Mr. R.—By hearing God’s Word. “Faith cometh by hearing; and hearing by the Word of God.”
Mr. M.—How do you get the Holy Ghost?
Mr. R.—In the same way as you get faith. The Holy Ghost uses the Word as the chariot by which He enters the believer’s soul. The Gospel is called “the ministration of the Spirit.”
Mr. M.—Is the Word of God addressed to all here?
Mr. R.—“He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the Churches” (Rev. iii 22).
Mr. M.—What is the Gospel?
Mr. R.—“Good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.” If our Gospel, proclaiming life, pardon, and peace, is not as applicable for salvation to the vilest harlot here as to the greatest saint in London, it is not Christ’s Gospel we preach.
Mr. M.—What reason does the Scripture give tor the Gospel being hid to some?
Mr. R.—It is “hid to them that are lost; in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine into them.” May God open all our eyes, and take away the veil of unbelief with which the devil may be blinding any of us!
Mr. M.—Are there not many who give an intellectual assent to all these things; and who yet have no power, and no divine life?