and whilst they sanctified the whole harvest, they assured to the possessor the full enjoyment of itg. Now the harvest of " the Spirit " is that abundant effusion of holiness and happi- ness which God will pour forth on his people in the latter day, not unlike to what they enjoyed on the day of Pentecost, or to that which our first parents possessed in Paradise. And " of this Spirit God's people have now the first-fruits." They are renewed in the spirit of their mind after the very image of their God in righteousness and true holiness : and, with this renewal of their nature, they are also " filled with joy of the Holy Ghost;" even with a "joy that is unspeakable and glorified." Now it might be supposed that these, by reason of their present attainments, would be less anxious for the pro- mised period before referred to, when the whole creation shall be restored, as it were, to its primeval purity and happiness. But the very reverse of this is the case: for in every age these are the persons who most pant and long for the promised felicity. Yes, says the Apostle, " ourselves who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, even the redemption of our body."]
Of the joys they now experience they look forward to the everlasting consummation —
[" Believers are now the children of Godh," his children both by adoption and grace. Now adoption, amongst the Romans, was two-fold ; first, private, in the house, and after- wards public, in the forum. The former of these every believer has received already through the operation of the Spirit of God upon his soul1 : but for the latter he waits till that period when God shall come to gather together his elect from every quarter of the world, to restore to every soul its long mouldered body, and to make the whole man, in body and soul, eternally blessed in his presence. That is the period when " the body will enjoy the redemption " that has been long since possessed by the soul; and a blessedness will be then imparted to the whole man, of which his present most exalted happiness is but an earnest and foretaste. Now the believer knows that that period shall arrive : and he longs for it, and " groans within himself," through the ardour of his desires after it. Even here his anticipations of it have been sweet, infinitely beyond the powers of language to express, ("a joy unspeakable ;") what then shall the full possession be in the complete enjoyment of his God ? From the private adoption, by the testimony of the Spirit, he has been almost wrapt at times into the third heaven, notwithstanding the clog which his body has imposed upon his
« Deut. xxvi. 2, 10, 11. Prov. iii. 9. h 1 John iii. 1.
i ver. 15, l(j.