I. EVERY MAN HAS TWO SELVES - A HIGHER SELF AND A LOWER SELF.

1. A bad man has his better self. When temptation is away, in calm thoughtful moments, or when he is stricken by mortal illness or bowed with a great sorrow, or perhaps when the beauty of a sunset or the strains of sweet music call up memories of childhood, the true self will rise in the heart of a wicked man with pain and unutterable regrets.

2. A good man has his lower self. The human saint is far removed from the heavenly angel. The body and its appetites are with him; the soul has its meaner powers, its earthly passions, its self-regarding interests. There are times when the spiritual life is dull and feeble; then some sudden temptation, or even without that the depressing atmosphere of the world, will reveal to a man his worse side.

II. THE TWO SELVES ARE IN CONFLICT. They are not content to lie at peace each in its own domain. Both are ambitious to rule the whole man. While the flesh brooks any restraint, the Spirit strives to bring the body into subjection. Thus it comes to pass that life is a warfare and the Christian a soldier. The battle of life is not mainly a fighting against adverse circumstances and external concrete evils of the world. "A man's foes are they of his own household," nay, of his own heart. The great conflict is internal. It is civil war - rebellion and the effort to quell it; of all wars the most fierce.

III. THE CONFLICT BETWEEN THE TWO SELVES IS SUCH THAT EACH IS HELD IN CHECK BY THE OTHER. "Ye cannot do the things that ye would." There is a dead-lock. Each army holds itself safe in its own entrenchments. Neither can turn the enemy's position. Not that there is perfect balance of power. In most of us one or other force gives a temporary advantage. In many the lower self has the upper hand; in many, let us thank God, the better self maintains the supremacy. But neither has the victory that will enable it to drive the other off the field. Bad men, now and again, see yawning before them deep, black pits of wickedness, from the brink of which they start back in horror, arrested by the invisible hand of conscience. No man is wholly bad, or he would cease to be a man - he would be a devil. On the other hand, it is clear to all of us that no good man is wholly good.

IV. IN THE STRENGTH OF THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST THE BETTER SELF OF THE CHRISTIAN WILL ULTIMATELY OBTAIN COMPLETE VICTORY. The stress and strain of the war is but for a time. In the end all enemies shall be subdued. Meanwhile the secret of success is with those who "walk by the Spirit." So great a hope should lighten "the burden of the mystery."

"The heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world." Now life is broken, confused, inconsistent, discordant. But this is but the time of passing conflict. With victory there will come true harmony of being and growth to the full stature of the soul. - W.F.A.

1. The Spirit is a person. The personality of the Spirit is a doctrine freely confessed by us in our creed, but often denied by us in thought, converse, prayers. He comes to have with us only the indefiniteness of an impulse and the impersonalness of an influence, with none of that substantive being, intelligence, and will that constitutes the Holy Spirit a true and complete personality.

2. The Spirit is in some way the continuance to us, under altered conditions, of that same Jesus, who once walked among men in visible form, and in the utterance of tones that were audible. In a way He is the Son's messenger; and so, in letting ourselves be actuated by the Spirit, we are living still under the same personal regime as did the disciples who walked in the companionship of Jesus.

(Chas. H. Parkhurst, D. D.)

The text has its affirmative and also its negative element. In neglecting the latter, and addressing ourselves (as is more satisfactory) only to its affirmative and constructive aspect, it needs to be accepted as our basal principle, that through whatever stages God's government passes, God's government never ceases, and that changes of dispensation are not breaks in Divine authority, but alterations simply in God's method of administering His authority. This principle is distinctly implied in the text. The Jew as such is under the law, amenable to God's authority as exercised through Moses: the Christian as a Christian is also under a kind of law, amenable to God's authority as exercised through the Son, the Holy Spirit — sovereignty, Divine sovereignty, carrying its exercise through both dispensations in one uninterrupted continuity without hint of break or interregnum. Now the conception we are likely to have of Christianity is of a system under which there is larger liberty enjoyed than under the system of Moses; and this conception, provided only we associate with the word "liberty" its true notion, is justified, and justified by the Scripture (John 8:32, 33, 36; 1 Corinthians 7:22; 2 Corinthians 3:17). But I question if we are all of us, or even most of us, quite careful or accurate in the notion we have of the thing called "freedom." Freedom is not exemption from government; rather is freedom a form of government. Anarchy, lawlessness, is the opposite of government; freedom is a special variety of government. Political freedom is civil authority vested in a particular way. Christian freedom is Divine authority vested in a particular way; so that in coming out from the bondage of a Jew into the freedom of a Christian, there is no inquiry to be had respecting the abatement of authority, but only respecting the new point at which authority is vested and the new manner in which it is exercised.

