What, then, is the presence of the Holy Spirit? In a former section I have observed, that when God is said to be present in any place, the expression only means that there he makes a local manifestation of his agency, and presents a visible and marked exercise of his energy. His presence in the magnet acting on the needle, and in fire liquifying ice, does not convey an idea of a personal indwelling in these agents. As then, in a given place, or given agent, there may be a local manifestation of his agency, so in any given person, character, or truth, there may be, in that person, such a local exercise of his influence, without implying an indwelling of his person. Instead of calling this manifestation local, it might with propriety be denominated PERSONAL, only by applying the epithet to the man, who is the subject, and not to the Holy Spirit, who is the agent.

The presence of the Holy Spirit, then, in Christians, means not an indwelling of his person, but a manifestation of his agency and influence, whether in a particular individual, or in a united community. It is true, that his influence is the influence of an agent that has distinct personality, and is exercised according to personal will; but as the Father and the Son exercise a personal influence according to personal will, without implying an indwelling of the persons, so the manifestations, in any individual, of the Holy Spirit's agency, marks the presence of his influence, and not the presence of his person.

II. From this manifestation of the Holy Spirit in personal instances analogous to that in local cases, many Christians have rushed into another error, which consists in the expectation that this Supreme Agent, either as a resident or a visitor, will make his operations evident in impressions, impulses, and suggestions, produced by his direct and immediate agency on their minds.

That the Holy Spirit should assume and possess the person of any individual man, and especially the multiplied persons of all believers, is a doctrine unrevealed, and equally without reason and against it. Numerous instances have indeed occurred, in which the Great God has exercised occasionally a direct and immediate agency on the souls of men in the process of inspiration. Though these instances are confessedly miraculous and supernatural, many Christians have conceived that God has not abandoned this method of communion with the human spirit; and consequently when they pray for

the presence of the Holy Spirit, they expect some supernatural direction to be given to their minds, some mystic impressions and divine characters to be made on their imaginations, and some strange and irresistible impulses to be given to their emotions. This is the theology of "the inward light "— of "immediate suggestions"-of "unsought impulses," and of being, in the present day, "moved by the Spirit."

It cannot be shown by either analogy or argument, and the sacred scriptures never intimate, that the union between the Holy Spirit and the Church, or the presence of the Holy Spirit in believers, is of the same kind as his union with the spirits of inspired men. There is nothing in the New Testament to encourage us to expect it, or to teach us to pray for it. The claims of these impressions and impulses, are no less than pretensions to personal inspiration, and individual revelations, communicated and received in immediate intercourse between God and favorite minds. These impulses of modern pretenders differ greatly from the inspirations, with which holy men of old were moved by the Holy Ghost, in the kind of estimate which they suggest of the written word and the use of ordinances. The men, truly moved by the Holy Ghost, were as distinguished for their diligent use of means, and their profound and fervid respect to divine ordinances, as they were for the sublimity of their revelations. The ancient prophets never claimed for their suggestions a superiority to the Mosaic institutions, and the primitive apostles were inflexible and indefatigable in their vigorous use of means. The disciples of inward impressions, on the contrary, find it much easier to soar in lofty flights of sentimental desires, and listless waitings for new inspirations, than to make a determined and pertinacious use of a full and perfect revelation already given. The spiritual pride, and sanctimonious haughtiness, of these inflated visionaries, are in unhappy contrast to the modesty, meekness, and humility of those who spake by the Holy Ghost. The fount of real inspiration "that flowed fast by the oracle of God," issues forth in rills clear, fresh, and healthful, while the sources of impulses on the imagination are thermal springs, marked chiefly by the exhalations of offensive and noxious vapors. Sometimes an attempt is made to redeem the character of these impressions, by a statement that they were imprinted on the mind by means of a passage of scripture. Their character is redeemed at too great a price, when it is at the

expense of the simplicity and majesty of the scriptures. In every such attempt, there is either a torturing of the given text, to make it speak and mean what are not its direct sentiments; or else, the text is suborned to give evidence of a personal inspiration. If I make a text, at a given time, to mean to me what it means to no other person, nor even to me at another time, I make it to myself an individual revelation pro tempore, a private Bible, the inspired "lesson for the day." The Word of the Lord is a very different book. It is perfect, complete, adapted, and fitted, to the cases and interests of any, and of all, inquirers, without any addition or modification. It is as exactly and directly suited and intended for each reader, as if it were personally addressed to him, and forwarded to him through an authorized office; but it is addressed to him as the King's edict, and as the light of the sun, presenting the same relations to all others in his circumstances. In the case of the word giving an impulse to their mind, the word is not regarded as the CAUSE of the comfort, or of the direction imparted, but simply as the occasion; and consequently, those who thus value such impressions, strip the word of God of all its real honor.

