The Comforter.

I.

The Ministration of the Spirit.

A FAVOURITE and instructive line of teaching in the New Testament Scriptures is that of allusive contrast. The New Testament economy shows us the lustre of the Old, and the Old finds its complement in the clear and beautiful expositions of the New.

It is in this strain that St. Paul refers, in the following words, to the old dispensation:-"But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away: how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be rather glorious? For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. For even that which was made

glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth."-2 Cor. iii. 7-10.

The Apostle argues that the Levitical dispensation was "glorious." It was so: it was given on Sinai, amid great pomp and unearthly splendor. On the mount the very face of Moses shone with glory, from its contact with the presence of Deity. The ministration of the Spirit, that is, the evangelical economy, is yet more so. The first was the ministration of death"The soul that sinneth, it shall die;" the second is the communication of life. The one presented a rigid and inflexible law-the other imparts a plastic and transforming principle; the first was engraven on stonethe last on the living tablets of the heart. The ministration of the law was essentially transitory; its lightnings are now laid, its thunders lulled, its tables broken, and its whole structure and economy dissolved: but the ministration of the Spirit is to stretch into everlasting ages, to add to the brightness of heaven, and to give tone and colouring to the thoughts and praises of the redeemed throughout eternity.

But the ministration of the Spirit is not placed in antagonism to the ministration of the law, as if the one were contrary to the other. They are not so. On the contrary, the one is the complement of the other: the first is the bud, and the last is the full blossom; the one is a series of types—the other, of truths; the one presents us with the patriarch at his altar, the Jew in his temple, and the priest in his holy place—the other gives us the preacher in his pulpit, the hearer in his pew, and the great High Priest, who has passed into the heavens. External rites have passed away, like clouds from the sky, but eternal truths, struck into the

The altars of

heart, remain, like the stars, for ever. Judaism have been abandoned, its victims have ceased to bleed, and instead the IIoly Spirit now preaches and points to the great oblation made once for all for the sins of mankind. Moses is no longer read in the synagogue, but Christ is preached in the church; the priest no longer burns incense within the veil, but the Redeemer intercedes in heaven; Sinai emits no more thunders, but the "still small voice" is yet audible to the people of God; the lightnings that flash despair are no more seen, but "the light of God's countenance" is still "lifted up" upon his saints. In short, there has been progress in God's revelation of his will— that progress which is visible in creation. Is not the earth a vast laboratory? are not islands emerging from the deep? are not new shapes and forms of crystallization taking place? do not all things work upward towards perfection? So Revelation has been progressive from its dawn to its nearing noon.

It is not, however, meant to be alleged, that the Holy Spirit was not in the former dispensation. It was true in the days of Abraham, just as it is true now "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." There was never but one church, and there never was but one way of turning sinners into saints; there never was but one spring of life, one element of victory, one source of sanctification the Holy Spirit of God.

Wherein, it may be asked, then, was the difference? We answer, it was in degree, not in kind. There is "first the blade, then the ear, and then the full corn;" the spring leaps from the hill-side, and swells into the river, that bears on its bosom the navy of the empire,

and the treasures of the earth. And these are but the just illustrations of the progress of the kingdom of Christ, from Adam to Noah, from Noah to Moses, from Moses to Paul, and from Paul to Luther. The one dispensation was the grub in its chrysalis state the other the beautiful butterfly, unfurling its wings, and sailing in the air, a thing of life. We have far greater light, more glorious privileges, more inspiring hopes; the glory of the dispensation of the Spirit is as much superior to that of the dispensation of the law, as is the glory of that city that hath no need of the sun nor of the moon, to that of the earthly Canaan; and if there be no nobler nor more illustrious specimens of Christianity now than of old, it is our sin and our shame, and nothing else.

The superiority of our dispensation to the previous one will be seen in such points of view as the following. We have, in the Gospel dispensation, views of God far more beautiful, consolatory, and clear. In the dispensation of the law the Father was clouded with the awful drapery of the Judge; his very presence shook the earth, and made even Moses tremble; the flaming sword of the cherubim needed to be passed under, before the hungry could eat of the tree of life. But in the evangelical dispensation "God is in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing to men their trespasses❞—and "the Spirit of adoption," which we receive, helps us. to see, and to say-"Abba, Father." It is written upon its very lintels and doorposts, as its great central truth "God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."