(Chas. H. Parkhurst, D. D.)

"If... A man may live in an age of gospel, but it does not follow from that that he lives under the administration of the gospel. Christ has come into the world, but it does not follow that He has come into my heart and set up His throne there. The Holy Spirit is abroad in society, and there are thousands and hundreds of thousands that are being led by that Spirit. It does not follow from that, that I am being led by it. If I am led by it, I am not under the law; if I am not led by it, of course I am under the law. I have not escaped the pressure of Divine authority at one point until I have first put myself under the pressure of Divine authority at another point. We read in the Book of Numbers that a man gathered sticks on the .Sabbath, and he was stoned at the Lord's command; and our thought perhaps is that God used to be very particular. We read in the book of Joshua that Achan, the son of Zerah, was guilty of embezzlement, and that at the Lord's command he and his sons and his daughters were stoned with stones and burned with fire; and our thought perhaps is that the Lord used to be very particular. He used to be particular to be obeyed. There is so much in the New Testament respecting love, liberty, and the abolition of old ordinances, that we allow ourselves sometimes to be betrayed into supposing that the old dispensation was the dispensation of man's submission to God, and that the new dispensation is the dispensation of God's submission to man; that the gospel is a kind of giving up on God's part, a sort of confession that He is not disposed to be particular about little things any more, and that it hardly avails Him to attempt to be particular about little things. Now, this conception of the gospel as an economy of Divine relaxation," Divine "letting down," Divine "giving up," is one that yields bitter fruit; it makes the gospel contemptible by making it irresolute... Calvary proves that the truth is exactly the opposite of such a notion as this — that God thinks so much of His own sovereignty that He would rather have Divine blood shed than not have you and me respect that sovereignty and come into terms of gentle allegiance to it .... The man who discards the punctilious observance of God's outward statutes because he lives in an age of gospel, without having first submitted himself to the governance of an inward Christ, and to the laws written by the Spirit upon the fleshly tables of the heart, has detached himself from God at one point, without having first attached himself to God at another point.

(Chas. H. Parkhurst, D. D.)

The old administration was an administration of exterior lines that men could see: the new administration is an administration of interior personal impulses that men can feel. God drew the lines: God gives the impulses. Moses was the agency then: Christ is the agency now; one government underlying both, one sovereign administrative in both. In one case it was government by communicated statute; in the other it is government by immanent leadings. In one the law was a thing distinct from us, and laid down for us to run upon, like railroad-irons spiked and bedded before a locomotive; in the other the impulse is a thing inwardly contained and inseparable from us, in a certain way like the instinct of a bird guiding it southward at the approach of winter. In various ways might this distinction between government by applied constraint and government by contained motive be illustrated to us. Any bar of wood or metal you can balance upon a pivot and constrain into a north and south direction; a magnetic needle delicately suspended in the same way will constantly constrain itself into a north and south direction. An applied constraint in one instance, an immanent tendency in the other. Although it will occur to you, I hope, that even this immanent tendency of the magnetized needle becomes operative only as celestial polarity makes itself in a delicate way inwardly felt. The needle would not move only as the heavens move in it. Or again — one pupil solves a problem according to the rule stated in his arithmetic; another pupil solves the same problem purely at the direction of his own mathematical insight. The result may be the same — the steps by which the result is reached may be the same; but in the latter instance the process will be purely intellectual, and in the former to a considerable degree mechanical; for between such constrained operations of mind and the operations of a Babbage's calculating machine the points of resemblance are obvious and striking. This contrast, however, must not betray us into supposing that our gifted problem-worker is not as amenable, quite as amenable, to authority, as the boy who ciphers with his finger on the rule. When a man becomes a genius, a mathematical genius if you please, he passes out from under the constraints of his book, but not from under the supremacy of his science. There is no caprice about genius. Genius does not care much for a set of explicit regulations, but that does not mean that genius is lawless; in fact no mind comes so close to, and into such loyal intimacy with, the very substance of mathematical law as the free and the gifted mathematician. So far from genius discarding law, rather is it the supreme joy of genius to re-enact the eternal and unwritten law in the chamber of its own intellect. And however the Christian, the moral genius, may discard systems of detailed ordainment suited to a slow-paced Hebrew, so far from a Christian's denying the great supremacy beneath which he stands, rather is it his sovereign joy to re-enact in the senate-chamber of his own conscience the unwritten law that abides eternal in the bosom of his Lord.

