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  TONGUE OF FIRE
  by William Arthur
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Arthur's classic work on the power of the Holy Spirit in preaching and Christian
witness, drawing from the Pentecost narrative to show how Spirit-empowered
speech transforms individuals and communities. An influential text in Methodist
and holiness circles.

  Chapters: 7

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS
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    1. 00 ArthurW - Tongue of Fire (1858)
    2. 1. The Promise of a Baptism of Fire
    3. 2. The Waiting for the Fulfillment
    4. 3. The Fulfillment of the Promise
    5. 4. Effects immediately Followed Baptism of Fire.
    6. 5. Permanent Benefits resulting to the Church
    7. 6. Practical Lessons

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  CHAPTER 1: 00 ARTHURW - TONGUE OF FIRE (1858)
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Tongue of Fire (1858) by William Arthur 1 The Promise of a Baptism of Fire 2.
The Waiting for the Fulfillment 3. The Fulfillment of the Promise 4. Effects
which immediately Followed the Baptism of Fire.

5. Permanent Benefits resulting to the Church 6. Practical Lessons formatted for
e-sword by


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  CHAPTER 2: 1. THE PROMISE OF A BAPTISM OF FIRE
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THE TONGUE OF FIRE by Rev. William Arthur

1858

CHAPTER I. THE PROMISE OF A BAPTISM OF FIRE WHEN John the Baptist was going
round Judea, shaking the hearts of the people with a call to repent, they said:
"Surely this must be the Messiah for whom we have waited so long." "No," said
the strong-spoken man, "I am not the Christ (John 1:20); but One mightier than I
cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose: he shall baptize
you with the Holy Ghost and with fire." (Luke 3:16) This last expression might
have conveyed some idea of material burning to any people but Jews; but in their
minds it would awaken other thoughts. It would recall the scenes when their
father Abraham asked Him who promised that he should inherit the land wherein he
was a stranger: "Lord, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?" The answer
came thus: He was standing under the open sky at night, watching by cloven
sacrifices, when "behold a smoking furnace and a burning lamp that passed
between those pieces" of the victims. (Genesis 15:17) It would recall the fire
which Moses saw in the bush, which shone and awed and hallowed even the
wilderness, but did not consume; the fire which came in the day of Israel’s
deliverance, as a light on their way, and continued with them throughout the
desert journey; the fire which descended on the tabernacle in the day in which
it was reared up, and abode upon it continually, which shone in the Shekinah,
which touched the lips of Isaiah, which flamed in the visions of Ezekiel, and
which was yet again promised to Zion, not only in her public but in her family
shrines, when "the Lord will create upon every dwelling place of Mount Zion, and
upon all her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming
fire by night." In the promise of a baptism of fire they would at once recognize
the approach of new manifestations of the power and presence of God; for that
was ever the purport of this appearance in "the days of the right hand of the
Most High."

Among the multitude who flocked to John came one strange Man, whom he did not
altogether know; yet he knew that he was full of grace and wisdom, and in favor
with God and man. He felt that himself rather needed to be baptized of one so
pure than to baptize him; but he waived his feeling, and fulfilled his ministry.
As they returned from the water side, the heavens opened; a bodily shape, as of
a dove, came down and rested on the stranger. At the same time a voice from the
excellent glory said: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: hear
ye him."

John said: "I knew him not; but He that sent me to baptize with water, the same
said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on
him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost." Therefore, when he saw
him walking, he pointed his own disciples to him, and said that this was He.
They heard the word and pondered. The next day again John, seeing him at a
distance, said: "Behold the Lamb of God!" Now, two of his followers went after
the stranger, to seek at his hand the baptism which John could not give--the
baptism of fire. They were joined by others. For months, for years, they
companied with him. They saw his life--a life as of the Only Begotten Son of
God. They heard his words--such words as "never man spake." They saw his
works--signs and wonders and great miracles, before all the people. Yet they
received not the baptism of fire!

He began to speak frequently of his departure from them, but his mode of
describing it was strange. He was to leave them, and yet not to forsake them; to
go away, and yet to be with them; to go, and yet to come to them. They were to
be deprived of him, their Head, yet orphans they should not be. Another was to
come, yet not another--a Comforter from the Father, from himself, whom, not as
in his case, the world could neither know nor see, but whom they should know,
though they could not see. (John 14:17) His own presence with them was a
privilege which no tongue could worthily tell. Blessed were their eyes for what
they saw and their ears for what they heard. Better still than even this was to
be the presence of the Holy Ghost, who would follow him as he had followed John.

