Now, what reason has any man for declaring that the Spirit dwells in us
in any other way, unless he can point to an explicit declaration of
God's word defining and explaining that other way? This can not be done,
for there is no such passage. "But," says one, "I do not have to depend
upon the Word. I know it by my own consciousness." It is a principle as
old as metaphysics that consciousness does not take cognizance of
causes, but of effects. You may be conscious of an effect within you,
but you can not be conscious of the cause that produced the effect.
Suppose you are lying asleep on the ground; you are suddenly awakened by
a severe pain in your lower limb; consciousness tells you that you are
suffering pain, but it does not tell you what produced that pain. This
must be decided by _reason_ or _faith_. If you find a thorn in the grass
where your limb was resting, _reason_ says the thorn _stuck you_; if you
find a bumblebee mashed in the grass, _reason_ will say the insect
_stung you_; or, if some one near you says a boy with a pin in his hand
ran away from you, _faith_ will say the boy _stuck you_. But in either
case it was reason or faith that decided the cause of your pain. Now,
when a man says, "I am conscious of the presence of the Holy Spirit
within me," he simply means, "I am conscious of a _feeling_ within me
which I _have been taught_ was caused by the Holy Spirit." If the man
has been taught wrong, he assigns a _wrong cause_ for the feeling. What
is the feeling usually assigned for the presence of the Holy Spirit's
personal indwelling? It is a feeling of joy, peace and love. But can not
such feeling be excited by other causes? We know there are dozens of
causes that will produce such feelings. In the absence of clear
testimony, what right has any one to attribute such feeling to the
personal presence of the Holy Spirit? A man is found murdered. The
testimony shows that any one of a dozen men could have killed him. Is
there an intelligent jury in the land that would convict any one of the