General adjuncts or properties of the office of a comforter, as exercised by the Holy Spirit.
To evidence yet farther the nature of this office and work, we may consider and inquire into the general adjuncts of it, as exercised by the Holy Spirit; and they are four:—
First, Infinite condescension. This is among those mysteries of the divine dispensation which we may admire but cannot comprehend; and it is the property of faith alone to act and live upon incomprehensible objects. What reason cannot comprehend it will neglect, as that which it hath no concernment in nor can have benefit by. Faith is most satisfied and cherished with what is infinite and inconceivable, as resting absolutely in divine revelation. Such is this condescension of the Holy Ghost. He is by nature “over all, God blessed for ever;” and it is a condescension in the divine excellency to concern itself in a particular manner in any creature whatever. God “humbleth himself to behold the things that are in heaven, and in the earth,” Ps. cxiii. 5, 6; how much more doth he do so in submitting himself unto the discharge of an office in the behalf of poor worms here below!
This, I confess, is most astonishing, and attended with the most incomprehensible rays of divine wisdom and goodness in the condescension of the Son; for he carried the term of it unto the lowest and most abject condition that a rational, intelligent nature is capable of. So is it represented by the apostle, Phil. ii. 6–8: for he not only took our nature into personal union with himself, but became in it, in his outward condition, as a servant, yea, as a worm and no man, a reproach of men, and despised of the people; and became subject to death, the ignominious, shameful death of the cross. Hence this dispensation of God was filled up with infinite wisdom, goodness, and grace. How this exinanition of the Son of God was compensated with the glory that did ensue, we shall rejoice in the contemplation of unto all eternity. And then shall the character of all divine excellencies be more gloriously conspicuous on this condescension of the Son of God than ever they were on the works of the whole creation, when this goodly fabric of heaven and earth was brought, by divine power and wisdom, through darkness and confusion, out of nothing.
The condescension of the Holy Spirit unto his work and office is not, indeed, of the same kind, as to the “terminus ad quem,” or the object of it. He assumes not our nature, he exposeth not himself unto the injuries of an outward state and condition; but yet it is such as is more to be the object of our faith in adoration than of our reason in disquisition. Consider the thing in itself: how one person in the holy Trinity, subsisting in the unity of the same divine nature, should undertake to execute the love and grace of the other persons, and in their names, — what do we understand of it? This holy economy, in the distinct and subordinate actings of the divine persons in these external works, is known only unto, is understood only by, themselves. Our wisdom it is to acquiesce in express divine revelation. Nor have they scarcely more dangerously erred by whom these things are denied, than those have done who, by a proud and conceited subtilty of mind, pretend unto a conception of them, which they express in words and terms, as they say, “precise and accurate;” indeed, foolish and curious, whether of other men’s coining or their own finding out. Faith keeps the soul at a holy distance from these infinite depths of the divine wisdom, where it profits more by reverence and holy fear than any can do by their utmost attempt to draw nigh unto that inaccessible light wherein these glories of the divine nature do dwell.
But we may more steadily consider this condescension with respect unto its object: the Holy Spirit thereby becomes a comforter unto us, poor, miserable worms of the earth. And what heart can conceive the glory of this grace? what tongue can express it? Especially will its eminency appear if we consider the ways and means whereby he doth so comfort us, and the opposition from us which he meets withal therein; whereof we must treat afterward.
Secondly, Unspeakable love accompanieth the susception and discharge of this office, and that working by tenderness and compassion. The Holy Spirit is said to be the divine, eternal, mutual love of the Father and the Son. And although I know that much wariness is to be used in the declaration of these mysteries, nor are expressions concerning them to be ventured on not warranted by the letter of the Scripture, yet I judge that this notion doth excellently express, if not the distinct manner of subsistence, yet the mutual, internal operation of the persons of the blessed Trinity; for we have no term for, nor notion of, that ineffable complacence and eternal rest which is therein beyond this of love. Hence it is said that “God is love,” 1 John iv. 8, 16. It doth not seem to be an essential property of the nature of God only that the apostle doth intend, for it is proposed unto us as a motive unto mutual love among ourselves, and this consists not simply in the habit or affection of love, but in the actings of it in all its fruits and duties: for so is God love, as that the internal actings of the holy persons, which are in and by the Spirit, are all the ineffable actings of love, wherein the nature of the Holy Spirit is expressed unto us. The apostle prays for the presence of the Spirit with the Corinthians under the name of the “God of love and peace,” 2 Epist. xiii. 11. And the communication of the whole love of God unto us is committed unto the Spirit; for “the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us,” Rom. v. 5. And hence the same apostle distinctly mentioneth the love of the Spirit, conjoining it with all the effects of the mediation of Christ: chap. xv. 30, “I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, and for the love of the Spirit;” — “I do so on the account of the respect you have unto Christ, and all that he hath done for you; which is a motive irresistible unto believers. I do it also for the love of the Spirit; all that love which he acts and communicates unto you.” Wherefore, in all the actings of the Holy Ghost towards us, and especially in this of his susception of an office in the behalf of the church, which is the foundation of them all, his love is principally to be considered, and that he chooseth this way of acting and working towards us to express his peculiar, personal character, as he is the eternal love of the Father and the Son And among all his actings towards us, which are all acts of love, this is most conspicuous in those wherein he is a comforter.