of the church and the Christian life upon human nature.  Christian, with this illustration before you, how can you excuse yourself for keeping out of the spiritual atmosphere of God, for staying away from the communion and the spiritual convocation of God’s people?  Is it a burden and a duty to attend the house of God, or is it a pleasure gladly and joyfully anticipated?  When you rise on the Lord’s Day morning, do you say, “Must I go to church to-day?” or do you say: 

    “You may sing of the beauty of mountain and dale,
    The water of streamlet and the flowers of the Vale,
    But the place most delightful this earth can afford,
    Is the place of devotion, the house of the Lord”?

5.  The last work of the Spirit which the word of God mentions is the “quickening of our mortal bodies.”  “But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall quicken your mortal bodies through his Spirit that dwelleth in you” (Rom. 8:11).  This Spirit which has ever been with us, watching over us, will never leave us until he raises our bodies from the dead and fashions our vile bodies like unto the glorious body of our Lord.  It matters much where we now live; it matters little where and how we die.  Our bodies may be buried in the unfathomed caves of ocean; they may lie upon some mountain-peak or be placed in a crowded cemetery of some great city.  No stone may mark our resting-place, no friend may be able to find the spot and place a flower of love upon it; but that abiding-place is known to the infinite Spirit of God, and from our ashes he will quicken our bodies and present us faultless before the throne of God.

    “I know not where His isles may lift
      Their fronded palms in air: 
     I only know I can not drift
      Beyond His love and care.”

We have not space in this chapter to notice other than the principal passages which refer to the work of the Spirit as it relates to Christians, but in the five above mentioned there is no hint that he does anything in us other than through the instrumentality of the gospel, and there are no other passages that teach a direct work upon us more clearly than those mentioned.

There are many passages that trace the blessed and glorious work of the Spirit in us and through us, but they all confirm the clear statement quoted from the Sunday School Times that he works mediately, and not immediately.

X

THE PARTING WORD

Blasphemy against the Spirit.  This is a subject that is intensely interesting to many people.  They imagine that in some way unknown to themselves they may have committed this act, and it causes them great concern.  I will say that such people need have no alarm.  The man who has actually committed this sin never feels any alarm about it.  He is the last man to feel concern over it.  By reading the twelfth chapter of Matthew the reader can obtain a clear view of this sin.  Jesus was being hounded by the Pharisees, who had determined to procure his death at all hazards.  They were watching, exaggerating and criticizing everything he did.