fellowship among men consists in mutual acts of favour and friendship; so fellowship of, or with the Spirit, consists in acts of mutual kindness and goodness, between him as an intelligent voluntary agent, and the believers who know him, love him, and give him glory. There is a certain inexpressible joy in the communion between voluntary intelligent agents, who give and receive acts of kindness and goodness in such communion: With good reason then did the apostle a desire, that the communion of the Holy Ghost might be with the believing Corinthians.

On what foundations such build these vital acts of practical religion, faith in, obedience and prayer to the Holy Spirit, and praises ascribed to him, as deny his real Personality, they ought to consider; but to us who own him as a real infinite person in the Godhead, they appear to be necessary and reasonable, and delightful parts of our communion, obedience, and services.

2. Let us, with purpose of heart, glorify him who, not accidentally, or of necessity, but freely, and with infinite knowledge, undertook to prepare the saints for, and bring them to glory: Whose work could this be but his, whose understanding is infinite, and whose good will towards men passes knowledge? Whilst others deprive him of the glory due to his grace and love, by denying his personal agency in our salvation, let us own it, and give him the glory due to an intelligent voluntary agent therein: This is a practical and important use which we ought to make of the real Personality of the Holy Spirit. If others think it a mere point of speculation, which has no influence on our practical religion, I must beg leave to dissent from them, and to conclude, that their practical regards to the Holy Spirit are not what the scripture requires, and the faithful, in all ages, have paid to him.

3. Let us improve the love and faithfulness of the Holy Spirit. My text represents him as the Comforter, and the

a 2 Cor. xiii. 14.

Spirit of truth. Being a real person, infinite in love and veracity, he is perfectly qualified to do us all kind and good offices, to lead us into the truth, and to shed abroad the divine love in our hearts; not only the Father's and the Son's, but his own. The primitive saints were so sensible of the love which the Holy Spirit bears to the saints, that the apostle puts the love of the Spirit upon a level with the grace of Christ, in making them motives to excite the believing Romans to pray for him; his words are, Now, I beseech you, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and the love of the Spirit, that you strive together with me in your prayers to God for me a Christians often seek a sense of the love of the Father and of Christ, but are too apt to neglect the love of the Spirit, or to pray for it, prize it, and be thankful for it, and yet there is nothing more nearly concerned in our communion with God, and the inexpressible sweetness of it. God is love, the Spirit is God; therefore he is love, infinite loves such as dwell in his love, dwell in God, and God in them. God, in the person of the Holy Spirit, dwells in the saints as in a temple of love: Let us then improve the love of the Spirit, as a real and glorious person in the Godhead, to excite and inflame our love to him, and enlarge our communion with him: If we review his gracious work in our souls, what affecting discoveries of his love and truth may we have therein; and I am confident, that one hour's communion with him this way, will baffle a thousand cavils against his Deity and Personality. His gifts, and graces, and tokens of love, flow from him in a free and voluntary way, and therefore are to be received and improved, not as the necessary emanations of a divine power, but as the intelligent voluntary acts of an infinitely gracious person, who does all in love and faithfulness towards us.

4. Let us apply to the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of life, as the author of the first spiritual life, and of all vital influences

a Rom. xv. 30.

afterward. The general council at Constantinople very properly inserted this clause in their creed; "The Lord and giver of life." With him is the fountain of life, and in his light we shall see light: we may, and should, when we find ourselves dead, apply to him to quicken us. hear, pity, and help us: He is the Spirit that gives life, maintains, increases, and perfects it, not merely as a passive power, but as that glorious person, the Comforter, sent from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, and testifies of Christ.

He is able to quickens, that

Thus I have finished what I designed, concerning the Deity and Personality of the Holy Spirit: His Procession, Mission, Office and Work, yet remain to be considered, if he shall afford ability and opportunity for it, in whose hand all our times are.

OF THE PROCESSION AND MISSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

SERMON IV.

PREACHED AUGUST 11th, 1730.

