I. How does the Holy Spirit influence the human mind?

I answer, not by physical agency—not by the interposition of direct physical power. The action of the will is not influenced thus, and can not be. The very supposition is absurd. That physical agency should produce voluntary mental phenomena just as it does physical, is both absurd and at war with the very idea of free age. That the same physical agency which moves a planet should move the human will it absurd.

But further: the Bible informs us that the Spirit influences the human mind by means of truth, The Spirit persuades men to act in view of truth, as we ourselves influence our fellow-men by truth presented to their minds. I do not mean that God presents truth to the mind in the same manner as we do. Of course His mode of doing it must differ from ours. We use the pen, the lips, the gesture; we use the language of words and the language of nature. God does not employ these means now; yet still He reaches the mind with truth. Sometimes His providence suggests it; and then His Spirit gives it efficiency, setting it home upon the heart with great power.

Sometimes the Lord makes use of preaching; indeed, His ways are various.

But, whatever the mode, the object is always the same namely, to produce voluntary action in conformity to His law.

Now, it the Bible were entirely silent on this subject, we should still know from the nature of mind, and from the nature of those influences which. only can move the human mind, that the Spirit must exert not physical, but moral influences on the mind. Yet we are not now left to a merely metaphysical inference; we have the plain testimony of the Bible to the fact that the Spirit employs truth in converting and sanctifying men.