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a servant, so the Holy Spirit is the true and real God, though he has taken upon him an office and work in the church: Nay, the very works he does, prove him to be the true and real God, as will appear more fully hereafter.

4. It may be objected, That the Holy Spirit being, as some say, only a power in the divine nature, he cannot be God, in the complete and full sense of the word. I answer, That the Holy Spirit is not only spoke of in scripture as God, but in as full a sense of that word as the Father. The same evidences which we have of the Deity and Personality of the Father, we have likewise of the Deity and Personality of the Holy Spirit, as will be shewed more fully in its proper place. That the Holy Ghost is represented as the power of God, with respect to his influence and effects, is very true; but that he is only the power of God, or God the Father, exerting that power, can never be proved from scripture. This is not the highest or fullest idea of him as God; seeing understanding, will, and all the essential powers of God, and the highest works of God, are ascribed to the Holy Spirit in scripture, as to a real and proper person in the Godhead, as I hope to make evident: And therefore in the strict and highest sense of the word, he is, both in scripture and in ancient writers, called God, as one in nature with God the Father and the Son, and equal to them in all the essential perfections of the divine nature.

The Jewish church, and the most eminent lights in the pri mitive Christian church, did thus believe and teach, as might be made very evident from their writings.

Dr. Allix a has proved, from the Jewish writers, That they give the name Jehovah to the Holy Spirit, and thought him to be a real Person, uncreated, proceeding from the first, by the second.

Clement of Rome b, speaking of the Spirit of the Lord, and

a Judgment of the Jewish church. See p. 162, 166-169, 173. Ο Λέγει τον Πνεῦμα κυρίε λυχνΘ', ἐρευνῶν τὰ ταμι εια της γαςρός. Ιδο ωμεν πῶς ἐγγύ; ἐτιν, καὶ ὅτι δὲν λέληθεν ἀυὸν τῶις ἐννοιῶν ἡμῶν ἐδὲ τᾶις

"It is better to offend foolish Polycarp a concluded his last

his searching the heart, says, "and proud men, than God." prayer at the stake in these words: "I praise thee for all "things; I bless thee, I glorify thee with the eternal and "heavenly Jesus Christ thy beloved Son, with whom, to thee, "and the Holy Spirit, be glory for ever and ever. Amen." This ascription of glory to the Holy Spirit, is an evidence that he believed him to be the true and real God. Justin Martyr b, in his first apology for the Christians, in vindication of them from the charge of atheism, declares that they worshipped and adored the Father, the Son, and the prophetic Spirit: He therefore owned the Holy Spirit to be God; because he says c, God only is worthy of religious worship. Athenagoras d speaks of God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit, so as to declare their power in unity, and their distinction in order. Irenæus has spoke of the Holy Spirit as included in the one God, as being of the same nature with him, and as being Creator of the world, together with the Son: The passages are too numerous and large to be now cited, I will mention but one. "There is one God "the Father, who is over all, and through all, and in all. "The Father is over all; the Word is through all; the Spirit

διαλογισμῶν ὧν ποιέμεθα· δίκαιον ἦν ἐσιν μὴ λιπο[ακεν ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τὸ θελο ἡμᾶς ἀν]ξ· μᾶλλον ανθρώποις ἄφριοσι, καὶ ανοήτοις, καὶ ἐπαιρομένοις, καὶ ἐγκαν. χωμένοις εν αλαζωνιά ἀθῶν προσκόψωμεν, ἢ τῷ Θεῷ.—Clem. Epist. i. c. 21. p. 104. 15.

α Διὰ τῦτο καὶ περὶ πάν]ων κινῷ σε, ευλογῷ σε, δοξάζω σε, σὺν τῷ ἀιωνίῳ, κα ἐπερανίῳ Ιησέ Χρισῷ ἀγα πελῷ σε παιδί, μεθ' ε σοὶ καὶ πνεύματι αγίω ἡ doğa ý vữv ý šis μéλλoilas àíãvas. Aunv.-Vid. Epist. Eccl. Smyrn. p. 75.

ὁ Εκεινὸν τὲ κ τον παρ' αυ] ἐλθόν]α υίον, πνεῦμά σε προφητικὸν σε βόμεθα, καὶ προσκυνᾶμεν λόγῳ κ αληθεία τιμῶνες.—Justin. Apol. i. c. 6. Ed. Oxon. p. 11. Ed. Thirlby.

Ο Θεον μόνον δε προσκυνῶν.—Id. Ibid. c. 21. p. 25.

d Τὶς ἄν ἐκ ἀπορήσει, λέγοντας Θεὸν πατέρα, καὶ υἱὸν Θεον, καὶ πνεῦμα ἅγιὸν δεικνῦντας αὐτῶν κ την εν τῇ ἑνώσει δύναμιν, και την εν τῇ τάξει διαίρεσίν, ἀκέσας ådses madeμives.-Apol. c. 10. p. 40.