In the notion of impulses by the word, it is not the matter revealed, but the manner of revealing, that constitutes the divinity of the impression and suggestion. As certain ancient cabalists saw mysteries in the length of a letter, and in the termination of a line, these diviners in occult marvels see inspired portents in the recollection of a sentiment, and in the traversing of a thought. The doctrine, or the duty, in the sentiment recollected, as it is contained in the written word, has no influence on their minds; it is only the manner of suggestion that bears the characteristics of a celestial charm and a divine spell. In syllables, words, and sentences, it has a definable and common-place meaning; but muttered in mysterious whispers, or pronounced in aërial sounds, or seizing the memory with a striking suddenness, or perhaps catching the roving eye accidentally, by a kind of Sortes Virgiliana- these, these are, in their apprehension, the evidences that it is "the great power of God," and then their souls feel the power, and yield to the sublime impulse.

Could we mount aloft and see the sycles and epicycles of these transcendental spheres, we might almost demonstrate, to the exalted inhabitants, that recollection is not inspiration, and that suggestion is not a revelation. Recollection is a

mere act of the memory, and, in our case, it is only a remembrance of what is already in revelation. It is sometimes fancied and asserted that the subjects of these impulses, either did not know that they had ever read such a passage, or that they were not previously conscious that there was such a passage, in the Holy Scriptures. Of all inspirations, this is the most ungodlike. To supply a lack occasioned by this culpable ignorance, and criminal negligence, it supposes God to grant a new revelation, that he might honor those who had voluntarily disregarded his mind and will as already revealed to them. Very frequently men profess that they are impelled by these impressions to do what is directly contrary to the scriptures, and thus make the Holy Spirit contradict and oppose himself. They do not consider that the Holy Spirit would be inconsistent with himself, if he directed any mind to believe that to be a truth, which he has in the scriptures declared to be an error; or if he made on any mind an impression that shall be besides, or against, what he has expressly declared, in his word.

The theory and process of suggestion are to us as inscrutable as those of memory. We have no doubt that suggestion takes place in the mind according to laws of relations, which have been adjusted and settled by the Father of mind, and that it requires no more miraculous or immediate agency to produce it, than to produce perception and memory. Suggestion is produced by the operation of perceived truth. Every truth is creative of thoughts in the mind, and suggestion probably takes place, when the mind, by means of one truth, lays hold on other truths contiguous, resembling, or in contrast with, the truth perceived. There is nothing in the process akin to supernatural inspiration.

There are four considerations that should dissuade the church from expecting any such fitful and uncertain presence of the Holy Spirit as that implied in the doctrine of impulses. First, In all the authentic history of God's real communion with his church, there is neither instruction, nor precedent, to warrant any people to decree and establish it as a rule, that a sudden, strange, violent, and unaccountable, impression on the mind or the imagination, is a criterion of the presence, and of the agency, of the Holy Spirit. Secondly, It is notorious that such impulses have been supernaturally given to some of the most reprobate characters recorded in the scriptures; which proves that they are never to be regarded as of a saving

and sanctifying kind. Thirdly, The universal and invariable failure of all the intimations, predictions, and expectations, of their most confident and oracular inspirations is, in solemn truth, nothing but a practical revelation to the church, that the Author of the Bible frowns, in resolved indignation, upon all such irreverent and audacious pretensions. Fourthly, The church is in no need of these inspiring impressions and intermittent impulses. There is work enough allotted, and "set before" her, in the written word: and there is light clear enough for her to accomplish all her work by, in the revelation already given; why should she, therefore, consult strange oracles? Had she actively employed all her energies in the successful conversion of the world, and then, in the freshness of her strength, sought the benefit and welfare of unknown intelligences of some ruined world, she might appeal to the Holy Spirit for new inspirations, and new directions, and for new energies, if the new world required them. Alas! her allotted work, so far from being accomplished, is scarcely begun; and in her light there is no darkness at all. The word of God, AS IT IS, is able, sufficiently able, to make all who believe it wise unto salvation. It needs nothing to be added to it, or supplied with it, in mystic characters, and impulsive suggestions. The Holy Spirit has distinctly testified that the written word, as it is, is more sure than a voice from heaven. It must, therefore, be, without doubt, more sure than mysterious cadences, aërial whispers, and visionary phantoms in the imaginations of men.

I would not have kept this doctrine of impulses so long before my reader's eye, but for its high pretensions, and flattering influence. The wild musings and reveries of this doctrine are supposed by many to constitute "being taught of God," "being led of the Spirit," "the witness borne by the Spirit:" but the following remarks will strip them of such high pretensions.

Divine teaching can mean nothing like this. Teaching is a rational process which consists in information conveyed in a definite, distinct, and intelligible manner; and which implies a vigorous exercise of the learner's own agency. To teach, is not to fling conjectures, and dart wild guesses athwart the imagination; but it is a designed adjustment of the elements of truth, and of the elements of mind, according to settled laws of combination. When the great God undertakes the heavenly office of teaching his children, we are not to suppose that he