"I tell you the truth," he said when about to utter what was hard to believe; "I
tell you the truth: It is expedient for you that I go away." How could it be
expedient? Would they not be losers to an extent which no man could reckon? The
light of his countenance, the blessing of his words, the purity of his presence,
the influence of his example--all to be removed. And this expedient for them!
"It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter
will not come unto you." Well, but would they not be better with himself than
with the Comforter? No; just the contrary. They would be better with the
Comforter. He would lead them into all truth; whereas now they are constantly
misapplying the plain words of Christ. He would bring all things to their
remembrance; whereas now they often forget in a day or two the most remarkable
teaching, or the most amazing miracles. He would take the things of Christ, the
things of the Father, and reveal them unto them; whereas now they constantly
misapprehended his relation to the Father, and that of the Father to
him--misapprehended his person, his mission, and his kingdom. Again, he would
convince the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment to come; and this
is not as one teacher limited by a local personality, but as a Spirit diffused
abroad throughout the earth. And he would abide with them forever, not for "a
little while." Whatever, therefore, Christ’s personal presence and teaching had
been to them, the presence of the Spirit would be more.

Having thus strongly preoccupied their minds with the hope of a greater joy than
even his own countenance, the Master laid down his life. Stunned, dispersed, and
desolate, they felt themselves orphans indeed. Their Master ignominiously
executed, and neither the word of John nor his own word fulfilled--no Comforter,
no baptism, no fire! Soon he reappeared, and, as they were met together for the
first time since his death, once more stood in the midst of them. He breathed
upon them, and said: "Receive ye the Holy Ghost." With that word, doubtless,
both peace and power were given; yet it was not the baptism of fire. During
forty days he conversed with them on the things pertaining to the kingdom of
God, assigning to them the work of proclaiming and establishing that kingdom to
the ends of the earth. One injunction, however, he laid upon them which seemed
to defer the effect of others: they were to go into all the world, yet not at
once, or unconditionally. "Tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem till ye be indued
with power from on high." Apparently more ready to interpret "power" as
referring to the hopes of their nation than to the kingdom of grace, they asked:
"Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?" (Acts 1:6)

He had said nothing of a kingdom for Israel, or in Israel. His speech had been
on a higher theme, and of a wider field--namely, "that repentance and remission
of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at
Jerusalem. And we are witnesses of these things." Such, in various forms, are
the words we find him uttering concerning his kingdom during these forty days.
When, therefore, they asked if he would at this time restore again the kingdom
to Israel, he shortly turned aside their curiosity. What the Father’s designs
were as to Israel nationally, what the times when they might again be a kingdom,
were points not for them. They had better work, and nearer at hand. "It is not
for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own
power." (Acts 1:7) "But," he continued, passing at once from curious questions
about the future of Israel, and unfulfilled prophecy, to his own grand kingdom,
"But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you." What
power? of princes or magistrates? Nay, quite another power, for an unearthly
work: "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." In these words he
traces the circles in which Christian sympathy and activity should ever run:
First, Jerusalem, their chief city; next, Judea, their native land; then
Samaria, a neighboring country, inhabited by a race nationally detested by their
countrymen; and finally, "the uttermost part of the earth." They were neither to
seek distant spheres first nor to confine themselves always at home, but to
carry the gospel into all the world as each country could be reached. This was
what he had before placed in their view--the filling all the earth with the news
of grace, news that repentance and pardon were opened to men by the power of his
atonement. We have no hint that he ever spake, during the forty days, of other
kingdom, royalty, or reign. Not to rule over cities, not to speculate on the
designs of the Father and the destinies of the Jew, but to go into the whole
world, tell every creature the story of Christ, was to be their princely work.
To found a kingdom not over men’s persons, but "within" their souls; a kingdom
not of provinces, but of "righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost";
a kingdom to be spread not by the arms of a second Joshua, but by the "witness"
of the human voice; a kingdom the power of which would not lie in force or
policy, or signs observed in heaven, but in a spiritual power imparted by the
Holy Ghost and operating in superhuman utterance of heavenly truth--this was
their embassy. For this were they to be indued with power from on high. But when
was this power, so long spoken of, to come? Would John’s word ever be fulfilled?
The Master has not forgotten it. "John truly baptized with water, but ye shall
be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence." At length the promise is
brought to a point, and its fulfillment near.

Already he had proclaimed himself King, and marked out the ministers and army,
the weapon, the extent, the badge of citizenship, the statute law, the royal
glory, and the duration of his kingdom. With his disciples around him, standing
on a mountain top, heaven above and earth below, he thus proclaimed his kingdom:
"All power is given to me in heaven and in earth": here was the King. "Go": here
were the ministers and army, an embassy of peace. "Teach": here the weapon, the
word of God. "All nations": here the extent. "Baptizing them in the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost": here the badge of citizenship.
"Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you": here the
statute law. "And, lo, I am with you": here the royal presence and glory of the
kingdom. "Alway, unto the end of the world": here its duration. (Matthew
28:19-20) Now again he is rising a hill, conversing with those who had heard
this proclamation as to their part in the establishment of the kingdom. He has
clearly promised that, before many days, the long-looked-for baptism of fire
will come. That implies that before many days he will depart; for he ever said
that he must first ascend. He has answered, or rather rebuked, their curious
inquiry as to Israel; has turned their thoughts again to the descent of the
Spirit; and is just telling them that, indued with this new power, they shall
bear witness to his glory not only at home but abroad. "To the uttermost part of
the earth" is the last word on his lips (Acts 1:8)--a startling word for his
peasant auditors, accustomed to limit their range of thought within the Holy
Land. But he had already said that all power was given to him "in heaven and in
earth." Did not the faith of some disciple reel under the weight of these words?

