I.

OFFICE OF THE SPIRIT.

THE doctrine of the Holy Trinity is revealed to us principally in the Gospel. Jesus Christ was the first to speak plainly of God, as Father, Son and Holy Ghost; although the light of the New Testament enables us to discover many traces of a distinction between these Divine Persons in the older Scriptures, as when God declares he hath "set his Son on his holy hill of Zion," or promises to "pour out his Spirit upon all flesh."

The work of salvation includes not only the pardon of Christ's people as sinners, but their restoration to perfect and eternal holiness. Like every

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other work of Almighty power, it is ascribed to GOD, yet, in the execution of it, each of the blessed Persons has a distinct office and agency.

The FATHER is ever represented as the conservator of the rights and honours of the Godhead, and, therefore, as the director and approver of the work. He sends his only begotten Son into the world; pronounces himself well pleased with his obedience in the form of a servant, and exalts him to His own right hand, with "a name that is above every name," in reward of his faithfulness unto death; and it is He who, in answer to his Son's intercession, sends the Holy Spirit upon the hearts of his ransomed ones, to seal them as his own with the image of Christ, and carry on the work unto the day of their perfect redemption.

The SoN manifests the purpose of God in salvation; provides in his own sufferings and obedience the atonement and the righteousness which justifies the Father in pardoning the sinner and restoring him to happiness, and stands as the Mediator between

the believer and the God whom he has offended, but to whom he would return.

The HOLY SPIRIT prepares the human nature for the incarnation of the Son; strengthens the Immanuel in the performance of his work on earth in obedience and suffering; and then fits, persuades, and enables the sinner to receive the salvation and follow Christ, by opening the eyes of his understanding to perceive the truth which Christ hath revealed, converting his depraved heart to love it, and strengthening him in all his powers to obey it and walk in it.

Thus is salvation the work of Father, Son and Holy Ghost; and to Father, Son and Holy Ghost should we render equal praises. But as the purpose of the Father could not be complete without the work of the Son, so the work of the Son cannot be efficient without the application of the Spirit. The apostle Peter declares his believing brethren to be "elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spi

rit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Christ;" and the apostle Paul says, "Through him (that is Christ) have we access by one Spirit unto the Father." It is, therefore, to the energy of the Spirit, that we are to attribute all the effects of the Gospel upon our hearts. For, as in the first creation, God made the world by the Son, the WORD of his power, yet it was the SPIRIT which moved upon the face of the waters to bring order out of confusion, and light out of darkness; so, in the new creation of his people to holiness, the word of God in the gospel of his Son prevails not, until the same Spirit has moved on the corrupt and dead soul, awakening it to a new and holy life.

Hence the graces of the Christian character are called "The fruit of the SPIRIT."

It is important, also, to observe the name which is given to this Divine Person and agent in our redemption. He is called the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, or Holy Ghost. God the Father has never re

vealed himself immediately; all his revelations are made to us by the Son or the Holy Spirit. Hence the Baptist says, “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him," or made him known. And the writer of the Hebrews calls the Son "the brightness" or shining forth "of his" Father's "glory, and the express image," or expressed character, "of his person." For the same reason the Son is called "the eternal WORD," or speech, or voice of God; and the various manifestations of God's power are declared to be the works of the Son. "All things were made by him, (the Word,) and with out him there was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of

All the divine appearances, or manifestations of God to the senses of men, under the Old Testament were, most probably, by the Son, except some of