siis to take heed to tlie flock, over which the Holy Ghost had jDnde thfin overseers. (Acts xx. 28.)
4. To the Spirit are also referred conviction of sin, rii2;hteous- ness, and judgment ; the resistance and rebuke of evil in the heart; strivings and warnings; illumination of the conscience ; conviction of the truth ; powerful restraints ; and temporary faith founded on moral convictions ; as well as regeneration, sanctification, consola- tion, strength, perseverance in holiness, and final glorification both of the soul and of the body.
All these effects which the Bible clearly and constantly refers to the Holy Spirit, Rationalism refers to second causes and to the attending providential eflSciency of God. It admits of revela- tion, but only of such as is made in the works of God and in the constitution of our nature, apprehended by the mind in its normal exercises. All truth is discovered by the intuitive or discursive operations of reason. Inspiration is only tlie subjective state due to the influence of these truths on the mind. Miracles are dis- carded, or referred to some higher law. Or if admitted, thev are allowed to stand by themselves, and all other subsequent interven- tion of God in controllino; the minds of men is reduced to the rec- ular process of human develoj)ment and progress. The Bible and the Church universal recognize a broad distinction between the work of the Spirit and the operation of second causes as energized and controlled by the general efficiency of God. It is to one and the same divine agent that all the influences whicli con- trol the conduct, form the character, and renew and sanctify the children of men, are to be referred ; that by his energy revealed the truth to the prophets and apostles, rendered them infallible as teachers, and confirmed their divine missions by signs, and won- ders, and divers miracles. The former class no more belong to the category of nature or natural operations, than the latter. God as an extramundane Spirit, a personal agent, has access to all other spirits. He can and He does act upon them as one spirit acts upon another, and also as only an Almighty Spirit can act ; that is, producing effects which God alone can accomplish.
The Bible therefore teaches that the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of trutli, of holiness, and of life in all its forms, is present with every iiuman mind, enforcing truth, restraining from evil, exciting to good, and imparting wisdom or strength, when, where, and in what measure seemeth to Him good. In this sphere also He divides " to every man severally as He w.ill." (1 Cor. xii. 11.) This is what in theology is called common grace.
668 PART m. Ch. XIV. — vocation.
The Influences of the Spirit granted to all Men. That there is a divine influence of the Spirit granted to all men, is plain both from Scripture and from experience.
1. Even in Genesis vi. 3 (according to our version), it is said, "My Spirit shall not always strive with man." The Hebrew verb p-r means, to rule, to judge. The sense of the passage therefore may be, as given by Gesenius, Do Wette, and others, " Niclit f iir immer soil inein Geist walten im Menschen." Mi/ Spirit shall not always rule in man. But this means more than the Septuagint expresses by KaTajj.dvri and the Vulgate by permanehit. The Spirit of God, as Keil and Delitzsch properly remark, is the prin- ciple of spiritual as well as of natural life. What God threatened was to withdraw his Spirit from men on account of their wicked- ness, and to give them up to destruction. This includes the idea expressed in the English version of the passage. The Spirit of God had hitherto exerted an influence in the government of men, which, after the appointed time of delay, was to cease. Rosen- miiller's explanation is, " Non feram, ut Spiritus mens, per prophe- tas admonens homines, ab his in perpetuum contemnatur : pu- niam ! " The clause per prophetas admonens has nothing in the text to suo-gest or justify it. It is inserted because Rosenmiiller admitted no influence of the Spirit that was not indirect or me- diate.
2. The martyr Stephen (Acts vii. 51) tells the Jews, " As your fathers did .... ye do always resist the Holy Ghost," as the prophet Isaiah Ixiii. 10, said of the men of his generation, that they vexed God's Holy Spirit. The Spirit, therefore, is represented as striving with the wicked, and with all men. They are charged with resisting, grieving, vexing, and quenching his operations. This is the familiar mode of Scriptural representation. As God is everywhere present in the material world, guiding its operations according to the laws of nature; so He is everywhere present with the minds of men, as the Spirit of truth and goodness, operating on them according to the laws of their free moral agency, inclining them to good and restraining them from evil.
3. That the Spirit does exercise this general influence, common to all men, is further plain from what the Scriptures teach of the reprobate. There are men from whom God withdraws the re- straints of his Spirit ; whom for their sins, He gives up to them- selves and to the power of evil. This is represented as a fearful doom. It fell, as the Apostle teaches, upon the heathen woj-ld foi