JOHN XV. 26.—When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, HE shall testify of me. IN discoursing on the Holy Spirit, I, at first, proposed to speak of his Deity, Personality, Procession, Mission, and Work. The Deity of the Holy Spirit I have endeavoured to prove, in six discourses on another text: His real Personality I have laboured to evince, in three discourses from this text: I now shall proceed to speak of his Mission, premising a few things concerning his Procession from the Father and the Son.

6

The Procession of the Holy Ghost is expressly taught by Christ, in very strong terms, in my text: The Spirit of truth, he tells us a, proceeds from the Father. The Procession here spoke of is evidently distinguished from his Mission; for it is said, Whom I will send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceeds from the Father.' If his mission and procession were the same thing, there would be a tautology in the words, his mission, according to that interpretation, being mentioned twice over in the same verse. Christ here describes the person of the Spirit, and shews him to be consubstantial with the Father, and therefore worthy of credit in his testimony concerning himself.

Some would b have us believe, that the procession of the Holy Ghost, even from the Father, respects not his nature or substance, but his mission only, and that no more is meant in my text; which sense has been disproved already: And besides, if the Holy Spirit does not, as to his substance or nature, proceed from the Father, how is he true and real God? In opposition to this truth, it is pretended, that no distinct and clear ideas can be formed of this procession; so it is given up as Popish, scholastic, inconceivable, and indefensible c. But what clear idea can be given us of the unoriginate, selfexisting, eternal being of the Father? Shall we therefore deny him to be without beginning or end, and to be self-existent, because we know not how he is so? If not, why must we give up the procession of the Spirit, because we know not the modes of it? For my part, I shall no more undertake to explain the manner how the Spirit proceeds from the Father, than to explain the eternal generation, and hypostatical union of the two natures of the Son; and yet I think myself bound to believe all three, because the things themselves are revealed in scripture, though the manner how they are, is not declared. I may say to the objector, as Gregory Nazianzen formerly did to his adversary; "Do you tell me how the

α Ο παρὰ τῷ Πατρὶς εμπορευεται.

b Watts's fifth Diss. p. 156.

c Watts's fifth Diss. p. 157.

Father is unbegotten, and I will attempt to tell you how the Son is begotten, and the Spirit proceeds a."

6

The clearest and fullest account of this procession, next to that in my text, which we have in scripture, is that in the apostle Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians; The Spirit which is of God b: That Spirit which is the same in nature and essence with the Father, and so is said to be of him, or out of him, not as to local separation, but with respect to identity of nature.

6

In my text there is an observable difference in the form of expression, relating to the dispensatory mission of the Spirit, which Christ expresses in the future tense, Whom I will send;' and his natural procession from God, which is spoke of in the present tense, which proceeds' (not shall or will proceed) from the Father.' The difference of time shews the difference of the things, and that the Spirit's proceeding from the Father is not the same thing with his future temporary mission, as an Advocate or Comforter.

As the Holy Ghost is expressly said to proceed from the Father, so he is often said to be the Spirit of the Son, or to be of the same nature with him: For when God is said to send forth the Spirit of his Son, it is evident that the Spirit is called the Spirit of the Son, not on the account of his mission; for that is ascribed to the Father, but on some other account; and what can that be but his proceeding from him, as one in nature with him, and in order of nature, though not of time, being after the Son; the Father being the first, the Son the second, and the Holy Ghost the third person, or subsistent in the Godhead. On this account the Latin church has e not scrupled to say, that the Spirit proceeds from the

α Τίς ἂν ἡ εκπόρευσις, είπε σε την άγεννησίαν τῷ Πατρὶς, κἀγὼ την γένε νησιν τῷ υἱ φυσιογογήσω, και την εκπόρευσιν τῷ πνεύματος. Gregor. Naz. Orat. xxxvii. p. 597.

ὁ Τὸ πνεῶμα τὸ ἐμ Θε8, 1 Cor. ii. 12.

c See Bishop Pearson on the Creed, p. 324.-See Berriman's Serm. p. 371.