"In Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and to the uttermost part of
the earth!" This word is on his lips; they are steadily watching him; he lifts
his hands, he pronounces his blessing; and in the act (Luke 24:50), lo, his
body, which they know "has flesh and bones" like their own, begins to rise! No
wing, no hand, no chariot of fire! Upward it moves by its own power; and that
single action commands the homage of earth; for our globe has no law so
universal and irreversible as that whereby it binds down all ponderous bodies to
its surface. Here this law gives way, and thereby the whole mass of the globe
yields to the power of Christ. This placid movement of that body, up from the
surface of earth into the heights of the sky, is an open act of sovereignty over
the highest physical law; whereby Christ "manifested forth his glory," as Lord
and Maker of all physical laws. His proclamation of kingship is thus
acknowledged by earth with its highest homage. Now the heaven adds its homage,
stoops in luminous cloud, and robes him for his enthronement. The everlasting
doors lift up their heads. The King of Glory enters in! The First Begotten from
the dead, the Prince of the kings of the earth, sits down with the Father on his
throne; and from him receives the word: "Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever:
a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of thy kingdom!" And again: "Let all
the angels of God worship him." Within the veil they worship the Lamb; and down
they speed to his followers, and tell them that they need not gaze. As they have
seen him go, so shall they see him come, even in the clouds, to judge that
world, of which and of its princes he is King. Thus triply is his kingship
owned. Earth permits him to rise, heaven bows, the angels add their testimony.
All things own him. Unbelief is now impossible. Doubt vanishes away. His word
shall not pass unfulfilled. The baptism of fire is at hand.


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  CHAPTER 3: 2. THE WAITING FOR THE FULFILLMENT
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CHAPTER II. THE WAITING FOR THE FULFILLMENT.

IT is on Thursday, probably in the evening, that the disciples return to
Jerusalem. Their Master is no more at their head--indeed, no more on earth; and
as yet his great promise is unfulfilled. But the scene of the ascension is in
their eye; the voice of the angels in their ear. Jesus is King of kings and Lord
of lords. The Comforter is coming "not many days hence." Not with doubting or
weeping do they enter the city, but with "great joy"--the joy of a triumph
already sealed, and of hope foreseeing triumphs to come. Most probably that joy
carries their first steps to the temple. (Luke 24:53) Oft had they entered it
with him, but never so triumphantly as now. There they are, not mourning the
absence of their Master, but "praising and blessing God." Thence they go to "an
upper room." We know not in what street, or on what site; but there "abode" a
few men whose names were not then great, but whose names will nevermore pass
from the memory of mankind. With them abode also a few women, who had loved
their Lord; and for the last time "Mary the mother of Jesus" is named as one of
the little company. Men and women, they now began to pray, and they "continued
with one accord in prayer and supplication" for the baptism of fire. Did they
expect to receive it that very night? This we know not; but we do know that then
opened a new era in the intercourse of man with heaven. As they began to pray,
how would they find all their conceptions of the Majesty on high changed! It no
longer spread before and beyond the soul’s eyesight, as an unvaried infinity of
glory incomprehensible. The glory was brighter, the incomprehensibility
remained; but the infinity had now received a center. Every beam of the glory
converged toward the person of "God manifest in the flesh," now "received up
into heaven": the glory not dissolving the person in its own tide, the person
not dimming the glory by any shade, though appearing through it as the sun’s
body through the light. Perhaps, indeed, the change was such, to their view, as
would have struck the eye of an observer of nature, had one lived on our planet
at the time when the sun was first set in the firmament. The light which before
had been a wide and level mystery now had to his eye a law, a center, and a
spring. The indistinct view of a material form amid the seemingly spiritual
glory gave the feeling that somebody akin to our own globe lay at the center of
illumination. This body was not the cause of the light, not even of the same
nature; but around the body the "exceeding weight of glory" seemed to hang.

