, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The {290} Spirit himself
beareth witness with our spirit, that we are children of God: and if
children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so
be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified with _him_.

There are several phrases in this passage which we shall do well to
notice.

1. _If by the spirit ye mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live_.
Mortification is absolutely necessary, and at every stage of the
Christian life. It is the carrying into effect in detail of the
fundamental law of our new life--the law which the baptismal ritual was
intended to teach--life by means of death. For the body had gained the
upper hand: it had come to control the weakened spirit. Therefore the
reinvigorated spirit must react upon the body and its impulses. It
must make its government felt, and the physical tendencies must be
checked, pruned, cut back. This is the Christian circumcision. And as
Christ was first born, then circumcised the eighth day; so each new
birth in Christ must be followed by a like circumcision of the
luxuriance of animal appetites. We learn the lesson when we are
children: we expect to be restrained and curbed: and unless we are very
foolish we learn the lesson only more deeply in later life. There
{291} is no single faculty or function of our being which can escape
this law. No friendship can be cemented without mutual self-denial.
No marriage, however founded on affection, can be blessed without the
mutual pain of self-repression and concession. No art or science can
be mastered by mere intelligence without moral discipline. No gift can
be consecrated in its natural luxuriance. 'Every branch in Christ that
beareth fruit, He pruneth it that it may bring forth more fruit.'

2. _As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God_.
The New Testament language would have us regard all the baptized as
regenerate and sons of God, but it will not let us mistake the meaning
of this teaching. In any effective sense it is they, and only they,
who are really _controlled by_ the divine Spirit who can call
themselves sons. As St. John says, freedom from sin is the only test
of divine birth[1]. And the best way to make our new birth effective
is to meditate on the gift which we, when we became Christians, did
actually receive. We who, like the first Christians, received baptism
with the laying-on of hands, did then and ther