The life of those who dwell in the secret place of the Most High may be called a Hidden Life, because the animating principle, the vital or operative element, is not so much in itself as in another. It is a life grafted into another life. It is the life of the soul, incorporated into the life of Christ; and in such a way, that, while it has a distinct vitality, it has so very much in the sense, in which the branch of a tree may be said to have a distinct vitality from the root.

Thursday, March 3, 2016

The Necessity of the Dispensation of the Spirit

The object, therefore, of Christ's coming into the world, was to place men essentially in the condition in which they were before the Fall. Not only to secure their forgiveness, but to make them holy; not only to make them holy, but to make them so, in the only way in which Adam or any other being was ever made holy, viz. by means of the living and constant operation of God in the soul.

Hence the necessity of the dispensation of the Holy Spirit. Hence the various directions, which are given in the Scriptures not to grieve, and not to quench the Holy Spirit. Hence the declaration, that Christians are the temple of the Holy Ghost. And accordingly it is a great truth, though but imperfectly understood and estimated, that he, who, moves and acts in religious things without the attendant operation and grace of the Holy Ghost, cannot be spiritually wise, and is not in the way to be spiritually benefited.

— edited from The Interior or Hidden Life (2nd Edition, 1844) Part 3, Chapter 1.

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