fying blood, is the adored and beloved of your awakened and confiding soul? Has He been so shown within you as the Son of the Father, the Only Begotten in the Father's bosom, that you not only reject with fullest intellectual conviction the misbeliefs of a Sabellius, an Arius, or a Socinus, in their oldest or their most modern phases, but that your spirit does indeed "kiss the Son" with the deepest homage of worshipping love, responding in sweet harmony to the Voice out of the Ps. ii. 12. Matt. xvii. 5. bright cloud-" This is My beloved Son"? Has He been so shown within you as your sovereign Master that you not only reasonably own His claims but find that a complete submission to them is pure happiness, because it is so real a means to feeling the bond which unites you for ever to Him? Has He been so shown within you as your life, your power, your wealth of resource against the devil, the world, and the flesh, and your enablement for humble service to His will, that you not only applaud a spiritual theory, and take pleasure in its exposition, but "take pleasure in infirmities, that the power of Christ THE SPIRIT GLORIFYING CHRIST. 119 may rest upon you," and His beloved 2 Cor. xii. 9. presence be felt as it hardly can be felt without the cross? Is it thus with you? Is it not thus with you? It is a divine reality, is it not? Calm and pure in its holy essence, this glorification of Christ yet moves and thrills with a "joy unspeakable and full of glory." And it is the I I et. i. 8 Holy Spirit to whom immediately the thanks for that joy are due. You, convinced and believing soul, reaping these fruits of living faith in the Son of God, are a subject of the best-beloved work of the loving Spirit. His breath has moved the cloud for you from the face of Eternal Beauty, and has quickened you into the consciousness of what it is. "He hath been thus effectual in this secret work of your regeneration unto newness of life;" in this new birth "unto a living hope." 1 Pet. i. 3. Love Him, adore Him, give thanks to Him. And meanwhile seek and expect His abiding and continuous work of loving grace. Look up to the Father, in this as in so many other spiritual connexions, with the prayer, sure to be answered, "Take not Thy Holy Spirit from " Expect, and humbly receive, not only Ps. li. II. an ever deeper view of the sinfulness of sin, but also an ever deeper view of the glory of Christ, seen in the secret places of present communion with Him and obedience to Him. The Spirit will unfold more to you, Eph. iii. 8 and yet more, of "the unsearchable riches" and their applications. He will 'strengthen you in the inner man,' so that "Christ shall dwell in your heart by faith" with a blessed development of continuousness and power, and so that you shall "know the love of Christ," with the joy of an ever new discovery. Eph. iii. 16, 17, 19. 66 "Come, Holy Spirit, come, Let Thy bright beams arise; Dispel the darkness from our minds And open all our eyes. "Convince us of our sin, Then lead to Jesu's blood, "Show us that loving Man That rules the courts of bliss, A HYMN-PRAYER. ""Tis Thine to cleanse the heart, To pour fresh life in every part "Dwell, therefore, in our hearts, Our minds from bondage free; Then we shall know, and praise, and love, 121 So, a hundred and thirty years ago, wrote Joseph Hart; and the need, the promise, and the prayer are the same this day. CHAPTER VII. WE have considered now, in our view of John iii. the revelation through St John of the Holy Spirit's work, three main passages dealing with that work. We have seen the Spirit as our Regenerator from spiritual death into spiritual life, and as our Convincer, John xvi. and as the Glorifier of Christ in the souls of the convinced. In this study we have looked from different points of view upon His supremely important function and action in bringing the individual into that living Union with the Son of God of which we treated in a previous chapter. union, as we there1 remembered, is altogether by the Holy Spirit, and is normally effected by Him through the processes of repentance 1 Page 39. See also below, p. 131. That |