might in the inner man," to become more alert, and constant, and persevering in performing all the functions of the new life, both inward and outward; doing and suffering the will of God; "walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless: denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, and living soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world;" walking at liberty; keeping God's commandments, "fighting the good fight of faith," running "the race that is set before him.'

Growth in the knowledge of christian truth, is that on which spiritual growth generally depends. The great influential principles of saving truth are few and simple, and some are apt to think that they are easily, and soon, fully learned. But this is a dangerous mistake. The oldest and most intelligent Christian may grow in the knowledge of these truths. It is a very important remark, that after a man is really converted, growth in knowledge consists chiefly in knowing better the very truths by which conversion has been produced. He may see more deeply into the meaning of those truths which he had only a general notion of; he may see additional evidence of their truth; he may see more of their mutual connection and dependence; he may see more of the uses they are intended to serve; he may obtain more skill in turning them to their proper use, both to himself and others; he may obtain a more deep and extensive experimental acquaintance with them, and he may rise to a much higher esteem for, and love of them. The most important kind of growth in knowledge to a true Christian, is to grow in the knowledge of what he does know, rather than to grow in knowledge by acquiring an acquaintance with something that he does not know. The addition of some degrees to the more needful parts of knowledge which we already possess, will go further to promote spiritual growth, than the acquisition of knowledge respecting less necessary things, of which we are ignorant. Every Christian knows the doctrine of Christ crucified; but many a Christian knows little about scholastic questions respecting the decrees of God, and the subjects of baptism, and the government of the Church. His spiritual growth will be more impeded by imperfection in the knowledge of the former, than by absolute ignorance of the latter; and his spiritual growth will be more advanced by knowing a little more of that which he already knows, than by obtaining even the most accurate information. on the points of which he is ignorant. It is an admirable observation of an old divine, "There is enough in one of the articles of our faith, in one of God's attributes, in one of Christ's benefits, in one of the Spirit's graces, to hold you in study all your lives, and afford you still an increase of knowledge. To know God, the Father, Son, and Spirit, and their relations to you, and operations for you, and your duties to them, and the way of communion with them, is a knowledge in which we may, we must be, still growing, till it be perfected by the celestial beatifical vision.” 1

Itris difficult to conceive a finer or more complete description of what spiritual growth is, than that embodied in a prayer by the Apostle Paul for the Philippian Christians: "And this I pray, that your

1 Baxter.

love may abound more and more in knowledge and in all judgment; that ye may approve the things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere, and without offence, till the day of Christ; being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God.” 1 To use the words of one far advanced towards "the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ," "That Christian is a growing Christian who abounds more and more in the varied exercises of that holy love which is the fulfilment of this royal law; whose love is directed and regulated by increasing knowledge, wisdom, and judgment; who acquires by exercise, under the teaching of the Holy Spirit, the habit of prudently examining, and accurately distinguishing, between the things that differ, abhorring the evil, and cleaving to the good more entirely and heartily from day to day; who becomes more known and approved for sincerity and integrity in all his professions and engagements, and more singly devoted to God as he advances in years; who becomes more and more circumspect in his words and works, that he may neither inadvertently fall himself, nor cause others to stumble; who becomes more fervent in prayer, to be preserved from bringing any reproach on the gospel to the end of his course; who becomes more abundantly fruitful in the works of righteousness, while at the same time he lies lower before God in deep humility, and is more willing than ever to be abased among men; who acts more and more habitually with the invisible God and the eternal world before his mind, and relies more entirely on the mercy and grace of the Lord Jesus, who thus becomes more precious to his soul; whose dependence on the providence of God becomes more uniform, and accompanied with greater composure, submission, and constancy in the path of duty. This is the growing Christian. Nothing material to the christian character seems wanting. The various holy dispositions and affections, resulting from regeneration, are advancing to maturity in just proportion and coincidence, and he is evidently ripening for the work, worship, and joy of heaven.” 2 Take another representation of spiritual growth by our apostle himself. He grows spiritually, who having been called to glory and virtue, and made a partaker of a divine nature, through the exceeding great and precious promises of the gospel understood and believed by him, "adds to his faith, virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge, temperance; and to temperance, patience; and to patience, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, charity; who has these things in him, and abounding in him, and is not idle nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." 3

