the Holy Spirit, who is ethereal and immaterial, and, like the wind, "bloweth where it listeth," and no man knows, or can know, "whence it cometh or whither it goeth." But to emphasise the doctrine of the Holy Communion, and to neglect the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, is to violate the "proportion of faith" in the New Testament.

A revival, then, of interest in the doctrine of the Holy Spirit is, it would seem, a special need of the present day. Yet the revival, when it occurs, will hardly follow the old lines of theological opinion or expression. The question of the single or twofold Procession of the Holy Spirit in the eleventh century tore the Churches of the East and the West asunder. Their continued separation proves how easy it is to make a rent in the seamless garment of Christ's Church; how difficult, if not impossible, to repair it. But the question of Procession seems in a sense to be remote from modern theology. It would not now create or justify a schism. It is rather a survival of an old controversy than a living separative force in the minds of men. The Holy Orthodox Church of Russia herself, although she insists upon her special tenet in regard to the Procession of the Holy Spirit, has yet on a memorable occasion shown herself neither unable nor unwilling to unite with the Church of England in public Christian worship. Nay, it may be doubted if the doctrinal difference of the Churches upon the Procession does not consist more in language than in fact. At all events, modern thought will not trouble itself, mainly or largely, with any such purely speculative difference. It is the influence of the Holy Spirit upon human

conduct that is now the interesting question. To that question this Essay will be addressed. It will aim at treating the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in a practical aspect. In fact, it will follow the general line of the Collect for Whitsunday, in which the record of the Holy Spirit's descent at Pentecost is made preparatory to the petition that the same Holy Spirit may guide the minds of Christians to "have a right judgment in all things," and "evermore to rejoice in His holy comfort."

The doctrine of the Holy Spirit is in a preeminent sense a doctrine of the New Testament. Our Lord enunciated it; His Apostles interpreted it; His Church consolidated it. Like the doctrine of the Incarnation of the Second Person in the sacred Trinity, the doctrine of the inspiration of the Third Person is but adumbrated, it is not expressed or defined, although it is more or less evidently postulated, in the writings antecedent to Christ's Advent. But in the New Testament it takes a definite shape and character.

There is indeed a sense in which it may be said that the doctrine overshadows the whole Bible. Nowhere is it altogether absent from the sacred writers' minds. It is, so to say, one of the axioms --which are always far more impressive than the conclusions of religious faith; for what is demonstrated is an attainment of the intellect, what is assumed is an intuition of the heart. Thus the volume of Revelation begins with the "moving" or "brooding" of "the Spirit of God upon the face of the waters at the Creation; and it ends with the

invitation of the Spirit and the Bride, i.e. of the Spirit and the Church, in the one word "Come." And yet it will appear, as this Essay proceeds, that all that is revealed in the Old Testament is but a faint intimation of the great truth which in the New Testament is brought out into fulness of light. Of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, if of any Christian doctrine, it is true that Novum Testamentum in Vetere latet, Vetus Testamentum in Novo patet.

Before the teaching of the Old Testament upon the nature and influence of the Holy Spirit can be estimated, it is necessary to make some few preliminary remarks.

(1) The Hebrew word uniformly employed to denote "spirit" is. But this word means primarily the "wind." From this all its other meanings are derived. And while undoubtedly it ascends in meaning, as the Old Testament shows, to the "breath of human life," to the "soul," ie. the intellectual and emotional element or faculty in human nature, to the "spirit" or spiritual faculty (although this is less frequent), and ultimately to the "Spirit of God" Himself, yet its original identity with the "wind" is always essential to a full understanding of the various senses in which it is used. And the comparison or identification of the Holy Spirit with the wind that "bloweth where it listeth" finds its consummation in the words of our Lord to Nicodemus in the third chapter of St. John's Gospel.

(2) The fact that the same Hebrew word is used, and is in general use, for the spirit of man and the

Spirit of God is at once an evidence of the peculiarly intimate relation which in the Bible is conceived as existing between the Holy Spirit and the spiritual faculty in human nature. So intimate is that relation that it is sometimes difficult, as will be shown in the sequel, to determine whether the sacred writers, in speaking of the "Spirit," mean the Divine Spirit in His operation upon human nature, or the human spirit under the inspiration of the Divine. Such a passage as the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans is enough to exemplify the close and constant interaction, almost amounting to identification, of the Divine and human Spirits.

The

(3) The word "spirit" naturally associates itself with the thought or doctrine of inspiration. sacred Scriptures do not dwell upon "inspiration"; but if the word is seldom used in them, they are full of the thing. No doubt it is possible, and even probable, that the word "inspiration," like "spirit" itself, may possess both a lower and a higher signification. But wherever the energy of the Holy Spirit is seen and felt, there is inspiration. To limit the sense of inspiration by any narrower bounds than those which the sacred writers assign to the working of the Holy Spirit is to rob it, in part at least, of its amplitude and dignity.

(4) In the Old Testament the Holy Spirit is uniformly considered in reference to God Himself; that is to say, He is considered relatively rather than absolutely. Thus the phrase "the Holy Spirit standing by itself is unknown to the sacred writers of the Old Testament. At the most, one of the

Psalmists can say, "Take not thy holy spirit from me," and the second Isaiah, "They rebelled and grieved his holy spirit." 2 So, too, God is often represented, especially in the Psalms and prophetical books, as using the expression "My Spirit.” And the words "the Spirit of God" are found commonly in the Old Testament. But it is only in the New Testament that such absolute phrases as "the Spirit" or "the Holy Spirit," or phrases in which a particular character of the Holy Spirit is expressed, as e.g. " the Spirit of truth" or "the Paraclete," occur, or occur commonly. It will be seen that the change of phraseology corresponds to a greater definiteness in the conception of the Holy Spirit. It is an approximation to the precise definition of the Holy Spirit in the Christian Creeds. Still, while this increasing lucidity of thought regarding the Holy Spirit must ever be recognised, the Old Testament. itself affords ample sanction to the belief in the personal being and energy of the Holy Spirit Himself.

It is now possible to consider the various aspects under which the operation of the Holy Spirit is delineated in the Old Testament.

A. The Holy Spirit, or the Spirit of God, is the author of creative or formative energy-in short, of life.

In the cosmogony of Genesis "the Spirit of God" is represented as moving," or more strictly "brooding," as a bird over her nest, " upon the face of the waters," while as yet the earth was formless and void, and darkness rested "upon the face of the

1 Psalm li. II.

2 Isaiah lxiii. 10.