in the view of past and future mercies, which JEHOVAH hath ordained, shall we triumph when we sing his praise, and rejoice to proclaim his power!

SPIRIT OF PROMISE.

UPON

the fall, man was surrounded with every prospect of misery, and needed a promise to keep him from despair. Mercy triumphed over this misery, and supplied that promise, raising up his drooping mind to the expectation of good. This good, and the means by which it was to be introduced, made the ground of the promise: The author of it could be no less than the author of all good, even God himself.

The promise, at first immediately delivered by God to man, was afterwards renewed upon various occasions, both immediately by Himself, and mediately by persons commissioned by him. When the promise came directly from God, it was generally ascribed to his VOICE; and this Voice has been proved, in another place, to denote his SPIRIT. When it has been communicated through men, the same VOICE spake in them; and therefore it is said, they spake as they were moved by the HOLY GHOST, or still more directly in the terms of Christ, it is not ye that speak, but the SPIRIT of your Father which speaketh in you. This voice gave the word, which is sometimes translated promise, and always implies it; for God's word declared, being predictive of what shall come to pass, is consequently prophetical or promissory. usually means, what we particularly understand by promise, when it predicts good things; and hence the promises are called exceeding great and precious, both on account of their author and subject; but the word itself is all promise, even of destruction to sinners, and must to a tittle be accomplished.

It

As the whole promise of grace and life eternal proceeds from God, because He only hath the right to give or power to fulfill it, and because his VOICE only can utter his own mind and decree, which voice is his SPIRIT; therefore the Spirit is terncd, sometimes THE promise emphatically, as including every other declaration of salvation; and sometimes the promise. of the Spirit, and the Sirit of promise, explicitly, as expressing the great agent who is to fulfill it. He is called the promise itself, because he reveals or makes it known; and the Spirit of promise, because he is the very Spirit and power, by whom it is accomplished.

He gave his promise to his people in the GOD-MAN, Christ Jesus, as their federal or mediatorial head; and no promise, or the fulfilment of it, flows to them through any other channel. In Him only the promises are all yea, and all amen; all positive and full, all established and sure. The truth is in Jesus; and so likewise is the promise of truth. The Spirit never gave a promise but what related to Christ, or to his people in Christ. Christ is, therefore, the promised seed; and so are they, for his sake. Rom. ix. 8. But the great promiser, and one great branch of the promise itself, is that eternal Spirit through whom Christ offered himself without pot unto God, and by whose power the redeemed are gathered and united to Christ, as one body or temple, for his own habitation and glory. Eph. ii. 21, 22. In Christ they have communion with the Spirit; and by the Spirit they are brought to Christ for this communion. In and through both these divine persons, they are led up finally to the Father, as to the consummation of their own bliss, and of Jehovah's glory. Thus the Spirit is the great vivifying agent of all the people of God, who convinces them of sin, leads them to Christ for his atonement and righteousness, keeps them in dependence upon Christ by his almighty power, instructs their souls in the truths of salvation by enlightening his holy word. supplies them with strength against their enemies, affords them comfort in all their tribulations, imparts to them the various degrees of grace and holiness, and at last brings them safely to glory and heaven. Surely, such a SPIRIT as this might be well called a promise, in the highest sense and as the greatest blessing that can be conceived; and he may likewise be well ftyled the Spirit of promise, since none but his omnipotent power could impart or secure it.

But, that we might not mistake in so important a matter as the nature of this holy agent, He is called by other names in conjunction with the word promise, or with what is promised. Thus, our Lord styles him, the promise of my Father, because the Spirit is sent by the Father, proceedeth from bim, and is one with him in the Godhead. These additions to the name of the Spirit appear designed to prevent a misapprehension of him for some common or created spirit. Hence he is called the Spirit from on high, or from the Highest, Isaiah xxxii. 15. because he descends, not only from heaven (for angels do this,) but from the divine nature or Godhead. The words are framed according to the apprehensions of our sense, and mean, that in descending from the bigbest, he necessarily was above all, and as such came as necessarily from JEHOVAH MOST HIGH, who only is above all. He was a party in the everlasting covenant [in a manner superior to our conceptions as to the mode, but somewhat anaVol. II.

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logous to what we apprehend from those words in the sense or purport,] which covenant is the foundation of the promise; as the promise itself is the declaration of God's intention in that covenant. Now, none could make this declaration or promise, but the Godhead who conceived and determined it, or a person in the Godhead. No creatures, however exalted, could apprehend the infinite mind and will of Jehovah, but by the communication of Jebovab, and then only according to their limited capacity. The whole matter and manner must spring originally from God alone; and could have been known to any creature, only by his inspiration; for creatures depend as much for their knowledge upon God as for their being. But, as the Spirit is a party in this everlasting covenant, searcheth all things even the deep things of God, hath revealed in all ages (as the voice of God) the will of God, is the very promise itself for the tuition and comfort of the children of God, and the Spirit of promise to effectuate what is promised to them, both in time and eternity; the man who, on the one hand, will grant these premises, is most absurd, if he doth not also grant, that none but Jehovab could do these mighty acts; and the man who, on the other, will not grant them, must deny the Bible itself, and renounce all revelation for ever. There seems, therefore, on refuge in the case; but either the Spirit of promise is Jehovah promising, or there is no promise at all, and consequently no revealed communication between God and man. The one principle is the root and ground of faith; and the other, of all infidelity. To which it may be added; the operation and effect of these two principles divide the world, and separate gracious souls of all denominations from the graceless in every one.

