Id . DISOOIIRSES ON THE CHAP, IV. INHABITATION OF THE SPIRIT r THE first thing which the Comforter is promised for unto believers, is, that he should dwell in them, which is their great fundamental privilege, and whereon all o- thers do depend. This therefore must in the first place be inquired into. The inhabitation of the Spirit in believers is among those things which we ought, as to the nature or being of it, firmly to believe; but as to the manner of it can- not fully conceive, Nor can this be the least impeach- ment of its truth unto any who assent unto the gospel, wherein we have sundry things proposed as objects of . our faith, ,which our reason cannot comprehend. We shall therefore assert no more in this matter, but what the scripture directly and expressly goeth before no in. And where we have the express letter of the scripture forour warrant, we are eternally safe, whilst we affix no sense thereunto that is absolutely repugnant unto reason, or contrary unto more plain testimonies in other places. Wherefore to make plain what we intend herein, the in- suing observations must be premised. First, This personal inhabitation of the Holy Spirit in believers, is distinct and different from his essential om- nipresence, whereby he is in all things. Omnipres- ence is essential; inhabitation is personal. Omnipres- ence is a necessary property of his stature, and so not of him as a distinct person in the Trinity, but as God essentially, one and the same in being and substance with the Father and the Son. To be every where, to fill all things, to be present with them, or indistant from them, always equally existing in the power of an ME. bite being, is an inseparable property of the divine na- ture as such. But this inhabitation is personal, or what belongs unto him distinctly as the Holy Ghost. Be- sides, it is voluntary, and that which might not have been, whence it is the subject of a free promise of God, and wholly depends on a freeact of the will of the Holy Spirit himself. Secondly, It is not a presence by virtue of a metony- mical denomination, or an expression of the cause for the effect, that is intended. The meaning of this pro- THE FIRST THING PROMISED. mise, The Spirit shall dwell inyon, is not, he shall work graciously in you; for this he can without any especial presence. Being essentially every where, he can work where and how he pleaseth, without any especial pre. sense. But it is the Spirit himselfthat is promised, and his presence in an especialmanner, and an especial man- ner ofthat presence; he shall be in you, and dwell inyou, as we shall see. The only inquiry in this matter is, whether the Holy Spirit himself be promised unto he lievers, or only his grace? which we shall immediately inquire into. Thirdly, The dwelling of the person of the Holy Spirit in the persons of believers, of what nature soever it be, doth not effect a personal union between them. That which we call a personal union, is the union of divers natures in the same person, and there can be but one person by virtue of this union. Such is the hypos- tatical union in the person of the Son of God. It was our nature he assumed, and.not the person ofany. And it was impossible he should so assume any more but in one individual instance: for if he could have assumed another individual being of our nature, then it must differ personally from that which he did assume. For there is nothing that differs one than from another, but a distinct personal subsistence of each. And it implies the highest contradiction, that the Son of God could be hypostatically united unto more than one: For if they are more than one, they must be more persons than one: and many persons cannot be hypostatically united, for that is to be one person, and no more, There may be a manifold union, mystical and moral, of divers, of many persons, but a personal union there cannot be ofany thing but of distinct natures. Andas the Son of God could not assume many persons, so sup- posing that human nature which he did unite- to him- selfto have been a person, that is, to have had a distinct subsistenceof its own antecedent unto its union, and there could have been no personal union betweenit and the Son of God, For the Son of Godwas a distinct person; and if the human nature had been as too, there
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