LETTER XVI.

OF THE SANCTIFIER,

DEAR SIR,

205

LETTER XVI.

1824.

IN contemplating the divine persons of the
Trinity, there is usually an inferior degree of
attention paid to HIM whom we call the third,
the Holy Ghost. This disregard, I apprehend,
may be attributed solely to a want of practical
knowledge of His mysterious influence. God
the Creator is now confessed in the order and
harmony of nature. Men can safely and cer-
tainly, through the light of revelation, “reason
up
to Nature's God," and trace the design and
wisdom of creation, in the insects which flutter
their hour in the air, as well as in the light and
heat of those rays, which seem to give to the
universe the beauties which adorn, and the
glories which dignify it. With the history of
God the Redeemer we are familiar from child-
hood. We have read of His incarnation; and
if we possess no other
other knowledge of His
earthly career, we remember that He performed
miracles, that He raised the dead to life, and
that He himself was subject to a death, which
from its singularity and intense suffering,
fills our minds with horror, and we also re-
member that He arose from the dead, and

ascended into heaven. Nor is the feeling which accompanies this recollection, even with the most incredulous of readers, like any of those feelings with which they regard the tales of the heroes of romance. In spite of scepticism, in spite of infidelity, there is a latent belief that the tale is true; and unless sin has touched the heart, with the last process of spiritual induration, there is upon it a secret and a never-stifled hope, that yet salvation may be found through Christ. But of God the Holy Ghost, unless men have a practical knowledge of His spiritual influence, His operations are of such a secret and subtile nature, as to escape their notice. Save in two or three emblematic and (too frequently) disregarded instances, they read of no visible personification of His power, nor of any mighty works attributed to His agency: and not understanding the spiritual nature of the dominion assigned to His government, as declared in the Gospel, they attribute the effects of His influence, in the conduct of the righteous, to far different and very unworthy motives. They said to Christ, "Thou hast a devil."

That the Holy Ghost is one of the Eternal Three, is proved by the testimony which the Scriptures bear, both to His divine character, and to the supernatural works which He performed. His personality is also sufficiently declared in the language which our blessed Lord

used respecting Him.

"But the Comforter,"

He said to His amazed and fearful disciples, "which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you."* “ All which words," says Bishop Pearson, commenting on the whole passage of which these words form a part," are nothing else but so many descriptions of a person; a person hearing, a person receiving, a person testifying, a person speaking, a person reproving, and a person instructing." These personal powers of the Holy Ghost, I mention at this time but incidentally, that I may notice the old objection which is taken against them. One class of deists, for we cannot call them dissenters, have reiterated the old argument of Socinus so often, that some careless thinkers are disposed to trust to the loudness of their assertion; especially as they draw a plausible conclusion from the divine nature of the office of the Holy Ghost, which being spiritual is not cognizable to our animal senses. They assert that the blessed Spirit is but an energy, or operation, or quality, or a power; and contend, that every work ascribed to Him might have been performed by a prosopopoeia of the power of God. If omnipotency be such a power

*John xiv. 26.