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in simple obedience to the commands of God. Is it for a larger outpouring of the Spirit? We must wait as Elijah waited on Carmel, praying while we wait, and looking while we pray, and fainting not though the cloud be but as a man's hand, and afar off on the distant sea. Is it for the first great blessing in religion, a new heart, and a hope in Christ? Many wait for this in a very sinful way. They wait, hoping that God will do what they must do, and give them the conscious possession of a new heart before they submit themselves to Christ and cast themselves on his mercy. But they must wait in believing, wait in repenting, wait in praying, and wait in obeying, and they will not wait in vain. Man cannot make the seed sprout, but he may sow it, and he must sow it before he can expect it to grow. God must give the increase, but man must plant and water, or there will be no increase. Hence in every duty, difficulty, danger, perplexity, and sorrow, the rule is the same; we must wait, but wait in faith, hope, obedience, and labour, and we shall not wait in vain.

II. The promise of the Father.

That promise is fully explained. "For John truly baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence." v. 5, "But ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you." v. 8. The promise of

the Father is therefore the gift of the Holy Ghost. It was promised to Christ as a reward for his mediatorial sufferings, and that which the Father gave to the Son, the Son gave to the church and world, when he ascended on high, leading captivity captive, and obtaining gifts for men. In the form of the promise here given, there are several points of deep interest involved.

We learn something of the meaning of the ordinance of baptism. The contrast that Christ draws between baptism with water, and baptism with the Holy Ghost, shows that he regards the one as symbolical of the other, and the water baptism to be the sign and seal of the work of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Spirit is here presented to us under three great emblems in scripture, air, fire, and water: air, implying life; fire, purity; and water, combining both in a certain sense, being equally necessary for life and purity of body.

As water both slakes the burning thirst of man and revives the parching fields, and also purifies whilst it cools and refreshes, so is the agency of the Spirit on the soul. Hence this outward application of water is designed to symbolize the inward application of the life-giving and purifying influences of the Holy Ghost. As the Lord's supper then symbolizes the work of the Son, baptism represents the work of the Holy Spirit, thus giving a complete exhibition of the great work

of redemption and regeneration, by which we are made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light.

We also learn something as to the proper mode of baptism. Without entering at large on this vexed question, we cannot avoid noticing the decisive facts of this passage. The influences of the Holy Spirit are very often represented as being "poured" on the recipient. The anointings of the Old Testament, which represented the influences of the Spirit, were made always by pouring oil on the head. (See Ps. cxxxiii. 2; Luke iv. 18, &c.) These influences are so represented always in the Old Testament, as in Isa. xxxii. 15, "Until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high." In the New Testament the same representation is uniformly given. The Spirit is said to "come" on the recipient, Acts i. 8; ii. 2; to be "poured," Acts ii. 1618; x. 45; to be "shed," Acts ii. 33; to "fall on," Acts x. 44; xi. 15; and similar expressions, of the same import. Hence whatever might have been the usage of the world before this time, it is plain that they must have inferred that if baptism by the Holy Ghost was to take place by the pouring of the Holy Ghost upon the subject, baptism by water (which was to be exactly like it by the express words of Jesus) must be done by the pouring of water on the subject. When the resemblance between the two baptisms was presented so strongly,

if the one must be by pouring, surely so must be the other. Now as they were familiar with a use of water called a baptism, done in the same way, the baptism of tables, couches, &c., (Mark vii. 4, 8; Luke xi. 38,) the natural inference is that the baptism by water was done "as " the baptism of the Holy Ghost, that is, by pouring on the subject. Hence this we believe to have been the primitive mode of baptism, though laid aside when superstition began to creep into the church, and attach some saving efficacy to mere outward rites, and especially to the sacraments, at which time the washing of the whole body took the place of the simpler mode of the early church.

But the great fact presented in the promise was that the New Testament dispensation was to be one of the Spirit. There are depths of truth here which we can but imperfectly grasp, and on which we should meditate with profound reverence. But our Lord states a fact so emphatically and repeatedly that we cannot mistake its meaning. He says that he must depart from the earth before the Spirit could descend in power. This is reiterated in the gospel of John. (See ch. xiv. 16, 17, 26; xv. 26; xvi. 7, 13.) If he did not return to heaven, the Spirit would not come down to earth. The reason for this necessity we cannot fully understand. It may be that the whole plan of redemption is designed to set forth the sublime

mystery of the Trinity, that as the one God, the Father, was most prominent before the incarnation, the Son revealed in the incarnation and life of Jesus on earth, so the Spirit was to be revealed in the next great phase, the life of the church on earth; and thus that human history in its relation to the work of redemption was designed to shadow forth the deep mysteries of the Godhead, and show that all spiritual blessings must be from the Father, through the Son, and by the Holy Ghost.

Whatever be the remote reason of the fact, the fact itself stands clearly out, that the New Testament dispensation is pre-eminently the dispensation of the Spirit. And the words of Jesus intimate that it was needful that he should make the grand triumphal entrance of the ascension, and be inaugurated as the King of glory above, before the Spirit could be poured out below; and that this great descent of the Holy One was to be the signal on earth that the mighty transaction in heaven had taken place, the everlasting doors been lifted up, and the King of glory entered in to his mediatorial throne in heaven. Hence, now we are to look for all blessings through the Son as their medium, but by the Holy Spirit as their applying agency. The scriptures, to which we come for words of eternal life, are inspired by the Holy Ghost. Regeneration, the beginning of the spiritual life, is the work of the Holy Ghost.

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