vm.]  The  Work  of  the  Spirit.  i6r

But  again :  not  only  may  we  discover  that  this  work
is  thus  on  the  one  hand  wrought  upon  us  super-
naturally,  whilst  on  the  other  it  advances  through
the  action  of  our  natural  powers,  and  with  our  con
scious  co-operation;  but  further,  we  may  trace  the
part  of  us  on  which  it  operates.  It  is  "  in  the  spirit
of  our  minds"  that  we  are  to  be  "  renewed ;"  it  is
"  in  the  inner  man"  that  we  are  to  be  "  strengthened
with  might  by  His  Spirit e."  These,  and  a  multitude
of  other  passages  of  God's  Word,  speak  always  the
same  language.  What,  then,  is  "the  spirit  of  the
mind" — "the  inner  man?"  Such  expressions  must
refer  to  our  spiritual  and  moral  being;  and  it  is,
therefore,  on  these  that  this  work  of  God  is  being
wrought.  Even  the  intellectual  faculties,  great  as
is  incidentally  the  change  which  passes  upon  them,
are  affected  by  it  only  indirectly  through  the  removal
of  the  hindrances  and  imperfections  which  are  brought
into  them  by  moral  and  spiritual  evil.  By  this  pro
cess  the  man  is  delivered  from  that  darkening  even  of
the  understanding f  which  has  accompanied  his  wan
dering  from  God,  But  this  enlightening  of  the  in
tellect  is  not  the  direct  action  of  the  sanctifying  Spirit.
There  is  in  this  working  of  His  might  no  immediate
conveyance  of  any  new  ideas ;  no  absolute  imparting
of  knowledge;  no  direct  strengthening  or  raising  of
the  merely  intellectual  powers  as  such.  It  is  on  our
moral  and  spiritual  nature  that  this  work  is  wrought ;
it  is  "  to  will  and  to  do"  that  "  God"  thus  "  worketh

e  Ephes.  iii.  16.
