Eternal life is the gift of God. Christ is "the way, the truth, and the life: none can come unto God, but by him." The office of the Holy Spirit is to instruct the ignorant, comfort the mourners in Zion, and make us meet to be "partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light." "If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him." May we be partakers of that inestimable blessing, for without _his_ influence on our hearts, vain will be even the electing love of God the Father--vain the vicarious sacrifice and imputed righteousness of Christ the Son--vain to us the plan of salvation; and vain, all the promises of the Gospel. As well for us, if those glad tidings of great joy, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward men," had not reached our ears. Unapplied, the most sovereign remedy is useless, for then not even Gilead's balm, can heal the dire disease.[113] Christ will prove no Saviour to us, unless applied to our individual case. It is the office of the Holy Spirit, to take of the things of Christ and show them unto us. Faith is the hand by which we grasp Christ crucified. That saving faith, by which we apprehend the finished salvation of Jesus, and make it our own, is a grace wrought in the heart by the operation of the Spirit of God. Far better would it be for the children of men, if the sun were turned into darkness, the moon into blood, and all the stars of heaven withdraw their shining; than that this glorious promise of the outpouring of the Spirit, should be blotted from the book of God's remembrance! [113] Jeremiah viii. 22. May that blessed morning shortly dawn, "when all shall know the Lord!" Hasten, glorious Immanuel, that bright day, when "the whole earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." CHAPTER LXII. The Lord hath sworn and will not repent, thou art a priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek.--Psalm cx. 4.