it were a person, or of blasphemy in ascribing to a finite being the incommunicable properties of the infinite-that unless you would do this, there is no alternative but that of giving in your adherence to the orthodox doctrines, that the Spirit is a person, and that person Divine.

And there is yet another text to be adduced which may be reckoned as a compendium of our foregoing argument. Paul in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, says: "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the spirit of God dwelleth in you?" To dwell in a building is a personal act; it cannot be ascribed to a property; and thus the personality of the Spirit may be inferred from the assertion that this Spirit dwells in believers. But the indwelling Spirit is represented as making man the temple of God; and is it not then certain that if the presence of the Spirit in the temple, be the same thing as the presence of God in the temple, that the Spirit is none other than Divine, a person of the blessed Godhead?

There is, however, one thing worthy of being noted, in order that we may meet a common objection. You cannot deny, and you must all observe it yourselves, that in many passages of Scripture, the Son and the Spirit are spoken of in terms, which seem to convey the idea of inferiority to the

Father. Thus, in our text, where Christ declares that he will send the Spirit; and in other places where the Father is said to send both the Son and the Spirit, we must allow that the language employed appears to sanction the notion that the Three Persons are not strictly co-equal. He who can send another would seem of necessity superior to that other. To be sent, marks ordinarily a dependence and subjection, which do not consist with our ideas of perfect equality. The king sends the ambassador; the ambassador cannot send the king. But, observe, when it is not as an agent in human redemption that the Spirit is spoken of, he is represented to us as absolute Deity; but when he is introduced as bearing a part in the rescue of this creation, he is undoubtedly exhibited as subordinate both to the Father and to the Son. We know that it was required in order to our deliverance from the consequences of sin, that one person in the Godhead should humble himself, so as to lay aside his glories, and that afterwards when he had returned to his throne, another person in that Godhead should continually deal with the corrupt nature of the fallen, and make way for the blessings which the Mediator had purchased. But certainly, the second person condescending to humble himself, does not prove him inferior to the first; nor does the fact, that the third person consented to be occupied with the renewal of the polluted and depraved, show that he was unequal to the first or the second." It is thoroughly consistent with the doctrine, that the Three Persons are coessential and co-equal, that we should suppose their undertaking different offices in the work of our redemption, which offices should be subordinated the one to the other; and if the nature of this work of redemption be such as it palpably is, that subjection of offices is unavoidable; then it is also unavoidable that the parties who undertake these several offices, will be sometimes spoken of as though they differed in rank, the office so giving its own character to the being who bears it, that whilst in reality there is nothing but subordination of offices, there shall be apparent inequality in the office-bearers themselves. And we give you this as a general rule in reference to the seeming inferiority of the second and third persons in the Trinity to the first. If you examine carefully, you will find that there is no other difference between the Three Persons than a difference in office. Keep out of sight the business of human redemption, and investigate what the Bible says of the Father, Son, and Spirit, when these Three Persons are not acting for the salvation of our race, and you will detect no shadow of inequality; each Person being equally described as Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent. But when the discourse turns-and we need not tell you that this is the theme of the great part of the Bible-when the discourse turns on the delivery of sinners by a grand scheme arranged by the Persons of the Trinity, then, undoubtedly, the Son and the Spirit are sometimes characterized by terms which seem to indicate inferiority to the Father. It was thus Christ declared, "My Father is greater than I." He spake as Mediator, as God-man, not as God. As Mediator, he was subject to the Father; he had agreed to be sent, whilst the Father was to send; so that he could with perfect truth declare himself inferior to the Father, because there was subjection of office; and yet elsewhere assert, "I and my Father are one," because there was equality of Divinity. We know that there is a subordination of offices; and therefore we also know that when the Divine persons are described by their offices, there may, as there must be an appearance of difference. Then we have, on the one hand, the clear statements of equality, and on the other, the appearances of inequality, unavoidably produced by difference in office, and therefore not implying a difference in rank. And if equality is distinctly asserted, and inequality only so far apparently introduced as was rendered unavoidable by subordination of office, you will all see that there is nothing in such forms of expression as that of our text which can interfere with the glorious doctrine of a Trinity of co-equal, coessential persons of the Godhead. On the contrary, knowing the origin of the appearance of inequality, we are confirmed by it, rather than weakened, in our belief that as truly as the Father is God, so truly is the Son God, and so truly is the Holy Ghost God, and yet that they are not three Gods but one

God. Yes, it may in our text look as if some being inferior to the Father and the Son were spoken of, seeing that the speaker assumes the power of sending him to the church, but we have already produced evidence enough of the Spirit's equality with the other persons in the Trinity; and therefore, knowing that his office was to bring him down to tabernacle on this earth, we bow before him as every way Divine, and we expect a person of the Godhead in the being who is thus announced by the Redeemer, "If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you."