Oh, to feel as felt that heart which first discerned human nature in the person
of Him who had been "so marred," set down "on the right hand of the Majesty on
high. The glory of the Father encompassing a human form, and beaming from a
human brow! "If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the
Father; for my Father is greater than I," was the word of Jesus. Now that they
had seen him pass within the veil--seen the ushering angels attend his entrance,
and heard the music of their voices--they would not feel as if he had forsaken
them, but as they had often felt when the high priest passed from their view
into the holiest, bearing the blood of atonement, to stand before the
Presence--"he is out of sight, but there before the Lord." The first thought
would be one of joy for him. Peter, how did thy breast heave when first thou
didst behold, by faith clear as sight, that countenance which had looked round
upon thee from the bar, now looking down upon thee from the high and lofty
throne! Mary Magdalene, who was bent under the sevenfold power of the devil when
first that face beamed on thee; who didst fall at his feet when, just arisen
from the dead, he first appeared to thee, what was the flow of thy tears, what
the odor of thy joy, when the full truth burst on thy view, that he had
"overcome, and was set down with the Father on his throne"! And thou, John, what
felt thy bosom when he, on whose bosom thine own head had leaned, appeared to
thy mind no more with such as thee, but, as "in the beginning, with God"? And
thou, too, Mary the blessed, through whose soul the sword had gone, how did thy
"soul magnify the Lord"; how did thy "spirit rejoice in God thy Saviour," when
thy meek eye saw the infinite accomplishment of Gabriel’s word, He shall be
great!

Mingling with this first joy for the Master’s exaltation, and presently rising
to the surface and overspreading all their emotions, would be the feeling: "He
has entered for us within the veil! He bears our names upon his heart for a
memorial before the Lord! He maketh intercession for us!" Tush! which of the
Twelve is it that starts up as if a spirit had entered him, and, pointing
upward, says to the brethren: "Let us ask the Father in his name! He said to us,
’Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Hitherto
ye have asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may
be full.’" (John 16:23-24) The angels had often sung together when the prayer of
repenting sinners was heard on high. Now, for the first time, they hear prayers
from human lips rising to the throne authorized and accredited by the name of
the Only Begotten of the Father. That name has just been set "above every name";
and as it echoes through the host above, with the solemn joy of a hundred
believing voices, "things in heaven" bow. Be man ever so unworthy, "worthy is
the Lamb"; and his name covers with justice every request to which it is set by
his authority. What must have been that moment for the saints in paradise, who
had seen the Saviour afar off, but never known the joy of praying directly in
his name! Father Abraham had "rejoiced to see his day; and he saw it and was
glad." What would be his gladness now, that earth and heaven were rejoicing in
his name! David, to whom he was at once Lord and Son, what would be "the things"
which in that wonderful moment his tongue would speak "touching the King"? From
the hour that sin entered into the world, the Just One had never given man
audience on terms fit only for the innocent. An upright inferior may approach
Majesty, not without reverence, but without shame or atonement. The admission of
a criminal on the same footing would be wrong. Right in our governments is the
imperfect reflection of a perfect right. Had the favor of the Almighty crossed
the line which divides innocence from guilt and smiled upon the latter, that
smile would have been a scathing flash, wherein all morals would have blackened.
Sinful man had not been hopelessly banished from the presence of God; but he had
ever been taught to come displaying a sign of wrath, of death, which is the
wages of sin; thus declaring to the universe that he appealed not to a justice
which had never been offended, but to a justice which had been satisfied. The
altar had been the patriarch’s place of prayer. The temple, where was the
perpetual offering, had been the center to which every praying Israelite turned.
To approach the Eternal Godhead as if no evil had been done, and no stroke
merited, was never yet the privilege of a creature who had done wrong. It was
wonderful, yea, mysterious, that such could be allowed to approach at all; but
the Lord would ever justify his permission by demanding clear and express
reference to that propitiation which he has set forth to declare his own
righteousness, in that marvelous act of lifting the guilty into the mansions of
the good.

How great the transition from these symbols of the atonement to the full view of
its reality! During the forty days, Jesus had opened their understanding,
pointed out to them the scriptures which bore upon his death, and showed its
connection with remission of sins for mankind. They now looked no more to temple
or to altar. They had before them the true sacrifice completed. He had "purged
their sins," and, in the same body wherein he had done so, was standing before
the Father.

He had given them authority to use his name. With that name their petitions
carried the assent of all the rational and moral creation. The Eternal Father,
in holding communion with beings who had done wrong, exposed no sinless being to
doubts as to whether right and wrong were equal. He had "made peace through"
Christ’s "blood"; had thus "reconciled all things to himself"--to himself in the
new and mysterious proceeding of government, whereby the doers of wrong were
spared the effects of wrongdoing. "For it pleased the Father that in him should
all fullness dwell; and, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by
him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things
in earth, or things in heaven." (Colossians 1:19-20) So that creatures "in
heaven," all whose joy depended on their never doing wrong, had no murmur to
raise, and no temptation to undergo, when they saw creatures "on earth," who had
followed ways which would make any world sorrowful, received into the arms of
eternal mercy. The guilty he reconciled by forgiving their sin and recovering
their hearts; and the innocent he reconciled to see offenders exalted, by
"setting forth," so conspicuously that all angels desired to look into it, "a
propitiation," which fully "declared his righteousness," his strict care of
right--which magnified law, magnified holiness, magnified obedience, and, in the
act of saving the guilty, magnified beyond all previous conception the
heinousness of guilt. What sense of the distinction between right and wrong
could have been maintained among innocent creatures, had they seen transgressors
raised to favor and honor without atonement?

