THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT AN ENCOURAGEMENT TO OBEDIENCE.
ohnxiv. 15 — 17. If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Com- forter, that he may abide with you for ever ; even the Spirit of truth : whom the world, cannot receive, because it seethhim not, neither knoweth him : but ye know him ; for he dwellelh with yon, and shall be in you.
IT has pleased God to unite man's happiness with his duty, and to ordain, that the paths of righteous- ness alone should be paths of pleasantness and peace. Hence our Lord, in his last discourse, wherein he laboured more abundantly to comfort his Disciples, insisted on obedience to his commandments as the best proof of their attachment to him, and the best means of securing blessings from above: yea, when he was informing them how richly the loss of his bodily presence should be overbalanced by the in- dwelling of the Spirit in their hearts, he first reminds them, that this benefit was inseparably connected with holiness of heart and life.
In discoursing on his words, we shall consider, I. The promise made by Christ to his obedient Disciples —
Our Lord requires all his followers to " keep his commandments " —
[The believer is said to be " dead to the law ;" but though dead to it as a covenant, he is as much alive to it as ever as a rule of life. The marriage connexion which once subsisted between him and it, is dissolved : but it is only dissolved, " that he may be married to another, even to the Lord Jesus Christ, and through him may, in the quality of his Spouse, be enabled to "bring forth fruit unto Goda." The obeying of Christ's commandments is the only satisfactory evidence that he can give of his love to Christ. In fact, to his latest hour he must try himself by this test. All the professions in the world will be regarded as hypocrisy, if destitute of this evi- dence and this support. Obedience and love are inseparable from each other. Love without obedience is no better than dissimulation, as obedience without love is mere servile drudgery. The command therefore here given to the Disciples, must be considered as given to all the followers of Christ in all ages.]
To those who follow this injunction he gives the most encouraging of all promises —
[His Disciples were now about to lose his presence by reason of his removal to the worlds above. But he promised, that, " if they would obey his commandments, he would pray the Father for them, and that the Father would send them
a Rom. vii. 4.
40 JOHN, XIV. lo— 17. [1687.
another Comforter to abide with them for ever." And here let me observe, that the Holy Spirit is represented by him, not as a quality, or operation, but as a distinct Person : not as a Comfort, but a Comforter ; who should come from the Father, in answer to the intercessions of the Son, and abide in the bosoms of God's obedient people. Yes, as in the days of old, God, by the bright cloud, the Shechinah, the symbol of his presence, abode first in the tabernacle, and afterwards in the temple, so will the Spirit of God now descend and dwell in the hearts of Christ's obedient followers, displaying before them his glory, and imparting to them his blessings to the full extent of all their diversified necessities. They, like the Apostles, are subjected to trials, and called both to act and suffer for their Lord : but the Holy Spirit shall give to them all needful succour and support, and make them more than conquerors over all their oppressors. Never for one moment will he leave them, till he has accomplished in them all that God of his unbounded love and mercy has ordained for them.]