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"is in us all." We may here observe, that he speaks of the Spirit as included in that one God, who is over all, through all, and in all; and therefore he must take him to be God. Clement of Alexandria, says, "That God descended in the shape of a dove, because the Spirit would, by a certain new in the likeness of a dove, shew forth simplicity appearance, "and meekness." Tertullian expressly says, "The Father "is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God; and "each of them is God; yet," as he declares, "there is but "one God." Cyprian, treating of the invalidity of baptism among the heretics, speaks thus: "If any one can be baptized 66 among heretics, (viz. effectually) he must become the temple of God.—I ask of what God? It cannot be of the Fa"ther, because he believes not in him, nor can he be the temple of Christ, who denies Christ to be God: If of the Holy Spirit, since these three are one, How can the Holy Spirit be pleased with him, who is an enemy to the Father or the Son?" In these words Cyprian has asserted, not only the Personality of the Holy Spirit, but also his unity with the Father and the Son, in the one undivided Trinity or Godhead; and consequently he did believe the Holy Spirit to be God,

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Thus was the Holy Ghost owned and honoured as God in the first ages of the Christian church, even before the Macedonian heresy gave occasion to defend his Deity and Personality, as was done abundantly after that arose, by Athanasius, Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, Chrysostom, Augustine, Ambrose, and many others.

I will only add here, that the Creed commonly called the apostles', though not composed by them, is very ancient: One article of it is, “I believe in the Holy Spirit;" which words, as a learned writer a observes, denote the Deity of the Holy Ghost, and shews, that our faith terminates on the Holy Ghost, as God; as well as, for the same reason, we are said to believe in the Father, and in the Son. When our faith in

a See the Lord King's critical history of the Creed, p. 320.

the Deity is declared, it is said to be in God the Father, and in his Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. By this preposition in, the Creator is distinguished from the creatures, and things divine separated from things human. And thus we see the ancients understood the holy scriptures as we do, as revealing the Deity of the Holy Ghost.

APPLICATION.

It is God the Spirit who strengthens the saints with all might in the inward man, and fills them with all the fulness of God a. He is, in believers, a well of water, springing up to eternal life: He then is the ground of the believer's hope, the spring of his comfort, the security and strength of his salvation.

The union and communion between Christ and the believer can never be broke or irrecoverably lost, seeing he that makes it and maintains it is God, immense and immutable in his nature and goodness: Well then might the apostle say, He that dwells in love, dwells in God, and God in him b.' Seeing the Holy Spirit is God, who created the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him, quickens the dead, and turns the devil out of the strongest holds, surely he is able to revive us when we faint, to raise us up when we fall, to comfort us when we mourn, to help our infirmities when we faint, or err in prayer; in a word, he is able to save us to the uttermost; and therefore we may encourage ourselves in this Lord our God. What reverential regards then are due to the Holy Spirit? He dwells in the saints as in his temple, and therefore is to be worshipped with godly fear: His presence and pleasure are to be attended with a deep veneration; and the honour due to God is due to him, he being one in nature with the Father and the Son. He that resists him, resists God: he that despises him, despises God; he that defiles his temple,

a Eph. iii. 16, 19.

b 1 John iv. 16.

him will God destroy: Words very awful, and which ought to be well considered by such as ridicule his works, oppose his Deity, or turn his grace into wantonness: Whatever others do, let us then honour and adore him, as the living and true God, who, with the Father and the Son, is the Lord Jehovah, as has been proved.

THE HOLY SPIRIT'S DIVINITY PROVED FROM HIS ATTRIBUTES.

SERMON III.

PREACHED SEPTEMBER 23d, 1729.

1 COR. iii. 16.-Know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?

HAVING, in the preceding discourse, proved the Deity of the Holy Ghost from his Names and Titles; I shall now proceed to some farther evidence of it, drawn from his Attributes.

PROP. II. The Holy Spirit is truly God; because, according to the oracles of truth, he is invested with all divine perfections.

Before I come to speak to this proposition, I would lay down this preliminary consideration, That he must be God, to whom God's essential attributes and perfections belong; for such attributes cannot be separated from the essence, nor belong to any inferior being. For example; to be absolutely eternal, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, uncreated, are attributes of God; which belong to his nature and being, and cannot belong to any creature; for how then would the distinction and difference between God and the creature be preserved?

For the same being to be created and uncreated, to have a beginning and to have no beginning, to be in all places and

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