nce to a law, and consequently as made up of a series
of painful efforts to keep it, and the conception of religion as being
first the implanting of a new, divine life, and needing only to be
nourished and cared for in order to drive forth evils from the heart,
and so to show itself living. The difference goes very far and very
deep, and these two views of what religion is have each their adherents
to-day. The Apostle throws the whole weight of his authority into the
one scale, and emphatically declares this as the one secret of victory,
'Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh.'

I. What it is to walk in the Spirit.

The thought which is but touched upon here is set forth more largely,
and if we may so say, profoundly, in the Epistle to the Romans (chap.
viii.). There, to walk after the flesh, is substantially the same as to
be carnally minded, and that 'mind of the flesh' is regarded as being by
fatal necessity not 'subject to the law of God,' and consequently as in
itself, with regard to future consequences, to be death. The fleshly
mind which is thus in rebellion against the law of God is sure to issue
in 'desires of the flesh,' just as when the pressure is taken off, some
ebullient liquid will bubble. They that are after the flesh of course
will 'mind the things of the flesh.' The vehement desires which we
cherish when we are separated from God and which we call sins, are
graver as a symptom than even they are in themselves, for they show
which way the wind blows, and are tell-tales that betray the true
direction of our nature. If we were not after the flesh we should not
mind the things of the flesh. The one expression points to the
deep-seated nature, the other to the superficial actions to which it
gives rise.

And the same duality belongs to the life of those who are 'after the
Spirit.' 'To walk,' of course, means to carry on the practical life, and
the Spirit is here thought of not so much perhaps as the path on which
we are to travel, but rather as the norm and direction by which we are
to travel on life's common way. Just as the desires of the flesh were
certain to be done by those who in their deepest selves belonged to the
flesh, so every soul which has received the unspeakable gift of newness
of life through the Spirit of God will have the impulses to mind and do
the things of the Spirit. If we live in the Spirit we shall also--and
let us also--walk in the Spirit.

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