nd insensibility. 'The Spirit
Himself beareth witness with our spirit.'

5. 'The inheritance' of the children of God, which in the Old
Testament begins by meaning the Holy Land, was spiritualized into
meaning the kingdom of the Messiah. 'They shall inherit the land for
ever[9]': 'the meek shall inherit the earth[10].' And this kingdom of
the Messiah is an eternal kingdom: 'they shall inherit eternal
life[11]'--that is to be our inheritance as the chosen people of the
Lord. And it is an inheritance not only incorruptible but
inexhaustible: all share in it to the full of their capacities, and the
abundance of those who share diminishes nothing from the richness that
remains.

And into that inheritance Christ is 'the way.' His life shows the law
by which it is to be won. It was a current Christian saying--'a
faithful saying'--'if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him; if
we endure, we shall also reign {297} with Him[12].' And whenever we
are inclined to complain at anything we may have to suffer, there is
one thought capable at once of quenching all murmuring, because of its
indisputable reasonableness--'It is enough for the disciple that he be
as his Master.'

[1] 1 John iii. 9.

[2] 'Ye received' (at a particular time), not 'ye have received'; cf.
above, p. 214, note 1.

[3] Prov. xvii. 2.

[4] See Chase, _Lord's Prayer in the Early Church_ ('Texts and
Studies,' Cambridge), p. 23. Cf. Hort on 1 Pet. i. 17.

[5] xi. 2.

[6] S. and H., _in loc._

[7] Cf. Vaughan and Gifford, _in loc._

[8] 1 Cor. iii. 16.

[9] Isa. lx. 21.

[10] Matt. v. 5.

[11] Matt. xix. 29.

[12] 2 Tim. ii. 11.

{298}

DIVISION III. Sec. 9. CHAPTER VIII. 18-30.

_The hope of the creation._

St. Paul has touched upon the familiar topic of Christian suffering,
and he ends his great argument with a splendid encouragement to
believers to suffer gladly, and that for a manifold reason. First
(18-25), that the suffering is altogether inconsiderable by comparison
with the glory to which it leads, and is in itself only a part of the
universal travail-pang through which created nature as a whole is to
produce a glorious new earth to be the habitation of righteousness.
Secondly (26-30), that we are not alone in our sufferings. We have the
support, within us and around us, of the Holy Spirit as our effective
intercessor, and the consciousness of an eternal and infallible purpose
of divine love which is tak