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overflow for blessing in the world around. The call, for one and for another, may not be to a life of any extraordinary apparent sacrifice, or external exhaustion or hardship; though who may say that it shall not be so? But most assuredly, for all who would be on the Lord's side in these days of ours, it is a call to a life of just such "coming out and being separate" from the world externally (while yet we are ready every hour lovingly to serve that world for our Lord) as arises from a true separation from the life of self and of sinning internally. How shall it be? How shall we indeed be sanctified, sinners that we are, in order to this witness and service of word and work? There is only one way. It is "in 1 Cor. vi. II. the name of the Lord Jesus, and by THE SPIRIT of our God."

A

CHAPTER X.

GENERAL view of the revelation through

St Paul of the Holy Spirit and His work lies now before us. We proceed in the chapters which remain to a more detailed study of some leading Pauline passages, in which the Spirit's blessed operation and its results stand out manifested with peculiar glory.

May our "meditation of Him," by His great Ps. civ. 34. grace, "be sweet." May thought

and word be in some true sense His, and may the whole result be for Him.

I take up in the present chapter the great passage about the FRUIT of the Spirit, generated and produced in "the spiritual man.” The

Gal. v. 22, 23. words thus specially before us are part of a context, and indeed of an Epistle, full to overflow of the truth of the Holy Ghost. What we observed in the last chapter

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regarding the doctrine of St Paul in general is seen in the Galatian Epistle, and in this section of it, eminently.

The Epistle is an urgent protest against a false doctrine of Justification. It states with strong and jealous firmness and precision the truth of the finished work of the atoning Cross, and the absolute necessity and simplicity of the function of faith, faith only, in order to the sinner's entrance into the merits of the Crucified, into acceptance in Him who "bought us out from the curse, being made a curse Gal. iii. 13. for us." It protests that a Gospel which leaves this out, which has not this for its message, is not a Gospel but a fatal perversion of the Gospel. But does the Epistle stand still there? Is Justification its whole message? No; it conveys quite as much a warning, a testimony, an affirmation, about the work and power of the Holy Ghost. The all-importance, for St Paul, of the truth of Justification resides after all in this, that for the justified, and for them only, lies open the life, and walk, and victory, and fruitbearing, which is by the Holy Ghost alone. As guilty sinners they take refuge by faith in

Jesus Christ "made a curse for them; and then, and so, they become possessed of all that is laid up in that same Saviour risen and glorified, and who now by the same Spirit who led them to Him dwells in them.

So in this Epistle of Justification, as it draws to its wonderful close, we have more and more of the Holy Ghost. "Walk by the Spirit, and Gal. v. 16. ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh; let us observe the definiteness and decision of that promise, my Christian brother and reader, and humbly claim it. Again, "The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and " (we dwelt on this divine side of the matter in the last chapter) "the Spirit against the flesh." Again, "If ye be led by the Spirit,

Gal. v. 17, 18. ye are not under the law;" not in collision with it, as it is the royal proclamation of your Father's will. Do you challenge His inspection as solely and only JUDGE? Ah, that would to the last involve a sternly judicial condemnation.1 But do you lovingly, and with

1 Observe the well-weighed words of Article XII.: "Good works, which are the fruits of faith, and follow after justification, cannot . . . endure the severity of God's JUDGMENT."

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the heart of the child born again of the Spirit, look up to Him as FATHER, and, giving yourself to be led along the way of His will by His Spirit, say, "Oh how I" (not Ps. cxix. 97. challenge, but) "love Thy law," Thy will revealed? Then indeed, as regards your personal relation to that law, you are not "under it;" it is not "over you" judicial sword. Redeemer met it

it, and as you fall

as the Not only has your blessed for you as you have violated

short of it; you also now, in

Eph. vi. 6; so literally.

a sense most humble, led by the Spirit, meet it with the sincerity of a loyal will, loving the Lawgiver "from the soul." Again, a few verses later, comes the significant precept, "If we live by the Spirit," if indeed we have by His power the new birth and life, “let us also take step by step (σтox@μev) by the Spirit." Let us consciously, with recollection, and in detail, apply our life-power, yield to our Life-Giver, in the daily path. Not only as to the large scope of existence but in the minutest things of this hour, in the small but strong temptations of ordinary intercourse, in the facile