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we have known Christ after the flesh, yet henceforth know we Him no
more." For this reason, the Ascension was necessary before Pentecost
could come: the Spirit was not given, we are told, because Jesus was
not yet glorified. It was necessary for the Son to disappear as an
outward authority, in order that he might re-appear as an inward
principle of life. Our salvation is no longer God manifested in a
Christ _without_ us, but as a Christ _within_ us, the hope of glory.
To-day is the selected anniversary of that memorable day when the
first proof was given to the senses, in the gift of Pentecost, that
that spiritual dispensation had begun.

There is a twofold way in which the operations of the Spirit on
mankind may be considered--His influence on the Church as a whole, and
His influence on individuals; both of these are brought together in
the text. It branches, therefore, into a twofold division.

I. Spiritual gifts conferred on individuals.
II. Spiritual union of the Church.

Let us distinguish between the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit: by
the Spirit, the apostle meant the vital principle of new life from
God, common to all believers--the animating Spirit of the Church of
God; by the gifts of the Spirit, he meant the diversities of form in
which He operates on individuals; its influence varied according to
their respective peculiarities and characteristics. In the
twenty-eighth verse of this chapter a full catalogue of gifts is
found; looking at them generally, we discover two classes into which
they may be divided--the first are natural, the second are
supernatural: the first are those capacities which are originally
found in human nature--personal endowments of mind, a character
elevated and enlarged by the gift of the Spirit; the second are those
which were created and called into existence by the sudden approach of
the same influence.

Just as if the temperature of this Northern hemisphere were raised
suddenly, and a mighty tropical river were to pour its fertilizing
inundation over the country, the result would be the impartation of a
vigorous and gigantic growth to the vegetation already in existence,
and at the same time the development of life in seeds and germs which
had long lain latent in the soil, incapable of vegetation in the
unkindly climate of their birth. Exactly in the same way, the flood of
a Divine life, poured suddenly into the souls of men, enl