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 THE ? 
 
 j- flP/!l 
 
 PERSON AND MINISTRY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 HOLY SPIRIT. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 A. C. DIXON, 
 
 PASTOR OF THE IMMANFEL BAPTIST CHURCH 
 BALTIMORE, MD. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 WHARTON, BARRON & CO., 
 
 10 E. FAYETTE ST., BALTIMORE, MD.
 
 Copyright, 1890, by 
 WHABTON, BARBON A GO. 
 
 Tht Ju. B. Rodgen Printing Co., 
 MN. SlitbStf 
 
 Phll*dlpbl.
 
 KXFLANATORY. 
 
 YITHILE the writer was evangelizing in Europe, 
 he received a letter from his friend, A. C. 
 Dixon, of Baltimore, requesting his help in organ- 
 izing and supervising a Conference in that city. On 
 my return home Mr. Dixon visited me, and together 
 we sketched the programme of the subjects, nomi- 
 nated speakers, and arranged concerning dates and 
 details. On Mr. Dixon's return to Baltimore he con- 
 sulted with the pastors, who, with him, formed a 
 committee to prosecute the work in the city. To 
 this earnest committee is due, under God, the great 
 success which crowned the Convention. 
 
 The pleasant task of correspondence with speakers 
 and adjustment of subjects fell to my lot, as on other 
 similar occasions. Many brethren, originally appointed 
 to present the subjects, were detained in various ways, 
 but others cheerfully undertook the office of teacher. 
 The promise, " Them that honour Me I will honour," 
 sustained our faith, and God permitted our ears to hear 
 
 marvelous things throughout this four days' meeting. 
 
 iii
 
 IV EXPLANATORY. 
 
 The following is the text of the circular letter, 
 which explains itself: 
 
 Bible Schools, Christian Conventions, and Theologi- 
 cal Conferences have been multiplying themselves, of 
 late years, throughout this and other lands. The result 
 has been a revived interest in Bible Study, and a 
 more Scriptural method of preaching and teaching 
 the Divine Word on the part of pastors, evangelists, 
 and other fellow-laborers. 
 
 Many of these Conferences and Conventions have 
 been of a special character, notably those held in New 
 York and Chicago for the consideration of Prophetic 
 Themes, and that held in Philadelphia for the vindi- 
 cation of Bible Inspiration. 
 
 It is now thought best to hold a Four Days' Meet- 
 ing in the City of Baltimore, where THE GLORI- 
 OUS PERSON AND MANIFOLD MINISTRY 
 OF THE HOLY SPIRIT shall form the subject 
 of teaching. The invitation comes from a number 
 of Pastors who cordially iuvite their fellow-Chris- 
 tians of every name to assemble with them during 
 the four days commencing with Tuesday, October 29th. 
 Many of the speakers who took part in previous 
 Conferences, in addition to well-known Pastors and
 
 EXPLANATORY. V 
 
 Seminary Professors, will present carefully prepared 
 addresses on this vital theme. 
 
 That there is a tendency to practically ignore the 
 Presence and Ministry of the Spirit in the professing 
 church is painfully noticeable. To warn against this 
 declension and to recall believers to a more practical 
 recognition of His presence and relations to the church, 
 and the world, is the object aimed at in thus calling 
 together the disciples of our Lord. Carnality in the 
 church or in the individual can only be met and over- 
 come by an increase of, and an intensity of the Holy 
 Spirit's Ministry in our midst. 
 
 The Conference will be inter-denominational, and 
 an expression of the vital union of believers with one 
 another in Jesus Christ. 
 
 Names of speakers, hours of sessions, and place of 
 meeting will be duly announced. 
 
 GEO. C. NEEDHAM, 
 A. C. DIXON, 
 
 On behalf of Committee. 
 JOHN F. PULLEN, Treasurer, 
 
 12 East Fayette Street. 
 
 The Convention was held in the Mt. Vernon 
 Place M. E. Church, Baltimore, and the attendance
 
 VI EXPLANATORY. 
 
 upon all the sessions was very large. Its four days 
 were days of heaven upon earth. 
 
 At one time no less than one hundred ministers 
 requested prayer for the fullness of the Holy Ghost. 
 Appeals have come from other cities for like Confer- 
 ences, but as yet we have been too much occupied 
 with evangelistic labors to comply with the request. 
 We purpose, D. V., when opportunity offers, to mul- 
 tiply such meetings for the consideration and elucida- 
 tion of this great theme The Person and Work of 
 the Holy Spirit. 
 
 Mr. Dixon, in editing the book, has thought it 
 best to publish the addresses just as they were fur- 
 nished by the speakers. Such repetitions as have 
 occurred are necessary to a full understanding of the 
 subject in hand. They are now sent forth in the 
 present form with much prayer that the gift of power 
 through the indwelling of the Spirit may rest upon 
 every reader. 
 
 GEO. C. NEEDHAM. 
 
 ELIM COTTAGE, 
 MANX-HESTEB-BY-THE-SEA, MASS.
 
 CONTKNTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. INTRODUCTION i 
 
 By A. C. Dixon. 
 
 II. ADDRESS OF WELCOME 9 
 
 By Bishop A. W. Wilson. 
 
 III. THE HOLY SPIRIT THE REVEALER OF CHRIST . 12 
 
 By.Rev. George S. Bishop, D.D. 
 
 IV. THE ENDUEMENT OF THE SPIRIT 37 
 
 By Rev. Julius E. Grammar, D.D. 
 
 V. THE SPIRIT'S THREEFOLD CONVICTION .... 48 
 
 By Rev. George Dana Boardman, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 VI. ADDRESS BY REV. M. D. BABCOCK 66 
 
 VII. THE SPIRIT OF SONSHIP 70 
 
 By Rev. W. J. Erdman. 
 
 VIII. THE HEAVENLY UNCTION 77 
 
 By Rev. L. W. Munhall, D.D. 
 
 IX. GRIEVING, TEMPTING, RESISTING THE SPIRIT . 86 
 
 By Rev. James Morrow, D.D. 
 
 X. THE SPIRIT FOR WORSHIP AND WITNESSING . . 102 
 
 By Rev. D. M. Stearns. 
 
 XI. THE SPIRIT IN AGREEMENT WITH THE WORD . 117 
 
 By Rev W. J. Erdman. 
 
 XII. THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CHRISTIAN .... 124 
 
 By Rev. F. M. Ellis, D.D. 
 
 XIII. THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY 150 
 
 By Bishop W. R. Nicholson, D.D. 
 
 vii
 
 THE 
 
 PERSON AND MINISTRY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 HOLY SPIEIT. 
 
 I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 BY A- C. DIXON. 
 
 THE Spirit of God came on the day of Pentecost, as 
 the rushing mighty wind and the tongues of 
 flame ; and from that day to this he has been with his 
 people. We sometimes pray that he may be poured 
 out upon us ; let us rather strive to realize that he is 
 already with us, and what we need is to appropriate 
 this ever present power. He is not weaker to-day, and 
 stronger to-morrow, but " the same yesterday, to-day 
 and forever." Omnipotence dwelling with his people, 
 ready to work through them. The practical question, 
 then, is, How can this ever present personal power be 
 appropriated ? Through a threefold channel. 
 
 1
 
 2 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 1. We read in Hebrews 11, the muster-roll of God's 
 mighty ones. The secret of their power was FAITH. 
 "According to your faith be it unto you," is a law 
 never to be changed. Faith is the connecting wire 
 between the battery of God's power and the hearts 
 of men. We look at the swift current of Niagara 
 Falls and strive to imagine what a force it would 
 be, if utilized in manufacture or in generating elec- 
 tricity. God's power is like the Niagara current, 
 always the same, to be turned for the accomplishment 
 of his purpose by the channels of Christian faith. 
 When New York harbor was to be deepened, a mine of 
 dynamite was placed beneath it ; the engineer took his 
 little daughter, and told her to place her finger upon 
 the knob, and by the weight of her hand the electric 
 current was made to flash under the channel and shake 
 al] New York by the explosion. The engineer might 
 have touched that knob himself; but it was his wish 
 that his child should do it. God could do without our 
 help, but it is his desire and plan that his people by the 
 touch of faith should let loose his omnipotence. 
 
 2. But hand in hand with faith must go the WORD. 
 The Spirit uses his own sword, the "Word of God;" 
 and when we substitute our words for his, we substitute 
 weakness for strength. " Where the word of a king is, 
 there is power." Eccl. 8:4. " The voice of the Lord 
 is powerful." Ps. 29 : 4. We are as Aaron, taking 
 the words of God and delivering them to the people. 
 Our words may be like the sheet lightning, beautiful
 
 INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 and grand, but sheet lightning never strikes anything. 
 God's Word is the forked flash that strikes down the 
 towers of sin. Our words are, at the best, only uncon- 
 fined steam, making fog and confusion ; God's Word is 
 the steam within the cylinder that drives the piston 
 and carries forward his work. 
 
 "A brilliant operation that is," said a French phy- 
 sician ; " I have performed it many a time." " How 
 many patients lived?" asked an inquirer. "Oh, they 
 all died," replied the boastful physician ; " but the op- 
 eration was very brilliant." We perform brilliant ora- 
 torical operations, giving our words which kill to the 
 people, when we ought to be giving God's Word, which 
 imparts life. " Get thee unto the house of Israel/' 
 said the Lord to Ezekiel, " and speak ye my words un- 
 to them." He obeyed, and Israel trembled. Let us 
 heed the same command, and the people will be moved. 
 
 3. There must also be character. " The eyes of the 
 Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to 
 show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart 
 is perfect toward him." 2 Chron. 16 : 9. Care little 
 for reputation, what men may think of us ; care every- 
 thing for character, what God thinks of us. He is 
 looking for the man whose heart is perfect TOWARD 
 HIM. Peter's reputation was not the best. He was as- 
 sociated in the minds of the people with that denial 
 and cursing at the trial of his Master ; but Peter's char- 
 acter was all right ; he had wept in penitence and re- 
 pented of his sin. The relation between him and God
 
 4 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 was such that He filled him with his Spirit and used 
 him powerfully. 
 
 HINDRANCES. 
 
 1. Sin. "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the 
 Lord will not hear me." Ps. 66 : 18. 
 
 2. Satisfaction. We are weak, because contented to 
 be weak. The old man, who, after twenty years of la- 
 bor, thanked God that one soul had been saved through 
 his work, was somewhat to blame. "Woe to them 
 that are at ease in Zion ! " The Lord Almighty is 
 present, ready to work through our faith, his Word and 
 a good character ; and if he does not work powerfully, 
 it is our fault. 
 
 3. Unbelief. Can Omnipotence be resisted? Not 
 by any combination of wicked men or demons. But 
 one thing can limit the Holy One of Israel. Doubt is 
 the water which quenches the fire of the Spirit is the 
 glass which intercepts the current of his power. 
 Jesus, who had opened the eyes of the blind, walked 
 upon the water, fed the five thousand and raised the 
 dead, stood helpless, the hands of his power shackled 
 by the unbelief of those about him. " Why could not 
 we cast him out?" asked the disciples. "Because of 
 your unbelief," said the Saviour; not because my 
 power is absent, but because the channel through which 
 that power flows has been clogged. 
 
 4. Ignorance. " Ye do err, not knowing the Scrip- 
 tures, nor the power of God," Matt. 22 : 29 ; and we 
 are the Sadducees of to-day in that respect. We are
 
 INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 not powerful, because we have not in mind and heart 
 the Word, with which the Spirit works. We need, 
 however, more than knowledge of the truth ; we need 
 to have God's message. By the close study of the 
 Scriptures, let us learn God's truth ; by looking to him 
 in prayer for guidance, let us seek the appropriate 
 truth ; and the man who comes before a congregation, 
 not simply with the strength of truth, but, what is 
 more, with the conviction that he is proclaiming God's 
 message, is truly powerful. 
 
 5. Pride and Vanity. We are PROUD of what we 
 have we are VAIN of what we think we have, but 
 are mistaken. We may have learning, a commanding 
 presence, a logical mind, good voice, popularity and be 
 proud of it ; and that pride is our weakness. But we 
 should specially guard against spiritual vanity. The 
 fact that God has used us in doing something may not 
 be so complimentary after all, for he can use a worm to 
 thresh a mountain. He takes " the weak things to 
 confound the mighty, and the things that are not to 
 bring to naught the things that are," 1 Cor. 1:27; and, 
 if through you he has threshed a mountain, it is only 
 proof that you may be a worm. The tendency in us 
 to crave the praise of men should be watched. " How 
 can ye believe," said Christ, " who receive honor one of 
 another, and seek not the honor which cometh from 
 God only ?" John 5 : 44. 
 
 6. False Expectations. We expect to feel strong; 
 we desire a consciousness of God's presence ; we wish to
 
 6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 shake ourselves Samson-like, and realize that there is 
 might in our sermons, in our manner, in our words. 
 We forget that he " giveth power to the faint, and to 
 them that have no might he increaseth strength ; " that 
 God's strength is made perfect in weakness ; " When I 
 am weak, then I am strong." The Spirit's work is not 
 to show himself to us. " He shall not speak of himself, 
 but will take the things of mine and show them unto 
 you." His office is to lift up a crucified Christ. He 
 teaches us the lesson of hiding self behind the cross. 
 Now, if it was his plan to show himself, we should al- 
 ways feel his presence ; but as he works invisibly, we 
 must simply rest on the promise of God, and whatever 
 be our "liberty" or "unction" expect him to be 
 present. 
 
 We mistake when we expect that one blessing will in- 
 sure another. The disciples were filled on the day of 
 Pentecost for that special work ; for another work a few 
 days afterward they were filled again ; and for every 
 work there must be a new infilling of the Holy Spirit. 
 Our work is never run by momentum. We are apt 
 to think that, if we give a church or an enterprise a 
 good send-off, it will certainly continue. The power 
 that started it must be applied every day and hour. 
 
 HOW TO GAIN THIS POWER. 
 
 By God's help let us remove the obstacles just men- 
 tioned. Are we living in sin ? Turn from it. Are we 
 satisfied with weakness ? Beg God for dissatisfaction.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 Have we unbelief? "Have faith in God." Are we 
 full of pride or vanity ? Seek God's message, and ask 
 him to humble us under his mighty hand. Have we 
 false expectations ? Let us expect the power from the 
 right source, and yield our wills and plans to God. 
 But above all 
 
 LET US WAIT UPON GOD IN PRAYER. 
 
 In the rush of a busy life we are tempted to dispense 
 with times of secret devotion. "They that wait upon 
 the Lord shall renew their strength ; they shall mount 
 up on wings as eagles." Is. 40: 31. Our power is in 
 proportion to our inner isolation from the world. Put 
 a man on a glass stool, and you can fill him with elec- 
 tricity until the sparks will fly from all parts of his 
 body. Place him on the earth, and the current passes 
 off. The current of God's power does not fill us, be- 
 cause we are too close to the earth its vanities, its 
 pleasures, its ambitions. Some one may call you in 
 modern slang "a religious crank." Be willing to 
 seem a crank. I saw that the steamboat in the storm 
 the other night was moved against wind and wave by 
 turning of a crank. A crank with an engine a hold of 
 it can move things. Some people are so smooth, and 
 straight, and prim, that it seems God cannot get hold of 
 them. The Lord send us men who are willing to be 
 peculiar and distinct to be " cranks," indeed, so that 
 he may powerfully wield them for his glory. 
 
 " Tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye be en-
 
 8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 dued with power from on high." Luke 24 : 49. Let 
 us cease to tarry, waiting for the coming of the Spirit. 
 He is here. But tarry much with him in communion. 
 
 A man to be strong must eat and breathe. Study 
 and digest the Word. Inhale freely this heavenly at- 
 mosphere and you will become mighty. We have 
 heard of the traveler rubbing the frozen comrade amid 
 the snows of Switzerland until his own blood began to 
 circulate, and we tell cold Christians to go out and try 
 to save somebody else ; thus they will get warmed up. 
 That may be true ; but the great heart of Jesus is a 
 furnace heat that can warm us and fit us for activity ; 
 keep close to it in prayer and the study of his Word, aud 
 you will go forth " endued with power from on high."
 
 II. 
 
 ADDRESS OF WELCOME. 
 
 BY BISHOP A. W. WII<SON. 
 
 A MORE grave and momentous theme for considera- 
 tion could not be presented than is contained in 
 the subject of this Conference. In the later days of his 
 incarnate life, when it was more than ever needful that 
 his disciples should be provided against possible defect 
 and failure in the ministry committed to them, our Lord 
 kept in their thought and fixed their hope upon the 
 Holy Spirit, the promise of which he had received from 
 the Father. He would take of the things of Christ and 
 show them to them. He was to be the teacher and 
 guide into all truth, and bring to their remembrance 
 all things that the Lord had said. When they should 
 stand before the rulers of this world he would teach 
 them what they should say. They should receive power 
 after that the Holy Spirit should come upon them. 
 
 When the Lord's bodily presence was taken from 
 them they waited until " they were all filled with the 
 Holy Ghost" before entering upon their ministry, and 
 at the Spirit's dictation , on the day of Pentecost, they 
 spake in the manifold tongues of earth the wonderful 
 works of God. 
 
 9
 
 10 ADDRESS OF WELCOME. 
 
 From that hour they thought only of the guidance of 
 the Spirit, and gave implicit obedience to his command ; 
 and each decisive movement of the church was made 
 under the impulse and at the word of the Holy Ghost. 
 Witness the consecration of the church's property, when 
 Levi in person of Joses, a Levite, gave not the tithe, but 
 the whole, to the service of Christ, and Ananias and 
 Sapphira were smitten to death for having " lied unto 
 the Holy Ghost ; " the ministry of Philip to the eunuch 
 of Ethiopia, of Peter to Cornelius ; and the separation 
 of Saul and Barnabas for the missionary work to which 
 the Spirit called them. The Acts of the Apostles are 
 but the acts of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 Looking at the large place filled by the Spirit and the 
 emphasis laid upon his work, in the utterances of our 
 Lord, and in the early history of the church, it is some- 
 what surprising that so little stress is laid upon his min- 
 istry in these last days. May not much of our weak- 
 ness and many of our failures be attributed to our in- 
 genious efforts to find substitutes for his personal 
 agency ? 
 
 We are warned in the terms of the notice of this Con- 
 ference of the dangers to which the church of God is 
 exposed by neglect of the person and power of the Holy 
 Spirit, and are invited to a prayerful discussion of the 
 third person of the blessed Trinity, and meditation upon 
 his functions in relation to the church, the individual be- 
 liever and the world. It is intended to be, not merely 
 a theological or speculative discussion, but practical, mak-
 
 ADDRESS OF WELCOME. 11 
 
 ing prominent the experience of the Spirit's work in all 
 aspects of it. It ought to be a Conference very bounti- 
 ful in results in individual religious life and in the work 
 of the churches. To these ends let us give our earnest 
 attention and direct our prayers.
 
 III. 
 
 THE HOLY SPIRIT THE REVEALER OF CHRIST. 
 
 BY GEORGE S. BISHOP, D.D. 
 
 WE are living in the Dispensation of the Spirit. 
 What does that mean ? 
 
 It means that we are living on a higher plane than 
 ever has been occupied before. We gather this 
 
 1. From a comparison of this Dispensation with 
 others that have preceded it. 
 
 True religion is more widely disseminated in this 
 than it has been in any preceding Dispensation. 
 Not only so, but more people, in proportion to the mass 
 of professors of religion are truly spiritual, and spiritu- 
 ality in these has risen to a higher point than ever be- 
 fore that is, it has been more intelligent, consistent, 
 ardent, aggressive and victorious. We know, for in- 
 stance, that proportionally there are more Christians 
 now in the world than there were in the time of the 
 Judges that they will average better, and that they 
 have a more forceful influence than had the early He- 
 brew tribes. We know, too, that the same fact bears 
 out in a comparison of later results with those of our 
 Saviour's personal ministry. We know that he has 
 more followers now than he had when he was on 
 12
 
 THE HOLY SPIRIT THE REVEALER OF CHRIST. 13 
 
 earth that intelligence has reached a higher point than 
 it did, even under his teaching, and that Christian ef- 
 fort has been followed by more surprising and more 
 permanent effects. 
 
 2. We know that this Dispensation is an advance, be- 
 cause Grod himself is advance progress. He never 
 goes backward. God known as Diety, comes to be 
 known as Deity in human flesh, and then this Deity, 
 so brought near to us seen, touched and handled is 
 known again, " not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." 
 
 3. The same fact is clear from the structure of Scrip- 
 ture. The Old Testament is the Lock Christ is the 
 Key to the lock then the Holy Ghost is the Hand on 
 the key, without which the mystery of godliness had 
 never been opened. Christ is the Revealer of 
 God, and the Holy Ghost is the Revealer of Christ. 
 "No man can say that Jesus is Jehovah, but by the 
 Holy Ghost." These things go to make evident that 
 we are living on a higher plane of light, responsibility, 
 motive and action i.e., <k in a most signal sense," in 
 the realm of the Spirit, and 
 
 4. The whole historic development of man looked at 
 in the line of the plan of redemption is clearly enough 
 in this upward direction. The work of God is from 
 matter toward spirit. The child leaves his playthings 
 behind, and comes to despise them. The college stu- 
 dent turns his back on the pleasures and games of his 
 boyhood. The professional man has forgotten the 
 rivalries of college life as narrow as its walls ; and the
 
 14 THE HOLY SPIRIT THE REVEALER OF CHRIST. 
 
 mellowed and matured philosopher "lives already 
 amid the peace and the power of invisible scenes," and 
 draws from above and beyond him the springs of in- 
 centive and action. The same principle holds through- 
 out nature. Time and again our attention is drawn to 
 the fact that there is an invisible world, and that that 
 invisible world bears down upon and overpowers the 
 visible. That Thought and Feeling and Volition are 
 stronger than Substance and Quality and Force, and 
 that from within what is unseen and supersensible and 
 supernatural flow the " upper springs " of all inferior 
 energy and action. That though principles, like Faith 
 and Hope, and Love and Righteousness, like Mind and 
 Heart and Will, are imperceptible, intangible and 
 " hid within the Veil," yet not the smallest work of 
 the obscurest worker nor the grandest enterprise of the 
 most powerful syndicate or Caesar, but is the effect of 
 their impetus. And so powerfully does this conviction 
 rule mankind that not an individual but at times, and 
 in moral crises, runs back of all second causes and stands 
 subdued and solemnized before such facts as Conscience 
 Force of Will an overruling Providence Remorse 
 and the straight plummet-line that falls before the 
 Unseen Holiest of all Eternal Righteousness. All 
 which points upward to the Holy Ghost and emphasizes 
 it that we are living in the Dispensation of the Spirit, 
 and that we are moved, most of all, by powers above us, 
 not only, but as never before, by the power of the Spirit, 
 and that we must look to be led by the light, and vital-
 
 THE HOLY SPIRIT THE REVEALER OF CHRIST. 15 
 
 ized for the great work of God by the GRACE of the 
 Spirit that in fine " like holy John of Patmos, 
 we are to BE " in this Day of the Lord in the Spirit. 
 
 5. But we are not left to gather up an inference from 
 observation, nor speculation, nor from logic. " Our 
 Saviour Himself now assures us, that if we believe in 
 him we shall do greater works than even those which 
 HE performed on earth, and that we shall do them pre- 
 cisely because he goes to the Father." 
 
 This he explains by saying that it is expedient for 
 us that he should go away, for unless he does go 
 away the Comforter will not come ; but if he shall go 
 he will send him. 
 
 "And when he, the Spirit of Truth is come, he 
 will convince the world of sin. He will guide you the 
 Church into all truth. He shall glorify Me, i.e., make 
 Me to you through you, Glorious. The Holy Ghost 
 will fill the world through the Church with a reve- 
 lation of God, in My Person, such as never has been 
 seen nor known before." 
 
 That focalizes our attention on three points. 
 
 I. The one essential to salvation is the Revelation of 
 Christ. " He shall glorify ME ! " 
 
 II. The Holy Ghost alone can reveal him. " HE 
 shall glorify Me." 
 
 III. The ulterior and special Object of the Spirit's 
 revelation is God's glory in the face of Jesus Christ. 
 " He shall GLORIFY make Me glorious ! "
 
 16 THE HOLY SPIRIT THE REVEALER OF CHRIST. 
 
 I. The one essential to salvation is the revelation of 
 Christ. 
 
 How essential this is may be gathered from Reason, 
 from Conscience and from the light of the Scriptures. 
 
 From Reason. Nowhere, outside the radius of 
 Christianity, is there either- holiness or peace. Look at 
 Africa. Look at China. Look at Hindostan. My 
 dear friend, Bishop Fowler, of the Methodist Episco- 
 pal Church, who has been traveling, as some of you 
 know, of late in those countries, gave me a description 
 impossible here to repeat, it was so terribly revolting. 
 Even then, he said he had not touched the bottom facts. 
 
 He who knows anything of the history of moral 
 light knows that it has followed, as its centre, the 
 planting of the cross of Christ that just as races have 
 receded from the light of God in the face of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, so they have sunken to a brutish level, 
 and have died in the distractions of an utter unrest. 
 
 But not only Reason, Conscience affirms the same 
 truth. Conscience, in every man, says : " You are 
 guilty ! You are a sinner ! You are condemned ! 
 God is holy. He cannot acquit. He must punish ! " 
 
 Conscience, whatever modern thought may say how- 
 ever it may strive to cheat us cries, " Eternal Justice is 
 Eternal Fact, and God is just ; and How can justice 
 clear the guilty ? " and to this cry of conscience is no 
 answer but in Christ and in the sacrifice of Christ. 
 
 And these deductions of our reason and pur Con- 
 science are confirmed by Scripture.
 
 THE HOLY SPIRIT THE REVEALER OF CHRIST. 17 
 
 The first thing that confronts us in the Bible, after 
 the record of Creation, is a guilty man, and the whole 
 Book goes on to deal with guilt, not as an accident, but 
 as the one great fact on which are based all other facts 
 of the remedial system. 
 
 If there is nothing to be saved from if there are no 
 parties to be reconciled if, without reconciliation, there 
 can be pardon, and peace, and comfort, and heaven, then 
 what is our business as ambassadors for Christ and 
 what is the Gospel ? 
 
 The Gospel is an overture to the LOST then men 
 are lost. The Gospel is good tidings of SALVATION ; 
 then there is a way of Salvation. The Gospel is the 
 presentation of a Saviour ; then, without that Saviour, 
 men no matter who they may be perish. 
 
 So, the Bible not only represents it, but it says so. [The 
 first main characteristic of the Gospel is that it affirms. 
 
 Every thing else questions. Speculation questions. 
 Superstition questions. Higher Criticism the men 
 who write such books as " Whither " put them always 
 in the form of a question. Infidelity is an interrogation 
 point. The adversaries of the cross of Christ assert 
 nothing, but they question everything. They will not 
 lay down a proposition nor define their opinions. They 
 clare not, for they know that the square, blunt blow of 
 unsophisticated truth will at once demolish their light 
 and fantastic fabrics of falsehood ; therefore they skir- 
 mish, and cavil, and dodge, and suggest, and propose 
 " certain questions." 
 2
 
 18 THE HOLY SPIRIT THE REVEALER OF CHRIST. 
 
 Now the Bible affirms. On this point does the Bible 
 affirm ? It does. It comes straight out and says : 
 Apart from the knowledge of Christ there is no Salvation. 
 
 " We are of God, and the whole world lieth in wick- 
 edness." " Without the shedding of Blood there is no 
 remission ! " " Neither is there Salvation in any other, 
 for there is none other name under heaven, given among 
 men, whereby we must be saved." Thus is our first 
 point established the one essential to Salvation is the 
 revelation of Christ. 
 
 II. The Holy Ghost is the only revealer of Christ. 
 He alone makes Christ glorious. 
 
 The Holy Ghost has given us all the knowledge that 
 we have of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Where do we get that knowledge ? How do we 
 know that there is such a thing as a Saviour ? From 
 the Bible. Outside the covers of this book there is not 
 a hint of a Christ. And whence came the Bible ? It 
 was inspired. Who inspired it ? God, the Holy Ghost. 
 
 Not only so but, with the Bible in our hands, how 
 can we know anything of Christ, save as the Spirit re- 
 veals him ? 
 
 "The letter killeth," says the Apostle. It is so. The 
 letter killed in the Old Testament. Of what avail were 
 miracles ? Were all theophanies ? Visions of angels ? 
 All shocks on the senses ? 
 
 Of none whatever. Miracle never changed any man. 
 Appearances like that of the Angels to Abraham like
 
 THE HOLY SPIRIT THE REVEALER OF CHRIST. 19 
 
 that of the Burning Bush, or the wheels of Ezekiel, or 
 the Fire that came down on Elijah's altar at Carrael, 
 never changed any man, except as with them, went a 
 supernatural light and voice. 
 
 Abraham saw Christ's day. How did he see it ? By 
 illumination by the Holy Ghost. Moses recognized 
 God at Horeb. How? By the fire? No, but by 
 God speaking out of the midst of the bush. Ezekiel 
 was transformed at Chebar. How ? By the wheels ? 
 No, but " the Spirit," he says, " entered in me." Israel 
 was to be revived under Elijah. How? By the wind? 
 By the earthquake ? By the fire ? By any sensible 
 and ocular demonstration ? No ; but by the still small 
 voice. That was the lesson taught to the prophet. 
 
 The same fact comes out in the New Testament. How 
 many saw Christ touched Christ said they believed 
 on Christ in the flesh, who never went beyond impres- 
 sions of their outward senses. We are often tempted to 
 think that if we could have lived when Christ lived we 
 should have found it easier to be Christians. It is a 
 mistake. What makes a Christian is the Spiritual ap- 
 prehension of Christ, and the Holy Ghost alone can re- 
 veal him. 
 
 He alone did it in the Old Testament. The Old Tes- 
 tament is full of Christ as full as the New is. See how, 
 in preaching Christ the apostles quote the Old Testament. 
 
 Luther used to say he could tell whether the Church 
 was gaining or losing life-power by the study or neglect 
 of the Hebrew. Why did he say it? Because the
 
 20 THE HOLY CHRIST THE REVEALER OF CHRIST. 
 
 study of Hebrew means the Old Testament, and because 
 the Old Testament is the casket which contains Christ. 
 The New Testament is the key to the Old, but when we 
 have a key, we do not turn our backs upon the lock, and 
 laugh away the lock we open it. 
 
 The Old Testament is full of Chrut. Take the 22d 
 Psalm, where he cries, " My God, my God, why hast 
 thou forsaken me ? " Take Isaiah 53 : " He was 
 wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our 
 iniquities." Take the Levitical Sacrifices -'How with- 
 out these could we explain the Atonement ? 
 
 Yet only a few who read them under the Old Dis- 
 pensation, saw Christ in these Scriptures and why ? 
 Because they needed more than the most perfect de- 
 scription. They needed light on the light. They 
 needed, like David, to have their eyes opened to see 
 wondrous things out of God's law. 
 
 They needed, like Simeon and Anna, in the temple, 
 to have something more than had other spectators. 
 Something more than the mere presentation of Christ. 
 Something which should make them take him in their 
 arms and exclaim, " Mine eyes have seen thy salva- 
 tion!" 
 
 The same thing is true of the New Testament. It is, 
 ot course, full of Christ and nothing but Christ and yet, 
 in the gospels, when Christ himself was living and 
 walking among them, we may say of most, as it Is 
 said of the disciples, who were journeying to Emmaus,
 
 THE HOLY SPIRIT THE REVEALER OF CHRIST. 21 
 
 " Their eyes were holden that they should not know 
 him." 
 
 St. Peter in Matt. 16 : 23 responds in answer to the 
 question of Jesus, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the 
 living God." But how does he say it ? He says it, 
 not in his senses, but like a man transfigured, by a fire 
 that burns in him and out of him in a new flash of fact 
 as well as expression " Blessed art thou, Simon Bar- 
 Jona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto 
 thee ; but my Father which is in heaven." 
 
 Thomas, in John 20 : 28, cries out in a rapture, " My 
 Lord and my God ! " He sees and he adores the Deity 
 of Christ. From the most incredulous of the eleven 
 he comes to be their leader, and by appropriating faith 
 to confess and to claim the Lord Jesus as God. 
 
 He does this without ever putting Christ to the test 
 that he had laid down for himself. He does it unex- 
 pectedly, suddenly. 
 
 How often do we lay down tests anticipating how the 
 Lord shall come to us. He must come this way or 
 that way, by a convulsion, by a vision, by some recog- 
 nized demonstration or else we must refuse credence. 
 " Except I shall put my finger into the print of the 
 nails and thrust my hand into his side, I will not be- 
 lieve." 
 
 If you will look back at the chapter, you will find it 
 a blank as to any handling of Jesus, such as Thomas 
 proposed. Instead of this, is a silence a check. The 
 GODHEAD COMES IN a more than human majesty
 
 22 THE HOLY SPIRIT THE REVEALER OF CHRIST. 
 
 clothed a more than human glory enhaloed the mys- 
 terious Person who thus unexpectedly revealed himself 
 to Thomas and repeated, as out of eternity to him, the 
 very thoughts of his heart. 
 
