The Instrument Employed by the Spirit in this great change, is the Holy Scripture, (James 1:18); 1 Peter 1:22, 23. There is much that is mysterious in this subject, as our Lord intimates to Nicodemus in John 3:8. But amid all this mystery we see much that is plain and intelligible. The truth reveals to the mind the objects to be loved and obeyed; the Spirit disposes the heart to embrace them. It is neither the Spirit without the truth, nor the truth without the Spirit - but the Spirit by the instrumentality of the truth, and the truth in the hands of the Spirit. It is not the Spirit in the word merely - but the Spirit with the word. Without the word there would be nothing to love; without the Spirit there would be no love. The word is the light which reveals the objects of spiritual affection; the Spirit gives the affection towards these objects. The Spirit's operating upon the heart, apart from the word, would be only to give an inclination, a disposition without an object as its end and purpose.
This view of the subject clears it of all difficulty and objection, on the ground of irrationality and enthusiasm, as if it meant the setting up of another rule, standard, and light within, and meant spontaneous blind impulses, without any appropriate object to produce them, or any fixed rule to guide them. It treats us as rational creatures, and yet as sinful and willfully blind ones. It does not extinguish our reason - but sanctifies and guides it. It calls us to exercise our faculties on their appropriate spiritual objects, as presented by revelation, and gives us Divine aid in so doing. It teaches us to unite diligence and dependence. It keeps us from the pride of self-sufficiency on the one hand, and from the despondency of unaided helplessness on the other. It preserves us from wild enthusiasm, and equally so from dead formalism. In short, it directs to the rule we are to go by, and furnishes the strength we need to follow it.
After all, we must allow, that much remains beyond our power to comprehend or explain. Can this be matter of surprise? How imperfectly do we understand what a finite spirit is, and how much less do we understand the Infinite Spirit? How, then, shall we be able entirely to comprehend the influence of the Divine Mind upon the human? The fact is evident, however mysterious is the mode. If a man is a creature fallen, and totally corrupt, how can he renew himself? Can darkness originate light? Corruption, purity? Evil, good? If holiness comes into our nature, it must come from without. To suppose that a heart totally depraved will reform itself, is not only to suppose an effect without a cause - but contrary to a cause. No! All evil is from ourselves - and all good is from God.
Search the Scriptures, and see how every part and exercise of true religion is ascribed to the Spirit of God. Illumination; Eph. 1:17, 18. Regeneration; John 1:12; 3:3-8. Sanctification; 1 Peter 1:2. Consolation; Acts 9:31. Help in all the weakness of the Christian life; Romans 8:26. Teaching in prayer; Romans 8:26. Habitual guidance; Romans 8:14. Witnessing to our adoption; Romans 8:16. Sealing to the day of redemption; Eph. 5:30. Constant walking; Gal. 5:22. Ministerial success; 1 Cor. 3:5-7. Is there a grace which is not formed in us by the Spirit? Is there a duty we perform, without being directed to His aid for assistance to discharge it? Are we not said to live in the Spirit, to have no spiritual existence, no actual being, apart from His gracious influence? He dwells in us, and we in Him, so that all the energies we exert, all the vital acts we perform, all the spiritual powers we put forth - are the result of His working in us.
Such, then, is the work of the Spirit, and it is moreover, of great consequence to remember that His work is carried on by a direct process on individual minds. it is not a power coming down upon a collective mass, which relates only to the mass - but not to its individual and component parts. We can form no idea of the Spirit's work - but as a direct work upon individual minds. The church is regenerated, sanctified, comforted, and preserved - only by the calling, sanctification, and consolation of its individual members!
This influence of the Spirit comes upon the mind of man, through the channel of the truth, however that truth may be presented to the mind. It is the great object of the Romish policy to destroy as much as possible the Christian's personal relationship with Jesus! That presumptuous and dreadful system, with Puseyism, its own offspring, has raised up and thrust something between man and his God. It will not allow the fruits of the Saviour's mediation or the influence of the Spirit to come to the soul - but through this additional medium, the church. It claims for its priests the power of bestowing the Spirit in baptism, in the Eucharist, and in its other sacraments. How monstrous are its pretensions! How awfully presumptuous and arrogant its claims! God declares that it is by the truth, the work of sanctification is carried on. Wherever the truth is understood and believed, there is the work of His Spirit; no matter whether the truth be read or heard; meditated upon in the closet, or listened to in the sanctuary; presented in sermons, or in sacraments; by laymen or by ministers - God's Spirit accompanies His own truth, goes with it into barns or into cathedrals; into the pulpits of learned doctors, or of unlettered missionaries. But this is denied practically by many - they want to confine the communication of the Spirit to the ministrations of a certain class of "ordained men", and even to a certain kind of their ministrations; they would hold back the atonement - and put forward the sacraments; extinguish, or at any rate bedim, the truth - and light up candles; veil the Cross - and uncover the crucifix. They would have no other pipes connected with the fountain of grace - but their official hands. They would make the whole work of regeneration and sanctification a matter of priestly order, and clerical administration. They would shut up the Spirit within their pale, and claim to be the sole dispensers of Divine grace. The plain and simple truth that God will pour out His Spirit upon every one who devoutly prays for Him, and seeks it in reading the Word, and hearing sermons, and striving against sin, and longing to be holy - is mystified, obscured, and lost amid their ambitious talk about sacramental grace and apostolic succession, and other like matters.
Be not deceived, dear brethren; God's Spirit is not thus confined or communicated! The Holy Spirit comes down on every renewed and believing soul directly from God!
~John Angell James~
(continued with # 3)
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