(Chas. H. Parkhurst, D. D.)

We cannot put one foot before another in religion, except as we are led; and if there be difficulty of a more than common order, it is that which encounters the man who takes upon himself to be his own guide in seeking salvation. We are not, indeed, machines; we are not to be the subjects of an uncontrollable impulse, or a rigid compulsion, destroying free will, and forcing us into righteousness; but if we be not, drawn, we must be led; if there be no bending of the will which would destroy our moral responsibility, there must be a bending of the will which would incline us to godliness. Helpless and hopeless is man's natural estate: born in sin, cradled in sorrow. The Spirit of the living God enters into this alienated creature, lifts him. from the dust, urges him with vigour, and introduces him into the circle of the celestial family, leading him to the knowledge of all that is most blessed and to the love of all that is most beautiful, leading him from ruin to triumph, from the wreck of all that Adam was to the fulness of all that Christ Jesus is. Whom else, then, shall I take as my guide? Shall I be led by reason? Meteor of a day, I cannot trust thee. Shall I be led by philosophy? Device of man, thou canst not bring me to God. hie; Spirit of light, Spirit of truth, enter Thou into our souls, and. go Thou before us, as went the fiery cloudy pillar before Israel of old; and we will follow Thee, and we will obey Thee; making it our confidence, that, if we are led of Thee, we are sons of God and heirs of immortality.

(H. Melvill, B. D.)

The case is not merely that the man has. lost his way. The traveller who is conscious that he has wandered from the road is uneasy at advancing, so that he will climb every little eminence as that from which he may hope to catch some landmark; and if none be around him, he will look up to the stars, and seek to learn from the constellations the direction he should take; and all his actions will betray his anxiety. If he hear but the barking of a shepherd's dog, or discern a glimmering light amongst distant trees, there will be an eagerness in endeavouring to procure intelligence, and to seek guidance. But there is nothing of all this in the moral traveller. He will follow with obstinate determination the path upon which he has entered. And though there be much to assure him of his error — the rugged rocks, and deep mountains, and tangled forests — he will nevertheless push desperately on, pausing now and then for a moment, as though half conscious that all is not right, and then with a more dogged resolution hurrying forward in the same hopeless course. Thus he requires something more than a guide; he must be furnished with a disposition to follow. And when we say that the Spirit of God leads the true Christian, we do not mean that it merely goes before him as a guide and a director to the city of refuge. Nay, but that it takes hold on him, as did the angel when he brought Lot out of Sodom. We rather mean that the Spirit literally leads him by dwelling in him, residing in him as a quickening and actuating principle.

(Chas. H. Parkhurst, D. D.)