Oh, the joy of that first hour of praying in the name of Christ! Was not Martha
there? As she met the Master on that mournful day, when Lazarus lay in the tomb,
though despairing, she said: "But I know that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask
of God, God will give it thee." If such was her confidence then, what would be
her confidence now--he asking for her, and she asking in his name! How the souls
of the disciples, following him above the sky, would soar, with a new wing, a
new eye, and a new song! What simple and glowing collects would they be which
were uttered then! What words of joy and supplication would he pour forth who
first bethought him of putting the Lord in remembrance of his own promises! What
short and burning petitions would go up from the lips which first quoted,
"Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he shall give it you!" How would
he plead who first remembered, "Ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto
you!" How would tones of desire and triumph mingle in the first repetition of,
"All things whatsoever ye ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive"! None of
their prayers are recorded. We have ancient collects, and beautiful they are;
but none of these most ancient are preserved. The Spirit has not seen it good to
hand down the strong and tender collects of these ten, or of the following days.
Then surely it is unlawful to impose good forms of prayer upon all men because
ancient saints wrote them.

He who will never use a form in public prayer, casts away the wisdom of the
past. He who will use only forms, casts away the hope of utterance to be given
by the Spirit at present, and even shuts up the future in the stiff hand of the
past. Whatever Church forbids a Christian congregation, no matter what may be
their fears, troubles, joys, or special and pressing need, ever to send up
prayer to God, except in words framed by other men in other ages, uses an
authority which was never delegated. To object to all forms is narrowness. To
doom a Christian temple to be a place wherein a simple and impromptu cry may
never arise to heaven, is superstition. Does any one of the hundred and twenty,
even in paradise, up to this moment forget the hour of prayer that Thursday
night, after they had returned from Olivet? The Friday morning dawns. It was on
Friday the Lord had died. Would he not send his promised substitute to-day? Oh,
how his cross would all day long stand before the eye of every disciple! Now
came back all his words about the death "which he should accomplish"; from the
night when he told Nicodemus that, as the serpent had been lifted up, so must he
be, up to the night in which he said, "The hour is come"--words dark at that
time, but pointed to-day as the steel of arrows. What has been mystery was
mystery no longer. Now the only mystery was, "What manner of love!" Was it on
that day that John’s fiery heart, the heart which had rebuked the man who
followed not them, which wished to burn the inhospitable villagers, and to be,
with his brother, head of all--was it then this heart fully embraced the meaning
of the agony witnessed by him so close at hand, as compared with others, and
written upon it forever? Was it then it first saw all the import of the words,
"God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life"? and that the
"son of thunder" was transformed into the child of charity?

Never before had the thought of man alternated between two such scenes as those
which divided the eye of every soul in that praying company: a cross, a drooping
head, hands bleeding, feet bleeding, heaven black, thieves on either side, gibes
below; and a preternatural sorrow on the soul of the sufferer, which cast over
the whole an infinite dreadfulness. On this the eye looks one moment, and weeps.
Then a throne, high and lifted up: the glory of the Lord; angels bowing, angels
singing, saints with palm and harp and voice acclaiming; and in the center of
all might, majesty, and dominion, the crucified body, living, but with its
wounds "as slain." On this the same eye looks, and weeps again. Oh, for the
feeling of that day!

Yet the Friday wears away, and no "baptism of fire!" The Saturday sets in: its
hours are filled up as before with prayer; but no answer. And now dawns the
first day of the week, the day whereon he rose, the first Lord’s day he had
passed on his throne of glory. How did they spend that day? Surely they would
fully expect that the blessing they sought would be delayed no longer. He said:
"Not many days." This was the fourth day; it must come to-day! But the evening
steals on, and all their prayers might have risen into a heaven that could not
hear. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday pass. Their faith does not fail; still in the
temple "praising and blessing God," or in the upper room in "prayer and
supplication," they continue of one accord. Though he tarry, yet will they wait
for him. This is waiting. Some speak of waiting for salvation as if it meant
making ourselves at ease, and dismissing both effort and anxiety. Who so waits
for any person or any event? When waiting, your mind is set on a certain point;
you can give yourself to nothing else. You are looking forward, and preparing:
every moment of delay increases the sensitiveness of our mind as to that one
thing. A servant waiting for his master, a wife waiting for the footstep of her
husband, a mother waiting for her expected boy, a merchant waiting for his
richly laden ship, a sailor waiting for the sight of land, a monarch waiting for
tidings of the battle all these are cases wherein the mind is set on one object,
and cannot easily give attention to another.

