The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1859-03-30
GRIEvING THE SPIRIT.

And grieve not the Holy Spirit Of God ,ehereby ys
sealed unto the day Of redenpion.-EPH. A. 80.
Here is a touching combination of warning,
admonition and affectionate entreaty. On the
face of the text, lies, on the one hand, signal
evidence of the miserable depravity and degra-
dation of the natural heart, which can stand in
need of warning against such sin and folly
Yet, on the other hand, the language used is
Indicative, to wonderful degree, of the ex-
alted relation man is brought into through the
Spirit of adoption. See how christians are ad-
dressed on the matter, compared with re-
bellious Jews, the heayen-provoking nations
of far antiquity. "My Spirit shall not always
STRIFE with man." aye do always resist the
Holy Spirit" But the children of God by
faith in Christ Jesus, are entreated not to
" grieue," not to "quench" the Spirit. Now
here is intimacy. Here is familiarity. This
Is the language we use about those we dwell
with, or with whom we are closely connected.
When we, on the other hand, hear of striving,
of resistance, it suggests an enemy, rather than
friend. Striving with, or upon, the heart
and conscience, is a vastly different thing
from working within the heart, as helper
of its infrmity or weakness, helping to pray,
admonishing of danger, comforting, and bring
ing seasonably to remembrance the promises.
The Spirit of God would seem to be named
particularly by the designation Holy, not mere
ly because he is the special agent of sanctifca-
ton or making holy, much less because he is
essentially and infinitely pure or holy-for this
equally eharacterizes the Father and the Son; !;
but rather, and chiefly, for the reason that
while God, in his omnipresence dwells with all,
the Spirit dwells only with the holy in heart.
He never enters heart until its enmity has
been fought out, striven with and conquered.
Up to that time the Spirit will only enter the
conscience, which is the friend of right and
goodness, and from that citadel pierce the heart
with It's weapons pointed by the word of the
living God At length that heart is overpow-
cred and constrained to give up its opposition,
and seek the healing of its wounds in the blood
of Christ. Now the converted heart begins
its struggles and strivings against sin. But oh,
how weak it finds itself for the contest Then
the blessed Spirit comes in to help, to save
from despair and falling. He comes in, not
dS d NlSllOE, HleIc guest. I1e COueS III DIS Il
resident, to d,ceU with us. He is not stranger,
but one at home with us. Nay, that does not
express it-"he that is joined to the Lord is
one Spirit" There is unity of Spirit-unity
far beyond the unity of husband and wife, or
the unity of the family circle. Now this close
and intimate relation is just the thing recog
nized by this heart word "grieve." The mo-
ther, when she would appeal most touchingly
to the heart of her wayward child, says:-
you grieve your mother, my child, by doing
So" She would never think of Using this
language concerning neighbor's child God
used it respecting his peculiar people, his own
nation, saying that their ways grieved him.
But he never says this of the gentle nations
Toward them he has wrath, anger, fury
{" Grieve" is then a home word, as well as a
heart word, and while the idea of grieving
such a being as the Holy. Spirit of God, is an
awful and humiliating thought, it still is, in
view of the holy and tender relation to God
recognized in those SO addressed, an indication
of high and honorable position. It suggests
the words of the beloved John='' Behold
what manner of love the Father hath bestowed
upon us, that we should be called the sons of
God!" Hence the grief of the Spirit at the
unfilial behavior. 1t IS the pang of
affection.
Another consideration, lying most sug-
gestively upon the surface of the text, is
this. Its language is wholly inappropriate,
on any other hypothesis than that of the
and personal indwelling of the
Holy Spirit. How lame and inapposite the
expression "grieve not" if the Holy Spirit
be only an influence sent forth of God. How
is it possible to grieve Influence? Those
who undeify by un-personifying the Holy Spir-
it, may make tolerahle headway in giving
plausibility to their use of the passages that
speak of resisting the Spirit, as meaning simp-
ly resisting an influence, for example, the in
huence of the words of God, which are said to
be esprit" and life" and which many re-
jected, refusing to hear or consider. But when
such theologists, or rather theosophists, come
to our text, there is an insuperable difficulty in
their way. Its language cannot be called poet
ry; for even if the sturdy Paul ever poetized,
this is the baldest prose. No, nothing but
person can be grieved; nor even then, as we
have seen, is the language opposite, except
where close, intimate and tender relation to
that person is sustained.
From the foregoing considerations alone, the
fearfulness of the case of him who grieyes the
Holy Spirit should be obvious, since he is
thereby cutting of, from his own soul, the very
fountain of life. He is sighting his only ad-
equate helper He is plucking out his eyes
and cutting off his hands And surely, with
out strangely perverted heart this cannot be
thought of, much less attempted
1t is then, in the indulgence of wrong
state Of heart that this evil has birth. But