THE SPIRITUAL LIFE

The Spiritual Life is the life of a child of God. "You are children of God by faith in Jesus Christ" (Gal. iii. 39). As we were born to the natural life of our parents, so we were born to the spiritual life ''of water and the Holy Ghost’' And, as we had to pass through many stages from infancy to maturity, so must we ascend through various degrees from spiritual infancy before we can attain Christian perfection. In both instances our growth is partly due to ourselves, and partly effected by God. By our proximate disposition or immediate effort we place the favorable condition for God to effect our growth in the physical order by the laws of nature, and in the spiritual order by the laws of grace. We observe a normal growth in a child that is judicious in its diet, exercise, and rest, and we are convinced at the same time that meat, drink, labor, and repose do not produce physical growth but merely supply the necessary conditions for the vegetative faculties to perform their functions normally. We must take the same view of development in the spiritual order. By judicious self-denial, prayer, and the practice of virtue, we place the condition necessary for God to develop in us a normal, spiritual growth.

The human element in the spiritual life is called The Interior Life, and the divine element, The Supernatural Life.