imself; nay, he is more than
ever himself, being in the Lord; for indeed that blessed union has a
genial and developing power upon its happy subject. But such is that
power that it deeply qualifies the mental and spiritual action of the
being who enters into it; never violates but always qualifies.

The fact, the experience, of course transcends our analysis. But it is
not beyond our faith, nor beyond our reception and inward verification.

"Thy love, Thy joy, Thy peace,
Continuously impart
Unto my heart;
Fresh springs that never cease,
But still increase." [7]

Our immediate purpose meanwhile is not to discuss the believer's union
with his Lord, but to remark on this one precious result of it, the
opening of his inmost sympathies to the sharers of the same blessing.
We see that result displayed in all its brightness in this first
paragraph of the Epistle; and we shall see it to the end. In the
particular case of St Paul and the Philippians it was indeed a
remarkable phenomenon. Here on the one side was a man who, not very
many years before, had been the devotee of the Pharisaic creed, a creed
which tended powerfully not to expand but to annihilate every sympathy
which could touch "the Gentiles." Here on the other side were people
whose life and thought had been moulded in the proud political and
national ideas of a Roman _colonia_; no kindly atmosphere for the
growth of affections which should be at once intense and comprehensive.
But these two unlikely parties are now one, in the strongest and most
beautiful union of thought and heart. If we may use again a word
ventured just above, they are mutually (not confused but) fused
together. Their whole beings have come into living touch, not on the
surface merely but most of all in their depths. An interchange of
idea, of sympathy, of purpose has become possible between them in
which, while self-respect is only deepened and secured, reserve is
melted away in the common possession of the life and love of Jesus
Christ. The Apostle writes to his friends as one whose whole soul is
open to them, is at their command. His memory and reflexion are full
of them. He not only prays and gives thanks for them but delights in
telling them that he is doing so. He says without difficulty exactly
what he is sure of about them, and exactly what things he is asking for
them as yet more developed blessings. Above all, the name of Him who
is everything