"To-morrow will be Thursday, a full week from the ascension: that will be the
day; the term of the promise will not extend farther. To-morrow the Comforter
will come; to-morrow we shall be baptized with fire, and fitted to do the works
our Master did, ’yea, greater works than these.’" So they would probably settle
it in their mind. The Thursday finds them, as before, "of one accord in one
place"; no Thomas absent through unbelief. How the scene of that day week would
return to their view! How they would over and over again in mind repeat the walk
from Jerusalem to Olivet; each recalling what he said to the Master, and what
the Master said to him; each thinking he had got such a look as he never got
before, and as he should not forget so long as he lived! How they would repeat
the last words, "Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon
you"! In the repetition new faith would kindle. "Yes, we shall: let us wait on;
we shall ’be indued with power from on high.’" Then another would repeat: "And
ye shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and
to the uttermost part of the earth." This was vast language for them, whose
thoughts were wont to move only in the sphere of Palestine. Probably they did
not so much weigh the import of the terms as look at the main promise. They
should be indued with the power of the Holy Ghost--that power which had made
psalmists and prophets; had rendered the words of Elijah stronger than the
decrees of Ahab, the words of Elisha stronger than the armies of Syria, the
words of Isaiah as coals from the altar, and the words of Daniel mightier than
the spirit of a king and "a thousand of his captains." Baptized with the same
Spirit, they were to proclaim what these foretold, but never saw: the Child
born, the Son given; the Prince cut off for sin, but not his own; the Lamb on
whom were laid the iniquities of all. All this they had seen fulfilled in the
person of their glorious Lord. All this they had heard explained by his own lips
before and after his death. They were to go and prove to others, as he had
proved to them, that "thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer,
and to rise again the third day; and that repentance and remission of sins
should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem."

Here again they encountered the intimation that their message was for all, and
their testimony to be borne to the uttermost parts of the earth. Yet still it
seems that not the sphere, but the purport, of their commission now occupied
their mind. They were to go, and, as he had preached, so would they, far and
wide, in cities and villages. In what tones would they tell the people that as
he used to say to those who came to him, "Be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven
thee," so would he now say from heaven to all who lifted an eye to him! But the
day wears on, and no blessing. Is not the delay long? "Not many days!" Does the
promise hold good? They must have felt disappointed as the evening fell, and no
sign of an answer to their oft-repeated prayer. Now is the hour of trial. Will
their faith fail? Will some begin to forsake the meetings which bring not the
baptism they seek? Will some stay at home, or "go a-fishing," saying that they
will wait the Lord’s time, and not be unwarrantably anxious about what, after
all, does not depend on them, but on the Lord? Will no one say: "We have done
our duty, and must leave results; we cannot command the fulfillment of the
promise; we have asked for it, asked sincerely, fervently, repeatedly; we can do
no more"?

Or, what is equally probable, will they begin to find out that the cause why
they remain unblessed, and yet "orphans," lies in the unfaithfulness of their
companions? Happily, the spirit of faith and love abides upon them. John does
not turn upon Peter and say: "It is your fault; for you denied the Master."
Philip does not turn to John and say: "It is your fault; for you and James
wanted to lord it over us all." Andrew does not turn to John and say: "It is
your fault; for you would not believe, even when we had declared it to you." The
Seventy do not say: "It is the fault of the Twelve; for, after the Lord had
lifted them above us all, one of them sold him, another denied him, and a third
disbelieved him." The Marys do not say: "It is the fault of the whole company, a
cold and unfaithful company, professing to love the Master to his face; but the
moment he fell into the hands of his enemies, ye all forsook him and fled!"

Well did they know that they had been slow of heart; been unworthy of such a
Teacher; often grieved him, and made him ask: "How long shall I be with you?"
John would never forget the rebuke, "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are
of." Peter would never forget, the third time, "Lovest thou me?" Philip would
never forget, "Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known
me, Philip?" And surely Thomas would never forget, "Be not faithless, but
believing."

Yet they all knew he had not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to
repentance. His own lips had said: "He that is whole hath no need of a
physician, but he that is sick." Had he not taken to his bosom the very head
whose heats of ambition and of vindictiveness he had rebuked? Had he not said to
Peter, "Feed my lambs"? Had he not said to Thomas, "Reach hither thy hand"? His
promise was not made because they were a Church without spot or wrinkle; but
because they were feeble, and, deprived of his own presence, would be orphans
indeed, did no other power cover them. He knew every fault with which either of
them could charge the others; yet the promise had passed his lips, and the fire
would fall even on them, unworthy as they were. Happy for them that none fancied
he could fix upon others the cause of their unanswered prayers! The Thursday is
gone--eight days. The Friday and the Saturday follow it, marked by the same
persistency in union, in praise, in prayer, and by the same absence of
encouragement. Ten day’s gone! The promise, "Not many days," is all but broken.

