SECTION VII. Doctor Hawker defective on the honour due to the Divine Father. HOWEVER painful the service to point out the mistakes of a minister, so venerable for years and so very zealous in his labours; truth and justice demand of me to observe, before I close, that Doctor Hawker's system induces him not only to detract from the kingly office of our Lord Jesus Christ, but also to withhold the honours due to the prerogative and office of the Divine Father. Thus he expresses himself: 'God the Holy Ghost hath manifested his equal love of the church, in anointing both head and members; when the Father chose the church, and the Son married the church, before all time; by which the Son of God was called Christ, in whom the church was chosen.'* * Health, &c. p. 10. In his True Gospel, he says, 'God the Holy Ghost's love is demonstrated with equal clearness in the scriptures of truth, in having anointed both Christ and his church from the beginning, and by his regenerating grace, during the time-state of the church, raised her up together with Christ, and made her sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.'* What Doctor Hawker attributes to the Holy Ghost and to regenerating grace, other divines would ascribe to the Divine Father; when he raised the high priest of our profession, the head and representative of the whole church, from the grave, and placed him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, that "in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace, in his kindness towards us through Christ Jesus." On this occasion the High Priest entered into the holy place not made with hands, with the names of his spiritual Israel engraved as on his breast plate. * Pp. 9, 10. + Eph. ii. 7. They were all represented by him who could say, "Father I will that they also whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.*" Respecting the period when the Holy Ghost anointed Christ and his members, "From the beginning," "Before all time," says the Doctor; i. e. The Holy Ghost anointed Christ and his members from all eternity-it may suffice to observe, that for any thoughtful christian to receive such an assertion, it would require previous explanation and strong proof; neither of which has the Doctor deigned to give. It is very probable that the reason of the omission was, that proof there was none, and explanation impossible. Whilst I mention these things, that which I particularly notice in the above extracts is the Doctor's repeated * John xvii. 2, 4. assertion that the Holy Ghost anointed Christ and his members. In this assertion I cannot but consider Dr. Hawker as exceedingly incorrect and unscriptural. I am by no means at issue with the Doctor in relation to the divine existence in the personality of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; yet on so sublime and awful a subject, I should certainly prefer a much more scriptural phraseology than that which It is reis generally employed by him. specting the distinct offices sustained by the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and the works ascribed to these offices in the holy scriptures that I am compelled to dissent. The anointing of prophets, priests and kings, when appointed or inducted to their respective offices is often adverted to in the economy of divine grace. In these allusions Christ and his members are the anointed ones. The Holy Spirit, in his influences and graces, is the unction with which they are anointed by the Divine Father. In the literal transaction, Doctor Hawker might with as much propriety assert that the oil itself anointed the kings of Israel, as he could represent the figurative allusion to denote the Holy Spirit anointing Christ and his members. It must have been in his own imagination only, the Doctor could find that the Holy Ghost anointed our Lord, and thus appointed and inducted him to his mediatorial offices. The Doctor finds it so essential to his system to substitute the operations of the Holy Spirit for the legal and royal government of our Lord Jesus Christ, that to do honour to the offices of the divine Spirit he is tempted to invade the prerogatives of both the Father and the Son. Had the Doctor followed the general tenor of scripture, rather than his own system, he would have had a very plain path laid before him. The particular instances of our Lord's baptism and his session at the right hand of God, would have given the same direction to his views. And if after all he had hesitated, an inspired apostle would have informed him most expressly, that "God anointed |