NOTE D, Chap. X. p. 120.
Let me once again refer my readers to William Law, and repeat what I have said before, that no book has so helped me to an insight into the place and work of the Holy Spirit in the economy of redemption as his ADDRESS TO THE CLERGY.1
1The Power of the Spirit: An Address to the Clergy. By WILLIAM LAW. With additional Extracts and an Introduction by Rev. A.M.
The way in which he opens up how God's one object was to dwell in man, making him partaker of His goodness and glory in us, other way than by Himself living and working in Him, gives one the key to what Pentecost and the sending forth of the Spirit of God's Son into our hearts really means. It is Christ in God's name really regaining and retaking possession of the home He had created for itself. It is God entering into the secret depths of our nature there to "work to will and to do," to "work that which is pleasing in His sight in Christ Jesus." It is as this truth enters into us, and we see that there is and can be no good in us but what God works, that we shall see light on the Divine mystery of prayer, and believe in the Holy Spirit as breathing within us desires which God will fulfil when we yield to them, and believingly present them in the name of Christ. We shall, then, see that just as wonderful and prevailing as the intercession and prayer passing from the Incarnate Son to the Father in heaven, in our intercourse with God, the Spirit who is God breathing and praying in us, amid all our feebleness, His heaven-born Divine petitions. What a heavenly thing prayer becomes.
The latter part of the above-mentioned book consists of extracts from Law's letters. These have been published separately as a little shilling volume.1 No one who will take the time quietly to read and master this so simple, but deeply teaching they contain, without being wonderfully strengthened in the confidence which is needed, if we are to pray much and boldly. As we learn that the Holy Spirit is within us to reveal Christ there, to make us in living reality partakers of His death, His life, His merit, His disposition, so that He is formed within us, but will begin to see how Divinely right and sure it is that our intercessions in His name must be heard. His own Spirit maintains the living union with Himself, in whom we are brought nigh to God, and gives us boldness of access. What I have so feebly said in the chapter on the Spirit of Supplication will get new meaning. And, what is more, the exercise of prayer a new attractiveness. Its solemn Divine mystery will humble us; its unspeakable privilege lift us up in faith and adoration.
1
The Divine Indwelling. Selections from the Letters of William Law. With introduction by A. M.__________