irit which seals us unto the redemption of the
possession has to be received, held, diffused throughout, and utilised
by our own effort.

II. Now, secondly, notice the certainty of the completion of the
incompleteness.

As I have already said, the clod of earth and the handful of grass, the
servant's wages, the soldier's shilling, are all guarantees that the
whole of the inheritance or of the pay will be forthcoming in due time.
And so there emerges from this consideration of the Divine Spirit as the
'earnest,' the thought that the present experiences of a Christian soul
are the surest proofs, and the irrefragable guarantees, of that perfect
future. We ask for proofs of a future life. They may be very useful in
certain states of mind, and to certain phases of opinion, but as it
seems to me, far deeper than the region of logical understanding, and
far more conclusive than anything that can be cast into the form of a
syllogism, is the experience of a soul which knows that God is its, and
that it is God's. 'I think, therefore, I am,' said the philosopher. 'I
have God; therefore I shall always be,' says the Christian. Whilst that
evidence is available only for himself, it is absolutely conclusive for
himself. And the fact that it does spring in the hearts which are
purest, because nearest God, is no small matter to be considered by men
who may be groping for proofs of a life to come. If the selected moments
of the purest devotion here on earth bring with them inevitably the
confidence of the unending continuance of that communion, then those who
do not believe in that future have to account for the fact as best they
may. As for us who do know, though brokenly, and by reason of our own
faults very imperfectly, what it is to have God, and be had by Him, we
do not need to travel out to dim and doubtful analogies, nor do we even
depend entirely upon the fact of a risen Christ ascended to the heavens,
and living evermore, but we can say, 'I am God's; God is mine, and death
has no power over such a mutual possession.'

The very incompleteness adds strength to the assurance, for the facts of
the Christian life are such as to demand, both by its greatness and by
its littleness, by its loftiness and by its lapses into lowliness, by
the floodtide of devotion that sometimes sweeps rejoicingly over the
mud-shoals and by the ebb that sometimes leaves them all black and
festering, a future life wherein what was manifestly meant to be,