(_d_) The operation of God reveals itself in, and is accompanied by, intelligent and voluntary activity of the believer in the discovery and mortification of sinful desires, and in the bringing of the whole being into obedience to Christ and conformity to the standards of his word. _John 17:17_—“_Sanctify them in the truth: thy word is truth_”; _2 Cor. 10:5_—“_casting down imaginations, and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ_”; _Phil. 2:12, 13_—“_work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who worketh in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure_”; _1 Pet. 2:2_—“_as new‐born babes, long for the spiritual milk which is without guile, that ye may grow thereby unto salvation._” _John 15:3_—“_Already ye are clean because of the word which I have spoken unto you._” Regeneration through the word is followed by sanctification through the word. _Eph. 5:1_—“_Be ye therefore imitators of God, as beloved children._” Imitation is at first a painful effort of will, as in learning the piano; afterwards it becomes pleasurable and even unconscious. Children unconsciously imitate the handwriting of their parents. Charles Lamb sees in the mirror, as he is shaving, the apparition of his dead father. So our likeness to God comes out as we advance in years. _Col. 3:4_—“_When Christ who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall ye also with him be manifested in glory._” Horace Bushnell said that, if the stars did not move, they would rot in the sky. The man who rides the bicycle must either go on, or go off. A large part of sanctification consists in the formation of proper habits, such as the habit of Scripture reading, of secret prayer, of church going, of efforts to convert and benefit others. Baxter: “Every man must grow, as trees grow, downward and upward at once. The visible outward growth must be accompanied by an invisible inward growth.” Drummond: “The spiritual man having passed from death to life, the natural man must pass from life to death.” There must be increasing sense of sin: “My sins gave sharpness to the nails, And pointed every thorn.” There must be a bringing of new and yet newer regions of thought, feeling, and action, under the sway of Christ and his truth. There is a grain of truth even in Macaulay’s jest about “essentially Christian cookery.”