Father and the Son; though the Greek church chooses to express it thus; the Spirit proceeds from the Father, by, or through the Son, or he receives of the Son; all owning both Son and Spirit to have one and the same divine nature. Dr. Lightfoot observes, that wherever the Holy Ghost, in the Old Testament, is styled the Spirit of God, it is, in the Hebrew, the Spirit of Elohim, in the plural number, denoting his proceeding from more persons than one, even from the Father and the Son a.

I now proceed to consider the Mission of the Holy Spirit, or his being sent to perform his glorious part in the work of man's salvation.

The Father found a ransom, the Son purchased salvation ; both Father and Son send the Spirit to apply and finish that great work: This is signified in that clause of the text; • Whom I will send to you from the Father;' which I am now to consider.

The mission and coming of the Spirit, to complete our redemption, is a great trust, beyond and above all thought and admiration; for, as the glory of all works results from the finishing part, so the Father and Son put their glory into the hands of the Spirit, in sending him to perfect that great design. No inferior agent was equal to the undertaking, and no undertaking could be more glorious to all the persons concerned in it; infinite wisdom, power, and grace, were as much required in the applier, as in the contriver and purchaser of salvation; and as each of the divine persons has a distinct part, so each of them has a peculiar glory in the work.

The nature, circumstances, use, and ends of the mission of the Holy Spirit, I shall endeavour to explain and confirm, under divers distinct propositions, after I have paved the way by some previous considerations.

1. This mission of the Holy Spirit does not include his

a Dr. Lightfoot's Works, Vol. I. p. 482.

many and great works performed by him before Christ's incarnation. He moved upon the waters, in the first creatior, strove with the old world, inspired the prophets, instructed the people, and did many other glorious things in the Jewish church, which yet come not within the compass of this miɛsion; for Christ, a little before he suffered, speaks of it as a thing yet to come, and that after his departure, If I depart, I will send him a.'

2. We may also observe, that for a long time before this mission, the Holy Spirit had been withdrawn from the Jews. For more than three hundred years, some say four hundred, after Malachi, their last prophet, the Spirit of prophecy ceased from among the children of Israel. This was a time of thick darkness, of great wickedness and calamity; as appears by the prophecy of Malachi, and the history of those times. When Christ came b, the light shined in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. And with relation to this dismal circumstance of the Jews, the withdrawing of the Holy Spirit c, the people are said to sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death. But,

3. As the greatest darkness of the night precedes the dawn of day; so when Christ came, there were some first fruits and prelibations of the Spirit, previous to his solemn mission. Zacharias and Elizabeth were filled with the Holy Ghost d; as the song of the virgin Mary shewed her to have been; so were also Simeon, Anna, and John the Baptist: And the greatest instance of all was Christ himself, who e had the Spirit given to him without measure: But though these, and especially the last instance, had a surprising greatness and glory in them, yet they were all antecedent to that solemn mission of the Spirit, of which my text speaks: for it was long after the instances before mentioned, that Christ promised to send the Comforter; and he said expressly, that after his departure, he would send him. The sending of the Spirit was after

a John xvi. 7.

b John i. 5.

c Luke i. 79.

e John iii. 34.

d Luke i. 41, 67.; ii. 25, 26, 36.

Christ's ascension; but the work of the Spirit was not delayed, nor confined to that period and the times that followed.

Had we lived in the day of Christ, considered his conception by the power of the Holy Ghost, the glorious appearance of the Spirit resting on him at his baptism, his presence with him in his temptations, in his preaching, in his miracles, in the whole course of his life; how he went about doing good, and how the zeal of God's house did eat him up; how he endured the contradiction of sinners against himself; and how, through the eternal Spirit, he offered himself up to God at death: I say, if we had considered how he was anointed with the Holy Ghost, that oil of gladness, above his fellows, what could we have looked for more? what other or greater mission of the Spirit could we have expected? And yet these things, great as they were, must be owned to be but a prelude to that glorious mission of the Spirit, whereof I am to speak; The works that I do,' says Christ, shall he do, and greater works than these shall he do: because I go to the Father. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever a.'

