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.
