The Person and Office Of The Holy Ghost. 18.

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

The sphere of the operations of the Holy Ghost is, then, the visible church, which is His temple.
If our divine Redeemer has founded a church to represent Him on earth, and administer to successive generations His grace; if the eternal Spirit has come upon earth to dwell in this church with the fullness of a substantial union ; then it is manifest that in and through the church the souls of men are to be sanctified. Else His work would be to no purpose, and the miracles of redemption in vain. Christ could not have founded a church, if in His plan of mercy the church were not a necessity. The Holy Spirit could not have come in flaming glory to dwell in this church, unless it were to be the sacrament of union with Him, and the sphere of His sanctifying energies. Thus, the facts of the Gospel being admitted, they who would drink of the Spirit of life must come to the fountains of salvation opened in the church. The Spirit fills the universe with His immensity, but He dwells with the gift of substantial union only in the body which is His temple. Let us see how the Holy Scripture speaks of this great and momentous truth, and how it draws the comparison between the humanity of Jesus Christ and the church which is His mystical body.

"All these things one and the same Spirit worketh, dividing to every one according as He wills. For as the body is one, and hath many members; and all the members of the body, whereas they are many, yet are one body; so also is Christ. For in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body; and in one Spirit have we all been made to drink."

"As many of you as have been baptised in Christ, have put on Christ."  "The church of which Christ is the head, is His body, and the fullness of Him, who is filled all in all." J "Christ is the head of the church: He is the Saviour of His body. Christ loved the church and delivered Himself up for it, that He might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life ; that He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle. Because we are members of His body, of His flesh and His bones." "In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead corporally: and you are filled in Him, who is the head of all principality and power. Buried with Him in baptism, in whom also you are risen again by the faith of the operation of God."

These passages of Holy Scripture confine the gifts of redeeming grace, according to the ordinary economy of salvation, to union with the body of which Christ is the head, whence pardon and life flow. In this body the Holy Spirit . dwells; and by His energy the fallen children of Adam are adopted into this body, and by regeneration in baptism put on Christ, and are joined to His life-giving humanity. The Holy Ghost is the agent in this work. He is the worker of regeneration. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." This union to the humanity of Christ makes the regenerate a member of the body of Christ, and so "partaker of the divine nature." There is, therefore, a likeness between the body of Christ which He took of Mary in hypostatic union with His divinity, and the mystical body which of many human members is made one by vital union with Him.

We have seen how the eternal Spirit had a special care of the sacred humanity of the Word Incarnate. It was conceived by His operation in the womb of His immaculate Mother. It was anointed by the special and infused gifts of the seven-fold Spirit. So when He came to Nazareth after His temptation, under the guidance of the same Spirit, He entered the synagogue, and, opening the inspired prophecy, He read these words of Himself: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, wherefore He hath anointed me, to preach the Gospel to the poor He hath sent me, to heal the contrite of heart, to preach deliverance to the captives, and sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bound, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of reward. And when all eyes were fixed upon Him, He began to say to them: This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears." These words are to be understood in a literal sense, as they were directly applied by our Lord Himself. In the nature which He assumed He was anointed by the Holy Ghost, both by the substantial union of the human nature with the Word, and also by the accidental unction by which all gifts were poured upon His humanity. Thus says the prophet: "The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him: the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of fortitude, the Spirit of knowledge and of godliness. And He shall be filled with the Spirit of the fear of the Lord." "So St. Peter tells how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power." As the Son of man He was anointed and sent to the work of redemption. 

The Person and Office Of The Holy Ghost. 17.

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

IV.

The Holy Spirit in the church, as He is the principle of her life, so is He the cause of her unity.
The church of Christ, as it appears to us in the Scriptures and through the testimony of historical Christianity, cannot be conceived of without the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. He alone makes her all that she is, and is therefore the principle of her being. Without Him she would be like any other organization of mere men, liable to constant changes and having no promise of perpetuity. She is, indeed, an organization of men, but not of mere men. Her members are bound to each other and to God by the presence and power of the almighty Spirit. So no essential change can pass over her; no attack of man can prevail against her; for, by the life of God within her, she is emancipated from the law of decay. She could no more perish than God could perish, for her life is bound up with His. For this reason, when we confess the Holy Ghost in our baptismal creed, we also confess the holy Catholic Church. We know nothing of the Holy Ghost except through the church, and without the living presence of the Spirit there is no church. The building erected by Jesus Christ for 4 'an habitation of God through the Spirit" can be no merely human temple to pass away with the wrecks of time.

But if the Spirit of God abides in the church, then is she necessarily one, and with the most rigid unity. He could not abide in two or many churches arrayed against each other. This were to array God against Himself, and make Him the author of confusion and error.

Moreover, where God is, there must be unity, since disunion is disorder directly opposed to his attributes. Unity is life, and disunion is death. Where, then, the Spirit of life binds together the different members of an organization established by divine hands, there is of necessity the unity which flows from the fountain of all oneness. So the sacrificial prayer of the Mediator asks for His members, "that they may all be one, as Thou, Father, in me, and I in Thee, that they may also be one in us, that the world may believe that Thou hast sent me."St. John xvii. 21. This unity is more than visible. It is indeed visible, else the world could never know that the Father had sent the Son to produce it. The visible unity is the proof given to the nations of the presence of the Spirit. But that which is visible, and so a testimony to the world, is only the outward sign of a still more wonderful unity of faith and hope and love. This internal oneness is the work of the Holy G-host, who alone maketh men to be of one mind and to confess everywhere the same faith. This unity, so impossible to all mere human societies, is the manifest proof of the divine power. Man strives to counterfeit it in vain. Yet God cannot be in man without subordinating his will and illuminating his intellect. The visible unity is the fruit of the attraction of the Holy Ghost drawing to one, and binding together in one, elements discordant. The moral unity is the work of that same Spirit revealing Himself to many eyes as one, and in many hearts showing forth the one truth as it is in Jesus. Thus is there one Lord and one faith, as there is one Spirit and one body, even as we are called in one hope to a union with the one God and Father of all, who is in all, and through all, and above us all.

