authority; and in giving others a power to work them in His name.'

Thus are our conscience, and God's providence, God's witnesses to all men: and thus is His Spirit in the mouths of the patriarchs and prophets; especially in John Baptist; but above all in Jesus Christ (to whom God gave the Spirit, not by measure), God's great Teacher and Witness to His church and people, in the several ages of the world.

SECTION VI.-The Spirit of God was bestowed, after the Ascension of Christ, in a higher degree and to a greater extent, than it had been imparted since the fall.

But though the Spirit of God taught and witnessed for God in all the revelations, prophesies, predictions, and miracles, that the patriarchs, the prophets, John Baptist, or even our blessed Lord himself, in his state of humiliation, did give and work; yet was there a time to come, in which He was to do it in so superior a degree, and so very different a manner, that John tells us, that the Holy Ghost was not then so much as given; nay, nor was not to be given, till Jesus was glorified. The Holy Ghost was given without measure unto Jesus, as to a Prophet,

On the Superiority of the Miracles of Christ, to those of Moses, see "Arrangement of the New Testament," vol. i. page 112-116.

2 John vii. 38, 39.

14 The powers of the Spirit imparted to Christ,

but it abode with him during his life-time; He did not impart it to his disciples, during His ministry. Nor does He seem then to have had it so as to be able to impart it. He tells his disciples, just as He was going to leave them,' that "the Holy Ghost would not come till He departed; for He was to send him from the Father, upon praying the Father for it." And then it was that the Spirit of Truth was to be the chief Teacher and Witness for Jesus, as Jesus had been for the Father; or, as our Saviour says, that he should "testify of him."4 For our Saviour had taught His disciples such truths only as they could bear." But the Spirit of Truth was to guide them into all truth; and was then likewise to take, not only of the Father's, but things that would be made Christ's (for then all things that the Father had would be made His; and the Spirit of God would be the Spirit of Christ); and shew those things unto them." He was then to be given to them, and to abide with them." It was not till after Christ's resurrection that He first breathed on them, and said, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost." And then He did but prefigure the giving it.

2

And even then He was so far from actually giving, that He could not give it, according to the settled order of things, till He was glorified: for Christ was to receive it not as a prophet, but as King of the church," as the promise of his Father;" and then to shed it down on His disciples.' Or, as the Psalmist says, "to ascend and receive gifts for men ;" before He was to give those gifts to them. It is likewise expressly asserted by St. Paul, that "He ascended far above all heavens, that (to the intent that) He might fill all things and (then) He gave some apostles, some prophets, and some evangelists, &c. for in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily and we (the Ephesians) are complete (or, as it should be rendered, filled, in or by Him): being by Him filled with all the fulness of God, till we come unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." For St. John tells us, that it was "out of His fulness that we received grace for, or in proportion to, his grace." Christ was anointed, "with the oil of gladness, above His fellows." After which, the shedding down part of His unction on His disciples was the first act of that regal power to which He was advanced.

The reason of our Saviour's saying, in the

ESSAY I.

ON THE TEACHING AND WITNESS OF THE

HOLY SPIRIT.

INTRODUCTION.

SECTION I.-The Teaching and Witness of the Holy Spirit, the greatest Evidence of the Truth of the Christian Religion.

THE Christian dispensation is the last and most gracious dispensation of God to mankind. It is not however without its enemies, among some few of the sober, and, who seem, at least, on all other occasions, capable, diligent, and fair inquirers; as well as among the vicious, the indolent, the knavish, and the incompetent. The greatest witness to the truth of the Christian religion is the Holy Spirit. I have therefore thought it might be of some service, to consider that evidence with all the care and attention I could.

I have chosen to do this the rather, because, whilst I think this teaching of the Spirit the greatest proof of the truth of the Christian religion, I at the same time see, that it runs so much through the beginning and end of the

VOL. I.

A