SPIRIT, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

CHAPTER IX.

THE CONVICTION OF THE SPIRIT, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
1. Of Sin; 2. Of Righteousness; 3. Of Judgment.

CHAPTER X.

THE ASCENT OF THE SPIRIT, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

{11}

I

THE AGE-MISSION OF THE SPIRIT

{12}

"It is evident that the present dispensation under which we are is the
dispensation of the Spirit, or of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity.
To him in the Divine economy, has been committed the office of applying
the redemption of the Son to the souls of men by the vocation,
justification, and salvation of the elect. We are therefore under the
personal guidance of the Third Person, as truly as the apostles were
under the guidance of the Second."--_Henry Edward Manning_.

{13}

THE AGE-MISSION OF THE SPIRIT--INTRODUCTORY

In some observations on the doctrine of the Spirit, which lie before us
as we write, an eminent professor of theology remarks on the
disproportionate attention which has been given to the person and work
of the Holy Spirit, as compared with that bestowed on the life and
ministry of Jesus Christ. It is affirmed, moreover, that in many of
the works upon the subject now extant there is a lack of definiteness
of impression which leaves much still to be desired in the treatment of
this subject. These observations lead us to ask: Why not employ the
same method in writing about the Third Person of the Trinity as we use
in considering the Second Person? Scores of excellent lives of Christ
have been written; and we find that in these, almost without exception,
the divine story begins with Bethlehem and ends with Olivet. Though
the Saviour lived before his incarnation, and continues to live after
his ascension, yet it gives a certain definiteness of impression to
limit one's view to his historic career, distinguishing his visible
life lived in time from his invisible life lived in eternity.

{14}

So in considering the Holy Spirit, we believe there is an advantage in
separating his ministry in time from his ministry before and after,
bounding it by Pentecost on the one side, and by Christ's second coming
on the other. We have to confess that in many respects one of the best
treatises on the Spirit which we have found is by a Roman
Catholic--Cardinal Manning. Notwithstanding the papistical errors
which abound in the volume, his general conception of the sub