Two discourses concerning the Holy Spirit, and His work the one, Of the Spirit…

(§ 11.) 1. THESE Gifts are a great means and help to excite and exercise Grace it self, without which it will be lifeless, and apt to decay. Men grow in Grace by the due exercise of their own Gifts in Duties. Wherefore every individual Person on his own account doth stand in need of them with respect unto the exercise and improvement of Grace, Zech. 12. 10. (2) Most Men have, it may be, such Duties incumbent on them with respect unto others, as they cannot discharge aright without the especial Aid of the Spirit of God in this kind. So is it with all them who have Families to take care of and provide for. For ordinarily they are bound to instruct their Children and Servants in the Knowledge of the Lord, and to go before them in that Worship which God requires of them, as Abraham did, the Father of the Faithful. And hereunto some Spiritual Abilities are requisite: For none can teach others more than they know themselves, nor perform Spiritual Worship without ⟨p. 273⟩some Spiritual Gifts, unless they will betake themselves unto such shifts as we have before on good Grounds rejected. (3.) Every Member of a Church in Order according to the Mind of Christ, possesseth some Place, Use and Office in the Body, which it cannot fill up unto the Benefit and Ornament of the whole, without some Spiritual Gift. These places are various, some of greater use than others, and of more necessity unto the Edification of the Church, but all are useful in their kind. This our Apostle disputes at large, 1 Cor. 12. 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, &c. All Believers in due order do become one Body by the participation of the same Spirit, and Union unto the same Head. Those who do not so partake of the one Spirit, who are not united unto the Head, do not properly belong to the Body, whatever place they seem to hold therein. Of those that do so, some are as it were an Eye, some as an Hand, and some as a Foot: All these useful in their several places, and needful unto one another. None of them is so highly exalted as to have the least occasion of being lifted up, as though he had no need of the rest; for the Spirit distributeth unto every one severally as he will, not all unto any one, save only unto the Head our Lord Jesus, from whom we all receive Grace according to the measure of his Gift.