The Person and Office Of The Holy Ghost. 19.

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

The parallel between the gifts of the Holy Spirit to the Sacred Humanity, and His anointing of the mystical body, is plain and beautiful. Grace flows from the head to the members, and the members of the mystical body are quickened because of the life which resides in the Head. Each one of the many members baptized into Christ has put on Christ, and is to be conformed to His likeness. The Holy Spirit works unceasingly "for the edifying of the body of Christ, until we all meet in the unity of faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect Man, unto the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ." "So in prophetic vision the apostle beheld the great reality: the heavens opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man,"f upon the body of Christ. The mystery of the Incarnation is real; it is the foundation of all our hope. As it is real, so the unction of the Spirit is real: and the way to peace for our fallen race is only by the embrace and participation of the humanity of the Word made flesh. And this participation is by the gift of the Holy Ghost in the visible body wherein He dwells to complete the work of Christ, and bring all to the unity of one Man. "Thus only do we" receive power to become the sons of God. Thus are we born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." To this end was the Word made flesh, and for this did He dwell among us.

The conclusions which flow from our brief view of the earthly home of the Holy Ghost are such as should move all hearts. We are still to walk about this Sion, and tell its towers, and gaze upon its wonders. It is as if we were to see the light and beauty which emanate from the Incarnate Son of God, in the temple made by His human hands.

Yet there are two lessons already implied in our argument which we beg the blessed Spirit to impress upon your hearts.

How wonderful is the plan of salvation which is here revealed to us! The condescension of the Father, the incarnation of the Son, and the indwelling of the Holy Ghost are the mysteries of grace by which the fallen race of Adam is brought back to God. When all human help was in vain, and the pity of angels availed nothing, the majesty of the Trinity was bowed down, and the strength of the eternal Three was spent in our redemption. "The first man was of the earth, earthly," "and by him came death." "The second Man is from heaven, heavenly," "and in Him all shall be made alive." "We have borne the image of the earthly; we are to bear also the image of the heavenly." The new race takes the place of the old. The second Adam is a quickening Spirit. In Him we are one body, the temples of the Holy Ghost, and the habitation of God through the Spirit. In Him we are anointed with the unction from above; and as on the Sacred Humanity the glory of the Paraclete rested, descending like a dove and abiding on Him, so on the mystical body which is one with that Humanity the oil of gladness perpetually flows. "God, even Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows." The redeemed are in truth the children of the Father, because the brethren of the Son and the tabernacles of the Holy Ghost. It is all from God, and of God, and in God. Our salvation is in the Trinity and in unity. "Behold how good and pleasant a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. It is like the precious ointment on the head, that ran down upon the beard, the beard of Aaron; which ran down to the skirt of his garment: as the dew of Hermon, or that which descendeth upon Mount Sion. For there the Lord hath commanded blessing and life for evermore."

The unction from above is the Holy Spirit. Upon the body of Christ it descends, and remains only with those who are joined to that Humanity, as "the members of His flesh and of His bones."
They, therefore, who seek for the sanctifying grace of the Spirit must come to the home where He dwells, to the visible temple where alone the Paraclete " takes of the things of Christ and shows them to His chosen." "The unity of the Spirit is in the bond of peace," "the house of God, which is the church," "against which the gates of hell cannot prevail." "As there is one Spirit, there is one body, one Lord, one faith, and one baptism." Vainly shall man seek any other salvation, or hope to draw nigh the eternal Trinity, without the atonement of the Son and the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. The devices of men are folly, and the works of human hands shall perish. "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but the word of the Lord shall not pass away.": As the ark upon the waves of the deluge, so is the church of Jesus Christ. It bears the children of the Second Adam to the heavenly shore, and there the earthly home of the Holy Ghost becomes the temple of the beatific vision. "The Lord God Almighty is the temple thereof, and the Lamb." The voice of the Spirit speaks in the harmony of angels: "Come, and I will show thee the bride, the wife of the Lamb." "Let us be glad and rejoice, for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath prepared herself." 

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. 

The Person and Office Of The Holy Ghost. 14.

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

Michaelerkirche, Wien/Vienna detail of the main altar

The church established by our Lord is not only one by constitution as He was pleased to form it; but it is one by necessity, and He could have formed it in no other way. Unity is an essential of any. organisation, and without it there is not a semblance of order. If the divine founder of the church did not make it one, how did He make it ?

He could not make it two or three, for this is a contradiction in terms. It is, in fact, making one two; and God cannot do this, since He cannot contradict Himself. He could have made three or a thousand different societies, but they would have borne different characteristics, and would have been constituted for different ends. A church, in the true meaning of the term, is a body of visible men authorised to represent Christ upon earth and to teach His Gospel. There can be but one such church, as there cannot be more than one God. So the unity of the church is a necessity in the plans of redemption. Disunion destroys, misleads, and ruins all. If that disunion were the work of God, which is impossible, He would be responsible for it. He is essentially one, and all His operations bear the likeness of this unity, especially His greatest work after the Incarnation—"the church, which is His body and the fullness of Him, who is filled all in all." eph i.23

The Person and Office Of The Holy Ghost. 13.

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

II.

A visible church was established by our Lord, and it is a unity by constitution and by necessity.
What our intelligence asks as a just manifestation of divine mercy towards our fallen race, God has supplied beyond all our desires.

1. It is a matter of fact that our Lord Jesus Christ came upon earth and proved His divine mission by abundant miracles. It is also a fact that He founded and organized a church of visible men with all the necessary provisions for its perpetuity. He called to Himself disciples, whom He taught; and of them He chose twelve, whom he named apostles (St Luke vi. 12). The apostles were sent with divine authority to teach the world. "As My Father hath sent me, even so do I send you." (St John xx. 21.)

The Jewish Church was confessedly founded by God as a preparation for the Christian organization. It was a visible body, with power to represent the majesty of the divine Lawgiver on earth. So the church established by Christ is an external organization, but endowed with higher life and greater gifts. The Acts of the Apostles are a plain narrative of the growth of this church in different lands. We are not asked to prove a fact universally received, and one which has everywhere left ineffaceable marks upon society. It is incontestable that Jesus Christ founded a church to bear His name and minister His grace. That this church is visible, and must be so, is evident from the fact that it is composed of visible men and bears a mission to a visible world. An invisible church can only be for invisible men, with whom we have not now to do.

2. The church established by our Lord is a unity by constitution and by necessity.
One founder made it one. It is one in organization, with one head. The apostles were subordinated to one as a type and centre of unity. "Simon, son of John, feed my lambs, feed my sheep." (St. John xxi. 15,17) " Thou art Peter, and on this rock will I build my church." (St. Matt. xvi. 18.) The body which has one head is necessarily one, since a body with many heads would be a monstrous contradiction. So argues St. Paul: " There is one body and one Spirit : as you are called in one hope of your calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in us all." The unity of God is perfect. But the apostle tells us that the unity of the church is of the same nature. There can no more be two bodies than there can be two Gods. There cannot be two creeds, nor two baptisms, nor two Holy Spirits. Neither can there be two churches of Christ. So says St. Cyprian: "There is one God and one Christ, and His church is one, and the faith one, and the people one, joined into the solid unity of one body. Unity cannot be sundered, nor the one body be separated by the dissolution of its structure." ( St. Cyprian, De Unitate).