dwell among them" (Eph. iv. 8), a subject which we shall have to consider more fully in the next chapter.

Lastly, our Lord ascended to heaven, like His type in the parable of the nobleman, "to receive a kingdom and to return." As God, His was the kingdom and the power and the glory from all eternity; it is as man that He received all power in heaven and in earth; as man that He sits upon the throne of the universe, and rules all things. Especially He is the King of His Church. The Church is the heavenly kingdom. As the ancient Church, so the Church under the present dispensation is a theocracy, and the risen Lord is truly its King. He is not merely reposing in a glorious rest, He is actively engaged in all the duties of a sovereign who not only reigns but rules.

He ascended to be the High Priest of the created universe; to be the King of kings, all thrones and dominions, and principalities and powers being made subject to Him; to be Lord of lords, the visible representative of the Godhead to the creatures, who fall down at His human feet and worship Him.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE HOLY GHOST.

On the subject of the Holy Ghost, His Person and work, the popular theology is especially vague and unsatisfactory. The common error fails to recognise His eternal personality, and conceives of Him as an emanation from God the Father, sent forth to enlighten and influence the souls of

men.

But we have seen that in the being of God there are eternally three Persons, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. We are, therefore, to conceive of the Holy Ghost as a distinct Person of the Godhead; a consubstantial, coeternal, coequal Person.

The Nicene Creed calls Him "the Lord," ie., Jehovah. The Church addresses separate adoration and prayers to Him: "Lord (Father) have mercy upon us; Christ (Son) have mercy upon us; Lord (Holy Ghost) have mercy upon us." "O God the Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the Son, have mercy upon us, miserable sinners." The only hymn in the Prayer Book is addressed to Him: "Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire."

He took a personally active part in the creation of the world. The Spirit of God brooded (as a dove broods) over the mass of chaotic matter, and by His influence it was reduced to form and order. It seems to be always the special work of the Spirit to complete the work of the Father and of the Son.

By the Holy Spirit also the world was filled with life; this

is the office specially attributed to Him in the Nicene Creed, which calls Him the Life-giver (the Lord and Giver of life). All the life in the world, from the life of a blade of grass to the spiritual life of the soul (the life of our life), yea, up still higher, to the spiritual life of the human nature of Jesus, is the gift of the Lord and Life-giver.

He took a personally active share in the work of our redemption. In the Incarnation it was the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost which produced in the womb of the Virgin that human life with which God the Son united Himself. Throughout His life the human soul of our Lord was filled without measure with the Holy Ghost. "He was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was with Him" (John iii. 34; Luke ii. 40). "He giveth not the Spirit by measure unto Him" (John iii. 34).

When our Lord ascended to heaven, we have seen He was still very man, retaining all that belongs to glorified human nature; therefore our Lord's humanity continues to be filled without measure with the Holy Ghost; and that Spirit, like the holy oil of which it is the antitype, thus abundantly poured upon the Head, flows down to the Body of Christ, even to the skirts of His clothing. We are His Body, and His Spirit is in us; as the profoundest of the epistles tells us "there is one Body and one Spirit" (Eph. iv. 4). And herein, perhaps, we begin to see dimly why it was necessary that our Lord should ascend, and enter into the highest condition of His human nature, before He could send down His Spirit upon His people.

The Holy Ghost is called by our Lord the Paraclete, which is translated in our Bibles the Comforter; both words need explanation. Paraclete means originally advocate, and is used in that sense in John xiv. 16. The corresponding word paraclesis is, however, used in other places in the New

Testament in the sense of consolation, and some of the fathers (Chrysostom, &c.) take Paraclete in the sense of consoler. So the English word comforter (in accordance with its derivation) originally means strengthener or supporter, but has come in modern times to mean consoler.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

THE GIVING OF THE HOLY GHOST TO THE CHURCH.

BEFORE Our Lord ascended He bade His disciples not to disperse themselves to their own homes, but to remain together in Jerusalem till they should receive "the promise of the Father," for that "they should be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence." The apostles abode together, probably in the house of Mary the sister of Barnabas and mother of John-Mark; and in the great upper room of that house they, and the band of women who had ministered to our Lord, and others of His disciples, used to assemble daily in prayer, no doubt praying among other things for the promised gift (Acts ii. 13, 14).

On the day of Pentecost the gift came. They were all assembled, probably in the upper room above-mentionedthe cradle of the Church of Christ-and probably, as usual, in prayer, when the Holy Spirit came with audible and visible signs; with a sound as of a mighty wind which filled all the house, and with lambent tongues of flame which lighted on each of them; "and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance."

Had not the Holy Spirit been in the world, and influer.ced the hearts of men before? Yes. As God the Son had wrought in the world before His Incarnation, and had