 Thomas saw a man before him with a great wound 
 gaping in his side, more than enough to have caused 
 any death. He saw that wound bleeding, yet the man 
 living and speaking speaking his own words which 
 none could have known beside an omnipresent, invisible 
 Listener, and Thomas cried instinctively, " My Lord 
 and my God ! " How did he do it ? By illumination. 
 Because the Spirit taught him to cry. Because, all at 
 once, in Christ's light, he saw light. 
 
 The Holy Ghost reveals Christ. He glorifies Christ. 
 Notice. He does not create Christ ; he shows him. 
 
 Christ is all the while there. A person is in a dark 
 room. You cannot see the person ; you do not know 
 he is there. Then some one brings in a candle and you 
 see the person revealed touched with all the radiance 
 of the candle, brighter in outline, more distinct and 
 glorious in feature for the very darkness against which 
 he stands. 
 
 When we were sailing in the Grecian Archipelago 
 we came, at dawn of day, to the Island of Rhodes. At 
 first we saw only a grey indistinctness the shapeless 
 outline of vast rocks rising out of the water. Then as 
 the sun came up, how glorious ! There lay the harbor 
 once bestridden by the famous Colossus, the sapphire 
 ripplings of the water touched with rose and gold the
 
 THE HOLY SPIRIT THE REVEALER OF CHRIST. 23 
 
 ships, the flappings of their sails stirred lightly by the 
 morning breeze. There stretched away the green fields 
 and the mountains round which poetry had thrown her 
 charm ; midway in the perspective rose the ancient cas- 
 tellated ramparts of the fortress of the Knights of St. 
 John, all flashing, glowing, burning, touched and 
 " transfigured by the ministry of light." " That which 
 doth make manifest is light." The Holy Ghost is the 
 only revealer of Jesus. 
 
 And the Holy Ghost glorifies Christ or reveals him 
 in his true glory now, as he could not possibly do were 
 Christ present. 
 
 One thing : it was necessary that Christ should go 
 away in order that the power of a natural, carnal, 
 earthly influence might be broken. 
 
 The apostles loved Christ too much, as the carnal 
 loves the carnal. They limited his power as Martha did 
 when she'said : " If Thou meaning his bodily presence 
 hadst been here, my brother had not died." 
 
 That is the error of Rome with her crucifixes, her 
 Mass and her sensuous ecstacies. Read the memoirs of 
 Santa Teresa and of St. John of the Cross, and you will 
 find the love they express for the Saviour is sensuous 
 carnal. There is something lurid about it. You are 
 afraid of it. 
 
 It was necessary that that sort of thing should be 
 broken that there should come an experience, which, 
 permit me to say it, should emancipate Christ should 
 burst the tomb and the grave-clothes, and set him Infi-
 
 24 THE HOLY SPIRIT THE REVEALER OF CHRIST. 
 
 nite, Omnipresent, Omnipotent, Heavenly working 
 above, as ever in, and through his church an experience 
 like that of St. Paul when he says : " Yea, though we 
 have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth 
 know we him no more." We only know him as the 
 Spirit reveals him. 
 
 You have known a man by his clothes by his face 
 now you come to know him by his CHARACTER. Some- 
 thing reveals him in his abilities, in his integrity, in his 
 truth, as your friend. Then, whether he be present or 
 absent, you can say, " I know him. I can count on him 
 now as never before." 
 
 The Holy Ghost reveals Christ. But let us come closer ; 
 the ulterior and special object of the Spirit's revelation 
 is God's glory in the face of Jesus Christ. That is our 
 
 III. Point. " He shall glorify " " Make me GLORI- 
 OUS." 
 
 St. Paul expands our Saviour's statement in these 
 words : " For God, who commanded the light to shine 
 out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the 
 light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face 
 of Jesus Christ." 
 
 The Apostle institutes a wondrous parallel with the 
 original creation. Indulge me while I press that paral- 
 lel in its out-starting facts. 
 
 "And God said, 'Let there be light/ and there was 
 light" a luminous but undefined Aurora like that of 
 Northern cl|rnes in winter, when objects are apparent,
 
 THE HOLY SPIRIT THE REVEALER OF CHRIST. 25 
 
 indeed, but not glorified. Then, on the fourth day 
 the Sun rose oil this Earth. What a change ! What a 
 glorious transfiguration of the material Earth, when the 
 Sun rose upon it in splendor ! 
 
 On the fourth day the Sun rose. What a fact ! How 
 everything on earth was touched and changed by this ! 
 Let us try to conceive the difference between the first 
 three days and the fourth, when the Sun rose in his 
 splendor; and then let us try to take in the stupendous- 
 ness of the parallel made by St. Paul. 
 
 The world without Christ, or Christ in twilight 
 beneath the dawn-line of the Old Testament beneath 
 the histories, and types, and prophecies beneath the 
 horizon of an Arctic winter, and then, and all at once, 
 and forever, the Sun of Righteousness in visible perfec- 
 tion of his glory the Mystery of Godliness the Day- 
 spring from on high ! 
 
 " God, who commanded the light to shine out of 
 darkness, hath shined in our hearts" creation is the 
 prelude and the prophecy of a yet higher and more sub- 
 lime irradiation " to give the light of the knowledge 
 of God's glory in the face of Jesus Christ." 
 
 The statement of this point, involves, of course, three. 
 That there is such a thing as the knowledge of the glory 
 of God that this knowledge is unfolded in the face of 
 Jesus Christ, and that it comes by a Divine in-shining. 
 
 1. The knowledge of the glory of God. If God be 
 God, he is glorious, for glory is manifested excellence, 
 and God is most excellent, and cannot be hid.
 
 26 THE HOLY SPIRIT THE REVEALER OF CHRIST. 
 
 The glory of God is not only his greatness, but the 
 equipoise of his character. Satan is great, i. e. } in facul- 
 ties, but he is in no wise glorious, but infamous because 
 of the defect of his character. Michael, the arch-angel, 
 originally no greater than Satan, and perhaps not so 
 great, is more glorious because of the perfection the 
 balance of his character. 
 
 God's glory is the equipoise of his attributes. With 
 him no where is there too much no where a deficit. 
 
 " A God o'er all consummate, absolute, 
 Full-orbed, in his whole world of rays complete." 
 
 All heresy starts from the centre, i. e., by unpivot- 
 ting God, by disturbing the balance of the Divine at- 
 tributes, by making God lop-sided, by contending for 
 power to the exclusion of rectitude, or for sovereignty, to 
 the exclusion of self-consistency ; or for justice, to the 
 exclusion of mercy, or for mercy to the prejudice of 
 justice. 
 
 God unsupported, unsuspended, self-sufficient is an 
 Orb at rest ponderibus Libratus Suis, equally balanced 
 every way by his own weight. There is no more power 
 in God than there is righteousness, and no more sover- 
 eignty than self-restraint. 
 
 It is because God is balanced and must balance that 
 he is what he is, and no conscience, however clouded 
 say or think whatsoever it please can ever be at peace 
 until it sees Eternal God himself at peace. A God one- 
 sided, careened and tilted by the overponderance of any
 
 THE HOLY SPIRIT THE REVEALER OF CHRIST. 27 
 
 attribute a God at war with himself, like a sun on 
 fire devoured by mutually contending flames, were an 
 object of horror fitted only to drive to distraction. 
 Such a God were it not a mental contradiction to try to 
 conceive him could never give peace. 
 
 It is important to put emphasis upon the fact before 
 us, because the effort of to-day is to destroy the balance 
 of the attributes of God to posit it that justice, for ex- 
 ample and in measurement, and in adjustment every- 
 thing comes back to the straight line that justice in 
 God is a merely optional attribute. 
 
 " How can God," says one of our modern Neolo- 
 gians,* " How can God be free if he be the slave of 
 his own justice ? " 
 
 As well ask, " How can I be free if I cannot rid my- 
 self of my back-bone? I am the slave, then, of my 
 back-bone. But how can I be a man and have no 
 back-bone ? " 
 
 For God to be free from his justice would be for 
 him to be free from himself as moral, " and therefore 
 immoral for justice is simply looking on things as 
 they are, and treating them accordingly, and to deny 
 this is to deny rectitude, and to deny rectitude is to 
 deny God and make him immoral. 
 
 " God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable 
 in His being, Wisdom, Power, Holiness." Holiness con- 
 sisting, and in that order of "justice, goodness and 
 truth." Not goodness first, as if God were mere law- 
 
 * Author of "Whither."
 
 28 THE HOLY SPIRIT THE REVEALER OF CHRIST. 
 
 less, reckless good-nature, but justice first and yet, 
 not justice only, but equally goodness, because he 
 trues i.e., is truth. 
 
 Ho wean you improve on the told definition? It came 
 to Sir Harry Vane on his knees, while praying for light. 
 Did he not get the light ? Outside of the Scripture, 
 what ever has come so near to direct inspiration ? 
 
 Throw away your Theology nay, throw away your 
 Bible, and, in the light of common sense alone, how can 
 you make " love " and by love, of course, is meant 
 love to lost sinners how can you make that any more 
 than the old definition has made it without mak- 
 ing it unholy, bad and wicked love? ^What sort of a 
 love is that which has been severed from holiness, jus- 
 tice and goodness ? 
 
 Justice optional! What should we think of a man 
 to whom it were optional to be just, or to be unjust? 
 
 What should we think of our courts if it were con- 
 ceded that judges might rule as they pleased no mat- 
 ter what the evidence no matter how glaring the 
 facts? The moral grandeur of God is his balance, 
 his poise, that he rights himself. "Shall not the 
 Judge of all the earth do right ? " 
 
 2. The glory of God then, as it stands revealed in vast 
 concentric haloes, circles upon circles of immeasurable 
 excellence is at its brightest spot its centre and when 
 focalized and gathered to one burning point, nothing 
 more, nothing less than CONCILIATION OF JUSTICE AND
 
 THE HOLY SPIRIT THE REVEALER OF CHRIST. 29 
 
 GRACE. " How can God be just and justify the 
 guilty ? " lies at the root of the Gospel. The answer 
 to that question is the Gospel, and Christ on the cross 
 is its sum. 
 
 Christ on the cross, not Christ in pre-existence, 
 transcending thought as is the mystery of everlasting 
 generation. 
 
 Christ on the cross, not Christ incarnate, in the won- 
 drous constitution of his Person web- work as it is, 
 and master-piece of all the attributes of God com- 
 bined as if the sun should come down out of heaven 
 and shine in, and through some creature making it for- 
 ever a sun-creature. 
 
 Not Christ, a babe, in glory streaming from the 
 manger. 
 
 Not Christ when twelve years old, the fair Divin-. 
 ity but softly breaking through his youthful form and 
 gesture as he stands questioning the doctors and unveil- 
 ing the Messiah of the Scriptures in such wise as to an- 
 ticipate his whole commission and to make rejection of 
 him from that moment, the unpardonable sin. 
 
 Not Christ again in all the grand kaleidoscopic as- 
 pects of his ministry, as miracles spring up beneath his 
 footsteps like fresh flowers. 
 
 Not Christ in any, nor in all, these revelations, glori- 
 ous as they are, but still subordinate, but Christ upon 
 the tree. 
 
 Christ on the cross, his visage marred more than any 
 man's, bore witness to God's truth. It was there the
 
 30 THE HOLY SPIRIT THE REVEALER OF CHRIST. 
 
 vision of God's glory shone the brightest " in the face 
 of Jesus," stamped with Divinity and stained with blood. 
 
 It was there seen that God would not swerve that 
 sin must be punished. It was also seen that God 
 would punish sin by punishing himself that the whole 
 united Godhead would suffer the Father in giving his 
 Son from his bosom the Sou in agonies of blood and 
 death the Holy Ghost in joint participation of co-equal 
 sufferings, and in the grieving to which he submits be- 
 fore God would, in any wise, clear the guilty. 
 
 Christ on the cross bore our guilt. As a race we lay 
 crushed beneath it. Imagine a weight like that lifted 
 and borne by one helpless Man a weight that all the 
 Angels, Cherubim and Seraphim and Powers could not 
 have raised by one united and stupendous straining ! 
 Yet he raised it, and not only so, he, the mighty Scape- 
 Goat of iniquities, bore it away to a land uninhabited 
 sought for, it cannot be found. 
 
 What is the upshot of this ? The upshot is that from 
 the instant you and I look away to Christ as our Sub- 
 stitute ; we are eternally saved. 
 
 " The guilt of twice ten thousand sins one offering 
 takes away." 
 
 " If Christ has my discharge procured 
 And freely in my place endured, 
 
 The whole of wrath Divine, 
 Payment God cannot twice demand, 
 First, at my bleeding Surety's hand 
 
 And then again at mine."
 
 THE HOLY SPIRIT THE REVEA.LER OF CHRIST. 31 
 
 " Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace 
 with God through our Lord Jesus Christ," not through 
 our moralities, nor feelings, nor ceremonies, but alone 
 and solely through him. 
 
 Is not that glorious f Bursts there not a glory from that 
 torn flesh which hangs and writhes upon those ragged 
 nails, which challenges all suns to rival it in splendor ? 
 
 Is not here God's glory focalized, as it swings low 
 and kisses even your and my horizon ? When we were 
 at the North Cape, at midnight, a French gentleman 
 took out a sun-glass and burned a hole in his hat with 
 it. Low as the sun was, he was still clothed with all 
 his burning power. 
 
 So is it with our Saviour on the cross. " For though he 
 was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth " there, 
 yes there, he liveth and for you and me he liveth 
 " liveth by the power of God." 
 
 " For God who commanded the light to shine out of 
 darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of 
 the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus 
 Christ." 
 
 3d. This glory hath inshined that is the third point. 
 It hath shined not historically not in the face of a phy- 
 sical Christ, although these, of course, are included ; but 
 through the veil on the heart. Christ's glory to mere 
 worldly men is a veiled glory ; " the veil/' says the 
 apostle, " is upon their heart."
 
 32 THE HOLY SPIRIT THE REVEALER OF CHRIST. 
 
 That veil has been rent not from our side from 
 God's side. Not from the bottom where we could take 
 hold you and I could not rend any Veil ; but from the 
 top where God can take hold to the bottom. Christ, 
 full length, appears ; let down as a Saviour for sinners 
 let down where we are, at our last and our lowest 
 let down where we can take hold; and God says, 
 " Take hold ! I have rent I have split down the Veil." 
 
 God hath " shined in " not into the world only, that 
 is not enough could not be, for " the light shineth in 
 darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not." 
 
 Into believing hearts God hath shined. It is not 
 simply knowledge, but it is the light of the knowl- 
 edge. It is not Church instruction, but heart-work 
 interior regeneration. "When it pleased God," says 
 Paul, " to reveal His Son within me, immediately I 
 took no conference with flesh and blood." 
 
 How then, do we see the light of the knowledge of 
 the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ? 
 
 One way, by Faith. Faith is the great opened eye 
 of the soul. We believe God speaking in His Word. 
 We believe that Jesus is God. We believe, and see it 
 in new light, that in extremis, in salvation, highest 
 angel equally with highest man avails not. Only God 
 upon the tree can answer God upon the throne. 
 
 Another way --the light shines in is by the Witness 
 of the Spirit. What is that witness if not a supernatural 
 spiritual emphasis put on the assurances and promises of 
 God, which makes them true to us without a question ?
 
 THE HOLY SPIRIT THE REVEALER OF CHRIST. 33 
 
 "The Holy Spirit also testifies unto us," says St. 
 Paul, in Heb. 10 : 15, "Their sins and their iniquities 
 will I remember no more." The Spirit bears with 
 the Word, his assurance, IN on the soul. I have 
 not only heard Christ's doctrine, but I have his voice 
 speaking within me. 
 
 " The Spirit answers to the Blood, 
 And tells me I am born of God." 
 
 Nothing like this to give peace ! It comforts now, 
 amid all sins, all tumults, all perplexities, and it will 
 comfort when the head lies on its last pillow, and can 
 turn and look no where else. 
 
 A third way Light shines in is by Consciousness. 
 Consciousness of breathing goes with breathing. Con- 
 sciousness of walking goes with walking. Conscious- 
 ness of life and vigor goes with power. A man full of 
 the Holy Ghost knows what he is full of, and that he 
 is not empty. He knows that his light is not darkness 
 that his joy is not despair, and that his power is 
 something other and more than physical elation or 
 physical energy. 
 
 " Can he not, through some interior eye which we 
 know not, and for which we have no name, pour into 
 us the radiance of his own infinite glory, though he be 
 the king invisible, whom no man hath seen, nor can 
 see ? " Can he not manifest himself to the eye of in- 
 terior consciousness with a distinctness of spiritual 
 presence as satisfying as that which his bodily form 
 3
 
 34 THE HOLY SPIRIT THE REVEALEB OF CHRIST. 
 
 gave to the external vision of his disciples? Can he 
 not pour floods on floods of inundating life upon us 
 until lifted, floated we shall move like the resistless 
 waves in might of spiritual power ? 
 
 He can! he can! We know it. We have felt it, 
 and the voice of yearning irrepressible, has turned it 
 into prayer. 
 
 " Refining Fire ! go through my heart, 
 
 Illuminate my soul, 
 Scatter thy life in every part, 
 And sanctify the whole." 
 
 This Revelation of Christ by the Spirit is what the 
 WORLD needs is dying for " When he shall come to 
 you he shall convince the world of sin." 
 
 This Revelation of Christ -fresh revelation I mean, 
 satisfying our souls, filling, flooding enlarging us 
 with the light, and the love, and the joy, and the 
 strength of the Lord is what we need, my Brethren. 
 What you and I need if we would save a dying world. 
 In other words, we need the Baptism of the Holy 
 Ghost, that we may see Christ and preach Christ. 
 
 The reason why we do not get on have little enlarge- 
 ment is the lack of this Baptism. And the reason 
 why we lack this Baptism is, that we do not, as we 
 ought, believe in it. We look on Pentecost as a stereo- 
 type. It stands for us the monument of what was 
 once a living benediction, but is dead. The Holy 
 Ghost is as it were, mummified in the Church. He
 
 THE HOLY SPIRIT THE REVEALER OF CHRIST. 35 
 
 is mechanical, in our conception, latent. He is being 
 carried under our decent ceremonials as the dead em- 
 peror Numidian was carried, in his closed litter, into 
 the battle. 
 
 Few of us, I fear, are praying as our fathers prayed. 
 " Breathe from the four winds, O BREATH ! " in the 
 conviction that the Church's power is the direct im- 
 pingement of the supernatural that it is afflatus from 
 on high or else our gilded congregations are but 
 bleaching bones. 
 
 And because we do not believe in the Baptism of the 
 Holy Ghost we do not ask for it. We look on men 
 like Whitefield and Carvosso, Brainerd and Edwards, 
 Bramwell and Spurgeon, Cecil and McCheyne as un- 
 approachable examples, and so our sermons drag, and 
 Sunday-school instructions drag, and evangelism drags 
 and life drags. 
 
 What we want is A FRESH REVELATION OF CHRIST. 
 As dear McCheyne says, " Christ for me ! that's ever 
 new, that's ever glorious." Revivals of religion will 
 begin again, my Brethren, when ministers go back to 
 the A. B. C. of the Gospel when they consent to cru- 
 cify their brains and preach upon the simplest texts. 
 " It is a faithful saying." " God so loved the world." 
 The Spirit owns a very simple Christ. 
 
 What we want is a FRESH REVELATION OF CHRIST. 
 Not to see him physically, with Huxley, nor intellectu- 
 ally, with the " Higher Criticism " men, but with Bun- 
 yan and with Christmas Evans, by the Holy Ghost
 
 36 THE HOLY SPIRIT THE REVEALEE OF CHRIST. 
 
 " To view the Lamb in his own light, 
 
 Whom angels dimly see, 
 And gaze transported at that sight 
 Through all eternity." 
 
 " We, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, 
 are changed BY THE SPIRIT from glory to glory." Let 
 us believe this. Let us, too, gaze until WE are changed 
 our ministry transfigured. Until from glory unto 
 glory we anticipate the beatific vision. Then, on our 
 death-beds, if the Lord should tarry, we may say as 
 did the dying John Owen, when there were brought to 
 him the last wet proof-sheets of his immortal Book 
 " the Glory of Christ " " some glimpses of it I have 
 had already, but now I am going where I shall see it as 
 I have never seen it in this world." I 
 
 God grant the Revelation now, as flesh and blood can 
 bear, and afterward the far exceeding and eternal 
 weight of glory for his dear Son's sake.
 
 IV. 
 
 "THE ENDUEMENT OF THE SPIRIT." 
 
 BY REV. JULIUS E. GRAMMER, D.D.* 
 
 " But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon 
 you : and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all 
 Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth" 
 Acts 1 : 8. 
 
 was the promise of our Lord to his church. 
 They should receive power from on high. 
 They should be led into all truth. They should 
 have the comforting assurance of his presence and 
 of the Paraclete. The honor put upon the Holy Spirit 
 is so great as to lead us to magnify his office. He is the 
 Lord ; and the Giver of Life. The children of God are 
 born of the Spirit, and taught by the Spirit, and led by 
 the Spirit. We see that he is the author of all pro- 
 phecy, and the witness of Jesus, as the Son of God, by 
 his resurrection from the dead. He is compared to the 
 wind, blowing where it listeth, to show his sovereignty 
 and his freedom. He is likened to the fire, to show his 
 kindling and illumining influence. He is promised to 
 all who ask. Without him the Apostles would have 
 been utterly helpless. It was not by the eloquence of an 
 
 * Eector of St. Peter's P. E. Church, Baltimore. 
 
 37
 
 38 THE ENDUEMENT OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 Apollos, nor by the learning of a Paul, nor by the might 
 of worldly force, but by the Spirit of the Lord. 
 
 That Holy Spirit of Promise was to be to the church 
 what the Shekinah was to the temple of old ; what the 
 breath of Heaven was in the valley of Ezskiel's vision ; 
 what the presence and power of Elijah's prayer were to 
 the dead child of the widow of Zarephath. 
 
 We see the effect of his presence, 
 
 1st. First of all in the holy boldness it gave the Apos- 
 tles. They had been timid and half-hearted. They had 
 fled at the cross, and hid in the upper room. They were 
 weakened by fear of the magistrates and of worldly 
 authority. 
 
 Peter denied his Lord, and even the Apostle John 
 forsook him and fled. But what a contrast on the day 
 of Pentecost ! See them before the men who had im- 
 brued their hands in our Saviour's blood. That same 
 Apostle tells them they " killed the Prince of life." 
 He bids them " Repent, and be baptized." He is no 
 longer tempted to deny or desert, but he lifts up the 
 standard of the Lord. Surely this is a great contrast. 
 Their courage is more than a match for the most men- 
 acing foes. They are not abashed by the scourge of 
 the magistrates, or the dangers of persecution. They 
 appeal to God and are not afraid of men. So it has 
 been in the history of every true prophet endued 
 with the Holy Ghost. See Moses before Pharaoh ; 
 Elijah before Ahab. See John the Baptist, with the 
 energy of the Holy Ghost from his birth, and as a
 
 THE ENDUEMENT OF THE SPIEIT. 39 
 
 great preacher standing before Herod. See Paul be- 
 fore Felix and the world's proudest skeptics. See 
 Chrysostom before Eudoxia, and Basil before Valens; 
 and Luther before the Diet of Worms, and Knox be- 
 fore Mary of Scots, and Cranmer, at the fires of 
 Smithfield. You see how full the Holy Spirit filled 
 the hearts of these brave and devoted men, that they 
 should not fear the face of man. And surely that is 
 the need of the church to-day. We shrink from the 
 challenge of giant forms of evil which menace the life 
 of the soul. We need to-day that enduement of bold- 
 ness which shall teach us to say, " Let no man's heart 
 fail him." Yes, that hopeful courage which shall 
 confront the mountains of defiant evil that they may 
 become a plain before Zerubbabel. Isaiah was " very 
 bold " as he stretched forth his hand all the day long 
 to a gain-saying people. 
 
 Surely the want of courage is the want of the 
 Spirit; and when that enduement possesses the soul 
 it can say as did Deborah, " O my soul, thou hast 
 trodden down strength." 
 
 " Then were the horsehoofs broken by the means of the 
 prancings, the prancings of their mighty ones." " Greater 
 is he that is in you than he that is in the world." 
 
 2d. Again, the enduement of the Spirit taught men 
 to depend upon the word. The great instrument of 
 spiritual conquest is the Bible, which is "the sword 
 of the Spirit." "It pleased God by the foolishness 
 of preaching to save them that believe."
 
 40 THE EXDUEMENT OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 St. Paul, writing to Timothy, in the midst of pre- 
 vailing Gnosticism and error, urges him, " Preach the 
 word, in season and out of season." It is the word 
 which is "the seed." It is the word of God which 
 is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged 
 sword. It is mighty through God to the pulling 
 down of the strongholds of sin. 
 
 Where the Bible is most read, studied and preached ; 
 where its light has shone, there the vital and saving 
 power of Christianity has been most felt. God hon- 
 ors his word. The Scriptures are given by inspira- 
 tion of the Holy Ghost, and are profitable for instruction 
 in righteousness, that the man of God may be thorough- 
 ly furnished unto every good work. Jesus said, " Search 
 the Scriptures." Out of them he taught the disciples and 
 made their hearts burn within them by the way. The 
 great commission is, " Go preach my Gospel." Preach 
 the word; not tradition; not speculation ; not philo- 
 sophy or rationalism, not the theories of men. 
 
 St. Paul said, " The Gospel which I delivered to you 
 is the same also that I received, how Christ died for 
 our sins, according to the Scriptures, and that he rose 
 again, according to the Scriptures." 
 
 You see how our L'ord appealed to them, for he 
 said : What saith the Scriptures ? " You see how the 
 prophet directs us " to the law and the testimony." A 
 ministry which subordinates the pulpit, dishonors the 
 divinely appointed means of the world's conversion 
 and sanctification.
 
 THE ENDUEMEXT OF THE SPIRIT. 41 
 
 We are born again of "the incorruptible seed," 
 even the word of God, which liveth and abideth for- 
 ever. " My word," says God, " shall accomplish that 
 whereunto I send it." And under the influence of that 
 we see the revolutions which have been wrought in 
 society. We see the wilderness changed into a garden 
 and the habitations of cruelty into the abodes of peace. 
 
 Surely it is the pulpit which has made Scotland, 
 England and America what they are to-day. It is 
 an open and free Bible which has saved Germany 
 from the condition ot Italy, Spain, Austria and South 
 America. It is to a free church, a free conscience, 
 a free education, and above all, to a free Bible that 
 under God we are to ascribe the present condition of 
 Protestant Christendom. That eminent painter, Kaul- 
 bach, has magnificently portrayed the period of the 
 Reformation. As the climax of the thought preced- 
 ing and growing out of it, he has gathered into a 
 group the representative men of the world before 
 and after that great era. There is Columbus, with 
 his charts, the discoverer of the new world, where 
 the Bible has won its proudest victories. There is 
 Sir Isaac Newton, with his globe and his "Prin- 
 cipia ; " Sir Isaac Barrow, with his ponderous tomes 
 on the " Pope's Supremacy ; " Sir Francis Bacon, 
 with his " Novum Organum ; " Dante, the poet of 
 the Reformation, with his " Divina Commedia ; " 
 Shakespeare, with his immortal Dramas ; Guttenberg, 
 with his printing press, and, in the midst of them
 
 42 THE ENDUEMENT OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 all, Martin Luther, with his open Bible lifted to re- 
 flect the glory of God, and to shed the beams of the 
 Sun of Righteousness, with healing in his wings. 
 The lesson of such a great painting is clearly this : 
 " The entrance of thy word, O Lord, giveth light it 
 giveth understanding unto the simple." 
 
 " Brethren," says the Apostle, " pray for us, that the 
 word of God may have free course and be glorified." 
 
 3d. Again, we see the endtiement of the Holy Spirit 
 in keeping the Apostles, and their true successors, loyal 
 to their commission. 
 
 They preached Christ. In Corinth, with its luxury 
 and rich commerce, St. Paul determined to know nothing 
 but " Jesus Christ, and him crucified" In Athens, with 
 its sculptured monuments and its temples of imposing 
 grandeur, he preached " Jesus and the resurrection'' 1 In 
 Ephesus, with its witchcraft and magic, " fear fell on 
 them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. 
 And many that believed came and confessed and shewed 
 their deeds. Many of them also which used curious arts 
 brought their books together and burned them before 
 all men : and they counted the price of them and found 
 it fifty thousand pieces of silver, so mightily grew the 
 word of God and prevailed." 
 
 In Rome, " where," as Tacitus said, " everything vile 
 came," the Apostle says he was not " ashamed of the Gos- 
 pel of Christ ; for it is the power of God unto salvation 
 to every one that believeth ; to the Jew first, and also to 
 the Greek." " Christ first, Christ midst, Christ last,"
 
 THE ENDUEMENT OF THE SPIRIT. 43 
 
 was the theme of Apostolic preaching. It was not 
 ecclesiasticism ; it was not ceremonialism ; it was not to 
 confront the opposition of " science, falsely so called ; " 
 it was not " profane and vain babblings." IT WAS 
 CHRIST. We see this characterized their preaching 
 everywhere. As Philip preached to the treasurer of the 
 queen of Candace, it was " Jesus " and his sacrifice. 
 The Holy Spirit blessed it and the chamberlain " went 
 on his way rejoicing." 
 
 " Unto me," says the Apostle, " is this grace given, 
 that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable 
 riches of Christ." Jesus said, " He shall take of mine 
 and show it unto you." " He shall glorify Me." 
 
 4th. Again we see the enduement of the Spirit in the 
 exercise of a faith which depended upon the power of God. 
 
 " Who is Paul ? " says the Apostle, and " who is 
 Apollos ? but ministers by whom ye believed." The 
 sovereignty and grace of the Holy Spirit were not con- 
 fined to men of learning or eloquence. The humblest 
 witness for Christ might become an instrument of un- 
 told good. An Aquila and a Priscilla could teach even an 
 Apollos " the way of the Lord more perfectly." The most 
 obscure servants of Christ have been raised up for his 
 work, to show that the weak things are often chosen to 
 confound the mighty, and "things which are not "to 
 bring " to naught things that are ; that no flesh shall 
 glory in his presence." And certainly we have lived to 
 witness that in our time. We have seen an Evangelist, 
 with no equipment of scholarly attainments, with none of
 
 44 THE ENDUEMENT OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 the polish and erudition either of the theologian or the 
 cultured orator, moving multitudes and calling them to 
 Christ, as no minister, possibly, of modern times. Can 
 any one doubt that it is " the finger of God ; " that it 
 is the power of the Spirit ; that it is the power of 
 Elias and John the Baptist and of the Lord himself, 
 illustrating the enduring wealth of his promise, "Cease 
 ye from man." Remember the record which is given in 
 The Acts, " Now when they saw the boldness of Peter 
 and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and 
 ignorant men, they marvelled ; and they took knowl- 
 edge of them, that they had been with Jesus." 
 
 We emphasize this, not that we would discourage 
 learning, but to show how God, the Holy Spirit, uses 
 men of low degree often to do such a work so as to mag- 
 nify his Grace. We find Peter and John, as well as 
 Paul and Apollos, able ministers of the New Testa- 
 ment ; and clothed with a wisdom above the world, yet 
 never having been taught. Certainly we have great 
 reason to rejoice in all the contributions of a profound 
 erudition to the wealth of the Church's literature. We 
 see many great names in the mighty host of stars 
 which Jesus holds in his right hand ; but we see among 
 the brightest of them those who were best known, be- 
 cause " They were wise to turn many to righteousness." 
 They were poor, yet made many rich. They had 
 nothing, and yet they possessed all things. 
 
 5th. Nor should we forget to notice the enduement of 
 the Spirit in its world-embracing zeal.
 
 THE ENDUEMENT OF THE SPIRIT. 45 
 
 " They went everywhere, preaching the word." No 
 Jewish exclusiveness confined them to the house of Is- 
 rael. The house of Cornelius was admitted as a sharer 
 in those benefits. St. Peter says, " The promise is unto 
 you, and your children, and to all that are afar off." 
 They saw that the middle wall of partition was broken 
 down. They went " far hence to the Gentiles," and to 
 the utmost bounds of the earth. Not only to Philippi, 
 but to Rome, and not to Rome only, but into all the 
 world. The Spirit of God while it recognizes all dis- 
 tinctions of government and of administrations, secuiar 
 and sacred, at the same time it teaches us that the whole 
 world is guilty before God, and in need of the common 
 salvation. And while men talk of " Catholicity," let 
 us learn from the Spirit that he is a catholic who 
 loves God and his neighbor, who loves Christ and 
 his Gospel. He is a catholic who learns, under the 
 enduemeut of the Spirit, to realize that there is neither 
 Jew nor Gentile, Bond nor Free, Greek nor Barbarian, 
 in the light of the Gospel ; but all are " One in 
 Christ." 
 
