--_it doth not yet appear what it shall be_.

Seeing now that Growth can only be synonymous with a living automatic
process, it is all but superfluous to seek a third line of argument from
Scripture. Growth there is always described in the language of
physiology. The regenerate soul is a new creature. The Christian is a
new man in Christ Jesus. He adds the cubits to his stature just as the
old man does. He is rooted and built up in Christ; he abides in the
vine, and so abiding, not toiling or spinning, brings forth fruit. The
Christian in short, like the poet, is born not made; and the fruits of
his character are not manufactured things but living things, things
which have grown from the secret germ, the fruits of the living Spirit.
They are not the produce of this climate, but exotics from a sunnier
land.

II. But, secondly, besides this Spontaneousness there is this other
great characteristic of Growth--Mysteriousness. Upon this quality
depends the fact, probably, that so few men ever fathom its real
character. We are most unspiritual always in dealing with the simplest
spiritual things. A lily grows mysteriously, pushing up its solid weight
of stem and leaf in the teeth of gravity. Shaped into beauty by secret
and invisible fingers, the flower develops we know not how. But we do
not wonder at it. Every day the thing is done; it is Nature, it is God.
We are spiritual enough at least to understand that. But when the soul
rises slowly above the world, pushing up its delicate virtues in the
teeth of sin, shaping itself mysteriously into the image of Christ, we
deny that the power is not of man. A strong will, we say, a high ideal,
the reward of virtue, Christian influence--these will account for it.
Spiritual character is merely the product of anxious work, self-command,
and self-denial. We allow, that is to say, a miracle to the lily, but
none to the man. The lily may grow; the man must fret and toil and spin.

Now grant for a moment that by hard work and self-restraint a man may
attain to a very high character. It is not denied that this can be done.
But what is denied is that this is growth, and that this process is
Christianity. The fact that you can account for it proves that it is not
growth. For growth is mysterious; the peculiarity of it is that you
cannot account for it. Mysteriousness, as Mozley has well observed, is
"the test of spiritual birth." And this was Christ's test. "The wind
bloweth where it listeth