Ten Important Questions as to the Knowledge of the Holy Spirit in a Living Soul

1. Do you know the Spirit as a Spirit of conviction, in having convinced you of sin? He convinces of sin; that is His special office. He opens up the law; discovers the curse attached to it; makes the soul feel its spirituality, its breadth, its length, and condemning authority. Has He ever laid guilt upon your conscience by opening up the law and condemning you as a transgressor against it, so that you have put your mouth in the dust and confessed you were guilty before God? If you have felt conviction of sin by the Holy Ghost, you know Him, if not as a Comforter, yet as preparing the way for comfort; you know Him in His killing, if not in His reviving; in His bringing down, if not in His raising up; in His discovering sin, if not in His revealing salvation.

2. But is He known also as a Spirit of grace and supplication? When the Lord is pleased to awaken the soul by His Spirit and grace, He gives Him as an internal Intercessor, to intercede “with groanings that cannot be uttered.” Was that ever given to you, so that upon your bended knees you besought the Lord with that earnestness, that sincerity, that pouring out of the heart before Him, with all that simplicity and brokenness, with those tears and sighs which mark and manifest His internal intercession and distinguish it from mere formal prayer? If so, you know Him as a Spirit of grace and of supplication. You know Him.

3. But has He ever dropped an encouraging word into your heart, as you have sat to hear any gracious minister open up the work of grace upon the soul, exalting the Lord the Lamb, speaking of His blood and righteousness, tracing out the sacred work of God upon the conscience? Have you felt an internal testimony that you know these things for yourself in the depths of your own heart? Then you know Him, for it is He who has given you this encouraging testimony. It is He who blessed the Word with a witnessing power to your conscience.

4. Or have you ever had a revelation of Christ to your soul? Did you ever see Him by the eye of faith at the right hand of God? This can only be by the testimony of the Spirit, for it is His covenant office to take of the things of Christ and to reveal them to the soul. He glorifies Christ by manifesting Him. If you have seen Christ by the eye of faith—if you have had a manifestation of the Son of God and a revelation of Him with power to your soul—you know Him, because it is He who gave you that most blessed manifestation, such as “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive.”

5. Has Jesus ever been made precious to your heart? Did you ever hold Him, as it were, in the arms of faith, as a mother clasps her babe to her bosom, and love Him with a pure heart fervently? Who kindled that love? Who touched your heart with that sacred flame? The Comforter, the Spirit of Truth. Then you know Him, for “the love of God is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost.”

6. Have you ever experienced any of that spirituality of mind which is life and peace—any lifting up of your affections to things above, where Jesus sits at God's right hand—so that you have felt that earth was no place for you, the things of time and sense you could tread under your feet, and your heart was so taken up with the blessed things of eternity that they became the very element in which your soul could bathe—the only happiness you knew below? Then you know Him, because it was He, and He alone, who lifted up your heart and affections to these heavenly things.

7. Do you love the saints of God? Can you say, with all your darkness and doubts and fear, that you do love the image of Christ which you see in His people? That, taking away all other evidences, this seems still to you so plain that you cannot deny it, and Satan cannot beat you out of it— that you do love those who love Jesus. Whence comes this love? From the Spirit of truth and love, who alone can enable us to love the saints as we love the Savior, to love the members as we love the Head. Then you know Him.

8. Has any deliverance ever come to you from the power of temptation? Have you had any manifestation of the sufferings of the Lord of life and glory; any solemn, heart - melting views of the garden of Gethsemane; and standing at the cross of Calvary, any view, by the eye of faith, of the blood that fell from the Redeemer's sacred brow, as surcharged with sorrow in the garden, or crowned with thorns upon the cross; any sympathy, any union, and fellow-feeling, with the Man of Sorrows? Whence came this? By the Spirit of Truth, the Comforter. Then you know Him.

9. Has your heart ever felt true repentance for sin; any godly sorrow; any forsaking of your bosom lusts; any breaking to pieces of your fondest idols; any loosening of earthly ties; any willingness to crucify the flesh, with the affections and lusts? The Spirit of Truth alone can accomplish this. Then you know Him.

10. Has the fear of death ever been removed? Did you ever look that gaunt king of terrors in the face? Did you ever look beyond the narrow isthmus of time, and the dark and dreary river which flows between you and eternity, and believe that death, when it came, would be a messenger from the Lord to take your soul into His bosom? Then you know Him; for who but the Spirit of Truth, the Comforter, could do these things for you?

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