 This is the Charity which rejoices in the Truth : 
 which makes Christ Head and teaches that all 
 we are brethren. The whole Spirit of the Gospel 
 is opposed to proselytism. It seeks not to build up 
 party, or sect, or hierarchy, but to add to the fol- 
 lowers of Christ. " He shall glorify Me ; " not schools 
 of thought, not the monuments of the world's wis- 
 dom and philosophy ; not organizations, or ecclesiasti-
 
 46 THE ENDUEMENT OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 cal Shibboleths, but Christ ; Christ as Saviour, Teacher, 
 King. 
 
 St. Paul said he was " all things to all men " (with- 
 out the compromise of any principle) u that by all means 
 he might save some." And when we catch that motive 
 and the true meaning of that principle, we have the 
 Spirit of Christ. 
 
 The reigning desire of the Church is for unity. 
 And according to the measure, in which we have that 
 love and loyalty to Christ, will we " love all those who 
 love him." Surely there is a volume of truth in that 
 passage of the Apostle, " Some, indeed, preach Christ, 
 even of envy and strife ; and some also of good will. 
 The one preach Christ of contention, not sincerely, sup- 
 posing to add affliction to my bonds. But the other of 
 love, knowing that I am set for the defence of the gos- 
 pel. What then ? notwithstanding, every way, whether 
 in pretence or in truth, Christ is preached ; and I there- 
 in do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. For I know that 
 this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer, 
 and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, Accord- 
 ing to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in 
 nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, 
 as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my 
 body, whether it be by life or by death." 
 
 What better attainment can we hope, and labor, and 
 pray for than such a spirit ? The nearer we are to 
 Christ the nearer we are to each other. The nearer to the 
 Head, the more we shall say, as John the Baptist, "He
 
 THE ENDUEMENT OF THE SPIRIT. 47 
 
 must increase, but I must decrease." " Not I" says 
 the Apostle Paul, " but Christ that dwelleth in me." 
 
 If there is any meaning in our coming together, it is 
 that we may have that zeal, which is according to 
 knowledge, that faith which worketh by love, and that 
 love which prays for the peace and prosperity of the 
 City of God. Let our citizenship be as it becometh 
 the gospel of Christ, that we stand fast in one spirit, 
 with one mind striving together for the faith of the 
 Gospel.
 
 V. 
 
 THE SPIRIT'S THREEFOLD CONVICTION. 
 
 BY GEORGE DANA BOARDMAN, D.D., I,L.D. 
 
 " When he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, 
 and of judgment : of sin, because they believe not on me; of righteousness, 
 because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; of judgment, because 
 the prince of this world is judged." John 16 : 8-11. 
 
 pregnant paragraph sets forth the three chief 
 *- offices of the Paraclete in his relations to men in 
 this seen. When he is come, he will convict the world, 
 first, in respect of sin, because they believe not on 
 Christ ; in other words, the Spirit is to bring to the 
 world the conviction that there is such a thing as sin, 
 and that sin consists in the refusal to believe on Jesus 
 Christ. The Spirit is to convict the world, secondly, in 
 respect of righteousness, because Jesus has gone to the 
 Father, and we behold him no more ; in other words, 
 the Spirit is to bring to the world the conviction that 
 there is such a thing as righteousness, and that right- 
 eousness consists in Christ's incarnate career, as demon- 
 strated by his return to heaven. The Spirit is to con- 
 vict the world, thirdly, in respect of judgment, because 
 the prince of this world hath been judged ; in other 
 words, the Spirit is to bring to the world the conviction 
 48
 
 THE SPIRIT'S THREEFOLD CONVICTION. 49 
 
 that there is such a thing as judgment, and that judg- 
 ment consists in the triumph through Christ of right- 
 eousness over sin. In this paragraph, therefore, is 
 compacted an outline of man's guilt, Christ's righteous- 
 ness and Jesus' final victory over Satan ; that is to say, a 
 compendious moral history of the world from the Eden 
 that has been to the Eden that is to be. And now let 
 us ponder the profound paragraph in detail. 
 
 I. The Spirit's Conviction of Sin. And first, the 
 Spirit's Conviction of Sin : " Of sin, became they believe 
 not on me." 
 
 1. This is not society's definition of sin : according 
 to society, sin means crime, vice, immorality. Neither 
 is it the philosopher's definition of sin : according to 
 the philosopher, sin means misdirection, abuse, disease. 
 Neither is it the theologian's definition of sin : accord- 
 ing to the theologian, sin means transgression of God's 
 law, coming short of God's glory, hereditary guilt. 
 But it is Christ's definition of sin : according to Christ, 
 sin means unbelief on himself, unbelief in Jesus as the 
 Christ and Son and Image and Revealer of the Father. 
 "'Of sin, because they believe not on me." And this 
 is sin indeed. For the Word made flesh is Immanuel, 
 God-with-us. To disbelieve on Jesus, then, is to dis- 
 believe on Deity himself. Whosoever denieth the 
 Son, the same hath not the Father (1 John 2 : 23). 
 Christlessness in a Christian land is atheism. Sin, 
 therefore, became a new thing when Jesus came into 
 the world. Recall what he himself had just said : 
 4
 
 50 THE SPIRIT'S THREEFOLD CONVICTION. 
 
 " If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had 
 not had sin : but now they have no excuse for their 
 sin." (John 15 : 22.) Therefore it is that disbelief on 
 Christ is the sin of sins, ay, sin itself. 
 
 2. Observe now that of this sin of sins the Spirit is 
 the sole convicter. When he is come, he will convict 
 the world in respect of sin, because they believe not on 
 Jesus. And no other power can. The preacher can- 
 not do it; conscience cannot do it ; even holy scripture 
 cannot do it. Remember the difference between sins 
 and sin. A jury may convict me of crimes : con- 
 science may convict me of sins. But no power less 
 than the Holy Spirit can convict me of sin. No barb 
 but his can pierce to the root of my nature ; no flash 
 but his can show me to myself as a ruined sinner. 
 And the argument he wields in convicting me of sin is 
 this very fact that I do not believe on Jesus. Calvary, 
 not Siuaj, is the Spirit's mightiest artillery. Listen to 
 Jehovah's word through his prophet Zechariah : 
 
 I will pour upon the house of David, 
 And upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, 
 The spirit of grace and of supplication ; 
 And they shall look unto him whom they have pierced : 
 And they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, 
 And shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for 
 his first-born. ZECHARIAH 12: 10. 
 
 Thus it was on the day of Pentecost, when Peter, 
 filled with the Holy Spirit, charged on his hearers the 
 crime of the crucifixion so boldly that they were
 
 THE SPIRIT'S THEEEFOLD CONVICTION. 51 
 
 pierced to the heart, and cried, "What shall we do?" 
 And so also it has ever been the experience of every 
 consciously awakened sinner. He feels that John New- 
 ton echoes his own experience when he confesses : 
 
 I saw One hangihg on a tree, 
 
 In agony and blood, 
 Who fixed his languid eyes on me, 
 
 As near the cross I stood. 
 
 Sure, never till my latest breath, 
 
 Can I forget that look : 
 It seemed to charge me with his death, 
 
 Though not a word he spoke. 
 
 My conscience felt and owned the guilt, 
 
 And plunged me in despair ; 
 I saw my sins his blood had spilt, 
 
 And helped to nail him there. 
 
 JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 But what avails it to be convicted of sin, unless at 
 the same time we are also convicted that there is some- 
 where righteousness, and that this righteousness can be 
 made available to ourselves ? 
 
 II. The Spirit's Conviction of Righteousness. And 
 so we pass, secondly, to the Spirit's conviction of 
 Righteousness: "When he is come, he will convict the 
 world in respect of righteousness, because I go to the 
 Father, and ye behold me no more." 
 
 1. " Of righteousness." What is this righteousness 
 of which our Lord here speaks ? Whose righteousness 
 is it?
 
 52 THE SPIRIT'S THREEFOLD CONVICTION. 
 
 (a) Certainly not the world's. For the world is 
 quite swift enough to detect its own merits. No Holy 
 Spirit does it need to convince it of its own virtues. A 
 very Narcissus it is, seeing everywhere the reflection of 
 its own beauties and worshipping itself. But let us 
 look at this matter a little more deeply, noting what 
 the world's conception of righteousness really is. The 
 clearest and loftiest phase of righteousness among an 
 educated, thinking people will be found, one would 
 suppose, in the object selected as the main purpose or 
 end of life. What then is the object which we Ameri- 
 cans set before ourselves as the goal of life? Is it 
 righteousness clearly and distinctively righteousness? 
 Or is it something less unworldly, to which righteous- 
 ness is made tributary in way of means to end ? Is 
 not success the principal thing which we Americans set 
 before us, the grand motto which we give our children 
 when we send them forth into the world ; success in 
 trade, in politics, in literature, in society? True, we 
 admire and value righteousness. But why do we ad- 
 mire it? Because it is righteousness? Or because, in 
 a civilized, well-ordered community, righteousness is 
 one of the conditions of success ? Do we not, practi- 
 cally speaking, secretly feel that Thomas Carlyle has hit 
 the truth when in his " Heroes and Hero-Worship " he 
 virtually tells us, Success is virtue; might makes right? 
 Let righteousness but stand in the way of success, and 
 let the choice lie between the two ; and then see which 
 the world will choose. Yes, the world crucified, and,
 
 THE SPIRIT'S THREEFOLD CONVICTION. 53 
 
 were he to return, would virtually crucify again, the 
 only absolutely righteous One the world has ever seen. 
 
 (6) Whose then is the righteousness the conviction of 
 which the Spirit is to bring to the world ? Evidently 
 Christ's righteousness. The antithesis is manifestly 
 between the world's sin " In respect of sin, because 
 they believe not on me " and Christ's righteousness 
 " In respect of righteousness, because I go to the Fa- 
 ther, and ye behold me no more." But what part or 
 element of Christ's righteousness is the righteousness of 
 which he here speaks? Evidently, righteousness in 
 the general, complete sense of the word ; the sum 
 total of all that God requires ; the righteousness of a 
 perfect character. In other words, the righteousness of 
 which the Lord here speaks is the righteousness which 
 was incarnated in his own blessed person and career 
 and character and work. And of this righteousness 
 Christ's departure and present invisibility are both the 
 illustration and the proof : " Of righteousness, because 
 I go to the Father, and ye behold me no more." 
 
 2. "Because I go to the Father." This going to the 
 Father involves several profound things. First, it in- 
 volves Christ's own death. We ourselves often speak 
 in a similar way : for example, we speak of a dying 
 saint as one who is going home, and, when the last 
 throe is over, we exclaim, " Home at last ! " And why 
 did Jesus Christ die, and so go home? Just because 
 he was righteous, and lived in a world which did not 
 believe on him. His very righteousness crucified him.
 
 54 THE SPIRIT'S THREEFOLD CONVICTION. 
 
 Again : This going to the Father involves Christ's 
 resurrection. And why was Jesus Christ raised from 
 the dead ? Just because he was righteous : he was de- 
 clared to be the Son of God with power by his resur- 
 rection from the dead (Rom. 1:4). What though his 
 own righteousness had slain him ? His own righteous- 
 ness also raised him. Once more : This going to the 
 Father involves Christ's ascension and heavenly en- 
 thronement. And why was Jesus Christ exalted to the 
 right hand of the Majesty on high ? Just because he 
 was righteous ; his exaltation being the reward of his 
 incarnate obedience. Listen to a classic paragraph, the 
 pivotal word of which is the conjunction " wherefore:" 
 
 Christ Jesus, existing in the form of God, counted not the being 
 on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, 
 taking the form of a servant, being made in the likenesss of men; 
 and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming 
 obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross : WHEREFORE 
 also God highly exalted him, and gave unto him the name which is 
 above every name ; that in the name of Jesus every knee should 
 bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the 
 earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is 
 Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2 : 6-11. 
 
 What though Christ's very righteousness had cruci- 
 fied him ? Christ's very righteousness also raised him 
 from the dead, and exalted him to the right hand of 
 the Father Almighty. Thus Christ's going to the Fa- 
 ther was both a revelation and a demonstration of 
 Christ's righteousness. 
 
 3. "And ye no longer behold me." Why did not the
 
 THE SPIRIT'S THREEFOLD CONVICTION. 55 
 
 risen Lord remain on earth ? Why is he not here now, 
 to be a terror to his foes, a comfort to his friends ? 
 We behold him no more in order that we may the bet- 
 ter understand what righteousness truly is. For right- 
 eousness is not a bulk so many inches cubic ; not a 
 weight so many pounds avoirdupois. Righteousness 
 is a quality, a character. This is one of the reasons 
 why it was expedient for us that Jesus should go away 
 and the Paraclete come ; such an exchange gave us a 
 universal and spiritual Saviour instead of a local and 
 bodily one. 
 
 Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed : blessed 
 are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. John 20 : 29. 
 
 In other words, the visible Jesus gives way to the in- 
 visible Christ, in order that we may the more easily 
 discern and perfectly appreciate what righteousness truly 
 is : " Of righteousness, because I go to the Father, and 
 ye behold me no more." 
 
 4. And of this righteousness the Holy Spirit is the 
 sole convicter : " When he is come, he will convict the 
 world in respect of righteousness." And precisely here 
 it is that the world needs conviction. What its con- 
 ception of righteousness is we have already seen. It 
 may also be admitted that the world does in a certain 
 sense admire Christ's character. Few eulogies are more 
 eloquent, so far as language goes, than the eulogies 
 which eminent unbelievers have pronounced on the 
 Nazarene. But admiration is one thing : loyalty is
 
 56 THE SPIRIT'S THREEFOLD CONVICTION. 
 
 another thing. There is a tremendous difference be- 
 tween aesthetic admiration and practical devotion ; be- 
 tween assent to Christ's teaching and consent with 
 Christ's character. And what the world needs is to 
 have such a profound conviction of Christ's personal) 
 conspicuous, distinctive righteousness as to yearn for it, 
 crying, O Jehovah, be thou my righteousness (Jer. 
 22 : 6). And this conviction no power but the Para- 
 clete can effect. Conscience cannot do it : all that con- 
 science can do is to reproach and terrify; conscience 
 brings us no divine pardoner, justifier, redeemer. The 
 Bible cannot do it : all that the Bible can do is to set 
 before us right and wrong, heaven and hell ; the Bible 
 plants in our hearts no Lord our Righteousness. The 
 means of grace Sundays, preaching, sacraments, prayer 
 cannot do it : all that the means of grace can do is to 
 acquaint us with duty ; means of grace do not make us 
 actual sharers in Christ's righteousness. Only one 
 power can do it : it is the promised Paraclete. Listen 
 to St. Paul : 
 
 I give you to understand, that no man speaking in the Spirit of 
 God saith, Jesus is anathema : and no man can say, Jesus is Lord, 
 but in the Holy Spirit.! Cor. 12 : 3. 
 
 When Jesus was in the region of Csesarea Philippi, 
 he asked his disciples, saying : 
 
 Who do men say that I the Son of man am ? Peter answered and 
 said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus an- 
 swered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah : tor 
 flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father who 
 is in heaven. Matthew 16 : 13-17.
 
 THE SPIRIT'S THREEFOLD CONVICTION. 57 
 
 No ; neither civilization, nor education, nor philoso- 
 phy, nor Sunday-school, nor preaching, nor revival ef- 
 fort, nor Bible, can convict us of righteousness. No 
 power can effect this but the Holy Spirit : " When he 
 is come, he will convict the world concerning righteous- 
 ness, because I go to the Father, and ye behold me no 
 more." 
 
 III. The Spirit's Conviction of Judgment. But what 
 avails it to be convicted of righteousness, unless at the 
 same time we are convicted that righteousness will be 
 victorious? And so we pass, thirdly, to the Spirit's 
 conviction of Judgment : " When he is come, he will 
 convict the world in respect of judgment, because the 
 prince of this world hath been judged." 
 
 1. " The prince of this world" If you ask me why 
 Satan was allowed to enter this world and usurp its 
 throne, my only answer is this : I do not know. Here 
 is one of those secret things which belong to Jehovah 
 our God (Deut. 29: 29). Where Holy Scripture is 
 silent, there let me be silent also. Of one thing, how- 
 ever, I am only too sure. Satan is the prince of this 
 world. A usurped principality though it is, the princi- 
 pality is nevertheless his. See how he lords it over 
 man's moral nature, as disclosed in the various religions 
 of the world. Look, for example, at the world's idola- 
 tries ; at its Apis, its Baal, its Dagon, its Mithras, its 
 Siva. Look at the Greek and Roman mythologies : 
 
 " Gay religions full of pomp and gold, 
 And devils to adore for deities." John Milton.
 
 58 THE SPIRIT'S THREEFOLD CONVICTION. 
 
 Or, to keep within our own land, look at the idola- 
 try of second causes, the worship of antecedent and con- 
 sequent, the adoration of the powers of nature. What 
 is materialism but a sort of sublimated fetichism ? Ay, 
 it is to these and such as these that cultivated Americans 
 shout, " These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought 
 thee up out of the land of Egypt." (Exodus 32 : 4). 
 Again : See how Satan lords it over man's psychical na- 
 ture over the capacities and affections and desires of 
 men, instigating to all passions of pride and selfish- 
 ness and ambition and hate and lust. Once more : See 
 how Satan lords it over man's bodily nature, driving his 
 thorns in the flesh to buffet us ; bringing disease and 
 pain and death and grave. In fine, look at this world 
 as it actually is ; its crimes, frauds, robberies, hates, false- 
 hoods, perfidies, oppressions, cruelties, sensualities, blas- 
 phemies ; its griefs and woes and deaths : look at all 
 these and similar instigations and works of the devil, and 
 tell me, Is not Satan the prince of this world ? Aye, 
 
 " The trail of the serpent is over them all." Thomas Moore. 
 
 2. But is this to be so always ? God be praised, no ! 
 for the prince of this world hath been judged. To us 
 indeed Christ's judgment of Satan seems to be a process 
 still going on. But this is only because we are finite : 
 for this idea of process, or succession in time, is one of 
 the tokens of human weakness. But to the eye of the 
 Son of God the overthrow of Satan was a single act, and 
 an act already accomplished. In like manner, on the
 
 THE SPIRIT'S THREEFOLD CONVICTION. 59 
 
 return of the Seventy, he had exclaimed, " I .beheld 
 Satan fallen as lightning from heaven." (Luke 10: 17). 
 To his piercing vision he had already seen Satan fall- 
 ing a fall sudden, swift, flashing, profound, as the 
 thunderbolt. But how was this judgment on Satan 
 effected? 
 
 (a) To answer, first, in a general way : it was effected 
 by the incarnation. To this end was the Son of God man- 
 ifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil 
 (1 John 3 : 8). The incarnation itself was a judgment. 
 Accordingly, Milton, in the burst of a true poet's in- 
 spiration, represents the downfall of Satan's empire and 
 the birth of Bethlehem's Babe as simultaneous : 
 
 " From this happy day 
 The old dragon, underground, 
 In straiter limits bound, 
 
 Not half so far casts his usurped sway : 
 And, wroth to see his kingdom fail, 
 Swindges the scaly horror of his folded tail." 
 
 Hymn on the Nativity. 
 
 (6) But to give a more particular answer : Satan was 
 judged by Christ's own death. Accordingly, a few days 
 before, Jesus exclaimed : ' ' The hour is come, that the 
 Son of man should be glorified. . . . Now is the judg- 
 ment of this world ; now shall the prince of this world 
 be cast out : and I, if I be lifted up from the earth, 
 will draw all men unto myself. This he said, signi- 
 fying by what manner of death he should die " (John 
 12:28-33).
 
 60 THE SPIRIT'S THREEFOLD CONVICTION. 
 
 Observe the sharp contrasts : On the one hand, the 
 prince of this world ; on the other hand, the Son of 
 man : On the one hand, the prince of this wprld cast 
 out ; on the other hand, the Son of man casting him 
 out. Observe, also, the significant notation of time : 
 " The hour is now come ; now is the judgment of 
 this world ; now shall the prince of the world be cast 
 out." It is as though the Lord had said : " Now is 
 the crisis of this world : in the lifting up of myself 
 on the cross it is about to appear whether this world 
 belongs to Satan or to the Son of man ; whether he 
 is its prince or I. We know how the crisis was de- 
 cided. Messiah's heel, bruised for the moment on 
 Golgotha, in the very fact of its being bruised, crushed 
 eternally the dragon's head (Gen. 3 : 15). And so 
 " crisis " swept into "judgment." The prince of the 
 world was judged ; and so condemned. The Son of 
 God, through his own death, brought to nought him 
 who had the power of death, that is, the devil (He- 
 brews 2 : 14). Henceforth the world changed ownership. 
 There, in the very act of being uplifted from the 
 earth, while as yet his life-blood was ebbing, he de- 
 spoiled the principalities and the powers, making a 
 show of them openly, triumphing over them, nail- 
 ing them to his cross (Col. 2 : 14, 15). The prince of 
 this world was judged. And in this act of dying the 
 parable of the Stronger than the strong was fulfilled : 
 
 When the strong man, fully armed, guardeth his own court, his 
 goods are in peace ; but when a stronger than he shall come upon
 
 THE SPIRIT'S THREEFOLD CONVICTION. 61 
 
 him, and overcome him, and bind him, he taketh from him his 
 whole armor, wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils. Luke xi. 
 21-22. 
 
 Thus the vision of Patmos was realized : 
 
 There was war in heaven : Michael and his angels going forth to 
 war with the dragon ; and the dragon warred and his angels ; and 
 they prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in 
 heaven ; and the great dragon was cast down, the old serpent, he 
 that is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world ; 
 he was cast down to the earth, and his angels were cast down with 
 him. And I heard a great voice in heaven, saying, Now is come 
 the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God, and the 
 authority of his Christ : for the accuser of our brethren is cast 
 down, who accuseth them before our God day and night. And they 
 overcame because of the blood of the Lamb, and because of the 
 word of their testimony ; and they loved not their life even unto 
 death. Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and ye that dwell in them. 
 Eev. 12 : 7-12. 
 
 Thus the last book of the Bible declares fulfilled the 
 doom which the first book of the Bible pronounced on 
 Satan while yet in Eden : 
 
 I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy 
 seed and her seed ; he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise 
 his heel. Genesis 3 : 1-5. 
 
 3. And this judgment on Satan is a judgment of 
 which the world needs to be convicted : and this, not 
 merely in way of intellectual apprehension, but, espe- 
 cially and emphatically, in way of moral conviction. 
 
 (a) Thus each Christian needs]this conviction for him- 
 self. For he is exposed to a thousand discouragements :
 
 62 THE SPIRIT'S THREEFOLD CONVICTION. 
 
 for example, the sense of infirmity, the enigma of de- 
 lays and disappointments and adversities, the pre- 
 valence of iniquity, the enmity of Satan himself. Verily 
 he does not yet see all things subjected to Jesus Christ 
 (Heb. 2 : 8). Hence he needs the saving power of 
 hope (Rom. 8 : 24). He needs the conviction that 
 Christ's grace within him is omnipotent ; that the life 
 in Jesus will not be a failure ; that the Christian's vic- 
 tory, if he holds steadfast, is a matter of certainty. It 
 is not enough then, that he has it as a theological ar- 
 ticle that Satan has been judged : what he needs is to 
 have this fact inwrought as a moral conviction into the 
 depths of his own experience and consciousness. 
 What he needs is to be sealed with the Holy Spirit of 
 promise, which is an earnest of our inheritance unto 
 the redemption of God's own possession, unto the praise 
 of his glory (Eph. 1 : 14). 
 
 (6) And as each Christian needs this conviction for 
 himself in order to his own salvation and victory, so does 
 the Church of the Lamb need it in order to her own 
 going forth and battling under inspiration of assured 
 triumph. What she needs is the certain conviction 
 that the Church's triumph is a foregone conclusion in 
 the divine mind ; that in virtue of her joint-heir- 
 ship with Jesus Christ (Rom. 8 : 17), the appointed 
 heir of all things (Heb. 1 : 3), she will share his sover- 
 eignty, even already owning this world by a sort of re- 
 versionary right ; that the kingdom and dominion and 
 the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven
 
 THE SPIRIT'S THREEFOLD CONVICTION. 63 
 
 shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most 
 High (Daniel 7 : 27). What she needs is the absolute 
 conviction that the prince of this world has been 
 judged. 
 
 4. But how shall this conviction be wrought ? By 
 no power less than the Holy Spirit. When he is come, 
 he will convict the world concerning judgment, because 
 the prince of this world has been judged. Conscience 
 cannot work this conviction : all that conscience can do 
 is to make us aware that we are under Satan's power. 
 Neither can philosophy work this conviction : all that 
 philosophy does is to try to make us believe that there 
 is not, and never has been, any Satan at all ; that hell 
 is only the obverse side of heaven, or " heaven seen in 
 a side-light." The philosopher does, indeed, talk of a 
 golden age. But what kind of a golden age is it ? An 
 age when all that is now anomalous and discordant and 
 monstrous shall give way to universal law and order 
 and beauty ; in brief, when the p world shall develop 
 into a Godless paradise, from which Satan and Jesus 
 shall be alike aliens. Whereas the true Golden Age is 
 when the reign of Satan shall be confessedly supplanted 
 by the reign of Jesus ; when the whole earth shall be- 
 come the paradise of his grace ; when his righteousness, 
 permeating all life, spiritual, mental, emotional, cor- 
 poreal, shall mantle the world from pole to pole, and 
 his infinite beauty girdle it as with a celestial zone. 
 And the conviction that this shall be the final issue can 
 be wrought by no power but the Holy Paraclete. No
 
 64 THE SPIRIT'S THREEFOLD CONVICTION. 
 
 man can say, Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy Spirit 
 (1 Cor. 12 : 3). Nor are signs wanting that the final 
 rout of the powers of darkness is approaching. In this 
 mustering of the anti-Christian forces under the mar- 
 shalship of unbelief; in this hurrying to and fro of 
 principalities and powers ; in these commingling banners 
 and gleaming spears and trumpet-clangs ; in the very fact 
 of this Convention being summoned to ponder the office 
 of the blessed Paraclete ; in all this I think we are per- 
 mitted to read signs that the God of peace shall bruise 
 Satan under our feet shortly (Rom. 16 : 20). 
 
 Such is the Lord's promise of the Spirit's threefold 
 Conviction. 
 
 Review. In reviewing our paragraph, observe the 
 order of the Spirit's process. The first thing that we 
 sinners need is to be convicted of sin. To whom little 
 is forgiven, the same loveth little (Luke 7 : 47). No 
 sense of sin, no conscious need of Saviour. But vain 
 is the Spirit's conviction of sin, unless at the same time 
 he convicts us concerning Christ's righteousness, and 
 that his righteousness may become ours. This, in fact, 
 is a frequent trouble with a convicted sinner. Jesus 
 Christ seems to him a distant, intangible abstraction, a 
 glittering phantom, a veritable ignis fatuus receding 
 as he advances. It is needful then that the Spirit 
 should show us to ourselves; it is no less needful that 
 the Spirit should also show to us Jesus Christ. But 
 vain is the Spirit's conviction of righteousness, unless 
 at the same time he convicts us concerning the certain
 
 THE SPIRIT'S THREEFOLD CONVICTION. 65 
 
 victory of righteousness over sin ; the righteousness be- 
 ing in fact the stately bridge whereon we pass from the 
 devil's bondage to the Christian's victory. And to be 
 convicted of these three things sin, righteousness, 
 judgment as the Holy Spirit alone shows them to us, 
 is to know the essence of Christianity, nay, to enter 
 into the possession of it. Verily, it was expedient for 
 us that Jesus should go away, that so the Paraclete 
 might come (John 16:7). 
 
 5
 
 VI. 
 
 ADDRESS. 
 
 BY REV. M. D. BABCOCK. 
 
 ONE of the most conspicuous marks of the believer 
 who has heard and obeyed the words : " Be 
 filled with the Spirit," is the spontaneity of Christian 
 life and service. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit 
 makes the difference between the positive and the neg- 
 ative Christian between the one able to give and the 
 one who can only receive between the one bearing 
 much fruit and the one with little else than leaves. 
 There are Christians whose testimony can be extracted 
 from them, but it is a painful, and sometimes perilous 
 operation. There are Christians who cannot help but 
 testify whose words, whose deeds, whose methods, 
 whose manners tell plainly whose they are and whom 
 they serve. The difference is the indwelling Spirit. 
 We can hardly discern the light of some who profess 
 and call themselves Christians. The very shadow of 
 others has healing and blessing in it. 
 
 It is the difference between the disciple in the dark 
 
 at the world's fire, away from his Master, disowning 
 
 and disgracing him, and the Apostle filled with the 
 
 Holy Ghost, following in the Master's footsteps, speak- 
 
 66
 
 ADDRESS BY REV. M. D. BABCOCK. 67 
 
 ing fearlessly for him, dying, but not denying. It is 
 the difference between Sinai and Calvary ; between the 
 whip of conscience and the cords of love ; between 
 fear and faith ; between reluctance and readiness ; be- 
 tween " must I ? " and " may I ? " 
 
 The Christian who claims the promise and realizes 
 the possibility of the Holy Spirit's abiding presence, 
 can prove all this to himself and others. What is 
 it but the fulfillment of Christ's words : " He that 
 believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his 
 belly shall flow rivers of living water ? " " But this 
 spake he of the Spirit whom they that believe on him 
 should receive." 
 
 Receiving the Spirit, welcoming the Spirit, and then 
 what ? Spontaneity ! " Rivers living waters Flow- 
 ing ! " Not wells from which water can be pumped, 
 but springs that flow by their own force and freedom. 
 Not old accumulated stagnant experience, but new life, 
 new love, new testimony, " a new song " every day. 
 Not a Christian who can be goaded into speaking a 
 word for his Lord, but one who loves to speak who 
 witnesses because he cannot help it who sings, " "Pis 
 joy, not duty, to speak his beauty ; " whose heart keeps 
 overflowing because fed from an unfailing fountain. 
 
 " Shall flow ! " Spiritual spontaneity. Its finest issue 
 is the Christian's unconscious power his unrealized 
 influence. Nothing in our life is so subtle, yet so 
 immeasurably potent. It depends utterly on the abid- 
 ing presence of the Holy Spirit to direct our unplanned
 
 68 ADDRESS BY REV. M. D. BABCOCK. 
 
 words our tinthought deeds ; to develop the Christ life 
 within us, aud to bring out we know not how the 
 likeness of our Lord in us. 
 
 Christian art represents Jesus and the holiest of his 
 followers with a circle of light about their heads, like 
 the shining of the face of Moses, though he wist not that 
 it was shining. 
 
 So about the person, radiating from the life of the 
 Christian, in whose heart the Spirit abides, there is that 
 unmistakable atmosphere of light that evident mind of 
 Christ that divine something we call unconscious 
 Christian influence which undermines the unbeliever's 
 doubts, which confirms his half realized convictions. 
 He cannot account for it, except by acknowledging that 
 this man has been with Jesus. 
 
 It is the final test of genuineness the fragrance of 
 the flower the flavor of the fruit. It is vital, not arti- 
 ficial spiritual, not mechanical. It is the product of 
 living, the aroma, the aureola that tells that here the 
 Spirit of God dwells. 
 
 Said a famous English courtier, of who was for a 
 time in the home of Fenelon, " If I stay here longer 
 this man will make a Christian of me in spite of my- 
 self." This is the outflow of spiritual life. This is the 
 fulfilled promise " rivers of living waters." This is 
 the life that men cannot question the power they 
 cannot escape the testimony they cannot gainsay. 
 Would you then witness for God even when you did 
 not know you were seen or heard unconsciously " set-
 
 ADDRESS BY REV. M. D. EABCOCK. 69 
 
 ting to your seal that God is true ? " Would you so 
 live that men and women, yes, and children, will find 
 it easier to do right when you are with them and harder 
 to do wrong when you are with them ? Open your 
 heart to the Holy Spirit. Obey the words, " Be filled 
 with the Spirit." 
 
 Do you say this is not for me ? You are mistaken. It 
 is not the exalted privilege of the exceptional Christian. 
 It is the plain duty of the every-day Christian. It is not 
 a question of natural endowment, but of spiritual endue- 
 ment ; not a question of birth and education, but of 
 willingness, of plain obedience. "Be filled with the 
 Spirit." Are you willing to obey, to say, " Holy Spirit 
 come into my heart show me everything that is wrong, 
 cast out every idol, possess me wholly, teach me, lead 
 me, use me, as thou wilt ? " Are you willing to offer, 
 nay, to urge that prayer till it is answered and take the 
 consequences ?
 
 VII. 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF SONSHIP. 
 
 BY W. J. ERDMAN, ASHEVILLE, N. C. 
 
 characteristic name of the Holy Spirit in three 
 J- epistles of Paul, is " the Spirit of adoption." 
 
