s the victory of Faith proceeds from stage to stage: the first
victory is, when the Present is conquered by the Future; the last,
when the Visible and Sensual is despised in comparison of the
Invisible and Eternal. Then earth has lost its power for ever; for if
_all_ that it has to give be lost eternally, the gain of faith is
still infinite.

III.

_Preached Whitsunday, May 19, 1850._

THE DISPENSATION OF THE SPIRIT.

"Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit."--1
Corinthians xii, 4.

According to a view which contains in it a profound truth, the ages of
the world are divisible into three dispensations, presided over by the
Father, the Son, and the Spirit.

In the dispensation of the Father, God was known as a Creator;
creation manifested His eternal power and Godhead, and the religion of
mankind was the religion of Nature.

In the dispensation of the Son, God manifested Himself to Humanity
through man; the Eternal Word spoke, through the inspired and gifted
of the human race, to those that were uninspired and ungifted. This
was the dispensation of the prophets--its climax was the advent of the
Redeemer; it was completed when _perfect_ Humanity manifested God to
man. The characteristic of this dispensation was, that God revealed
Himself by an authoritative Voice, speaking from without, and the
highest manifestation of God whereof man was capable, was a Divine
Humanity.

The age in which we at present live is the dispensation of the Spirit,
in which God has communicated Himself by the highest revelation, and
in the most intimate communion, of which man is capable; no longer
through Creation, no more as an authoritative Voice from without, but
as a Law within--as a Spirit mingling with a spirit. This is the
dispensation of which the prophet said of old, that the time should
come when they should no longer teach every man his brother and every
man his neighbour, saying, "Know the Lord"--that is, by a will
revealed by external authority from other human minds--"for they shall
all know him, from the least of them to the greatest." This is the
dispensation, too, of whose close the Apostle Paul speaks thus: "Then
shall the Son also be subject to Him that hath put all things under
Him, that God may be all in all."

The outward humanity is to disappear, that the inward union may be
complete. To the same effect, he speaks in another place, "Yea, thoug