The Person and Office Of The Holy Ghost. 3

By Very Rev. THOMAS S. PRESTON, V.G.,

I. WHO IS THE HOLY GHOST ?

1. He is a divine Person. He possesses all the attributes of personality, In created intelligences we define personality to signify "an individual substance possessed of a rational nature." In applying this term to God we do not speak of three separate and individual substances. Our language is too imperfect to express exactly the nature and attributes of the divine Being. In God nature, existence, and essence are one, since He Himself is His own essence, existence, and eternity. Persons, among created intelligences, have a distinct subsistence, but also a distinct and separate entity, which by its own limitation can make but one individual. In God, however, the divine Persons have only a distinct mode of subsistence, since they possess each, and in common the whole divine essence. Hence we say that there are three persons in God, not three individuals; since the term individual signifies a distinct nature, which is impossible to the divine hypostases, in whom there is one essence and nature, and therefore one natural or essential mind, will, and operation. Nothing can be added to the clearness of the words of the Athanasian creed: "Such as the Father is, such is the Son and such is the Holy Ghost." The three Persons are uncreated, immense, eternal, and almighty. Yet they are not three eternals, three almighties, three uncreated, nor three immense. There is only one eternal, almighty, immense, and uncreated God. "The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God. Yet they are not three Gods, but one God." The personality of the Holy Ghost is contained in this : that He is not the Father nor the Son, although one with them in essence. Thus our Lord says: "When the Paraclete cometh, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceedeth from the Father, He shall give testimony of me."  Here are mentioned three distinct persons, the Father, the Son, and the Paraclete. The Father is one person. The Son is another, and of the same nature with the Father) because His Son. The Paraclete is another person, who proceedeth from the Father, and who is to give testimony of the Son. He could not give such testimony if He were not a distinct person.

The Person and Office Of The Holy Ghost. 2

By Very Rev. THOMAS S. PRESTON, V.G.,

There can be no greater degradation than the denial of man's spirituality and immortality. Such denial makes him like the beasts of the field, the creature of his animal passions, without any future. To such degradation tends the force of the enlightenment of our day. In the eyes of modern philosophers self-denial is folly, and the communion of saints a silly dream. Desires for holiness and thirst after God are to them only the unreal sentiment of enfeebled minds and feminine hearts. The mysteries of the cross, and the mortifications of confessors, martyrs, and virgins, are the ravings of men who have lost their manhood in the imagination of a world unseen and unknown. What shall break the spell of worldliness, turn to bitterness the cup of pleasure, and open the eyes of the wilfully blind? We need to cry mightily to the Spirit whose creating energy once brooded upon the disorder of chaos:
" Come, Holy Ghost, Creator, come From Thy bright heavenly throne ; Come, take possession of our souls, And make them all Thine own.

" Heal our wounds, our strength renew, On our dryness pour Thy dew ; Wash the stains of guilt away."

Then at His coming the earth shall be moved, and when the darkness of sin flies away, the glories of the new birth shall be seen, and the beauties of the spiritual life shall attract and win the heart. The graces of faith and hope and love shall conquer, and saints be raised again to glorify the power and sweetness of the Creator. He that is great and wonderful in the visible world, is far more wonderful and mighty in the realm of faith, where human spirits commune with the divine Spirit and partake of His life.

Such fruits, if it please the gracious Author of all good, may be reaped from this " Confraternity of the Servants of the Holy Ghost." In answer to our earnest prayers the flame of new piety shall be enkindled in many hearts. Souls shall be converted to God from the way of sin and sorrow, and many from the paths of error and unbelief turned to the true and unchangeable faith in the church where the divine Spirit dwells in all the fulness of grace and truth. There shall be sanctification for the just, life for the dying, and spiritual resurrection for the dead. In this hope we labor, and to this blessed end we invoke the special interposition of the almighty Spirit, whose gracious ears are ever open to the cries of the needy and sincere.

The object of this short series of discourses is, then, to set in plain view the fundamental truths of our religion concerning the Holy Ghost and His operations in our redemption ; and to draw from thence the necessity of a true love and ardent devotion towards Him.