These words have before now been must mischievously mistaken by ignorant persons who were glad enough to suppose that by Christian privilege they were put out of the reach of the law. The meaning is as follows: — The Holy Spirit of God puts into the heart of man the Spirit of Christ, and this is the Spirit to think and do "whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report." Now if a man have in himself the spirit for a thing, what needs he any outward ordinance to compel him to it? To the man who is led by the Spirit the works of the law of God are the natural outward, working of his spirit, as natural to him as the very motion of his limbs; he does not want them to be written down, any more than he requires to be told that he must move his arms and legs, and they can neither condemn him nor justify him; he is what he is without them, before he comes to them; and, as St. Paul says, he, "through the Spirit, waits for the hope of righteousness by faith;" so independent is he of them. Is it not manifest, then, that he who is led by the Spirit is not, under the law? Let us go on, then, to know more concerning this Spirit, in which we are called into such glorious liberty. It is, as I have said, the Spirit of Christ within a man, formed there by the renewing power of the Holy Spirit; it is the new, the inner, the spiritual man, and the walk of this man is, of course, a following of Christ, a continual working out of that which he believes; for instance, he believes that Christ was crucified, therefore he crucifies the flesh with the affections and lusts; he believes that Christ died, therefore he reckons himself dead unto sin; he believes that Christ rose again, therefore he reckons himself alive unto God through Him; he believes that Christ ascended into heaven, therefore he sets his affections on things above; he believes that Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, administering His kingdom and interceding for His people, therefore he does all that His kingdom may come and His will be done, and is instant in prayer; he believes that Christ will come again to judge the quick and the dead, therefore he does the part of a faithful servant in watching and waiting for his Lord. Our notion of perfect liberty in the flesh is to do everything that we like; but experience soon tells us that the notion is impossible. But the true Christian does everything that he likes, for he does everything from the heart, because of the spirit which is within him. This it is to be led by the Spirit; this is the liberty wherewith Christ hath made His people free. Shall we not desire to stand fast in it? Shall we surrender ourselves to the bondage of the law? Let us only consider a little farther the difference of these two states.

1. To be under the bondage of the law, is either to take merit to ourselves for obeying it, or to bring its vengeance upon us by disobeying it; in either ease it is a hard master indeed.

2. Surely, then, there is no real liberty but that wherewith the gospel of Christ makes us free. Let me state a few particulars of this also. The man of God, continuing in the word of Christ, and led by the Spirit, uses the law as he does a road; he is not guided by it, any more than a man perfectly acquainted with a country is guided by it, but he uses it to travel along through this world, and he delights in it, as in a road to a better place, and as in the exercise of his spirit. As for the commandments of God, he loves them, and in His statutes he meditates. The word of God is a lamp unto his feet and a light unto his path. He feels no unwillingness; he has no mind for pleading excuses and making delays; but he deplores the weakness of the flesh, which in this body of sin cannot follow up the willingness of the spirit, and he strives to put to full account all the means which God hath so graciously given in Jesus Christ our Lord for enabling him to keep the precepts and testimonies of the Lord. He takes to himself no merit for keeping them, any more than for eating or drinking, or satisfying any craving of his nature; the leading of the Spirit makes the will of God his will, and therefore doing the will of God is doing his own will, so that while he keeps the law he is not subject to it.

(R. W. Evans, B. D.)Beside the spirit of our mind (Ephesians 4:23) every man is led by some spirit or other.

1. One is led by the spirit of error (1 Timothy 4:1).

2. Another by the spirit of giddiness (Isaiah 19:14).

3. Another by the spirit of bondage (ver. 1; Romans 8:15).

4. Another by the spirit of the world (1 Corinthians 2:12).

5. The regenerate by the Spirit of God.

I. HOW MAY A MAN KNOW THAT HE IS TRULY LED BY THE SPIRIT? The Spirit leads —

1. In a right way: the way of God's commandment.

2. By a just rule: the word of truth.

3. Sweetly and justly.

4. In a constant way of progression, from grace to grace.

5. In a way opposed to the flesh.

II. WHO ARE THOSE WHO ARE NOT LED BY THE SPIRIT?

1. Those who go in a known evil way.

2. Those who are led by their own imaginations without any warrant from the Word of God.

3. Those who are carried by passions and distempers even in a good way.

4. Those who make no progress.

5. Those who fulfil the lust of the flesh.

(Bishop Hall.)

