proves to be, prevailing and habitual. Such cases St Paul I doubt not contemplates here, assured that within the large community at Ephesus there were many for whom such a crisis was the great spiritual need. And he includes the whole company in his prayer; partly, if I read him aright, to remind each disciple that whatever might be his experience of the Arrival there was no man who might not possess, and ought not to possess, the experience of the Presence; but partly for another reason. The holy Reality, in this as in other things of the soul, inevitably tran scended any single metaphor of it. Arrival and Residence were ideas not narrowly to be limited to any one crisis of the life of faith, however great and memorable. and memorable. Even for the most fully experienced, each access of conscious knowledge of the power of that Presence in the heart would be as it were a new arrival for another stay. Such is HE of whom the writer speaks, and such is His indwelling, that in the very heart itself, in the very same heart, He may from one point of view be lastingly present while from another point of view He THE SPIRIT'S WORK IN THIS MATTER. 239 may be arriving even now. Lord Jesus." "Even so come, But while we thus speak of this sacred Indwelling, this dear inner secret of the Christian life, are we forgetting our true theme, the work of the Holy Spirit? No, we are not. I have dwelt thus far upon ver. 17 in order to put with the more emphasis the truth of ver. 16, the revealed action of the Spirit in this matter. Deep Observe then that it is HE who so to speak stands behind this whole wonderful experience as its immediate Agent and Secret. The Apostle bows his knees to the Father that these dear Ephesians, each and all, one by one, may be dealt with in divine speciality by the Holy Ghost. He must act in them and through them if Christ is thus to dwell within. below the Christian's consciousness, within those springs of thought and will which are such mysteries to the person himself, the Spirit of the Father-and of the Son-must do the work of "strengthening with might in the inner man." Operating there with the divine skill which violates nothing in the nature He has made, and with the divine power which can do what He will in and with that nature, He must give, He will give, supernaturally to the man's inmost self a spiritual firmness and vigour which shall discard certain deep fears and do certain acts that could not otherwise be done. Sacredly significant indeed is the phraseology. In order to a reception into me of what is altogether the gift of God and not the sequel or remuneration of any toils or endurances of mine, I yet need to be "strengthened with might by the Spirit in" (" deep within,” as the Greek1 seems precisely to indicate) "the inner man." And I ask what this means, what is the occasion in this matter for a divine strengthening, where perhaps I might have looked rather for such words as subduing or alluring. And I read the answer in the light of the truth that the blessing in question is the residence always in the heart of its MASTER and LORD, who where He dwells must rule; who enters not to cheer and soothe alone but before all things else to reign. And I remember that nature, nature in the Fall, does not like that Presence in that aspect; fears greatly to admit "this 1 Εἰς τὸν ἔσω ἄνθρωπον. WHY HIS "STRENGTHENING" IS NEEDED. 241 Man to reign over us." I remem- Luke xix. 14. ber that the regenerate soul itself-such is the dimness of sight and the spiritual imbecility of even the child of God "in this tabernacle ❞—all too easily loses its conscious certainties of the absolute tenderness along with the absolute sovereignty and royalty of the Lord who "stands at the" inner Rev. iii. 20. "door and knocks; " it trembles lest His incoming should of necessity bring some nameless shock or sorrow in its train. "I dreaded to yield myself without reserve to Jesus Christ,' said a Christian kinswoman of my own, relating to a little circle the story of her own experience; "I felt so sure that He would take from me my little Hugh." But the strength of a quiet confidence in the perfect wisdom and love of the claimant King, along with a calm intuition into His adorable beauty and desirableness, at length overcame that dread; and the door was opened, cost what it might. He has come in-and the child has not been taken from the mother's embrace, or rather it has been given back to her, "Isaac-like," more than ever her own, out of that supreme surrender. Do we not understand in the light of such an instance the need of the Holy Spirit's strengthgiving work, in order to the reception of the Lord Christ as the abiding and ruling Inhabitant of the very heart? And do we not see how it is the special function of none other than THE SPIRIT So to deal with the inner man? He is the Glorifier of Christ; it is His, as we have seen above,1 to "Show us that loving Man That rules the courts of bliss, The Lord of hosts, the mighty God, And in the sacred matter of the Indwelling, it 1 Page 120. So work Thou Father and of |