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The work of the Holy Spirit.

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Ghost. Our Lord's last conversations with His disciples before His crucifixion were full of this subject; and when He rose from the dead He indicated by the symbolical act of breathing on His disciples the truth that through His mediatorial agency they were to receive the promised blessing of the Spirit. When the day of Pentecost was fully come, this Divine gift was showered down. A life of praise, of sonship, of love, of boldness, and of missionary labour, was inaugurated. The disciples were organised through this new influence into a Church, which breathed the spirit of Christ and did the work of Christ upon earth. For a time, the Christian life and preaching were accompanied by special miracles, as our Lord's own life had been. These were intended to give an authoritative seal to the mission of the disciples, just as similar works had testified a few years earlier to the mission of the Son of God.

The Book of the Acts and the Epistles are full of references to the work of the Holy Ghost in and through those who believed in Christ, and give irrefragable testimony to the real power which the exalted Saviour is thus exercising among His people.

§ 12. If it be asked in what way the work of the Holy Spirit of God differs now from what it was in earlier ages of the world's history, it may be sufficient for the present purpose to answer that, though the Agent is the same, the Truth whereby He operates upon the feelings and affections of man is much more developed now than in old days. Formerly, the way of redemption from sin and corruption was only dimly shadowed forth; now the substance has been wrought out: Christ has been lifted up, and all men are being drawn to Him, and those who believe in Him enter thereby into a special relationship with Him, so that they live in Him and He in them, both being partakers of one Spirit. Formerly, the Spirit operated through the written word, through types and shadows, through laws and ordi

nances, reproving men of sin, and kindling their hopes of a better time; but now He operates especially through the Living Word, of Whom all the Scripture testifies, and Who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He manifests Christ in His completed work to the heart of man, and quickens the believer into newness of life by breathing into him that eternal life which is in the Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ. Metaphysically, we cannot understand the nature of this agency, but theologically, and as a matter of revelation, we believe and thankfully receive it.

§(13. The last class of passages to which reference has to be made consists of those which seem to identify the Spirit of God with the results which He is producing in the heart and life of man. Thus we read of the spirit of sonship or adoption, Rom. 8. 15; the spirit of meekness, 1 Cor. 4. 21; the spirit of faith, 2 Cor. 4. 13; the spirit of wisdom and revelation, Eph. 1. 17; the spirit of truth, 1 John 4. 6; and the spirit of holiness, Rom. 1. 4. It is evident that these passages refer, not to the abstract characteristics of the Holy Spirit, but to those effects which He produces in the believer. They answer to a similar class of passages in the Old Testament; see, for example, Is. 11. 2; and perhaps they furnish an illustration of a passage which has suggested a theological difficulty to many minds, namely, Rev. 4. 5, where we read of seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God,' that is to say, the sevenfold or manifold workings of the spirit of God. The passage in Isaiah just referred to seems to reflect the light of these burning lamps, for here we have seven spirits. There shall rest upon him (1) the Spirit of Jehovah; (2, 3) the spirit of wisdom and understanding; (4, 5) the spirit of counsel and might; (6, 7) the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of Jehovah.' The order of the words in the Hebrew which we have here followed brings the number all together without any break.

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The Psychology of the Bible.

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CHAPTER V.

HEART, WILL, CONSCIENCE, WISDOM, UNDERSTANDING.

§ 1. Difficulties connected with any attempt to distinguish the component parts of the inner man.-§ 2. Various words rendered Heart in the O. T.-§ 3. Usage of the Word Lev.—§ 4. Ideas to be attached to the word. § 5. The hardening of the heart; Hebrew words for Hardening.—§ 6. Usage of the word Heart in the N. T.-§ 7. The Will, as represented by Avah.-§ 8. Note on Hos. 13. 10, 14.-§ 9. Usage and meaning of Chaphets.-§ 10. Meaning of Ratson.-§ 11. The Will of God, as referred to in the N. T.-§ 12. Special words used for the Will in Daniel.-§ 13.-Nadav or voluntary action.-§ 14. Examination of 2 Cor. 8. 11, 12.-§ 15. Yaal or volition.-§ 16. Other words rendered Will.-§ 17. The Conscience, according to the O. T. and the Apocrypha.-§ 18. The conscience, according to the N. T.-§ 19. Chaeam or wisdom.-§ 20. Bin, or understanding.-§ 21. Other words which have the same or cognate renderings.