I. THE NEED OF GUIDANCE AND HELP.

1. We are ignorant of the road.

2. Have defective vision and cannot see our way.

3. Are lame and impotent.

II. WE SHOULD SEEK FOR THIS GUIDANCE AND HELP. This is what a lost, benighted, or disabled traveller does. Man, however, does the opposite, and pursues his journey perversely, blindly, helplessly.

III. WE MUST BE PROVIDED SPIRITUALLY WITH WHAT AN ORDINARY TRAVELLER HAS MENTALLY,

1. A disposition to seek the right way.

2. A willingness to receive every help in the pursuit of it.

IV. THIS IS SUPPLIED BY THE SPIRIT OF GOD.

1. He leads by dwelling in the believer as a quickening and actuating principle ever aspiring after knowledge and holiness.

2. Under His guidance the believer advances —(1) in knowledge

(a)of the person and work of Christ;

(b)of the issues of obedience and suffering;

(c)of Christ's spiritual kingdom.(2) In holiness.

(a)In inward graces;

(b)in outward deportment.

V. THIS LEADING IS NOT DRIVING.

1. The free will is not destroyed by uncontrollable impulses or rigid compulsion.

2. The will is so influenced as to be inclined to holiness.

(H. Melvill, B. D.)

I. NEGATIVELY. I am not under the law — of picking pockets. If the law were abolished to-morrow, I would not pick anybody's pocket. I am not under the law of murder; for if there were no gallows, nor officer, nor judge, nor court, I would not murder. I am not under the law to drunkenness. I can go by a whole regiment of shops and never think of turning in. I am above it. I have the law within me. I do not abstain from gambling because gambling is disreputable, and I fear losses. I do not gamble because I do not want to. I do not avoid bad company because I should lose respectability; but for the same reason that musicians do not sit down and work out discords, and who keep to harmony because harmony is so sweet, and discord so painful. And so in regard to spiritual things, we are led by the Divine Spirit into such a state of approbation and satisfaction in the higher things, that we do not want the inferior, the antagonistic, the antithetic.

II. POSITIVELY. There is not in all the statute books in the world one single word saying to the mother, "Thou shalt love thy babe." There is not a Church or creed which says, "Thou shalt feed thy babe." But see the mother as the twilight darkens, sitting with her child as it draws sustenance from her own bosom, and singing sweet carols, and counting it the proudest of all the hours of the day. She has the love of the mother in her, and does the things that ought to be done, because she loves to do them — it is automatic. So if ye be led of the Spirit ye do the things by the law that is in you, and by your spiritual preferences and loves and likes, which otherwise are commandments.

(H. W. Beecher.)

Consider how many laws there are which affect a man's body — the laws of light, of heat, of gravitation, of sleep, of digestion, of exercise, dec., etc. When men are young and inexperienced, and have no one to teach them they get into trouble by violating these laws. They have no mind to keep them, and they suffer in consequence. They are in bondage respecting these laws. But as they learn more perfectly, so that they use their eyes according to the law of light, and their ears according to the law of sound, and their mouth according to the law of health; selecting this thing because the law requires, rejecting that because the law forbids it — then they are set free from these trials, and pass out of a state of bondage into a state of liberty. The little child when it begins to walk has to think where it shall put this foot and where it shall put that, and has to poise itself carefully, and use its mind as well as its body. But a man walks without thinking. What is the difference? One is under the law — has not learned it — is yet subject to it; the other has learned it so perfectly that he is emancipated from it. The man does automatically, what it requires an effort on the part of the child to do. The child is in bondage and the man is free, because the child does not keep the law, and the man does.

(H. W. Beecher.)

A man has lost his way in a dark and dreary mine. By the light of one candle, which he carries in his hand, he is groping for the road to sunshine and to home. That light is essential to his safety. The mine has many winding passages, in which he may be hopelessly bewildered. Here and there marks have been made on the rocks to point out the true path, but he cannot see them without that light. There are many deep pits into which, if unwary, he may suddenly fall; but he cannot avoid the danger without that. Should it go out, that mine will be his tomb. How carefully he carries it! How anxiously he shields it from sudden gusts of air, from water dropping on it, from everything that might quench it! The case described is our own.