Peter was always warm and earnest. A thought of his had hardly time to become a
thought before it turned into either word or action. When once his mind had
embraced the glorious idea of standing up before the world a witness for his
ascended Master, it would seem as if the whole plan was to be carried out in a
day. One cannot help imagining how he bore the restraint; of the ten days--the
days of prayer, of belief, of waiting --in which they were not permitted to
begin their work.

"Strange," we almost hear him say, "Strange! The Lord has died that repentance
and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations. He has
finished the work, risen from the dead, and led captivity captive. The heavens
have received him. The angels proclaim him. Us he took from our homes. How he
taught and trained and practiced us--all, as we now see, for this work of
proclaiming his love and the pardon it brings to all mankind! Here we are,
unfitted for every other calling. His commission is to us as a prophet’s call,
as a king’s anointing. He said: ’Go into all the world, and preach the gospel to
every creature.’ We want to go. Men stand in need; they are dying daily, dying
in unbelief. Why does he not permit us to go? Why is the first command so long
suspended by the other--’Tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye be indued
with power from on high’? We have tarried ten days. Why does our Master delay?
The world needs the sound of his gospel; we are waiting to bear it forth. He is
exalted at God’s right hand, and all power is given unto him in heaven and in
earth; yet does he look down upon the world sleeping a sleep unto death, and
upon us waiting to blow the trumpet! Is not his instruction, his commission,
enough? We are ordained, after much teaching: may we not go? No; we must abide
by his word: ’Tarry until ye be indued with power from on high.’" The final
proof given by Peter that he was waiting indeed, making all preparations for the
event, was in calling upon his brethren to fill up the number of the apostles.
One had fallen. His place was vacant; and another was to take his "bishopric."
Peter concluded that they were to fill up this vacancy, and called upon the
company to select two men. No one objected that it remained to be seen whether
they should be indued with power or not. All acted as feeling the certainty that
the Holy Spirit was about to come, and the apostolic commission to be fulfilled
to the ends of the earth.


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  CHAPTER 4: 3. THE FULFILLMENT OF THE PROMISE
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CHAPTER III. THE FULFILLMENT OF THE PROMISE.

There was a day when death had struck a woeful stroke, and raised a nation’s
wail. "There was a great cry in the land of Egypt; for there was not a house
where there was not one dead." That same day the Lord, by the sprinkling of a
pure lamb’s blood, averted death from the doors of Israel, and then led them
away from yoke and taskmaster toward the goodly land. Fifty days afterwards they
reached the Mount of God, where he manifested himself in the thunder of his
power with flame and trumpet and a voice, whereat all the tribes did tremble.
Then was the new dispensation formally inaugurated with the voice and the flame;
its covenant sealed by sprinkling of blood, and its privileges opened to the
sprinkled by the vision of glory, when the elders "saw the God of Israel; and
there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it
were the body of heaven in his clearness." (Exodus 24:10) This time of note was
come; the fifty days were elapsed from the time when the Lamb was slain, and
captivity broken. Forty days he had been with them after his resurrection; the
rest he had passed within the veil. And was it not possible that in saying, "Not
many days," he pointed them forward to the day which commemorated the opening of
the new dispensation of God to Israel by the hand of his servant Moses? Was it
not probable that the glorious dispensation of his Son would be opened at this
time? Unbelief would have long ago ceased to expect; but faith would probably
renew its anticipations, and look to this day. On the morning of the
resurrection, some--the women--were early at the tomb; but the others were
sauntering into the country, or here and there, with nothing to wait for, as
they thought; yet partly expecting something to come to their ears. Even late in
the day, when they did meet to hear what some had seen and heard, Thomas was
away. Now, however, after ten days have elapsed, their patience is not
exhausted. They do expect, and therefore will not cease to wait. They have no
attention for anything else. The kingdom of God is at hand. Did he not say, "Not
many days"? Ten are gone; and the conclusion is not that of servants too idle to
wait: "Our Lord delayeth his coming; we may as well sit still. He will come in
his own good time." That is not waiting; it is idling. They said in their
believing hearts: "Ten days are gone; therefore the day of our Lord draweth
nigh. This is the day of Pentecost; and as the fire appeared on Sinai, in the
presence of our fathers, when God made his covenant by Moses, it may be that
to-day he will seal his covenant by the hand of the Prophet whom Moses foresaw,
baptizing us with fire, according to the word wherein he hath made his servants
to hope." No Thomas is absent now! Not one heart has failed! "They are all in
one place." No discord or doubt have they permitted to arise. "They are all with
one accord in one place." Nor are they slow or late. We are not told at what
hour they met, but it must have been very early; for after they had received the
baptism, and filled all Jerusalem with the noise of their new powers, Peter
reminded the multitude, who came together, that it was only the third hour of
the day--nine o’clock in the morning.

