By the Holy Spirit is meant the living and immanent Deity at work in the consciousness and experience of mankind,—the guider of human history, the comforter of human sorrow, the revealer of truth, the inspirer of faith and hope and love, the producer of life and joy and beauty, the sustainer and enricher of existence, the Impersonation of the Grace of God.
This mighty theme has been treated, in an initial manner, in connexion with Clause XIII.
Supplementary questions will be asked concerning other terms in the third paragraph; but as to the phrase with which the Creed concludes—the Peace of God,—its meaning, we are well assured, surpasses understanding, and can be felt only by experience; hence no supplementary question is asked concerning that phrase.
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_Q. 16. What do you mean by the Life Eternal?_
_A._ I mean that, whereas our terrestrial existence is temporary, our real existence continues without ceasing, in either a higher or a lower form, according to our use of opportunities and means of grace; and that the fulness of Life ultimately attainable represents a growing perfection at present inconceivable by us.
Continuity of existence, without break or interruption, is the fundamental idea that needs inculcation, not only among children but among ignorant people generally. And the survival, from savage times, of an inclination to associate a full measure of departed personality with the discarded and decomposing bodily remnant,—under the impression that it will awake and live again at some future day,—should be steadily discouraged. The idea of bodily resurrection, in this physical sense, is responsible for much superstition and for some ecclesiastical abuses.
A nearer approach to the truth may be expressed thus:—
Terrestrial existence is dependent for its continuance on a certain arrangement of material particles belonging to the earth, which are gradually collected and built up into the complex and constantly changing structure called a body. The correspondence or connection between matter and spirit, as thus exhibited, is common to every form of life in some degree, and is probably a symbol or sample of something permanently true; so that a double aspect of every fundamental existence is likely always to continue. But identity of person in no way depends upon identity of particles: the particles are frequently changed and the old ones discarded.