the Divine Father, as he beholdeth the likeness of his well-pleasing Son in each newborn offspring of his love? In our recent discourse on the inner life with which God renews the spirits of men, we treated mainly of its nature, its source, and its rank. Now, looking for the aid of the Holy Spirit, we essay to speak of its development in the saint. The essence of the life is distinguishable from its form, as the life of a tree is distinguishable from its branches. The life of the root may exist in the branches, while some deadly blight may impede the flow of the life, and prevent their full formation. The child may possess the nature and likeness of the parent, while weakness and disease may so check its growth as to render it sadly unlike the parent in health and vigour of mind and body. In like manner, we may possess the life and image of Christ, as the essence of the new man, and yet, through the power of inbred sin, we may fail to grow up into Christ our living head in all things. The features of the new man may be but faintly seen in us, though the life of the new man cannot be destroyed. To make this distinction plain, we will turn to a few Scripture examples of the use of the word translated "form," and of its cognate or kindred terms. Paul says to the Jew, "Thou hast the form of knowledge and of truth in the law;" implying that he had only the form, that though knowledge and truth lay hid in the law, the Jew had not discovered them there, but had contented himself with the mere form. Also implying that the principle of truth, and the form or letter thereof, were different things. Again, concern ing the false professor of the last days, Paul says to Timothy, "Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof;" clearly showing that the one may exist apart from the other-that they cannot therefore be the same thing, and that the real form of godliness can only be derived from its living power. Again, to the Christians at Rome, he says, "Be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your minds." Here we have the inward renewing as the life or principle, and the outward transformation as the form taken by the life. These uses of the word, by the Holy Spirit, suffice to mark and to prove the difference between the life of Christ in the believer, and the development of that life in accordance with the truth taught in our text. Let us proceed to note: I. The great importance of the subject, as seen in the earnest language of the apostle. The essential necessity of the new birth by the Spirit none will deny. Our Lord's words have abidingly impressed this necessity on our minds; but we are wont to overlook the importance of the growth of the life through which we are born from above. Paul's words are pregnant with the vital moment of this great matter: "My little children, of whom I travail in birth again." They were then already children. The apostle had agonized in spirit for them before God, when he had "preached the gospel unto them at the first," and they had been born of the incorruptible seed, by the Word, through the Spirit. To them he could say, "Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." But when he looked for vigour, for progress, for fruit, he beheld them as the undeveloped members of a feeble and diseased body. They had turned from the proper food of the inner life, "to the weak and beggarly elements.... to the observance of days, and months, and times, and years." They were feeding on ritualism, on forms, and ordinances, and traditions, instead of feeding on Christ. False teachers had diffused amongst them false principles, and their growth toward the vigour of manhood-life had been stayed. Christ was in them, but he was not being formed in them. The Spirit-life was overlaid and encumbered by the dead weight of a fleshly religion. Hence we marvel not at our apostle's intense solicitude, as we hear him exclaim, "I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain." We marvel not that, as the Holy Ghost diffused through his breast the constraining love, and the deep concern and compassion, of Christ for his failing saints, his inmost spirit should be agonized for them; that he should "travail in birth AGAIN until Christ [should] be FORMED in them.” Measuring his feelings by our own, we might marvel; for where, in ministers or in people, is the yearning, agonizing, God-wrought solicitude that we ought to cherish for each other's spiritual growth and power? Who travails in birth in earnest longing to behold in God's saints the blessed features of the likeness of Jesus? As we address these words unto you, the pangs of penitential sorrow might pierce our heart, and shame might cover our face, and bid our tongue be still, while we call to mind the cold and lifeless nature of our pleadings in secret with God for the expansion of the holy life of Christ in his members. their Verily, we are so wont to see the stunted, shrivelled, half-formed features of Christian character and manhood, that we cease to mark, and to mourn over, deformity: and forget to long and pray for the full out-growth of the heavenly and beautiful Christ-life within the saints. We may impress upon our hearts the force of Paul's touching allusion, by an illustration drawn from the same source. That mother has been long watching the growth of her child-the child for which she once travailed, and whose infant-life she nourished with her own. With true maternal anxiety she has awaited the unfolding of its mental powers and filial feelings. It has reached an age when the faculties should expand, and the physical powers be developed. But, alas! she discovers no evidence of unfolding intellect, of warm affection, or of bodily strength. Like herself in nature and in life, how unlike herself is her darling child in growth and development. With what keen anguish does she contemplate the fact, that some dreadful disease is withering its mental and physical energies, is defacing the beauty of its features, and weakening its limbs. As we stand at her side, and behold her dire grief, should we marvel to hear words like these escape from the depths of her bleeding heart: "Oh, that I could travail in birth AGAIN, to give health and vigour to the mind and body of my child!" Indeed, has she not passed many an hour of sorrow more painful than those of travail itself, as the foreboding fear of the sad truth has again and again rushed into her mind? The great force of our apostle's words will be more fully felt, if we discern that the intense feelings of his soul were wrought in him by God. They did not originate from himself; they were the desires of the loving heart of the one Father towards his children, poured into and through the spirit of Paul; a part of "the gift of the grace of God, given unto him by the effectual working of his power;" and of the “striving according to his working, which," saith he, "worketh in me mightily." Paul's inward agony may also be regarded as the longings of the heart of Jesus on behalf of his members. Christ was travailing in him for his poor feeble saints. the mighty impulses of the within him, and filling him with the mind and heart of Jesus touching the need of his people. As we contemplate these solemn facts, the weight and power of Paul's inspired words will impress our minds with the strong conviction, that to have Christ formed in us is a matter of vast concern to God and to ourselves. Oh, that our thoughts and desires were more in accord with those of the Holy Spirit as to the priceless value of this blessing! That they may be so, let us proceed to inquire They were, moreover, II. What is it to have Christ formed in us? In opening this part of our subject, we had need note that the question is not one of outward fruit, but of inward condition. Paul was not thinking of the number and beauty of the clusters hanging from the branches, but of the richness and fulness of the sap diffused through the branches. His eye was not watching the walk, the activity, and the practical service of his children in the faith, so much as the state of their minds and hearts. He knew that the precious and plenteous fruit would be produced by |