(Newman Hall.)

Galatians, Paul, PhilippiansGalatiaGuided, Law, Leading, Led, Spirit, Subject1. He wills them to stand in their liberty,
3. and not to observe circumcision;
13. but rather love, which is the sum of the law.
19. He lists the works of the flesh,
22. and the fruits of the Spirit,
25. and exhorts to walk in the Spirit.

Galatians 5:18

     3045   Holy Spirit, sovereignty
     3236   Holy Spirit, and Scripture
     3263   Holy Spirit, guidance
     5381   law, letter and spirit
     8128   guidance, receiving

Galatians 5:2-25

     6511   salvation

Galatians 5:9-21

     6026   sin, judgment on

Galatians 5:13-18

     5380   law, and gospel

Galatians 5:16-18

     4018   life, spiritual
     6157   fall, of Satan
     6661   freedom, and law
     8162   spiritual vitality

Galatians 5:16-20

     5964   temper

Galatians 5:16-21

     8777   lust

Galatians 5:16-23

     3248   Holy Spirit, conviction

Galatians 5:16-24

     6746   sanctification, means and results

Galatians 5:16-25

     3203   Holy Spirit, and assurance
     5110   Paul, teaching of
     6030   sin, avoidance

Galatians 5:16-26

     3233   Holy Spirit, and sanctification

Galatians 5:17-21

     6022   sin, causes of

Galatians 5:17-24

     6166   flesh, sinful nature

March 28. "The Fruit of the Spirit is all Goodness" (Gal. v. 22).
"The fruit of the Spirit is all goodness" (Gal. v. 22). Goodness is a fruit of the Spirit. Goodness is just "Godness." It is to be like God. And God-like goodness has special reference to the active benevolence of God. The apostle gives us the difference between goodness and righteousness in this passage in Romans, "Scarcely for a righteous man would one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die." The righteous man is the man of stiff, inflexible uprightness; but he may be …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

May 1. "The Fruit of the Spirit is Gentleness" (Gal. v. 22).
"The fruit of the Spirit is gentleness" (Gal. v. 22). Nature's harshness has melted away and she is now beaming with the smile of spring, and everything around us whispers of the gentleness of God. This beautiful fruit is in lovely harmony with the gentle month of which it is the keynote. May the Holy Spirit lead us, beloved, these days, into His sweetness, quietness, and gentleness, subduing every coarse, rude, harsh, and unholy habit, and making us like Him, of whom it is said, "He shall not strive, …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity Works of the Flesh and Fruits of the Spirit.
Text: Galatians 5, 16-24. 16 But I say, Walk by the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. 17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are contrary the one to the other; that ye may not do the things that ye would. 18 But if ye are led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousies, wraths, …
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. III

Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity Church Officers Warned of Vain-Glory.
Text: Galatians 5, 25-26 and 6, 1-10. 25 If we live by the Spirit, by the Spirit let us also walk. 26 Let us not become vainglorious, provoking one another, envying one another. 1 Brethren, even if a man be overtaken in any trespass, ye who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; looking to thyself, lest thou also be tempted. 2 Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. 3 For if a man thinketh himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. …
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. III

'Walk in the Spirit'
'Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.'--GAL. v. 16. We are not to suppose that the Apostle here uses the familiar contrast of spirit and flesh to express simply different elements of human nature. Without entering here on questions for which a sermon is scarcely a suitable vehicle of discussion, it may be sufficient for our present purpose to say that, as usually, when employing this antithesis the Apostle means by Spirit the divine, the Spirit of God, which he triumphed …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

