CHAPTER IV: His operations upon the church, and that, first, as collectively taken
8. It was the Holy Ghost that solemnly anointed him as king in heaven: Acts 2:33, 'Being at the right hand of God, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost,' &c. Peter's inference from this is, ver. 36, 'Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.'
9. It was and is the Holy Ghost that proclaims him Christ in all men's hearts. He sets the crown upon him there also, as well as in heaven, in so much that no man could ever come to acknowledge him the Christ but from the Spirit: 1 Cor. 12:3, 'No man can say Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.' So as whatever right he had in his person, or by his Father's designation (of which in Acts 2:36, Rom.
14:9), yet it is the Spirit that publicly proclaimed him such, brought him in all his subjects; or, to use Christ's own words, 'He it is that glorifies me, shewing it to them,' John 16:14. All this he hath done to and for Christ our head.
CHAPTER IV
His operations upon the church, the body of Christ; and that first as collectively taken, the whole thereof.
II. Let us now consider the operations of the Holy Ghost in and upon the church, collectively taken, as the body of Christ.
1. He was the first founder of the church of the New Testament. The apostle, writing to the Ephesians, who (as you know) had formerly gloried of their temple of Diana as one of the seven wonders of the Gentile world, sets before them, chap. 2, an infinitely far greater and more glorious temple, whereof they themselves, he tells them, were a part, even the church universal of the New Testament, consisting of Jew and Gentile: Eph. 2:21, 'A building fitly framed together, that
groweth up into an holy temple in the Lord.' But then, who is the builder and framer of this fabric, age after age, till all is perfect? And through whom also is it that this temple, when built, is consecrated unto God for a mansion-house or habitation, who hath the whole world to dwell in? The 22d verse shews both, 'In whom' (namely,
Christ) 'ye' (Ephesians) 'are also builded up together for an habitation of God through the Spirit;' which in the coherence with the former, is as if he had said, He that made you, the Ephesians, a church (which was as a particular member of that universal body), as 'members in particular,' 1 Cor. 12:27, the same Spirit was the builder of that great cathedral in which are comprehended all particular churches as smaller oratories; so as he is the great founder of all, both in the whole, yea, of every member that worships therein. Thus, in ver. 18, 'Through him' (namely Christ) 'we have both' (Jew and Gentile) 'access to God' (but) 'through the Spirit.' Yea, he is the soul of this one body; Eph. 4:4, 'There is one body and one Spirit.' Christ bears the relation of head to this body; but who is the universal soul, which is in all, and every part of it? It is the Holy Ghost; and oh! how glorious a church and body shall Christ have, when all are met and set together, and filled full of this Spirit at the latter day! Eph. 5:27.
At that day it is he will 'present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing.' Thus spake the husband, the head, of this spouse. But who is the soul that gives this beauty, that formed this symmetry of all the members, and adds life to all?
The Holy Ghost. And now, let us think what a mighty and vast work this of forming and building the universal church is, whereof this
Holy Spirit is the former and effecter. There was a perfect pattern and platform of the whole and every member thereof in God's breast, an idea also in Christ's (as appears by the last-cited Eph. 5) which this Spirit will bring in the end the whole unto, and frame each living stone in the building to bear a due, suitable, and comely proportion in the whole, and each to other. And this is, and hath been providentially a-doing and a-framing in every part thereof, in all and every age, and hath been wrought from the beginning of the world, in the several parcels apart, oven as each piece of tapestry in hangings use to be wrought in little bits and small parcels, which, when
finished, are then at last set together. And this Spirit, who is the dedolator, the architectonical master-workman, hath in his eye every degree of grace he works in every of these members' hearts who is a stone in this building, according to the pattern which the Father and Christ have in their idea and model, of every particular, as also of the whole, and exactly frames each and the whole unto their mind, and misseth not the least of the set proportion in the pattern, which, in so long, so various, and multifarious a work to do (as this therefore must be supposed), what infinite wisdom and power doth it require, and argues him to be God, that is in God, as the spirit of a man within him, and 'searcheth the deep things of God.'
2. All the means of the church's edification (as the word, ministry, and all gospel ordinances) all which are the goods and chattels, the household-stuff of the church universal ('Paul and Apollos are theirs'), these are all of him, and blessed by him. He wrote the Scriptures, 2 Peter 1:21, gave the prophecies, 1 Peter 1:11, revealed the gospel, Eph. 3:5, in such a manner and measure, and with such an enlargement as never before, to the sons of men.
