By receiving the Spirit of GOD, is not to be understood, that we are to be inspired to shew outward signs and wonders, to raise dead bodies, to cure leprous persons, or to give sight to the blind; these miracles were only of use in the first ages of the church; and therefore christians (nominal christians, for we have little else but the name) may have all the gifts of the Spirit, and yet none of the graces of it: Thou, O man, mayest be enabled by faith to remove mountains; thou, by the power of GOD, mayest cast out devils; thou, by that power, mayest speak with the tongues of men and angels; yea, thou mayest, by that power, hold up thy finger and stop the sun in the firmament; and if all these are unsanctified by the Spirit of GOD, they would be of no service to thee, but would hurry thee to hell with the greater solemnity. _Saul_ received the spirit of prophesying, and had another heart, yet _Saul_ was probably a cast-away. We must receive the Spirit of GOD in its sanctifying graces upon our souls; for CHRIST says, “Unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of GOD.” We are all by nature born in sin, and at as great a distance from GOD, as the devils themselves. I have told you often, and now tell you again, that you are by nature a motley mixture of the beast and devil, and we cannot recover ourselves from the state wherein we have fallen, therefore must be renewed by the Holy Ghost. By the Holy Ghost, I mean, the third Person of the ever-blessed Trinity, co-equal, co-essential, co-eternal, and consubstantial with the Father and the Son; and therefore, when we are baptized, it is into the nature of the Father, into the nature of the Son, and into the nature of the Holy Ghost: and we are not true christians, till we are sanctified by the Spirit of GOD.
Though our modern preachers do not actually deny the Spirit of GOD, yet they say, “Christians must not feel him;” which is in effect to deny him. When _Nicodemus_ came to CHRIST, and the LORD JESUS was instructing him, concerning the new birth, says he to our LORD, “How can these things be?” _Nicodemus_, though a master of _Israel_, acts just as our learned Rabbi’s do now. The answer that CHRIST gave him should stop the mouths of our letter-learned pharisees: “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and we hear the sound thereof, but cannot tell whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth.” Now till the Spirit of GOD is felt on our souls as the wind on our bodies, indeed, my dear brethren, you have no interest in him: religion consists not in external performance, it must be in the heart, or else it is only a name, which cannot profit us, a name to live whilst we are dead.
A late preacher upon this text, seems to laugh at us, for talking of the Spirit in a sensible manner, and talks to us as the _Jews_ did to CHRIST: They said, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So he asks, “What sign or proof do we give of it?” We do not imagine, that GOD must appear to us, and give it us: no; but there may be, and is, a frequent receiving, when no seeing of it; and it is as plainly felt in the soul, as any impression is, or can be, upon the body. To what a damnable condition should we bring poor sinners, if they could not be sensible of the Spirit of GOD; namely, a reprobate mind and past feeling?
“What proof do they give?” says the writer. What sign would they have? Do they expect us to raise the dead, to give sight to the blind, to cure lepers, to make the lame to walk, and the deaf to hear? If these are what they expect, I speak with humility, GOD, by us, hath done greater things than these: many, who were dead in sin, are raised to scripture-life: those, who were leprous by nature, are cleansed by the Spirit of GOD; those, who were lame in duty, now run in GOD’s commands; those, who were deaf, their ears are unstopped to hear his discipline, and hearken to his advice; and the poor have the gospel preached to them. No wonder people talk at this rate, when they can tell us, “That the Spirit of GOD, is a good conscience, consequent thereupon.” My dear brethren, _Seneca_, _Cicero_, _Plato_, or any of the heathen philosophers, would have given as good a definition as this: It means no more, than reflecting that we have done well. This, this is only Deism refined: Deists laugh at us, when we pretend to be against their notions, and yet these men use no other reason for our differing from them, than what is agreeable to Deists principles.