4. When and Why the Spiritual Gifts Ceased in the Church.--It does not appear that these extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit [speaking of I Cor. xii] were common in the church for more than two or three centuries. We seldom hear of them after that fatal period when the Emperor Constantine called himself a Christian; and from a vain imagination of promoting the Christian cause thereby heaped riches, and power, and honor upon Christians in general, but in particular upon the Christian clergy. From this time they [the spiritual gifts] almost totally ceased; very few instances of the kind were found. The cause of this was not (as has been supposed) because there was no more occasion for them, because all the world was become Christians. This is a miserable mistake; not a twentieth part of it was then nominally Christian. The real cause of it was the love of many, almost all Christians, so-called, was waxed cold. The Christians had no more of the Spirit of Christ than the other heathens. The Son of Man when he came to examine his church, could hardly find faith upon the earth. This was the real cause why the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost were no longer to be found in the Christian Church--because the Christians were turned heathens again and only had a dead form left.--John Wesley (Wesley's Works, Vol. vii. Sermon 89, Pages 26, 27.) 5. Illustration of the Oneness of the Godhead.--The Godhead may be further illustrated by a council, composed of three men--all possessing equal wisdom, knowledge and truth, together with equal qualifications in every respect. Each person would be a separate, distinct person or substance from the other two, and yet the three would form but one council. Each alone possesses, by supposition, the same wisdom and truth that the three united or the one council possesses. The union of the three men in one council would not increase the knowledge of wisdom of either. Each man would be one part of the council when reference is made to his person; but the wisdom and truth of each man would be the whole wisdom and truth of the council, and not a part. If it were possible to divide truth, and other qualities of a similar nature into fractions, so that the Father should have the third part of truth, the third part of wisdom, the third part of knowledge, the third part of love, while the Son and the Holy Spirit possessed the other two-thirds of these qualities or affections, then neither of these persons could make "one God," "but only a part of a God." But because the divisibility of wisdom, truth or love is impossible, the whole of these qualities dwell in the Father--the whole dwells in the Son--the whole is possessed by the {177} Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is one part of the Godhead in essence; but the whole of God in wisdom, truth, and other similar qualities. If a truth could become three truths, distinct from each other, by dwelling in three substances, then there would be three Gods instead of one.