We have now got the general idea of spiritual growth; it is just progressive sanctification. Grow spiritually, is in plain terms, become more and more holy. But we shall fail of getting all the instruction which the inspired writer's words are intended and fitted to convey, if we do not inquire whether there are not some important truths, in reference to progressive holiness, suggested by the figurative view here given of it. Are there not certain points of resemblance between natural growth and progressive holiness, which deserve

1 Phil. i. 9-11.

2 Scott.

3 2 Pet. i. 5-7.

notice? We apprehend there are, and, principally, the following. Both are, in the sense proper to them, natural; both are gradual, and upon the whole constant; both are universal and generally simultaneous; and both of them are perceptible, and sometimes more perceptible to others than to their subject. A word or two of illustration on these instructive points of resemblance, is all that is necessary. 1. It is the order of the natural world for the child to grow. It is the order of the spiritual world for the saint to improve. An infant not growing, but wasting away, is an unnatural and melancholy object; and still more unnatural, still more melancholy, is it for one who seems to be a saint to be seen becoming no wiser, no better, or, more deplorable still, becoming worse. There is want of nourishment, or disease, in both cases, where there is not growth. Truth, it has been said, does not lie in the heart as a stone on the earth, but as seed in the earth, which naturally germinates.

2. Growth is gradual-very gradual, and so is christian improvement. No infant becomes a man at once, but every day sees him nearer manhood; and so is it in the spiritual world. The saint becomes gradually wiser and better. Like the child, he makes more progress at some times than others; yet in all cases the progress is gentle, not sudden. And as, when in health, the child is always growing, so when the Christian is not laboring under spiritual disease, he is always making progress.

3. When the child grows, the whole of its body and mind grows. Swelling, which is a diseased unnatural affection, may be confined to a part of the body, but natural growth extends to the whole of it. And so it is with the spiritual new-born babe. He grows in knowledge, and faith, and holiness, and comfort, at the same time. And the growth in both cases, where things are as they ought to be, is proportional. It also deserves notice, that though there be general growth, if any part of the system be preternaturally active, if any member of the body is preternaturally enlarged, any faculty of the mind preternaturally developed, there is disease and disorder. And so it is in the spiritual world. If the understanding be enlightened while the affections are not proportionally affected, or if the affections are strongly excited while the understanding is not proportionally enlightened, there is no healthy growth, no satisfactory progress. Healthy nourishment in a healthy constitution, whether bodily or mental, natural or spiritual, produces both universal and simultaneous growth.

4. Where there is real growth, it will be perceptible; not peceptible in its progress, but perceptible in its effects. In the case of a healthy child, he who sees it when new-born, and when it is a twelvemonth old, distinctly perceives that there has been growth. In the same way, a person who sees a young convert, if he meets with him months or years after, will perceive progress both in knowledge and in holiness. The child is seldom sensible of growth. It requires to look back, and compare what it is now with what it recollects itself to have been, to convince it of its having grown. And so it is with the spiritual babe. It is only by comparing what he now is with what he was at some previous period, that he can be convinced that

he is making progress. Indeed, not unfrequently, from the increase both of spiritual sensibility and spiritual perspicacity, he feels as if, instead of becoming better, he was becoming worse. He is, in his own feelings, less conformed to the divine law as he now sees it, than he was, it may be years ago, as he then saw it. And yet this may be, indeed is, one of the best proofs that there is progress in knowledge, both of God's law and of himself; and in a corresponding humility and growing dependence on the atonement as the ground of acceptance, and on the Spirit as the fountain of holiness. The sight Christians have of their defects in grace, and their thirst after greater measures of grace, make them think they do not grow when indeed they do.1

Å healthy child grows without thinking much about its growth. It takes its food and its exercise, and finds that it is growing in the increase of its strength and its capacity for exertion. And an analogous state is, I believe, the healthiest state of the spiritual new-born babe. While self-examination, rightly managed, is very useful, a morbid desire of the satisfaction of knowing that we are improving, is in danger of drawing the mind away from the constant employment of the means of spiritual nourishment and health. The best state of things is, when, in the healthy, vigorous condition of the spiritual constitution, ready for every good work, we have the evidence in ourselves that we are growing; and when that is wanting, application to the sincere milk of the word will do a great deal more good than poring into ourselves, to find proof either that we are growing or not growing. So much for the first part of the persuasive exhortation, Seek spiritual growth.'

