Person. We have to go back to the old creed--'I believe in
God the Father Almighty ... and in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord
... I believe in the Holy Ghost.'

But further, this same revelation carries with it another, and to some
of us a startling thought. 'Grieve not the Holy Spirit': that Divine
Person is capable of grief. I do not believe that is rhetorical
exaggeration. Of course I know that we should think of God as the
ever-blessed God, but we also in these last days begin to think more
boldly, and I believe more truly, that if man is in the image of God,
and there is a divine element in humanity, there must be a human element
in divinity. And though I know that it is perilous to make affirmations
about a matter so far beyond our possibility of verification by
experience, I venture to think that perhaps the doctrine that God is
lifted up high above all human weaknesses and emotions does not mean
that there can be no shadow cast on the divine blessedness by the dark
substance of human sin. I do not venture to assert: I only suggest; and
this I know, that He who said to us, 'He that hath seen Me hath seen the
Father,' had His eyes filled with tears, even in His hour of triumph, as
He looked across the valley and saw the city sparkling in the rays of
the morning sun. May we venture to see there an unveiling of the divine
heart? Love has an infinite capacity of sorrow as of joy. But I leave
these perhaps too presumptuous and lofty thoughts, to turn to the other
points involved in the words before us.

I said, in the second place, there was--

II. A plain lesson here, as to the great purpose for which the Divine
Spirit has been lodged in the heart of humanity.

I find that in the two words of my text, 'the Holy Spirit,' and 'ye were
thereby sealed unto the day of redemption.' If the central
characteristic which it imports us to know and to keep in mind is that
implied by the name, 'the Holy Spirit' then, of course, the great work
that He has to perform upon earth is to make men like Himself. And that
is further confirmed by the emblem of the seal which is here; for the
seal comes in contact with the thing sealed, and leaves the impression
of its own likeness there. And whatever else--and there is a great deal
else that I cannot touch now--may be included in that great thought of
the sealing by the Divine Spirit, these things are inseparably connected
with, and suggested by it, viz. the actual contact of the Sp