Here again the denial of unity in the visible church leads to the rejection of the one Spirit as He has been revealed to men. And the denial of the Holy Ghost is the most emphatic rejection of Christ our Lord, who can only be known through the Paraclete, whom He sends.

The Person and Office Of The Holy Ghost. 16.

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

This union between the Spirit and the members of the Church is dependent upon their union with the body which He permanently fills. From this body He never can depart, though individuals may fall away and lose His presence by apostasy. Let us quote here the language of St. Augustine: "What the soul is to the body of a man, that the Holy Ghost is to the body of Christ, which is the church. What the Holy Ghost does in the whole church, that the soul does in all the members of the body. In the body of a man it may happen that a member, the hand, the finger, or the foot, may be cut off. Does the soul follow the severed member? While it was in the body it was alive ; cut it off, its life is lost. So a man is a Christian and a Catholic while he is alive in the body ; cut off, he becomes a heretic."  The words of Scripture are abundant to establish this great fact of redemption. It is just as important to believe in the personal presence of the Holy Ghost in the visible church as it is to confess the incarnation and passion of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. "By our Lord we have access both in one Spirit to the Father. In whom we arc built together into an habitation of God in the Spirit."

The union of the Holy Ghost with the church is so perfect that the Scriptures and the Fathers speak as if it had a personality. "The head and the body are one man ; Christ and the church are one man, a perfect man: He the bridegroom, she the bride." Such words could have no meaning, if the union of the visible body with the Spirit were not substantial and indissoluble.

That body, therefore, in which the Holy Ghost dwells by a personal and abiding presence, is of necessity permanently and essentially sanctified. It loses its mere human character and becomes divine. It is an organisation of visible men, and so far of human nature; but by the union of the members with God dwelling in the body it partakes of the life of God. As the soul informs the body and gives it vitality, so the quickening Spirit vitalises the church and fills it with His divine energy.
This is a direct and logical consequence of the presence of the Holy Ghost. If He be in the church, then is she divine. If He be not in her, then all the words of revelation are an enigma and the Christianity of nineteen centuries a fable.

The body which the Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son, animates is in truth the temple of the holy Trinity. It is " built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone; in whom all the building, being framed together, groweth up into a holy temple in the Lord."

The Person and Office Of The Holy Ghost. 15.

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

III.

Of this visible body the Holy Ghost took possession, dwelling in it and giving it a divine character.
The mission of the Holy Ghost on earth is directly connected with the Christian Church. Our confession of faith in the Holy Ghost is immediately followed by that of belief in the Holy Catholic Church. This, in the baptismal creed, implies the truth that we cannot rightly believe in the divine Spirit unless we understand His operations in the visible body which He animates for the sanctification of its members and the world. The union between the church and the Holy Ghost is divine. From this union springs the supernatural character which is the life and glory of the Christian dispensation.

The entry of the eternal Spirit into the Church took place on the day of Pentecost, in fulfilment of the promise of Christ. It was a triumphal entry, which moved the earth and brought a new life to the apostles. The external miracles which glorified this day, in the flames of fire, the rushing, mighty wind, and the gift of tongues, were the signs of a divine power which the world had not known before. The church was formed by our Lord in all its essential framework, and stood ready to receive the supernal guest who was to quicken it and make it the dwelling of God. In this manner the Holy Spirit had never been in the world until this day. He had been one in the operations of the Father and the Son. He had blessed the different ages and dispensations with His influence. He had been the unseen author of every good thought and work. All, the race of man had known of sanctity, came from the effusion of His gifts. Now He comes, by a special and personal presence, to complete the work of the Incarnate Son. It was necessary for the Son in our nature to atone for our transgressions, and in that nature to ascend to the throne on high, before the Holy Ghost could thus personally dwell on earth. The expiation of our sins was necessary, and the preparation of our fallen nature to be a fitting home for the quickening Spirit: "It is expedient for you that I go: for if I go not, the Paraclete will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you." St. John xvi. 7.

That the Holy Ghost came to the church on Pentecost in a different manner, and with a permanent end, is evident from the words of our Lord. He came to the church, to the visible body founded by Christ, and He came there to abide. He did not come to any not in union with this visible body ; and to partake of His presence it was necessary to become a member of this visible body by baptism, the divinely-established rite. "They who received the word of St. Peter were baptized, that they might receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." Acts ii. 28, 41. "For by one Spirit were we all baptized into one body." II Cor. xii. 13. Into this body He came to dwell by a personal, substantial, and permanent presence. To this end are the words of St. Gregory Nazianzen: "Now the Holy Ghost is given more perfectly, for He is no longer present by His operation as of old, but He speaks and converses with us in a substantial manner. For it was fitting that as the Son had conversed with us in a body, the Spirit also should come among us in a bodily manner." Orat. xII. In Pentecost.

In virtue of this presence the members of the church are sauctified by a real union with the divine Spirit. This substantial union gives to each one the grace of the uncreated life, while the human personality remains intact. So says St. Cyril of Alexandria: "The Holy Ghost works in us by Himself, truly sanctifying us and uniting us to Himself, while He joins us to Himself and makes us partakers of the divine nature." De Trinitate.