to be inferior to Him who is, in the highest sense of the term, an Omnipotent Spirit. Thus the blessed Jesus said: "My Father is greater than I ;" and yet, of Christ it is also declared: "IN HIM dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." Hence the Divine attributes of the Father, were manifested in and by the Son; and particularly that of Omniscience, which was no faculty even of his Divinely descended human nature; and which He accordingly disclaimed, in reference to that nature, when, speaking of the times and seasons which the Father had put in His own power, He said: "But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father." Yet when our Lord was exemplifying the Divine attribute of Omniscience, by virtue of his spiritual union with the Father of Spirits, as in the case of Nathaniel, and when obtaining from Him that appropriate acknowledgment: "Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God-Thou art the King of Israel ;"* we may

* Though no other instance than this of Nathaniel is here adduced, in proof of the Omniscience so unequivocally displayed in the Divine character of the Saviour, while it is confessedly disclaimed in his purely human capacity or personal commission;

observe that Christ denied not the ground of this acknowledgment, which was the conviction of his possessing Omniscience; but pronounced Nathaniel "an Israelite indeed;" because he was so truly prepared to receive the impression of Divine Truth, on the comparatively slender intimation of it then afforded him, as to be a fit subject for the subsequent promise: "Thou shalt see greater things than these."

But insufficient as are all human attempts to explain that high mystery of the Divine nature, according to which Three are properly and inseparably One; and One is essentially comprehensive of Three distinct objects of our faith; it may be allowable to refer to a comparison, sanctioned in many instances by Scripture authority, whereby this truth admits of some illustration. "The glorious Lord" is designated as "a place of broad rivers and streams"-"the Fountain of Living Waters;" and water is an emblem employed, both in the Old and in the New Testaments, in

yet a succession of the most impressive instances may be seen in Thomas Scott's Annotations on the Old and New Testament, and also in a forcible and more concentrated point of view, in J. J. Gurney's Essays.

language and practice, as most fitly symbolical of the operations of the Holy Spirt. Let us then consider the relation of a mighty and conspicuous Fountain, to that hidden, that unfathomable Source from whence it springs; consider the issues from that Fountain into various streams and channels, and the relation of each of them to the Fountain and its Source; are not the substance, the properties, the virtues of the water one and the same, whether considered in the profound Abyss, in the refulgent Fountain, or in its fertilizing rivers and streams; and is not the water obtained from either, equally derived from each? and is not the union of one with the other indivisible and indissoluble?

Yet something may be affirmed of the Abyss, which cannot be said of the Fountain, even that the former is invisible and inaccessible. And something also may be said of the Fountain, which cannot of the streams, even that the Fountain is unparalled in visible exaltation and magnificence, whether discerned through an appropriate transparent medium, or perceived in its original splendour; while, of the streams it may be predicated, that, though wholly derived

of the same substance, they are nevertheless liable to expansion and contraction, according to the channels prepared for their reception; although of the same essential nature, with that which is unfathomable, immeasurable, and inconceivable.

Whether we admit this illustration of the foregoing doctrine, as justly elucidatory of the position which may have appeared to the superficial enquirer, to contain a contradiction in terms; or whether we simply receive this mysterious doctrine, in that Scriptural authority, which will increasingly establish itself on due investigation, under an humble dependence on Divine illumination, those only can rightly receive it, to whom, from their willing acquiescence to believe, the following benediction of the apostle appears to be equally applicable in all its parts: "The Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all. Amen."

Lecture XIX.

ON REVELATION AND INSPIRATION.

The gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit may be divided into common and special, or ordinary and extraordinary. The first are those which are common, in some degree, to all believers; being the spontaneous productions of the Spirit, which when cultivated and matured become its fruits. These are primarily a capacity of believing, that is of discerning and embracing spiritual truths, whether experimental, doctrinal, or practical. By experimental are to be understood those which being received by experience, are found to call forth the spiritual affections, as love, joy, peace, which are the ripened fruits of the Spirit; but which in their germ may be no less truly denominated, conviction, contrition, humiliation, repentance, and conversion.

Doctrinal truths are those which may be