nature, a
voice with which he has nothing to do; which at once, by its own
character, by something peculiar and distinguishable about it, by
something strange in its nature, or out of the ordinary course of
human thinking, shall certify itself to be not his voice at all, but
_God's_ voice. That is not the direction in which you are to
look for the witness of God's Spirit. It is evidence borne, indeed,
by the Spirit of God; but it is evidence borne not only to our
spirit, but through it, with it. The testimony is one, the testimony
of a man's own emotion, and own conviction, and own desire, the cry,
Abba, Father! So far, then, as the form of the evidence goes, you are
not to look for it in anything ecstatic, arbitrary, parted off
from your own experience by a broad line of demarcation; but you are
to look into the experience which at first sight you would claim most
exclusively for your own, and to try and find out whether
_there_ there be not working with your soul, working through it,
working beneath it, distinct from it but not distinguishable from it
by anything but its consequences and its fruitfulness--a deeper voice
than yours--a 'still small voice,'--no whirlwind, nor fire, nor
earthquake--but the voice of God speaking in secret, taking the voice
and tones of your own heart and your own consciousness, and saying to
you, 'Thou art my child, inasmuch as, operated by My grace, and Mine
inspiration alone, there rises, tremblingly but truly, in thine own
soul the cry, Abba, Father.'

So much, then, for the form of this evidence--my own conviction. Then
with regard to the substance of it: conviction of what? The text
itself does not tell us what is the evidence which the Spirit bears,
and by reason of which we have a right to conclude that we are the
children of God. The previous verse tells us. I have partially
anticipated what I have to say on that point, but it will bear a
little further expansion. 'Ye have not received the spirit of bondage
again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby
we cry Abba, Father.' 'The Spirit itself,' by this means of our cry,
Abba, Father, 'beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the
children of God.' The substance, then, of the conviction which is
lodged in the human spirit by the testimony of the Spirit of God is
not primarily directed to our relation or feelings to God, but to a
far grander thing than that--to God's feelings and relation to us.
Now I want