^ A. H. Drysdale, Christ Invisible our Gain, 186,
ST. JOHN XIV. 15-17 147
3. The Spirit of truth, communicated to the Church, is the living Presence, in wisdom, power, and love, of that Divine energy which formed the worlds. They were formed for the habitation of God purposing to become incarnate. The Spirit of the Incarnate God fits the Church as the Body of Christ, to exercise dominion over all the creation which He has framed with a fitness for this final occupation. There is nothing superfluous, so as to be beyond the eventual purposes of God for His Church. There is nothing wanting, so that the Church of God, the Body of Christ, may feel within herself a Divine capacity for which the created universe gave no practical scope.
^ The truth of the creature is not separable from the truth of the Creator. Creation is true to itself, while it is true to the mind of the Creator. The first laws of creation are the impress of the Eternal Mind. If they were not so, they would be purely accidental and mutable. Doubtless there are harmonies in creation far deeper and grander than we can trace out. Harmonies of sight and sound, of number and weight, of mechanical power and chemical combination, of microscopic delicacy and astronomical magnificence, of universal distribution and temporal sequence, may be the objects of our guess-work at present, but at the best we can know them now only as one standing on the shore can know the waves whose ripple washes over the sand, all ignorant of the vast ocean far away. But all the universe is true, because the worlds of matter and spirit are the projection of the infinite intelligence of Him who is in His own true essence the law of beauty and truth to which all His creatures must be conformed.^
4. How does the Spirit of truth operate ?
(1) He enlightens our mind that we may know Christ Jesus. — He opens the eyes to the true meaning and aims of Christ's words and work by furnishing insight into them, and enabling us to realize not only their true inwardness, but their vital importance — giving an attractiveness to them and a fascinating interest in them to our yearning and wondering heart and mind.
We can see the process of enlightenment going on in the New
Testament. Take the one matter of the universality of the
Kingdom. When Christ left the disciples, they were as narrow
in their notions as any Jews in the land ; they saw no place for
* B, JI. Benson, The Final Passover , ii. (pt. i.) 364.
148 THE GIVING OF THE COMFORTER
Gentiles in the Kingdom : but see how gradually the Spirit led them to an understanding of Christ's purpose. First of all, the Samaritans receive the word. Then, at the impulse of the Spirit, Philip preaches to the Ethiopian eunuch and baptizes him. Then, at the direct and imperious bidding of the Spirit, Peter goes to Cornelius, the Eoman centurion, and baptizes him. And then, finally, the Spirit thrusts forth Barnabas and Saul into the work of evangelizing the world, and so the truth is gradually brought home to the disciples and Apostles that they shall come from the North and the South and the East and the West, and sit down in the Kingdom of God.
When Jesus says of this Spirit that " he shall guide you into all truth," He does not mean that the Holy Ghost will guide us into natural truth, or scientific truth, or metaphysical truth ; but into those great central truths — the atoning death, the justifying righteousness of Jesus Christ ; those poles on which turn as on an axle the whole round scheme of redemption and grace. As it was by this Spirit of truth that the prophecies concerning Christ were uttered which fill the Old Testament; as it was by the Spirit of truth that Jesus was conceived by the Virgin Mary ; as it was by this Spirit of truth that He was anointed for His ministry after His baptism : so is it declared that His office is to take of the things of Christ and show them unto men.
Nor is it a new revelation which the Spirit gives, but rather a more perfect understanding of that which has already been given in Christ. Here, then, is the test by which to try all that claims the authority of spiritual truth. Does it " glorify " Christ ? Does it lead us into a fuller knowledge of Him " in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden " ? " Whosoever goeth onward," says St. John, in a remarkable passage, for which English readers are indebted to the Eevised Version, " and abideth not in the teaching of Christ, hath not God." In other words, no true progress is possible except as we abide in Christ.
^ I sometimes sit at my study window on a bright morning, and combine with my work the pleasure of looking at my share of God's beautiful world. It is a wonderful blend of landscape and marine, colour and form : trees and flowers in the foreground, dark roofs and tiled chimneys beyond, and behind all the grey and azure of the mighty sea. Not simply once, but many times, do