for this purpose. If in any degree conscious of a decline or obscuration in her life and work for her Lord, she took Gal. v. 22, 23, and read the words over as in His presence, and asked herself before Him in what particular of the Fruit of the Spirit any recent failure was apparent. Such asking and finding led at once to a repentant renewal of surrender and of faith, and so back to the rest, and to the readiness, which are for us, by the Holy Ghost, in Jesus Christ our Life.

WE

CHAPTER XI.

E are still engaged upon the revelation. through St Paul of the Holy Spirit and His work. In the present chapter we take up a group of Pauline words and phrases on the subject, rich in materials for enquiry and for faith.

And, first, and mainly, the FULNESS OF THE SPIRIT. The precise phrase is not Pauline; indeed it is not verbally Biblical. But equivalent expressions are abundant, in many parts of Scripture. In the Mosaic age we find the sacred artificer Bezaleel "filled with Exod. xxxi. 3. the Spirit of God" for the work of constructing and adorning the Tabernacle, whose true Designer was none other than Heb. ix. 8. the Holy Spirit. In the Gospel age the Lord Jesus Himself is seen going up from Baptism to Temptation "full of the

Luke iv. I

Holy Ghost."

Acts ii. 4.

Ghost."

His Forerunner was "filled Luke i. 15,67, 41. with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb." And both the father and mother of the second Elijah were on special occasions "filled with the Holy Ghost." At Pentecost the gathered company, apparently the "hundred and twenty" of Acts i. 15, were "all filled with the Holy Peter was specially "filled" when he met the Jewish Council for the first time, Acts iv. 8, 31. witnessing to his Lord; and so, immediately afterwards, were all the brethren. So was Paul at his baptism, and when he sentenced Elymas to blindness. So Acts xiii. 9, 32. were the disciples at the Pisidian Antioch in their hour of trial and joy. The seven "Deacons " were chosen as "men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom." And Stephen, in the

Acts ix. 17.

Acts vi. 3.

Acts vii. 55. act of confession, "being full of the Holy Ghost, saw heaven opened." Barnabas Acts xi. 24. is described as a man "full of the Holy Ghost and of faith."

Such are the main Scriptural parallels which by way of illustration may be gathered around

VARIOUS ASPECTS OF "THE FULNESS." 211

the great Pauline passage on the Fulness of the Spirit, Eph. v. 18: "Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be ye filled in the Spirit."

Let us approach the text through the avenue of the parallels, and ask what they have to tell us on this great and precious fact and phenomenon of the New Life.

In the first place we gather very plainly that "the Filling" is not identical in idea, whether or no it coincides in time, with the initial work of the Spirit as the Life-Giver. The Filling is always seen as taking place where there is already present the New Birth; and the possession of that Birth is thus the occasion for a holy desire and longing to possess in some sense the Filling.

Again we gather that there are upon the whole two main aspects or phases of the Fulness of the Spirit. There is a special, critical, phase, in which at a great crisis it comes out in marked, and perhaps wholly abnormal, manifestation, as when it enables the man or woman to utter supernatural prediction

or proclamation. And there is also what we may call the habitual phase, where it is used to describe the condition of this or that believer's life day by day and in its normal course. Thus the Seven were not so much specially "filled" as known to be "full;" and so was Barnabas. Into this holy habitual fulness Paul entered, it appears, at his baptism. On the other hand the same Paul experienced from time to time the other and abnormal sort of filling; and it thus results that the same man might in one respect be full while in another he needed to be filled.

There is a close connexion from one point of view between the Fulness of the Spirit and what we commonly mean by miraculous powers and works, particularly the miraculous work of infallibly "inspired" speaking. The immediate result at Pentecost was an instantaneous

Acts. ii. 4. "speaking with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.' St Peter, St Paul, St Stephen, all spoke supernatural words of testimony, or authority, or vision, when thus "filled with the Spirit." The Lord Jesus Himself in the Fulness of the