But, my friends, if this principle be true, it does not apply only to this one single attitude of the believing soul when it cries, Abba, Father; it must be widened out to comprehend the whole of a Christian’s life, outward and inward, which is not sinful and darkened with actual transgression.  To all the rest of his being, to everything in heart and life which is right and pure, the same truth applies.  ‘The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit’ in every perception of God’s word which is granted, in every revelation of His counsel which dawns upon our darkness, in every aspiration after Him which lifts us above the smoke and dust of this dim spot, in every holy resolution, in every thrill and throb of love and desire.  Each of these is mine—­inasmuch as in my heart it is experienced and transacted; it is mine, inasmuch as I am not a mere dead piece of matter, the passive recipient of a magical and supernatural grace; but it is God’s; and therefore, and therefore only, has it come to be mine!

And if it be objected, that this opens a wide door to all manner of delusion, and that there is no more dangerous thing than for a man to confound his own thoughts with the operations of God’s Spirit, let me just give you (following the context before us) the one guarantee and test which the Apostle lays down.  He says, ’There is a witness from God in your spirits.’  You may say, That witness, if it come in the form of these convictions in my own heart, I may mistake and falsely read.  Well, then, here is an outward guarantee.  ’As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God’; and so, on the regions both of heart and of life the consecrating thought,—­God’s work, and God’s Spirit’s work—­is stamped.  The heart with its love, the head with its understanding, the conscience with its quick response to the law of duty, the will with its resolutions,—­these are all, as sanctified by Him, the witness of His Spirit; and the life with its strenuous obedience, with its struggles against sin and temptation, with its patient persistence in the quiet path of ordinary duty, as well as with the times when it rises into heroic stature of resignation or allegiance, the martyrdom of death and the martyrdom of life, this too is all (in so far as it is pure and right) the work of that same Spirit.  The test of the inward conviction is the outward life; and they that have the witness of the Spirit within them have the light of their life lit by the Spirit of God, whereby they may read the handwriting on the heart, and be sure that it is God’s and not their own.

III.  And now, lastly, this divine Witness in our spirits is subject to the ordinary influences which affect our spirits.