II.

THE SPIRIT IN MAN.

JOB Xxxii. 8.-"But there is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding."

It is something great in man, as the speaker, Elihu, conceives, that he is spirit, and, as being such, is capable of being inspired. For he is not, as some commentators appear to suppose, re-publishing here, the historical fact, that the Almighty breathed into man, at the first, a living, understanding soul; but, speaking in the present tense, he magnifies man as being able to be inspired, because he is spirit, and God that he inspires him.

I undertake to enlist you here in a range of contemplation exceedingly remote from the apprehension of most persons in our time. So completely occupied are they with the humanitarian, world-ward relations of life, that the God-ward relations pass unheeded, and, for the most part, unrecognized. Or, if they sometimes think of such relations, it is only in the sense that we are responsible to God, as we are to any human government, for what we do as men, not in the sense that our very nature has itself a God-ward side, being related constitutionally to him, as plants are to the sun, or living bodies to the air they breathe. That we may duly apprehend a truth so far out of the way of our times, and yet so necessary to any fit conceptions of our nature and life, let me bespeak, on your part, even a voluntary and compelled attention.

My subject is, the spirit in man; or what is the same, the fact that we are, as being spirit, permeable and inspirable by the Almighty.

The word "spirit," means literally, breath, and it is applied to the soul, not merely because of its immateriality, but for the additional reason that the Almighty can breathe himself into it and through it. The word "inspiration," as here used, denotes this act of inbreathing, and it will serve the convenience of my subject to use it in this meaning in my discourse; though it is not exactly coincident with the more common meaning attached to it, when we speak of the inspiration of the writers of Scripture. I certainly need not apologize for the use of a term, in, at least, one of its Scripture meanings. I only notify you that any one is inspired, as I shall here speak, who is breathed in, visited internally, and so, all infallibility apart, raised in intelligence, guided in choice, convinced of sin, upheld in suffering, empowered to victory. In this more general sense, Bezaleel was inspired when he "was filled with the Spirit of God, in wisdom and in understanding, to devise cunning works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in cutting of stones, to set them, and in carving of timber." Any one is inspired, as we now speak, just as far as he is raised internally, in thought, feeling, perception, or action, by a Divine movement within. In the capacity of this, he is called an inspirable creature, and has this for one of his highest distinctions. What higher distinction can he have, than a capacity for God; to let in the Divine nature, to entertain the eternal spirit witnessing with his spirit, to be gifted thus with understanding, ennobled in impulse, raised in power, and this, without any retrenchment

of his personal freedom, but so as even to intensify his proper individuality.

Just as it is the distinction of a crystal, that it is transparent, able to let the light into and through its close flinty body, and be irradiated by it in the whole mass of its substance, without being at all more or less distinctly a crystal, so it is the grand distinction of humanity, that it is made permeable by the divine nature, prepared in that manner to receive and entemple the Infinite Spirit; to be energized by him and filled with his glory, in every faculty, feeling and power. Our accepted doctrine of the Holy Spirit really implies just this, that we are made capable of this interior presence of the divine nature; that, as matter is open to the free access and unimpeded passage of the electric flash, so is the soul open to the subtle motions of the Eternal Spirit, and ready, as it were, to be the vehicle of God's thought and action; so of his character and joy.

As to the manner of this divine presence, or working, we, of course, know nothing. We only know, reverting to comparisons just given, that, as matter conducts electricity, so the human soul becomes a conductor of the divine will, and sentiments. Or as we can not see how the crystal receives the light, or how, being a perfectly opaque body in itself, it becomes luminous without the least change in its own organization, so here we can understand that the human soul, or spirit, is made capable of the divine spirit, without any loss of its own human individuality; but, the manner of the fact is, in both cases, uninvestigable and mysterious.

The Scriptures use a great variety of figures to represent this truth, and gives us a vivid practical sense of it, but

they do not undertake to show us the manner. They compare it to the wind that bloweth where it listeth-thou canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth. They speak of it as teaching-he shall teach you all things. Drawing,-except the Father which hath sent me draw him. Quickening-it is the spirit that quickeneth. Begetting anew,-born of water and of the spirit. Sealing,sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. Dwelling in the soul,—the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. Walking in it,—I I will walk in them. Leading,-led of the Spirit. Strengthening,-strengthened with might by thy Spirit. Witnessing reciprocally with us,-bearing witness with our spirit. By reason of a certain analogy that pertains between the works of the Spirit in lost man, and the working of the life principle in bodies, it is also called, comprehensively, "the spirit of life." In which, however, nothing is explained to us respecting the manner; for we do not know, at all, how the life-principle works, we only know its effects; that it quickens the dead matter, organizes, vivifies and conserves it by its presence, and that, somehow, the matter, without ceasing at all to be matter, obeys it.

Let us now consider what and how much it signifies that we are spirit; capable, in this manner, of the divine concourse. In this point of view it is, that we are raised most distinctly above all other forms of existence known to us. When it is declared in the scripture, that the Spirit of God moved upon the waters of chaos, it is not meant that he was inspiring chaos, but only that he was acting creatively in it. So it is not understood, when all the host of heaven are said to be created by the breath of the Almighty, that the stars are inspired creatures; much less, that the brute animals are inspired, because they are

said to live, when the Almighty sendeth forth his Spirit. The will, or force of God, can act omnipotently on all created things, as things. He can penetrate all central fires and dissolve, or annihilate, every most secret atom of the worlds, but it can not be said that these things receive him. Nothing can truly receive him but spirit. He may pass through things and have them pliant everywhere to his touch, but they derive nothing from him that is personal to him. No creature can truly receive him, save one that is constitutionally related to him in terms that permit correspondence; there must be intelligence offered to his intelligence, sentiments to his sentiments, reason to his reason, will to his will, personality to his person. To speak of an inspired mountain, or planet, or breeze of air, an inspired block, or an inspired brute, has even a sound of irreverence. Not so to speak of an inspired man; for man is spirit, a nature configured to God, and therefore able to receive him. And by this, he is separated from, and set above all other of God's creatures, and shown to be scarcely less different from them in kind than the Creator himself. True, he is a creature, but a creature how gloriously distinguished; one that can partake the Infinite Creator himself, and come up thus into the range of his principles, motives, thoughts and powers. Not even the obedient worlds of heaven can so receive him. Following in the track of his will, and filling even immensity with their stupendous frame of order, they yet have nothing fellow to God in their substance, and can not, therefore do what the humblest soul is able; can not receive the communication of God. They can be shaken, melted, exploded, annihilated by his will, but they are not vast enough, or high enough in quality to be inspired by him. Spirit only can be inspired.