Page:Regeneration.djvu/82

78 assembled at Jerusalem in expectation of some new tokens from on high, the promised influence came. God's spirit swept through their souls like rushing breezes; the truths that lie dead in their memories are blown into flame, their powers of utterance are unloosed, and such is the new light within that it seems to play around their persons like lambent fire. This was the commencement of a new dispensation of the spirit, which ever since has been enjoyed by the Christian Church just so far as she has observed the condition of its reception. Yes, it was the great purpose of Christ in coming into the world to prepare the way for this new advent of the Divinity in the human soul. It was to remove all obstacles in the way of God's access to humanity, that he, who is always coming, might be always received.

Now it is important to observe, that this new divine influence differs in degree, though not in kind, from the universal action of God in man before described. Ever and everywhere the hindrance to this action is the sin and the ignorance of man, the dark and baleful cloud formed from exhalations out of his own heart, and hanging between him and the Divine glory. But for this, God would inundate our souls every hour with the warmth and the splendors of noon. Precisely here was the consummation of the mission of Christ. He came first with a dispensation of truth, and the dispensation of the spirit was the necessary consummation. He penetrated the