what He had done on earth, and, as such, dispensed by Him immediately on the reception of it upon the Church. What was not withheld from the Church before, though given in anticipation of the work of Christ, was, now that that work was over, formally and openly conferred. It is in this light that the gift bestowed on the day of Pentecost is always spoken of in Scripture. Tarry ye,' said Jesus, 'in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endowed with power from on high.' 'He commanded them that they should wait at Jerusalem for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me.' "The Holy Ghost was not given,' says John, in the days of his flesh, because Jesus was not yet glorified.' 'Ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence,' said the Saviour, just before his ascension. This continued tying of the gift of the Spirit, as bestowed on the day of Pentecost, to the ascension and glorification of Christ, makes it perfectly evident that we are not to measure the gift that day vouchsafed to the Church by the actual extent of what the men then constituting the Church experienced. It was the whole fulness of the Seven Spirits of God,' in the hand of the glorified Mediator, with which the Church was that day enriched. Hence the Gospel dispensation is called the ministration of the Spirit, now set free, as never before, to conduct the whole application of Christ's work in saving souls. If this be the scriptural view of what the Church received on the day of Pentecost, it follows, of course, that Joel's pro

phecy received on the day of Pentecost all the fulfilment which it will ever receive. But this leaves room for the development of the blessing, as respects the measure of it enjoyed at any particular time or place, through all the successive ages of the Church. The Spirit is ever in Christ's hand, and by Christ in every instance directly conferred. In this sense it is said to be poured out' at every time when it is received; but all such outpourings of the Spirit are subordinate to, and but so many manifestations of, the glories of the Pentecostal day. They each and all hold of that day, when the Spirit came first from the hands of the risen Saviour in contact with the Church. Instead of being but an inchoate effusion, that was the primary, allcommanding effusion, from which every subsequent effusion takes its character and its starting-point. And as we have ample room, on this view of Joel's prophecy, for its running in through all time, till the whole endowment becomes matter of actual experience by all for whom it was designed-if such a time shall ever ‚—so have we room for all the particular measures in which a Sovereign Lord may see good to grant it in any given time or circumstances. We know from the history of the Church that there have been times when her fleece was lamentably dry, and times also when her root was spread out by the waters, and the dew lay all night upon her branch. And from what has been, we may naturally conjecture what shall be. But we are not left to conjecture,- When the (Antichristian)

come,

6

enemy cometh in like a flood,' we are expressly told, 'the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him ;'* and in the very next breath, the conversion of Israel is predicted (v. 20), so that remarkable event is in another prophecy announced as a result of a special effusion of the Spirit upon them.† And we have already seen that, until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high,' all will be a wilderness,-after that, like the garden of the Lord. And, once more, after ‡ Israel's conversion, the Spirit, whose copious effusions brought them to Christ, is to remain with them through all the generations of their existence. § Here, then, are several distinct and specific effusions of the Spirit, each of them signal and glorious, whether we consider the measure of it apparently denoted or the result of it. All this we are free to look for within the limits of that Pentecostal effusion, which was the formal donation of the Spirit for all time, and the generic fulfilment of Joel's prophecy."||

All future effusions of the Holy Spirit-all the grace exhibited in the conversion of Jews and Gentiles -the progressive and ultimate triumphs of the Gospel and Kingdom of Christ, at whatever time or degree enjoyed, are to be regarded as so many manifestations and developments of God's purposes of mercy to be

* Isa. lix. 19.

† Zech. xii. 10; xiii. 1. Isa. xxxii. 15.

§ Isa. lix. 21; Heb. viii. 10.

|| Dr. Brown on "Second Advent."

accomplished under the one final dispensation of the Gospel, introduced by the manifestation of Christ in the flesh, and inaugurated by his ascension to heaven and the effusion of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, which has been well called "the permanent dowry of the Church of Christ." All those glorious events, predicted by Old and New Testament prophecy, are but successive manifestations and fulfilments of this last dispensation of God's mercy, which is running on to the end of time, and will issue in the unclouded and undecaying glories of that eternal state, when, according to the glowing vision of the Apocalyptic Seer, "the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it; for the Lord God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof." *

The Gospel, as "the ministration of the Spirit," is the great means ordained by God for the renovation of our fallen world. The Church, with its various appliances, is the living witness of God's purposes of mercy to the world, and the instrumentality of their accomplishment. Nothing essential to the Christian Church or its efficiency was left to "the will of man,” to chance, or circumstances, any more than in the Jewish Church. In the Jewish Church the Divine command to Moses was, "Look that thou make all things after their pattern, which was shewed thee in the mount." According to this Divine model the Jewish Church was founded; and this was developed in its + Exod. xxv. 40.

* Rev. xxi. 23.

peculiar laws—in the facts of Jewish history-in types, prophecies, promises, and the teachings of the Prophets; and in the degree of their conformity or nonconformity to this Divine "pattern," the Jewish Church flourished or decayed. So also is it with regard to the Christian Church. Its Divine type or pattern was exhibited, and its foundations deeply laid, in the ministry and work of the incarnate Redeemer— in the facts of Christianity recorded by the Evangelists -and in the doctrines preached by the Apostles. It is according to the degree of conformity or nonconformity to this primitive and Divine model of Christianity, real religion in the world has, and will, prosper or decline. It follows from this, that a clear understanding, and a deep conviction of the truth and import of the fundamental facts recorded in the Gospel narrative, should be sought for, that we may know "the certainty of those things," which the Gospel requires us to believe, and which is the high office of the Church to witness to the world. This will explain why, in the former part of this work, the fundamental facts of Christianity are so prominently adduced and insisted on.

As in the corruptions, the divisions, the worldliness, and decay of real religion which prevailed for many ages in the Church, we see the awful consequences of departure from primitive and apostolic Christianity; so, in the revival and return of the Church to primitive Christianity, we have the only sure ground of hope of the ultimate triumphs of the Gospel over abounding