Judges vi. 34. 1 Sam. x. 10. 1 Sam. xxii. 2. 2 Kings ii. 9, 15. 1 Chron. xxviii. 12. Ezek. ii. 2. Luke i. 35. Luke ii. 22. Acts ii. 4. Acts viii. 39. after-days. He, not It, "spake by the prophets," "moving those holy men of God." He, not It, drew the plan of the ancient Tabernacle and of the first Temple. He, not It, lifted Ezekiel to his feet in the hour of vision. He, not It, came upon the Virgin, and anointed her Son at Jordan and led Him to the desert of temptation, and gave utterance to the saints at Pentecost, and caught Philip away from the road to Gaza, and guided Paul through Asia Minor Acts xvi. 6, 7. to the nearest port for Europe. He, not It, effects the new birth of regenerate John iii. 5, 6, 8. man, and is the Breath of his new life, and the Earnest of his coming glory. By Him, not by It, the believer walks, and mortifies the deeds. of the body, filled not with It, but Him. He, not It, is the Spirit of faith, by whom it is "given unto us to believe on Christ." He, not It, Gal. v. 25. Rom. viii. 1I. Gal. v. 25. Rom. viii. 13. 2 Cor. iv. 13. Phil. i. 29. Rev. ii, 7, 11, 29; speaks to the Churches. He, not iii. 6, 13, 22. ⚫ It, says from heaven that they who die in the RESERVE OF SCRIPTURE; ITS REASON. 11 Lord are blessed, and calls in this Rev. xiv. 13. life upon the wandering soul of man to come to the living water. Rev. xxii. 17. And let us not wonder, by the way, that the exhibition of His Personality is comparatively so reserved in Scripture; that we have need, as in the case of the Personality of the Father and of the Son we have not at all, to place Scripture by Scripture and make an induction on the subject. The reason lies in the nature of the case. The Holy Spirit is the true Author of the Written Word; and Heb. x. 15. His authorship there is occupied with the main and absorbing theme not of Himself but of another Person, the Son of God. cidentally, like some of His human agents in the production of the Scriptures-like Moses, and Jeremiah, and Paul, and John-He discloses enough of His blessed Self to give us full apprehension of His personal reality; but His theme, His burthen, is JESUS CHRIST. And again in the unfolding and application of Redemption His work is above all things secret, internal, subjective. It is to take of the things of Christ, to deal with the blessed In objectivity of the finished work and inexhaustible riches of Christ, and with inmost touches and new-creating whispers to manifest them to the spirit of man. It is to bring man, by a divine but inscrutable operation, to believe in Christ and to possess Him, with a spontaneity truly man's own while yet Another is in it. As to His saving operations, the Spirit lies hidden as it were behind Christ Jesus and in our own inner man. So it is also in measure in His revelations of Himself in His holy Word. However this is by the way. The point before us now, in the matter of the Personality of the Spirit, is just this: that we have the central and open revelation of that personality given us in Scripture in a place and under circumstances charged with indescribable tenderness and sacredness. The truth thus appears not only as a demand on the obedience of faith -though this it is indeed-but as a gift to the believing soul of heavenly love, of love deep and warm as the heart of the Redeemer. There seems to be a drift and set at the present day, in many quarters where what are called liberalizing tendencies in theology prevail, TENDERNESS OF THIS TRUTH. 73 to discredit, or minimize, or ignore, the belief of the Personality of the blessed Spirit. In what interest and to what end, one asks, is such a tendency accepted or promoted? Surely not with the hope of presenting the Christian plan, the process of eternal love and goodness, in fairer, tenderer, or more living colours and glories. If a reference to personal experience may be permitted I may indeed here "set to my seal." Never shall I forget the gain to conscious faith and peace which came to my own soul, not long after a first decisive and appropriating view of the Crucified Lord as the sinner's Sacrifice of peace, from a more intelligent and conscious hold upon the living and most gracious Personality of that Holy Spirit through whose mercy the soul had got that blessed view. It was a new development of insight into the Love of God. It was a new contact as it were with the inner and eternal movements of redeeming goodness and power, a new discovery in divine resources. At such a "time of finding," gratitude, and love, and adoration gain a new, a newly realized, reason, and motive-power and rest. He who with His secret skill, and with a power not the less almighty because it violates nothing, has awakened and regenerated the man, now shines before his inner sight with the smile of a personal and eternal kindness and amity, and is seen standing side by side, in union unspeakable yet without confusion, with Him who has suffered and redeemed, and with Him who laid the mighty plan of grace, and willed its all-merciful success, and spared not His own Son, giving Him over for us all. If I may reverently use the simile, it is as when to two notes of the musical triad the related third note is added, and there results, in the words of the music-loving poet, "not a fourth sound, but a star.”1 As our enquiry proceeds we shall have continual occasion of course to recur to this primary theme, the Personality of the Holy Ghost; and much that is omitted in this preliminary statement will thus be supplied. we have at least aimed here at the great mark of setting the sacred fact, as a fact, well before us, and letting it take its large place anew in 1 Browning, Abt Vogler. But |