The law written in the heart is the effect of the Holy Spirit’s work there. He works in us to will and to do of God’s good pleasure;—“to do those things which are well pleasing in His sight;”—which should “be known and read of all men,” by its effects on the conduct, &c. (2 Cor. iii. 2). It was the distinguishing feature of Christ’s coming—“Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God” (Heb. x. 9). And though we cannot attain to His perfection, the work of the Spirit is always to beget within us more of the love of God, and to incline our hearts to serve Him more faithfully. As we sit, as it were, at the feet of Jesus, looking unto Him, the Spirit or Comforter will take of the things of Christ, and show them to us, and there will be a growth in grace, and in conformity to the will and law of God;—a subordination of the flesh to the Spirit, which has no necessary, or perhaps no natural, limit, but in the summons to quit the militant, and join the triumphant, Church above. It is sometimes said that Christianity is an educational system in which the mind is trained, by the restoring grace of the Holy Spirit, to abandon sin, and work righteousness; and that the offer of this restoring grace implies, as a necessary prelude, the pardon of past sin. Enough has been already said to show that this is not consistent with the general tenor of Holy Scripture. We know that the minds of susceptible children, nurtured under Christian mothers, do sometimes drink in the truths of the Gospel from their lips, at a very early age, in a way that makes it difficult to mark the period of decided change in them. They seem to grow up with the Gospel infused into their characters and life.