surdity to suppose, that the dismayed and disappointed Disciples could have formed any plan for carrying away the body, or that a Roman guard could have all fallen asleep on their post to permit it. The precautions taken by the Jewish Priests must have been decisive against any pretended resurrection, effected by force or fraud, but when numerous witnesses asserted, that he was frequently after his death seen alive by them, when during forty days, persons not to be deceived as to his identity, saw and conversed with him, then do these baffled precautions prove that the Gospel account is true, and that he rose by the miraculous power of God. Who can disbelieve the report of five hundred brethren, by whom at once he was seen?* On the third day then he rose from the dead, and after forty days remaining on earth, he was, in the presence of the eleven, "taken up" into the Heavens," and a cloud received him out of their sight."t "He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth" as our Creed adds, “at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty, from whence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead." For particulars, which cannot be subjects of human testimony, we have the support of inspiration and prophecy. David says, "the Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou on my right hand, until I make thine ene* 1 Corinthians xv. 6. † Acts i. 9. 66 Daniel in the same pro 66 mies thy footstool."* * Psalm cx. 1. † Dan. vii. 10. 1 Peter iii. 22. || John v. 22. 10. **Psalm cxxx. 7. The third paragraph of the Creed begins. as each of the former. The words "I believe" have therefore the same extent, and intimate indirectly a belief in the Divinity of the Holy Ghost. The word is identical with Spirit. The Divine existence of the Holy Spirit is proved from numerous texts in Scripture, of which it may generally be stated, that they' give to him the name of God-they ascribe to him the attributes and offices of God-and that they associate him in terms of equal respect and consideration with the Father and the Son. "The lie to the Holy Ghost" with which St. Peter charges Ananias in one verse of the fifth chapter of the Acts, is in the very next verse termed, "a lie against God."* "Know ye not," says St. Paul, “that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?"† "Know ye not," says the same Apostle to the same Corinthians, "that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you?" If their bodies were thus indifferently temples of the Holy Ghost, and temples of God, does not the Apostle evidently pronounce the Holy Ghost to be God? The attributes and powers and offices of God are accordingly attributed to him in Scripture: he is called "the eternal Spirit"--he is said to quicken, or give life to the dead-to abide with the followers of Christ for ever-" to *Acts v. 3, 4. † 1 Cor. iii. 16. 1 Cor. vi. 19. search all things, yea the deep things of God "*-Now that which is eternal is not created: that which is omniscient is God. Not less indeed can we account him, when "blasphemy against him is never to be forgiven." Nor is he an inferior or dependant God, when St. Paul places in his solemn form of blessing, the fellowship of the Holy Ghost as co-ordinate with the love of God, and the grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ. But our Lord in his Commission to his Apostles, commanding them to "baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" has decided the question; for it cannot be conceived that he would have used words in their obvious meaning, declaring an equality of the three persons in the divine nature, if only one of them had been truly God, and the others dependant on his creation, or attributes of his energy. What shall we say then of that vanity, which will make distinctions in what our Lord has thus made equal? Distinctions too refined for general understanding-supported by forced and unnatural construction of passages that are plain, and texts that are strong? Does not the word "He" denote a distinct person? Are not the actions of understanding, and willing, and teaching, and helping, and strengthening, ascribed to him? Yet these are the terms which * 1 Corinthians ii. 10. the Socinian will tell you are figurative: because he must know more than God has been pleased to communicate, he will perplex and sophisticate that which God has communicated. Rather learn, my beloved brethren, the lesson which these mysteries were perhaps left unexplained to teach you: "avoid profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called,"* put forward by those who "neither understand what they say, nor whereof they affirm."+ Your Creed goes on next to recite a belief in "the Holy Catholic Church, and in the Communion of Saints." When Peter had made his confession, and acknowledged that his Master was the Christ, the Son of the living God, our Lord took occasion to say that "on this rock," on that confession, as on a firm and immoveable foundation, "he would build his Church, and the gates of Hell should not prevail against it." We believe then that by our Lord's appointment, there was founded, and according to our Lord's promise there shall continue always upon the earth, a Church, or Religious Society of persons, who shall keep up a faith in his name, and a knowledge of his word; which neither the strength of wicked opposition from without, nor yet the devices of heresy and contention and false teachers from within, shall overthrow: but * 1 Tim. vi. 20. † 1 Tim. i. 7. Matt. xvi. 18. U |