...without sap the tree cannot flourish or even exist, and Vitality is essential to a Christian, so there must be life —a vital principle infused into us by God the Holy Ghost, or we cannot be trees of the Lord, because the mere name of being a Christian is but a dead thing, we must be filled with the spirit of divine life (this life is mysterious) and while we yet fail to understand the circulation of the sap, by what force it rises, and by what power it descends again, making this a sacred mystery, something akin to the regeneration wrought by the Holy Ghost entering into man and becoming man’s life; and this divine life in a believer afterwards feeds upon the flesh and blood of Christ and is thus sustained by divine food, but whence it cometh and whither it goeth- What a secret thing the sap is!- the roots go searching through the soil with their little spongioles, but we cannot see them suck out the various gases, or transmute the mineral into the vegetable; this work is done down in the dark, and our root is Christ Jesus, and our life is hid in him; this is the secret of the Lord and the radix of the Christian life is as secret as the life itself, and it must be known how permanently active is the sap in the cedar in the Christian, with divine life, who is always full of energy—not always in fruit bearing, but in inward operations and in collusion with the believer’s graces, but his life never ceases to palpitate within and he is not always working for God, but his heart is always living upon him as the sap manifests itself in producing the foliage and fruit of the tree, so with a truly healthy Christian, his grace is externally manifested in his walk and conversation, but if you talk with him, he cannot help speaking about Jesus, because if you notice his actions you will see that he has been with Jesus and he has so much sap within, that it must fill his conduct and conversation with life...
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