CHAPTER IV.
Inhabitation of the Spirit the first thing promised.
The first thing which the Comforter is promised for unto believers is, that he should dwell in them ; which is their great fundamental privilege, and whereon all others do depend. This, therefore, must in the first place be inquired into.
The inhabitation of the Spirit in believers is among those things which we ought, as to the nature or being of it, firmly to believe, but as to the manner of it cannot fully conceive. Nor can this be the least impeachment of its truth unto any who assent unto the gospel, where- in we have sundry things proposed as objects of our faith which our reason cannot comprehend. We shall, therefore, assert no more in this matter but what the Scripture directly and expressly goeth be- fore us in. And where we have the express letter of the Scripture for our warrant we are eternally safe, whilst we affix no sense thereunto that is absolutely repugnant unto reason or contrary unto more plain testimonies in other places. Wherefore, to make plain what we in- tend herein, the ensuing observations must be premised.
1 Vol. xi. of the author's works. * Vol. ii.
384 THE HOLY SPIRIT AS A COMFORTER. [ROOK VIII.
First, This personal inhabitation of the Holy Spirit in believers is distinct and different from his essential omnipresence, whereby he is in all things. Omnipresence is essential ; inhabitation is personal. Omnipresence is a necessary property of his nature, and so not of him as a distinct person in the Trinity, but as God essentially, one and the same in being and substance with the Father and the Son. To be everywhere, to fill all things, to be present with them or in- distant from them, always equally existing in the power of an infinite being, is an inseparable property of the divine nature as such ; but this inhabitation is personal, or what belongs unto him distinctly as the Holy Ghost. Besides, it is voluntary, and that which might not have been; whence it is the subject of a free promise of God, and wholly depends on a free act of the will of the Holy Spirit himself.
Secondly, It is not a presence by virtue of a metonymical deno- mination, or an expression of the cause for the effect, that is intended. The meaning of this promise, " The Spirit shall dwell in you," is not "He shall work graciously in you," for this he can without any espe- cial presence, — being essentially everywhere, he can work where and how he pleaseth without any especial presence; — but it is the Spirit himself that is promised, and his presence in an especial manner, and an especial manner of that presence, " He shall be in you, and dwell in you," as we shall see. The only inquiry in this matter is, whether the Holy Spirit himself be promised unto believers, or only his grace, which we shall immediately inquire into.
Thirdly, The dwelling of the person of the Holy Spirit in the persons of believers, of what nature soever it be, doth not effect a personal union between them. That which we call a personal union is the union of diverse natures in the same person ; and there can be but one person by virtue of this union. Such is the hypostatical union in the person of the Son of God. It was our nature he as- sumed, and not the person of any. And it was impossible he should so assume any more but in one individual instance; for if he could have assumed another individual being of our nature, then it must differ personally from that which he did assume, for there is nothing that differs one man from another but a distinct personal subsistence of each. And it implies the highest contradiction that the Son of God could be hypostatically united unto more than one ; for if they are more than one, they must be more persons than one; and many persons cannot be hypostatically united, for that is to be one person, and no more. There may be a manifold union, mystical and moral, of divers, of many persons, but a personal union there cannot be of any thing but of distinct natures. And as the Son of God could not assume many persons, so supposing that human nature which he did unite to himself to have been a person, — that is, to have had a
CHAP. IV.] INHABITATION" OF THE SPIRIT. 385
distinct subsistence of its own antecedent unto its union, — and there could have been no personal union between it and the Son of God ; for the Son of God was a distinct person, and if the human nature had been so too, there would have been two persons still, and so no personal union. Nor can it be said that although the human nature of Christ was a person in itself, yet it ceased so to be upon its union with the divine, and so two persons were conjoined and compounded into one: for if ever human nature have in any instance a personal subsistence of its own, it cannot be separated from it without the destruction and annihilation of the individual ; for to suppose other- wise is to make it to continue what it was and not what it was; for it is what it is, distinct from all other individuals, by virtue of its person- ality. Wherefore, upon this inhabitation of the Spirit, whereinso- ever it doth consist, there is no personal union ensuing between him and believers, nor is it possible that any such thing should be; for he and they are distinct persons, and must eternally abide so whilst their natures are distinct. It is only the assumption of our nature into union with the Son of God antecedent unto any individual per- sonal subsistence of its own that can constitute such a union.