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SERMON XXI.

THE SEVENTY ELDERS.

NUMBERS XI. 25.

And the Lord came down in a cloud, and spake unto him, and took of the spirit that was upon him, and gave it unto the seventy elders; and it came to pass, that when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied, and did not cease.

IN the last sermon we saw that God was pleased to relieve Moses of part of his labour by the appointment of seventy elders as his assistants, and heard his promise that he would put his Spirit upon them. Here we find that promise fulfilled, and the men thereby qualified for the office which they would have to sustain. It is by the Spirit that Christ has ever carried on the concerns

of his church on earth, and this is the subject which I now propose to set before you in the former part of this sermon.

I. In examining the method by which God has been pleased to make himself known unto the world, we find that this has generally been done by his giving the Spirit to certain individuals in such measure and manner, as should qualify them for declaring hist truth, foretelling future events, or executing any of the plans and purposes for which he had raised them up. So that whatever there has been of spiritual wisdom, or of true piety, or real holiness, in the world, all this has proceeded from some influence of the Spirit of God. It was by this Spirit that Moses and Aaron were qualified for the offices which they had respectively to sustain. It was this Spirit that was put upon the seventy elders who were now associated with Moses in the labour of guiding and judging the people. It was the same Spirit which spake in all the holy prophets whom God was pleased to send from time to time unto his people: these all" spake as they were moved by the Holy

Ghost." Samuel, David, Isaiah, and all the goodly fellowship of the prophets, were inspired by Him, to deliver those testimonies concerning divine things, which have long ago proved themselves to be the true sayings of God, and which are blessing and benefiting the church even in the present days. A long interval passed from Malachi, the last of the Old Testament prophets, to the time when God was again pleased to pour out this same Spirit on the Christian church on the day of Pentecost. The Spirit was the same, and the object was the same, but the gifts were specially suited to the existing circumstances of the case. The propagation of the gospel was thenceforth to be carried on by the ordinance of preaching. The gift of

tongues was therefore bestowed on the disciples, enabling them to make known in all the various countries into which they might come, the great mercy of God in his new dispensation of grace, and the glory of the Son in that mysterious undertaking by which he had redeemed his church through his death upon the cross in human nature and

form. The same Spirit was sent to guide the Apostles into all truth; and all that they spake and wrote, being under his immediate and direct inspiration, is the truth of God, without any mixture of error. Various other gifts were imparted to different persons in the beginning of that dispensation, but all of them proceeding from the same source, and all directed to the same end, as we read in the 1 Corin. xii. 4, "There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal." And again, Ephes. iv. 11, "He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ."

And still through all ages the carrying on of the work of God's grace and mercy is administered by the Holy Spirit. His

miraculous gifts indeed are withdrawn. They are no longer needed as an evidence; the world is in possession of sufficient evidence to convince. But the mind of man is by nature as dark, and his heart is by nature

as depraved as ever. These are universally the natural circumstances of man, and these universally need the same enlightening and regenerating influences of the Spirit.-We are expressly told in words immediately preceding some lately quoted that "no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost," which means that no man can perceive and truly acknowledge the glory of the person and work of Jesus, except as his mind is enlightened and his heart rightly disposed by the divine influence of God's Spirit. So when Simon Peter had witnessed that good confession, and had said in the exercise of a true faith, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," our Lord replied to him, "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father which is in heaven.". Again, the apostle tells us that "the natural man

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