What Makes a Christian: Circumcision or Faith?
'In Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love.'--GAL. v. 6. It is a very singular instance of imaginative misreading of plain facts that the primitive Church should be held up as a pattern Church. The early communities had apostolic teaching; but beyond that, they seem to have been in no respect above, and in many respects below, the level of subsequent ages. If we may judge of their morality by the exhortations and dehortations which …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Fruit of the Spirit
'But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23. Meekness, temperance'--GAL. v. 22, 23. 'The fruit of the Spirit,' says Paul, not the fruits, as we might more naturally have expected, and as the phrase is most often quoted; all this rich variety of graces, of conduct and character, is thought of as one. The individual members are not isolated graces, but all connected, springing from one root and constituting an organic whole. There is further to …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Faith the Sole Saving Act.
JOHN vi. 28, 29.--"Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent." In asking their question, the Jews intended to inquire of Christ what particular things they must do, before all others, in order to please God. The "works of God," as they denominate them, were not any and every duty, but those more special and important acts, by which the creature might secure …
William G.T. Shedd—Sermons to the Natural Man

Walking with God.
(Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity.) GALATIANS v. 16. "Walk in the Spirit." The life of a Christian must be one of progress. S. Paul says, "Walk in the Spirit;" he does not say, stand still. It is not enough for us to have been born again of Water and the Holy Ghost, and to have received the Gifts of the Spirit from time to time through the different means of grace. We are bidden "to stir up the gift that is in us;" we are told to "grow in grace." God has set us upon our feet in the right …
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton—The Life of Duty, a Year's Plain Sermons, v. 2

Sixth Day for the Spirit of Love in the Church
WHAT TO PRAY.--For the Spirit of Love in the Church "I pray that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them and Thou in Me; that the world may know that Thou didst send Me, and hast loved them as Thou hast loved Me ... that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them."--JOHN x"The fruit of the Spirit is love."--GAL. v. 22. Believers are one in Christ, as He is one with the Father. The love of God rests on them, and can dwell in them. Pray that the power of the Holy …
Andrew Murray—The Ministry of Intercession

Brokenness
We want to be very simple in this matter of Revival. Revival is just the life of the Lord Jesus poured into human hearts. Jesus is always victorious. In heaven they are praising Him all the time for His victory. Whatever may be our experience of failure and barrenness, He is never defeated. His power is boundless. And we, on our part, have only to get into a right relationship with Him, and we shall see His power being demonstrated in our hearts and lives and service, and His victorious life will …
Roy Hession and Revel Hession—The Calvary Road

The Dove and the Lamb
Victorious living and effective soul-winning service are not the product of our better selves and hard endeavours, but are simply the fruit of the Holy Spirit. We are not called upon to produce the fruit, but simply to bear it. It is all the time to be His fruit. Nothing is more important then, than that we should be continuously filled with the Holy Spirit, or to keep to the metaphor, that the "trees of the Lord should be continuously full of sap"--His sap. How this may be so for us is graphically …
Roy Hession and Revel Hession—The Calvary Road

The Holy Spirit Bringing Forth in the Believer Christlike Graces of Character.
There is a singular charm, a charm that one can scarcely explain, in the words of Paul in Gal. v. 22, 23, R. V., "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, temperance." What a catalogue we have here of lovely moral characteristics. Paul tells us that they are the fruit of the Spirit, that is, if the Holy Spirit is given control of our lives, this is the fruit that He will bear. All real beauty of character, all real Christlikeness in us, …
R. A. Torrey—The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit

Joy
'The fruit of the Spirit is joy.' Gal 5:52. The third fruit of justification, adoption, and sanctification, is joy in the Holy Ghost. Joy is setting the soul upon the top of a pinnacle - it is the cream of the sincere milk of the word. Spiritual joy is a sweet and delightful passion, arising from the apprehension and feeling of some good, whereby the soul is supported under present troubles, and fenced against future fear. I. It is a delightful passion. It is contrary to sorrow, which is a perturbation …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

The Routing of Giant Doubt
THE ROUTING OF GIANT DOUBT Doubts! doubts! doubts! Just a company of them around me all the time worse than Job's miserable comforters. What can I do with them? I should like to dismiss them, but it seems I can not. They make me much trouble, but it seems I can not get them to leave me. Especially are the doubts concerning my entire consecration aggravating, and those, too, concerning my entire cleansing. I fear to come out boldly and declare that I believe that Christ fully saves me now. I believe …
Robert Lee Berry—Adventures in the Land of Canaan

