LETTER III. TO THE REV. J. JENKINS, LEWES, Dearly beloved in the Lord Jesus—perfect peace, and at such a time. IF I have not wearied my beloved brother with my epistles on the pleasing subject, I will resume it and pro/ceed. That the Holy Spirit is properly a person, I have endeavoured to prove from scripture; and that he is a divine person appears as plain, because he personally subsists and has life in himself. "As the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself," John v. 26. And so hath the Spirit life in himself. This appears in his creation-work. "The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life," Job xxxiii. 4. He quickened, animated, and inspired Adam, and furnished him with a life of love. What power but a divine person, who has life in himself, could form a living soul in Adam, and give him life, righteousness, and true holiness? He is the author of natural and spiritual life. "It is the Spirit that quickeneth," John vi. 23. And, as he giveth spiritual life, so he maintains it; hence he is called "a well of living water, springing up into everlasting life," John iv. 14. And all the elect of God, who are by nature dead in trespasses and sins, and children of wrath, even as others those doth the Holy Spirit quicken. "I will put my Spirit in you, and ye shall live," Ezek. xxxvii. 14. Hence our Saviour says, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified," John vii. 38, 39. It was the Spirit that quickened the Saviour's body in the tomb. He was "put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit," 1 Peter iii. 18. Hence the Spirit is expressly called life; and he will, at the last day, quicken all that ever died in the Lord. "And, if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. I have sowed and you have reaped; and he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto eternal life; when he that sows and those that reap shall rejoice together." The Spirit, as a well of living water, shall spring up into everlasting life. This is the glorious harvest promised, as the present is the seedtime, in which the blessed crop (that we have already got in hope) is sown; "for he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting," Gal. vi. 8. If, therefore, the Spirit be not a person, and a divine person too, who has eternal life in himself, we never could reap everlasting life from him by yielding spiritual obedience to him. I say spiritual obedience, because we are said to serve "in newness of Spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter," which is only bodily exercise. And we are said, likewise, to worship God in the Spirit, and to walk in newness of life. Fur thermore, the names which, in the strictest sense, are peculiar to God, are by the scriptures given to the Holy Ghost; as Jehovah-which is an incommunicable name of God. "Thou, whose name alone is Jehovah, art the most high God over all the earth," Psalm Ixxxiii. 18. He, whom the children of Israel tempted and proved, vexed, and rebelled against, was Jehovah. And Isaiah ascribes it to the Holy Ghost," But they rebelled, and vexed his Holy Spirit; therefore he was turned to be their enemy, and fought against them," Isaiah ́lxiii. 10. The apostle ascribes the same to him. "Wherefore, as the Holy Ghost saith, to-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness; when your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They always err in their heart; and they have not known my ways. So I sware, in my wrath, they shall not enter into my rest," Heb. vii. 11. Isaiah, and the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, ascribe his tempting and rebelling of the Israelites to be done against the Holy Ghost; therefore the Holy Ghost must be Jehovah, and so it is written, "And he called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted Jehovah, saying, Is Jehovah among us or not?" Exod. xvii. 7. It is therefore plain that the Holy Ghost is Jehovah, which incommunicable name is peculiar to the most high God. The Holy Ghost is called God, not in a figurative, but in a proper, sense. "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" 1 Cor. iii. 16. What is not essentially God cannot be the Spirit of God; therefore the Holy Ghost is |