(2.) The second part of the exhortation refers to the means for gaining this end-spiritual growth. "Desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby." There are here three things which we must attend to-1. What is this sincere milk of the word? 2. How is it that we grow by it? 3. *And what is it to desire this sincere milk of the word?

1. The phrase "milk of the word" is singular, and a variety of opinions have been entertained both as to its reference and meaning. If we can certainly fix the first, there will be comparatively little difficulty in apprehending the second. Some, among whom we are surprised to find the judicious Calvin, have supposed that the reference is to those christian virtues which stand in direct opposition to the vices which are condemned in the previous verse; but these cannot well be represented as the spiritual food of the spiritual new-born babe. They are rather the symptoms that the food has produced its proper effect in the bloom and vigor of a healthful frame. The inspired writer furnishes us with the means of determining the referWhatever the milk of the word be, it is that by which spiritual new-born babes are nourished; in plainer words, it is that by which the sanctification and holy happiness of the regenerate soul are promoted. Now there can be no doubt, that that is divine truth understood and believed. It is "by this that men live; in this is the

ence.

1 Watson.

life of our souls."

"Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth," says our Lord. "Purifying their hearts by faith," says the Apostle Peter. "Grace, mercy, and peace are multiplied through the knowledge of this truth." "It is by unity of the faith, and knowledge of the Son of God, that we come to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ," says the Apostle Paul.1

The reference then, without doubt, is to the truth respecting the divine character revealed in the Holy Scriptures; but what is the precise meaning of the phrase, "the milk of the word ?" The milk is plainly equivalent to the appropriate nourishment; what serves the same purpose to Christians, especially new converts, that the mother's milk does to the new-born babe. The "milk of the word" may either mean the spiritual nourishment which is contained in that word spoken of in the previous context, "the word of the Lord which liveth and abideth forever, the word of the gospel preached to us;" or it may mean rational nourishment, nourishment suited to the rational spiritual nature of man, as milk is to his physical or animal nature; 2 just as the same word is employed in Rom. xii. 1, reasonable service,"3 rather national worship; the presenting our bodies living sacrifices being contrasted with the animal sacrifices under the Old Testament dispensation. It does not matter which interpretation we prefer, both bringing out a truth, and an important and appropriate one.

Spiritual truth is compared to milk; to intimate its simplicity, its pleasantness to the unsophisticated spiritual palate, and its tendency to produce spiritual growth.

This milk of the word is described by the apostle as "sincere." The application of the term seems strange, sincerity being with us always considered as a moral, not a physical attribute, a quality not of things, but of persons. It is one of the comparatively rare instances of the use of a word in an obsolete sense in our translation. The original word, when applied to persons, or figuratively to things, means undeceiving; when applied to things in a proper sense, it means pure, unmixed, unadulterated. In either sense it is very applicable. The word of God is pure truth, without the slightest admixture of .error; it is only in the degree in which this pure truth is contained in any statement, that that statement is spiritually nourishing; and this pure word is undeceiving; it does what it professes to do, it really nourishes. It converts the soul, it makes wise the simple, it rejoices the heart, it enlightens the eyes." It "is able to build us up; to save the soul." 4

2. These remarks may suffice to give us a distinct apprehension of the meaning of the terms; but it is required that we look a little deeper into the subject, and inquire how it is that the spiritual newborn babe grows by this pure, undeceiving milk of the word; how divine truth produces spiritual growth. It does not operate as a charm. The power of truth to sanctify the believer is just as much a part of

2

1 John xvii. 17. Acts xv. 9. 2 Pet. i. 2. Eph. iv. 13. Λογικόν in contrast with φυσικόν. «Τὸ λογικόν id est μυστικὸν, τὸ νοητόν.” Rom. xii. 1. “Tò tò Spirituale bene vertit Syrus.--GROTIUS.-Geistlich.--LUTHER.

3 Λογικὴν λατρείαν.

4 Psal. xix. 7. James i. 21.