 The title of this address is, however, " the Spirit of 
 Sonship," for the word "adoption" in common use 
 does not express the full truth of the Sonship of be- 
 lievers in Christ. The word is found only in Rom. 8 : 
 15, 23 ; 9 : 4 ; Gal. 4 : 5, Eph. 1:5. It signifies the 
 placing in the state of a Son, of one already a child in 
 the family ; it is a name contrasting the condition of a 
 child who has attained his majority with that of one 
 who is a minor. Christians do not enter twice into the 
 family of God, once by being born again and a second 
 time by adoption understood in its usual sense. " Son- 
 ship " relates not to nature, but to legal standing ; it 
 comes not through regeneration, but through redemp- 
 tion ; for it believers in God in olden time and the dis- 
 ciples of Christ had to wait until the Son of God re- 
 deemed them ; and then the Spirit of God was poured 
 out at Pentecost, not to make believers Sons, but be- 
 cause they had become Sons through redemption ; once 
 though children they were minors, now they became 
 70
 
 THE SPIRIT OF SONSHIP. 71 
 
 Sons, and received the Spirit of Sonship. In brief, 
 Sonship, though ever since redemption inseparable 
 from justification, does in the order of salvation suc- 
 ceed justification. In Rom. 5 : 1 justification precedes 
 the " grace " of Sonship in 5 : 2. The " access " or 
 " introduction " is of the justified into the presence of 
 God as Father ; and it is through Christ and by the 
 Spirit. Compare " access " in Rom. 5 : 2, Eph. 2 : 18, 
 3: 12. All this truth is obscured by the inconsistent 
 renderings of the Authorized Version, which translates 
 in Eph. 1 : 5, " adoption of children" and in the 
 other passages " adoption of sons." " Children " is not 
 the equivalent of " Sons " in these scriptures. 
 
 The importance too of this discrimination is to be 
 magnified because many Christians, by calling them- 
 selves only " children of God," remain ignorant of the 
 distinctive high dignity to which they are called and in 
 which they now stand as Sons of God. 
 
 As a proof of these statements, the following facts 
 may be considered : 
 
 I. The gifts and acts of the Holy Spirit were alike 
 in kind before and after the day of Pentecost. 
 
 The Spirit was in the world when John the Baptist 
 announced the future baptism. He himself was full of 
 the Spirit. And of old the Spirit was the author of all 
 spiritual life and power, Ps. 143 : 10 . and gifts of 
 wisdom and government, of teaching and preaching; 
 the working of miracles and the conviction of sinners, 
 Micah 3 : 8, all betokened the presence of the Spirit 
 in the old dispensation.
 
 72 THE SPIRIT OF SONSHIP. 
 
 What then was meant by the promise of John and of 
 Jesus? 
 
 II. In the heart of the prophetic Scriptures five 
 promises of a future gift of the Holy Spirit are found, 
 and these are repeated in substance and in literal phrase 
 by the Lord Jesus. 
 
 1 . The Spirit was to be " poured on all flesh," Joel 
 2: 28-29, Acts 2: 33; 2. To be "poured on all 
 thirsty," Is. 44 : 3, John 7 : 37-39 ; 3. To be " poured 
 from on high," Is. 32: 15, Luke 24: 49; that "from 
 on high " contained the whole mystery of a suffering 
 and exalted Messiah, for sin must first be put away, 
 captivity led captive before the Gift could be bestowed ; 
 the Chrism of glory could come only from the pierced 
 hands of the glorified Christ ; the Rock must first be 
 smitten before the Water could flow ; 4. To be " with- 
 in " believers in a more permanent and interior dwell- 
 ing, Ezek. 36: 27, John 14: 17, 23; 5. To be "for- 
 ever" with them ; Is. 56 : 21, John 14 : 16. 
 
 In these passages the " pouring," and " on all flesh," 
 and the " from on high " and other phrases are all in 
 significant contrast, and mark a difference between the 
 Old and the New Dispensation. 
 
 The unfulfilled context of these predictions also 
 prove the promises themselves await a future and ex- 
 haustive fulfilment in the experience of Israel, whom 
 God has not forever cast away, Rom. 11 : 1, 2, 12, 15, 
 25, 26. 
 
 III. But it is as the Spirit of Sonship that the Gift
 
 THE SPIRIT OF SONSHIP. 73 
 
 receives the characteristic name. He was to be given 
 more abundantly, " poured ; " but specifically unto be- 
 lievers as redeemed Sons of God, unto children who had 
 attained their majority, and as heirs now entitled to re- 
 ceive the inheritance, and who do now receive the 
 Spirit of Sonship as the first fruits and earnest of the 
 inheritance of the Son of God. 
 
 It is this marvellous dignity of a Sonship in glory 
 like that of our Lord Jesus, with all its attendant 
 blessings and privileges, service and rewards, sufferings 
 and glories, that imparts to the Pentecostal gift of the 
 Holy Spirit its peculiar character and distinguishes it 
 from all previous bestowments in the old dispensation. 
 
 The minors, i.e., the word " children," in Gal. 4 : 
 1-7, are now of full age ; the "born ones," the bairns, 
 words significant of nature, kind, kin, in the writings 
 of John, 1 : 12-13, I. 3: 1-3, rather than of dignity 
 and office, are now Sons of God ; the new name 
 "Father," the Son of God, came to declare, John 17 : 
 26, was now made known in inseparable association 
 with the new name "brethren," John 20: 17, and the 
 inspired interval of silence between Ps. 22 : 21 and the 
 remaining part, in which interval came the death, 
 burial and resurrection of Jesus, is now broken by the 
 rapturous greeting of "the first-born of many breth- 
 ren," Rom. 8 : 29. " Go to my brethren and say unto 
 them I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and 
 to my God and your God." John 20: 17. Not before 
 redemption had been accomplished and confirmed by
 
 74 THE SPIRIT OF SONSHIP. 
 
 resurrection could Jesus call his disciples " Brethren," 
 and not until the Spirit of Sonship had been given 
 could they say " Blessed be the God and Father of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
 The mighty Breath of Pentecost symbolized by the 
 breathing of Jesus upon his disciples on the evening of 
 his resurrection foretold their service not as servants 
 merely, but as Sons. 
 
 The pouring of the One Gift was not only for acts of 
 service (and acts imply " power ") but also for " renew- 
 ing," Titus 3 : 5-6 ; (the pouring on Paul and Titus 
 was not at Pentecost, yet the same word poured is used, 
 so pointing back to Pentecost as the time when the Spirit 
 was given once for all to dwell with the Church) ; the 
 Spirit was evermore to deepen and develop their spir- 
 itual life and nature as children and Sons, to manifest 
 the life eternal as light and love, the life of the Father 
 and the Son lived and developed in this relationship of 
 Sons of God, and also to equip them for ministry with 
 manifold gifts. 
 
 To each He was given for life eternal ; and all as 
 one Body, as one Son (Galat. 3 : 28 ; " Ye are all one 
 Son in Christ Jesus ; " see 3 : 26 also where " chil- 
 dren " should be translated Sons), were baptized by the 
 One Spirit, and so incorporated as " The Christ," 1 
 Cor. 12 : 12-13, " the Son of God, the perfect Man," 
 Eph. 4: 12-13, the Heir, Gal. 3: 16, 19, the Seed, 
 the Isaac, Rom. 4 : 1625, the risen from the dead, 
 Rom. 1 : 4, Philip. 3: 11, Luke 20: 34-36.
 
 THE SPIRIT OF SONSHIP. 75 
 
 IV. The Spirit as uniting believers with the risen 
 and glorified Son of God works in these three depart- 
 ments of Christian life and experience ; the work of 
 faith and labor of love and patience of hope in our 
 Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Th. 1 : 3. 
 
 " The work of faith " pertains to the realization and 
 experience of salvation and its fruits in all holy virtues 
 and excellencies, Phil. 2: 12, 1: 9-11, but it is 
 wrought out only by faith and the indwelling Spirit of 
 the Son of God, " I in you," John 17 : 26,*Gal. 2 : 20. 
 
 ' The labor of love " pertains to all service and toil 
 of ministry to fellow believers and to the world, but it 
 is done by the indwelling Spirit of him who is the 
 Vine, and said " I will do it." John 15 : 7, 14 : 13. 
 
 " The patience of hope " pertains to all the suffer- 
 ings, trials and persecutions endured by believers in pa- 
 tient waiting for the Son of God from heaven, 1 Th. 
 1 : 10, 2 : 12, 2. Th. 1 : 5-10, and the consummation 
 of Sonship in the redemption of the body, Eom. 8 : 23, 
 19 ; but the patience is to become a joy, 1 Pet. 5: 11, 
 because the sufferings are really those of the Head 
 through the Body; "Why persecutest thou Me?" 
 Acts 9 : 4-5. 
 
 Jesus is indeed the Word, the Verbum, the Verb of 
 life, service and suffering; the to Be, to Do, to Suffer 
 and infinite in all. 
 
 Too much has "the Church," "the Body of Christ," 
 lost this consciousness of oneness with the Son of God 
 in glory ; too little have Christian life and service and
 
 76 THE SPIRIT OF SONSHIP. 
 
 suffering felt the power and comfort of the mighty, 
 quickening Spirit of God ; may this great truth of 
 what we are as Sons of God once again become a vivid 
 reality to us and in us, through the indwelling Spirit of 
 Christ.
 
 VIII. 
 
 THE HEAVENLY UNCTION. 
 
 BY I,. W. B. MUNHAIJ,, D.D. 
 
 THE word " Unction " occurs but once in the author- 
 ized version, 1 John 2 : 20. It is from the same 
 Greek word that is rendered " Anointing " in the 20th 
 verse of the same chapter, Chrisma. It does not occur 
 in the Revised Version, but is rendered anointing uni- 
 formly. 
 
 The word anoint usually means " To smear." Here, 
 however, "Unction" or "Anointing" means "Rub- 
 bing in." It is the same when Jesus is spoken of as 
 Anointed for his work and ministry. " The Spirit of 
 the Lord is upon me, because he anointed me to preach 
 good tidings to the poor," etc. (Luke 4: 18). "For of 
 a truth in this city against thy holy servant Jesus, 
 whom thou didst anoint," etc. (Acts 4 : 27). " There- 
 fore, God, thy God, hath anointed thee," etc. (Heb. 1 : 
 9). The word rendered "Anointed" and "Didst 
 anoint" in those passages is Chrio, which signifies 
 " To rub." It is the same where Paul said, " Now he 
 that stablisheth us with you in Christ, and anointed us, 
 is God "(2 Cor. 1:21). 
 
 Jesus said, " When he is come he will guide you into 
 
 77
 
 78 THE HEAVENLY UNCTION. 
 
 all truth ; " and, " Ye shall receive power (Dunamis) 
 when the Holy Spirit is come upon you ; " and, " But 
 tarry ye in the city until ye be clothed with power 
 (Dunamis) from on high. 
 
 On the Day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit clothed the 
 Disciples with power, and imparted unto them knowl- 
 edge, so that they were qualified to proclaim Jesus and 
 the resurrection with ability and boldness. What they 
 received at that time was " Rubbed in." 
 
 To what shall we liken these things by way of con- 
 trast? Enduement, is like unto ripening fruit. Unc- 
 tion, the mellowing process by which the ripe fruit is 
 made luscious. 
 
 Euduement gave them knowledge and courage. Unc- 
 tion, gentleness, patience, meekness, goodness all the 
 graces of the Spirit, so that, while like their Master, 
 they spake the word with authority and boldness, they 
 were also like him in temper and spirit loving, sym- 
 pathetic and of a very great compassion. 
 
 Since Christ received the " Heavenly Unction," 
 and the Disciples were not qualified for service and 
 testimony until they were likewise furnished, how 
 ever can we expect to accomplish anything to the 
 glory and praise of him who bought us, without like 
 furnishing. 
 
 Let us see what is the teaching of the Word. First, 
 John 6: 63 and 15: 5 teach that man is incapable of 
 doing anything acceptable unto God of himself. " Noth- 
 ing " is the word used in both passages to indicate the
 
 THE HEAVENLY UNCTION. 79 
 
 utter inability of the natural man to quicken or bear 
 fruit. 
 
 Second, Eph. 2: 10 and Phil. 2: 12, 13, teach that 
 God has, nevertheless, chosen man as the Agent through 
 and by whom he accomplishes his purposes in grace. 
 An evolution is here taught. Also an involution. 
 God works in and then we are to work out. This is 
 the true evolution. Only God can make something out 
 of nothing. " But we have this treasure in earthen 
 vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God 
 and not of us." 
 
 Third. Is this Anointing for Disciples now? is it for 
 us? In Luke 24 : 49 it is denominated " The promise 
 of my Father," and the Disciples were commanded to 
 " Tarry in the city, until ye be clothed with power from 
 on high." This promise was made good to them on 
 the Day of Pentecost, and we all know what marvel- 
 ous results followed. 
 
 But some say that this " Promise of my Father " was 
 only for that company in that " Jerusalem chamber." 
 But, in Acts 10 : 45, 46 and 11 : 15 we learn that eight 
 years later it was made good to the infant Gentile Church 
 in Csesarea, in the house of Cornelius, and was attended 
 with similar signs and wonders. The same was also 
 true in the experience of the infant Church of Ephesus 
 twenty-two years later, as seen in Acts 19:6. In John 
 7 : 38, 39 we find that Jesus said, " In the last day, 
 that great day of the feast," " He that believeth on me, 
 as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow
 
 80 THE HEAVENLY UNCTION. 
 
 rivers of living water, but this spake he of the Spirit 
 whom they that believed on him should receive." "He 
 that believeth on me." As certainly for one Disciple 
 as another. " But this spake he of the Spirit whom 
 they that believed on him should receive." As truly 
 for us as for the Disciples in Jerusalem, Csesarea and 
 Ephesus. If they who waited upon his ministry and 
 were personally associated with him in his work, and 
 witnessed his " many mighty works," were not quali- 
 fied for the service and work to which they were sent, 
 until they received the " Heavenly Unction ; " aye, if 
 he himself must needs be anointed to his ministry, how 
 ever can we, who at the best are " nothiug," hope to 
 accomplish anything in his service without like endue- 
 nient? Unless this "Promise of my Father" is also 
 for us, we go to war at our own charges, and our efforts 
 are but the energy of the flesh. 
 
 But the " Promise of my Father," in part fulfilled on 
 the Day of Pentecost, is found in Joel 2 : 28, 29. Peter 
 quoted it to those who mocked, and declared that the 
 signs and wonders they saw were in fulfillment of this 
 Scripture. That promise was only fulfilled in part OD 
 the Day of Pentecost. It reaches on to the times of 
 this dispensation, as the context clearly shows. But it 
 is to be noticed that the Spirit is to be poured out 
 "upon all flesh." That "sons and daughters," " old 
 men " and " young men," " servants and . . . hand- 
 maids" are the subjects of his enduement. Surely, 
 therefore, this Unction is for all. " For we are God's 
 fellow-workers."
 
 THE HEAVENLY UNCTION. 81 
 
 Fourth. How may we, the Disciples of Jesus, re- 
 ceive the Anointing? In 2 Kings 2 : 1-15, we have 
 the story of the translation of Elijah and the spiritual 
 anointing of Elisha. It will serve to illustrate the les- 
 son of this hour to us. Elijah was a type of Christ. 
 Elisha in many ways typified Disciples. Elijah was 
 about to be translated. Elisha knew it. He had a 
 definite desire. Before it could be realized he must be 
 tested. If we have a definite desire for the anointing, 
 that is surely promised us, and without which we can 
 do nothing, we shall first be tested. Christ met us at 
 Gilgal and justified us from our sins, rolled away our 
 reproach. This is what he did at the other Gilgal for 
 poor Israel. Gilgal means circle. Many converted 
 ones are lodged at Gilgal, and we can all stay there if 
 we so elect. Their thoughts and testimony all circle 
 around the hour and fact of their conversion to God. 
 They make no progress in spiritual things, and, of 
 course, never touch the secret of God's power with men. 
 If we elect to tarry at Gilgal we are at liberty to do so. 
 But I trust that, like Elisha, we will press onward. 
 And so we come to Bethel. Bethel means " House of 
 God." Jacob fleeing from his wronged brother's pres- 
 ence stopped here for a night, and God opened heaven 
 to him in a vision. There are many Disciples resting 
 and dreaming at Bethel. They say, " Are you not 
 saved? Have you not mansions in heaven awaiting 
 you?
 
 82 THE HEAVENLY UNCTION. 
 
 1 Come, let us 
 
 Sit, and sing ourselves away 
 To everlasting bliss.' " 
 
 In testimony meetings they tell of their conversion 
 and then grow eloquent in their descriptions of the 
 heavenly mansions. We may stop here if we so elect, 
 and engage in like contemplation. Let us press on 
 down to Jericho. Jericho was the City of " Palm Trees." 
 It lay in the low, hot, dusty plain of the Jordan, about 
 850 feet below the level of the sea. The umbrageous 
 palm invited the hot, weary, foot-worn traveler to rest. 
 Why not tarry here? Many have yielded. They are 
 they who spend their time time chiefly in telling of 
 their attainments, how they have the " rest of faith " 
 have no fret or worry, but undisturbed repose, and 
 appear to have little or no concern for the multitudes 
 who are hurrying down to death. They will leave a 
 soul-saving work for a testimony meeting, where they 
 talk of their attainments, and give vent to their censo- 
 riousness by criticising those who are not willing to 
 loiter with them under the Palms, and who will not 
 pronounce their shibboleth. Such are not truly sancti- 
 fied. In order that we may be sanctified, truly and 
 personally, it is necessary to get beyond Jordan. So 
 with God's help we press onward to the dark river. 
 Jordan means death and judgment. Jesus "died for 
 our sins," he was judged for us " He suffered for sins, 
 the just, for the unjust." The dark surging billows 
 rolled over him. Will we pass beyond ? We are to
 
 THE HEAVENLY UNCTION. 83 
 
 reckon ourselves " to be dead indeed unto sin " (Rom. 
 6:11). We are to believe on him. " For Christ is 
 the end of the law for righteousness to every one that 
 believeth" (Rom. 10 : 4), that judgment may be passed 
 by us. And so we take our place, separated from all 
 entangling alliances, unto God, and then we are in a 
 position to ask for the fulfilment of the " Promise of 
 my Father." Oh, that, as thus separated, we may 
 " ask without wavering ! " 
 
 Elisha saw Elijah caught up into heaven. The Dis- 
 ciples saw Jesus taken up into Heaven. We are to 
 look in the same direction. It is the living Christ that 
 has power and authority. What is the matter with the 
 Roman Catholic Church ? She has a dead Christ, and 
 consequently is in much darkness and superstition. 
 Every cross and wayside shrine ; every horrible pieta; 
 every painting of Christ, of any note, almost, in Cath- 
 olic countries ; every sign of the cross these all tell 
 of a dead Christ. The darkest picture this world ever 
 looked upon was Golgotha's tragic cross. The heavens 
 robed themselves in midnight mourning and bowed 
 themselves to the earth and wept. The rocks, in their 
 dumb grief, burst in sunder because their Creator was 
 put to death by the cruel hands of those whom he came 
 to save and bless. If there were nothing more than 
 this, if the seal that was placed upon the tomb of 
 Joseph of Arimathea had remained unbroken we would 
 be without hope death would be to us an unbroken 
 sleep. The cross, self-considered, possesses no potential-
 
 84 THE HEAVENLY UNCTION. 
 
 ity whatever to save and deliver for " If Christ be iiot 
 risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also 
 vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God ; 
 ... ye are yet in your sins. Then they which are 
 fallen asleep in Christ are perished " (1 Cor. 15 : 14-18). 
 But when we view this darkest picture in the glowing 
 background splendors of his resurrection from the dead, 
 it glows with life, light and beauty. Paul said, "It 
 pleased God, who separated me from my mother's 
 womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in 
 me "(Gal. 1:15, 16). The Anointing of the Holy 
 One, is the revelation of the living Christ in the heart 
 and life of the believer by the Holy Spirit. When a 
 Disciple yields himself utterly to God separates him- 
 self wholly from the world, so that he can truthfully 
 say, " The world is crucified unto me, and I unto the 
 world," and thus takes his true place, according to the 
 standing God gives him in Christ Jesus ; and, then with 
 unquestioning faith looks away to the living, mediating 
 Christ, and asks the Father, in Jesus' name, to make 
 good his promise, it will most surely be granted. 
 
 We all rejoice in the tens of thousands of Church 
 organizations in the world ; for their educated and elo- 
 quent Pastors ; for their millions of members, with their 
 culture, social influence and vast wealth ; for the vast 
 machinery of these Churches their multiplied and 
 ever-increasing agencies and ministries of good ; and 
 all their great power. But, all of these and this cannot 
 convict or con vert a single sinner. God has written all
 
 THE HEAVENLY UNCTION. 85 
 
 over everything that is possible to human strength the 
 word Nothing. All these agencies can be used of God 
 to the accomplishing of his purposes of grace, but he 
 alone can give life and power and blessing. Let us be 
 careful that we don't have " Confidence in the flesh " 
 making the agencies, means and that which otherwise is 
 possible to us, humanly speaking, the end, rather than 
 which God has ordained to an end ; and anointed by 
 him, and having all confidence in him, we can go for- 
 ward from " Conquering and to conquer " one chasing 
 " A thousand and two putting ten thousand to flight ; " 
 " Mighty through God to the pulling down of strong- 
 holds."
 
 IX. 
 
 GRIEVING, TEMPTING, RESISTING THE SPIRIT. 
 
 BY JAMES MORROW, D.D. 
 Secretary of Pennsylvania Bible Society. 
 
 BY this theme we are brought into practical aspects 
 of the Christian life. Elsewhere we have been 
 taught what the Holy Spirit does to us ; here we con- 
 sider what we may do to him. 
 
 The terms " Grieving, Tempting, Resisting," although 
 not synonymous, mutually involve or touch each other. 
 Nice distinctions are not here attempted. 
 
 Let it be noted thoughtfully that the Holy Spirit may 
 be grieved, tempted, resisted. This proves at once his 
 personality and his capability of grief, with our ca- 
 pacity for grieving him. 
 
 If this were not a Bible commonplace " familiar in 
 our mouths as household words " it would startle us 
 to-day as a very remarkable utterance. To find out 
 the full wealth of this familiar teaching we must re- 
 store it to its original lustre. As scholars, with the 
 feather of their pen, brush away the dust from long 
 buried monuments, let us sweep away the dust from our 
 old, perhaps dead beliefs on this subject. 
 
 That the Holy Spirit may be grieved, tempted, re- 
 86
 
 GRIEVING, TEMPTING, RESISTING THE SPIRIT. 87 
 
 sisted by us is a remarkable truth, because it is so un- 
 like the ordinary opinion of men regarding him. If 
 they think of him at all, it is of One apart from the 
 world in which they dwell and remote from the world 
 within their own thinking minds or throbbing hearts. 
 Yet he works on the souls of men all men by a 
 most potent influence. They may not be conscious ol 
 his action, nor distinguish clearly his enlightenment 
 warning or judging, approving or condemning from 
 the voice of conscience or the judgment of pure rea- 
 son. Yet he occupies his place within " Man soul," 
 and performs his peculiar work. There is a paral- 
 lelism to this in the natural world. We know elec- 
 tricity rather from its effects than from its nature. 
 The ebb and flow of tides reveal the influence of the 
 moon without telling us the " why " and " wherefore " 
 of its law. So is it in the world of mind and the ac- 
 tion of the Holy Spirit. We know the result called 
 salvation, and trace it truthfully to the energizing cause, 
 when we ascribe it to the Holy Spirit. 
 
 Doubtless in this great work there is concurrent ac- 
 tion between the soul of man and the Spirit of God. 
 He strove with the man, and the man yielded. He 
 convinced the sinner of his guilt, and the penitent one 
 from ruin's brink cried, " Lord Jesus, save." He took 
 of the things of Christ, and showed them to the soul 
 ready to die as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wil- 
 derness and when the trusting heart appropriated the 
 infinite merits of the Lord Jesus it was the Holy
 
 88 GRIEVING, TEMPTING, RESISTING THE SPIRIT. 
 
 Spirit that hastened with the assurance of pardon and 
 inspired the rejoicing believer to sing 
 
 My God is reconciled, 
 
 His pardoning voice I hear, 
 He owns we for his child, 
 
 I can no longer fear. 
 With confidence I now draw nigh, 
 And Father, Abba Father, cry. 
 
 It is needful to remember, in proclaiming the neces- 
 sity of the Spirit's work, the related truth of the de- 
 pendence and activity of the soul of man. As in the 
 days when the Lord Jesus spake to the fishermen of 
 Galilee and said, " Follow me " and they left all and 
 followed him ; so now, when the Spirit of Jesus says 
 " Come," the docile believer gladly obeys. 
 
 In the Kingdom of grace under which we live the 
 Holy Spirit is the Administrator of Redemption. In 
 his administration he uses the Scriptures. Inspired by 
 himself he employs these, both for the conviction of the 
 sinner and the sanctification of the saint. The Scrip- 
 tures are truth. As such it might be supposed that they 
 would win the approval and accomplish the salvation 
 of man as other truth makes its way into human minds ; 
 changing beliefs, forming opinions, creating convictions 
 or widening the mental horizon. But this is not the case. 
 
 Teachers of mathematics rely solely and properly 
 on the adaptation of their truth to the minds of the 
 students and depend upon the unaided powers of the 
 mind to accept and act upon such truth. They are
 
 GRIEVING, TEMPTING, RESISTING THE SPIRIT. 89 
 
 right, and they have their reward. But teachers of 
 Christianity encounter difficulties and obstacles in hu- 
 man nature utterly unknown to teachers of other 
 truth. Not merely ignorance, but pride, self-righteous- 
 ness, prejudice, unconcern, and even hatred of the 
 truth meet the preacher of the gospel at the threshold 
 of every human heart. Although he knows that the 
 truth, as it is in Jesus, is certain as that of the multiplica- 
 tion table, and that it is adapted to the universal needs 
 of humanity, as the key is fitted to the lock, still his 
 only hope of success is in the Holy Spirit. For he 
 alone can snap the withes of pride, prejudice and 
 hatred, which mathematical truth does not encounter. 
 He creates the hunger and then supplies the food. He 
 brings the news of salvation in the words of Scripture 
 to the mind, and also operates upon and within the 
 mind. He takes the Bible truth, and with that con- 
 veys the grace necessary to its reception. 
 
 When men are not obedient to their heavenly calling 
 the Spirit is grieved, tempted or resisted. He is grieved 
 when they resist his pleadings. He would flood their 
 souls with ineffable light, but they love darkness rather 
 than light. He would fire their hearts with a divine 
 enthusiasm, but they quench that heavenly flame. Then 
 their perceptions of truth and duty become blunted and 
 their affections, towards God and man, benumbed. 
 
 Thus to resist God, reveals a tremendous force in 
 human nature. But responsibility hinges here and the 
 dread fact must be stated. The Holy Spirit is sover-
 
 90 GRIEVING, TEMPTING, RESISTING THE SPIRIT. 
 
 eign and free in his gracious influences and we are free 
 to follow or to fail, to yield or to resist, to hearken or 
 to harden, to fan the flame of gracious desire or to 
 quench the fire of holy love. 
 
 When we are asked how men may grieve or tempt or 
 resist the Spirit, the answer is clear and Biblical. 
 
 I. BY DENYING HIS PERSONALITY AND DISHONORING 
 HIS OFFICES. 
 
 We ought, as a convention and as churches, to be 
 jealous for the Personality and Divinity of the Holy 
 Ghost. The doubters and deniers are outspoken and 
 blatant. While we are meeting in Baltimore the Uni- 
 tarians are assembled in Philadelphia. Listening to 
 them concerning Jesus, we can but wail out, with Mary 
 of Magdala, " They have taken away my Lord and I 
 know not where they have laid him." While we pro- 
 claim the Personality and Divinity of the Spirit they 
 seem to be in the state of those who said, " We have 
 not so much as heard if there be any Holy Ghost." 
 Doubt is in the air and gathering like a thunder cloud 
 it makes itself heard. When unbelief conspires men of 
 faith tnust combine. Let us send forth from this Con- 
 vention a trumpet blast, loud and clear, on this cardinal 
 doctrine of our holy religion and of the word of God.* 
 
 * It was in answer to this appeal that the resolution was passed at 
 the closing session of the Convention. Many disciples simulta- 
 neously felt the point and propriety of such witness bearing. May 
 he who is thus honored accept the devout tribute to his Person and 
 hin Work.
 
 GRIEVING, TEMPTING, RESISTING THE SPIRIT. 91 
 
 The Scriptures proclaim and we, believe, that the Holy 
 Spirit is not the mere personification of a divine attri- 
 bute, but the Third Person of the ever blessed Trinity. 
 To deny that is to grieve him. 
 
 As the Administrator of redemption he takes the 
 place that the Lord Jesus himself occupied during his 
 earthly life. The departure of the Christ was the con- 
 dition of the Spirit's advent. Jesus said, " I will pray 
 the Father and he shall give you another Comforter 
 that he may abide with you forever," (John 14 : 16). 
 "Comforter" TtapdxXrjToz, i.e., one called to the side of 
 another, a helper, as an attorney to his client. Jesus, 
 the first Comforter, is thus succeeded by the Holy 
 Spirit. What Jesus was to those who followed him 
 over the acres "of Immanuel's Land," the Holy Spirit 
 is to all those who should hereafter believe on his name. 
 Did Jesus convince men of sin ? So does now the Holy 
 Spirit. To deny that is to resist him. Did Jesus guide 
 men in their quest of truth ? So does the Holy Spirit, 
 all who in later days search for it as for hid treasure. 
 There is no tablet like a loving memory and no chroni- 
 cler like the Holy Ghost. He brought all things to the 
 recollection of the first disciples and he is with the fol- 
 lowers of Jesus still. To deny that is to grieve him. 
 Did Jesus say to a poor sufferer, whose name we shall 
 never know, " Son, thy sins be forgiven thee ? " So 
 does the Holy Spirit now to those who conscious of 
 their need take Jesus as their Saviour. To deny that 
 is to tempt him.
 
 92 GRIEVING, TEMPTING, RESISTING THE SPIRIT. 
 
 Further, let us not forget that Jesus said that the 
 other Comforter was to abide with us forever. He has 
 not been withdrawn from his church. We need not 
 pray for his coming as if he had departed. Let us 
 rather ask for manifestations of his presence and power, 
 believing that he is near and able and willing to fulfil 
 his promise to fill us and seal us and guide us into all 
 truth. 
 
 Closer still to the heart of Scripture on this great 
 theme, let us examine Ephesians 4 : 2530, for an epi- 
 tome of sins in the practical life, and where we have the 
 key-note of this address. Please turn to your Bibles 
 and read and long after these days of holy convoca- 
 tion are over, read the words again. They are the Holy 
 Ghost's. " Wherefore putting away lying, speak every 
 man truth with his neighbor, for we are members one 
 of another. Be ye angry and sin not, let not the sun 
 go down upon your wrath. Neither give place to the 
 devil. Let him that stole steal no more : but rather let 
 him labor working with his hands the thing which is 
 good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. 
 Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your 
 mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying 
 that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And 
 grieve not the Holy Spirit of God whereby ye are 
 sealed unto the day of redemption." 
 
 Look at these sins one by one : 
 
 1. Falsehood. To speak the truth is due to all men, 
 as well as to God, but here it is urged as necessary to
 
 GRIEVING, TEMPTING, RESISTING THE SPIRIT. 93 
 
 the perfect brotherhood within the circle of the church. 
 Wilful misstatements, polite lies, half truths, which are 
 ever the blackest of lies all these are breaches upon 
 mutual confidence among believers. They are more ; 
 they grieve the Holy Spirit of God. All paltering with 
 truth in a double sense", that keeps the word of promise 
 to the ear, but breaks it to the hope, is an offence in 
 Heaven. 
 
 2. Wrath. The text quoted shows us that there is a 
 possible anger without sin. The flashing out of the 
 pure and liberty-loving soul against cruelty, lies and 
 foulness, is just and right and Christian. Such resent- 
 ment against evil is needful in our resistance of it. But 
 anger to be righteous must be brief. As the corruption 
 of the best is the worst, so justifiable indignation, when 
 brooded over or " nursed to be kept warm," becomes 
 an injury to the soul. It acts like acid on steel it 
 stains the white radiance, it mars the placid surface. 
 Then the Spirit is grieved, for such a one gives place to 
 the devil, who finds an opportunity when and where we 
 least expect him as Bunyan, in the allegory, tells of a 
 by-path to hell hard by the gate of heaven. 
 
 3. Stealing. This warning against a crime seems out 
 of place in an address to believers. Perhaps it is 
 spoken of, that its counterpart in self-sacrifice might be 
 enforced. Stealing is not here shown to be a wrong 
 committed against society that goes without saying 
 but because it is opposed to the proper treatment of our 
 brothers in Christ. It saps the foundations of the per-
 
 94 GRIEVING, TEMPTING, RESISTING THE SPIRIT. 
 
 feet home life whether it be the robbing of property 
 or the filching of reputation. Beware of the latter in 
 the church of God. It grieves the Spirit for it wrongs 
 and injures those for whom Christ died. 
 
 3. lt Corrupt speech" (Revised Version). The word 
 aaxfibz translated corrupt means rotten. This is the 
 only place in the New Testament where it is used meta- 
 phorically. In Eph. 5 : 4 it is described at length as 
 " Filthiness " or the talking without necessity of foul 
 and evil things. In studying medicine or even litera- 
 ture professionally, one must learn everything about 
 everything, however malodorous. But to speak of such 
 things unnecessarily, " Dabbling a shameless hand with 
 shameful jest," shows the prurient taste and grieves the 
 pure and Holy Spirit. 
 
