to that law of sin and of death. Paul distinguishes between the true
self and the accumulation of selfish and sensual habits which make up
so much of ourselves. The deeper and purer self may be vitalised in
will and heart, and set free even while the emancipation is not
worked out in the life. The parable of the leaven applies in the
individual renewal; and there is no fanaticism, and no harm, in
Paul's point of view, if only it be remembered that sins by which
passion and externals overbear my better self are mine in
responsibility and in consequences. Thus guarded, we may be wholly
right in thinking of all the evils which still cleave to the
renewed Christian soul as not being part of it, but destined to drop
away.

And this bold declaration is to be vindicated as a prophetic
confidence in the supremacy and ultimate dominion of the new power
which works even through much antagonism in an imperfect Christian.
Paul, too, calls 'things that are not as though they were.' If my
spirit of life is the 'Spirit of life in Christ,' it will go on to
perfection. It is Spirit, therefore it is informing and conquering
the material; it is a divine Spirit, therefore it is omnipotent; it
is the Spirit of life, leading in and imparting life like itself,
which is kindred with it and is its source; it is the Spirit of life
in Christ, therefore leading to life like His, bringing us to
conformity with Him because the same causes produce the same effects;
it is a life in Christ having a law and regular orderly course of
development. So, just as if we have the germ we may hope for fruit,
and can see the infantile oak in the tightly-shut acorn, or in the
egg the creature which shall afterwards grow there, we have in this
gift of the Spirit, the victory. If we have the cause, we have the
effects implicitly folded in it; and we have but to wait further