e increase." Wherefore let the Church trust
neither in him that planteth nor in him that watereth, but in God who
giveth the increase.

(2) We come now to the Holy Spirit's work in the world. And, just as in
speaking of the "Church" it was not any visible organization which we
had in mind, so now by the "world" is not meant merely the persons who
are outside all such organizations. There is, as we are often reminded
nowadays, a Church outside the Churches; and, on the other hand, not a
little of what Christ meant by the "world" is often to be found inside
what we mean by the "Church." The "world," then, is simply the mass of
men, wherever they are to be found, who are living apart from God. Now,
of this world Christ said it "cannot receive" the Spirit of truth; "it
beholdeth Him not, neither knoweth Him." If, therefore, there is a
ministry of the Spirit in the world, it must be wholly different in kind
from that spoken of above. And this is what we learn from Christ's
teaching: "He, when He is come, will convict the world in respect of
sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment." There is a ring of judicial
sternness in the words; they call up to our minds the solemnities of a
court of justice--the indictment, the conviction, the condemnation. And
yet one can well believe that there were hours in the after life of the
apostles when, of all the comforting, reassuring words which Christ had
spoken to them in that Upper Room, there were none more helpful than
these. For they knew now that, when they stood up to bear their witness
before a hostile world, they had a fellow-witness in men's hearts. They
could go nowhere--in Jerusalem, Judaea, Samaria, or the uttermost parts
of the earth--where the gracious ministries of the Spirit had not
preceded them. He, the Paraclete, was not only with them, their
"strong-siding Champion," He was in the world also, in the hearts even
of them who set themselves most stoutly against the Lord and against His
Anointed, subduing their rebelliousness and reconciling them to God. We
who teach and preach to-day, do we think of these things as we ought?
Does not our message sometimes win a response which is at once a
surprise and a rebuke to us? We knew that the seed which we cast into
the ground was the word of God; but the soil seemed so poor and thin we
scarce had looked for any harvest; yet the seed sprang up and grew, we
knew not how. We had forgotten that over all that wide field which is
th