will observe that no other victory overcomes the world:  for this is what St. John means by saying, “Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Christ?” For then it comes to pass that a man begins to feel, that to do wrong is hell; and that to love God, to be like God, to have the mind of Christ, is the only heaven.  Until this victory is gained, the world retains its stronghold in the heart.

Do you think that the temperate man has overcome the world, who, instead of the short-lived rapture of intoxication, chooses regular employment, health, and prosperity?  Is it not the world in another form, which has his homage?  Or do you suppose that the so-called religious man is really the world’s conqueror by being content to give up seventy years of enjoyment in order to win innumerable ages of the very same species of enjoyment?  Has he not only made earth a hell, in order that earthly things may be his heaven for ever?

Thus the victory of Faith proceeds from stage to stage:  the first victory is, when the Present is conquered by the Future; the last, when the Visible and Sensual is despised in comparison of the Invisible and Eternal.  Then earth has lost its power for ever; for if all that it has to give be lost eternally, the gain of faith is still infinite.

 III.

 Preached Whitsunday, May 19, 1850.

 THE DISPENSATION OF THE SPIRIT.

   “Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.”—­1
    Corinthians xii, 4.

 According to a view which contains in it a profound truth, the ages of
 the world are divisible into three dispensations, presided over by the
 Father, the Son, and the Spirit.

 In the dispensation of the Father, God was known as a Creator;
 creation manifested His eternal power and Godhead, and the religion of
 mankind was the religion of Nature.

In the dispensation of the Son, God manifested Himself to Humanity through man; the Eternal Word spoke, through the inspired and gifted of the human race, to those that were uninspired and ungifted.  This was the dispensation of the prophets—­its climax was the advent of the Redeemer; it was completed when perfect Humanity manifested God to man.  The characteristic of this dispensation was, that God revealed Himself by an authoritative Voice, speaking from without, and the highest manifestation of God whereof man was capable, was a Divine Humanity.

The age in which we at present live is the dispensation of the Spirit, in which God has communicated Himself by the highest revelation, and in the most intimate communion, of which man is capable; no longer through Creation, no more as an authoritative Voice from without, but as a Law within—­as a Spirit mingling with a spirit.  This is the dispensation of which the prophet said of old, that the time should come when they should no longer teach