But now we pass on to examine the saying of our Lord, that it was advantageous for his disciples that he should depart from amongst them, seeing that his departure was necessarily preliminary to the coming of the Comforter. There are two things in this saying which will strike you as requiring explanation: why, in the first place, was it needful that Christ should depart before the Comforter could come? and why, in the second place, would the apostles be gainers, on the whole, if Christ were withdrawn, and the Holy Ghost vouchsafed?

And first, it is not to be doubted, that had the Spirit of God at any time been absent from this creation, or that had he at any time failed to carry on amongst men the great work of moral renovation, there had never, since man first threw the shroud of darkness and of death around the earth-there had never been sent up an acceptable prayer unto God; and never had a soul broken loose from the bondage of corruption and won immortality without as distinct an out-putting of the power of the Holy Ghost as produces the like result under the Christian dispensation. For it must also be remembered, that though there was a cloudy dimness about its announcement, the gospel came into force on the very instant of human transgression, and that all the apparatus of rescue which since the crucifixion has been developed and offered to the whole family of man, was brought to bear upon the deliverance of sinners, when as yet there had been no tidings that the Word should be made flesh; and we may not therefore suppose that the pouring out of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost was the first communication of the Comforter. We are assured, on the contrary, that this Divine agent had all along been busy with the children of men, and that whether it were in the struggles of conscience or in the fastening of faith on a far off sacrifice, he had from the beginning asserted his supremacy as the renovator and upholder of alienated nature; and we can only therefore think that the Pentecostal effusion was the bestowment in larger measure of what had been already vouchsafed. The Spirit came down as at this season with a fulness of power which had not attended his foregoing descents; and not only-for this it is important to observe-not only was there an increased manifestation, but the Spirit came specially to unfold and apply the perfected redemption, and assist the first preachers in making it known to the world. You cannot mark the gross ignorance of the work of Christ which pervaded the minds of the apostles up to the day of Pentecost, and contrast this ignorance with the clear knowledge which they afterwards displayed, without determining that the Spirit was given to illustrate and explain the scheme of salvation, and that though man had previously been under his influences, those influences had not enabled him thoroughly to comprehend the value of the mediatorial work; so that we must consider the promise of sending the Comforter as a pledge that the Holy Ghost would come to lay open and apply what had been wrought out by the Saviour, and that thus he could specially enter on the office assigned him by the covenant of redemption. But if the promised coming of the Spirit were his coming to unfold and make efficient the work of mediation, it follows of course that this coming could not take place until the work itself was altogether complete. We have spoken of a subordination of offices in the work of our redemption. The Son covenanted to effect all that was required for the pardon and acceptance of sinners; and the Spirit covenanted to dispose and prepare sinners to receive the benefits of Christ's obedience and suffering; the work of the Spirit being moreover so dependent on the work of the Son that the renewing in

fluences were to be purchased by the agony which was endured and by the blood which was shed; and you see that it was required by this subordination that the work of the Son should be finished before the work of the Spirit commenced. The Comforter was to come to apply Christ's work as one of the fruits of Christ's passion; and therefore it follows, according to our text, that if Christ went not away the Comforter would not come. For you would do well to bear in mind the thorough voluntariness of the endurance of Christ; so that even when flesh had been assumed, and he moved amongst the disloyal and rebellious, there was no compulsion to go on with the undertaking. It is one of the noblest truths laid down to us in Scripture, that our blessed Redeemer was thoroughly independent upon death, and that as God humbled himself in becoming man, so did the man humble himself in entering the grave. The departure was every jot as voluntary an act as the coming. We are at no liberty to question that our Lord might have preserved his human nature undecayed through long centuries, keeping it unbroken whilst generation after generation rose and flourished and fell. The whole matter of our redemption might have been kept in awful suspense, and man might have remained unredeemed, because his covenanted Redeemer went not up to the altar of sacrifice. We assert nothing but what was made possible by the joint power and purity of the Saviour, when we say that the approaches of death might have been resisted through a succession of ages, and that the immortal man might have still been upon the earth, the child of centuries past, the heir of centuries to come. But if Christ had thus failed to depart, the Spirit could not have been communicated. The Spirit indeed might have been present in that degree, and with those influences in and with which he was amongst the apostles whilst they were slow of heart to believe and understand; but he could not have been present in his office of Comforter, opening and applying the work of redemption. This office was subordinate to that of the Intercessor, and could not be entered upon until Christ had died, and risen, and ascended; and therefore the coming of the Spirit was dependent on the departure of Christ-was, in fact, so procured by that departure that there is the strictest accuracy in every syllable of the saying: "If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you."

