But whilst, in order to guard against misapprehen- sion, I speak thus, I well know that there are many, very many, in the midst of us, who can form the most accurate judgment of all we say, and who, if not in
* Heb. xi. 27. c John i. 5. '• 1 Cor. ii. 14— Hi.
relation to every word, will yet, as a whole, set their seal to the truth of it; and, therefore, I hesitate not to lay before you what I verily believe to be in perfect accordance with God's revealed will, though on a subject so recondite and mysterious.
I am not, however, without a consciousness, and with deep grief I utter it, that, under a profession of bringing forth only scriptural truth, some give vent to the veriest absurdities, talking about dreams and visions, and arrogating to themselves I know not what claims of preternatural endowments. But against all such fancies and conceits I would enter my most solemn protest. The truth of God, though elevated above reason, is in perfect accordance with reason ; and by its reasonableness as a pari of divine revelation would I wish every word that I utter to be tried. I ask nothing more than this ; that as God, of his own sovereign will and pleasure, bestows on some greater natural gifts than on others, so he may act in reference to spiritual gifts : and that, as all our natural faculties are called forth into action by things visible, our hopes and fears, and joys and sorrows, being excited by them according to the interest we have in them, so our spiritual faculties may be called into action by things invisible, even by all the wonders of redeeming love, according as the blessings of redemption are manifested to the soul, and our interest in them is made the one subject of our pre- sent and prospective happiness.
Having premised thus much, I now come to shew, in the fourth and last place,
IV. What the Holy Spirit will work in us when zve are Christ's. We must never forget that the Holy Spirit unites with the Lord Jesus Christ in the whole of his mediatorial office, though each sustains and executes in a more appropriate way that part which has been assigned him by the Father : and, if any of us be " washed, and justified, and sanctified, it is in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our Gode." But it is the Spirit's office to which I must
» 1 Cor. vi. 1 1 .