Rome, even if they had been miracles, would have been pieces of folly. Suppose that Saint Denis had walked with his head in his hand after it had been cut off, what practical purpose would have been served by it? He would certainly have been quite as well in his grave, for any practical good he would have conferred on men. The miracles of Christ were never unnecessary. They are not freaks of power; they are displays of power it is true, but all of them have a practical end. The same thing may be said of the promises of God. We have not one promise in the Scripture which may be regarded as a mere freak of grace. Just as every miracle was necessary, absolutely necessary, so is every promise that is given in the Word of God. And hence from the text that is before us, I may draw, and I think very conclusively, the argument, that if God in his covenant made with his people has promised to put his Spirit within them, it must be absolutely necessary that this promise should have been made, and it must be absolutely necessary also for our salvation that every one of us should receive the Spirit of God. This shall be the subject of this morning’s discourse. I shall not hope to make it very interesting, except to those who are anxiously longing to know the way of salvation.
2. We start, then, by laying down this proposition — that the work of the Holy Spirit is absolutely necessary for us, if we are to be saved.
3. 1. In endeavouring to prove this, I would first of all make the remark that this is very obvious if we remember what man is by nature. Some say that man may by himself attain to salvation — that if he hears the Word, then it is in his power to receive it, to believe it, and to have a saving change worked in him by it. To this we reply, you do not know what man is by nature, otherwise you would never have made such an assertion. Holy Scripture tells us that man by nature is dead in trespasses and sins. It does not say that he is sick, that he is faint, that he has grown callous, and hardened, and seared, but it says he is absolutely dead. Whatever that term “death” means in connection with the body, it means that in connection with man’s soul, viewing it in its relation to spiritual things. When the body is dead it is powerless; it is unable to do any thing for itself; and when the soul of man is dead, in a spiritual sense, it must be, if there is any meaning in the metaphor, utterly and entirely powerless, and unable to do anything by itself or for itself. When you shall see dead men raising themselves from their graves, when you shall see them unwinding their own grave clothes, opening their own coffin lids, and walking down our streets alive and animate, as the result of their own power, then perhaps you may believe that souls which are dead in sin may turn to God, may recreate their own natures, and may make themselves heirs of heaven, though before they were heirs of wrath. But note, not until then. The thrust of the gospel is, that man is dead in sin, and that divine life is God’s gift; and you must go contrary to all of that thrust, before you can suppose a man can be brought to know and love Christ, apart from the work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit finds men as destitute of spiritual life as Ezekiel’s dry bones; he brings bone to bone, and fits the skeleton together, and then he comes from the four winds and breathes into the slain, and they live, and stand upon their feet, an exceedingly great army, and worship God. But apart from that, apart from the vivifying influence of the Spirit of God, men’s souls must lie in the valley of dry bones, dead, and dead for ever.
4. But Scripture does not only tell us that man is dead in sin; it tells us something worse than this, namely, that he is utterly and entirely averse to everything that is good and right. “The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be.” — {Romans 8:7} Examine all the Scripture, and you find continually the will of man described as being contrary to the things of God. What did Christ say in that text so often quoted by the Arminian to disprove the very doctrine which it clearly states? What did Christ say to those who imagined that men would come without divine influence? He said, first, “No man can come to me except the Father who has sent me draws him”; but he said something even more strong — “You will not come to me that you might have life.” No man will come. Here lies the deadly mischief; not only that he is powerless to do good, but that he is powerful enough to do that which is wrong, and that his will is desperately set against everything that is right. Go, Armenian, and tell your hearers that they will come if they please, but know that your Redeemer looks you in the face, and tells you that you are uttering a lie. Men will not come. They never will come by themselves. You cannot induce them to come; you cannot force them to come by all your thunders, nor can you entice them to come by all your invitations. They will not come to Christ, so that they may have life. Until the Spirit draws them, they neither will come, nor can they.
5. Hence, then, from the fact that man’s nature is hostile to the divine Spirit, that he hates grace, that he despises the way in which grace is brought to him, that it is contrary to his own proud nature to stoop to receive salvation by the deeds of another — hence it is necessary that the Spirit of God should operate to change the will, to correct the bias of the heart, to set man in a right track, and then give him strength to run in it. Oh! if you read man and understand him, you cannot help being sound on the point of the necessity of the Holy Spirit’s work. It has been well remarked by a great writer, that he never knew a man who held any great theological error, who did not also hold a doctrine which diminished the depravity of man. The Armenian says man is fallen, it is true, but then he has power of will left, and that will is free; he can raise himself. He diminishes the desperate character of the fall of man. On the other hand, the Antinomian says that man cannot do anything, but that he is not at all responsible, and is not bound to do it, it is not his duty to believe, it is not his duty to repent. Thus, you see, he also diminishes the sinfulness of man; and does not have a proper view of the fall. But once get the correct view, that man is utterly fallen, powerless, guilty, defiled, lost, condemned, and you must be sound on all points of the great gospel of Jesus Christ. Once believe man to be what Scripture he says is — once believe his heart to be depraved, his affections perverted, his understanding darkened, his will perverse, and you must hold that if such a wretch as that is saved, it must be the work of the Spirit of God, and of the Spirit of God alone.
6. 2. I have another proof ready at hand. Salvation must be the work of the Spirit in us, because the means used in salvation are of themselves inadequate for the accomplishment of the work. And what are the means of salvation? Why, first and foremost stands the preaching of the Word of God. More men are brought to Christ by preaching than by anything else; for it is God’s chief and first instrument. This is the sword of the Spirit, quick and powerful, to the dividing asunder of the joints and marrow. “It pleases God by the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe.” But what is there in preaching, by which souls are saved, that looks as if it would be the means of saving souls? I could point you to various churches and chapels into which you might step, and say, “Here is a learned minister indeed, a man who would instruct and enlighten the intellect”; you sit down, and you say, “Well, if God intends to do a great work, he will use a learned man like this.” But do you know any learned men that are made the means of bringing souls to Christ, to any great degree? Go around your churches, if you please, and look at them, and then answer the question. Do you know any great men — men great in learning and wisdom — who have become spiritual fathers in our Israel? Is it not a fact that stares us in the face, that our fashionable preachers, our eloquent preachers, our learned preachers, are just the most useless men in creation for the winning of souls to Christ? And where are souls born to God? Why, in the house where the jeer and the scoff and the sneer of the world have long gathered. Sinners are converted under the man whose eloquence is rough and homely, and who has nothing to commend him to his fellows, who has daily to fall on his knees and confess his own folly, and when the world speaks badly of him, he feels that he deserves it all, since he is nothing but an earthen vessel, in which God is pleased to put his heavenly treasure. I will dare to say it, that in every age of the world the most despised ministry has been the most useful; and I could find for you at this day poor Primitive Methodist preachers who can scarcely speak correct English, who have been the fathers of more souls, and have brought to Christ more than any one bishop on the bench. Why, the Lord has been pleased always to make it so, that he will clothe with power the weak and the foolish, but he will not clothe with power those who, if good would