Conflicts with Giant Mistake
CONFLICTS WITH GIANT MISTAKE I make so many mistakes, it seems I am just a bundle of contradictions. I try to do good; but at times my efforts are so crude that I seem to do more harm than good. What shall I do? And though all the time I try hard not to make mistakes, yet I still make them. It seems to me that surely I am not sanctified, or else I should be more perfect. Do not the Scriptures command us to be perfect even as our Father in heaven is perfect? I am not perfect; far from it. Really I …
Robert Lee Berry—Adventures in the Land of Canaan

I have Said This, Lest Haply Married Fruitfulness Dare to vie with virgin Chastity...
7. I have said this, lest haply married fruitfulness dare to vie with virgin chastity, and to set forth Mary herself, and to say unto the virgins of God, She had in her flesh two things worthy of honor, virginity and fruitfulness; inasmuch as she both continued a virgin, and bore: this happiness, since we could not both have the whole, we have divided, that ye be virgins, we be mothers: for what is wanting to you in children, let your virginity, that hath been preserved, be a consolation: for us, …
St. Augustine—Of Holy Virginity.

The Inward Warfare. Gal 5:17
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John Newton—Olney Hymns

And on this Account That, Which, the Parts that Beget Being Bridled by Modesty...
5. And on this account that, which, the parts that beget being bridled by modesty, is most chiefly and properly to be called Continence, is violated by no transgression, if the higher Continence, concerning which we have been some time speaking, be preserved in the heart. For this reason the Lord, after He had said, "For from the heart go forth evil thoughts," then went on to add what it is that belongs to evil thoughts, "murders, adulteries," and the rest. He spake not of all; but, having named …
St. Augustine—On Continence

All we Therefore, who Believe in the Living and True God...
18. All we therefore, who believe in the Living and True God, Whose Nature, being in the highest sense good and incapable of change, neither doth any evil, nor suffers any evil, from Whom is every good, even that which admits of decrease, and Who admits not at all of decrease in His own Good, Which is Himself, when we hear the Apostle saying, "Walk in the Spirit, and perform ye not the lusts of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: For these are opposed …
St. Augustine—On Continence

And Also, when He Exhorts Us, that we Live not after the Flesh...
9. And also, when he exhorts us, that we live not after the flesh, lest we die, but that by the Spirit we mortify the deeds of the flesh, that we may live; surely the trumpet which sounds, shows the war in which we are engaged, and enkindles us to contend keenly, and to do our enemies to death, [1832] that we be not done to death by them. But who those enemies are, it hath set forth plainly enough. For those are they, whom it willed should be done to death by us, that is to say, the works of the …
St. Augustine—On Continence

Here Therefore These Men Too Evil, While they Essay to Make Void the Law...
9. Here therefore these men too evil, while they essay to make void the Law, force us to approve these Scriptures. For they mark what is said, that they who are under the Law are in bondage, and they keep flying above the rest that last saying, "Ye are made empty [1715] of Christ, as many of you as are justified in the Law; ye have fallen from Grace." [1716] We grant that all these things are true, and we say that the Law is not necessary, save for them unto whom bondage is yet profitable: and that …
St. Augustine—On the Profit of Believing.

The Daily Walk with Others (iii. ).
Thrice happy they who at Thy side, Thou Child of Nazareth, Have learnt to give their struggling pride Into Thy hands to death: If thus indeed we lay us low, Thou wilt exalt us o'er the foe; And let the exaltation be That we are lost in Thee. Let me say a little on a subject which, like the last, is one of some delicacy and difficulty, though its problems are of a very different kind. It is, the relation between the Curate and his Incumbent; or more particularly, the Curate's position and conduct …
Handley C. G. Moule—To My Younger Brethren

How those that are at Variance and those that are at Peace are to be Admonished.
(Admonition 23.) Differently to be admonished are those that are at variance and those that are at peace. For those that are at variance are to be admonished to know most certainly that, in whatever virtues they may abound, they can by no means become spiritual if they neglect becoming united to their neighbours by concord. For it is written, But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace (Gal. v. 22). He then that has no care to keep peace refuses to bear the fruit of the Spirit. Hence Paul …
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

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