Having hinted these preliminary considerations, I now proceed to give you my thoughts of the Mission of the Holy Spirit in several distinct propositions.

PROP. I. The Mission of the Holy Spirit is exclusive of every thing inconsistent with his Deity and divine Personality.

That the Holy Spirit is true God, and that he is a real person, has been before proved at large; that yet the Holy Spirit is sent, is also plain from scripture: Hence it follows, that his mission must exclude every thing that is inconsistent with his Deity and Personality. He that is true and real God, and a true and real person, must be so necessarily and eternally; for God is from everlasting to everlasting; and the Holy Spirit being true and real God, necessarily existing

a John xiv. 12, 16.

from everlasting to everlasting, can never do, or submit to that which is inconsistent with his nature and perfections as God; for if he could, he must then be God, and yet not be God, at the same time, and in the same sense, which is a plain contradiction; and both parts of a contradiction cannot be true; therefore,

1. The mission of the Holy Spirit does not imply or include local mutation, or change of place; for he who is in all places at all times, cannot properly be said to change place, or be sent out of one place into another; Whither shall I go from thy Spirit a?' said the Psalmist. Among men, the person sent goes from one place to another, because he is a finite and circumscribed being, who can be and act but in one place at once: But this does not hold good with respect to him who is immense, omnipresent, or in all places at one and the same time, as the Holy Spirit is. He, indeed, is said to be sent, to descend, to come; but these phrases do not denote his change of place, or his passing out of one place into another, any more than God's bowing the heavens and coming down, and his departing and returning to his place, signify any change of place, or removal of God's essential presence. God is said to come, to be in that place where he works, and to depart from that place where he suspends or withdraws his operations, and the tokens of his presence. In like manner, when we hear of the Spirit's being sent, and of his coming, we are not presently to conceive of him as a circumscribed being, who changes place in order to fulfil the work he is sent to do; but that he is engaged to exert his power in that place, and in that way before appointed and agreed upon.

2. This mission of the Holy Spirit does not imply his inferiority in nature, or original power, to the Father or Son. A master, indeed, among men, sends his servant, as the Centurion did his soldiers, saying to one, Go, and he goes, and

to another, Come, and he comes. It cannot be denied, that to send among men, is many times an act of authority and supreme power in him that sends, over him that is sent; but yet it is not always so among men, or ever so among the glorious persons in the Trinity. Among men, we see companies, or bodies-corporate, where all are originally equal, but, by common consent, one member is sent by the rest to transact some affair, and yet is not inferior to the rest of the society. The Son of God thought it no robbery to be equal. with God; yet the Father sanctified him, and sent him into the world, by mutual concert and agreement, before the world was; and therefore, before he took upon him the form of a servant. There was a peculiar reason, indeed, why the Son, when sent, should, and did come in that form; because he was to be made under the law a, to redeem us who are under the law; but there was not the same reason for the Spirit to come in a state of subjection; for he comes not to purchase, but to apply and perfect our salvation; nor was there the same possibility for the Spirit to come as a subject, in a servile condition: because he had not a finite inferior nature, as Christ had, wherein he became obedient to him that sent him; and the Spirit being God, equal in nature to the Father, he could not be inferior in nature and original power to the Father or the Son; but yet, by mutual agreement, he might be and was sent by the Father and the Son, to fulfil his glorious part in man's salvation, without any inequality of nature, or original power, as among men, one equal may, by consent, send another. This prevents or confutes one argument which is brought against the Deity of the Holy Ghost; that seeing he is sent, he is inferior to God, and consequently not God; for God cannot be superior and inferior to himself: For seeing one equal may, by mutual consent, send another, the Father and Son may, by mutual consent, send the Spirit, without any inequality of nature between them, and consequently,

a Gal. iv. 4.