The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 576

;

LOVE

536

godliest mother, and all the comfort wherewith she comforts her children, are utterly nothing

comfort of the Holy

compared

to the delightful

and divine

Spirit.

Oh, that Comforter, the Holy Ghost, who never ceases to care children, who ever resumes with new animation the weaving of their soul-garments, even tho their wilfulness has for God's

broken the threads!

On

earth there is no suitable comparison

there may be a type somewhere but a measure this divine comfort there is not. It is wholly unique, wholly divine, the measure of all other comfort. The comfort wherewith we comfort others has value and signifi-

for

In the

it.

human

life

;

full-sized image to

cance only

when

it is

bright with the spark of the divine comfort.

The Song of Songs contains a description of the tender love of Immanuel for His Church He, the Bridegroom who calls for the :

bride

;

groom.

she, the bride

This

is,

who

pines with love for her God-given Bride-

therefore, something entirely different

:

the love,

not of comfort, but of the tenderest, most intimate communion and mutual belonging together the one not happy without the other ;

both destined for each other by the divine ordinance united, and by virtue of that same ordinance wretched unless the one possesses the ;

other.

Such

is

not the Holy Spirit's love in the comforting.

The

and the Church is for time and eternity; but the comfort of the Holy Ghost will cease not His work of love, but that of the comforting. Comfort can be administered only so long as there is one uncomforted and comfortless. So long as Israel must pray to be delivered from iniquities so long as tears flow so long as there is bitter sorrow and distress, so long will the

communion

of Christ

—

;

—

;

Holy Spirit be our Comforter. But when sin is ended and misery is no more, when death is abolished and the last sorrow is endured and the last tear wiped away, then, I ask, what remains there for the Holy Spirit to comfort? How could there still be room for a Comforter? To the question. Why, then, did the Lord say, " I will send you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forei'er " ? I answer with another question: Is it to the honor of a child that, while he cries for his mother's comfort, he forgets her as soon as the sorrow is past ? This can not be this would be a denial of He that is truly comforted entertains for his the nature of love. comforter such intense feeling of gratitude, obligation, and attach;

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