But come now, and let us reason together. We have all, by our outward vocation, one common interest in one common and most momentous work. We have to save our own souls, and the souls of them that hear us. Our responsibilities reach into eternity! May we by love so serve one another that we may all be workers together with God in the immense design, for which His Son our Saviour died upon the cross; that in the great day of His appearing many converted souls may be our “epistles of commendation” before His throne in glory!
Concerning the great controversy, which at present pervades our church, some things relate to the Holy Ghost Himself, some more especially to the Lord Jesus Christ, some to the Holy Scriptures, some more particularly to the church.
Whatever of these I may notice, I wish to keep the Holy Spirit prominently in our view, and to make our truth or error, as bearing upon Him, the main matter of our discourse. The general subject will be The sanction of that Divine Person in the Holy Trinity, attending one sort of doctrine and ministry, and not another, and the evidences to be observed of the fact: and it will involve this question, namely, Who are the true ministers of the Lord Jesus Christ, accredited by the Holy Ghost?
If I state things which some of us well know, I feel confident that they will admit the importance of my bringing them before others, who may not be aware of the position at which we are already arrived in the matters we have to speak of.
I. The first thing which I have to propound is this: That the Holy Ghost is the essential Agent in the right administration and reception of divine ordinances. In this, taken generally, we are all agreed.
None of us doubts that the words of the apostle to the presbyters of Ephesus would now apply to all true presbyters of Christ: “Take heed to yourselves, and to all the flock, over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which He hath purchased with His own blood.” [5a] So, the seven deacons were “men full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom.” [5b] The word also is said to be “preached with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven:” to come to those hearing it aright, “in power and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance;” [5c] and to be received with “joy of the Holy Ghost;” and “in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.” [5d] And so, both in regard to ministers and members of the church, it is declared, that “to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit;”—all these more ordinary gifts, as well as those which were miraculous, “worketh that one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will.” [6a] And when it is also solemnly declared—“I give you to understand, that no man can say (aright) that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost,” [6b]—and that “if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His;” [6c]—how clear and unquestionable is the conclusion, that the Holy Ghost must be the essential Agent in the right administration and reception of divine ordinances; and that in fact there can be none without Him, in the minds both of ministers and people.
Hence it was that, in the words before us, the apostle declared his “sufficiency to be of God;” that it was of God that he ministered the word without corrupting it, as some did; and that the beautiful lineaments of the living christian character, which he had been the means of producing in them, were actually produced by the Holy Ghost, thus divinely authenticating the office and instrumental ministrations of the apostle. Here was the writing of his recommendatory letters.
This view of things carries in it the point, that no man can be a true minister of Jesus Christ, unless the Spirit of Christ be with him. And so general is the conviction of this as a fact, that strange indeed would it be to find a single bishop, priest, or deacon of our church, who should not feel it essential to his integrity to lay claim to this holy authentication of himself from God to men.
Now here is the question! Let us calmly and seriously examine it. Can we all have the Holy Ghost, who lay claim to His presence and power with us? I propose to meet this question negatively, and therefore,
II. My next position is the following: That it is impossible to suppose that we ALL have the Holy Ghost, who lay claim to his presence and power in our ministrations.