more excellent than the other.—Eternal life is, by the promises of the gospel, constantly connected with the one, and never with the other. Salvation is promised to those who have the graces of the Spirit, but not to those who have merely the extraordinary gifts. Many may have these last, and yet go to hell. Judas Iscariot had them, and is gone to hell. And Christ tells us, that many who have had them, will, at the last day, be bid to depart, as workers of iniquity (Matt. 7:22, 23). And therefore, when he promised his disciples these extraordinary gifts, he bade them rejoice, not because the devils were subject to them, but because their names were written in heaven; intimating that the one might be, and yet not the other (Luke 10:17, etc.) And this shows that the one is an infinitely greater blessing than the other, as it carries eternal life in it. For eternal life is a thing of infinite worth and value, and that must be an excellent blessing indeed that has this infallibly connected with it, and of infinitely more worth than any privilege whatsoever, which a man may possess, and yet after all go to hell.
6. Happiness itself does much more immediately and essentially consist in Christian grace, wrought by the ordinary nary influences of the Spirit, than in these extraordinary gifts.—Man’s highest happiness consists in holiness, for it is by this that the reasonable creature is united to God, the fountain of all good. Happiness cloth so essentially consist in knowing, loving, and serving God, and having the holy and divine temper of soul, and the lively exercises of it, that these things will make a man l happy without anything else; but no other enjoyments or privileges whatsoever will make a man happy without this.
7. This divine temper of soul which the fruit of the ordinary sanctifying influences of the Spirit, is the end of all the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost.—The gift of prophecy, of miracles, of tongues, etc., God gave for this very end, to promote the propagation and establishment of tile gospel in the world. And the end of the gospel is, to turn men from darkness to light, and from the power of sin and Satan to serve the living God, i. e. to make men holy. The end of all the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit is the conversion of sinners, and the building up of saints in that holiness which is the fruit of the ordinary influences of the Holy Ghost. For this, the Holy Spirit was poured out on the apostles after Christ’s ascension; and they were enabled to speak with tongues, work miracles, etc.; and for this, very many others, in that age, were endued with the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost (Eph. 4:11)—“And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists.” Here the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit are referred to; and the end of all is expressed in the next words, viz. “For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.” And what sort of edifying of the body of Christ this is, we learn from ver. 16—“Maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in LOVE.” In love, that is, in charity, the same that is spoken of in our text, for the word in the original is the same, and the same thing is meant. And so it is the same as in 1 Cor. 8:1—“charity edifieth.”
But the end is always more excellent than the means: this is a maxim universally allowed; for means have no goodness in them any otherwise than as they are subordinate to the end. The end, therefore, must be considered as superior in excellency to the means.
8. The extraordinary gifts of the Spirit will be so far from profiting without that grace which is the fruit of the ordinary influences of the Spirit, that they will but aggravate the condemnation of those that have them.—Doubtless Judas’s condemnation was exceedingly aggravated by his having been one that had had such privileges. And some, that have had such extraordinary gifts, have committed the sin against the Holy Ghost, and their privileges were a main thing that rendered their sin the unpardonable sin; as appears from Heb. 6:4-6,—“For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have e tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance: seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.” Those who fell away, were such as apostatized from Christianity after having made a public profession of it, and received the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost, as most Christians did in those days. They were instructed in Christianity, and, through the common influences of the Spirit, they received the word with joy, like those in Matt. 13:20, and withal received the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit—“were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, tasted of the heavenly gift, and the powers of the world to come;” spake with tongues; prophesied sled in Christ’s name, and in his name cast out devils; and yet, after all, openly renounced Christianity; joined to call Christ an impostor, as his murderers did; and so “crucified to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.” Of these it is that the apostle says, “It is impossible to renew them again to repentance.” Such apostates, in their renouncing Christianity, must ascribe the miraculous powers which themselves had possessed to the devil. So their case became hopeless, and their condemnation must be exceedingly aggravated. And from this it appears that saving grace is of infinitely more worth and excellence than the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit. And, lastly,
9. Another thing that shows the preferableness, of that caving grace which is the fruit of the ordinary influences of the Holy Spirit, to the extraordinary gifts, is, that one will fail, and the other will not.—This argument the apostle makes use of in the context, to show that divine love is preferable to the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit (ver. 8)—“Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.” Divine love will remain throughout all eternity, but the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit will fail in time. They are only of the nature of means, and when the end is obtained they shall cease; but divine love will remain forever. In the improvement of this subject, I remark:
(1.) If saying grace is a greater blessing than the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, we may doubtless hence argue, that it is the greatest privilege and blessing that ever God bestows on any person in this world.—For these extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost, such as the gift of tongues, of miracles, of prophecy, etc., are the highest kind of privileges that God ever bestows on natural men, and privileges which have been very rarely bestowed on such, in any age of the world, the apostolic age excepted.
If what has been said be well considered, it will appear evident beyond all doubt, that the saving grace of God in the heart, working a holy and divine temper in the soul, is the greatest blessing that ever men receive in this world: greater than any natural gifts, greater than the greatest natural abilities, greater than any acquired endowments of mind, greater than the most universal learning, greater than any outward wealth and honor, greater than to be a king or an emperor, greater than to be taken from the sheepcote, as David was, and made king over all Israel; and all the riches and honor and magnificence of Solomon, in all his glory, are not to be compared with it.
Great was the privilege that God bestowed on the blessed virgin Mary, in granting that of her should be born the Son of God. That a person, who was infinitely more honorable than the angels, yea, who was the Creator and King of heaven and earth, the great Sovereign of the world,—that such an one should be conceived in her womb, born of her, and nursed at her breasts, was a greater privilege than for her to be the mother of the child of the greatest earthly prince that ever lived; yet even that was not so a greet a privilege as to have the grace of God in the heart; to have Christ, as it were, born in the soul, as he himself cloth expressly teach us, in Luke 11: 27, 28—“And it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked. But he said, Yea, rather blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.” And once, when some told him that his mother and his brethren stood without, desiring to speak with him, he thence took occasion to let them know that there was a more blessed way of being related to him than that which consisted in being his mother and brethren according to the flesh (Matt. 12:46-50)—“Who is my mother?” said he, “and who are my brethren? And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.”
