BibleWare/BibWare.bin/bibref/wesley/serm_141.txt

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John Wesley excerpting John Gambold


SERMON 141


[text from the 1872 edition]


ON THE HOLY SPIRIT

^Preached at St. Mary's, Oxford, on Whitsunday~, 1736. "Now the Lord
is that Spirit." 2 Cor. 3:17.

The Apostle had been showing how the gospel ministry was superior
to that of the law: The time being now come when types and shadows
should be laid aside, and we should be invited to our duty by the
manly and ingenuous motives of a clear and full revelation, open
and free on God's part, and not at all disguised by his ambassadors.
But what he chiefly insists upon is, not the manner, but the subject
of their ministry: "Who hath made us able ministers," saith he, "of
the New Testament: Not of the letter, but of the Spirit: For the
letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life." Here lies the great
difference between the two dispensations: That the law was indeed
spiritual in its demands, requiring a life consecrated to God in
the observance of many rules; but, not conveying spiritual assistance,
its effect was only to kill and mortify man, by giving him to understand,
that he must needs be in a state of great depravity, since he found
it so difficult to obey God; and that, as particular deaths were
by that institution inflicted for particular sins, so death, in general,
was but the consequence of his universal sinfulness. But the ministration
of the New Testament was that of a "Spirit which giveth life;" --
a Spirit, not only promi~sed, but actually conferred; which should
both enable Christians now to live unto God, and fulfil precepts
even more spiritual than the former; and restore them hereafter to
perfect life, after the ruins of sin and death. The incarnation,
preaching, and death of Jesus Christ were designed to represent,
proclaim, and purchase for us this gift of the Spirit; and therefore
says the Apostle, "The Lord is that Spirit," or the Spirit.

This description of Christ was a proper inducement to Jews to believe
on him; and it is still a necessary instruction to Christians, to
regulate their expectations from him. But [we] think this age has
made it particularly necessary to be well assured what Christ is
to us: When that question is so differently resolved by the pious
but weak accounts of some pretenders to faith on one hand, and by
the clearer, but not perfectly Christian, accounts of some pretenders
to reason on the other: While some derive from him a "righteousness
of God," but in a sense somewhat improper and figurative; and others
no more than a charter of pardon, and a system of morality: While
some so interpret the gospel, as to place the holiness they are to
be saved by in something divine, hut exterior to themselves; and
others, so as to place it in things really within themselves, but
not more than human. Now, the proper cure of what indistinctness
there is one way, and what infidelity in the other, seems to be contained
in the doctrine of my text: "The Lord is that Spirit."

In treating of which words, I will consider,

I. The nature of our fall in Adam; by which it will appear, that
if "the Lord" were not "that Spirit," he could not be said to save
or redeem us from our fallen condition.

II. I will consider the person of Jesus Christ; by which it will
appear that "the Lord is that Spirit." And,

III. I will inquire into the nature and operations of the Holy Spirit,
as bestowed upon Christians.

I. I am to consider the nature of our fall in Adam.

Our first parents did enjoy the presence of the Holy Spirit; for
they were created in the image and likeness of God, which was no
other than his Spirit. By that he communicates himself to his creatures,
and by that alone they can bear any likeness to him. It is, indeed,
his life in them; and so properly divine, that, upon this ground,
angels and regenerate men are called his children.

But when man would not be guided by the Holy Spirit, it left him.
When be would be wise in his own way, and in his own strength, and
did not depend in simplicity upon his heavenly Father, the seed of
a superior life was recalled from him. For he was no longer fit to
be formed into a heavenly condition, when he had so unworthy a longing
for, or rather dependence upon, an earthly fruit, which he knew God
would not bless to him; no longer fit to receive supernatural succours,
when he could not be content with his happy state towards God, without
an over-curious examination into it.

Then he found himself forsaken of God, and left to the poverty, weakness,
and misery of his own proper nature. He was now a mere animal, like
unto other creatures made of flesh and bloo~d, but only possessed
of a larger understanding; by means of which he should either be
led into greater absurdities than they could be guilty of, or else
be made sensible of his lost happiness, and put into the right course
for regaining it; that is, if he continued a careless apostate, he
should love and admire the goods of this world, the adequate happiness
only of animals; and, to recommend them and dissemble their defects,
add all the ornament to them that his superior wit could invent.
Or else (which is indeed more above brutes, but no nearer the perfection
of man as a partaker of God, than the other) he should frame a new
world to himself in theory; sometimes by warm imaginations, and sometimes
by cool reasonings, endeavour to aggrandize his condition and defend
his practice, or at least divert himself from feeling his own meanness
and disorder.

If, on the other hand, he should be willing to find out the miseries
of his fall, his understanding might furnish him with reasons for
constant mourning, for despising and denying himself; might point
out the sad effects of turning away from God and losing his Spirit,
in the shame and anguish of a nature at variance with itself; thirsting
after immortality, and yet subject to death; approving righteousness,
and yet taking pleasure in things inconsistent with it; feeling an
immense want of something to perfect and satisfy all it~ faculties,
and yet neither able to know what that mighty thing is, otherwise
than from its present defects, nor how to attain it, otherwise than
by going contrary to its present inclinations.

Well might Adam now find himself naked; nothing less than God was
departed from him. Till then he had experienced nothing but the goodness
and sweetness of God; a heavenly life spread itself through his whole
frame, as if he were not made of dust; his mind was filled with angelic
wisdom; a direction from above took him by the hand; he walked and
thought uprightly, and seemed not to be a child or novice in divine
things. But now he had other things to experience; something in his
soul that he did not find, nor need to fear, while he was carried
on straight forward by the gentle gale of divine grace; something
in his body that he could not see nor complain of; while that body
was covered with glory. He feels there a self-displeasure, turbulence,
and confusion; such as is common to other spirits who have lost God:
He sees here causes of present shame and a future dissolution; and
a strong engagement to that grovelling life which is common to animals
that never enjoyed the divine nature.

The general character, therefore, of man's present state is death,
-- a death from God, whereby we no longer enjoy any intercourse with
him, or happiness in him; we no longer shine with his glory, or act
with his powers. It is true, while we have a being, "in him we must
live, and move, and have our being;" but this we do now, not in a
filial way, but only in a servile one, as all, even the meanest creatures,
exist in him. It is one thing to receive from God an ability to walk
and speak, eat and digest,--to be supported by his hand as a part
of this earthly creation, and upon the same terms with it, for farther
trial or vengeance; and another, to receive from him a life which
is his own likeness,--to have within us something which is not
of this