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But if it is wholesome to be impressed with our own nothingness, it is necessary that we should rise to the dignity of Christian; position for the Spirit we have received is one "of power and of love and of a sound mind." Mark the three distinct characteristics, truly potent for good when blended, but inadequate when one or other is absent. For everything is duly balanced in the ways of God. There is a series of checks and counter-checks. We may illustrate it by a consideration of the conditions essential to the healthy condition of the human frame, viz., a due inter-subordination of the various functions. No intelligent person can deny that there are such analogies in God's methods in things natural and spiritual. They only but greatly err who from analogy would assert identity. So we have the conjunction of love with power, of a sound mind with both. For power and love without the concomitant of a wise judgment would be as a noble ship impelled by favouring wind and tide but bereft of helm. Power and a sound mind without the incentive of love will lack all that has value in God's eyes, and be as worthless as the "sounding brass and tinkling cymbal." Lastly, love and a sound mind may and do fail of effect if there be a lack of energy and zeal. But with love (the love of God shed abroad in the heart) as the motive, with God-given energy as the more active principle, not without a weighing of all things in the balances of the sanctuary, surely then the "man of God" will be "thoroughly furnished unto every good work" (2 Tim. 3:17).