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that a mistake appears to underlie the practice, not uncommon now among earnest Christians, of waiting for a special "Baptism of the Spirit" in order to more effectual service for the Lord? Surely, "by one Spirit we have been baptized into one body," And now our part 1 Cor. xii. 13. is to open in humblest faith all the avenues and regions of the soul and of the life, that we may be filled with what we already have.1 And how shall this be done? St Paul gives the answer : "That we might re- Gal. iii. 14. ceive the promise of the Spirit through faith." Yes, through faith, the mouth of the inner man, "opened" that He Ps. Ixxxi. 10. who has promised may "fill" it. In this brief, loving appeal to the Ephesian saints, the Apostle does but ask them to open and

receive; to take their stand upon a promise. Not by mighty spiritual effort but in order to it is that "promise" to be "received." We are to take the Lord at His word, to trust Him to bless us fully in His keeping His word. We are to open to Him all the inner doors of the soul, the chamber doors, as we have opened the main portal. And we are to use the same key, "the key of promise," which is, from the other point of view, the key of our simplest and most confiding faith.

Believing, we receive. And blessed then will be the manifestations of the holy Gift received, in one special direction and another. We shall know something of what it is to be Rom. xv. 13. "filled with all joy and peace in believing, that we may abound in hope, by the power of the Holy Ghost." We shall be Phil. i. 11. on our way to be "filled with the fruit of righteousness; " "filled with the knowledge of His will." We shall be realizing something indeed, by the power of Him who is the Bond betwixt us and our Head, of that Filling which we already possess (but possession is not realization) in Him in

Col. i. 9.

THE SEALING, EARNEST, AND FIRSTFRUITS. 225

Col. i. 29 with ii. 10.

whom "all the Fulness dwells." Yes, we shall be filled, we shall be filling, in our finite receptivity, with that "Fulness of God" which means whatsoever Eph. iii, 19. being glory in Him is capable of becoming grace in us.

Here will be a blessed and continuous answer to the prayer of our Communion Service, that wonderful and pregnant petition: "We humbly beseech Thee that all we, who are partakers of this holy Communion, may be FUL-FILLED with Thy grace and heavenly benediction."

Let us not forget the words which, with profound significance, just precede that prayer : "Here we offer and present unto Thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice unto Thee." We yield ourselves to Him for His will. He meets us with His sacred Fulness.

To this same range of truth we may refer the language of St Paul about the SEALING by the Spirit, and the EARNEST of the Spirit, and the FIRSTFRUITS of the Spirit.

" Gifts of the primeval Church are considerably in view in each of those phrases. But surely the same reasons which have constrained us to apply1 the Apostle's language about the Fulness to the "more excellent way" of the divine life of faith, hope, and love, apply here. The believer, already a believer by the Spirit's lifegiving operation, is now also "sealed" as the property of his Master by the same Spirit's developed possession of Him. And this possession, with its holy fruit, is the earnest " of his full possession of his God for ever in eternity; the "first-fruits Gal. vi. 8. of the harvest of "life everlasting" which is to be reaped "of the Spirit" then at length.

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Come forth then, eternal Spirit, and be ever coming forth, from Thy secret place within our spirit, into all that we are, and all that we have, to fill all in all in us, and to overflow through us. Fill Thou us in a blessed continuousness and habit, enabling us in humble continuousness to

receive Thee, day by day and hour by hour, through faith. At each crisis of need fill us with Thy special fulness out of Thy habitual. And when the hour of death shall come, so fill us that we may see with our spirit's eyes, in Thy light, heaven opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. Amen.