Now they who are not sensible of the inconceivable importance of preaching, will not seek the Spirit of preaching, neither will they have Him, if they do not ask for Him to be given them. The word, to be “the power of God unto salvation,” must be “preached with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven,” [39c] “not in the words of man’s wisdom, but in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power.” [39d]
I feel convinced, that after all this, my main position will be generally admitted to be extremely probable, if not certainly proved; that we cannot on both sides, have the Holy Ghost in the ministrations I have described, though both lay claim to His presence and power in them. [39e]
III. I now, therefore, intreat your permission briefly to press a third position on your serious consideration, namely, that whoever of us have Him NOT, they are under most FEARFUL GUILT in PRETENDING to His presence.
We all make the pretension. We are guilty therefore, it is to be feared, on one side or the other: deeply guilty!
a. The guilt is that of being false; of lying in some things concerning the Holy Ghost, and in some things unto Him, when false before His saints in whom He dwells. Are we incurring then the very guilt of Ananias and Sapphira? Let us fear their condemnation.
b. Our guilt is also that of resisting the Holy Ghost, in His truth, in His work, in His people. If we have not known the ways of God aright, we have erred in our hearts and hardened them,—against what the Holy Ghost saith, “Harden not your hearts;” and hereby He is grieved: and the result is that God swears in His wrath, that we shall not enter into His rest. [40]
c. Our guilt is that of substituting another spirit for Him: the Anti-spirit in league with Anti-christ. It may be said that I go nigh to affirm that our work may possibly be the working of Satan, if it be not of the Holy Ghost. My brethren, I mean quite to say it. For of all evil men, who are instruments of Satan for seduction, false apostles and ministers are the most so. And the more apparently holy they are, the more diligent to put on the form of godliness when they have not the power,—the more they imitate the love, the meekness, the humility, the self-denial of Christ,—and profess, at the same time, that it is by the Holy Ghost that hereunto they have attained; the more awful is their reception of Satan for the Holy Ghost. Am I not right in saying, that errors in principle and in doctrine are quite as full of guilt in the sight of God as sins of the flesh? They are sins of the mind, it is true: but are the sins of purely intellectual evil spirits less than the sins of men, because they are sins of minds and not of fleshly bodies? And is Satan to be gently dealt with, and not rather the more indignantly repulsed, when, and because, he comes as an angel of light? He is the very best imitator in the universe, and will be amiable in commending heresies to men. And you may take him to your hearts in the very resemblance of the Spirit of God Himself, and assume that you possess the holy anointing of that blessed Spirit; and hence may issue the most deadly perversions of the truth of God, under the most amiable guise. You may be making an unction to yourselves, like unto the holy anointing oil, under that curse of God, that you “shall be cut off from His people.” [42] Consider the guilt and danger!
IV. We are now prepared to come to the consideration of our fourth point; That the possession of some accrediting proofs of the presence of the Holy Ghost is essential to our most important interests.
Am I a true minister of Jesus Christ, or am I not? And if I am, is all as it should be with me? Have I full proof that my ministry is a participation in the “ministration of the Spirit,” or have I not? Is He present with me at all? Is He present with me in all that fulness and power, that is most justly and rationally and earnestly to be desired? What are the most certain credentials or proofs of this?
Two are all that I shall refer to: one is in my text; the other, which I advert to first, is elsewhere found; I mean the scriptural Character of the true minister of Christ. You find it concisely expressed in 2 Tim. iv. 1–5, “I charge thee therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and His kingdom,—Preach the word, be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and doctrine. Watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.” And in 1 Tim. iv. 12, “Be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity. Take heed to thyself and to the doctrine: continue in them: for in so doing, thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee.” [43]