The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 44

:

INTRODUCTION

4

Certainly this has value, influence, voice in the matter.

guarantees correctness and

And

But what

such experience?

—

how can we distinguish its various sources from ourfrom without, or from the Holy Spirit? The twofold ques-

again,

selves,

tion will ever hold it

fidelity in interpreting

:

Is

our experience shared by others, and may is in us sinful and spiritually abnormal?

not be vitiated by what

Altho there is no subject in whose treatment the soul inclines more to draw upon its own experience, there is none that demands more that our sole source of knowledge be the Word given us by the Holy Spirit. After that, human experience may be heard, attesting what the lips have confessed even affording glimpses into ;

the Spirit's blessed mysteries, which are unspeakable and of which

the Scripture therefore does not speak. But this can not be the ground of instruction to others. The Church of Christ assuredly presents abundant spiritual utterance in hymn and spiritual song; in homilies hortatory and consoling; in sober confession or outbursts of souls wellnigh overwhelmed by the floods of persecution and martyrdom. But even this can not be the foundation of knowledge concerning the work of the Holy Spirit.

The following reasons will make this apparent First, The difficulty of discriminating between the men and women whose experience we consider pure and healthy, and those whose testimony we put aside as strained and unhealthful. Luther frequently spoke of his experience, and so did Caspar Schwenkfeld, the dangerous fanatic.

But what

is

our warrant for approving the

utterances of the great Reformer and warning against those of the Silesian

nobleman?

For evidently the testimony of the two men Luther condemned as a lie what Schwenk-

can not be equally true. feld

commended as a highly spiritual attainment. The testimony of believers presents only

Second,

work

Holy

the dim out-

Their voices are faint as coming from an unknown realm, and their broken speech is intelligible only when we, initiated by the Holy Spirit, can interpret it from our own experience. Otherwise we hear, but fail to understand; lines of the

of the

Spirit.

we listen, but receive no information. Only he that hath ears can hear what the Spirit has spoken secretly to these children of God. Third, Among those Christian heroes whose testimony we receive, some speak clearly, truthfully, forcibly, others confusedly as tho they were groping in the dark. Whence the difference? Closer

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