 " Foolish talking," the talking of fools, i.e., the wicked. 
 This is the Bible meaning of the word and must not be 
 understood as referring to the babbling of imbeciles or 
 idiots. It is God who describes the man as a fool, who 
 says in his heart, " There is no God." We are to avoid 
 the speech of those who, in the name of science falsely 
 so called, would banish God from the universe he has 
 made as well as the speech of those who in profanity or 
 oath, take the name of God in vain. All such speech is 
 corrupt and grieves the Holy Spirit. 
 
 " Jesting." Perhaps this is the form of corrupt 
 speech to which many amongst ourselves are most prone. 
 It may be the polished wit, neither gross nor vulgar, 
 which spares nothing, however sacred, that may raise
 
 GRIEVING, TEMPTING, RESISTING THE SPIRIT. 95 
 
 the vacant laugh. It seizes upon Holy Scripture as 
 fitting game for ribaldry or pun. It is not guilty per- 
 haps of the double entendre that pales the cheek of an 
 innocent girl, and it abjures the coarse, simply because 
 it lacks elegance. But nevertheless it cuts deep into the 
 purity and peace of the soul and it makes impossible all 
 profit from Scriptures that have been travestied. Never 
 jest with the Bible or the spiritual meaning will be lost 
 to you forever. 
 
 " Don't quote the Bible to me," said a dying man 
 recently. " I have linked every part of it with a jest 
 and that I cannot forget." 
 
 . Oh, the sins of speech of which we have been guilty ! 
 The desire to shine in conversation, to be entertaining 
 to friends, to avoid the dullness seen in others, these 
 have hurried, even good men, into ignoble levity or im- 
 piety. Let us here to-day, brethren, vow not to do it 
 and not to listen to it. 
 
 Palsy hurts ourselves, and diphtheria is dangerous to 
 the community, but impure speech injures alike speaker 
 and hearer. 
 
 For such conduct and for the habits of mind from 
 which it springs we are responsible. Levity over sacred 
 things grows on what it feeds, and grieves the Spirit of 
 God. Cavilling at Bible teaching, through intellectual 
 pride, engenders self-will and prevents the progress won 
 only by devout docility, and thus the Spirit of God is 
 resisted. Then this light grows dim and the altar fires 
 burn low.
 
 96 GRIEVING, TEMPTING, RESISTING THE SPIRIT. 
 
 Can we know within ourselves when the Spirit is 
 grieved ? Certainly. The signs of the backslider ap- 
 pear and " the consolations of God are small." 
 
 Prayer becomes Formed. Private devotions are feeble ; 
 family worship is cold or altogether disused. Look at 
 the heap of ashes, white and dead, on the hearth of 
 many Christian homes. They are the burnt-out relics 
 of a once living altar fire, and tell their sad story of the 
 decay of faith. The heathen priest defended his having 
 an idol in his house, as well as in the temple, because 
 he lived there chiefly and needed the presence of the 
 protector. So do we, and we may know the Spirit is 
 tempted when we rely on occasional services in the 
 sanctuary and disregard the quiet hours of devotion at 
 home. 
 
 The Bible is Neglected. The Holy Spirit inspired 
 the book, and he that allows it to become dust -covered 
 on a remote shelf has the evidence in himself of the 
 Spirit's grief and of his own deterioration. For t this 
 grief it must be remembered does not arise so much 
 from the offence against himself as from the wrong and 
 injury to ourselves. It mars his plan for our sanctifica- 
 tion. As the loving wife or mother grieves over the 
 moral decline of son or husband through strong drink, 
 the sin of youth, or avarice, the sin of age, so the Holy 
 Spirit mourns over man's loss of purity and power. 
 The fine promise of spring is unfulfilled in autumn. 
 Profession ends in failure. Slowly but surely the blight 
 falls.
 
 GRIEVING, TEMPTING, RESISTING THE SPIRIT. 97 
 
 It is the little rift within the lute 
 That by and by will make the music mute; 
 Or little pitted speck in garnered fruit 
 That, rotting inward, slowly moulders all. 
 
 The fish in the Mammoth Cave are a sad sight eye- 
 less, for they are in a world of darkness but immeas- 
 urably sadder are human souls that are blind in a 
 world of light self-blinded, for they have quenched the 
 fire and the light of life within their own immortal na- 
 tures by neglect of duties, or through worldliness and 
 God-forgetfulness. 
 
 There is an evident evil among believers that must 
 grieve the Spirit, even although they may desire to 
 honor him, in limiting his operations to one course or 
 method. Many of God's children, like Col. Gardiner, 
 can tell the day and hour, the place and circumstances 
 when they were born of God. They sing of the happy 
 day when Jesus washed their sins away with a most 
 definite memory of the inquiry-room where they sat, or 
 of the altar at which they knelt, when " being justified 
 by faith they had peace with God." Others, like the 
 sainted Baxter, had no such experience. Gently as the 
 sunlight breaks upon a sleeping world came the sweet 
 influences of grace upon their youthful hearts. They 
 know they love the Lord, but they do not remember 
 when or where they entered into the kingdom. Let 
 both classes beware. " The Spirit is not straitened " 
 (Micah 2 : 7). To chalk off a definite line for the 
 Spirit's manifold operations on the diversified character 
 7
 
 98 GRIEVING, TEMPTING, RESISTING THE SPIRIT. 
 
 and conditions of men is a pernicious intruding of man 
 within the realm of God. It has also the effect, when 
 believed, of producing despondency in some minds and 
 of creating a lack of charity in others. 
 
 The very diversity of operation shows the divinity. 
 As we discover in nature an exuberant fulness and 
 variety, and see in this the inexhaustible wealth of re- 
 sources used by our Heavenly Father in Creation and 
 Providence, so in the copiousness of grace, in the ab- 
 sence of restriction to one mode of operation, we discover 
 the same divine richness an opulent abundance of 
 treasury equalled by an infinite variety of mode. Let, 
 then, our Colonel Gardiners, " stopped in a moment in 
 their mad career," respect the Richard Baxters who, in 
 another way, came to the Saviour, and let not the Bax- 
 ters reason from the way in which they were saved that 
 that is the only way ; and by criticism or assertion at- 
 tempt to decry the Spirit's work in the sudden and 
 startling conversion of men like Gardiner. 
 
 Two more evils appear in our modern Church life. 
 One is in the hot-house culture of revived monasticism, 
 where the highest perfection is supposed to be secured 
 by Asceticism. The Church of Rome in teaching what 
 she calls the Saviour's " Counsels of Perfection," claims 
 that these chastity, poverty and obedience are only 
 intended for a few favorites of Heaven. The applica- 
 tion of the term "a religious" to monk or nun, inter- 
 dicts the great mass of her followers from the hope of 
 Christian perfection, lowers motherhood and fatherhood,
 
 GRIEVING, TEMPTING, RESISTING THE SPIRIT. 99 
 
 and makes the religion of common things less attractive 
 or possible. 
 
 This evil is nearer home than Rome. Let us watch 
 most prayerfully and carefully the " Deaconness " and 
 kindred movements in our common Protestantism, lest 
 they leave the Scriptural foundation on which they rest 
 and glide downward to monasticism. 
 
 " We need not bid for cloistered cell 
 Our neighbor and our work farewell, 
 Or try to wind ourselves too high 
 For sinful man beneath the sky. 
 
 4< The simple round, the common task, 
 Will furnish all we ought to ask, 
 Room to deny ourselves a road 
 To bring us daily nearer God." 
 
 Live amidst suffering men and spend your strength in 
 helpful work. If men and women will thus learn to do the 
 common things of life in a religious spirit if they will 
 open their eyes and recognize God's nearness to them and 
 his help in the household duty, the office care or factory 
 toil, they will cease grieving the Holy Spirit. My final 
 word is upon grieving the Spirit in our failure of duty to 
 our brother-man. We have often heard that " Man's inhu- 
 manity to man makes countless myriads mourn." It 
 does more. It grieves the Holy Spirit. We who love 
 the Lord are in the world for his sake, that we may wit- 
 ness for him ; for our own sake, that we may grow in 
 grace and be disciplined through suffering and work ; 
 but we are also here/or our brother's sake.
 
 100 GRIEVING, TEMPTING, RESISTING THE SPIRIT. 
 
 No man, out of Christ, knows his own nature or his 
 own worth. He does not know his danger. How then 
 is this wide fringe of immortal men lying around the 
 Churches to be reached and rescued ? Not by pastors 
 only, but by every believer becoming a missionary. When 
 we realize that the Holy Spirit has burnt into our heart 
 of hearts the conviction that we are in the world for the 
 world's sake, and, taking up the cross, speak to those 
 we know or meet on the claims of Christ, on their rela- 
 tion to Eternity, on their own worth, estimated by the 
 death of Jesus on the cross ; then multitudes will be 
 converted to God. " I will pour water upon him that is 
 thirsty " that is, the believer, conscious of his need, 
 and knowing the source of supply ; " And floods upon 
 the dry ground " that is, the mass of thoughtless and 
 prayerless men reached when the Church is revived. 
 Have you received a refreshing draught of the water of 
 life ? Then speak to others of Christ and the great sal- 
 vation, and the energizing Spirit will accompany the 
 word spoken in love. If men do not know their own 
 worth we need not wonder that the world puts a low 
 estimate upon the .poor man. " What is he worth ? " 
 means money, not mental capacity or spiritual possi- 
 bility. "What does he know," intellectual acquire- 
 ment, not gifts of grace or soul -furnishing. Here 
 the Church is being dominated by the world. Pray 
 that our eyes may be opened to see the possible angel 
 concealed in the sinner, as Augelo saw his great statue 
 within the block of marble. Having faith in the Holy
 
 GRIEVING, TEMPTING, RESISTING THE SPIRIT. 101 
 
 Ghost, let us have faith in man. We can look upon 
 the most depraved without despair, for they have a 
 Saviour, and can be renewed by the Holy Spirit. As 
 the father saved his money, about to be thrown in the 
 fire by his thoughtless child, who knew not its value, let 
 us rescue the perishing. "It is not the will of our 
 Father in heaven that one of these little ones should 
 perish." His providence will give an opportunity and 
 his Spirit a blessing. 
 
 As but a moment ago the lighted gas burnt low, and 
 this beautiful church, where once my rarely gifted 
 friend, Thomas Guard preached the words of life, 
 seemed gloomy and dull, and you could not read the 
 Holy Book, but at the touch of an unseen janitor's hand, 
 bright jets of flame flashed forth, and we now can see 
 the glory of the fretted roof and the storied windows, or 
 note the thoughtful faces of the devout worshippers. 
 So may it be with ourselves and with our churches ! 
 We do not pray for more machinery, as this sacred place 
 did not, an hour ago, need more gas fixtures. We have 
 enough of church machinery. We pray for more power. 
 Come, Holy Spirit, come ! Clothe thy ministers with 
 righteousness. Breathe into every heart thine own di- 
 vine afflatus. Fill every service and agency with thy 
 supreme and qualifying energy. Let an unction of the 
 Holy One rest upon the people and the grieving, resist- 
 ing and tempting of the Spirit of God shall cease.
 
 X. 
 
 THE SPIRIT FOR WORSHIP AND WITNESSING. 
 
 BY D. M. STEARNS, SCRANTON, PA. 
 
 AS we consider the lack of real spiritual worship of 
 God on the part of such multitudes of his pro- 
 fessed people, and the " no worship at all " of the 
 greater multitudes outside the church, the true wor- 
 shipper is led to ask : " Will the time ever come when 
 in all the world God shall be worshipped in spirit and 
 in truth ? " Assurance of success is to many a great 
 inspiration, and if we can become fully persuaded that 
 this time shall surely come, and that we shall see it, it 
 may nerve us to seek more whole-heartedly for our- 
 selves and others to be filled with the Spirit, that in 
 this present time we may earnestly contend for true 
 spiritual worship and testimony, standing resolutely 
 apart from all dead forms and ceremonies^ while we 
 wait for, and seek to hasten, the dawn of a better dis- 
 pensation than that in which we now live. If Abra- 
 ham was enabled to wait more patiently by looking for 
 the city which hath foundations ; if Moses was enabled 
 to turn away from all the attractions of Egypt's glory 
 by getting his eyes and heart fixed on the recompense 
 of the reward ; if our Lord Jesus himself, " for the 
 102
 
 THE SPIRIT FOR WORSHIP AND WITNESSING. 103 
 
 joy that was set before him, endured the cross;" we 
 have the best of precedents to encourage ourselves by 
 contemplating the grand consummation which is sure 
 to come. Let us listen then for a few moments to the 
 Spirit's own testimony as to what he will yet accom- 
 plish on our earth. "All the ends of the world shall 
 remember, and turn unto the Lord ; and all the kin- 
 dreds of the nations shall worship- before thee : for the 
 kingdom is the Lord's, and he is the governor among 
 the nations." "All the earth shall worship thee, and 
 shall sing unto thee ; they shall sing to thy name." 
 " Yea, all kings shall fall down before him ; all nations 
 shall serve him." "All nations whom thou hast made 
 shall come and worship before thee, O Lord ; and shall 
 glorify thy name." "And it shall come to pass, that 
 from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath 
 to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, 
 saith the Lord." "And it shall come to pass, that 
 every one that is left of all the nations which came 
 against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year 
 to worship the King, the Lord of Hosts, and to keep 
 the feast of Tabernacles." " Who shall not fear thee, 
 O Lord, and glorify thy Name? for thou only art 
 holy ; for all nations shall come and worship before 
 thee; for thy judgments are made manifest " (Ps. 22: 
 27, 28; 66: 4; 72: 11; 86: 9; Isa. 66: 23; Zee. 
 14 : 16 ; Rev. 15 : 4). If the question be asked 
 "When shall these things be?" the Spirit, through 
 Joel, plainly says that it will be after Jehovah has re-
 
 104 THE SPIRIT FOR WORSHIP AND WITNESSING. 
 
 turned to dwell in the midst of Israel, that they may 
 never again be ashamed, then will he pour out his 
 Spirit upon all flesh; and that which had a germinant 
 fulfilment at Pentecost shall have a complete and world- 
 wide fulfilment when the kingdom shall be the Lord's. 
 If it be asked "Who shall live when God doeth this?" 
 the answer is " You who now hear these words if by 
 faith in Christ Jesus and in the power of the Spirit 
 you are a true worshipper of the Father." 
 
 It will help us in our worship now if we can form 
 some idea of what worship will be in those days, and 
 it we can get some light upon what true worship really 
 is. Listen then to Seraphim and Cherubim, types of 
 the most exalted portion of our redeemed humanity, the 
 Church, the Body of Christ. " I saw the Lord sitting 
 upon a Throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled 
 the Temple. Above it stood the Seraphim ; each one 
 had six wings ; with twain he covered his face, and 
 with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did 
 fly. And one cried unto another and said, Holy, Holy, 
 Holy is the Lord of Hosts ; the whole earth is full of 
 his Glory." "And the four living creatures had each 
 of them six wings about him, and they were full of 
 eyes within : and they rest not day and night, saying, 
 Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, which was 
 and is, and is to come. And when those living crea- 
 tures give glory and honor and thanks to him that sat 
 on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever, the four 
 and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the
 
 THE SPIRIT FOR WORSHIP AND WITNESSING. 105 
 
 throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, 
 and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou 
 art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and 
 power : for thou hast created all things, and for thy 
 pleasure they are and were created." (Isa. 6 : 1-3 ; 
 Rev. 4: 8-11.) In these visions of Isaiah and John 
 we see and hear true worship. The object of worship 
 is a person, not a principle, or a creed, or a sect; not 
 even an angel or an archangel ; but the Lord himself 
 whom alone they exalt. The ground of worship is, 
 " Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by 
 thy blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and peo- 
 ple and nation ; and hast made us unto our God Kings 
 and Priests." The consummation is, "And we shall 
 reign on the earth." The Power is seen in the seven 
 lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the 
 seven Spirits of God, or the Spirit in his sevenfold 
 fulness. (Rev. 5 : 9, 10 ; 4 : 5.) As to the worship- 
 pers, they do not boast of what they are, but cover 
 their faces (indicating their characters) with their wings ; 
 they do not boast of what they have done, their Chris- 
 tian conduct or walk (indicated by the feet) but cover 
 their feet also with their wings ; and with one accord 
 they vie with each other, as they cast their crowns be- 
 fore him, in extolling the Lord of Hosts, the Lord 
 God Almighty, whose glory is the fulness of the whole 
 earth. 
 
 Let us now descend from these glorious heights, this 
 far-reaching mount of Transfiguration, and consider
 
 106 THE SPIRIT FOB WORSHIP AND WITNESSING. 
 
 how we may worship and witness while we contend 
 with the world, the flesh and the devil. Let us listen 
 to the weary, lonely man, the God-man, God manifest 
 in the flesh, the revealer of the Father, as he sits on 
 Jacob's well and talks with the woman of Samaria. 
 She being convinced of sin by the Spirit in him, seeks 
 to evade the issue by bringing up the question of the 
 place of worship ; as if to-day one should say, well, it 
 may be all true, but I do not believe as you do, I am a 
 Catholic, or I am a Methodist, or a Baptist, or a Pres- 
 byterian, or an Episcopalian, you worship in your way 
 and I'll worship in mine. Jesus replied that place or 
 externals was nothing, but the heart everything; for 
 the Father seeketh true worshippers, who shall worship 
 in Spirit and in Truth. The woman had spoken of 
 " Jacob our father " and of " our fathers," but Jesus 
 speaks of " The Fattier" who alone is to be worshipped. 
 While God is spoken of as " Father," a few times in 
 the Old Testament, as in Ps. 89: 26; Isa. 63: 16; 
 64 : 8, it remained for Jesus to reveal him as such, that 
 as such we might worship him. It is the name by 
 which we were first taught to address him, but how lit- 
 tle we know of the fulness of the meaning of this beau- 
 tiful name, and therefore how poor our worship. It is 
 the name found in the first and last recorded utter- 
 ances of Jesus, " Wist ye not that I must be about my 
 Father's business?" " Father, into thy hands I com- 
 mend my spirit " (Luke 2 : 49 ; 23 : 46) ; and it is the 
 name first on his lips after his resurrection, when he
 
 THE SPIRIT FOR WORSHIP AND WITNESSING. 107 
 
 says to Mary " Touch me not ; for I am not yet as- 
 cended to my Father ; but go to my brethren, and say 
 unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father ; 
 and to my God, and your God." (John 20 : 17.) In 
 his discourse and prayer on the night of his betrayal 
 and arrest he uses the name about fifty times, saying 
 among other things " He that hath seen me hath seen 
 the Father I am in the Father and the Father in me 
 at that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, 
 and ye in me, and I in you." If we more fully realized 
 our relationship to God as his children by faith in 
 Christ Jesus, and his relationship to us as our Father 
 who art in Heaven, then would our worship, both in 
 public and private, be more real and more acceptable to 
 him. This can be brought about only by the Holy 
 Spirit. " For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, 
 they are the sons of God ... ye have received the 
 Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." 
 (Rom. 8 : 14, 15.) 
 
 In over fifty of the 170 places where the Hebrew 
 word for " worship " is found in the Old Testament, 
 it is translated as " bow self down," and in this we have 
 the whole hindrance to salvation, or life and service, or 
 true worship. In the matter of the salvation of a sin- 
 ner what is so great a hindrance as the mind of the flesh 
 which is enmity against God ; is not subject to the law 
 of God, neither, indeed, can be : but takes pride in its 
 own fancied righteousness, all of which is in God's 
 sight only as filthy rags (Rom. 8:7; Tit. 3:5; Isa.
 
 108 THE SPIRIT FOB WORSHIP AND WITNESSING. 
 
 64 : 6). When the sinner has been enabled by the en- 
 lightening Spirit to see his filthiness and to renounce it, 
 accepting in its place the spotless robe of the righteous- 
 ness of God in Christ, what hinders the abundant life 
 and service which every Christian ought to manifest, 
 so much as this same self or flesh which remaining in 
 the believer seeks to be pitied and pampered : and the 
 believer instead of denying self, and mortifying the 
 deeds of the body, putting off the old man, is, alas, too 
 oft inclined to pity self (Matt. 16 : 22 marg.) instead of 
 reckoning it dead (Rom. 6:11; 8:13; Matt. 16 : 24 ; 
 2 Cor. 4 : 11). Then as to worship, the difficulty is, 
 confidence in the flesh, which is directly opposed to 
 worshipping God in the Spirit and rejoicing in Christ 
 Jesus (Phil. 3: 3). They that are in the flesh cannot 
 please God. No flesh shall glory in his presence. He 
 that glorieth must glory in the Lord (Rom. 8 : 8 ; 1 
 Cor. 1 : 29-31). 
 
 We have been redeemed with the precious blood of 
 Christ that we may yield ourselves fully unto him for 
 his service, that by true worship and faithful testimony 
 we may glorify God and win people to him as he has 
 revealed himself in Jesus Christ. This we cannot do ; 
 we are not sufficient for these things, but our sufficiency 
 is of God who gives unto us the Holy Spirit to this 
 end. He says, " Know ye not that ye are the temple 
 of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" 
 " What ! know ye not that your body is the temple of 
 the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God,
 
 THE SPIRIT FOR WORSHIP AND WITNESSING. 109 
 
 and ye are not your own ; for ye are bought with a 
 price : therefore glorify God in your body and in your 
 spirit, which are God's ? " " Ye are the temple of the 
 living God ; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, 
 and walk in them ; and I will be their God, and they 
 shall be my people" (1 Cor. 3 : 16 ; 6:19, 20 ; 2 Cor. 
 6 : 16). Then he adds, " Wherefore come out from 
 among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and 
 touch not the unclean ; and I will receive you, and will 
 be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and 
 daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." This is the only 
 place in the New Testament outside the book of Reve- 
 lation where we find the name " Almighty ; " and its 
 use here is most interesting and instructive, and right in 
 the line of our subject. The name " Almighty " signi- 
 fies literally " the breasted one " (Shaddai) ; and reveals 
 God to us as the all-sufficient pourer forth of all tem- 
 poral and spiritual blessings. It is first found in Gen. 
 17:1, after a blank in Abram's history of thirteen 
 years because of his reliance on the flesh instead of on 
 the all-sufficient Jehovah. Then Jehovah comes to him 
 saying, " I am the Almighty God, walk before me, and 
 be thou perfect (or upright, or sincere)." Then is his 
 name changed from Abram (exalted father) to Abra- 
 ham (father of a multitude). The middle letter of 
 Elohim, and the principal letter of Jehovah, God's 
 great name, is inserted in Abram's name, as if to indi- 
 cate that God in him would now cause him to be fruit- 
 ful. Of the less than sixty times that the name " Al-
 
 110 THE SPIRIT FOR WORSHIP AND WITNESSING. 
 
 mighty " is found in the whole Bible, it is found more 
 than half the number (31 times) in the book of Job ; 
 where we have the history of a servant of God, thor- 
 oughly emptied of himself ; and thus ceasing to think 
 anything of himself, and leaning on the sufficiency of 
 the Almighty pourer forth, everything is literally dou- 
 bled to him. Oh, how fruitful our worship and testi- 
 mony would be, and how glorifying to God, if we would 
 only separate ourselves from all filthiuess of the flesh 
 and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God (2 Cor. 
 7:1); and thus allowing our Almighty Father to prove 
 himself our sufficiency, how gloriously he would show 
 to the world that such Christians are indeed his sons 
 and daughters; and how he would delight to show 
 forth his power in them and on their behalf. 
 
 We must remember that there can be no acceptable 
 worship or testimony apart from the sacrifice of the 
 Lord Jesus, or the sacrifices which, before he came, 
 pointed forward to his ; for " without shedding of blood 
 is no remission " (Heb. 9 : 22), and the unsaved cannot 
 worship God. In the offerings of Cain and Abel there 
 was a foreshadowing of all future worshippers and their 
 methods. Those who do not see their guilt and their 
 need of a substitute come as Cain came, bringing the 
 best they have, well satisfied with themselves ; but there 
 is no worship, for there is no atonement, and their 
 offerings, however beautiful, are not accepted by 
 God. Those who like Abel see their guilt, and come 
 in humble reliance upon the Lamb slain for them, re-
 
 THE SPIRIT FOR WORSHIP AND WITNESSING. Ill 
 
 joicing in the blood that' was shed for their sins, as they 
 
 sing, 
 
 " Nothing in my hands I bring, 
 Simply to thy cross I cling." 
 
 These are acceptable worshippers. 
 
 In our public worship our services consist of Praise, 
 Prayer, Preaching and an Offering, and the Spirit has 
 not left us without guidance in reference to each part. 
 " I will pray with the Spirit, and I will pray with the 
 understanding also ; I will sing with the Spirit and I 
 will sing with the understanding also. ... I had rather 
 speak five words with my understanding, that I might 
 teach others also, than ten thousand words in an un- 
 known tongue." " They read in the book, in the law 
 of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them 
 to understand the reading" (1 Cor. 14: 15, 19; Neh. 
 8 : 8). Here are the Spirit's own directions for the 
 worship of God, and if we are to worship in Spirit it 
 must be in submission to the Spirit's guidance. All 
 must be done that all may be benefited and all take 
 part in the worship. We will suppose that those who 
 lead the praise of the congregation are Christian men 
 and women, for otherwise they have no right to any 
 such place, inasmuch as the unsaved cannot worship : 
 " They that are in the flesh cannot please God " (Rom. 
 8:8): now if they sing that which the congregation 
 cannot take part in, where is the worship on the part of 
 the congregation? Then when the minister prays, if 
 the congregation do not in their hearts endorse every
 
 112 THE SPIRIT FOR WORSHIP AND WITNESSING. 
 
 petition, where is the prayer on their part ? And as to 
 the preaching, if it is not simple enough for the most 
 unlearned to receive, where is the benefit? When we 
 sing let us sing only what we mean with our whole 
 hearts, for is it not as sinful to sing a lie as to tell a 
 lie ? When we pray let us ask for what we really want 
 for God's glory, and expect to receive it. And when 
 we speak let us hear the word at God's mouth and give 
 them warning from him; or when we hear let us de- 
 sire to hear only what God has to say to us and not the 
 opinions of men. As to the offering, which is as much 
 a part of the worship as the prayer or praise or preach- 
 ing, here is the Spirit's guidance. " Every man accord- 
 ing as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give ; not 
 grudgingly or of necessity : for God loveth a cheerful 
 giver.' " Of every man that giveth it willingly with 
 his heart shall ye take my offering " (2 Cor. 9:7; Ex. 
 25 : 2). Let me think of myself as an individual wor- 
 shipper, whether in pulpit or pew, what is my aim, 
 what my motive? The only proper aim is to glorify 
 God, to exalt him, to make him known ; the motive, the 
 love of Christ constraining; the motto, "Unto him who 
 loved me and washed me from my sins in his own blood " 
 (Rev. 1:5); the power, his Spirit who dwelleth in me. 
 I go to the house of God, persistently shutting out the 
 world and worldly things, that I may praise him, talk 
 with him, hear him talk to me, and thus commune with 
 him. Is it time to sing? then I am to sing with my 
 whole heart unto the Lord. Is it time to pray ? then
 
 THE SPIRIT FOR WORSHIP AND WITNESSING. 113 
 
 I am to make my soul's desire known to him with 
 thanksgiving. Is it time to speak or hear ? then I am 
 to speak his word, or watch to see what he (not the 
 speaker) will say unto me or in me. Is it time for the 
 offering? then I am to give unto him with a willing 
 and grateful heart, such an offering as I would not be 
 ashamed to place in his own hand ; he knowing what 
 he has given to me, how much I am reserving for my- 
 self, and how much* I ought cheerfully to give unto 
 him. In all this there is not the slightest room for the 
 flesh, or for the praise of man ; it is from beginning to 
 end, " Unto him," because of his love to me, and in the 
 power of his Spirit. This, and nothing less than this, 
 is, as far as I can learn from the Scriptures, worship- 
 ping the Father in Spirit and in Truth. 
 
 In reference to witnessing, we must look unto him 
 who is " the Amen, the faithful and true witness " (Rev. 
 3 : 14), whose life was the light of men. He who was 
 the Light of the world says to us who believe in him, 
 " Ye are the light of the world." We are to walk as 
 he walked, to reproduce his life in these mortal bodies. 
 As there can be no life or light without something being 
 consumed, so we must be willing to present our bodies 
 a living sacrifice that the Spirit may consume us with 
 earnest desire for the glory of God. Not our own will 
 or pleasure or glory, but in all things the will, the 
 pleasure, the glory of God. With such lives we shall 
 be qualified to speak of him, and be bearers of the glad 
 tidings of the kingdom to others who have not yet 
 8
 
 114 THE SPIRIT FOR WORSHIP AND WITNESSING. 
 
 heard the gospel. A witness must be able to say, " J 
 know," " I am fully persuaded," " I speak that which I 
 know and testify that which I have seen " (2 Tim. 1 
 12; Rom. 4 : 21 ; John 3: 11; 1 John 1 : 1-3), and 
 he must be ready also to lay down his life for the truth, 
 to be a u martyr," for such is the word for " witness " 
 (Rev. 2 : 13). Jesus testified of the necessity of being 
 born from above ; the necessity of being willing to for- 
 sake all for him ; the necessity of being willing to suffer 
 with him, denying self and bearing the cross daily ; the ' 
 necessity of living here for the sake of the good we may 
 do in his Name, separating ourselves from the world. 
 He taught that at death the believer goes out into con- 
 scious happiness, the unbeliever into conscious torment, 
 and that there is no possibility of exchanging places 
 after death, that the ungodly dying in their sins can- 
 not reach the place of the blest. He taught that we are 
 not rewarded for our works at death, but at the resur- 
 rection of the just. He taught that he will come again 
 in power and great glory, and that then will be the 
 restoration and redemption of Israel. He taught us to 
 watch constantly for his return, expecting him any hour. 
 If we are to be his witnesses, filled with his Spirit, we 
 must continue to reiterate all that he taught, not pmit- 
 ting a single truth. He did not teach that his coming 
 meant death, or that the kingdom is the church, and 
 that the kingdom has come: but he did teach that his 
 coming meant " not to die," and that the kingdom is 
 postponed till his return (John 21 : 22, 23; Luke 19: 
 11-15).
 
 THE SPIRIT FOR WORSHIP AND WITNESSING. 115 
 
 From all this we can see that to worship God in 
 Spirit and Truth, and to be a faithful witness, requires 
 more power than mortal man was ever possessed of, and 
 were it not that the power for this life and testimony is 
 placed by God within reach of all we might well de- 
 spair of ever attaining to it. " Tarry until ye be en- 
 dued with power from on high : " " Ye shall receive 
 power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you, 
 and ye shall be witnesses unto me" (Luke 24: 49; Acts 
 1 : 8), were some of his last words to those who had 
 been with him for three years ; and if they needed this 
 power who had seen him face to face and had already 
 wrought miracles in his name, how much more do we ? 
 To show how ready he is to bestow this gift he has 
 said, " If ye then being evil, know how to give good 
 gifts to your children, how much more shall your 
 Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask 
 him? "(Luke 11 : 13). 
 
 If any should still ask, " How may I obtain it ? " I 
 should say, Importunately seek it with your whole heart 
 for his glory, and not for any selfish end ; be willing to 
 be emptied and cleansed that he may fill you, and if 
 you fear you are not willing, ask him to make you will- 
 ing : remember that it is written, " We who live are 
 always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life 
 also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal 
 flesh" (2 Cor. 4: 11), and therefore take delight in 
 every opportunity to mortify the flesh. Cling in help- 
 lessness as Jacob with his thigh out of joint clung to
 
 116 THE SPIRIT FOR WORSHIP AND WITNESSING. 
 
 the mighty One. Watch as intently as Elisha watched 
 Elijah before they were separated. When any one thus 
 seeks with the whole heart to be filled with the Holy 
 Spirit for the Glory of God they shall surely be filled ; 
 learn to worship God in Spirit and Truth, and become 
 faithful witnesses. 
 
 Let no one say, It is not for me, or It will cost too 
 much ; you are not your own, and you are commanded 
 to be filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18); if you refuse, 
 you are disobedient and the loss you will never know 
 till it is too late to regain it. Let each one say, " I am 
 thine, Lord." " I yield fully unto thee." " Make 
 me a vessel meet for thy service." Take the blessing 
 by faith and go forth in his Name.
 
 XI. 
 
 THE SPIRIT IN AGREEMENT WITH THE WORD. 
 
 W. J. ERDMAN. 
 
 HHHE so-called Christian world is full of religious 
 -*- " views," vagaries of doctrine, revelations and in- 
 terpretations, all professedly received from the Spirit of 
 God ; is there any test whereby to decide the reality of 
 the Spirit's presence and action ? 
 
 In answer, the subject is at present limited to the re- 
 lation of the Spirit to the Word, as to doctrine, morals, 
 and leading in life and service. 
 
