In addition to the preceding, I select the following paragraphs, as
having nowhere seen the terms, Spirit, the Gifts of the Spirit, and
the like, so effectually vindicated from the sneers of the Sciolist on
the one hand, and protected from the perversions of the Fanatic on the
other. In these paragraphs the Archbishop at once shatters and
precipitates the only draw-bridge between the fanatical and the
orthodox doctrine of Grace, and the Gifts of the Spirit. In Scripture
the term Spirit, as a power or property seated in the human soul,
never stands singly, but is always _specified_ by a genitive case
following; this being a Hebraism instead of the adjective which the
writer would have used if he had _thought_, as well as _written_, in
Greek. It is "the Spirit of Meekness" (a meek Spirit), or "the Spirit
of Chastity," and the like. The moral Result, the specific Form and
Character in which the Spirit _manifests_ its presence, is the only
sure pledge and token of its presence; which is to be, and which
safely may be, inferred from its practical effects, but of which an
_immediate_ knowledge or consciousness is impossible; and every
pretence to such knowledge is either hypocrisy or fanatical delusion.