Hence, then, my brethren, you perceive the wickedness or folly of those who now pretend to especial communications of the Holy Spirit; to extraordinary inspirations from heaven; to particular illuminations; to sudden and forcible conversions from heinous sin to certain salvation; and to personal experiences of the operation of the Holy Ghost upon their inner man. All such pretensions are false and wicked; the offspring either of an heated imagination, and a wild enthusiasm; or, what is much worse, of an hateful pride of spirit, and a wicked uncharitableness of temper.
... ordinary communications, my brethren, consist in the Spirit suggesting to the mind holy dispositions and good desires; in his enlightening and renewing the soul; in his sanctifying and purifying the heart; in his giving efficacy to the words of the Gospel; and in his assisting us in the paths of our duty, and strengthening us according to the circumstances of our need ...
Here [i.e. John 3:8] Jesus Christ likens the operation the Holy Spirit to a circumstance in the natural world; the course, and origin, and nature, of which, we cannot make out, though its effects are sufficiently plain to our senses. The wind, you know, is invisible; and no man can see its motion, even when it blows with the greatest fury; though that there is such a thing, no man will venture to deny. In the same way the Holy Spirit is continually acting upon the heart duly prepared for his influences, though, like the wind, we cannot tell "whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth". It is not a visible power, that acts evidently before our eyes; it is not a forcible influence, that seizes upon the mind, and suspends for a time all its faculties, as was the case with the prophets of old, and of those who had visions in ancient times; nor is it a conviction, like that of Peter and Paul, and the apostles, that the Holy Spirit is acting at any particular time, or on any particular occasion, on the soul. No, my brethren, his operation now is very different from all this. It is secret, gentle, and persuasive: he "draws us with the cords of love, and the bands of a man"; like the dew descending in the night, his influence steals into the soul unperceived, and is known to be an inhabitant there, only by the refreshment which it gives to the spirit, by the vigour which it affords to every holy resolution, and by the abundant fruits of godliness and virtue, which it enables that man to bring forth, who is blessed with the indwelling of the Holy Ghost.
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