THE HOLY SPIRIT PROVED AND VINDICATED, cS c. 4.7 If it were then God who ofold promised to dwell in his people, and to make them his temple thereby, then is the Holy Spirit God; for he it is, whoaccording to that promise, thus dwelleth in them. So Deut. xxxii. 12. speaking of the people in the wilderness, he saith, The Lord alone did lead him; and yet speaking of the same people, at the same time, it is said, That the Spirit of the Lord did lead them, and caused themto rest, Ise. lxiii. 14. The Spirit of the Lord therefore, is :Jehovah, or Jehovah alone did not lead them. That also which is called in the same people, their sinning against God, and provoking the most High in the wilderness, Psal. lxxviii. 17, 18. is termed their rebelling against, and vexing the Holy Spirit, Isa. lxiii. 10, 11. And many other instances of a like nature have been pleaded and vindicated by others. Sect. 82. Add hereunto, in the last place, that divine properties are assigned unto him. As eternity, Heb. ix. 14. He is the eternal Spirit. Immensity, Psalm cxxxix. 7. Whither shall I,flee from thy Spirit. Oinnipolency, Micah ii. 8. The Spirit of the Lord is not straitened; compared with Isa. xl. 28. The power of the Spirit of God, Rom. xv. 19. Prescience, Acts i. 16. "This scrip- ture must be fulfilled which the Holy Ghost, by the mouth of David, spoke before concerning Judas." Om- niscience, 1 Cor. fi. 10, 11. The Spirit searcheth all things, even the deep things of God. Sovereign autho- rity over the church, Acts xiii. 3. Acts xx. 28. The divine works also, which are assigned unto him, are usually, and to good purpose, pleaded in the vindication of the same truth. But these, in the progress of our discourse, I shall have occasion distinctly to consider and inquire into; and therefore shall not in this place insist upon them. What 'lath been proposed, cleared, and confirmed, may suffice as untomur present purpose; that we may know who he is, concerning whom, his works and grace, we do design to treat. Sect. 83. -1 havebut one thing more to add concern- ing the being and personality of the Holy Spirit. And this is, that in the order of subsistence he is the third person in the Holy Trinity. So it is expressed in the solemn numeration of them, where their order gives great direction unto gospel-worship and obedience; Match. xxviii. 18, " Baptizing them in the name of the es Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." This order 1 confess in their numeration, because of the equality of the persons in the same nature, is sometimes varied. So Rev. i. 4, 5. " Grace be unto you, and s' peace, from him which is, and which was, and which " is to come, and from the seven spirits which are be- fore his throne, and from Jesus Christ." The Holy Spirit, under the name of the seven spirits before the throneof God, because of his various and perfect oper- ations in and towards the church, is reckoned up in or- der before the Son Jesus Christ. So in Paul's euctical conclusion unto his epistles, the Son is placed before the Father: 2 Cor. xiii. 1+. ,' The grace of the Lord Jesus 66 Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of t, the Holy Ghost be with you all." And some think that the Holy Ghost is mentioned in 'the first place; Col. ii. 2. " The acknowledgment of she mystery of "God, andof the Father, and of Christ." In this ex- pression of them therefore, we may use our liberty, they beingall one God overall blessed for ever. But, in their true and natural order of subsistence, and consequently ofoperation, the Holy Spirit is the third person. For as to his personal subsistence, he proceedethfrom the Fa- ther and the Son, being equally the Spirit of them both as bath been declared. This constitutes the natural or- der between the persons which is unalterable. On this depends the order of his operation; for his working is a consequent of the order of his subsistence. Thus the Father is said to send him, and so is the Son also, John xiv. 16, 26. chap. xvi. 7. And he is thus said to be sent by the Father and the Son, because he is the Spirit of the Father and Son, proceeding from both, and is the next cause in the application of the Trinity unto ex- ternal works. But, as he is thus sent, so his own will is equally in and unto the work for which he is sent. As the Father is said to send the Son, and yet it was also his own love and grace to come unto us and to save us. And this ariseth from hence, that in the whole economy of the Trinity, as to the works that outwardly are of God, especially the works of grace, the order of the subsistenceof thepersons in thesame nature is represent- ed unto us, and they have the samedependence on each other in theiroperationsas they have in their subsistence. The Father is the fountain of all, as in being and exist- ence, so in operation. The Sots is of the Father, be- gotten of him, and therefore, as unto his work, is sent by him. But his own will is in and onto what he is sent about. The Holy Spirit proceedeth from the Father and 17
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