names of the tribes of Israel; we should behold him crying to his Father, “Do not forget your promises, do not forget your covenant”; we would hear him make mention of our sorrows, and speak out about our griefs on our behalf, for he is our intercessor. And if we could behold the Father, we would not see him as a listless and idle spectator of the intercession of the Son, but we would see him with attentive ear listening to every word of Jesus, and granting every petition. Where is the Holy Spirit all the while? Is he lying idle? Oh no; he is floating over the earth, and when he sees a weary soul, he says, “Come to Jesus, he will give you rest.” When he beholds an eye filled with tears, he wipes away the tears, and bids the mourner look for comfort on the cross. When he sees the tempest tossed believer, he takes the helm of his soul and speaks the word of consolation; he helps the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds; and ever on his mission of mercy, he flies around the world, being everywhere present. Behold how the three persons work together. Do not then say, “I am grateful to the Son,” — so you ought to be, but God the Son no more saves you than God the Father. Do not imagine that God the Father is a great tyrant, and that God the Son had to die to make him merciful. It was not to make the Father’s love flow towards his people. Oh, no. One loves as much as the other; the three are conjoined in the great purpose of rescuing the elect from damnation.
14. But you must notice another thing in my text, which will show the blessed unity of the three — the one person promises to the other. The Son says, “I will pray to the Father.” “Very well,” the disciples may have said, “We can trust you for that.” “And he will send you.” What you see here is the Son signing a bond on behalf of the Father. “He will send you another Comforter.” There is a bond on behalf of the Holy Spirit, too. “And he will abide with you for ever.” One person speaks for the other, and how could they if there were any disagreement between them? If one wished to save, and the other did not, they could not promise on one another’s behalf. But whatever the Son says, the Father listens to; whatever the Father promises, the Holy Spirit works; and whatever the Holy Spirit injects into the soul, that God the Father fulfils. So the three together mutually promise on one another’s behalf. There is a bond with three names appended, — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. By three immutable things, as well as by two, the Christian is secured beyond the reach of death and hell. A Trinity of Securities, because there is a trinity of God.
15. III. Our third point is the INDWELLING of the Holy Spirit in believers. Now beloved, these first two things have been matters of pure doctrine, this is the subject of experience. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is a subject so profound, and so having to do with the inner man, that no soul will be able truly and really to comprehend what I say, unless it has been taught by God. I have heard of an old minister, who told a Fellow of one of the Cambridge Colleges, that he understood a language that he never learned in all his life. “I have not,” he said, “even a smattering of Greek, and I know no Latin, but thank God I can speak the language of Canaan, and that is more than you can.” So, beloved, I shall now have to speak a little of the language of Canaan. If you cannot comprehend me, I am much afraid it is because you are not of Israelitish extraction; you are not a child of God nor an heir of the kingdom of heaven.
16. We are told in the text, that Jesus would send the Comforter, who would abide in the saints for ever; who would dwell with them and be in them. Old Ignatius, the martyr, used to call himself Theophorus, or the God-bearer, “because,” he said, “I bear about with me the Holy Spirit.” And truly every Christian is a God-bearer. Do you not know that you are temples of the Holy Spirit? for he dwells in you. That man is no Christian who is not the subject of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit; he may speak well, he may understand theology and be a sound Calvinist; he will be the child of nature finely dressed, but not the living child. He may be a man of so profound an intellect, so gigantic a soul, so comprehensive a mind, and so lofty an imagination, that he may dive into all the secrets of nature; may know the path which the eagle’s eye has not seen, and go into depths where the knowledge of mortals does not reach; but he shall not be a Christian with all his knowledge, he shall not be a son of God with all his researches; unless he understands what it is to have the Holy Spirit dwelling in him, and abiding in him, yes, and that for ever.
17. Some people call this fanaticism, and they say, “You are a Quaker; why not follow George Fox?” Well we would not mind that much; we would follow any one who followed the Holy Spirit. Even he, with all his eccentricities, I do not doubt, was, in many cases, actually inspired by the Holy Spirit; and whenever I find a man in whom there rests the Spirit of God, the Spirit within me leaps to hear the Spirit within him, and he feels that we are one. The Spirit of God in one Christian soul recognises the Spirit in another. I remember talking with a good man, as I believe he was, who was insisting that it was impossible for us to know whether we had the Holy Spirit within us or not. I wish he was here this morning, because I would read this verse to him: “But you know him, for he dwells with you, and shall be in you.” Ah! you think you cannot tell whether you have the Holy Spirit or not. Can I tell whether I am alive or not? If I were touched by electricity, could I tell whether I was or not? I suppose I would; the shock would be strong enough to make me know where I stood. So, if I have God within me — if I have Deity tabernacling in my breast — if I have God the Holy Spirit resting in my heart, and making a temple of my body, do you think I shall know it? Call it fanaticism if you will; but I trust that there are some of us who know what it is to be always, or generally, under the influence of the Holy Spirit — always in one sense, generally in another. When we have difficulties, we ask the direction of the Holy Spirit. When we do not understand a portion of Holy Scripture, we ask God the Holy Spirit to shine upon us. When we are depressed, the Holy Spirit comforts us. You cannot tell what the wondrous power of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is: how it pulls back the hand of the saint when he would touch the forbidden thing; how it prompts him to make a covenant with his eyes; how it binds his feet, lest they should fall in a slippery way; how it restrains his heart, and keeps him from temptation. Oh you who know nothing of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, do not despise it. Oh do not despise the Holy Spirit, for it is the unpardonable sin. “He who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him, but he who speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall never be forgiven him, either in this life, or that which is to come.” So says the Word of God. Therefore, tremble, lest in anything you despise the influences of the Holy Spirit.
18. But before closing this point, there is one little word which pleases me very much, that is, “for ever.” You knew I could not miss that; you were certain I could not let it go without observation. “Abide with you for ever.” I wish I could get an Arminian here to finish my sermon. I fancy I see him taking that word, “for ever.” He would say, “for — for ever”; he would have to stammer and stutter; for he never could get it out all at once. He might stand and pull it about, and at last he would have to say, “the translation is wrong.” And then I suppose the poor man would have to prove that the original was wrong too. Ah! but blessed be God, we can read it — “he shall abide with you for ever.” Once give me the Holy Spirit, and I shall never lose him until “for ever” has run out; until eternity has spun its everlasting rounds.
19. IV. Now we have to close with a brief remark on the reason why the world rejects the Holy Spirit. It is said, “Whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see him, neither knows him.” You know what is sometimes meant by “the world,” — those whom God, in his wondrous sovereignty, passed over when he chose his people: the preterite ones; those passed over in God’s wondrous preterition — not the reprobates who were condemned to damnation by some awful decree; but those passed over by God, when he chose out his elect. These cannot receive the Spirit. Again, it means all in a carnal state are not able to procure for themselves this divine influence; and thus it is true, “Whom the world cannot receive.”
20. The unregenerate world of sinners despises the Holy Spirit, “because it does not see him.” Yes, I believe this is the great secret why many laugh at the idea of the existence of the Holy Spirit — because they do not see him. You tell the worldling, “I have the Holy Spirit within me.” He says, “I cannot see it.” He wants
