we believe, with his blessing, to allay every suspicion, to remove every doubt, and to confirm and settle the mind, in the full belief of this important truth. And yet, aside from his own Divine illumination, what avails the multiplicity of scriptural proof to the truth of his character, or the reality of his work? The Spirit is the great illuminator of the soul. We may spread the most momentous and spiritual truths before the mind, - the evidence that confirms them may be collected from every source, and poured, as with focal power, upon the intellect, yet, until the Spirit of life and light move upon the moral chaos, all is darkness, and disorder, and confusion. We pass now to a consideration of the DIVINITY of the Holy Spirit.

Not less full and satisfactory is the evidence afforded by the Scriptures of truth, to the absolute and essential DEITY OF THE SPIRIT. It will not be expected that the argument sustaining this doctrine be a laboured and a lengthened one; seeing that, if we have shown the fallacy of a mere attribute having grafted upon it all the other Divine attributes; or, a mere influence or quality clothed with the properties and exercising the actions of a person, if, in a word, we have been enabled to establish upon a scriptural, and therefore a satisfactory and an immovable basis, the doctrine of the distinct personality of the Spirit, the GODHEAD of the Spirit may be legitimately and logically inferred. The very actions that prove him a person, demonstrate that person Divine. Proceed we now to the proof.

And, in the first place, let us inquire, is it no evidence of the supreme deity of the Spirit that the very NAMES of Deity are given to Him? For so we read, 2 Cor. viii. 17: "Now the Lord (Jehovah) is that Spirit." 2 Cor.

iii. 18: "But we all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."

He is also called GOD, in that remarkable passage recorded in Acts v. 3, 4: "But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? Why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God." So self-evident is the conclusiveness of the argument drawn from this that comment is deemed needless. passage, 66 "Thou hast not lied unto men"- the Holy Spirit, though a person, not a creature" but unto the Holy Ghost-unto God." To the experienced believer, how delightful is this evidence to the divinity of Him whom he loveth, honoureth, and adoreth, as the Author of his renewed nature!

There are parallel passages in which the name of God is ascribed to the Spirit. Thus, 1 Cor. iii. 17: "The temple of God is holy, which temple ye are." Compare 1 Cor. vi. 19: "Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost?" What is the true inference, but that the Holy Ghost is GOD-God dwelling in the renewed, recovered soul?

1 Cor. ii. 11: "The things of God knoweth no man." Compare 1 Cor. v. 14: "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God." The only distinction here made between God and the Spirit of God, is one that establishes the personality, while it affirms the divinity of the Spirit.

Luke xi. 20: "If I with the finger of God cast out devils." Compare Matt. xii. 28: "If I with the Spirit of God cast out devils." The "finger of God" is meta

phorical of the immediate agency of God. When, therefore, it is said that devils were cast out by the "finger of God," the obvious sense of the expression is, they were cast out by God himself. But from the text of the evangelist Matthew, this special and supernatural act was ascribed to the Spirit: the inference is in favour of the deity of the Holy Ghost.

Not only the names, but the ATTRIBUTES and WORKS of God are ascribed to the Spirit.

ETERNITY. Heb. ix. 14: "How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the ETERNAL SPIRIT offered himself without spot to God," &c.

OMNISCIENCE. 1 Cor. ii. 10: "The Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God." Of whom speaks the apostle this language, but of a distinct, intelligent, and Divine person? Both the personality and the divinity of the Spirit, are clearly and conjointly stated. The properties of his person are, his understanding and knowledge united with his power of communicating that knowledge to others. The argument for his divinity is, his faculty of foretelling things to come, by an intuitive power and underived knowledge, which faculty can belong to Deity alone. Let the spiritual reader pause, and reflect for a moment, upon this Divine attribute of the eternal Spirit. He is here represented as searching. Searching what? Searching where a finite mind, though it were an angel's, would be lost in maze and doubt. What else is the meaning of the verse immediately preceding? -"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." And then it is added, "But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the

Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. But what things are those which a finite mind, whether human or angelic, cannot penetrate or reveal? The eternal love of God towards his covenant people;—what finite intellect can fully comprehend or adequately reveal this? that ocean whence flows "the river that makes glad the city of God"-that Divine source of all blessedness to the believer; in which originated the wondrous plan of his salvation. O, what but a Divine mind could fathom this sea of love, and lead down its sweet streams into the believer's soul? "The deep things of God,"his nature, perfections, government, the eternal covenant of grace, the incarnation of Jesus, the nature and operations of Divine grace upon the soul of man, the mysteries of providence, the glories of the world to come,who can understand, and who can search these "deep things of God," but God himself? "Who hath known the mind of God, or who hath been his counsellor ?" who, save the eternal and blessed Spirit, the third person in the adorable Trinity? "The Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God."

OMNIPRESENCE. Psalm cxxxix. 7: "Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence ?"

OMNIPOTENCE. Rom. xv. 18, 19: "For I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ hath not wrought by me, to make the Gentiles obedient by word and deed, through mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God." And so also in Zech. iv. 6: "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts."

SOVEREIGNTY. 1 Cor. xii. 11: "But all these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every

man severally as he will." To whom can this properly apply, but to God? No creature has a right to do as he wills, but God himself. It is a Divine prerogative, incommunicable to a creature. The highest happiness of angels, and the "spirits of just men made perfect" in glory, is to do the will of God. Even our dear Lord, when speaking of himself in his mediatorial character, in which alone He was subordinate to the Father, says, "I came not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me." When, therefore, it is declared of the Spirit that He worketh "as he will," we have the strongest positive evidence of his absolute divinity. Of none could this be predicated, but God himself.

We have by no means exhausted the Scripture testimony to the doctrine of the DIVINE PERSONALITY of the Holy Spirit, although it is necessary, having other topics to discuss in connection with this truth, that the evidence should close here. As we advance more fully into the consideration of his work, collateral evidences in favour of his personal dignity will press themselves upon the mind of the reflective reader, which, perhaps, may afford him confirmation to the truth of the doctrine equally as strong and satisfactory as a direct and positive argument. With earnest prayer for that "anointing which teacheth of all things," his mind shall be led into the blessed truth, and the happy result will be, a crowning of the Spirit, equally with the Father and the Son.

We proceed now, in accordance with our design, to point out the essential relation which the doctrine of the Divine personality of the Holy Spirit holds to the entire revelation of God, and the reality and growth of Christian experience. We argue that a denial of the personal