The first discourse concerns His person and office; the second regards His visible church, which is His temple and the sphere of His action upon earth; * the third recounts the consequences of His dwelling in the church; and the fourth attempts to portray the fruits of His sanctification in the individual believer.

The sermon of to-night will serve as a foundation of the whole series, and to the theological statements contained in it we therefore call your earnest attention.

We propose to answer these two questions: "Who is the Holy Ghost?" and "What is His peculiar office?" There is hardly need to say that here, while we approach the very essence of God
and speak of the nature of His being, we must do so with that reverence which becomes the creature in the presence of his Creator, and that fear which the nearness of God should ever excite in just minds. If God, in His goodness, had not been pleased to reveal Himself and to tell us of His being, we should have sought to know it in vain. It is t not in the capacity of the finite to scan or comprehend the Infinite. For all we know of our Creator we depend upon His condescension, and if He did not dwell in clouds of mystery before our created intellects He would not be God. The Infinite only can comprehend Himself.

The Person and Office Of The Holy Ghost. 1

By Very Rev. THOMAS S. PRESTON, V.G.,

"There are three who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost. And these three are one."—1 St. John v. 7.

I propose, with the divine assistance, to devote the sermons of this Advent season to a brief and simple explanation of the agency of the Holy Spirit in the redemption of mankind. The subject is of the highest importance, as it lies at the foundation of all truth and spiritual life; while it is directly connected with the whole structure of Christian revelation. Every verity of our creed, and every error opposed to faith find here the light which makes truth resplendent,and puts to flight the shadows of unbelief.

As you are aware, we have recently established in this church a religious confraternity whose object is to promote, and spread more widely devotion and filial affection to the Third Person of the most holy Trinity. We venture to hope that our instructions may be welcome to many hearts, and, by the grace of God, stimulate them to more zeal in the Christian life and burning love to the divine Sanctifier, who is the author of our supernatural life and the fountain of all holiness.

This devotion to the Holy Ghost is a necessary part of Christian worship, as we adore one God in three Persons, and there is no distinction in essence between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, who are one and the same God. "This is the Catholic faith, that we adore one God in trinity, and the Trinity in unity, neither confusing the Persons nor separating the substance. One is the person of the Father, another that of the Son, and another that of the Holy Spirit. But one is the divinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; the glory is equal and the majesty is co-eternal." (Creed of St Athanaaius.)

It would be heresy striking at the foundation of Christianity to distinguish even in our minds the adoration we pay to the three Persons of the Trinity, in whose name we are baptized, and by whom we are created and sanctified. New devotion towards the Third Person of the Godhead is only the realization of the old and unchangeable truth, the bringing into clearer light and action that which is essential to our Christian confession and spiritual life.

This is manifest not only from the nature of the Holy Spirit as God, but also from the fact that, in the plans of the Trinity, and the economy of redemption, He is the agent in the application of the atonement of Christ, and in the sanctification of our souls. To Him we owe every good thought, word, or work. From Him we receive the gift of supernatural life. He, by His divine energy, sustains that life once imparted, and carries it on to its development in the union of our whole being with God. He is the soul and living principle of the church, which without Him would be only a human organization, subject to decay and death. He is the source of its unity, and the voice which speaks the words of immutable truth. What, then, do we not owe of love and gratitude to the quickening and sanctifying Spirit!

And surely there never was a time when men needed more the aid of His purifying influence. We walk amid shadows, which we often mistake for light. Men exalt their little knowledge, and even boast of their ignorance. In the pride of their intellects they have arrived at the denial of the only source whence truth can come. Is it not the very height of folly to ignore the being and attributes of God, and in the assertion of self to deny the Deity, without which there is neither the possibility of being nor the faculty of knowledge ? Infidelity has grown bold, and from the rejection of the Christian Church, and the verities of her creed, has come to the unblushing denial of the great First Cause, whose attributes are essential to the existence of all dependent being. Is there any light but that of the Divinity which can illumine eyes so darkened by the mists of pride and the worship of self?

Then the materialism of our age, which measures all things by sense, depresses the instincts of the spiritual life and draws away the heart from the supernatural world wherein we truly live, and for which we were created.