3. Because it was the first witness of the truth of the gospel, and therefore tiie best pledge we can have of the love of God in our hearts; for believers are confirmed the same way which the gospel is confirmed ;
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tliat which confirmeth Christianity confirmeth the christian, the reality of our interest ; as the extract and original charter have value from the same attestation or stamp and seal : Acts v. 32, ' And we are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Ghost.' And the wonders wrought by the Spirit : Heb. ii. 4, ' God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost.' This was extraordinary, therefore the christian needeth not to have his Christianity confirmed by miracles, but by the sanctifying Spirit : John xvii. 17, ' Sanctify them through thy truth ; thy word is truth.' This the believer must have : 1 John v. 10, ' He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself ; ' the Spirit comforting the conscience by the blood of Christ, and sanctifying and cleansing the heart as with pure water, ver. 8. This is our evidence that we are true christians : so the testimony of Christ is confirmed in us.
4. It is proper to the matter in hand, union and communion with Christ.
[1.] Consider the privilege itself, the nature of this union with Christ, the object, the author and continual preserver : 2 Cor. xiii. 14, ' The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost.' Communion is imputed to the Holy Ghost, as love to God, and grace to Christ : 1 Cor. vi. 17, ' He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit.' As a man and a harlot are one flesh, so we are one spirit, because it is not a communion of bodies, but spirits. There is the same spirit in head and members ; therefore the apostle concludeth, Kom. viii. 9, ' Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his ; ' is not grafted as a living member into Christ's mystical body.
[2.] For the bands of this union, faith and love and new obedience, they are all wrought in us, and stirred up in us by the Spirit.
(1.) Faith, it is the Spirit which giveth faith : Gal. v. 5, ' For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.' It is he that doth internally enlighten our minds, and incline our hearts to embrace the gospel covenant, and Christ revealed in it. All that faith which we have is the gift of God, Eph. ii. 8 ; and God worketh by his Spirit, ' who openeth the eyes of our mind, that we may believe and receive the gospel,' Eph. i. 17, 18.
(2.) For love, it is his production also, for love is of God, 1 John iv. 7, that is, wrought in us by the efficacy of his Spirit. The great design of the gospel is to reveal the love of God, and thereby to recover our love to God, that we may love him again, who hath loved us first, 1 John iv. 19. Now the bare revelation of this love in the word will not do it, unless it be shed abroad in our hearts by the Spirit given to us, Rom. v. 5. Therefore, as the Spirit of light, he worketh faith ; as a Spirit of love, he worketh love in us, and recovereth us from the world and the flesh to God. Naturally we love our own selves, that is, our own flesh, above God ; for ' tliat which is born of flesh is flesh,' And we love the world above God, 2 Peter i. 4. All this is remedied by the new nature given to us by the Spirit, that we may love God, and live to him.
(3.) For new obedience, it is wrought in us by the Spirit also: ' Seeing ye have purified your hearts in obeying the truth through the
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Spirit,' 1 Peter i. 23. He quickeneth all tlie acts of the new life : Ezek. xxxvi. 27, ' I will put my Spirit into you, and cause you to walk in my statutes.' So that the Holy Ghost being; given to us as our sanctifier, he resideth in our hearts as the immediate agent of Christ, and the worker of all grace ; as a Spirit of light and love maintaining and carrying on our communion with God in Christ. If we have such a spirit, we may know that he abideth in us ; but without his illuminating, quickening, sanctifying work on the heart, we are not christians.
[3.] The Spirit given to us is fit only to satisfy us concerning our interest in this blessed and glorious privilege, for these reasons —
(1.) Because the privilege is so high, that we should dwell in God and God in us, that we need some great benefit to assure us of it. Now the Holy Ghost is a benefit becoming God to give and us to receive. For God to give us his Spirit, it is more than if he had given us all the world. A believer valueth it above all other evidences, and in its own nature it deserveth it, as being the highest demonstration of God's bounty and liberality to us; if he giveth all the world, he giveth some- thing without himself, but when he giveth the Spirit he giveth himself. The uncreated Spirit is a person of the Godhead, and the Godhead is undivided, and saving grace is the permanent effect thereof. Other mercies run in the channel of common providence, but this could only be conveyed to us by the mediation of Jesus Christ. The Father sends him in Christ's name : John xiv. 26, ' And the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name.' And Christ sendeth him from the Father : John xv. 26, ' But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father.' He proceedeth from the Father and the Son, and is the fruit of both their loves to us. Christ hath merited this effectual operation, and conveyed the Spirit to us as our head : John xvi. 14, 15, ' He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine ; therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you.' Other things are given in anger, but not the Spirit ; we may have them and perish forever ; but when we have this great benefit, then we know we live in God, and are fitted to live to God, and shall live with him for ever.