And if it were thus indispensable that Christ should depart before the Spirit could come, it would be very easy for you to see why it was for the advantage of the apostles that their Master should leave them. We know well enough that Christ's absence was in itself no benefit to the church; for we are assured that whatever is most glorious and most palmy in the successes of Christianity stands associated with the return of the Saviour to the scene of his victories. The church must be considered as in a state of widowhood whilst separated from him who is emphatically described as the bridegroom and the husband; and we cannot therefore think that it was expedient for Christ to go away on the principle that his absence was more beneficial than his presence. If it had consisted with the arrangements of redemption that Christ should have remained with his apostles whilst the Comforter had been also imparted, we cannot doubt that his remaining would have been expe dient and that the joint presence of the Son and the Spirit, which is, in fact, what we look for at the season of the church's triumph, would have outweighed in advantageousness the single presence of the Comforter. But the simple thing asserted in the text is that the apostles would be gainers by the departure of the Son, seeing that without this departure there could be no coming of the Spirit. It is not implied that Christ's absence in itself was desirable; it is only stated that since his absence was necessary in order to the presence of the Comforter, expediency or benefit was on the side of his departure. And if you call to mind what has been demonstrated in former parts of the discourse, you will immediately acquiesce in the accuracy of this conclusion. Had the Comforter not come, then the work of redemption must have been incomplete, seeing that his coming was to be a consequence of its completion. Was it not then expedient that Christ should depart and send the Comforter, inasmuch as otherwise the deliverance of man must remain

unachieved, and no overthrow take place of the deep-based dominion which Satan had erected on this earth! Had the Comforter not come, though even redemption had been completed, it would have been virtually ineffectual; the work being powerless to individual salvation till explained and carried home by the influences of the Spirit. Was it not then expedient that Christ should depart, seeing that unless he departed the Spirit could not come, and unless the Spirit came his death would be fruitless, that dense ignorance still keeping possession of the whole human population which remained even in the apostles themselves up to the time of the day of Pentecost? For we are not concerned with answering the inquiry, if such should be proposed, why Christ might not have continued with his church, and the Comforter have also been imparted. This is nothing more than asking why it hath pleased God that Christianity should make its way through toils and through disasters in place of being advanced from the first to an unlimited sovereignty. For who doubts that had such been the will of the Almighty, Christianity, so soon as proclaimed, might have overrun the earth, and that, instead of eighteen centuries of woe and of crime, centuries during which the kingdom of Messiah has often only just maintained itself against the assaults of infidelity-in place of this years and ages of righteousness and joy might have rolled over this creation, and men might have lived in the holiest of brotherhoods beneath the visible sceptre of the Prince of Peace? We have no answer to give but the appointment of God to all questions which have to do with the long permission of anarchy and misrule. We can only adopt, and it is our duty to adopt, the language of our blessed Redeemer-" Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight." It may strike us as mysterious that a redeemed world should still be left under the tyranny of its oppressors, and that so soon as the battle of principalities and powers had issued in the discomfiture of evil, Christ did not assert his triumph in the face of the universe, sweeping off misery and wickedness from the polluted and long oppressed earth. We readily confess that there is something beyond our explanation in this, for our earth might by a casual observer, be almost taken for an unredeemed earth, so great are still the wretchedness and sadness and sin by which it is continually traversed, and we might be tempted to exclaim in the language of the prophet, "Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no Physician there? Why is not the health of the daughter of our people recovered?" But it should be enough for us to know that for wise ends he with whom a thousand years are as one day, and one day as a thousand years, hath permitted and ordered that, although vanquished, Satan should retain for a season, a great power against men; that the church should live only in struggles, continually on the point of being overborne by the adversary, even as though it were not the strength of Deity in which she fought, nor the breath of Deity which fanned her banners; and knowing it thus to have been contrary to the good pleasure of God that immediately on the completion of redemption the Son and the Spirit should dwell together in the church; we know also it was for the good of the church, that the Son should depart and the Spirit should come. Since both could not continue upon earth, expediency was on the side of the absence of the Son, which making way for the presence of the Spirit, would complete the arrangements for human deliverance, and cause the whole of that instrumentality to be brought into action, by which on a coming day, Son and Spirit uniting to do wondrously, evil shall be grasped and flung from this earth, and the tenantry of its every section shall combine to rear a universal temple, and to raise one anthem of deep and holy gratulation.

On this account-on account of the incompleteness of redemption until the Son had departed, and on account of the insufficiency of redemption until the Spirit came to explain and apply the work, it was for the benefit of the apostles particularly, and of the church generally, that Christ should leave the world to return to the Father. And these reasons being the very weightiest and most pregnant, we can require nothing additional for clearing up these sayings of our Redeemer-sayings addressed to his followers when they were saddened and overcome at the prospect of being left alone in a