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IV. THE SEALING OF THE SPIRIT.

"In whom ye also;" the word trusted is supplied by Beza, our translators, and others, and this makes good sense, and gives the spirit of the passage. Myer supplies the substantive verb, and reads, “In whom ye are," building upon all the passages in which the believers are said to be in Christ. He stands alone in this, so far as I know. Very many translators supply the words from the 11th verse, and read thus-“In whom ye also have obtained an inheritance." I believe all such additions are unnecessary, and that the second "In whom" (which can never, after the manner of the Hebrew, mean "inasmuch as," as Morus thought) is a repetition of the first, to make the meaning clearer after the first member of the sentence had been given. The whole sentence runs thus" In whom ye also, after that you heard the word of truth, the Gospel of your salvation (I say), in whom also, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise." The second "in whom," like the first, refers to 'Christ, in whom the Jewish Christians first trusted (v. 12). But leaving these small points of criticism (their name is legion), let us attend to the substance of the apostolic utterance.

1st. The names which the apostle gives the Gospel are important. It is the Gospel of "your salvation;" because it is the only means revealed to man of escaping the wrath to come; it is also called "the word of truth,' because all its statements, promises, and prophecies are true and faithful-like God, its author. A great man has said a great truth in saying, "It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without mixture of error, for its contents." It is the "power of God" unto salvation to every one that believeth (Rom. i.-16), and

none that rested upon' its promises were ever put to shame. Salvation and truth are necessarily connected together in the mind of the apostle, and we should never seek to dissever them. Error can never sanctify us or fit us for meeting God. The prayer of our heavenly Master is, "Sanctify them by Thy truth, Thy word is truth." His own name, like that of His Gospel, is "the Truth;" and the enemy, whose works He came to destroy, is "the Liar from the beginning who abode not in the truth." Stand fast then for the truth, as your fathers did, and for which, too, some of them died at the stake. They held by the Gospel, and rejected the superstitious additions and commandments of men. Do you the same. There is an infidelity which rejects all, and there is a superstition that swallows down all-reject them both, and hold by the Bible as your fathers did.

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2nd. The first duty on hearing the Gospel is faith, and until this is established no future blessing can be expected. This is necessary; not because the giving of the gifts is connected with faith, but because the receiving them is. The fountain may be opened for us in the wilderness, but we may neither feel our need of it, nor believe that it is there; we may refuse to look though the serpent be lifted up. Faith is the organ which connects us with God and Christ and the realities of eternity. Till faith comes, the Gospel is a dead letter, a theory merely. Its heat does not warm us, its light does not shine into our hearts, its voice of mercy falls on a cold ear. The Ephesians believed the Gospel when they heard it—viz., a few scattered, despised people in the great city of Ephesus did so; for the multitudes of that luxurious capital were too bent on the pleasures of the world to think of Calvary, or the forgiveness of sins, or the resurrection of the dead and judgment to come. The carnal mind was and is enmity against God; and

if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. These are terrible sayings, though men heed them but little. When faith comes it alters all things. It places us in a new and entirely different position. A new scene of surpassing beauty begins to dawn when the spirit is in the semi-slumber of awakening consciousness; it discerns, indistinctly it may be-like Paul, when smitten to the earth near Damascus-in the luminous future the form of the Son of Man, so tender, so loving still as when He died; new and fresh hopes bud and fructify in the soul, as we apprehend more and more clearly the nature of the Gospel, and faith, strengthened and enlarged by exercise, becomes the dominant principle of our lives. We live by faith. The life that comes from the smitten rock flows into us and returns again to its source in the forms of thanksgivings and praise. Jesus is now the home of our hearts; all our affections centre naturally in Him. The seeds of life are sown in our hearts, and the office of the Comforter is to water and fructify them. Heaven is begun; and the first principles of the kingdom of God are established within us. Now we have an anchor to hold by in the storms; we have a great, noble end in view, and all things are subsidiary to it. Joy and sorrow, wealth and poverty, the changes of fortune, life and death, are mere accidents which our Master, for our good, dispenses as He pleases; but the living principle which animates our entire life is, that whether absent or present, we may be accepted of Him (2 Cor. v. 9).

3rd. Let us now contemplate the sealing, which comes before us in these words: "After that ye believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise." The progress of the Divine purpose in the soul is the following—the election, the hearing of the Word, faith, baptism, and finally, the sealing of the Spirit (Acts ii. 37-39, viii.

12, 15, 17, xix. 5-7; comp. Titus iii. 5, Gal. iii. 2). The only example of the sealing of the Spirit before baptism is Acts x. 44, and is given, probably, to show that God is not bound to ordinances, but works when and where and in whom He pleases. The Holy Spirit works indeed in giving faith (Acts xvi. 14); yet this gracious operation is only preliminary and subsidiary to the sealing. This, in the apostolic times, was often accompanied with signs and wonders and the gift of tongues, as we see in the Acts of the Apostles ii. 4, viii. 15, xix. 5, 6. I do not say that these signs are necessary at all times to the sealing of the Spirit; for they ceased since the apostolic age, and even then, the inward fruits of righteousness, the love of God and the Saviour, which the Spirit works in the heart-the righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghostwere the real sealing, and much more important essentially than the power to cast out devils, raise the dead, or speak with tongues. We may say, in general, love is nobler than power-the permanent fruit of the Spirit in the Church-a nobler seal than the manifestations of Sinai, or the miracles of the primitive Church. But, what is this seal? It is a signet or a signet ring used by kings and others, for various important ends, some of which we shall now mention. (1.) The seal was attached to letters to give them the royal authority; and so the Church is the epistle of Christ, known and read of all men (2 Cor. iii. 3). The gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit are the seal of God upon this epistle of His mercy, where the nations of the world and the angels of heaven may read His manifold wisdom (Ephes. iii. 10). (2.) The seal is used to secure the possession of property (Rom. xv. 28), and to show that it belongs to a particular master and no other. It has His seal. Jesus Christ has purchased His people with His own precious

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blood, and the sealing of the Spirit is the mark that they belong to Him. They are safe; for they are sealed with His seal, and they shall never perish, nor shall any pluck them out of His hand. (3.) As the seal is the conclusion of the letter or the agreement, so it signifies often the last, the end, the perfection; thus the Moslems call Mohammed the seal of the prophets, viz., the last and most glorious of them. In this respect also the sealing of the Spirit is full of meaning. He is the last of the heavenly witnesses, and to blaspheme Him is certain destruction. The Father has manifested His love to us in the gift of His Son; on the cross, in the great atonement, the Son has manifested His love and grace to the children of men. If we reject this double testimony of grace, there is still another voice to call us to God, even the Holy Spirit, who, in the Divine economy, comes after the Son as the last and ever-abiding Comforter of the Church. He is the last great gift of God, the seal of the Living God upon the vessels fitted for the Master's use. What the Father originates and the Son carries on, the Holy Spirit perfects. The Father elects, the Son redeems, the Holy Spirit sanctifies, seals, and glorifies the Church-see Ezek. xxviii. 12 (Dan. ix. 2, in Heb.) These may be taken as illustrating the work of the Spirit in sealing us unto the day of redemption. The text plainly teaches that the sealing is something different from the Spirit's work in producing faith; for, it is said, "After that ye believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise." We see the sealing of the Spirit, therefore, in the growth of the divine life in the soul, in the ripening of the fruits of righteousness, in the full assurance of faith and the growing conformity to the image of God. There are various steps or degrees in the inner kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. We hear the Word, which is the

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