me."

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.

A HYMN-PRAYER.

""Tis Thine to cleanse the heart,
To sanctify the soul,

To pour fresh life in every part
And new-create the whole.

"Dwell, therefore, in our hearts,

Our minds from bondage free;

Then we shall know, and praise, and love,
The Father, Son, and Thee."

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

THE SPIRIT AND THE NEW LIFE. 123

and faith, under which the man lays hold of and receives Him who is our Life, and receives in Him all His blessed fulness, the

grace for grace of a perpetual John i. 16. and ever-new supply of the peace and power which is in Christ.

We have thus as it were seen the soul safe arrived at its Union with the Lord; and now henceforth its life, the whole life of the man thus united, is to be a new life, a spiritual life, a perpetual reception out of Christ following upon that initial entrance into Him. How then is this life to be led? Is the man now to take his spiritual affairs into his own hands? Has the Spirit led him up to his Redeemer, and there left him? No, most certainly. True it is that the experiences of this new life are to be as personal, as conscious, as truly voluntary (let us not forget this), as those of the old. "No will is so fully equipped for work as the regenerate will." The whole Scripture overflows with illustrations and reminders of that fact. Nevertheless the new life, if the man is living it indeed, is to have in it from first to last this divine and glorious new factor,

the inworking presence of the blessed personal Paraclete, who in a sense now new and special is both to guard and animate the "first springs of thought and will," and above all to keep alive, by continuous application of Christ, the life He gave by first application of Christ. Thus, in the words of a hymn dear to many a believing heart,

"Every virtue we possess,

And every victory won,
And every thought of holiness,
Are His alone."

Following now our proposed method of Scripture study, I keep still to the Gospel according to St John, reserving for after study the forms of truth given through St Paul. And to illustrate from St John the work of the Spirit in the developing experience of the regenerate believer, I go again to the same Paschal Discourse of our beloved Lord which we have approached in the two previous chapters. We have found there His own account of some initial steps in the Spirit's saving work. We shall now find there, in the