The Person and Office Of The Holy Ghost. 22.

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

2. If this vitality of the church proceed from the breath of God, and depend upon His continual presence, it cannot tail. It is everlasting. It proceeds not from a temporary union of the Sanctifier with the intelligence of man; but, as we have seen, from a substantial union with the regenerate in their corporate capacity. The church is always the body of Christ, and can never lose its vital union with the Holy Ghost. This union is indissoluble, and, like the union of the two natures in the one Christ, it cannot be sundered. Then, though individual members may perish by separation from the body, the church can never decay, grow old, or perish. It may suffer, and become the object of the world's attack. The battle around it may rage with violence; the gates of hell cannot prevail. It cannot fare worse than the adorable Humanity in Gethsemane, and on the cross. It will live till the latter day, amid " the wreck of matter and the crush of worlds." It has stood firmly united to the rock of Peter on which Christ built it, while all man's strongest works have crumbled to decay ; and the powers which have arrayed themselves against it have been ground to powder. Its life is the miracle of our world, the proof that "God is in the midst thereof, and that it shall not be moved, though the earth be troubled, and the mountains be removed into the heart of the sea." Psalm xlv. 3,6. The life of the Christian Church is the proof incontestable of her divine character. "For this cause," says St. Ignatius, "did the Lord take the ointment on His head, that He might breathe incorruption upon the church." Epistle to the Ephesians. To this end are the words of St. Cyprian : "The church is one which, having obtained the grace of eternal life, both lives for ever, and gives life to the people of God." The language of St. Chrysostom is the rehearsal of our arguments : "The church is stronger than heaven. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. What words Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. If thou believe not the word, believe the facts. How many tyrants would fain have overcome the Church! And they prevailed not. Where. are those that warred against her ? They are unnamed; they are buried in oblivion. But where is the church ? She shines brighter than the sun. She is immortal."St. Chrysostom The continued existence of the church is a manifest proof that her life is in God. So when we profess our faith in the Holy Ghost we immediately add our confession of " one holy, Catholic Church." We only know the divine Spirit through the church, and we cannot really believe in the Holy Ghost, unless we also believe in the Church which He sanctified, and in which He is communicated to us.

The Person and Office Of The Holy Ghost. 21.

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

As the soul informs the body of man and gives it vitality, so the Holy Spirit, as a soul to the church, communicates to her the gift of life. In the first creation of our race "the Lord God formed the body of man of the slime of the earth" ; but though formed, he had no life, " until the Creator breathed into his face the breath of life"; "then he became a living soul." Genesis ii. 7. This life was in the union of a living principle with the body, and it was in its own order. The human soul gave a human life, and to the vitalized body communicated its own energies. The animal frame awoke with all the properties of the rational and immortal principle which animated it. The eternal Spirit, however, is in the divine order, and the life which flows from Him is that of God. The energies He communicates are those of the divine Being; and the body which He animates possesses a life far above that of earth. This is the necessity of His operation, who always works as God.

The life of the church may be seen in its birth, which is the new creation, in its indefectibility, and in its catholicity.

1. The Christian Fathers fail not to see in the creation of our mother Eve from the side of Adam the type of the formation of the church from the pierced breast of Jesus Christ. From Adam came forth, by the hand of God, the woman fully formed to be his bride and the mother of the human race. From second Adam on the cross came forth the blood and water which, through the agency of the Spirit, were to purify the fallen, and form a spouse for the Lamb. Thus the apostle draws the parallel between the bridegroom and the bride, and Christ and His church: "He is the head of the church, as the husband is the head of the wife " "This is a great sacrament, but I speak in Christ and the church." The bride of Jesus Christ is, then, formed by the operation of the Holy Spirit, and derives her life from her spouse, the Word made flesh. The coming of the divine Spirit into the body prepared for Him was like the breathing of the living soul into our father Adam. By one spiration the man began to live; by the other the race, dead in sin, was quickened to immortality. The church, in its corporate life, takes upon itself personality, and becomes joined in nuptial union to the heavenly Bridegroom. The communication of the Holy Spirit is the new creation. The first creation produces only a human life ; the second takes hold of eternity. If such were not the fruit of the presence of God in the church, we could not believe in that presence; since it could not be found in death or without the communication of life. "The law of the Spirit of life delivers us from the law of sin and death. We are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit." "In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature, " "If any one be in Christ he is a new creature; the old things are passed away : behold, all things are made new."J "Christ is the Saviour of His body. No man ever hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, as also Christ doth the church."  The life of the church appears in its divine character, from the fact that it is the life of His body; and the body of the Son of God must of necessity be living, even as Christ lives. Moreover, that any one be made the member of this body, he must be born again of water and the Holy Ghost. As we have already seen, regeneration by holy Baptism is the means of union with the body of Christ. "By one Spirit are we all baptized into Christ, and so into one body, where we all drink of one Spirit."

Where, then, the Holy Spirit dwells, where He works the grace of a new birth, and unites the members of the fallen Adam to the humanity of the Son of God, there must be true life, and the life of the Deity. In the communication of this life the Holy Ghost is the principal worker, and the water and the blood are applied by His power. The individual born again is passed from the corporate life of mere humanity to the new life of the body of the sanctified, who are made one in Christ, and nourished from His flesh and blood. This is the glory of the Christian Church, that it lives by the vitalizing energy of its soul, which is the Paraclete, proceeding eternally from the Father and the Son, and sent by both to complete the miracles of redemption.