3. Wherever the Spirit is said to descend from heaven, it is to be understood according to the analogy of what we have already spoken concerning the presence of God in heaven, with his looking and going down from thence; which I shall not repeat again. Essenti- ally he is everywhere, Ps. cxxxix. 7.
4. In that place of Peter alleged by Mr B., not the person of the Spirit, but his gifts on the apostles, and his operations in them, whose great and visible foundations were laid on the day of Pente- cost, Acts ii., are intended.
The two next questions leading only to an expression of the send- ing of the Holy Ghost by the Father and the Son, though Mr B.'s Christians differ about the interpretation of the places produced for the proof thereof, and there lie no small argument and evidence of the deity of Christ in his sending of the Holy Ghost as the Father sends him, yet there being an agreement in the expressions them- selves, I shall not insist upon them. He proceeds: — " Q. Had Jesus Christ always the power to send the Holy Ghost, or did he obtain it at a certain time ? — A. Acts ii. 32, 33 ; John vii. 39."
1. The intendment of this query is, to conclude from some certain respect and manner of sending the Holy Ghost to the thing itself, — from the sending him in a visible, glorious, plentiful, eminent man- ner,^ as to the effusion of his gifts and graces, to the sending of him absolutely; which methinks a Master of Arts should know to be a sophistical way of arguing. 2. It endeavours, also, from the exercise
OF THE DEITY OF THE HOLY GHOST, AND HIS WOEK. 339
of power to conclude to the receiving of the power itself; and that not the absolute exercise of it neither, but in some certain respect, as was spoken. 3. This, then, is that which Mr B. concludes : " Because Christ, when he was exalted, or when he ascended into heaven, had the accomplishment of the promise actually, in the sending forth of the Spirit in that abundant and plentiful manner which was prophe- sied of by Joel, chap. ii. 28-31, therefore he then first received power to send the Spirit:" which, 4. By the testimony of Christ himself is false, and not the sense of the Holy Ghost in the places mentioned, seeing that before his ascension he breathed on his disciples, and bade them receive the Holy Ghost, John xx. 22. Nay, 5. That he had the power of sending the Holy Ghost, and did actually send him, not only before his ascension and exaltation, but also before his in- carnation, is expressly affirmed, 1 Pet. i. 11. The Spirit that was in the prophets of old was the " Spirit of Christ," and sent by him; as was that Spirit by which he preached in the days of the old disobe- dient world: which places have been formerly vindicated at large. So that, 6. As that place, Acts ii. 32, 33, is there expounded to be concerning the plentiful effusion of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in the times of the gospel, according to the prophecy of Joel, so also is that of John vii. 39, it being positively affirmed as to the thing itself that he gave the Holy Ghost before his exaltation, though not in that abundant manner as afterward ; and so neither of them concludes any thing as to the time of Christ's receiving power to send the Spirit; which, upon the supposition of such a work as for the accom- plishment whereof it was necessary the Holy Ghost should be sent, he had from eternity.
About the next question we shall not contend. It is: — " Q. What were the general benefits accruing to Christians by the Holy Ghost?'' whereunto sundry texts of Scripture that make mention of the Holy Ghost, his graces, and gifts, are subjoined. Upon the whole I have only some few things to animadvert: —
1 . If by the words " general benefits " he limits the receiving of those benefits of the Holy Ghost to any certain time (as suppose the time of his first plentiful effusion, upon the ascension of Jesus Christ, and the preaching of the gospel to all nations thereupon), as it is a sacrilegious conception, robbing believers of after ages to the end of the world of all the fruits of the efficacy of the Spirit, without which they can neither enjoy communion with God in this life nor ever be brought to an eternal fruition of him, so it is most false, and con- trary to the express prayer of our Saviour, desiring the same things for them who should believe on his name to the end of the world as he did for those who conversed with him in the days of his flesh. But I will suppose this is not his intention, because it would plainly deny that there are any Christians in the world (which yet was the
3iO VINDICIJE EVANGELIC^.
opinion of some of his friends heretofore*), for " if we have not the Spirit of Christ we are none of his," Rom. viii. 9.
2. The things enumerated may be called "general benefits," because they are common to all believers as to the substance, essence, or being of them, though in respect of their degrees they are commu- nicated variously to the several individuals, the same Spirit dividing to every one as he will, 1 Cor. xii. 11. They are so general to them all that every particular believer enjoys them all.