 It is evident, from a comparison of the two exhorta- 
 tions, each allied to a similar context, " Be filled with 
 the Spirit," Eph. 5 : 18, and, "Let the word of Christ 
 dwell in you richly," Col. 3: 16, that neither the 
 Spirit alone, nor the Word alone is enough. The Spirit, 
 however, with but little truth in the knowledge of the 
 believer is effective in life and in service, while much 
 truth yea, all truth, without the Spirit, remains but a 
 dead letter. True is the warning and greatly to be 
 heeded concerning the danger of "traffic in unfelt 
 truth." 
 
 The Spirit enlightens to understand the Word ; the 
 Word tests the professed action of the Spirit. The gift 
 
 117
 
 118 THE SPIRIT IN AGREEMENT WITH THE WORD. 
 
 of " discerning of spirits" must now be substituted by 
 the knowledge of the Word ; an Aquila and Priscilla 
 may take aside and expound unto an eloquent Apollos 
 the way of God more perfectly. 
 
 I. AS TO DOCTRINE. 
 
 a. How to test all teaching: Christ Jesus the touch- 
 stone. 1 Cor. 12: 3, negatively, " No man speaking by 
 the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed" (anathema), a 
 deceiver, an impostor, one who justly was put to death 
 for blasphemous claims of divinity and Messiahship ; 
 positively, " And no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, 
 but by the Holy Ghost." This Scripture decides con- 
 cerning the truth of much religious teaching and ex- 
 perience of the present day. It is stated again in 1 John 
 4 : 1-3, which gives the key to 1 John 2 : 20, 27. 
 The readers of this epistle had the Holy Spirit, indeed, 
 not to dispense with the teaching of John, or of any in- 
 spired or enlightened man, but in order to understand 
 what John wrote, even that the historic Jesus was none 
 other than the Life Eternal. Tn him as such they were 
 to abide, and as such to know they had received the 
 unction from the Holy One ; the Spirit, the all illumin- 
 ing oil from Christ. Not so to abide in Christ, but to 
 go forward, progress (not transgress 2 John 9), was the 
 characteristic of deceivers anti-christs ; and what a test 
 of teaching is this word "progresses" in this present 
 time of progressive," "broad," "liberal" theology. 
 
 6. How tn learn the true teaching: Jesus illustrates 
 the Spirit's method and law of learning.
 
 THE SPIRIT IN AGREEMENT WITH THE WORD. 119 
 
 Compare concerning the sufferings, death, burial and 
 resurrection of Christ the word " teach " in Mark 8:31 
 and k 'shew" in' Matt. 16: 21. Jesus brought together 
 predictions and types of the Old Testament, pointing 
 them out, and so taught the disciples. Paul's " prov- 
 ing " in Acts 9 : 22 signifies a demonstrating, a prov- 
 ing by joining together the old Scriptures concerning 
 the Messiah, and so arriving at the infallible conclusion. 
 The rnuch-praised Baconian, inductive method, is no 
 new thing ; the Bible is always ahead. Compare also 
 " the opening and alledging " of Acts 17:3. 
 
 To this method of study, to this concentering of all 
 scattered rays into a focus, the Spirit of God has prom- 
 ised his presence and guidance : " In thy light we shall 
 see light." 
 
 And the word " guide " show flie way, or lead in 
 the way found but twice in the New Testament, gives 
 an additional hint. Jesus said of the Spirit, " He will 
 guide you into or in all the truth " i. e., concerning 
 himself, the Truth, John 16 : 21, and the illustration is 
 given in Philip, when the Eunuch of Ethiopia replied, 
 " How can I, except some man should guide me ? " 
 Acts 8: 26-40. 
 
 No word has been of such a help in the study of the 
 Bible as the word "again," found in Matt. 4 : 7, where 
 Jesus answers the Devil's quotation of Scripture with, 
 " It is written again." That word holds the balances of 
 divine truth ; it is the corrective of all theory ; it is the 
 clinch of all statement. Suppose a certain doctrine to
 
 120 THE SPIRIT IN AGREEMENT WITH THE 
 
 be provable by seven texts. One man knowing only 
 four may indeed have hold of the doctrine, but it will 
 be in disproportioned shape ; even six will set forth a 
 defective statement ; all seven are needed to present the 
 truth in full and rounded form. 
 
 Another danger besetting the study and application 
 of the Word is the insertion into the text or collection 
 of passages of some unwarranted inference or conclusion 
 in the interest of some supposed lack of harmony or con- 
 sistence of teaching. It is better to wait until the har- 
 mony is created by the Spirit in his own marvellous way. 
 
 How many have made shipwreck of the faith by mis- 
 taking certain fanciful, visionary "signs" and halluci- 
 nations as the work and suggestion of the Holy Spirit 
 of Truth. 
 
 M. AS TO MORALS. 
 
 The Spirit never leads one to transgress fundamental 
 law. He never urges one or suggests to one to commit 
 murder, theft, adultery, to offer up human sacrifices, 
 to steal or borrow money never intending to repay 
 until such time as the Spirit again may suggest, to be 
 allied to "affinities" and "spiritual wives;" no mat- 
 ter what seeming signs and wonders, or visions and 
 voices may appear to attest all. 
 
 The Spirit of God is holy, and his fruit holy, Galat. 
 5: 18. 
 
 III. AS TO LEADING IN DAILY LIFE AND SERVICE. 
 
 There is no " Urim and Thummim " now ; no voices 
 and visions external to instruct ; only suggestions and
 
 THE SPIEIT IN AGREEMENT WITH THE WORD. 121 
 
 convictions internal. But no rule can one lay down 
 for others. Each has his own secret with the Lord, 
 and it is best not always, if ever, to say to others, The 
 Lord led me ; the Lord sent me. The Lord has too 
 often thereby been charged with folly. The Word, and 
 often also common sense, must confirm and verify the 
 secret suggestion. There do come times and occasions 
 when it is most meet to declare how the Lord led one, 
 but silence also has its times. 
 
 1. No one should try to run the experiences of others 
 into the mould of his own. The very presence of the 
 Spirit is not manifested in all and through all alike. To 
 some, as Mr. Finney himself said, the Spirit's coming 
 or manifestation is like the slowly opening dawn, to 
 others like a burst of sunlight through rifted clouds at 
 noonday ; to some like the gentle dew, to others like a 
 storm and tempest of rain. The pouring of the love of 
 God into our hearts as Father is often, if not always, ' 
 the first or positive manifestation of the Spirit ; it is pre- 
 cedent to or at least concomitant with " the enduement 
 of power." 
 
 2. The Spirit controls events, and therefore desires us 
 to "redeem the time," Eph. 5: 16, i. e., study oppor- 
 tunities for ministry, monopolize occasions, "make a 
 corner " of times and providences. 
 
 All this implies not a passive, inert condition of soul, 
 but one pliant, adjustable, quick-turning like Cher- 
 ubim. 
 
 3. The Spirit, for one earnest, willing and ready to
 
 122 THE SPIRIT IN AGREEMENT WITH THE WORD. 
 
 serve, prepares for service in our ordinary work and 
 daily routine of duty. One does not need to be on the 
 rack of inquiry where and what to do. 
 
 The annals of Christian ministry abound in illustra- 
 tions of this truth. 
 
 4. The Spirit will bring to remembrance ordinary 
 and extraordinary things, if so the need be. But note, 
 it says, " Bring to remembrance" The preacher who 
 declares all that is necessary is to "open the mouth and 
 the Lord will fill it," sooner or later will learn to his 
 sorrow that the Lord fills the mouth out of the head, 
 and not out of the fist. 
 
 " Perspiration is not inspiration." " Exposition is 
 sometimes imposition." Said a theological teacher to a 
 student who talked of dropping certain studies and 
 taking a " short-cut " to the ministry, " Young man, 
 how much ignorance do you suppose it takes to make a 
 minister?" 
 
 4. Last of all, in order to be sure of the correctness 
 of convictions concerning duties and aifairs domestic or 
 public, or in regard to the assurance of answers to 
 prayer, it is not only necessary to try them by the 
 Word, by providences, by common sense, by the experi- 
 ence of other Christians, but especially is necessary an 
 equipoise of mind, a self-em ptiedness of heart an equi- 
 poise which is the result of a willingness to have the 
 will of God done either way. 
 
 The soul must settle down to a waveless calm, and so 
 clearly reflect the mind of God. Such equipoise and
 
 THE SPIRIT IN AGREEMENT WITH THE WORD. 123 
 
 mirroring of soul are certainly implied, as well as the 
 inflowing power of fruitful service, in the words, " If 
 ye abide in me and my words abide in you, ye shall ask 
 what ye will and it shall be done unto you." John 
 15: 7. 
 
 More than all, how full of comfort the Word, that 
 when we know not what we should pray for as we 
 ought, the Spirit takes up the case and makes interces- 
 sion according to the will of God. Rom. 8 : 26-28.
 
 XII. 
 THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 F. M. SIXIS, D.D. 
 
 THE fact that "the Baptism of the Holy Spirit" 
 " the promise of the Father " and " Special gift of 
 the Son " -follows the " new birth " which Jesus, in 
 his conversation with Nicodemus, explained as being 
 " born of the Spirit," and furthermore, that such 
 terms as " Baptized with the Holy Spirit," " The Holy 
 Spirit fell on them," " The Holy Spirit came," " Re- 
 ceive ye the Holy Spirit," " The power of the Holy 
 Spirit," The fellowship of the Holy Spirit, etc., are 
 only applied to believers in Christ, unite to invest 
 with more than ordinary interest the topic assigned me 
 
 "THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CHRISTIAN." 
 
 While the general statement of this topic might war- 
 rant a wide range of treatment, it will be our aim, as 
 far as possible, to confine ourselves to a strictly Scrip- 
 tural treatment of it. In this discussion we shall con- 
 fine ourselves to the New Testament ; and in our quo- 
 tations shall use the " new version " using the terms 
 " Holy Spirit " rather than the terms " Holy Ghost " 
 as we believe this better expresses the original. 
 124
 
 THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CHRISTIAN. 125 
 
 The tide of modorn thought, that has so long swept 
 about the person and work of Christ, seems, on its re- 
 turn, to be becoming more concerned with the person 
 and work of the Holy Spirit. From the Christ, 
 " the organ of external revelation," attention is being 
 turned to the Holy Spirit " the organ of internal 
 revelation." From the Advocate for us, who is with 
 the Father, Christians are earnestly asking to know 
 more of the advocate with us, who is here among us. 
 
 Whatever opinions may have place in our minds as 
 to the meaning and application of the words of the 
 Baptist : " He that cometh after me is mightier than I- 
 . . . He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and 
 with fire " we are all agreed that there is, at least, an 
 implied promise in these words of a richer blessing and 
 a far larger equipment for service than that enjoyed by 
 average Christians to-day. 
 
 If the statement of Bishop Hopkins be accepted as 
 the true interpretation of the Baptist's meaning that 
 " those who are baptized with the Holy Spirit are, as it 
 were, plunged into the heavenly flame, whose searching 
 energy devours all their dross, tin and base alloy," then 
 certainly we may conclude that too many, who have a 
 place in our Churches, like the disciples at Ephesus, 
 " have not so much as heard whether there be any 
 Holy Spirit" (Acts 19: 2). And especially are we 
 thus impressed when we call to mind our Lord's prom- 
 ise, " ye shall receive power when the Holy Spirit is 
 come upon you" (Acts 1 : 8). If an endowment of
 
 126 THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 power be inseparable from the baptism of the Holy 
 Spirit, then surely the confessed and lamentable absence 
 of such power among us ought to occasion the most 
 serious concern upon the part of all who have "named 
 the name of the Lord." 
 
 In no age, possibly, have Christian Churches been so 
 well equipped for effective service for Christ as they are 
 now. Like marvelous structures of ingenious ma- 
 chinery, our churches stand forth endowed with 
 wealth, enriched with education, culture and social in- 
 fluence possessing splendid church edifices, elab- 
 orate mugic and rituals, sound in creeds, confessions 
 and covenants. And yet, alas ! these numerous and ad- 
 mirable channels carry but driveling streams of that di- 
 vine energy that made the early churches such centres 
 of evangelizing power when they were composed of 
 disciples whose faith stood not in " the words which 
 man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Spirit teach- 
 eth." The crying need of the age is not more of such 
 churches, or more or better appliances, but a universal 
 baptism of the Holy Spirit. Were this given, the 
 church could, with her present resources, give the gos- 
 pel to the world within the next decade. 
 
 It goes without saying, therefore, that the relation of 
 the Holy Spirit to the Christian is a most vital and im- 
 portant one. For it is to such as are taught by the 
 Spirit to discern things spiritual that the Christ is re- 
 vealed, and to such only. If, e.g., it had been revealed 
 to Simeon that " he should not see death until he had
 
 THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CHRISTIAN. 127 
 
 seen the Lord's Christ " (Luke 2 : 26), it was be- 
 cause before that " the Holy Spirit was upon him." 
 
 The promise of Jesus that God would bestow the 
 gift of the Holy Spirit could not be more freely made 
 indeed, he places the Father under obligations of 
 love, greater than that of parental affection, to do so. 
 
 " If ye then, being evil, know how to give good 
 gifts to your children, how much more shall your heav- 
 enly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask 
 him" (Luke 11: 13; Jno. 7: 37-39). If, then, we 
 are without this blessed endowment, it is certainly not 
 because the Father is unwilling to grant it. It must 
 be because we do not ask for it. Or if we ask, because 
 we ask amiss. 
 
 While the gifts of the Holy Spirit may fall upon 
 the church at large, as the sunshine falls upon the plain, 
 after all these gifts emphasize the personal duty and re- 
 sponsibility of believers as that sunlight burnishes and 
 beautifies each separate object on the wide plain. 
 
 The gifts of the Holy Spirit, however, are not the 
 monopoly of ordained teachers, nor the special trust of 
 the few gifted ones, but the priceless gift of God to be- 
 lievers as such. 
 
 On the evening of the day on which our Lord rose 
 from the dead, when he had met his disciples, and had 
 shown them his hands and his side, u the disciples were 
 glad when they saw the Lord ; Jesus, therefore, said 
 unto them again, Peace be unto you ; as the Father hath 
 sent me, even so send I you, and when he had said
 
 128 THE HOLY SPIEIT AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 this, he breathed on them, and said unto them, Receive 
 ye the Holy Spirit." (Jno. 20 : 20, 23.) Thus Jesus 
 recognized, in his gift, no official claim or ecclesiastical 
 superiority. " He breathed on them " the disciples. 
 
 So also on the day of Pentecost, when " they were 
 all together in one place," the descending Spirit " sat 
 upon each of them, and they were all fitted with the 
 Holy Spirit, and began to speak with tongues as the 
 Spirit gave them utterance." (Acts 2 : 1-4.) 
 
 Nor was this fulfillment of "the promise of the 
 Father" confined to those from " the upper room " for 
 even to those who, " pricked in the heart," cried out 
 " what shall we do ? " Peter replied, " Repent ye, and 
 be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus 
 Christ, unto the remission of your sins, and ye shall re- 
 ceive the gift of the Holy Spirit." (Acts 2 : 37-38.) 
 
 And later on, when Peter and John, being dismissed 
 from the Sanhedrim, had related to " the company of 
 the disciples" what the chief priests and elders had 
 said unto them, the record is " when they had prayed 
 the place was shaken wherein they had gathered to- 
 gether, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, 
 and they spake the word of God with boldness." 
 (Acts 4: 31.) On another occasion, when before the 
 council, Peter, on behalf of the disciples, bore this testi- 
 mony " We are witnesses of these things, and so is the 
 Holy Spirit, whom God hath given to all them that obey 
 him" (Acts 5 : 32.) After this, when persecution 
 had scattered abroad the church at Jerusalem (" ex-
 
 THE HOLY SPIEIT AND THE CHRISTIAN. 129 
 
 cept the Apostles "), and the disciples went about preach- 
 ing the word, Philip went down to the City of Sa- 
 maria, and so preached Christ there that " the multi- 
 tudes gave heed to his testimony," and " the city was 
 filled with joy." The news of this wonderful work 
 soon reached the Apostles at Jerusalem, and they sent 
 Peter and John down to Samaria, "who, when they 
 were come down, prayed for them, that they might re- 
 ceive the Holy Spirit. . . . s then laid they their hands on 
 them, and they (the Samaritans) received the Holy 
 Spirit" (Acts 8: 18). 
 
 By the laying on of Ananias' hands Saul received 
 the Holy Spirit. 
 
 Peter testifies respecting Cornelius and his household, 
 " As I began to speak the Holy Spirit fell on them, even 
 as on us at the beginning" (Acts 11 : 15). This state- 
 ment he reiterates before the Apostles and brethren at 
 Jerusalem {Acts 15:8, 9). So also Paul bestowed the 
 gift of the Holy Spirit upon the "twelve brethren" 
 whom he found at Ephesus. (Acts 19: 6.) 
 
 Thus upon those who " believed the testimony of 
 God to his Son " was this gift of the Holy Spirit given 
 and that, too, not for the comfort and happiness of 
 those who thus received it, but for witness testimony 
 service. 
 
 God makes no gifts to us, much less does he give 
 
 us the Holy Spirit to be a mere selfish luxury. The 
 
 Spirit's gift is one of life and power, and these are for 
 
 use, and not for personal gratification merely. With 
 
 9
 
 130 THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 the privileges of this gift comes the most solemn and 
 responsible ordination God has ever given to man. 
 
 No qualification is so important or more practical 
 to the Christian as this gift of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 Looking forward to those coming days of trial, 
 when brother would deliver brother to death, when par- 
 ents should betray children and children would perse- 
 cute parents, Jesus said : " When they lead you to 
 judgment and deliver you jip, be not anxious before- 
 hand what ye shall speak, but whatsoever shall be given 
 you in that hour, that speak ye, for it is not ye that 
 speak, but the Holy Spirit." (Mark 12: 11; Luke 
 12: 11-12.) For the full assurance and illustration of 
 this promise of the Master we have but to turn to that 
 marvelous "gospel of the Holy Spirit," the book of 
 the "Acts of the Apostles." 
 
 These relations of the Holy Spirit to the early Chris- 
 tians are sufficient to illustrate what his relations are to 
 Christians of all ages. 
 
 In applying what has been said to the subject in hand 
 let us consider 
 
 I. What the Holy Spirit is to the Christian. 
 
 1. Without the Holy Spirit a Christian would be an 
 impossibility. 
 
 The Apostle lays down as unquestionable this state- 
 ment : " Wherefore I give you to understand that no 
 man speaking in the spirit of God saith Jesus is ana- 
 thema, and no man can say that Jesus is Lord but by 
 the Holy Spirit " (1 Cor. 12: 13).
 
 THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CHRISTIAN. 131 
 
 This test of the absolute need of the Holy Spirit, even 
 in the full confession of Jesus Christ, applied to the 
 Corinthian Christians no more fully than it does to 
 Christians now. This statement of Paul is thus reaf- 
 firmed by John : " Hereby know ye the Spirit of God ; 
 every spir.it that confesseth that Jesus Christ has come 
 in the flesh is of God ; and every spirit that confesseth 
 not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God " 
 (1 John 4 : 2). The Holy Spirit came into the world, 
 not only " to glorify Christ," but to manifest himself in 
 those who " honor the Son even as they honor the 
 Father." I need not say this question is not one of 
 physical ability, but one of honest, loving loyalty to 
 Jesus Christ as Master and Lord. It is not the creed 
 or ordinance that makes the Christian. We are Chris- 
 tians just so far as we love, serve and honor the Lord 
 Jesus Christ, and we can do this only as we are taught 
 and aided by the Holy Spirit. 
 
 " Every good gift and every perfect gift," says James, 
 " is from above." Further on he says, " Of his own will 
 begat he us by the word of truth " (2 : 18). Referring 
 to the influence of the word in regeneration, Paul says, 
 " Knowing, brethren, beloved of God, your election, how 
 that our gospel came not unto you in word only, but 
 also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in much as- 
 surance; even as ye know what manner of men we showed 
 ourselves toward you, for your sake, and ye became im- 
 itators of us and the Lord ; having received the Word 
 in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Spirit " (1 Thess.
 
 132 THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 1 : 5-6). If further proof be needed of this essential 
 relation of the Holy Spirit to the Christian, as the 
 Quickener of those " dead in trespasses and sins," and 
 hence of the fact that, apart from the Holy Spirit, the 
 Christian life would be impossible, we have it in the 
 following exhaustive summary. After showing what 
 man is as a subject of the " powers of darkness," before 
 he is made u meet to be partaker of the inheritance of 
 the saints in light," the Apostle says, " But when the 
 kindness of God our Saviour, and his love toward man 
 appeared, not by works done in righteousness, which 
 we did ourselves, but according to his mercy he saved 
 us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing 
 of the Holy Spirit, which he poured out upon us richly 
 through Jesus Christ our Saviour, that being justified 
 by his grace we might be made heirs according to the 
 hope of eternal life " (Titus 3 : 4-7). 
 
 Jesus said to Nicodemus, " Except a man be born 
 anew he cannot see the kingdom of God." This our 
 Lord explains thus: " That which is born of the flesh is 
 flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit '' 
 (John 3 : 36). The necessity of being born of the 
 Spirit to enter upon a spiritual life is as necessary as 
 natural birth is for entrance into the natural life. 
 
 2. As Christians we have our access to God by the 
 Holy Spirit. 
 
 While it is said that we who were once afar off were 
 brought nigh " in the blood of Christ," it is also said, 
 " Through him (i. e., Christ) " we have our access in 
 one Spirit unto the Father" (Eph. 2 : 18).
 
 THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CHRISTIAN. 133 
 
 The death of Christ gave to all, Jew and Gentile 
 alike, audience with a reconciled Father, through the 
 merits of Christ. Jesus Christ is the only name 
 whereby we can be saved, because no man can come 
 unto the Father except through him. To the Christ 
 who presents us to God, we must be presented by the 
 Holy Spirit. 
 
 " Through Christ we bring our message to the Father 
 by the Spirit's aid." " For the Spirit helpeth our infirm- 
 ity, for we know not how to pray as we ought, but the 
 Spirit himself maketh intercession for us with groanings 
 that cannot be uttered, and he that searcheth the hearts 
 knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he 
 maketh intercession for us according to the will of 
 God " (Rom. 8 : 26). 
 
 If the petitions we bring to the Father, through the 
 Son, are acceptable, therefore, they must voice the inter- 
 cession of the Holy Spirit. " The searcher of hearts " 
 must find in our prayers the mind of the Spirit, for he 
 only can " make intercession according to the will of 
 God." On the other hand, prayer in the Holy Spirit will 
 not be denied by the Father. Jude exhorts us, in these 
 words, " But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on 
 your most 'holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep 
 yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life " (20, 21). 
 
 We may not translate " infirmity " into such terms as 
 " indifference," " known sin," and the like, and expect 
 the " help " of the Holy Spirit in our intercession and
 
 134 THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 prayers. He dwells not where he is not wanted. If he 
 teaches us " how to pray," if he reveals unto us the 
 things of the Christ, and thus makes known to us the 
 will of God, we must not grieve him by an habitual 
 neglect of the word of God, for the Holy Spirit honors 
 the Christ by honoring his word through that divine 
 word the divine Spirit reaches the Christian. In such 
 things as hinder those who earnestly and honestly seek 
 God's will in his word, the Holy Spirit will give his 
 aid. But he nowhere promises his help to those who 
 refuse compliance with the terms on which he offers his 
 help. 
 
 3. Consider the Spirit's relation to the Christian as a 
 witness. He does not bear witness to the Christian oj 
 his conversion. The word bears that witness. But the 
 Spirit does bear witness to the believer's adoption or 
 Sonship. The gospel is not a " message of bondage to 
 fear," but a revelation of the liberty and heirship of be- 
 lievers as the sons and daughters of God. To this tes- 
 timony of the word the Holy Spirit adds his blessed 
 witness. 
 
 " For ye have received," says Paul, " the spirit of 
 adoption, whereby ye cry, Abba Father, the Spirit 
 beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children 
 of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and 
 joint heirs with Jesus Christ" (Rom. 8 : 15-17). 
 
 Again, the Holy Spirit also witnesses to the presence 
 of the Christ in the believer. " Hereby we know that 
 he abideth in us by the Spirit which he gave us"
 
 THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CHRISTIAN. 135 
 
 (1 Jno. 3: 24). And again, "Hereby know we that 
 we abide in him, and he in us, because he hath given us 
 of his Spirit" (1 Jno. 4: 13). 
 
 So fully was the Apostle Paul given up to the guid- 
 ance of the Holy Spirit that he submitted his conscience 
 to his leading. He never said that he was to be fol- 
 lowed in anything, because he was conscientious in what 
 he said or did. What does he say? listen, " I say the 
 truth in Christ ; I lie not, my conscience bearing wit- 
 ness with me in the Holy Spirit " (Rom. 9:1). Such a 
 conscience, thus enlightened and in harmony with the 
 truth in Christ, and with the witness of the Holy Spirit, 
 any Christian may follow. But before we pronounce 
 upon the accuracy of the decisions of our conscience, let 
 us be sure that our conscience is in accord with the 
 " truth in Christ," and the Holy Spirit's infallible wit- 
 ness. 
 
 Only as the Christian has the witness of the Spirit to 
 his adoption as a son of God will the kingdom of God 
 be anything more than " eating and drinking, ordinances 
 and ceremonies, rights and works," and become what it 
 really is, " Righteousness, and peace, and joy in the 
 Holy Spirit "(Rom. 14: 17). 
 
 These are the fruit of the Spirit in Christian living 
 that give forth the fragrance of grace here, and will 
 ripen eventually in the kingdom of Christ's glory. 
 
 4. Let us dwell a moment on the relation of the 
 Holy Spirit to the believer as "the Comforter," thus 
 further showing what he is to the Christian. The send-
 
 136 THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 ing of the Comforter was to be more than a compensa- 
 tion for the departure of Jesus. True, they were not to 
 be left " desolate." " If I go not away the Comforter 
 will not come unto you, but if I go away I will send 
 him unto you" (Jno. 16: 7). Christ was still to be 
 nearer them even than he could be by his personal 
 presence ; for his personal presence was limited to local- 
 ity. Whereas when the Comforter came he would not 
 be restricted by any such limitation. " Wherever two 
 or three were met in his name," there would he be " in 
 the midst of them." He was to " abide with them for- 
 ever " as " the Spirit of Truth." " Moreover," said 
 Jesus, ".the Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the 
 Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all 
 things, and bring to your remembrance all things that 
 I have said unto you" (Jno. 14 : 16-26). As the di- 
 vine presence was the glory of the Temple of old, so of 
 these regenerated disciples, who were to be the Temples 
 of the Holy Spirit, their glory would be his indwelling. 
 If the manifestation of the divine glory of the Old 
 Temple was awful and glorious in its outward revela- 
 tions, the manifestation of the divine Paraclete, in the 
 disciples of Christ, was to be much more glorious in 
 his inner teachings and blessed consolations. Hence 
 Jesus said, " It is expedient for you that I go away." 
 We therefore undervalue these words of our Lord when 
 we suppose that the time of his personal presence 
 among his disciples was the most favored period of the 
 Church's history. This was not as our Lord thought ;
 
 THE HOLY SPIEIT AND THE CHRISTIAN. 137 
 
 on the contrary, he himself taught us to look for the 
 Comforter's administration as an advance upon his min- 
 istry ; and as being a greater blessing to his people than 
 that of his personal companionship with them. "Great- 
 er things than these shall ye do because I go unto the 
 Father." The Comforter was more than an emanation 
 from the Father, or an indefinable influence; he is more 
 than a principle of spiritual life in believers ; he is a 
 living person, and hence we may not degrade him into 
 a mere abstraction or influence, even though these mis- 
 conceptions of his divine personality be dignified by 
 such terms as " the enthusiasm of humanity" He is the 
 divine Spirit of Truth leading the believer into all truth 
 the Holy Spirit producing in those whom he leads the 
 fruit of holiness :ln a word, the fruit of the Spirit which 
 " is in all goodness and righteousness and truth " (Eph. 
 5 : 9). The word never confounds " the fruit of the 
 Spirit " with " the works of the flesh ""fruit " be- 
 longs to the Spirit : "works" to the flesh. We need 
 to have a care, therefore, in our thought of the person- 
 ality of the Holy Spirit lest we lose sight of his person 
 in vague ideas of him that maintain a place in our 
 minds by means of terms the most general and indefi- 
 nite. So also we need to have definite ideas of his 
 specific work as well as of his person. It is the Holy 
 Spirit who imparts spiritual life, quickens and sustains 
 it who gives strength, implants hope, grants liberty ; 
 testifies to and glorifies the Christ ; leads, guides, 
 teaches, comforts, sanctifies, supports and sustains the
 
 138 THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 i 
 
 believer. As Christ is the foundation of faith, and the 
 
 source of all merit, so the Holy Spirit is the fountain of 
 all spiritual life. Until he imparts to the soul spiritual 
 life, we are incapable of the exercise of that faith that 
 lays hold on the person and work of Christ for justifi- 
 cation and eternal life. 
 
 After quoting Isaiah as saying, " Things which the 
 eye saw not, and ear heard not, and which entered not 
 into the heart of man, whatsoever things God prepared 
 for those who loved him," Paul adds these words, " But 
 unto us God revealed them through the Spirit ; for the 
 Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of 
 God " (1 Cor. 2 : 9, 10). This is certainly an advance 
 upon the revelation of Christ's ministry what Jesus 
 taught the Holy Spirit makes to be' understood. In- 
 deed, the advent of the Holy Spirit is the final and most 
 glorious manifestation of God that will be granted the 
 world, or the Church, until his dispensation will be 
 superseded by the Second Advent of our Lord as the 
 " King of Saints." 
 
 When the care of the Churches so weighed upon the 
 great apostle of the Gentiles as to press him to his 
 knees upon the cold stone floor of his Roman prison 
 when his heart was bleeding at the thought of the trials 
 of their faith, with hands that moved slowly because of 
 the chains that bound them, he traced in letters of cheer 
 and instruction, such words as these, punctuated by his 
 tears, " For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father 
 . . . that he would grant you, according to the riches
 
 THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CHRISTIAN. 139 
 
 of his glory, that ye may be strengthened with power 
 through his Spirit in the inward man " (Eph. 3 : 14-16). 
 Such was the help which the apostle sought from the 
 Comforter for his brethren. Such is the comfort we 
 all need, and this help the Comforter has for us also. 
 
 Thus the Christian who is chosen " according to the 
 foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of 
 the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood 
 of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 1 : 2), who enters the king- 
 dom of God by being " born of the Spirit," and who is 
 ''washed, sanctified and justified in the name of the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God " (1 
 Cor. 6: 11), must, "through the Spirit, by faith, wait 
 for the hope of the righteous " (Gal. 5 : 5). 
 
 Having considered what the Holy Spirit is to the 
 Christian, let us 
 
 II. Consider what the Holy Spirit does for the Chris- 
 tian. 
 
 Being, by the grace of God, made partakers of the 
 Holy Spirit, we become the special objects of the Holy 
 Spirit's love, care and culture. And since our love for 
 God, and God's love for us, are in a sense reciprocal 
 for " we love him because he first loved us," and because 
 " God is love," and because " he that abideth in love 
 abideth in God, and God in him" (1 Jno. 4: 16) the 
 Holy Spirit, who first awakens, also develops this love 
 for God in us ; " because," says Paul, " the love of God 
 hath been shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy 
 Spirit which was given unto us " (Rom 5 : 5). As an
 
 140 THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 illustration of this, you may remember how Epaphras 
 refreshed Paul when he declared unto him " the love in 
 the Spirit " of the brethren at Colosse. 
 
 The influence of the Holy Spirit in thus awakening in 
 us the highest possible form of love, is absolutely indis- 
 pensable. Grant that the natural affections are the soil 
 out of which this love of the Christian for God is pro- 
 duced. Yet, such a love can be grown out of such a 
 soil only as it is quickened by the warmth and showers 
 of the Spirit's influence. Natural affections may be the 
 ties that bind into a society unity, individuals, families 
 and tribes ; but the love that binds us to God and his 
 Son is the fruit of the Holy Spirit. In natures such as 
 ours the love of God is an exotic, it must not only be 
 planted in our hearts, but also sustained there by the 
 Holy Spirit's personal care. 
 
 But again, the Holy Spirit is also the dispenser of the 
 Christian's joy, peace and hope in the service of the 
 Christ. Hear the Apostle, as he prays for his brethren 
 at Rome " Now the God of hope fill you with joy and 
 peace in believing that ye may abound in hope in the 
 power of the Holy Spirit" (Rom. 15 : 13). The same 
 blessed Spirit that quickened the Ephesian believers 
 the same "Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" which made 
 the Apostle " free from the law of sin and death" this 
 same Spirit quickens, emancipates and enfranchises every 
 Christian who is made a Son of God. 
 
 The eighth of Romans is the Magna Charta of every 
 enfranchised believer who " walks not after the flesh,
 
 THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CHRISTIAN. 141 
 
 but after the Spirit." The Apostle insists that " if the 
 Spirit of God dwells in us," that such " are not in the 
 .flesh" And while he boldly affirms: " If any man 
 have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his" he 
 as boldly declares that " as many as are led by the Spir- 
 it of God, they are the Sons of God " (Rom. 8 : 14). 
 
