lieving
that the Father himself loved them, they felt no need of other
supplication than their own, for benefits which he was more ready to
grant than they could be eager to receive. If we may judge of their
opinions by the records which remain, we should be convinced that they
regarded the Holy Spirit as a divine power only, and not a divine
person. As a power, as influence exerted by God himself, is the spirit
spoken of in all the writings of the Apostles; as when Paul expresses
the relation which the spirit bears to God to be the same as the spirit
of a man bears to man; 'What man knoweth the things of a man, save the
spirit of man which is in him? Even so, the things of God knoweth no
man, but the spirit of God.' (1 Cor. ii. 11.) The mode in which the
operations of the spirit are described by them is perfectly inconsistent
with the notion of its being a separate person. Converts were said to be
_baptized_ with the spirit and _filled_ with the spirit, and they were
exhorted not to _quench_ the spirit. By the direction given to 'baptize
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,'
nothing more was understood by the primitive Christians, as we learn
from themselves, than the duty of spreading that religion which was
given by God through Jesus Christ, and comfirmed by miraculous power,
though, in comparatively modern times, it began to be used as a form
prescribed by Christ. As a form it does not appear to have been adopted
by his followers, who seem to have baptized in the name of Jesus only.
Like Christians of the present day, they believed the Holy Spirit to
have been the same by which the ancient prophets spoke; but, unlike the
modern belief, their conviction evidently was, that this spirit was the
same which moved on the face of the waters when the universe was called
up from chaos; the same which was manifested at Sinai; the same which
filled the temple of Solomon and abode in the Holy of Holies; the same
which wrought the works which Christ declared were not of himself; the
same which was and ever shall be, 'above all, through all, and in all.'
They believed the Spirit to be God himself, working in his creatures 'to
will and to do of his good pleasure.'

The peculiar endowments which were conferred on the disciples in the
apostolic age were called the gifts of the Spirit; and the thanksgivings
which were presented for them were always offered immediately to God,
from whom every good and per