and to be renewed by his Spirit. Do this, and yon shall have no cause to complain that your corruptions are invincible: for his grace shall be sufficient for you, even though your corruptions were ten thousand times more powerful than they are. Nor imagine that the maintenance of holy tempers and affections shall be such an impracticable task as Satan would represent it to be: for the love of God shed abroad in the heart shall render every thing easy. Only receive the Lord Jesus Christ into your hearts by faith, and he will work effectually within you, as he does in all his saints : " He will fulfil in you all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power ; and so shall the name of our Lord Jesus Christ be glorified in you, and ye in him, according to the grace of our God, and the Lord Jesus Christ™."]
m 2Thess. i. 11, 12.
Gal. v. 25. If toe live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
MEN, as creatures, may be called " the offspring of Jehovah," " in whom they live, and move, and have their being*." But, as created anew in Christ Jesus, we have a nearer relation to God, seeing that his Spirit dwelleth in us : and consequently, we are bound in a more peculiar manner to glorify him by a suitable life and conversation. This is strongly intimated in the words of our text : in which we see,
I. The Christian's character —
It is here assumed that the Christian " lives in the Spirit." That the Christian's character, as here de- scribed, may be fully understood, let us mark,
1. The import of the assumption —
[Two things are implied in the expression " living in the Spirit," namely, that the Christian is endued with the Spirit; and that he lives under the influence of the Spirit. The Christian has not merely the powers and faculties which he brought into the world with him, and which an heathen possesses as well as he ; but he has received the Spirit of God,
a Acts xvii. 28.