h no hold, swept out of the threshing-floor
by every gust of wind. That the picture of many whose principles lie
at the mercy of the babble of tongues round about them, whose
rectitude goes at a puff of temptation, like the smoke out of a
chimney when the wind blows; who have no will for what is good, but
live as it happens. The other type of man has his emblem in the tree,
rooted deep, and therefore rising high, with its roots going as far
underground as its branches spread in the blue, and therefore green
of leaf and rich of fruit 'We are made partakers of Christ if we hold
fast the beginning of our confidence, steadfast until the end.'

SEAL AND EARNEST

'Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of
the Spirit in our hearts.'--2 COR. i. 23.

There are three strong metaphors in this and the preceding
verse--'anointing,' 'sealing,' and 'giving the earnest'--all of which
find their reality in the same divine act. These three metaphors all
refer to the same subject, and what that subject is is sufficiently
explained in the last of them. The 'earnest' consists of 'the Spirit
in our hearts,' and the same explanation might have been appended to
both the preceding clauses, for the 'anointing' is the anointing of
the Spirit, and the 'seal' is the seal of the Spirit. Further, these
three metaphors all refer to one and the same act. They are not three
things, but three aspects of one thing, just as a sunbeam might be
regarded either as the source of warmth, or of light, or of chemical
action. So the one gift of the one Spirit, 'anoints,' 'seals,' and is
the 'earnest.' Further, these three metaphors all declare a universal
prerogative of Christians. Every man that loves Jesus Christ has the
Spirit in the measure of his faith,' and if any man have not the
Spirit of Christ he is none of His.'

I. Note the first metaphor in the text--the 'seal' of the Spirit.

A seal is impressed upon a recipient material made soft by warmth, in
order to leave there a copy of itself. Now it is not fanciful, nor
riding a metaphor to death, when I dwell upon these features of the
emblem in order to suggest their analogies in Christian life. The
Spirit of God comes into our spirits, and by gentle contact impresses
upon the material, which was intractable until it was melted by the
genial warmth of faith and love, the likeness of Himself, but yet so
as that prominences correspond to the hollows, and what is in relief
in the one