live out holiness before
they have got the heart-enlarging. But it is no use our trying to be
holy, until God makes us holy. We try to take the first part of the
verse alone, and then we break down. "My heart breaks down: I can
never be a runner." You are trying to live out His commandments,
without having the visitation of the enlarged heart; you must get on to
definite dealings with God for a visitation of the Spirit; when He has
come, you will have the strength and peace of God with you. It seems
to me painfully sad to hear people sorrowing: "I know it is my
privilege, but I cannot make it real; and although one can sometimes do
little acts of mercy, or even attain to humble acts of faith, the life
does not flow on naturally and simply." And _it will not_, unless you
have an experience at the back coming out of His visitation.

To do more we must be more; get a new master, be a new man; get a new
experience, and you will be a new Christian.

All writers who have spoken of the advanced spiritual life have taught
that there is an enlargement of the soul, and they use the strongest
language possible.

So we find Madame Guyon saying:--

"This vastness or enlargedness which is not bounded by anything,
however plain and simple it may be, increases every day; so that my
soul in partaking of the qualities of her spouse, seems also to partake
of his immensity."--_Madame Guyon_, vie. ii. 4.

And Philo:--

"Having broken the chains by which it (the soul) was formerly bound,
which all the empty anxieties of mortal life fastened round it, and
having led it forth and emancipated it from them, he has stretched, and
extended, and diffused it to such a degree that it reaches even the
extreme boundaries of the universe, and is borne onwards to the
beautiful and glorious sight of the uncreated God."--_Philo_, de
ebrietate, 37.

So in Dr. Cudworth's sermon, which was printed some time ago:--

"When we have cashiered this self-will of ours, which did but shackle
and confine our soules, our wills shall then become truly free, being
widened and enlarged to the extent of God's own will."--_Cudworth_,
Sermon before the House of Commons, p. 21.

"There is a straitnesse, slavery, and narrownesse in all sinne; sinne
crowds and crumples up our souls, which, if they were freely spread
abroad, would be as wide and large as the whole universe. No man is
truly free but he that hath his will enlarged to the extent of God's
own