His words are, “The Holy Spirit is called, and is, the unction and the seal. For _John_ writes, _The anointing which ye have received of him, abideth in you; and ye need not that any man should teach you, but as his anointing_, his Spirit, _teacheth you of all things_. Again, it is written in the prophet _Isaiah_, _The Spirit of the |Lord| is upon me, because he hath anointed me_. And _Paul_ writes thus; _In whom also ye were sealed_. And again, _Grieve not the Holy Spirit of |God|, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption_. This anointing is the breath of the Son, so that he who hath the Spirit may say, _We are the sweet-smelling savour of |Christ|_. Because we are partakers of the Holy Spirit, we have the Son: And having the Son, we have _the |Spirit|, crying in our hearts, Abba, Father_.”
And so, in his oration against the _Arians_.
*“_He sendeth the |Spirit| of his |Son| into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father._ His Son in us, invoking the Father, makes him to be called our Father. Certainly God cannot be called their Father, who have not the Son in their hearts.”
Is it not easy to be observed here, 1. That _Athanasius_ makes _that testimony of the_ Spirit common to all the children of God: 2. That he joins _the anointing of the Holy One_, with that seal of the Spirit wherewith all that _persevere_ are _sealed to the day of redemption_: And 3. That he does not, throughout this passage, speak of the _extraordinary gifts_ at all?
Therefore, upon the whole, the sense of the primitive church, so far as it can be gathered from the authors above cited, is, That “although some of the scriptures _primarily_ refer, to those _extraordinary_ gifts of the Spirit, which were given to the apostles, and a few other persons in the apostolical age: yet they refer also, in a _secondary_ sense, to those _ordinary_ operations of the Holy Spirit, which all the children of God do and will experience, even to the end of the world.”
23. What I mean by _The ordinary operations of the Holy Ghost_, I sum up in the words of a modern writer:
“Sanctification being opposed to our corruption, and answering fully to the latitude thereof, whatsoever of holiness and perfection is wanting in our nature, must be supplied by the Spirit of God. Wherefore being by nature we are totally void of all saving truth, and under an impossibility of knowing the will of God; this _Spirit searcheth all things, yea, even the deep things of |God|_, and _revealeth_ them unto the sons of men, so that thereby the darkness of their understanding is expelled, and they are enlightened with the knowledge of God. The same Spirit which _revealeth_ the object of faith generally to the universal church, doth also illuminate the understanding of such as believe, that they may receive the truth. For _faith is the gift of |God|_, not only in the object, but also in the act. And this gift is a gift of the Holy Ghost working within us――And as the increase of perfection, so the original of faith is from the Spirit of God, by an internal illumination of the soul.”
“The second part of the office of the Holy Ghost is, the renewing of man in all the parts and faculties of his soul. For our natural corruption consisting in an aversion of our wills, and a depravation of our affections, and inclination of them to the will of God, is wrought within us by the Spirit of God.”