And these considerations belong unto the first head of reasons of the importance, use, and necessity, of the doctrine proposed to be in- quired into. They are enough to manifest what is the concernment of all believers herein ; for on the account of these things the Scrip- ture plainly declares, as we observed before, that " he who hath not the Spuit of Christ is none of his," — their portion is not in him, they
1 " Omnibus quidem quae divina sunt cum reverentia et vehement! cura oportet in- tcndere, maxime autem his qute de Spiritus Sancti divinitate dicuntur, prtesertim cum blasphemia in eum sine venia sit ; ita ut blasphemantis poena tendatur non solum in omne praesens seculum, scd etiam in futuinim. Ait quippe Salvator, blasphemanti in Spiritum Sanctum non esse remissionem, ' neque in isto seculo neque in future : ' unde magis ac magis inteudere oportet qute Scriptifrarum de eo relatio sit: ne in aliquem, saltern per ignorantiam, blasphemige error obrepat." — Didym. de Spir. Sane. lib. i., In- terpret. Hieron.
[Didymus, from whom Owen quotes so copiously in the following pages, was a pro- fessor of theology in Alexandria, and died a.d. 896 at the age of eighty-five. He be- came blind when only four years old, and yet contrived to acquire great distinction for his knowledge of all the sciences of the age, and especially of theology. His treatise on the Holy Spirit was translated by Jerome into Latin, and appears among the works of that father.— Ed.]
CHAP. I.] THE HOLY SPIRIT AND HIS WORK. 29
shall have no benefit by his mediation. Men may please themselves with a profession of being Christians and owning the gospel, whilst they despise the Spirit of God, both name and thing. Their condi- tion we shall examine and judge by the Scripture before we come to the end of this discourse. And for the Scripture itself, whoever reads the books of the New Testament, besides the great and precious pro- mises that are given concerning liim in the Old, will find and con- clude, unless he be prepossessed with prejudice, that the whole of what is declared in those writings turns on this only hinge. Remove from them the consideration of the Spirit of God and his work, and it will be hard to find out what they aim at or tend unto.
Secondly, The great deceit and abuse that hath been, in all ages of the church, under the pretence of the name and work of the Spirit make the thorough consideration of what we are taught concerning them exceeding necessary. Had not these things been excellent in themselves, and so acknowledged by all Christians, they would never have been by so many falsely pretended unto. Men do not seek to adorn themselves with rags, or to boast of what, on its own account, is under just contempt. And according to the worth of things, so are they liable to abuse; and the more excellent any thing is, the more vile and pernicious is an undue pretence unto it. Such have been the false pretences of some in all ages unto the Spirit of God and his work, whose real excellencies in themselves have made those pretences abominable and unspeakably dangerous; for the better the things are which are counterfeited, the worse always are the ends they are employed imto. In the whole world there is nothing so vile as that which i^retendeth to he God, and is not; nor is any other thing capable of so pernicious an abuse. Some instances hereof I shall give, both out of the Old Testament and the New.
The most signal gift of the Spirit of God, for the use of the church under the Old Testament, was that of prophecy. This, therefore, was deservedly in honour and reputation, as having a great impres- sion of the authority of God upon it, and in it of his nearness unto man. Besides, those in whom it was had justly the conduct of the minds and consciences of others given up unto them : for they spake in the name of God, and had his warranty for what they proposed ; which is the highest security of obedience. And these things caused many to pretend unto this gift who were, indeed, never inspired by the Holy Spirit ; but were rather, on the contrary, acted by a spirit of lying and uncleanness: for it is very probable that when men falsely and in mere pretence took upon them to be prophets divinely inspired, without any antecedent diabolical enthusiasm, that the devil made use of them to compass his own designs. Being given up, by the righteous judgment of God, unto all delusions, for belying his Spirit and holy inspirations, they were quickly possessed with a
30 GENERAL PRINCIPLES CONCERNING [BOOK L
spirit of lying and unclean divination. So the false prophets of Ahab, who encouraged him to go up unto Bamoth-gilead, foretelling his prosperous success, 1 Kings xxii. 6, seemed only to have complied deceitfully with the inchnations of their master, and to have out- acted his other courtiers in flattery by gilding it with a pretence of prophecy; but when Micaiah came to lay open the mystery of their iniquity, it appeared that a lying spirit, by the permission of God, had possessed their minds, and gave them impressions, which being supernatural, they were deceived as well as they did deceive, verses 19-23. This they were justly given up unto, pretending falsely unto the inspiration of that Holy Spirit which they had not re- ceived. And no otherwise hath it fallen out with some in our days, whom we have seen visibly acted by an extraordinary power. Unduly pretending imto supernatural agitations from God, they were really acted by the devil; a thing they neither desired nor looked after, but, being surprised by it, were pleased with it for a while : as it was with sundry of the Quakers at their first appearance.