July 11
Daily Gleanings of the Saintly LifeThursday in Whitsun Week
Live according to God in the Spirit. I S. PETER iv. 6.
As warmth is inseparable from fire and brightness from light, so are the qualities of hallowing and giving life, of goodness and rectitude, from the Spirit. There the Spirit has His station, there is the blessed nature of God; not reckoned as one of a multitude, but contemplated as one of the Trinity; proclaimed in His singleness, not included in any combinations. For as the Father is one, and the Son is one, so also is the Holy Spirit one. It is the Spirit that fills angels, fills archangels, hallows powers, gives life to all. He is nowise diminished by those that share Him. To all He gives the grace which proceeds from Him, but He is not spent on His receivers; on the contrary, while they that take Him are filled, He Himself lacks nothing. He illuminates all men for the knowledge of God. He inspires prophets; He gives wisdom to lawgivers, consecrates priests, strengthens kings, perfects just men, gives dignity to the self-controlled, works gifts of healing, gives life to the dead, releases the fettered, adopts the aliens into sonship. This He works through the birth from above. If He finds a believing publican, He makes him an evangelist; if He meets with a fisherman, He makes him a divine; if He encounters a persecutor in his repentance, He makes him an apostle. Through Him the unskilled in argument are wiser than the wise. He abides in heaven and fills the earth, is everywhere present and nowhere circumscribed. He dwells entire in each one, and is entire with God. He does not administer His gifts ministerially, but distributes His grace with sovereign power. For He divides "to each severally as He wills."
Thy Spirit's wondrous power, Whose work is mightiest in our weakest hour.
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