It appears from hence, as well as from some other considerations, how important a matter it is for Christians to be well grounded in the truth of their conductor's divinity. Their comfort in the hope of salvation, as well as salvation itself, depends upon it. Remove this doctrine, and what man, who knows his own heart, the warfare he is engaged in, and the power of his foes, would not give up all for lost in a moment? The ignorance of these matters renders men trifling, unpersuaded, and unconcerned, respecting the divinity of the Spirit. They do not see that the Christian religion itself stands upon it, and the very purpose of that religion to man, even life eternal. Demolish this principle, and Deism, under cover of Socinianism, and other heterodoxies, come in with full force, upon the citadel of faith. To an awakened or enlightened soul (as the antient Christians used to term the established believer) the divinity of the Holy Spirit appears as essential to his salvation, as the prior existence of God

himself was necessary to his natural being. He cannot read a page in his Bible, but he perceives an expression or implication of this truth, which also is the very spring of all providence and grace, resolving the occurrences of the one into the purposes and conclusions of the other. And he possesses a further demonstration of this truth, in conjunction with the Bible, from that experience of it, which the Bible warrants and inculcates, and which it may not be unprofitable to consider.

The apostle, in mentioning this Holy Spirit of promise in Eph. i. 13. declares also the use and advantage of the Spirit. And it may be noted, by the way, that all the doctrines of the Bible apply to use, and are not to be considered as mere notions to swell the brain, without feeding the heart. After ye believed in Christ (says St. Paul) ye were SEALED with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inberitance, &c. They believed, which they were enabled to do by the operation of God, Col. ii. 12. and thus they were sealed by the Spirit of promise, or according to the promise of God. This sealing is the earnest, sure pledge and part of that, possession, which is called our inheritance, because, through Christ, we are born of the Spirit, or of God, are therefore children of God, and, being children, become beirs of God and joint beirs with Christ for that inheritance. The admission is through faith, the pledge and security is the seal of God the Spirit, and the end everlasting life. As a naked promise without witness is not obligatory among men, before their courts of law; God takes up a similitude from it, in order to shew the positive certainty of his salvation. He delivers his promise under the name of a testament, which he ratifies by his own oath, which comes into force by the death of that testator in whose name it was made, which is sealed by the Spirit and impleaded by him in the hearts of his people for whose benefit it was made, and which is witnessed to by the Son and Spirit before the court of heaven. In this way, God delights (as it were) to communicate to the heirs of salvation the immutability of his counsel, and their security in him. But if the Holy Spirit were not a person, he could not seal at all; if not a divine person, he could not seal for the conveyance of an inheritance, which only a divine nature could bestow; and

* The words might be rendered, Believing ye were sealed; but they amount to the same sense. Faith, though a grace of the Spirit as exercised in and by us, is one thing; and the seal of the Spiit is another. Dr. Guyse, upon the place, has judiciously distinguished them; and even Mr. Hervey, who corrects our translation, seems to mean by this sealing of the Spirit, "some delightful foretastes of life and immortality." Theron and Aspasio, Dial. xvi. near the end.

much less could he so seal, as to be the very earnest, assurance, and certainty of an eternal inheritance. His sealing obliged the divine nature to perform to man; and it seems not a little incongruous to imagine, that any creature whatever could seal an innumerable multitude of souls, and oblige his own Maker to grant salvation to them. On the other hand, admitting the Holy Spirit to be, what indeed he is, God over all, there is a beautiful harmony in the above similitude, and (what is better for us than ali mere beauty) that perfect security from alienation, which every believing soul desires to understand. He sees, in this delightful view, that God contrived the testament, that God effected the purpose of it, that God sealed and secured the whole, without possibility of failure or disappointment. The covenant or testament now appears worthy of God, as well as ordained by Him; and most comfortable to man, for whose poor soul it was graciously framed. Here is GOD planning, effecting, and securing to eternity; and man to eternity enjoying, adoring, and praising, This is all brightness and delight at once: while the reverse is altogether gloom and despair.-Judge then, reader, which of the two profers more honor to God, or more happiness to thee!

In full dependence upon the divinity of the Spirit of promise do all his promises, engagements, and operations proceed. Trace them to their fountain-head, they rise from him, and, rising from him, do thereby prove him to be God. They either spring not from the Spirit, and so the Bible is an imposition; or, springing from him, according to the Bi ble, they demonstrate his divinity. He could not give a promise of grace, if he were not the God of all grace; for the nearest angel to the heavenly throne, the very first which stands in the whole order of creatures, depends absolutely upon the grace and favor of his Creator, and can have nothing more, in any respect, than what he is capable of enjoying; and the employment of this whole capacity, or of the grace and favor bestowed upon him, belongs to the Giver, and cannot be communicated by one creature to another. If the Spirit then could not confer grace, but as God; he likewise could not seal or secure it, but in the right and power of his divine nature. Were there any being superior to his own, the secur rity would be nothing which a dependent being could give, but must be ultimately resolved into him, who bears the supreme power. Every promise, seal, or security, which the subordinate being might give would, in that case, be imperti nent and nugatory: What is more, they would arise from one who had no right, as well as no power, to form such a sort of covenant, as deals out heaven itself to worthless sinners, and parcels eternal life and happiness among a set of rebellious mor