THE present chapter has for its subject a discussion of those elements in human nature which are the sources or centres of emotion, volition, deliberation, and spiritual apprehension. It is comparatively easy for the physiologist or anatomist to mark out the different organs of the human body, and to learn their structure and manifold uses; but the pyschologist has a harder task to perform; he has to analyse and classify his own sensations and emotions, to determine so far as possible which are from the body and which from an immaterial source, to compare his own mental constitution with the effects produced on and by the minds of others, to note how different classes of external entities appeal to and call forth distinct feelings, and move in various spheres of existence, touching finer or ruder chords of human sensibility, according to their nature and the

aspect in which they are presented. The mental analyst is in danger of running to one of two extremes, and more especially so when applying his study to Scripture; he is sometimes inclined to take the popular words which represent the inner life, in a very loose and vague sense, using the one for the other as people do in their ordinary conversation, and coming to the conclusion that there is but one organ of emotion and volition in man, and that it receives different names according to the different relationship to external existence which it has to sustain; at other times he is tempted to exercise his powers of mental anatomy in ranging and classifying the different powers of the immaterial existence in several groups, assigning each to a separate organ, and thus making the heart, the will, the conscience, and the understanding to be members of a spiritual organisation, the spring and centre of which is utterly beyond the reach of human ken. Each of these systems represent an aspect of truth, but each is imperfect if taken by itself. We are not in a position to grasp the subject of immaterial existence, and can only approach it relatively and in those aspects in which it exists in connection with bodily life. We are, as it were, organised grains of dust floating on an ocean of spiritual existence, which permeates our being, connects us with one another, and binds us to that higher sphere of life in which GOD dwells. In this spirit-world we live and breathe and know and feel and think and determine, but we understand little of its nature, and certainly we are not in a position to decide whether there is only one hidden agency at work in our bodies, taking many forms through the medium of the brain and nerves, or whether the nucleus of our conscious life is to be considered as composite in its original nature; in other words, whether human nature is like an Æolian harp, which has many strings, but is played upon so as to produce wild and plaintive music through the

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The Heart.

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blind force of the wind; or whether it is like an organ, not only complex in itself, but also played upon by a complex being, who gives expression to his own thought and feeling as he touches its keys.

The Bible does not discuss this subject; it makes use, however, of certain terms which require careful consideration, as they have stamped themselves upon our popular and religious language, and are sometimes used without consideration of the ideas, which they were originally intended to convey.

§ 2. The general Hebrew word for the heart is Lev (5). This is usually rendered kápdia in the LXX, but sometimes Greek words signifying the soul, the intellect, or the understanding, are taken to represent it.

Two or three other words are occasionally translated 'heart' in the A.V., e.g. Nephesh, the soul' in Ex. 23. 9; Lev. 26.16; Deut. 24. 15; 1 Sam. 2. 33; 2 Sam. 3. 21; Ps. 10. 3; Prov. 23. 7, 27.9, 28. 25, 31. 6; Jer. 42. 20; Lam. 3. 51; Ez. 25. 6; 15, 27. 31; Hos. 4. 8; also Secvi () in Job 38. 36; Mai'im (a) the bowels, in Ps. 40. 8; Kir (p), the wall of the heart, Jer. 4. 19; and Kerev (17p), the inner or middle part, Jer. 9. 8. The fact of these words being rendered heart would certainly justify our translators in adopting a similar rendering in John 7. 38, which might run thus-'out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water,' the heart representing the innermost part of the body.

§ 3. The word Lev, which is found throughout the Scripture with the few exceptions above noted, not only includes the motives, feelings, affections and desires, but also the will, the aims, the principles, the thoughts, and the intellect of man. In fact, it embraces the whole inner man. Hence we read of men being wise hearted,' Ex. 31. 6, 36. 2; of wisdom being put into the heart, 2 Chron. 9. 23; of the heart being awake, Ecc. 2. 23, Cant. 5. 2; of the thoughts of the

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