is the Son of God," Acts 8, 37, was the form of professing al- legiance to Christ. Men acknowledged themselves to be Christians, by acknowledging the divinity of Christ. These passages, therefore, teach us first, whom we are to regard as Christians, viz., those who acknowledge and worship Jesus of Nazareth as the true God ; secondly, that the test of the di- vhie commission of those who assume to be teachers of the gospel, is not external descent, or apostolic succession, but soundness in the faith. If even an apostle or angel teach any other gospel, we are to regard him as accursed. Gal. 1, 8. And Paul tells the Corinthians that they were to discriminate between those who were really the organs of the Holy Ghost, and those who falsely pretended to that office, by the same criterion. As it is unscriptural to recognize as Christians those who deny the divinity of our Lord ; so it is unscriptural for any man to doubt his own regeneration, if he is conscious that he sincerely worships the Lord Jesus.
4-6. Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administra- tions, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all.
The second thing which the apostle teaches concerning these gifts is, their diversity of character in connection with the unity of their source and design. He is not, however, to be understood as here dividing these gifts into three classes, under the heads of gifts, ministrations, and operations / but as presenting them each and all under three different aspects. Viewed in relation to the Spirit, they are gifts ; in relation to the Lord, they are ministrations ; and in relation to God, they are operations, i. e. effects wrought by his power. And it is the same Spirit, the same Lord, and the same God who are concerned in them all. That is, the same Spirit is the giver ; it is he who is the immediate and proximate author of aU these various endowments. It is the same Lord in whose service and by whose authority these various gifts are exercised. They are all different forms in which he is served, or minis- tered to. And it is the same God the Father, who having ex- alted the Lord Jesus to the supreme headship of the church, and having sent the Holy Ghost, works all these effects in the