 It is not, therefore, by one or two acts good or bad 
 that the Christian is to be judged, but by the consis- 
 tency and character of his life. " Enoch walked with 
 God " thus our walk must be the evidence to the world 
 that we are led by the Spirit. 
 
 There are acts in the lives of unregenerate men and 
 women that are worthy of all commendation. So in 
 the lives of Christians there may be, unfortunately, acts 
 as unchristian as the sin of David or the denial of 
 Peter, or, to quote old Swinnock " Sheep may fall into 
 the mire ; but swine love day and night to wallow in 
 it." Yes, a Christian may stumble and fall, but he is 
 soon up again, and following the leading of the Spirit. 
 His heart temples the Holy Spirit, his life is a redeemed 
 one, and his living will show this as true, nevertheless, 
 that he is dead to the law that he has been crucified 
 with Christ, and risen with him to that new life which 
 he lives ; and " yet no longer I," as Paul says, " but 
 Christ liveth in me, and that life which I now live in 
 the flesh I live in faith the faith which is in the Son 
 of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me " 
 (Gal. 2 : 20). 
 
 One other service of the Holy Spirit to the Christian 
 I linger a moment to simply mention
 
 142 THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 After saying that the end of the believer's faith is " the 
 praise of the glory of Christ," the Apostle adds : " In 
 whom having also believed, ye were sealed with the 
 Holy Spirit, which is the earnest of our inheritance un- 
 to the redemption of God's own possession, unto the 
 praise of his glory " (Eph. 1:13, 14). This sealing of 
 the believer, you observe, follows his acceptance of the 
 gospel of salvation. 
 
 But the seal of the Spirit is also the earnest of the 
 inheritance which the Christ, by his death, acquired for 
 the believer, or, in other words, is the divine guarantee 
 of its ultimate possession. But in the mean time, by 
 his indwelling power, the Holy Spirit renews, sanctifies, 
 leads, keeps and comforts the heir, thus preparing him 
 for that inheritance which Christ has secured to him. 
 
 " He that established! us with you in Christ," says 
 Paul, " and anointed us, is God ; who also sealed us, 
 and gave us the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts " 
 (2 Cor. 1 : 21, 22). As the preceding sealing was for se- 
 curity, so the preceding " anointing " was for service. If 
 Christians are a sealed people, they are also a devoted peo- 
 ple. As the sealing makes him safe in this inheritance, 
 so the earnest guarantees to him the ultimate realization 
 of the hope he has in Jesus Christ. " For he that hath 
 wrought us for this Very thing is God, who gave unto 
 us the earnest of the Spirit" (2 Cor. 6 : 5). 
 
 However diverse or various may be the gifts of God's 
 people, they have one common origin " the same Spir- 
 it" or, however different the manifestations of the
 
 THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CHRISTIAN. 143 
 
 Spirit may be to different persons, the end is the same : 
 "to profit withal" 
 
 Having thus indicated 1 what the Holy Spirit is to 
 the Christian, and 2 what he does for the Christian, let 
 us inquire 
 
 III. What the Christian is to the Holy Spirit. 
 
 From what has been said it is evident that redeemed 
 men and women are not their own, and furthermore, 
 that they are the special subjects of the Holy Spirit's 
 love and guidance. ' What the Apostle said of the 
 Ephesian believers is just as true of believers now: 
 "Ye are no more strangers and sojourners, but ye are 
 fellow-citizens with the saints and of the household of 
 God, being built upon the foundation of Apostles and 
 prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief corner- 
 stone, in whom each several building, fitly framed to- 
 gether, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord ; in whom 
 ye also are builded together for a habitation of God in 
 the Spirit" (Eph. 2: 19-22). As believers we are 
 each a part of the household of God, members of the 
 redeemed family; and as such the Holy Spirit evi- 
 dently regards us. But again " Know ye not that 
 your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, which is 
 in you, which you have from God ? and ye are not your 
 own, for ye were bought with a price ; glorify God, 
 therefore, in your body" (1 Cor. 6 : 19-20). 
 
 Now, in so far as the Holy Spirit appreciates the value 
 of the price paid for our redemption, may we not infer 
 that to that degree will the purchase of that infinite
 
 144 THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 price be precious in his .sight? Our acceptance of 
 Christ carries with it not only our devotion to his ser- 
 vice, but likewise our submission to the love and gui- 
 dance of the Holy Spirit. If Ananias, who kept back 
 part of the price of his land, " lied unto the Holy Spir- 
 it/' what shall be thought of the sin of him who, hav- 
 ing devoted himself and all he has to God, takes it 
 back in part or in whole, that he may, as James says, 
 "spend it in his pleasures?" Brethren, when we call 
 to mind the fact that as believers we are " the epistles of 
 Christ, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the 
 living God" (2 Cor. 3: 3), ''What manner of per- 
 sons ought we to be in all holy living and godliness ? " 
 (2 Peter 3: 11). 
 
 In closing, allow mention to be made of some lessons 
 suggested by this imperfect discussion. 
 
 1. Every visitation of the Holy Spirit and every gift 
 of his grace should be prayerfully cherished and en- 
 couraged. 
 
 " That good thing which was committed unto thec, 
 guard through the Holy Spirit which dwelleth in us " 
 (2 Tim. 1:14). " Stir up the gift of God, which is in 
 thee, by the laying on of my hands" (2 Tim. 1 : 6). If 
 such exhortations were appropriate to Timothy, surely 
 we ought to take heed to this grace which has been be- 
 stowed upon us also. And even more appropriate to 
 us, and to our times, certainly, are these words of Paul 
 to his "Son in the gospel," that breathe for his wel- 
 fare a concern so affectionate and earnest : "O Timothy,
 
 THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CHRISTIAN. 145 
 
 guard that which is committed to thee, turning away 
 from the profane babblings and oppositions of the 
 knowledge which is falsely so called ; which some pro- 
 fessing have erred concerning the faith " (1 Tim. 6 : 
 20, 21). 
 
 2. If we would be guided by the Holy Spirit, we must 
 " walk in the Spirit" and to do this we must " live in the 
 Spirit." 
 
 Such a life is inseparable from conflict : u For the 
 flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against 
 the flesh." It is impossible that it be otherwise, " for 
 these " (i.e., the flesh and the Spirit) " are contrary the 
 one to the other" (Gal. 5 : 7). We can choose which 
 of these two lives shall be ours, and we must choose 
 and we do choose we can't live both lives. Alas, that 
 so few find and so many seem not to learn that con- 
 formity to the world is rebellion against the Holy 
 Spirit ! Alas for Christianity that more Christians are 
 not transformed (or literally), transfigured by the Holy 
 Spirit's indwelling ! Say what we will, the love of the 
 world and the pride of life and the lusts of the flesh 
 will be cast out of us only as we are " filled with the 
 Spirit." 
 
 3. Let us understand our duties to the Holy Spirit 
 and faithfully perform them as in the fear of God. 
 " Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, in whom ye were 
 sealed unto the day of redemption" (Eph. 4: 30). 
 Need I say that these words of caution and command 
 demand our most prayerful and constant attention ? 
 
 10
 
 146 THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 "We need the use of no pessimistic spectacles to see in 
 our own lives, and in the lives of many Christians about 
 us, too much that must and does grieve the Holy Spirit of 
 God. Nor would I be overstating a truth which, 
 doubtless, they feel most deeply who live most closely 
 to God, were I to add, that until the living of Chris- 
 tians is more fully submitted to the leading of the Holy 
 Spirit we shall look and labor in vain for such a revi- 
 val in the churches as our needs demand. Let us re- 
 member these words, " God hath called us not for un- 
 cleanness, but in sanctification ; therefore, he that 
 rejecteth, rejecteth not man, but God " (1 Thess. 4 : 7, 
 8). Sins, even in Christians, may change their dress 
 and their names, and yet be just as hateful to God. 
 Under the deception of " prudent economy " we may 
 disguise a covetousness as odious in God's sight as the 
 grossest idolatry. Under the masks of business, or 
 social duties, we may hide a worldliness as despicable 
 as paganism. And under the pretence of church benev- 
 olence we may bring into the church of God entertain- 
 ments that wound our Lord in the house of his friends. 
 Before the Holy Spirit can fill us, or our churches, 
 much must be scourged from the temples of our hearts 
 and sanctuaries. It is not the kind of sin that grieves 
 the Holy Spirit ; sin of any kind must grieve him who 
 is himself the essence of holiness. 
 
 Again, we are warned : "Quench not the Spirit" (1 
 Thess. 5:19). As the fire on the altar may be so 
 neglected and covered up as to be left to smoulder amid
 
 THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CHRISTIAN. 147 
 
 ashes that hide its heat and light, so may we quench 
 the Holy Spirit in our hearts. " Whatever/' said Dr. 
 C. S. Robinson, " the Holy Spirit prompts a true Chris- 
 tian to do for the glory of God, he allures him to do in 
 a modest way, and with a disposition of indescribable 
 tenderness." Mackay makes this distinction, "Resist " 
 is the word applied to the unconverted ; " Grieve " is 
 that applied to the individual Christian; "Quench" is 
 that which has reference to the saints when gathered 
 together waiting on the Spirit. This may be correct ; 
 and yet the individual may quench the presence of the 
 Holy Spirit in his soul by his neglect and sins, as well 
 as grieve him by such things. 
 
 The warning of the Apostolic Seer has long since 
 become history. Looking back from these " latter 
 days," we painfully realize the truth of what he said to 
 Timothy : " The Spirit saith expressly that in the latter 
 times some shall fall away from the faith, giving heed 
 to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons, through the 
 hypocrisy of men that speak lies ; branded in their own 
 consciences as with a hot iron ; forbidding to marry, 
 and commanding to abstain from meats which God 
 created to be received with thanksgiving by them that 
 believe and know the truth " (1 Tim. 4 : 1-3.) The 
 word of God not only thus smites the pretensions of 
 spiritualism and the presumptions of Romanism, but, 
 at the same time, exposes the open and disguised de- 
 signs of many another tendency of our times to oppose 
 or corrupt " the faith " which was " once for all deliv-
 
 148 THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CHRISTIAN. 
 
 ered unto the saints." Let us not forget that we are to 
 contend for and defend "the faith of Jesus," but in 
 doing so let us also remember that, after all, the best 
 possible defence that can be made is being made by 
 those whose lives most closely imitate the life of Jesus 
 Christ our Lord. The tongue of the Christian and of 
 the Church is still the old and unanswerable " tongue 
 of flame " 
 
 " If ye then were raised together with Christ, seek 
 the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the 
 right hand of God : set your affections on things that 
 are above ; not on the things that are upon the earth. 
 For ye died and your life is hid with Christ in God " 
 (Col. 3 : 1-3). And " insomuch as you are partakers 
 of Christ's sufferings, rejoice ; that at the revelation of 
 his glory, also, ye may rejoice with exceeding joy. If 
 ye are reproached for the name of Christ blessed are ye ; 
 because the Spirit of glory and the Spirit of God resteth 
 upon you" (1 Pet. 4: 13, 14). 
 
 On the day of Pentecost, said William Arthur : 
 " Christianity faced the world a new religion, without 
 a history, without a priesthood, a college, without a 
 people without a portion ; . . . her tongue of fire was 
 her sole instrument of aggression." But, my brethren, 
 how is it now? Now, besides having the complete 
 canon of God's inspired word, we have almost every- 
 thing else except " the tongue of fire." This inspired 
 word needs inspired men to preach it. The churches 
 need the old pentecostal power for worship and witness,
 
 THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE CHRISTIAN. 149 
 
 and the energy of the Holy Spirit to make her methods 
 of work effective. Believers need the Holy Spirit, en- 
 shrined in the indwelling word, abiding in them, that 
 the divine word, aflame with the light and life of the 
 Holy Spirit, may transfigure them, and, through them, 
 quicken from the death of sin to eternal life them that 
 are lost. 
 
 Finally, brethren : " The grace of our Lord Jesus 
 Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion 
 of the Holy Spirit be with you all." Amen.
 
 XIII. 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY. 
 
 BY BISHOP W. R. NICHOI^ON, D.D. 
 
 THE subject assigned me is The Spirit of Prophecy. 
 Shall we take this to mean the characteristic 
 qualities of prophecy, as when we speak of the spirit of 
 a book ? Or shall we understand that the Holy Spirit 
 is meant? Practically what is the difference? If we 
 investigate the characteristics of prophecy, it is no other 
 than the work of the Holy Spirit we shall be consider- 
 ing, since he, the author of prophecy, has made it just 
 what it is. On the other hand, if we fix attention di- 
 rectly on the Holy Spirit as self-revealed in prophecy, 
 the qualities of his work therein are what must be ex- 
 amined. The difference is not material. Forasmuch, 
 however, as the object in view of this conference is to 
 identify, venerate and glorify the Holy Spirit, I shall 
 interpret our subject as if it read, The Holy Spirit as 
 he is in Prophecy. 
 
 Prophecy, as here used, must have the meaning it 
 bears in common parlance predictive prophecy. Since, 
 if not thus restricted, it includes every subject in the 
 Bible ; the prophets having been teachers of the whole 
 revealed will of God. With closer accuracy, then, we 
 150
 
 THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY. 151 
 
 read our subject thus, The Holy Spirit as he is in Pre- 
 dictive Prophecy. 
 
 I shall not stop to prove that the predictions of the 
 Bible are genuine miraculous previsions of the future. 
 The wealth of proof on that point no drafts of infidelity 
 can diminish. That truth I assume and lay down as a 
 postulate. Neither shall I waste our time in adducing 
 proof of the Holy Spirit being the author of those pre- 
 dictions. The Bible, with authority, ascribes them to 
 him, and common sense decides that no human sagacity 
 could so have foreseen the future. This also we start 
 from as a postulate. 
 
 And now with the miraculous predictions of the 
 Spirit before us, our concern is reverently to study him 
 therein ; learning something of his prophetic revelations 
 and of our consequent obligations, and how we may be- 
 come yet more enriched in Christian experience. 
 
 In the first place, the Holy Spirit in prophecy means 
 that we shall understand him. 
 
 This remark has much the look of a truism ; for 
 why, otherwise, should he speak to us at all ? But it 
 has been called in question. It is the key to our sub- 
 ject; and certainly, for the honor of the Holy Spirit, 
 we are in duty bound to settle this question one way or 
 the other. 
 
 The Spirit in prophecy means to be understood. 
 Some difficulties there are, of course, in the interpreting 
 of prophecy. We cannot always make sure of a par- 
 ticular application, nor of a particular chronological
 
 152 THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY. 
 
 relation. But we can make sure, almost without excep- 
 tion, of the main fact predicted. And is it not just the 
 same as regards the Gospel itself? That " by one man 
 sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so 
 death passed upon all men, for that all sinned," is a 
 plain statement of fact, and we receive it ; but is there 
 nothing in it that is not understood ? Who can thor- 
 oughly explain the Federal Headship of Adam ? That 
 Jesus Christ " bore our sins in his own body," and 
 made expiation of sin, is a declaration clear as light, 
 and we receive it ; but is there nothing in it that is not 
 understood ? Who can convert into a sunbeam the in- 
 scrutable philosophy of the Federal Headship of the 
 Second Adam ? And also here and there in non-pro- 
 phetic Scripture are there not even statements that are 
 confessedly obscure? But who is so presumptuous as 
 to turn rare difficulties into universal objections, and 
 thence to infer that all Scripture is not understandable? 
 Let prophecy be fairly dealt with. If there be the de- 
 voutly desirous mind, if pains be taken to ascertain the 
 grammatical common sense of words and sentences, and 
 to compare Scripture with Scripture, if there be pa- 
 tience, and perseverance, and the prostration of the will 
 at the feet of God's will,' ( then one shall as surely know, 
 in the main, the prophetic mind of the Spirit, as that 
 the Spirit has so expressed his mind at all. All this, 
 however, is no more than the Gospel itself requires in 
 order to its being understood. 
 
 As in the Gospel, so in prophecy, the Spirit speaks
 
 THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY. 153, 
 
 on purpose to be understood. He himself describes it 
 as "a lamp shining in a dark place;" but what sort of 
 a light is that by which we cannot see ? He calls it 
 " a sure word of prophecy : " but how do words assure 
 us if they give us not their meaning ? " Ye do well/' 
 he says, " that ye take heed to it : " but how can we 
 heed what we cannot think of? The Holy Spirit even 
 shows us that his own honor is involved in our being 
 able to understand his predictions : no prophecy, says 
 he, ever came by the will of man, but men spake from 
 God, being moved by the Holy Ghost, and therefore it 
 is that prophecy is as a light in a dark place that is, is 
 not a darkening of counsel by words without knowledge 
 (2 Pet. 1 : 19-21). He expressly tells us the purpose 
 6f predictive prophecy: "to show to his servants the 
 things which must come to pass" (Rev. 1:1); but 
 what kind of a showing is that which does not show at 
 all? He pronounces a special blessing upon those 
 " who read and hear the words of the prophecy, and 
 keep the things which are written therein " (Rev. 1 : 
 3) ; but how can he bless our reading and hearing what 
 we cannot know, and how^ shall we keep what we have 
 not got ? So obvious is it that the Spirit's predictions 
 are a reflection of his own mind to our minds, and that 
 his use of prophetic language is fraught with a Divine 
 frankness and perspicuity. 
 
 Moreover, his providence in the past is a historic 
 demonstration. Refer to any prophecy fulfilled. Lay 
 alongside the 28th chapter of Deuteronomy the history
 
 154 THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY. 
 
 of the Jews 1500 years afterwards, more than 3000 
 years afterwards, and did ever mirror give back more 
 accurately the face of the beholder, than the actual suf- 
 ferings of that people the very words of the Spirit in 
 their plain grammatical sense? He called Cyrus by 
 name more than 150 years before his birth, and said 
 that he would open before him the gates of brass, and 
 cut in sunder the bars of iron, that he might deliver the 
 elect people from Babylon, and say to Jerusalem, Thou 
 shalt be built, and to the temple, Thy foundation shall 
 be laid ; and did not the identical Cyrus appear on the 
 stage of action at the proper time, and were not the 
 things foretold done to the very letter? When, in 
 words so many, in oracles so lofty, all along the ages so 
 vast, the Spirit had pre-written the life and doings of 
 Messiah, did ever pen of history record more exactly 
 events of the past than pen of prediction events of the 
 future? Even the least events were minutely measured 
 by the words of prediction, and were such an answer to 
 the words as is a river to each little crook in the chan- 
 nel ; the thirty pieces of silver, the spitting, the scourg- 
 ing, the thirst, the vinegar, and all the rest, being as 
 strictly in occurrence as they had been in prediction. 
 Statements, too, that might well have seemed inadvert- 
 ences in the use of words as that Messiah should die 
 as a malefactor and a slave, an object of hatred, a butt 
 of ridicule, and yet that he should have honorable burial 
 were accomplished in every word. And, O wonder- 
 ful ! the Virgin Motherhood did that prediction mean
 
 THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY. 155 
 
 just what it expressed? A virgin mother! Impossi- 
 ble. Against all experience, against creation's laws. 
 And learned conceit wags its head, mouthing the criti- 
 cism, Figurative, Mystical. Ah, but the Holy Spirit 
 had said it, and in the simplest, frankest way possible; 
 and when, 700 years afterwards, the time had come, a 
 virgin mother Mary WAS. Can demonstration go fur- 
 ther, that the Spirit means us to interpret his predic- 
 tions according to the established usage of language? 
 
 But you say, There are figures of speech in prophecy. 
 Yes, and do not yourselves abound in the use of figures ? 
 Are they not the current speech of daily life ? When 
 the Holy Spirit predicted that the future Messiah would 
 say, " Many bulls have compassed Me," " Dogs have 
 compassed Me," are not the figures instantly detected 
 and clearly interpreted? When Cyrus is represented 
 as addressing Jerusalem and the temple, is not the 
 meaning self-evident? And if, in any instance, it be 
 doubtful whether there be a figure, a patient examina- 
 tion of the connection will generally be satisfactory. 
 
 But you say, the symbols of prophecy they at least 
 are riddles insolvable. Well, look at the Colossus of 
 Daniel the metallic image. The prophecy itself in- 
 terprets it. And so it is with many symbols. When, 
 however, symbols are left unexplained, not seldom a 
 comparison of Scripture with Scripture will make them 
 plain ; the symbolic interpretations given, so many and 
 various, being examples of interpretation, and, besides, 
 what is foreshown in symbol being foretold in other
 
 156 THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY. 
 
 forms elsewhere. Patience, perseverance and humility 
 will rarely fail to bring you in contact with the essen-i 
 tial fact in the symbol, and advance your instruction in 
 righteousness. 
 
 And now shall we embrace that obnoxious dictum, 
 that unfulfilled prophecy can be understood, even in the 
 main, only after the fulfillment? Does the Holy 
 Spirit say so ? Where ? Just the contrary, as we have 
 seen. It is expressly unfulfilled prophecy that he char- 
 acterizes as a lamp shining in a dark place ; that he de- 
 clares to be for the purpose of showing his servants 
 things to come. Nor is there a single accomplished pre- 
 diction whose words have not been grammatically real- 
 ized. Only take the terms of prophecy in their obvi- 
 ous sense, and you cannot but rightly anticipate the 
 events, although the fulfillment is ahead of you. 
 
 When we read, Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I 
 will put the tribes of Ephraim with Judah, and will 
 gather the children of Israel from among the nations 
 whither they have gone, and will bring them into their 
 own land, and make them one nation in the land, and 
 they shall walk in My judgments, and shall dwell in 
 the land that I gave to Jacob, wherein their fathers 
 dwelt, they and their children and their children's chil- 
 dren forever, yea, I will be their God and they shall be 
 My people, and My sanctuary shall be in the midst of 
 them forevermore (Ezek. 37) ; do not the words abso- 
 lutely shut off all interpretations save one? When 
 God said to David, I will make thee a house, and thine
 
 THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY. . 157 
 
 house and thy kingdom shall be established forever (2 
 Sam. 7), I will not lie to David (Ps. 89), I will set up 
 thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy 
 bowels, and I will establish his kingdom and the throne 
 of his kingdom forever (2 Sam. 7), of the increase of his 
 government and peace no end upon the throne of David 
 and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it 
 with judgment and justice even forever (Isa. 9) ; are not 
 the words a very sunshine in their clearness? And 
 when the Spirit lets us hear the angel Gabriel assuring 
 Mary that her virgin-born should have the throne of 
 his father David (Luke 1), and writes for us two gene-, 
 alogies of Jesus, whose united testimony is a redun- 
 dancy of proof that he is that offspring of David to 
 whom was bequeathed David's kingdom, and when the 
 Spirit adds that Jesus is as a nobleman gone into a far 
 country to receive for himself a kingdom and to return, 
 and that upon his return he will build again the taber- 
 nacle of David, which is fallen down, and that the Son 
 of man, having come in his glory, shall then sit upon 
 the throne of his glory (Luke 19) ; Matt. 25 ; Acts 15 ; 
 is there a human intelligence that does not instantly see 
 what these communications naturally and irrepressibly 
 mean ? And by the fact of the literal fulfillment of 
 every predicted circumstance of Messiah's first coming, 
 does not the Holy Spirit protest against the taking in a 
 non-natural sense what he says of the kingdom to be 
 set up at Messiah's second coming? It is David's 
 throne, David's kingdom, the Christ is to occupy. This
 
 158 THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY. 
 
 does not refer to Christ's blessed reign in our hearts, for 
 never did David so reign ; nor to the Son of God's 
 reign in the third heaven, for never did David so 
 reign. The language of the prediction demands that 
 he, the virgin-born, whose name is The Mighty God, 
 shall visibly reign on the earth as David's lineal successor, 
 only incomparably more gloriously ; that he shall reign 
 as a man, yet in his majesty as God, with judgment and 
 justice, in purity and holiness, in love and blessedness. 
 
 When we read that there shall be a new earth and a 
 new atmosphere (2 Pet. 3),. so glorious that the former, 
 the present visible creation, shall not be remembered 
 nor come into mind (Isa. 65: 17); that there shall 
 still be nations dwelling- on the earth after the stupen- 
 dous conflagration foretold by Isaiah and Peter ; that 
 the fire shall be for perdition of ungodly men, which 
 perdition shall be inflicted upon certain multitudes, 
 while yet there shall be those that escape (Isa. 66 : 19) ; 
 that the risen saints, having returned with their Lord, 
 shall be associated with him as kings and priests for the 
 benefit of the nations, and with him shall rule the na- 
 tions (Rev. 1:6; 2 : 26 ; 3 : 21) ; that the animal 
 creation shall be so adapted to the new earth, wherein 
 dwelleth righteousness, the wolf shall dwell with the 
 lamb, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox (Isa. 11) 
 can you imagine a greater explicitness of statement? 
 Does the Spirit not speak as meaning to be understood? 
 
 But you say. I have always thought of that tremen- 
 dous conflagration as sweeping away from the earth all
 
 THE SPIRIT OF PKOPHECY. 159 
 
 the inhabitants. Whence, then, did you get the thought ? 
 Not from what the Spirit tells you ; for he declares the 
 very opposite. 
 
 But you continue, It is absurd to construe literally 
 the statement that the lion shall eat straw like the ox ; 
 it is contradictory of the lion's nature. Well, if it is 
 figurative, what does the figure signify ? To find out 
 this were like hunting for the lost pleiad, and would 
 require the telescopic vision of a superhuman mind. 
 Against the lion's nature ? Yes, and it is against the 
 nature of a virgin to bear a son ; but the Holy Spirit 
 once said that so it should be, and so it was. 
 
 But you say again, What mistakes students of 
 prophecy are constantly making with regard to the date 
 of the Lord's coming. Have their mistakes come, then, 
 from simply being guided by the words of the Spirit? 
 On the contrary, his express words are, " It is not for 
 you to know the times and the seasons, which the 
 Father hath put in his own power." Signs of the com- 
 ing are given us, but the date is hidden. Compara- 
 tively few, however, are the students of prophecy who 
 are so unwarrantably betrayed into such mistakes. 
 
 In fine, the Spirit's expressed purpose is to show us 
 things to come. His predictions are obvious ideas, for 
 he bids us give heed to them. His predictions are 
 light, for so he names them. His predictions are 
 grammatically simple and clear, for so his providence 
 has demonstrated them. If, then, we have no interest 
 in prophecy, we dishonor the Holy Spirit. If we take
 
 160 THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY. 
 
 no pains to understand what he has been at so much 
 pains to cause us to understand, we fail so far forth to 
 put ourselves in communication with him. And, saith 
 the Lord, " Them that honor Me I will honor." 
 
 The intelligible mind of the Spirit is the spirit of 
 prophecy. 
 
 In the second place, the Holy Spirit in prophecy 
 gives us a great deal to understand. 
 
 In fact he crowds the Bible with his prophetic com- 
 munications. And, by the way, the abundauce of them 
 is further confirmation of their explicitness ; for why 
 should they be so immensely many, if, for the most 
 part, we cannot understand them? Does the Spirit 
 pleasure himself at puzzling us with enigmas? a cynical 
 pleasure long drawn out. But to the point before us. 
 
 Certainly he is graciously revealed in his other teach- 
 ings. His adorable relations in the Godhead his office 
 as the Comforter 'his ministration of salvation to indi- 
 vidual souls, in all this he is the very and wonderful 
 love of God. And yet to himself all this has not seemed 
 to be enough. He would instruct us as to the future," 
 and more and more enrich us with his own thoughts and 
 purposes. And that his prophecies are so very many, 
 illustrates how important to us he regards them as being. 
 
 The proportion of prophecy in the Bible is enormous. 
 Excluding the merely historical parts, the predictions 
 occupy perhaps two-thirds of Scripture ; and if also we 
 exclude the predictions that have been fulfilled, those
 
 THE SPIRIT OP PROPHECY. 161 
 
 yet to be fulfilled are, as to the remainder of Scripture 
 iii preponderating proportion. Now this is a remark- 
 able status of the. Word of God. We might have 
 argued that the truths of personal salvation must have 
 the precedence in amount of space. On the contrary, 
 the Holy Spirit has argued that saving truth is as the 
 foundation, prophetic truth as the superstructure ; that 
 the constituent parts of a superstructure, like the bricks 
 in a building, are to the stones of the foundation as 
 many to one ; and that just as a foundation without its 
 superstructure serves not its purpose, so saving truth 
 without the prophetic truth is in an imperfect condition, 
 being detached from its proper development. The ex- 
 ceeding proportion of prophecy in Scripture, then, is a 
 most instructive fact. What stores of sacred learning 
 the Spirit has thus been treasuring up for us ! So that 
 if it seem not to us that, for our highest Christian well- 
 being, we are dependent, in no small degree, on so large 
 an array of Scripture, we are no less than at war with 
 the mind of the Spirit. 
 
 What variety of subjects, too, within this wide range 
 of unfulfilled prophecy ! Nations, empires, individuals; 
 judgments, blessings, glory; doctrines, experiences; the 
 dappled history of the Church along this dispensation ; 
 the restoration of Israel ; the great apostasy with its 
 truculent aspect ; the rise, character, development, and 
 overthrow of the imperial Antichrist; the Christ as 
 coming again, his Epiphany and Parousia ; the judg- 
 ment of the nations, the judgment of Christendom ; the 
 11
 
 162 THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY. 
 
 First Resurrection ; the risen saints joint kings and 
 priests with their Lord ; the kingdom established, the 
 throne of the great King earth's central splendor ; the 
 supreme effusion of the Holy Spirit ; earth's renewal, 
 the world's millennial blessedness ; the final outbreak 
 of rebellion, the final subjugation, the sudden, complete, 
 everlasting eradication of evil ; the kingdom of the 
 Christ, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, 
 one kingdom, in unquestioned sovereignty ; the taber- 
 nacle of God on earth, God dwelling with men, no more 
 death, neither sorrow, nor any more pain. An im- 
 mensity of interests. Momentous subjects all. Verily 
 a vast deal concerning the future the Spirit has given us 
 to understand. 
 
 Now wherefore ? Because in this fore-written his- 
 tory of the times to come, our own personal interests, as 
 Christians, are illustrated and enforced. Our souls are 
 touched on every side. 
 
 Our knowledge is increased ; not a vague generality 
 of knowledge, like as that we shall be happy hereafter, 
 but. knowledge made up of many facts, bristling all over 
 with salient points ; and knowledge is power. 
 
 Our historic instinct is gratified ; for as in the history 
 of the past we have an intellectual pleasure in noticing 
 how the principles of human action, as exemplified in 
 events, have been characterized as good or bad, so in 
 this predictive history of the future, what high mental 
 satisfaction in observing the consummate results of the 
 very principles now at work and influencing mankind.
 
 THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY. 163 
 
 We see that ultimate is the consecutiveuess of sin and 
 perdition, of godliness and glory ; and we expand into 
 the sublime thought, that God's universe is one organic 
 whole in the interest of truth, and law, and justice, and 
 righteousness, and love. 
 
 Our feelings with regard to the great hereafter are 
 illumined, stimulated, intensified ; for as, like a pano- 
 rama, these tremendous events are acting before us in 
 prophetic vision, the greatness of the scenes is thrown 
 back upon ourselves, for we shall be there, and we are 
 lifted into the majesty of conviction, and the glow of 
 self-respect. Meanwhile all present things take on a 
 subdued look, the world's businesses, excitements, and 
 friendships lie low, comparatively, in our estimation. 
 We are breathing a purer air. 
 
 Our trust in God's providence is quickened and en- 
 larged ; for in these ultimate events, as being the har- 
 vest of the ages, we see how minute must be now his 
 observation of men, and yet how all-comprehending the 
 sweep of his plan, and we warm into acquiescence in the 
 present sovereign control of affairs. 
 
 Our appreciation of the whole Bible is promoted ; for 
 even its non-prophetic revelations, in the light of this 
 predicted future, shoot forth into charming display. 
 This effect was produced by certain predictions already 
 accomplished : there, for instance, was God's revelation 
 of the Levitical Ritual ; it was prediction that vindi- 
 cated the Divine wisdom therein, and made consummate 
 both priest and victim in him who should be wounded
 
 164 THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY. 
 
 for our transgressions. And so as to predictions yet to 
 be accomplished. How poor were the significance of 
 Israel's calling as a peculiar people, except for predic- 
 tion exalting them into the children of the Better Cove- 
 nant, into the radiating centre of the world's salvation, 
 into a predominant position among the peoples of the 
 ages to come ! What, to us, were the value of God's 
 revelation, that David should be king, did not predic- 
 tion reveal his appointment therein to be type and earn- 
 est of the Messianic King ? That the blood of Jesus 
 Christ cleauseth from all sin is a most gracious revela- 
 tion ; but it is prediction that designates the far-reach- 
 ing magnificent consequences of that cleansing, making 
 the grandeur of result answer back to the grandeur of 
 cause (the atonement), and lighting up the truth with a 
 noontide of splendor. That the believer is one with 
 Christ, as the branch with the vine, is a Divine assur- 
 ance most grateful ; but prediction is the arithmetic of 
 its preciousness, and sums it up in a far more exceeding 
 and eternal wealth of glory 
 
 Yes, the Blessed Holy Spirit has good reasons for the 
 abundance of his predictions. He knows our needs, 
 and his benevolent mind sympathizes with us. No 
 wonder that his prophecies loom within the Bible hori- 
 zon in Alpine proportions. No wonder that from Gen- 
 esis to Apocalypse they stud the expanse of revelation 
 like stars in the sky, and make of the Bible a luminous 
 whole. No wonder that here and there, again and 
 again, they shine like the sun in the heavens, turning
 
 THE SPIEIT OF PROPHECY. 165 
 
 night into day, melting winter into summer, vivifying 
 truth with foliage and color and fruit. No wonder that 
 out of the bubbling spring of the Protevangelium the 
 woman's promised seed on and on, all the way to the 
 gorgeous vision of the New Jerusalem, they have flowed 
 like a fertilizing Nile, meeting indeed in their course 
 with many a cataract of calamity foretold, but watering 
 the deserts of human thought, and causing sorrowing 
 souls to blossom like the rose. 
 
