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learn to give the Spirit liis duo, anti learn how to make use of the work of the Spirit. There are several works of the Spirit. You see here what the Spirit doth, ' We all.' The Spirit unites us together. It is a Spirit of union. It knits all together hy one faith to God. All meet in God the Father reconciled ; and we all are joined together by love, wrought by the Spirit, ' with open face.' Who takes away the veil ? We are all veiled by nature. The Spirit takes away the veil from our eyes, and from the truth. What is the reason the gospel is so obscure ? The Spirit takes not away the veil, it teachcth not by the ministry ; or else it takes not away the veil from the eyes. The Spirit takes away the scales from our eyes, and the Spirit in the ministry takes away the obscurity of the Scriptures. All those that we call graces, the free gifts, the ministerial gifts, they are the gifts and the graces of the Spirit ; and they are for the graces of the Spirit. Skill in tongues and in the Scriptures, and in other learning, are given to men that they may take away the veil from the Scriptures, that they may be lightsome ; and then when the Spirit is given, he takes away the veil from the soul by his own work ; and then with open face * wo behold the glory of the Lord.' What doth open our eyes to see, when the veil is taken off ? The Spirit. We have no inward light nor sight, but by the illumination of the Spirit. All light in the things, and all sight in us, it is by the illumination of the Spirit. And then the change according to the image of Christ, this is altogether by the Spirit of Christ, it is altogether from the Holy Ghost. Christ baptizeth ' with the Holy Ghost, and with fire,' Mat. iii. 11, and Christ came ' by blood, and by water,' 1 John v. G : by blood, to die for us ; and by water, by his Spirit to change us and purge and cleanse us. All is by the Spirit. Christ came as well by the Spirit as by blood. This change, and the gradual change from glory to glory, all is by the Spirit. Therefore we should not think altogether of Christ, or God the Father, when we go to God in prayer ; but think of the work of the Spirit, that the Holy Ghost may have his due.
Lord, without thy Spirit, my body is as a thing without a soul, a dead, loathsome, stiff, unapt carcase, that cannot stir a whit ; and so my soul without the operation of thy Holy Spirit, it is a stiff, dead, unmoveable thing ; and therefore by thy Spirit breathe upon me. As thy Holy Spirit in the creation did lie upon the waters, and brood as it were all things there ; lying upon the waters it fashioned this goodly creature, heaven and earth, this mundus. So the Spirit of God lying upon the waters of the soul, it fashions all graces and comforts, whatsoever they are ; all is wrought by the Spirit in the new creature, as all in this glorious fabric of the world was by the Spirit of God. Let the Spirit of God therefore have due acknow- ledgment in all things whatsoever.
And what are we to look to mainly now ? The knowledge of God the Father, and his love to us shining in Christ, all is in Christ ; and if we would have anything wrought in us, any alteration of our natures, let us bog the Spirit, that we may have the discovery of the love of God in Christ, and the Spirit attending upon the gospel.
And because we have all these abundantly in these latter times of the church, in the second spring of the gospel, in the reformation of religion, after our recovery out of popery, there is a second spring of the gospel. Oh, beloved, how much are we beholding to God ! Never since the beginning of the world was there such glorious times as we enjoy. We see how the holy apostle doth prefer these times before former times, when the veil was upon their eyes, and when all was hid in ceremonies, and types, and such
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things among the Jews. ' Now,' saith he, ' we behold the glory of God, and are changed by the Spirit from glory to glory.'
To conclude all. Therefore consider that the glory of the times, and the glory of places and persons, all is from the revelation of Christ by the Spirit, which hath the Spirit accompanying it. The more God in Christ is laid open, the more the times, and places, and persons are excellent. What made the second temple beyond the former ? Christ came at the second temple. Therefore though it were baser in itself, yet the second temple was more glorious than the first. What made Bethlehem, that little city, glorious ? Christ was born there. What makes the heart where Christ is born more glorious than other folk ? Christ is born there. Christ makes persons and places glorious. What makes the times now more glorious than they were before Christ ? What made the least in the kingdom of heaven greater than John Baptist ? He was greater than all that were before him ; and all that are after him are greater than he. Because his head was cut off, he saw not the death and resurrection of Christ, and the giving of the Holy Ghost. He saw not so much of Christ. So that the revelation of Christ and the love of God in Christ, it is that that makes times, and persons, and places glorious, all glorious, because the veil is taken away from our eyes. We see Christ the King of glory in tlie gospel flourishing, and the love of God manifested, and by the Spirit of God the veil is taken away inwardly as well as outwardly. Now for a fuller discovery of Christ than in former times, comes the glory of the times.^ Now there are more converted than in former times, because the Spirit goes together with the manifestation of Christ. What is the reason that this kingdom is more glorious than any place beyond the seas ? Because Christ is here revealed more fully than there. The veil is taken off, and here ' we see the glory of God with open face,' which changeth many thousands fi'om glory to glory by the Spirit of God that accompanies the revelation of the gospel. Is there any outward thing that advanceth our kingdom before Turkey, or Spain, &c. ? Nothing. Their government. and riches, and outward things are as much as ours, if not more. The glory of places and times are from the revelation of Christ, that hath the Spirit accompanying of it. That Spirit changeth us ' from glory to glory.' Our times are more glorious than they were a hundred years or two before. Why ? Because we have a double revelation of Christ, and of antichrist. We see Christ revealed, and the gospel opened, and the veil taken off. We see antichrist revealed, that hath masked under the name of head of the church, and hath seduced the world.