The Divine Illuminator by James
Alexander But the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father
will send in my name, He will teach you all things and bring
to your remembrance all that I have said to you. John 14 verse
26 Divine truth is an instrument
in the hand of the Spirit for the accomplishment of His work
of consolation. If we would be comforted, we
must seek it by the truth. The comforter is the Spirit of
truth. The consoling process is carried
on by the application of scriptural truth. Therefore, the Word of
God is beyond all other volumes, the Book of Consolation. The
precious doctrines concerning God, Christ, salvation, and heaven
are the principal means which the Holy Spirit uses for the
support of the soul under heavy afflictions. Thus we are enabled
to perceive more clearly and fully how the adorable Spirit
comes in Christ's name. He teaches what Christ taught. He takes of the things of Christ
and reveals them unto us. From the infinite fund of scriptural
wisdom and knowledge, He draws and dispenses according to the
diversified necessities of His people. It is scarcely a change
of teacher. The Spirit gives the same lessons
as Jesus. He repeats and revives them. He brings out afresh in the chambers
of memory the truths which had faded. He touches the sluggish
heart to awaken it to new impressions of scriptural truth. All this
is by a direct influence on the soul by the spirit, opening the
mind and pouring in light. It is this which accounts for
the difference between believers and between different states
of the same individual. In order that truth be effectual,
especially to consolation, something more is necessary than that it
should be revealed in the Bible, something more than that it should
be understood by the intellect. It must be powerfully brought
home to the mind and heart, and to do this is the special work
of the Holy Spirit. no effect will be produced in
reading Scripture, except so far as the Holy Spirit takes,
shows, and impresses them to the heart. And this He graciously
does to many a broken-hearted Christian. The experienced and
godly Christian, long tried in the school of sorrows, is made
to know that the soul may be comforted amidst the deepest
afflictions. in some unexpected moment, the
Divine Illuminator reveals to him the great abiding truths
of Scripture, truths which are as precious and as satisfying
in adverse as in prosperous days. by a process of holy attraction. His thoughts are drawn away from
self and all its sorrows and losses to be fixed and absorbed
by the character of God, by His mighty works, by the person of
the adorable Redeemer, by the work of redemption, by the glory
yet to be revealed. Filled and animated and tranquilized
by these blessed truths, he is led to forget his private griefs,
and thus the Comforter performs his office by means of the truth. The things of Christ, applied
to the heart by the Spirit, direct the mind from its earthly pangs,
and, to a certain extent, afford a foretaste of the celestial
joy. This Puritan devotional has been
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