WE

CHAPTER VI.

E have endeavoured to think out something of the great subject of Conviction. of Sin by the Spirit of God. Perhaps I should rather say not to think it out, but to think it in; to turn inward in view of it, and question our souls, writer and reader together, about our Rom. v 13. own insights into the "exceeding sinfulness of sin" in the light of the Holy Ghost.

I turn now to the glorious other side of the operation of the Spirit in His work of new creation, re-constitution, of us sinners. I turn to His dealings with us in the way of making our Lord Jesus Christ to be to us what He is given to be to such as we are our spiritual "life, and breath, and all things;" our righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption"; our joy, our peace, our power, our hope. We have seen the Heavenly Worker ploughing

I Cor. i. 30.

THE SPIRIT REVEALING CHRIST.

ΙΟΙ

the soil, breaking up the fallow, crushing the underlying rock into dust. We see Him now dropping the seed, letting fall the divine "corn of wheat" into the ground. We John xii. 24. see Him applying Christ to the sorely needing soul, now conscious of its need. And we see Him to this end dealing with it as the Spirit of Manifestation, revealing in it the Son of

God."

Gal. i. 16.

Here is indeed the Holy Spirit's congenial, beloved work. For He is the "Spirit of Christ." And in our second chapter we saw how deep the indications of that phrase go; how the Spirit is not only the Emissary of Christ but, in the inner Life of Godhead, the Stream from Him the Fountain. Wonderful is the union of nature and of operation so indicated; wonderful, blissful, divinely deep and tender, the union and communion of that Love of the Spirit and the Son.

Let us dwell a little on this point of truth. It is possible, and it is not uncommon, so to dwell on the convincing work of the Spirit as to associate His action mainly with that side grace as if His characteristic were to

of

But

penetrate, to detect, to expose the soul to itself, to cast it down wounded and broken. But no, it is not so. I have striven to lay all the emphasis I can on the unspeakable importance of the work of conviction. therefore I am all the more free to remind my reader and brother that this is after all the Spirit's "strange work." The Eternal Neh. ix. 20. Dove, the Spirit of grace, the "Good Spirit," has for His dear and welcome function the uplifting of the sweet glory of Christ to the aching eyes of the contrite; the applying of the soft balm of Christ to the wounds He Himself has mercifully made through "soul Heb. iv. 12. and spirit."

There is a delightful little book by the late venerable Dr Horatius Bonar, The Gospel of the Spirit's Love. It is only a tract, of less than fifty pages;1 but it is full of that Theology of Consolation which has few better modern expositors than the deeply taught saints and

2

1 Edinburgh: A. Stevenson, North Bank Street. 2nd ed., 1884.

2 I borrow the phrase from the title of a very valuable historical doctrinal work by the Rev. D. C. A. Agnew. (Edinburgh: 1881.)

BONAR ON THE SPIRIT'S LOVE.

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thinkers trained in the thorough views of our sin and ruin expounded in the Scottish Confession, and in that adoring insight into the wonder, and glory, and tenderness of the work of grace which seems specially given to those who have accepted the whole truth of man's ruin. I commend this little book to my reader. It will press home on him on every side the conviction that indeed "Thy Spirit is Ps. cxliii. 1o. good;" that the Love of the Spirit, as truly as that of the Son, "passeth knowledge;” that it is a deep mistake, a fallacy which chills and blights the soul's life, to fail to recognize this; "as if there were something in the Spirit which repelled us, whatever there might be in Christ to attract us; as if the light which the Cross throws upon the love of the Spirit were not quite in harmony with that which it reveals of the love of Christ; as if the Spirit were not always as ready with His help as is the Son" (p. 21). And one passage, close to this short quotation, speaks in words pregnant with truth about our special subject here, His glorification of Christ to us :-"The want of stable peace, of which so many complain, may arise from

imperfect views of the Spirit's love. True, our peace comes from the one work of the Substitute upon the Cross, from the blood of the one Sacrifice, from the sin-bearing of Him who has made peace by the blood of the Cross. But it is the Holy Spirit who glorifies Christ to us, and takes the scales from our eyes. If, then, we doubt His love, can we expect Him to reveal the Son in our hearts? Are we not thrusting Him away, and hindering that view of the peace-making which He alone can give? Perhaps the want of faith, which we often. mourn over, may arise from our not realizing the Spirit's love, 'Faith' (no doubt) 'cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God;' yet it is the Holy Spirit who shines upon the word; it is He who gives the seeing eye and the hearing ear. Under the pressure of unbelief have we fled to Him, and appealed to His love? Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief,' may be as aptly a cry to the Spirit as to the Son of God. He helpeth our infirmities; and in the infirmity of our faith He will most assuredly succour us. It is through Him that we become strong in faith; and He loves to