me to know our own moral condition, and our own moral
necessities, shall we see and feel that the origin and growth of holiness
within our earthly and alienated souls, without the agency of God the
Holy Spirit, is an utter impossibility. Let us then look into the
argument from the nature of the case, and consider this doctrine of a
direct Divine operation, in its relations to ourselves personally. Why,
then, does every man need these influences of the Holy Spirit which are
so cordially offered in the text?

1. He needs them, in the first place, in order that _he may be convinced
of the reality of the eternal world._

There is such a world. It has as actual an existence as Europe or Asia.
Though not an object for any one of the five senses, the invisible world
is as substantial as the great globe itself, and will be standing when
the elements shall have been melted with fervent heat, and the heavens
are no more. This eternal world, furthermore, is not only real, but it is
filled with realities that are yet more solemn. God inhabits it. The
judgment-seat of Christ is set up in it. Heaven is in it. Hell is in it.
Myriads of myriads of holy and happy spirits are there. Myriads of sinful
and wretched spirits are there. Nay, this unseen world is the _only_ real
world, and the objects in it the _only_ real objects, if we remember that
only that which is immutable deserves the name of real. If we employ the
eternal as the measure of real being, then all that is outside of
eternity is unreal and a vanity. This material world acquires
impressiveness for man, by virtue of the objects that fill it. His farm
is in it, his houses are upon it, solid mountains rise up from it, great
rivers run through it, and the old rolling heavens are bent over it. But
what is the transient reality of these objects, these morning vapors,
compared with the everlasting reality of such beings as God and the soul,
of such facts as holiness and sin, of such states as heaven and hell?
Here, then, we have in the unseen and eternal world a most solemn and
real object of knowledge; but where, among mankind, is the solemn and
vivid knowledge itself? Knowledge is the union of a fact with a feeling.
There may be a stone in the street, but unless I smite it with my foot,
or smite it with my eye, I have no knowledge of the stone. So, too, there
is an invisible world, outstanding and awfully impressive; but unless I
feel its influences, and stand with awe beneath i