hrist. As it is written in the
Epistle to the Colossians: "For ye died," judicially in Christ,
"mortify"--make dead practically--"therefore your members which are
upon the earth" (Col. 3: 2, 5, R. V.). It is this condition which the
Holy Spirit is constantly effecting in us if we will have it so. "If
ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body {111} ye shall
live" (Rom. 8: 13). This is not self-deadening, as the Revised Version
seems to suggest by its decapitalizing of the word "Spirit." Self is
not powerful enough to conquer self, the human spirit to get the
victory over the human flesh. That were like a drowning man with his
right hand laying hold on his left hand, only that both may sink
beneath the waves. "Old Adam is too strong for young Melancthon," said
the Reformer. It is the Spirit of God overcoming our fleshly nature by
his indwelling life, on whom is our sole dependence. Our principal
care therefore must be to "walk in the Spirit" and "be filled with the
Spirit," and all the rest will come spontaneously and inevitably. As
the ascending sap in the tree crowds off the dead leaves which in spite
of storm and frost cling to the branches all winter long, so does the
Holy Ghost within us, when allowed full sway, subdue and expel the
remnants of our sinful nature.

One cannot fail to see that asceticism is an absolute inversion of the
Divine order, since it seeks life through death instead of finding
death through life. No degree of mortification can ever bring us to
sanctification. We are to "put off the old man with his deeds." But
how? By "putting on the new man who is renewed in knowledge after the
image of him that created him." "For the law of the Spirit of life in
Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death" (Rom. 8:
2), {112} writes Paul. It is a pointed statement of the case which one
makes in describing the transition from the old to the new in his own
experience, from the former life of perpetual defeat to the present
life of victory through Christ. "Once it was a constant breaking off,
now it is a daily bringing in," he says. That is, the former striving
was directed to being rid of the inveterate habits and evil tendencies
of the old nature--its selfishness, its pride, its lust, and its
vanity. Now the effort is to bring in the Spirit, to drink in his
divine presence, to breathe, as a holy atmosphere, his supernatural
life. The indwelling of the Spirit can