when the object to be seen has the attribute of beauty, a fourth condition is essential to its proper apprehension, namely, that the observer have aesthetic discernment or taste natural or acquired. Two men may view the same work of art. Both have the same object before them and the same light around them. Both see alike all that affects the organ of vision ; but the one may see a beauty which the other fails to perceive ; the same object there- fore produces on them very different effects. The one it delights, elevates, and refines ; the other it leaves unmoved if it does not disgust him. So when our blessed Lord was upon earth, the same person went about among the people ; the same Word sounded in their ears ; and the same acts of power and love were performed in their presence. The majority hated, derided, and finally crucified Him. Others saw in Him the glory of the only begotten Son of God full of grace and truth. These loved, adored, worshipped, and died for Him. Without the objective revelation of the person, doctrines, work, and character of Christ, this in- ward experience of his disciples had been impossible. But this outward revelation would have been, and in fact was to most of those concerned, utterly in vain, without the power of spiritual discernment. It is clear, therefore, what the office of the Word is, and what that of the Holy Spirit is in the work of sanctifi ca- tion. The Word presents the objects to be seen and the light by which we see ; that is, it contains the truths by which the soul is sanctified, and it conveys to the mind the intellectual knowledge of those truths. Both these are essential. The work of the Spirit is with the soul. That by nature is spiritually dead ; it must be quickened. It is blind ; its eyes must be opened. It is hard ; it must be softened. The gracious work of the Spirit is to impart life, to open the eyes, and to soften the heart. When this is done, and in proportion to the measure in which it is done, the Word exerts its sanctifying influence on the soul.
It is a clear doctrine of the Bible and fact of experience that the truth when spiritually discerned has this transforming power. Pau was full of pride, malignity, and contempt for Christ and his Gospel. When the Spirit opened his eyes to behold the glory of Christ, he instantly became a new man. The effect of that vision — not the miraculous vision of the person of the Son of God, but the spiritual apprehension of his divine majesty and love — lasted during the Apostle's life, and will last to all eternity. The same Apostle, therefore, teaches us that it is by beholding the glory of Christ that we are transformed into his image, from
478 PART IH. Ch. XX. — THE MEANS OF GRACE.
glory to glory, by the Spirit of the Lord. (2 Cor. iii. 18.) Hence the Scriptures so constantly represent the heavenly state, as seeing God. It is the beatific vision of the divine glory, in all its brightness, in the person of the Son of God, that purifies, ennobles, and enraptures the soul; filling all its capacities of knowledge and happiness. It is thus that we are sanctified by the truth; it is by the spiritual discernment of the things of the Spirit, when He opens, or as Paul says, enlightens the eyes of our understanding. We thus learn how we must use the Scriptures in order to experience their sanctifying power. We must diligently search them that we may know the truths therein revealed ; we must have those truths as much as possible ever before the mind ; and we must pray earnestly and constantly that the Spirit may open our eyes that we may see wondrous things out of his law. It matters little to us how excellent or how powerful the truths of Scripture may be, if we do not know them. It matters little how well we may know them, if we do not think of them. And it matters little how much we think of them, if we cannot see them ; and we cannot see them unless the Spirit opens the eyes of our heart.
We see too from this subject why the Bible represents it as the great duty of the ministry to hold forth the Word of life ; by the manifestation of the truth to commend themselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. This is all they need do. They must preach the Word in season and out of season, whether men will hear, or whether they will forbear. They know that the Gospel which they preach is the power of God unto salvation, and that if it be hid, it is hid to them that are lost : in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. (2 Cor. iv. 4.) Paul may plant and Apollos water, but God only can give the increase.
Besides this general sanctifying power of the Word of God, when spiritually discerned, it is to be further remarked that it is the means of calling forth all holy thoughts, feelings, purposes, and acts. Even a regenerated soul without any truth before it, would be in blank darkness. It would be in the state of a regenerated infant ; or in the state of an unborn infant in rela- tion to the external world ; having eyes and ears, but nothing to call its faculties of sight and hearing into exercise. It is obvious that we can have no rational feelings of gratitude, love, adora-