of Him, which we must consult, in order that we may recognize Him, and reject false appearances. He leads us to have a clearer insight into the Gospel revealed in those Scriptures, and to conform our lives and hearts to it. Whatever suggests to us any thing not agreeable to God's written word, we may be sure is not from Him. And as for any suggestion or persuasion that we need not read the Scriptures, or that the right interpretation of them requires no diligent care, and that we have such an infallible guide within us, or that some boastful pretender has such, -as does away the necessity of exerting our minds in patiently applying to the study of the Bible, or that we are at liberty to receive, or reject, or alter the sense of each passage, in conformity with what seems to our minds reasonable or not, in the same manner as when we are reading the work of any human writer, every such suggestion, I say, comes from the proud and disobedient Spirit who would lead us to imitate his presumptuous rebellion. Faith in ourselves, faith in the pretensions of man,-are the very opposite of Christian Faith, which is faith in God only.

To those then who are disposed to distrust themselves, and to trust in God, and to use that care and diligence in studying his Word, which becomes an humble-minded Christian, I will offer some remarks on the method we should pursue for making out the true meaning of the passage now before us.

I have already remarked to you that when our Lord says, "If any man love me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him," He was alluding to the promise just before made, of his sending them a Comforter; "I will pray the Father, and He will send you another Comforter." Now, if these several passages were each to be understood literally, and in its full force, they would contradict each other; and there is no doubt they were so worded on purpose that they might limit and explain each other, and that we should find no satisfactory interpretation of them, till we had thus compared them, and modified the one by the other. We have in one passage a distinct view of three separate agents,-the Son, who should pray to the Father for the Spirit to be

sent to his disciples, the Father, who should send Him, and the Holy Spirit Himself, who should be sent. "What can be plainer,"-a man might say, "than that the Sender, and the Sent, and He at whose prayer He was sent, must be three distinct Beings?" Nor, indeed, is it this or that particular passage that needs to be guarded against conveying such an impression, but the whole tenor and drift of the Scriptures; which plainly represent God's people as under the government, first, of Jehovah, who had placed his Name in the Temple at Jerusalem; secondly, under that of Jesus Christ, who was Emmanuel," God with us ;" and, lastly, under that of the Holy Spirit, of which Christians are called the Temple.

Expressly, as it seems, to guard against such an interpretation,-against the notion of three divine Beings, our Lord takes care to indicate (in the very next sentence to the one just cited), that the Comforter the disciples are to expect is no other than Himself in another character: "I will not," says He, "leave you comfortless; I will come unto you;". . . . " at that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in

you:" thus assuming to Himself the very office,the distinct and appropriate office,—which He had just before assigned to the Holy Spirit, the Comforter. And yet again, still further to guard against any undue distinctions between Himself, as executing this office, and God the Father, He goes on to say, "If any man love me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him :" thus attributing to Himself and the Father, conjointly, the very same office which He had just above attributed, first, to the Holy Spirit alone, and then, to Himself alone. All this-unsatisfactory, and confused, and perplexing, as it must appear to any one who is seeking to learn (what the Scriptures were never designed to teach) the nature of God, absolutely, and as He actually exists,—all this must at least have indicated to the disciples who heard it, that there is but One God, the author of all, one, not figuratively, but literally and numerically-the " God whom no man hath seen at any time, but whom the only

* Logic. Appendix, Art. "One.”

begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, hath declared," (John i.)—the "God who was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself,' (2 Cor. v.)-and who was afterwards to sanctify, and invisibly dwell, as in a holy Temple, in the hearts of his faithful People.

But for what purpose, then, it may be asked, does Jesus use those other expressions, of his

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going to the Father," who is "greater than He," of the Father's sending another Comforter, and the like? These, and many other passages of Scripture, can be understood aright, only, I conceive, by those who keep in mind steadily the main design of the Scripture-revelations; which is, not to increase our speculative knowledge of divine things, but to teach us, for practical purposes, what God is relatively to us,-what He has done, and will do, towards us.

Much there is, we have reason to believe, quite hidden from us, pertaining to the divine Being, that is totally independent of any relation to mankind; and we are also led to infer from several incidental glimpses afforded us by revelation, that there are certain distinctions in the divine nature, which correspond in some