common readiness; and that readiness will be
effected in us only by the same means,--if now, before it come, Christ
and Christ's Spirit shall, in our homes and daily callings, be persuaded
to visit us.

LECTURE XXVI.

* * * * *

WHITSUNDAY.

* * * * *

ACTS xix. 2.

_Have you received the Holy Ghost since ye believed_?

It appears, by what follows these words, that the question here related
especially to those gifts of the Holy Ghost which were given, in the
first age of the church, as a sign of God's power, and a witness that
the work of the gospel was from God. Yet although this be so, and
therefore the words, in this particular sense, cannot to any good
purpose be asked now; yet there is another sense, and that not a lower
but a far higher one, in which we may ask them, and in which it concerns
us in the highest degree, what sort of answer we can give to them, I
say, "what sort of answer;" for I think it is true of all Christians
that, in a certain measure, they have received the Holy Ghost. Not only
does the doctrine of our own, and I believe every other, church,
concerning baptism, show this: but it seems also necessarily to follow,
from those words of St. Paul, that "No man can say that Jesus is the
Lord but by the Holy Ghost." And yet the Scripture and common experience
alike show us, that a man may call Jesus Lord, and yet not be really
his, nor one who will be owned by Him at the last day. So that what is
of real importance to us is, the degree of fulness and force with which
we could give the answer to the words of the text; not simply saying
that we have received the Holy Ghost, which would be true, but might be
far from sufficient; but saying that we have received Him and are
receiving Him more and more, so that our hearts and lives are showing
the impression of his heavenly seal daily more and more clearly and
completely.

And this must really have always been the answer which it concerned
every Christian to be able to make; although it has been in various
instances, and by very opposite parties, tried to be evaded. It is
evaded alike by those who set too highly the grace given in baptism, and
by those who, setting this too low, direct our attention to another
point in a man's life, which they call his justification or conversion.
For both alike would give an exaggerated importance to one particular
moment of our lives, and to