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and forever are bared to His view. He is Eternal. Here it would be enough to quote the apostle’s words, “ How much more shall the blood of Christ who through the Eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God purge your conscience,” etc. This is the same word which is used of the ever lasting God. But indeed this doctrine follows from the very immutability of God. Essentially the Spirit proceedeth from the Father and the Son: He is the Spirit of our Father; He is the Spirit, of His Son. Now as the very name the Eternal Father implies the Eternal Son, so if it be now that the Spirit pro ceedeth from the Father and the Son, il must have been from everlasting and will be to everlasting. For it is true of His immutable essence as of His un changing love, “ Thou art the same and thy years shall have no end:” “ I am Jehovah, I change not:” “ Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and for ever.” He Is Omnipotent. The proof of this is transparent from His being asso ciated with the Father and the Son in the creation of the worlds and of man, and from that which is more peculiarly His own office, the new creation of the soul in the image of God. He does that which Omnipotence alone can do. Therefore He is omnipotent. But, as this rather appertains to the next sec tion, let us at once proceed to the last and most momentous attribute of Deity. He is absolutely, infinitely, perfectly Holy and Good. I say this is the most momentous of all Divine attributes, for how little would mere omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, eternity, al- mightiness avail, dissociated from the living idea of goodness. But His name is distinctively, "The Holy Spirit.” Thus David prays, “ Take not thy Holy Spirit (or ‘the Spirit of thy holiness’ ) from me.” Thus Isaiah witnesses,
“ They rebelled and vexed his Holy Spirit (or ‘the Spirit of his holiness’ ) ; ” and asks, “Where is he that put his Holy Spirit within him?” And in the New Testament He bears this emphatic name, “ The Holy Ghost,” or "The Holy Spirit” no less than ninety-three times. In like manner David says, “ Thy Spirit is good” : and we read in Nehemiah, “ Thou gavest thy good Spirit to in struct them.” He is so called, as being Himself essentially holy and good, and as being to others the fountain-spring of holiness and goodness. And when we remember that in this absolute sense it is written, “ There is none good but one, that is God” : and again, “ Thou only art holy,” we can only acknowledge that this is the very nature and prop erty of Deity. “ Thou art good and doest good.” Let us proceed then to consider. 2. The Holy Spirit’s acts are the act ings of Godhead. He is the Creator of heaven and earth. We all feel the power of Paley’s argument as summed up in his own strong words, “Upon the whole, after all the schemes and struggles of a re luctant philosophy, the necessary re sort is to a Deity. The marks of de sign are too strong to be gotten over. Design must have had a designer. That designer must have been a person. That Person is God.” Or in the words of a greater than Paley, “ The invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being under stood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead.” Yet is this creation and fashioning of the universe again and again ascribed to the Holy Ghost. “ The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” “ By his Spirit he hath garnished the heavens.” “ The Spirit of God hath made me.” “ By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the Spirit of his mouth.” And to these let it suffice to add the
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