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we have access by one Spirit unto the Father, to the enjoyment of His paternal love, and care, and blessing; which by sin we had forfeited; and from which we must have been cut off for ever, had not the God of all grace Himself been pleased to provide a ransom, to be testified in His word and by His Spirit, for the reconciliation of sinful man to Himself.

Let it be our prayer that by the testimony of the Holy Spirit to our hearts respecting Jesus Christ and His great salvation, we may be led to look up to the God of heaven as our reconciled Father; and that we may walk humbly with Him, and circumspectly before Him, as His obedient children, while we live here on earth; and when we are called out of this dying world, may we go to live with Him, and rejoice in His salvation for evermore.

21 Timothy ii. 6.

SERMON XXXIV.

FOR

WHIT-SUNDAY.

THE DEITY OF THE HOLY GHOST.

John xiv. 26.

BUT THE COMFORTER, WHICH IS THE HOLY GHOST, WHOM THE FATHER WILL SEND IN MY NAME, HE SHALL TEACH YOU ALL THINGS, AND BRING ALL THINGS TO YOUR REMEMBRANCE, WHATSOEVER I HAVE SAID

UNTO YOU.

THE true affection which was borne by our Lord Jesus Christ towards His disciples, whom He had chosen to be His companions during the time of His public ministry, and whom He designed afterwards to employ in evangelizing the world, is very conspicuous in the chapter from whence the text is taken, and in those which follow it. When He delivered this discourse, He knew that His hour was come, that He was on the point of leaving this world, and going to

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His Father, to be glorified with the glory which He had with Him before the world was; and therefore He endeavoured to prepare the minds of His disciples for it, in the kindest manner possible; telling them that His departure would be for their benefit, since they would have the advantage of His intercession on their behalf with His Father in heaven; in consequence of which every needful blessing would be bestowed upon them.

The Gospel for this day begins by pointing out to them the way in which they were to manifest their love to Him, in return for that with which He had loved them. If ye love Me, keep My commandments. Unreserved obedience to what He has enjoined upon His people, is required of all who name the name of Christ as their Master and Lord. A profession of attachment to Him and His cause, without obedience to His supreme authority, is of little avail; as our Saviour afterwards plainly declares.

In order to encourage the love, and enforce the obedience of His disciples, He graciously promised them, in reference to the time when He should be separated from them, and should have gone to heaven: I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever. Here the distinction between the Persons of the ever-blessed Trinity is plainly intimated. The Son solicits of the Father a gift for His disciples, and the Father

gives to them another Comforter.

The Lord Jesus had Himself been their Comforter while He was with them. The Holy Ghost was another Comforter, a Person distinct from Himself, and distinct from the Father. He was to administer such consolation to the disciples of Christ, as could be given only by a person, or an intelligent being; and by One who was Himself eternal, for He was to abide with the disciples for ever, or as long as they should need His consolations, as long as they should continue in this world; and also as long as any who should believe in Him through their word should remain upon earth unto the end of the world. This is what we are to understand by the Comforter abiding with the disciples of Christ for ever.

The Holy Ghost is further described as the Spirit of truth, who, as our Saviour afterwards declared, should guide His disciples into all truth, or instruct them by His gracious influence in the knowledge of Him, who called Himself, The Truth; and respecting whom it was declared that grace and truth came by Jesus Christ; or that He was the substance of what the ceremonial law was a shadow; He fulfilled all that it typified. This Spirit of truth, our Saviour said, the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him. He is an invisible Being, only to be seen by the eye of faith, only to be known by those who partake of His gracious influences

and instructions. This was the state of the disciples of Christ, as He said to them: Ye know Him, for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. This Spirit of truth has access to the soul of man, and takes up His abode in the hearts of all true believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. Herein His Divine power is manifested. Wherever the disciples of Christ are, however numerous, however dispersed over the face of the earth, He is in and with every one of them, every where; so that if any man have not the Spirit of Christ dwelling within him, he is none of Christ's; he is a Christian only in name, and not one in deed and in truth.

When our Saviour had promised to His disciples this gift of the Father, this other Comforter, to be with them and in them for ever, He added, I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you. Here we may observe the union that subsists between Christ and the Holy Spirit. For it is evident that the Holy Spirit's abiding in them was the same thing in effect as Christ's coming to them. The word comfortless in the marginal reading is orphans. The disciples of Christ considered themselves as deprived of their Protector, when He was taken away from them. He hereby promised them that they should still have His protection, and His spiritual, invisible presence, by the communication of His Spirit.

He then proceeded to speak of Himself in the

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