I omitted to say that this is where true liberty begins; not, as some imagine, a liberty which necessitates idleness; that would be imprisonment rather than liberty, fancying ourselves free because, having an aversion to our own works, we no longer practise them. The liberty of which I speak is of a different nature; it does all things easily which God would have done, and the more easily in proportion to the duration and the painfulness of the incapacity to do them which we have previously experienced. I confess I do not understand the resurrection state of certain Christians, who profess to have attained it, and who yet remain all their lives powerless and destitute; for here the soul takes up a true life. The actions of a raised man are the actions of life; and if the soul remain lifeless, I say that it may be dead or buried, but not risen. A risen soul should be able to perform without difficulty all the actions which it has performed in the past, only they would be done in God. Did not Lazarus, after his resurrection, exercise all the functions of life as formerly, and Jesus Christ after His resurrection was willing to eat and to converse with men. And so of those who believe themselves to be risen with Christ, and who are nevertheless stunted in their spiritual growth and incapable of devotion,--I say, that they do not possess a resurrection life, for there everything is restored to the soul a hundred-fold. There is a beautiful illustration of this in the case of Job, whose history I consider a mirror of the spiritual life. First God robbed him of his wealth, which we may consider as setting forth gifts and graces; then of his children; this signifies the destruction of natural sensibilities, and of our own works, which are as our children and our most cherished possessions: then God deprived him of his health, which symbolises the loss of virtue; then He touched his person, rendering him an object of horror and contempt. It even appears that this holy man was guilty of sin, and failed in resignation; he was accused by his friends of being justly punished for his crimes; there was no healthy part left in him. But after he had been brought down to the dunghill, and reduced as it were to a corpse, did not God restore everything to him, his wealth, his children, his health, and his life? It is the same with spiritual resurrection; everything is restored, with a wonderful power to use it without being defiled by it, clinging to it without appropriating it as before. All is done in God, and things are used as though they were not used. It is here that true liberty and true life are found. "If we have been planted in the likeness of Christ's death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection" (Rom. vi. 5). Can there be freedom where there are powerlessness and restrictions? No; "If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed," but with His liberty.