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I. BRING TOGETHER SOME OE THE MORE STRIKING SCRIPTURE TESTIMONIES TO THE NECESSITY OF THIS AGENCY.

1. As embodied in the devotional sentiments of holy men. Hear David. "Create in me a clean heart," etc. "Cast me not away from Thy presence," etc. "Teach me to do Thy will," etc. "Thy Spirit is good; lead me," etc. And so Paul. "Now the God of peace fill you with all joy," etc.

2. As a fulfilment of ancient promise. "I will pour water on him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground." "I will pour My Spirit upon thy seed, and My blessing upon thine offspring." "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you." "And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes." If from these examples we pass to the New Testament, to consider how far the supposition of this great spiritual change enters into the pleas and arguments by which the sacred writers exhort their converts to the duties of practical godliness, we find the great promise of Whitsuntide sharing equally with our Lord's proper oblation a claim to be received as among the very necessities of our salvation. "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His." "Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God." "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" "Hereby we know that we dwell in Him, and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit." These passages, with numberless others which might be quoted, show to us how completely the work of Christ for man, and the work of the Spirit in man, are looked upon by the inspired penman as joint and co-equal parts of a common salvation, the constituent elements of one great truth, successive and inseparable links in that chain of mercy by which sinners are to be lifted up from earth's lowest pit, and set down with Christ on heaven's highest throne.

3. As practically attested by the great facts of gospel history. The great miracle of Pentecost is one standing witness that without the agency of the Divine Spirit there never was, and never can be, such a thing as true conversion. It was not Peter's preaching that turned the hearts of those three thousand. He might have exhibited truth to the understanding of that great audience; he might have addressed powerful appeals to their consciences; he might even have lodged a deep conviction of the truth of all he said in their very souls; but so to convince them as to make them yield, so to prick their hearts that into its open pores there should be received and welcomed "the truth as it is in Jesus," this was a work to be done, "not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts." The manner in which the notorious Earl of Rochester describes his conversion is strikingly illustrative of some great influence from without, acting upon, though still concurrently with his own natural faculties. He was reading, he tells us, the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, and his language is that there was some inward force upon him which convinced him that he could resist no longer, for the words had an authority which did shoot like rays or beams in his mind; and this power did so effectually constrain him that he did, ever after, as firmly believe in his Saviour as if he had seen Him in the clouds.

II. How THIS RENEWING OF THE HOLY GHOST IN THE SOUL OF MAN IS ACCOMPLISHED.

1. First, we attribute to Him a true and proper indwelling in our souls (John 14:17).

2. Again, by the influences of this Spirit alone, are both produced and maintained within us all those affections and dispositions which constitute the renewed man.

3. Further, it is helpful to that renewing process which the Spirit of God carries on within us, that He testifies to the reality of His own work. Without raising the question of how much or how little of assurance must be inseparable from true conversion, the various expressions, witness of the Spirit, earnest of the Spirit, seal of the Spirit, must imply that one office of this Divine Agent is to supply some form of corroborative testimony to our own minds that we are the children of God. "He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself."

4. Once more, the renewing power of the Holy Ghost is to be looked for in the daily sanctification of our souls, and the preparing them for a condition of endless life.

(D. Moore, M. A.)

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KJV: But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared,

WEB: But when the kindness of God our Savior and his love toward mankind appeared,