of its divine source. So that the divine good of his love becomes so correspondently active in them as to shine with its own brightness and thus be in its glory, and to impart to them its own image and likeness. And therefore the Lord says of the spirit of truth, which he was about to send unto his disciples from the father, "He shall glorify me: he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you;" which words import, that the divine truth or wisdom of the divine love, becoming active in those who receive that truth in obedience, faith, and love, so brings that love, or its goodness, out into manifest form and light, as not only to show what that goodness is in all its own intrinsic resplendency, but also to impart its qualities to those who keep its commandments-to those who do the truths that are its form and activity. And to such as thus experience the good of truth proceeding from the Lord, it is perfectly clear, that good and truth are absolutely one in him; so that, when the truth comes unto them from him, it of course brings along with it his good; and, consequently, that the sphere of truth from him, is at the same time and equally the sphere of good ness. Thus, finally, it is the same whether Jesus or Jehovah sends the spirit of truth. In both cases it is truth proceeding from the Lord, enlightening, vivifying, supporting, and comforting his disciples, and, by imparting to them his own nature, testi fying to them concerning him. Such, then, is the true nature of the spirit. And, therefore, we say again, the spirit spoken of in our text, is not, as some suppose, a divine person, equal in power and glory, and coexistent with two other divine persons in the godhead; but it is a divine sphere, emanating from Jesus Christ, and containing and expressing his qualities, so as to bear witness of these qualities in all who, by its influence, receive into themselves their image and likeness. In concluding this discourse, we will remark, what ought never to be lost sight of, that it is not truth merely which testifies of Jesus to his disciples, but it is the spirit of truth. It is not truth alone, but it is the life of truth, which bears any adequate testification of who and what Jesus Christ is. Hence, the old christian church does not discern the sole divinity of Jesus Christ; because that church is principled in faith alone, and the mere faith of truth is not the spirit of truth. Hence, there is not, in the old christian church, any thing which can testify to it of Jesus. Though the christian church has faith to remove mountains, still that faith is nothing without charity, and has no power whatever to form in the soul an idea of Jesus Christ's true character. Charity is the essence of faith, so that there is no true faith without genuine charity; and the life of charity, operating by a true faith, is that spirit of truth which alone testifies of Jesus to the individual soul and the collective church for charity is itself the Lord's image and likeness in the soul. : We may, then, learn from our text why men in their natural state-why men who are actuated by selfish loves and worldly passions cannot comprehend the grand truth that Jesus Christ is God, and God alone. It is because this truth can be seen only in the light which the spirit of truth sheds-thus in spiritual light and this shines only in spiritual men. Hence it is because this truth is eminently spiritual, and men in a mere natural state are as grossly carnal. This truth is emphatically the mystery of God. And without godliness, that is, without God-like-ness, it can never be comprehended. "Without controversy," says Paul, "great is the mystery of godliness-God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory." And no one knows the mysteries, the deep things of God, unless the spirit of God be imparted to him. No one can know these mysteries unless he have, as the apostles had, "the mind of Christ." Thus no one can understand this greatest of mysteries, the divinity of the Lord's humanity, except so far as the mind of Christ is in him by the spirit of truth proceeding from Jesus and testifying the qualities of Jesus Christ unto him. Before this is the case, or while man is in a natural state, he sees Jesus Christ, as John expresses it, "as through a glass, darkly." And it is only when Christ so comes unto us as to make us like him, that we can see him as he is. And Christ comes to us when he sends the spirit of his truth unto us in our life of his commandments. For the Lord says, "he that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me; and he that loveth me shall be loved of my father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him." Thus it is that no one can believe that Jesus Christ is God, and acknowledge him alone as such, while he is a natural man, or until he is made spiritual, by the spirit of truth sent unto him from the father in Jesus Christ, in the actual formation of Jesus Christ in him as "a new creature." And hence Paul expressly says, "No man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the holy ghost." For it is only when a man has the spirit of truth, proceeding from Jesus Christ and regenerating him into the image and likeness of the divine love, that he can see Jesus in himself as the divine flame and form of that love. And it is the light of the flame of this love, shed from the human heart into the human understanding, which alone displays Jesus in his true character-throwing around the idea of him in the mind that light which alone shows what he truly is, as the Form of God, the Wisdom and Power of God, the Express Image of God's substance, and thus as God himself made manifest. Hence Jesus says, "No man cometh unto me except the father which sent me, draw him." Thus it is the life or practice of truth, flowing from the love of truth, and so proceeding from good, which alone bears true testimony of Jesus: and thus that which alone truly testifies of Jesus, is "the spirit of truth which proceedeth from the father." And my dear brethren, if this was ever true in the Lord's first and natural advent, it is more especially true now in this his second and spiritual coming. Wherefore, it is all in vain that we seek to proselyte men to our faith by merely preaching the truth to them. This will never testify to them of Jesus. It will never show them Jesus in the spirit of his Word, wherein his second coming most conspicuously is. It will never show to men around us that the divine love, wisdom, and energy are in the spiritual sense of the Word. It is not enough merely to teach men who the Lord is, we must also lead them to him. The mere verbal uttering of the truths of the Word never presents the divine quality of those truths to the apprehensions of any. To make these truths known, and to make men receive them as such, so as by them to bring the Lord present to the souls of men in the good of them, we ourselves must live them. Then the sphere of those truths goes forth from us; and, as the spirit of those truths, does indeed testify to men around us that Jesus Christ is in them; and, by leading them to the life of them, does verily bring him present in a new and second advent to their souls. Such is the doctrine of our text as to the true nature of the spirit which testifies of Jesus, and such is the practical conclusion we deduce from that doctrine in its application to us as members of the Lord's new church. May the Lord, in his mercy, bless what is here dispensed in his name; and cause all to redound to his glory in the reformation of our lives, and the eternal good of our souls! SERMON III. JOHN, XIV. 28. "Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away and come again unto If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the father for my father is greater than I." you. : JESUS, in sundry places of his Word, speaks of his leaving his disciples and coming to them again; of his going away, and sending the comforter, which is the spirit of truth, unto them; and of this spirit of truth's testifying of him, and leading his disciples into all truth-bringing all things to their remembrance which he had spoken to them when he was with them on earth. There must, then, be some important spiritual truth involved in this thing of the Lord's going away from his disciples and coming to them again, which it may be a matter of great spiritual moment to have explained. It involves the necessity, and would lead us to consider the nature and use, of a twofold advent of the Lord. To this subject the text before us has explicit allusion-" Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again.' Here the Lord sanctions, by repetition, a previous declaration of his departure after his first advent, and his prediction of a second advent. It may be well, then, in this discourse, to discuss and explain the nature and necessity of a second coming of the Lord, especially in respect to the regeneration of the individual man. But the Lord, in the text, makes a very singular and striking declaration, which needs, perhaps, more than any other parts of the Word, an explanation by us, because it seems to militate |