000 - Introductory

INTRODUCTORY. The work of the Holy Spirit of God in our salvation from sin is known to us only through the Christian revelation recorded in Scripture. The blessed and beneficent effects of it are indeed to be traced in the great improvement and elevation of the moral state of mankind under the influence of Christianity, and these afford evidence of a strictly historical nature that Christianity is indeed of divine origin. But we could not from these effects alone ascertain with any degree of minuteness the nature and working of the divine agency by which they are produced. Such information, however, is given us in the inspired records, especially ci the New Testament, from which we learn what Jesus and His apostles taught as to the way in which the hearts and lives of men are renewed and purified, as well as how they are reconciled to God. Our inquiry therefore into this subject is to be prosecuted in the first place and chiefly by the study of the Bible, although we may expect to find the conclusions to which that leads us confirmed by the experience through which we pass if we obey the practical precepts and directions of the gospel. The salvation that Christianity brings to sinners is represented in Scripture as consisting of two principal parts — deliverance from guilt, condemnation, and wrath, which is ascribed directly to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ for us; and deliverance from the love and habit and power of sin in ourselves, which is represented as especially the work of the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus said His Father would send in His name. It is the latter of these that is the subject of this treatise; and in order to ascertain in a methodical way the teaching of Scripture on it, it will be suitable to consider it under two general heads — the Holy Spirit Himself, and the work that He does in our salvation.

These accordingly will be the two principal parts of this handbook.