DISSERTATION V. 355 the name Spirit, which denotes the third person, be construed with the same latitude ? Let it be observed here, that it is not the custom Of the sacred penmento write according to learned rules, and forms of logic, nor to confine the same term always to the same idea. They generally chase a more lax and vulgar way of speaking ; they use the same word in several senses, and apply the same term not only to the original, and chief idea, but to various thingswhich are causes, effects, parts, properties, or adjuncts of that original idea: Which modes of speech, though they are very common and familiar, yet the critics afterwards invented learned names for them, viz, metaphor, metonymy, synechdoche, &c. I add further, that the most orthodox writers on this subject have found it necessary to construe the term Holy Spirit in some variety of ideas : For they make it signifyhis influences, or his gifts, or bis effusion on men, in such places where they thought it could never be applied to his person: The learned Mr. Pool, authorof the Synopsis Criticorum," in his excellent little trea- tise of the " Deityofthe Holy Spirit," affirms, that it must needs be taken so in many places of scripture ; page 64, 65, he cites several of them. And that learned author, J. II. Bisterfeld, in his answer to Crellius, about fourscore years ago, and all wri- ters besides of the orthodox sentiments, confess the necessity of applying different senses to the term Holy Spirit, and that it must sometimes denote the effusion or influences thereof: As in John vii. 32. " The Holy Ghost was not yet given, because Je- sus was not yet glorified." The learned know that the word, given, is not in the Greek original, but they all explain it by the gift of the Spirit in their translation. And so in Acts xix. 2, " We have net so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost :" Which most expositors interpret merely concerning the plentiful effusion of the Spirit at Pentecost. And in other places, where the Holy Ghost is said to " be given by the laying on of the hands of the apostles ;" as Acts viii. 18. it seems necessary to interpret it concerning his gifts, lest it appear too assuming to suppose a sacred person in the eternalgodhead to be given to one man by the hands of another. SECT. V.-An Explication of various Texts, according to this Account of the Holy Spirit. The several texts already cited, and interpreted in the for- mer part of this discourse, skew how necessary it is to under- stand this term the Holy Spirit, with such a latitude, and in ideas. variety of Here I shall add a few more scriptures, and those even of the greatest difficulty, and of the most consi- derable importance, to make it appear, that this discourse of the Holy Spirit, is adapted to explain the several descriptions that 2 2
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