The care of all that great affair of the ministry, and the work thereof, is incumbent on him, lies on his hands to manage. In the New
Testament we find him once immediately speaking in his own person, and taking on him as a person (as the Father had done afore when he said, 'This is my well-beloved Son'); and the occasion was particular about the execution of this work of the ministry, it is in Acts 13:2, 'The Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them.' In which effort of his, he speaks as one entered upon an office or work committed to him, and betrusted with him. And it is as if he had said, this is my work proper to me, I am the immediate governor and administrator herein; for all that any way concerns the edification of the church is committed to my management and care. And he says he had designed Paul and Barnabas to one part, as Peter and John to another, Gal. 2, yea, all their gifts are his, in him, and he as a person that is the sovereign thereof, 'distributes them as he will,' 1 Cor. 12:4, 7. He makes
ministers, John 20:22. And that power to declare that sins are forgiven, and so set free men's consciences, is from their having received the Holy Ghost first, 'Christ breathed on them, and said,
Receive ye the Holy Ghost;' and then adds, 'Whose sins ye remit, are remitted.' And as he makes ministers, so he sends out ministers, Acts
13:4; and in vain it is for them to go until he comes upon them. The apostles are therefore commanded to stay going forth into the world till they should have received the Holy Ghost, Acts 1:8. He appoints the place and people any of them should go unto, and forbids and hinders where they should not be usefully employed. He gives them orders: he bids Philip go to the eunuch, Acts 8:29; and Acts 11:12, he sends Peter to Cornelius; and on the other side, he forbids to preach to such or such. Paul and Timothy were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach in Asia, Acts 16:6; and they again 'essayed to go into Bithynia: but the Spirit suffered them not,' ver. 7. And when they preach, it is he prompts them with their sermons, Mark 13:11. The apostles 'spake as the Spirit gave them utterance,' and when they spake, they spake apophthegms, as the word is, weighty sayings: 1
Cor. 2:13, 'Which things we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual;' that is, suiting expressions to the gravity and weight of the things delivered. He fires their tongues and hearts, that they should not speak mere empty and powerless words, nor shoot powder, but fiery bullets, such as have warmth and life in them. And when they preach, he makes their sermons to be the ministration of the Spirit, to convey himself unto their hearts, and to make the gospel 'the power of God unto salvation.' All the power of sermons is from the Holy Ghost: 1 Thes. 1:5, 'Our gospel was not in word only, but in power, and in the Holy Ghost;' 1 Peter 1:11, 12, the gospel is said to have been preached 'with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven,' who waiteth and watcheth when ye come to sermons, and at the speaking such a word as will do your hearts good, he falls upon you: Acts 10:44, 'Whilst they were speaking these words, the Holy Ghost fell on them.' I might shew the same in all the ordinances, but of them after.
For a conclusion. It may be truly said (as it hath been by some of the ancients) that as Christ was the fulfiller of the law, and the end of the law (Rom. 10), so that the Spirit is the complement, the fulfiller, and maker good of all the gospel,* otherwise all that Christ did would have profited us nothing, if the Holy Ghost did not come into our hearts and bring all home to us. Christ made his will by his death,
Heb. 9; but the Spirit is his administrator. Christ's blood and purchase gave us, by his redeeming us, jus ad rem; but the Holy
Ghost, by applying it, only jus in re; he gives us possession, livery, and seisin. Himself is the Arrha: the earnest and the investiture of all is by him. The promises had been but as blanks else to us; but it is the Holy Ghost is the sealer of us by them, the verifier of them, 2 Cor.
1:20, 22. Christ also came, and delivered his commands to his apostles, to teach his church to do them, as in Mat. 28:20; but withal it is expressly said of him, and that after his being risen again, that he gave those his commands to them by the Holy Ghost, Acts 1:2. And then again, those great truths he uttered only by word of mouth; but it was the Holy Ghost which recovered them when they were almost lost, and in a manner clean gone out of the apostles' weak and shallow memories and understandings. And he it was that added a thousand more truths to them, which Christ never uttered; to whom therefore Christ refers them: John 16:12, 13, 'I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth; for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak.'
Only by the way, let ministers and Christians take notice what is the glory of the ministry, even the Holy Ghost. Thus Paul himself, 1 Cor.
2:4, 'My speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.' The phrase, 2 Cor. 3:6, is, 'He hath made us able ministers of the Spirit.'
The words in that text are indeed 'ministers of the New Testament,' but it follows in the same verse, 'not of the letter, but of the Spirit.'
And this New Testament, or the gospel, says the apostle, ver. 3, is ministered by us 'with the Spirit of the living God.' Our abilities lie in