HOMILETICS :-These verses bring under our notice the Divine Spirit in relation to the redemptive dispensation. Observe :

I. His ADVENT into the world in connection with this dispensation. This Divine agent here called "Comforter" or Advocate, the "Spirit of truth" had always been in the world. He had been working in its material department. He brought this bright and lovely world out of chaos. He spread out the heavens, poured out the oceans, and piled up the hills. He had

He

been working in its mental department, teaching men how to build houses, cultivate lands, and establish order, live holy and noble lives. He strove with the antedeluvians, He worked in bad men, in Balaam, Cyrus, Saul, &c., stimulated them to good actions. He inspired patriarchs and prophets to noble deeds and sublime utterances, but now in connection with this redemptive dispensation He comes because Christ had finished His work, left the earth, and ascended to heaven. came to work upon humanity through the biography of Christ, to press that biography in all its sublimest significance and quickening forces on the souls of men. The Gospel was a new organ through which this Divine agent was to work in the world. He came on the day of Pentecost through this gospel and worked wonders, and has been working in the world ever since: so that the Gospel comes to the world now not in word only but with much assurance, and with the power of the Holy Ghost.

Observe:

II. His MINISTRY in the world in connection with this dispensation. First: His ministry is that of moral conviction. "To convince the world of sin." Though the world is well acquainted with sin, for its hideous form and terrible results are everywhere, it has no deep conviction of it, and a conviction of its terrible enormity is the first step to its abandonment, the first impetus to an effective struggle for the true, the beautiful, and the good. "Of righteousness." Christ's righteousThe righteousness which rung in His every word, shone in His every look, beamed and bounded in every act of His life, was the righteousness of which the world required the deepest and strongest conviction. It

ness.

required this in order to see the ghastly heinousness of sin, and the grand ideal which it should endeavour with intense earnestness and perseverance to attain. "Of judgment"-retribution. The world required a conviction of this, that men have not done with deeds as they perform them, but that those deeds by an eternal law bring after them momentous consequences. "Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.' Such are the convictions which the Divine Spirit through the Gospel has to burn into the souls of living men. Secondly: His ministry is that of spiritual guidance. "He will guide you unto all truth." The world lives in the realm of shadows, dreams, fictions, unrealities, it walks in a vain show. The work of the Spirit is to take it into the universe of eternal realities, and especially to bring out those vital truths which Christ had to communicate, but which His disciples at present were incapable of receiving. "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them yet." An expression this which indicates (1) That Christ's disciples are not ignorant for lack of knowledge in their Teacher. He “has many things to say." Ah, how many! A universe to communicate. (2) That Christ's disciples are ignorant because of their incapacity to receive. "Ye cannot bear them yet." A man's capacity to receive knowledge depends upon his attainments, the lower those the less capable; the higher, the more. Hence the duty to study. The deeper the cavity in the earth the more water the clouds can pour into it.

Thirdly. His ministry is that of Christ-glorifying. "He shall glorify Me." How will He glorify Christ? Here is the answer. "He shall receive of Mine, and shall show it unto you." To reveal Christ is to glorify Him,

to take of the things of an inglorious and a degraded being, would be to bring him into contempt. But to take of the things of a Being who is Himself glorious and reveal them is to glorify Him. The sun is glorified by the rays that it pours out on the rolling orbs that reflect its brightness, and Christ is glorified by having Himself revealed.

CONCLUSION.-Such, then, is the advent and mission of this divine agent. Has this divine agent come to us through the Gospel, producing convictions, guiding into all the truth, and glorifying Christ, revealing Him to our inmost souls? * Has He given permanent impressions of Christ's glory to us? We are told that the inventor of photography found at first a great difficulty in fixing his sun pictures. The solar beams came and gave the image, but when the tablet was drawn from the camera the image had vanished. What he wanted was, that which has since been obtained—a fixing solution to arrest and retain the fugitive impressions. This is what we want with the impressions that Divine truth makes upon the soul, and this is the work of the Spirit. He forms Christ in the heart, the Hope of Glory.

Flow down, Thou stream of Life Divine,
Thy quick'ning truths deliver,

Oh, flow throughout the soul of mine
For ever and for ever.

Among the best authors to be consulted on this subject we would mention Archdeacon Hare in his "Mission of the Comforter,' also Rev. H. W. Watkins, M.A., Professor of Theology at King's College, London, in his commentary on the Gospel of John, edited by Dr. Ellicott. Also F. D. Maurice in loco.

95

Sermonic Saplings.

OUTLINES ON GIDEON.

VI.-The Man at His Worst.

"AND JERUBBAAL THE SON OF JOASH WENT AND DWELT IN HIS OWN HOUSE.' Judges viii. 29 and 35.

M

JAN is a strange mixture of greatness and of littleness, of goodness and of badness. The one lies very close to the other.

Sometimes when the animal triumphs over a man, he is disposed to say he has no goodness. But look to ourselves. What depravity we have to mourn, and yet we feel in ourselves the stirrings of a noble life. Candid self-examination is the way to beget charity towards others. We have seen Gideon in his greatness, let us now consider him in his littleness.

I. Gideon at his worst morally.

Biblical saints are

not made more than human. Their virtues are described that we may imitate them. Their vices depicted that we may avoid. There are advantages in reading biographies other than those in the Bible, but also disadvantages. Sometimes they depress. The characters too perfect, inhumanly perfect. You ask for some sign that they belonged to the great brotherhood of humanity. But every true soul studying the lives of Bible great ones must feel, here is something to make me a greater and a nobler man. Gideon not without his failings, many wives, and even concubines. Remember the degenerate times in which