The Dove is not the emblem
of gentleness in the Bible: but the Lamb. The dove is the emblem of
something else, pure and holy, but not of gentleness; and therefore the
Holy Spirit is not spoken of in Scripture as brooding as a gentle dove;
but very differently, as it seems to me. St Matthew and St John say,
that at our Lord's baptism the Holy Spirit was seen, not brooding, but
descending from heaven as a dove. To any one who knows anything of
doves, who will merely go out into the field or the farm-yard and look at
them, and who will use his own eyes, that figure is striking enough, and
grand enough. It is the swiftness of the dove, and not its fancied
gentleness that is spoken of. The dove appearing, as you may see it
again and again, like a speck in the far off sky, rushing down with a
swiftness which outstrips the very eagle; returning surely to the very
spot from which it set forth, though it may have flown over hundreds of
miles of land, and through the very clouds of heaven. It is the sky-
cleaving force and swiftness, the unerring instinct of the dove, and not
a sentimental gentleness to which Scripture likens that Holy Spirit,
which like the rushing mighty wind bloweth whither it listeth, and thou
hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, or
whither it goeth;--that Holy Spirit who, when He fell on the apostles,
fell in tongues of fire, and shook all the house where they were sitting;
that Holy Spirit of whom one of the wisest Christians who ever lived, who
knew well enough the work of the Spirit, arguing just as I am now against
the fancy of associating the Holy Spirit merely with pretty thoughts of
our own, and pleasant feelings of our own, and sentimental raptures of
our own, said, "Wouldst thou know the manner of spiritual converse? Of
the way in which the Spirit of God works in man? Then it is this: He
hath taken me up and dashed me down.
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