 If, then, we turn away from earnest, humble, patient, 
 devout study of prophecy, slighting the wonderful 
 things which the Spirit has given us to understand, 
 substituting therefor our own guesses and worldly pre- 
 judices, are we not contemning his wisdom, are we not 
 grieving his love? And if we find ourselves bemoan- 
 ing a lack of spiritual power, and that our churches, 
 like the fig tree in Gospel story, while putting forth 
 leaves of outward prosperity, are yet without fruit, 
 would the cause be far to seek ? For if the Bible of the 
 Spirit is a lamp to our feet, the prophecies of the Spirit 
 are the brightness of its flame ; if the Bible of the Spirit 
 is a tower into which the righteous runneth and is safe, 
 the prophecies of the Spirit are at once the massiveness 
 and the loftiness of the tower. 
 
 The instructive mind of the Spirit is the spirit of 
 prophecy. 
 
 Thirdly, the Holy Spirit in prophecy is pre-emi- 
 nently a witness for Christ.
 
 1G6 THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY. 
 
 It is his own declaration that " the testimony of Jesus 
 is the spirit of prophecy." He does indeed bear witness 
 to Christ in the non-prophetic Scriptures ; as in the law 
 of God, in the truth of the Atonement, in justification 
 by faith, and otherwise. 
 
 In the prophetic Scriptures, however, not only is all 
 this essentially included, but the Christly testimony is 
 more ; more in bulk, since the predictions are so num- 
 erous, more in completeness, since the predictions are 
 the unfolding of the final issue. For what were salva- 
 tion without its consummation ? Somewhat of a torso 
 a decapitated blessing ; a present good, yet partial, 
 because without a delineated future. The Christ is but 
 defectively revealed, except he is seen in the advancing 
 final results of his work. 
 
 A prophetic witness to Christ the Holy Spirit has 
 been from the beginning. Doubly so in the Old Testa- 
 ment, wherein his predictions embraced both comings of 
 Christ ; singly so in the New Testament, wherein his 
 predictions are limited to the returning Christ; but 
 wherein, in attitude intent, and with index finger, he is 
 evermore pointing us onward to the Christly glories, 
 and with voice urging us to utmost devotion in hasten- 
 ing the day of God. His predictive testimony to Jesus 
 is what the Spirit loves to maintain. 
 
 The Gospel of Jesus is the Gospel of "the Spirit. 
 But the Gospel of Jesus is the Gospel of the kingdom ; 
 for he told his disciples that to preach the kingdom of 
 God was that for which he was sent (Luke 4 : 43), and
 
 THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY. 167 
 
 accordingly, as it is said, he did go everywhere preaching 
 the Gospel of the kingdom (Matthew 4 : 23). Now 
 what Jesus preached the Spirit preaches, for he had the 
 Spirit without ^measure. The Gospel of the Spirit is 
 the Gospel of the kingdom. It was the delight of 
 Jesus' heart, it is the delight of the Spirit's heart. 
 
 What, then, is the Gospel of the kingdom? The 
 Gospel of repentance, faith, forgiveness, acceptance, 
 eternal life, is not that it? Yes, but also it is more. 
 Personal salvation from sin, reconciliation with God, is 
 indeed essential to one's entrance into the kingdom ; for 
 the kingdom, in the person of the great King, is 
 grounded on his redemptive sufferings and priestly 
 functions. But just as the Saviour's expiation of sin is 
 itself not the kingdom, so the believer's personal salva- 
 tion is itself not the same as his investiture with the 
 kingdom. Every saved man is sure of the kingdom ; 
 but his being saved and his having the kingdom, while 
 linked together as cause and effect, are two distinct 
 things. The Gospel of the kingdom is the good tid- 
 ings of the kingdom ; and while in those good tidings 
 is included the Gospel of salvation by faith in the aton- 
 ing Saviour, they are also our assurance of the perfec- 
 tion of that Gospel ; they are the ultimate expression of 
 the efficacy of redemption, the fulness of the Spirit's 
 statement of salvation, the glory of the Saviour at the 
 highest point of conception. 
 
 This is what the Spirit in prophecy is so actively en- 
 gaged in testifying of Christ. He works to lift our
 
 168 THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY. 
 
 eyes up and away from that inadequate view of the 
 Saviour, that the church is his kingdom. Instead, he 
 fastens attention to the nobleman's return from the far 
 country, bringing his kingdom with him, as the tran- 
 scendent expression of Christ. He commemorates to 
 us the Thessalonian believers, who, having " turned to 
 God from idols to serve the living and true God," did 
 then complete their Christian position by taking the at- 
 titude of " waiting for his Son from heaven." Thus 
 two-fold is the purpose of his predictive testimony to 
 Christ: first, to teach us, and prompt us to, a yet 
 greater and worthier honoring of the Saviour, both as 
 to the efficacy of his saving work and as to the final 
 consummation of his triumph as Saviour ; and secondly, 
 thereby to bring us into a more complete expression of 
 experience and character. Hence the pains the Spirit 
 is at to make the Gospel of the kingdom attractive ; 
 sketching that scene of royalty in such colors as to the 
 appreciative eye are vivid realizations ; representing the 
 King in his beauty, around him the risen saints crowned 
 and enthroned, earth at her jubilee, holiness ruling the 
 world, and Jesus, the Lamb of God, the glory of it all. 
 Not to study the Spirit in prophecy, therefore, is so 
 far forth not to study Christ. Nor are we fully in 
 communion with the Spirit, if, in defiance of his teach- 
 ings, we are yielding to that worldly notion, so preva- 
 lent in the church, of social progress gradually dissolv- 
 ing in universal blessedness, and so we are not yearning 
 for and expecting that Epiphany from heaven, the mir-
 
 THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY. 169 
 
 aculous introduction into the earth of the kingdom of 
 God. Oh, there is a thrilling sense of redemption in 
 the prophecies. When Jesus, in the way to Emmaus, 
 expounded the predictions concerning himself, the 
 hearts of the disciples burned within them ; and when 
 the Holy Spirit, whose own was the burning power of 
 those words of Jesus, speaks to us of that same Jesus 
 in the sublime oracles of the future, what a blaze of 
 power should be in our hearts ! 
 
 The Christly mind of the Spirit is the spirit of 
 prophecy. 
 
 Fourthly, the Holy Spirit in prophecy glorifies him- 
 self. 
 
 It is the prerogative of Deity to make a display of 
 the Divine glory. As the Father asserts his Eternal 
 Majesty, and the Son, while yet in submission to his 
 Filial relation, asserts his equality with the Father, so 
 the Third Person of the adorable Trinity, while yet in 
 submission to his Processional relation, asserts his 
 equality with both the Father and the Son. Not other- 
 wise could the Eternal Three in One enter into commu- 
 nication with men ; and it were a forfeiture of the Di- 
 vine character of the Spirit's revelations, if he himself 
 were hidden in them out of sight. It is what we should 
 have anticipated, then, that his sublime oracles of the 
 future would have upon them the impress of his own 
 Personal glory. 
 
 We find, accordingly, that he does assert himself in 
 prophecy with a surpassing solemnity. " The bias-
 
 170 THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY. 
 
 phemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. Who- 
 soever shall speak against the Holy Spirit shall not be 
 forgiven, neither in this age, nor in that which is to 
 come." This warning was spoken by the Lord Jesus 
 in honor of the Holy Spirit, but the Spirit himself in- 
 spired the evangelist to write it. Now there is a pre- 
 diction in it ; for in addition to its being said, that the 
 man committing that sin shall never be forgiven, either 
 in this age or in the age to come, it is of course implied 
 that if there shall be one committing that sin in the age 
 to come (and the Scripture is express that there will be 
 more or less of sin in the millennial age), he shall not 
 be forgiven. So much of a prophetic word is in it, 
 and it is the Spirit's solemn assertion, in connection 
 with the age to come, of his own Eternal Majesty, his 
 adorable sacredness, and of how indispensable, in the 
 salvation of men, his power shall continue to be. 
 
 But he further asserts it with a surpassing sublimity. 
 What wonderful works of grace he prophetically as- 
 cribes to himself. True, every word -of the present 
 salvation is the Spirit's self-assertion of his glory ; but 
 nowhere else, as in the Gospel of the kingdom, is his 
 self-assertion so glorious. What a wonder it were, if a 
 whole nation, without the exception of a single indi- 
 vidual, were converted to God. But that very marvel 
 of Almighty power and grace is no dream. His own 
 predictions claim that he will pour upon the seed of 
 Israel the spirit of grace and supplication, and they 
 shall look on him whom they pierced, and shall mourn
 
 THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY. 171 
 
 as one mourneth for an only son (Zech. 12 : 10) ; and 
 he will put his law in their inward parts and write it 
 in their hearts, and none shall say to another, know the 
 Lord, for they shall know him from the least of them 
 to the greatest of them, and their iniquity shall be for- 
 given, and their sin be remembered no more (Jer. 31 : 
 33, 34); and they shall inherit the land forever, the 
 branch of his planting, the work of his hands, that he 
 may be glorified (Isa. 60 : 21). Yet what is a whole 
 nation's conversion to God, as compared with that of a 
 world ? when Israel's light shall flood the globe, and 
 kings shall come to the brightness of her rising (Isa. 
 60), and all peoples, made willing in the day of his 
 power, shall remember and turn to the Lord, the skies 
 pouring down righteousness, salvation growing up from 
 the earth, the effect of righteousness, quietness and as- 
 surance forever (Ps. 22: 27; Isa. 45: 8; 32: 17). 
 Nor is this all. For as once the Spirit moved upon the 
 dark face of the deep, and there was light, so, his pre- 
 dictions assure us, he will again move upon what he 
 calls this groaning creation ; and at his touch, " the 
 mountains skipping like rams, and the little hills like 
 lambs," all things shall become readjusted, creation's 
 groans be hushed, earth appear in a new garniture of 
 beauty, beasts of the field and fowls of heaven and 
 creeping things of the ground transformed, neither car- 
 nivorous beast nor poisonous creature desecrating God's 
 world for evermore, and we, though now so opaque in 
 person and character, shall brighten over the laughing
 
 172 THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY. 
 
 earth into a light like unto a stone most precious, even 
 like a jasper stone, clear as crystal (Rom. 8 ; Hos. 2 ; 
 Isa. 11 ; Rev. 21). 
 
 Now what transcendent works of the Spirit. Top- 
 most achievements of his grace and power. And has 
 he told us of them without designing to win us into a 
 larger appreciation of his preciousness to us, and there- 
 by to promote our worshipful reverence of him? 
 These prophetic splendors, as though a mere back- 
 ground, do but project into view the seraphic intensity 
 of the trinal ascription, Holy, Holy, Holy ! 
 
 The adorable mind of the Spirit is the spirit of 
 prophecy. 
 
 Fifthly, the Holy Spirit in prophecy is the minister 
 of righteousness. 
 
 As in precept, doctrine, exhortation, so in prediction, 
 his purpose is to draw us away from sin, and advance 
 us in righteous living. The one pervading theme of 
 his prophecies is Christ ; every one of them, if not di- 
 rectly, then indirectly, referring to him. And what 
 but Christ is the power of righteousness ? Any event 
 seen to be connected with him, even if distantly, is a 
 stream of holy influence ; just as the woman felt his 
 health-giving virtue while yet touching but the hem of 
 his garment. - Read the harrowing prophecy, still in 
 process of fulfillment, of the calamities of the Jews, and 
 does not the cheek tingle at that continuous doom of 
 unchristianness ? Witness the prophecy of the Four
 
 THE SPIEIT OF PROPHECY. 173 
 
 Great Monarchies, and while you see beforehand that 
 gigantic image ground to powder, and are in the midst 
 of the confused dust of gold and silver and brass and 
 iron and clay, you stand aghast at the devouring jeal- 
 ousy of a Holy God when Christ is rejected. 
 
 But in his direct prophecies of Christ how signally 
 the Spirit serves the cause of righteousness. Forewarn- 
 ing us of yet fiercer conflicts with the world-rulers of 
 this darkness, the spiritual armies of wickedness, he 
 averts unhappy forebodings, and magnifies the free 
 grace of the Gospel as the power for service, by assur- 
 ing us that the great dragon, the old serpent, called the 
 Devil and Satan, the people of God shall overcome by 
 the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testi- 
 mony. Picturing the peeled and suffering Jews look- 
 ing upon him Whom they pierced, he makes us see that 
 they become all righteous by the blood that cleanseth. 
 Arraying before us the Ancient of days sitting, his gar- 
 ment white as snow, the hair of his head like pure 
 wool, his throne fiery flames, his wheels burning fire, 
 he shows us the Son of man coming, coming to the 
 Ancient of days, coming with the clouds of heaven, 
 giving the wicked nations to the burning flame, receiv- 
 ing dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peo- 
 ples and languages should serve him; and we turn with 
 horror from the atheistic sentiments now so threatening 
 among the nations, and clasp the faith of Christ as our 
 only refuge from ungodliness and anarchy and perdi- 
 tion. He writes down for us that word of Jesus, "Be-
 
 174 THE SPIRIT OP PROPHECY. 
 
 hold, I come quickly," and associates with it the 
 prophecy : " He that is unrighteous, let him do un- 
 righteousness still, and he that is filthy, let him be 
 made filthy still, and he that is righteous, let him do 
 righteousness still ; " and we see that character at the 
 last is a fixture, projecting itself into the eternal state, 
 and we think of the only force that betimes can revo- 
 lutionize character the blood that takes away sin, the 
 faith in Christ that works by love. 
 
 Moreover, what express emphasis the Spirit puts 
 upon prophecy in its bearing on a holy life. Does he 
 warn against the loss of the soul ? " The Son of man 
 shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels." 
 Does he speak of subduing the lusts of the flesh ? 
 " When Christ, your life, shall appear, then shall ye 
 also appear with him in glory." Does he command so- 
 briety of life? "Yourselves know perfectly that the 
 day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night." 
 Does he exhort us to patience in the midst of sufferings ? 
 "The coming of the Lord draweth nigh." In fine, 
 would he have us deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, 
 and live soberly, righteously and godly in this present 
 world? "Looking for that blessed hope, and the 
 glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour 
 Jesus Christ." 
 
 Now the predominant sin of the church is love of 
 the world. It invades our thoughts, supplies our mo- 
 tives, captivates our affections, damages our religious 
 service ; rules in our families, is the keynote of our so-
 
 THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY. 175 
 
 cial arrangements ; deadens the spirituality of deacons, 
 elders and vestrymen, poisons the meditations of the 
 preacher, robs the sermon of its unction, shuts off the 
 congregation from the demonstration of the Spirit and 
 of power. Against it the Spirit warns. But precept 
 and exhortation are not enough. We need vividness of 
 impression. We need to SEE the working out of 
 worldly principles and methods. It is the Spirit's 
 prophecies that supply this need. His brilliant color- 
 ing of the world's approaching catastrophe, his pano- 
 rama of the final disasters of our boasted civilization, 
 his startling prevision of the miraculousness of the in- 
 troduction of God's kingdom into the earth these are 
 the teachings that break the spell of the enchanter, and 
 for the sleepiness of mere hearsay substitute the very 
 sight of the roaring lion of the tribe of Judah. 
 Worldliness cannot live in the prophetic fires of the 
 Second Coming. 
 
 Thus is it that prophecy is pre-eminently the ministry 
 of righteousness. And it is largely because of the 
 neglect of it, largely because the Spirit's fore-written 
 history of events to come is unstudied, unthought of, 
 unknown, that Christians' lives are so far away from 
 Gospel living, and the churches are cold and formal. 
 
 The holy mind of the Spirit is the spirit of prophecy. 
 
 In the next place, the Holy Spirit in prophecy is the 
 Minister of joy. 
 
 Certainly he is the Spirit of joy outside the prophe-
 
 176 THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY. 
 
 cies. But all the joy of present salvation is not suffi- 
 cient for our wants. So the Spirit himself has decided, 
 since, by reason of his itemized predictions, he multi- 
 plies the joy. Certainly we can trust God, though we 
 see not a step before us. Yet knowledge is good. 
 The specifying of one's blessednesses is an enhancement 
 of the blessedness. Hence the size of the Bible ; in- 
 cluding so many things solely for the purpose of am- 
 plifying our sensibilities. 
 
 One joy of prophecy is that of knowing God's 
 plan as to the varying fortunes of the Gospel. What 
 are now the Gospel's circumstances in Christendom? 
 With an eye to its spiritual power, do we see it in the 
 ascendant ? The facts are the other way. Multiform 
 denials of the faith. The very basic elements of salva- 
 tion rejected, contemned, ridiculed, even in high places 
 of the professing church itself. The disproportion in 
 Christendom as regards a personal profession of the 
 Gospel enormous. Certainly there are more true 
 Christians in the world to-day than ever before ; but 
 also there are more people in the world than ever be- 
 fore, and the disproportion is as huge as ever. And as 
 regards the minority making the profession the ratio of 
 spiritual reality to unreality microscopic ; a minority 
 within a minority. A tiny lump of sugar in a gallon 
 of coffee. And has it not always been so ? The three 
 thousand at Pentecost, in itself a magnificent triumph, 
 was but a minim out of the myriads in Jerusalem that 
 day. And to-day more than a billion of mankind
 
 THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY. 177 
 
 know nothing of the saving virtue of the Lord Jesus. 
 Whence is our comfort as regards the destiny of the 
 Gospel ? If you point to Japan, and say, Behold, a 
 mighty nation getting ready to proclaim Christianity as 
 the national religion, at once the bluff fact strikes us in 
 the face that they are fascinated by the material pros- 
 perity of Christendom ; and obtrusive is the inference, 
 as is that of a theorem in geometry, that, having na- 
 tionally adopted Christianity, they will only have be- 
 come like the other so-called Christian nations. Or if 
 you say, In spite of this outlook, we have the word of 
 our God that the Gospel shall ultimately prevail, I an- 
 swer, Yes, even a general assurance from God we clasp 
 to our hearts. But how much more assuring it would 
 be, if God were so good as to lay before us his plan for 
 the future of the Gospel. And God has been so good. 
 We learn from the prophecies that the state of things 
 around us is just what was foretold from the begin- 
 ning ; and also, as to what is yet before the church, 
 that atheism and blasphemy and moral corruption will 
 be holding high carnival at the time of the Lord's 
 coming, and the Antichrist, the Colossus of falsehood 
 and crime, shall then be at the acme of his imperial 
 sway ; but that then him, the man of sin, the son of 
 perdition, the lawless one, the Lord Jesus shall destroy 
 by the Epiphany of his coming. 
 
 Then shall Christ reign, putting all enemies under 
 his feet, and the succession of the redeemed be as the 
 dewdrops daily issuing from the womb of the morning.
 
 178 THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY. 
 
 Pessimism, you say ? No, not pessimism, but optim- 
 ism of the most effective kind. While recognizing what 
 is patent to every eye, the never-diminishing numerical 
 majority against the Gospel, we yet know God's plan, 
 and we triumph in the assurance of the all-conqueriftg 
 Epiphany of Jesus out of heaven. 
 
 Here, then, is history written before. We see the 
 mile-posts of the future. Trees in the great black for- 
 ests are notched to blaze the way of the coming jubilee 
 of the Gospel. Things are not at loose ends. God's 
 purpose is fixed, his eye watchful, his hand over all. 
 It is our joy of specific knowledge ; the joy of particu- 
 larized assurance ; a balm for depression, a cordial for 
 our fears. Accordingly, in times of persecution, the 
 Church has always found her refuge in prophecy. 
 With the early Christians ill their conflicts with pagan 
 Rome, with the Waldenses in their conflicts with papal 
 Rome, the very service-book, the vade mecum, was the 
 Apocalypse. A joy it is to be apprised beforehand of 
 the course of events leading on 10 victory. We have 
 but to stand in our place, and give our testimony. God 
 will take care of his Gospel. 
 
 Another joy of prophecy is that of anticipating com- 
 pleted redemption. What is completed redemption? 
 The salvation of a soul is that not redemption ? Yes, 
 and glorious indeed ; still only partial redemption. A 
 whole world of saved sinners, is that not redemption ? 
 Yes, and yet more glorious ; still only partial redemp- 
 tion. The advancement of all saved sinners to the
 
 THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY. 179 
 
 honors and the glories with which the boundless God 
 may 11 the eternal state, is that not redemption ? Yes, 
 and more and more glorious ; still only partial redemp- 
 tion. For are we to consider man apart from his 
 home? How incongruous, if a drunkard were re- 
 formed, and elevated to respectability and dignity, while 
 yet his home were left in the disgraceful condition in- 
 flicted by his drunkenness ; the house still infested with 
 filth and disorder, the window panes shattered and 
 ragged, the fences broken down, the garden overrun 
 with weeds, unkempt and uncared for. What is home ? 
 Is there a forlorner wretch than the man without a 
 home ? Now has not earth been fitted up as the home 
 of mankind? When God expended upon it his six 
 days' creation work, arranging it, furnishing it, making 
 it very good, did he mean it for only a temporary abid- 
 ing place? And when sin came, did it strike the in- 
 habitants only? Didn't it wrench and impair the 
 frame of creation ? Even the atmosphere was wors- 
 ened ; for now it made necessary to man the wearing 
 of clothing. In his Edenic state the esthetics of his 
 soul were inconceivably higher, purer, sweeter, so that 
 the clothing, which is now so much an expression of the 
 beautiful, would have been in that superior condition of 
 being an impertinence, a smear ; his conceptions of fit- 
 ness and beauty being so far above the present possi- 
 bilities of culture, as a Raphael's Madonna the daub of 
 a Hottentot. Man fell not only from holiness into sin, 
 but also, and by consequence, from the heaven of the
 
 180 THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY. 
 
 science of the beautiful into a beggary of thought and 
 feeling. And the point is, that the chill, piercing winds 
 of winter, themselves the result of man's sin, and mak- 
 ing clothing a necessity, are ever reminding him of this 
 downward transition, as though they were a sort of 
 human conscience, and themselves a part of the human 
 self. Milton stated it none too strongly : 
 
 " Earth felt the wound, and nature from her seat, 
 Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe 
 That all was lost." 
 
 And now when redemption came, did it stretch forth 
 the uplifting hand to the inhabitant alone, and not also 
 to the home? Besides, forasmuch as the scenes of in- 
 conceivable beauty that draped the unfalleu earth were 
 what touched into consummate action the pure aesthetics 
 of unfallen man, it follows that the restitution of earth 
 to at least its original beauty is a condition precedent to 
 regaining for man his lost sense of the beautiful. The 
 redemption of man himself takes along with it the re- 
 demption of the earth. Not till then will redemption 
 have been completely realized. 
 
 And this is what the Spirit in prophecy authorizes 
 us to anticipate. The creation, he says, groaning and 
 travailing in pain together until now, is waiting, in 
 earnest expectation, for the manifestation of the sons of 
 God ; having been made subject to vanity in hope that 
 itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of cor- 
 ruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of 
 God (Rom. 8 : 19-22). Thus the inhabitants and their
 
 THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY. 181 
 
 home : the one the reflection of the glorious freedom of 
 the other. So fixed and sure is this purpose of God, 
 the earth and its atmosphere are represented as thrilling 
 with hope, and stretching out the neck in longing to 
 catch the dawning of the day of regeneration. That 
 deliverance will be somewhat as when the worm has 
 become a butterfly : so much more beautiful now than 
 before. Crisp and delightful as is often now our morn- 
 ing air, and charming as are so many landscapes, the 
 earth then shall be so far superior to what it is now. 
 Matter, which ranges from iron ore or granite rock to 
 the imponderable ether pervading the universe, is 
 capable, by the manipulation of God, of taking on a 
 heavenly magnificence. Matter the Eternal Son of 
 God took into personal union with himself, and lo ! with 
 a brightness above that of the midday sun it dazzled to 
 blindness Saul of Tarsus. Matter, sown in corruption, 
 shall be raised in incorruption ; sown in dishonor, shall 
 be raised in glory ; sown in weakness, shall be raised in 
 power ; sown an animal body, shall be raised a body 
 with Divine life from the Spirit. And then " the light 
 of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the 
 light of the sun shall be seven-fold " (Isa. 30 : 26). 
 And yet " the moon shall be confounded and the sun 
 ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign in Mount 
 Ziou, and before his ancients gloriously " (Isa. 24 : 23). 
 And so " we look for new heavens and a new earth, 
 wherein dwelleth righteousness" (2 Pet. 3: 13). That 
 will be redemption completed.
 
 182 THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY. 
 
 Now is not this a joy of anticipation congenial to the 
 human soul ? next to that of friendship with God, the 
 greatest joy conceivable ? Says Dr. Chalmers, in his 
 sermon on the new heavens and the new earth, To 
 think of our future locality as " a lofty aerial region, 
 where the inmates float in ether, or are mysteriously 
 suspended upon nothing, where every vestige of mate- 
 rialism, is done away, certainly tends to abate the inter- 
 est with which we might otherwise look to the per- 
 spective that is on the other side of the grave." " It 
 altogether holds out," he continues, "a warmer and 
 more alluring picture of the elysium that awaits us ; 
 when told, that there will be ground to walk upon, 
 beauty to delight the eye, music to regale the ear, smiles 
 that play on the human countenance, accents of kind- 
 ness that fall in soft and soothing melody from the 
 human voice." It only needs that matter shall be 
 clarified of the evil effects of man's sin, to bring it into 
 heavenly harmony with heavenly man, and to make the 
 earth a heavenly seat of the kingdom of heaven for 
 which we are praying. O joy that warms the heart, 
 that contents us to bear the whips and stings of suffer- 
 ing, that makes heavenly-mindedness attractive ! 
 
 The joyous mind of the Spirit is the spirit of 
 prophecy. 
 
 Finally, the Holy Spirit in prophecy is the promoter 
 of Christian foreign missions. 
 
 In one of his most important oracles he foretells that
 
 THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY. 183 
 
 " this Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all 
 the world for a witness unto all nations, and then shall 
 the end come." Not when the Gospel shall have been 
 truly received by all nations, but when it shall have 
 been preached as a witness to them ; not when the world 
 shall have been converted, but when it shall have been 
 evangelized. The nearer, then, we are to that great ob- 
 jective point, the evangelizing of all nations, the nearer 
 we are to the end of this world-age ; nearer to that rev- 
 elation of glory, of which the scene on the Mount of 
 Transfiguration was the earnest and demonstration. 
 Not universal success in converting men, but universal 
 activity in calling them to conversion is the crisis of the 
 world's history. 
 
 Now what a motive is this for the urgency of aggres- 
 sive Christian work. The Church's business is to tes- 
 tify the Gospel " whether men will hear, or whether they 
 will forbear." Her success is to be measured, not by 
 the number of her converts, but by the extent and 
 thoroughness of her testimony, and by her taking out of 
 the nations a people for his name (a very little flock it 
 may be), Acts 15 : 14. And grand success it is, even 
 though her converts be not more than as one grain of 
 wheat in a bushel of chaff ; for merely by her spread of 
 the Gospel message she is hastening on the day of the 
 Lord. 
 
 The heathen may reject the missionary's good tidings 
 in as large numbers as do the evangelized masses of 
 Christendom. The churches at home may grow worldly,
 
 184 THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY. 
 
 the tares everywhere luxuriant, the goats multiplying 
 faster than the sheep. Churchmen may call in question 
 the claims of world -evangelization, and, by statisti- 
 cal figures, which are said, by a grim sarcasm, not to lie, 
 prove to their own satisfaction that missions are a fail- 
 ure. In heathendom, as in Christendom, pride may dei- 
 fy the human intellect; science, so-called, may wag its 
 cerberus heads at the crucified Jesus, and philosophy, 
 perverted, with its Briareus arms, essay to unseat the 
 Lord God Almighty. Discouragement may cloud the 
 prospect to those true-hearted stewards of the Gospel 
 who, unfortunately for themselves, are dwelling in the 
 low valley of unprophetic Christian thought. But to 
 the workers on the mountain top of prophecy, how far- 
 reaching the view, what a horizon of triumph ; for 
 when, by God's blessing, in spite of indifference or ridi- 
 cule, the faithful shall have testified the message 
 amongst all peoples, the Lord Jesus himself shall take 
 care of the rest. He will come, he will come ! His ar- 
 rows shall be sharp in the heart of the King's enemies; 
 going forth conquering and to conquer on behalf of 
 truth and meekness and righteousness. 
 
 And how much the sanctified enthusiasm of this pro- 
 phetic prospect has had to do with the progress and 
 achievement of foreign missions may be seen in such 
 names as Marty n, Wolf, Heber, Gutzlaff, Bettleheim, 
 Duff, J. Hudson Taylor and his 300 missionaries in 
 China, Guinness, Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftsbury 
 (clarum and venerabile nomen), and others : men,
 
 THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY. 185 
 
 whether in foreign lands, or workers at home for the 
 cause, hot with missionary zeal, and students of proph- 
 ecy, sympathizers with the mind of the Spirit. 
 
 But why speak of lesser names ? The greatest mis- 
 sionary of the Christian ages, he who dwelt with rap- 
 ture on creation's hope of the manifestation of the sons 
 of God ; who did not believe that Christian culture and 
 civilization would gradually develop into the millennium, 
 but emphasized the predicted falling away in the pro- 
 fessing church, and the perilous times in the last days ; 
 who was ever looking for the Epiphany of the Lord's 
 presence, and the miraculous introduction of his king- 
 dom ; what were his labors as a foreign missionary? 
 From the falling of the scales off his eyes at Damascus, 
 till he sat behind the grated windows of Nero's prison ; 
 whether journeying in deserts, traversing seas, beaten 
 with stones, clanking his chains ; whether on the beach 
 at Miletus, or scaling Mount Olympus, or on Mars' 
 Hill, or in a Philippian prison ; who can compare with 
 him as to work done and difficulties encountered ? At 
 that marvelous recital forced from him by his detractors 
 " In labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, 
 in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft ; of the Jews five 
 times received I forty stripes save one, thrice was I 
 beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered 
 shipwreck, a night and day I have been in the deep ; in 
 journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, 
 in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the 
 heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilder-
 
 186 THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY. 
 
 ness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren ; 
 in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in 
 hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and naked- 
 ness " can we help exclaiming with Erskine in the 
 British Parliament, " Great God, what a salary for a 
 faithful minister! " But his love of Christ and his pro- 
 phetic faith bore him onward. And triumphantly he 
 carried the Gospel of the kingdom from Antioch to 
 Illyricum, from the Euxine to the pillars of Hercules ; 
 and in less than a quarter of a century he had evangel- 
 ized twenty nations, besides the islands of Cyprus and 
 Crete. 
 
 The missionary mind of the Spirit is the spirit of 
 prophecy. 
 
 Look back now over this rapid sketch. The spirit of 
 prophecy is a composite of characteristics, Divine and 
 human, a focus of excellencies ; for like a sun-glass, proph- 
 ecy converges to a point the Spirit's rays of light and 
 heat, and sets the soul aflame. The intelligible mind of 
 the Spirit, the instructive mind of the Spirit, the Christly 
 mind of the Spirit, the adorable mind of the Spirit, the 
 holy mind of the Spirit, the joyous mind of the Spirit, 
 the missionary mind of the Spirit, these are the spirit of 
 prophecy. Take away what of the Holy Spirit proph- 
 ecy gives us, and, comparatively, how little we should 
 know of him. Would we have a livelier enjoyment of 
 his fellowship? O Blessed Spirit of God, who art thy- 
 self our patient, gentle, untiring Companion and Friend,
 
 1 '//' 
 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY. 187 
 
 by day and by night, without whom never a spiritual 
 consolation felt, never a duty well done, never a trial 
 sweetly borne, never a triumph in death, and by whom 
 not seldom we are rapt into a speechless pleasure of 
 worship, can it be, by this love of thine, that we have 
 the heart to slight what thou hast been at pains to teach 
 us ? We hear thee say, " He that hath my Word, let 
 him speak my Word faithfully. What is the chaff to 
 the wheat ? " With bowed heads and smitten hearts, 
 reverently, lovingly we answer thee, Amen and Amen !
 
 OP 
 
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