5. Hereby also you may see how the Spirit witnesseth that we are the children of God. The word "witness" is put here principally for evidence: if any one question our adoption, the witness or evidence which we must produce to prove it, is the "Spirit of Jesus sanctifying us," and dwelling in us: this is the chief part (at least) of the sense of the text, Rom. viii. 16. Though it is true, that the same Spirit witnesseth by (1.) Showing us the grace which he hath given us; (2.) And by showing us the truth of the promise made to all believers; (3.) And by helping us from those promises to conclude with boldness, that we are the children of God; (4.) And by helping us to rejoice therein. II. I have been the longer (though too short) in acquainting you with the office of the Holy Ghost, (supposing your belief that he is the third person in the Trinity,) because it is an article of grand importance, neglected by many that profess it, and because there are so many and dangerous errors in the world about it. Your great care now must be, 1. To find this Spirit in you, as the principle of your operations: and, 2. To obey it, and follow its motions, as it leadeth you up to communion with God. Of the first I have spoken in the first chapter. For the second, observe these few directions. _Direct._ I. Be sure you mistake not the Spirit of God and its motions, nor receive, instead of them, the motions of Satan, or of your passions, pride, or fleshly wisdom.--It is easy to think you are obeying the Spirit, when you are obeying Satan and your own corruptions against the Spirit. By these fruits the Spirit of God is known. 1. The Spirit of God is for heavenly wisdom, and neither for foolishness nor treacherous craftiness, Psal. xix. 7; xciv. 8; Jer. iv. 22; 1 Cor. ii. 4-7. 2. The Spirit of God is a Spirit of love, delighting to do good; its doctrine and motions are for love, and tend to good; abhorring both selfishness and hurtfulness to others, Gal. v. 21, 22. 3. He is a Spirit of concord, and is ever for the unity of all believers; abhorring both divisions among the saints, and carnal compliances and confederacies with the wicked, 1 Cor. xii.; Eph. iv. 3-6, 13; 1 Cor. i. 10; iii. 3; Rom. xvi. 17, 18. 4. He is a Spirit of humility and self-denial, making us, and our knowledge, and gifts, and worth, to be very little in our own eyes;[91] abhorring pride, ambition, self-exalting, boasting, as also the actual debasing of ourselves by earthliness or other sin, Matt. xviii. 3; Eph. iv. 2. 5. He is a Spirit of meekness, and patience, and forbearance; abhorring stupidity, and inordinate passion, boisterousness, tumult, envy, contention, reviling, and revenge, Matt. xi. 28, 29; Eph. iv. 2; James iii.; 1 Pet. ii. 20-23; Gal. v. 20; Rom. xii. 18-20; Eph. iv. 31; Col. iii. 8. 6. He is a Spirit of zeal for God, resolving men against known sin, and for known truth and duty; abhorring a furious, destroying zeal, and also an indifferency in the cause of God; and a