Early, then, on the second Lord’s day after the ascension, is the entire company
met, with one heart, to renew their oft-repeated prayer. We cannot go to the
house where was that upper room, nor to the site where it stood. These points
are left unnoticed, after the mode of Christianity, which is in nothing a
religion of circumstances, in everything a religion of principles. We know not
how long they had that morning urged their prayer, nor whose voice was then
crying to Him who had promised, nor what word of the Master he was pleading, nor
what feelings of closer expectation and more vivid faith were warming the
breasts of the disciples. But "suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a
rushing mighty wind." Not, mark you, a wind; no gale sweeping over the city
struck the sides of the house, and rustled round it. But "from heaven" directly
downward fell "a sound," without shape or step or movement to account for it--a
sound as if a mighty wind were rushing, not along the ground, but straight from
on high, like showers in a dead calm. Yet no wind stirred. As to motion, the air
of the room was still as death; as to sound, it was awful as a hurricane.

Mysterious sound, whence comest thou? Is it the Lord again breathing upon them,
but this time from his throne? Is it the wind of Ezekiel preparing to blow?
Shaken by this supernatural sign, we may see each head bow low. Then, timidly
turning upward, John sees Peter’s head crowned with fire; Peter sees James
crowned with fire; James sees Nathanael crowned with fire; Nathanael sees Mary
crowned with fire; and round and round the fire sits "on each of them." The Lord
has been mindful of his promise. The word of the Lord is tried. John was a
faithful witness. Jesus was a faithful Redeemer. He is now glorified; for the
Holy Ghost is given. Jesus "being by the right hand of God exalted, and having
received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this."
The instant effect of the descent of the Spirit on the first Gentile converts in
the house of Cornelius was that they began to "magnify God.’’ The effect would
be the same in this first case. That bosom has yet to learn what is the feeling
of moral sublimity, which never has been suddenly heaved with an emotion of
uncontrollable adoration to God and the Lamb--an emotion which, though no voice
told whence it came, by its movement in the depths of the soul, farther down
than ordinary feelings reach, did indicate somehow that the touch of the Creator
was traceable in it. They only who have felt such unearthly joy need attempt to
conceive the outburst of that burning moment. Body, soul, and spirit, glowing
with one celestial fire, would blend and pour out their powers in a rapturous
"Glory be to God!" or "Blessed be the Lord God!" Modern believers--not those who
never unite in simple and fervent supplications to the throne of grace, but
those who meet and urge with long-repeated entreaty their requests to God--can
recall times which help them to imagine what must have been the peal of praise
that burst from the hearts of the hundred and twenty, when the baptism fell upon
their souls; times when they and their friends have felt as if the place where
they met was filled with the glory of the Lord.

One word as to the mode of this baptism. In this case we have the one perfectly
clear account contained in Scripture of the mode wherein the baptizing element
was applied to the person of the baptized. The element here is fire, the mode is
shedding down--"hath shed forth this." "It sat upon each of them." Did baptism
mean immersion, they would have been plunged into the fire, not the fire shed
upon them. The only other case in which the mode of contact between the
baptizing element and the baptized persons is indicated is this: "And were all
baptized to Moses in the cloud and in the sea." They were not dipped in the
cloud, but the cloud descended upon them; they were not plunged into the sea,
but the sea sprinkled them as they passed. The Spirit signified by the water is
never once promised under the idea of dipping. Such an expression as "I will
immerse you in my Spirit," "I will plunge you in my Spirit," or "I will dip you
in clean water," is unknown to the Scripture. But "I will pour out my Spirit
upon you," "I will sprinkle clean water upon you," is language and thought
familiar to all readers of the Bible. The word "dip," or "dipped," does not
often occur in the New Testament; but when it does, the original is never
"baptize," or "baptized."’ The fire is not a shapeless flame. It is not Abram’s
lamp, nor the pillar of the desert, nor the coal of Isaiah, nor the infolding
flame of Ezekiel. It is a tongue; yea, cloven tongues. On each brow glows a
sheet of flame, parted into many tongues. Here was the symbol of the new
dispensation. Christianity was to be a Tongue of Fire. It was a symbol of their
"power"; the power whereby the new kingdom was to be built up; the power for
which they had so long to tarry, and so eagerly to pray, when all other things
were prepared; for which the whole arrangement for the world’s conversion was
commanded to stand still. The appearance of this one symbol was the signal that
former ones had waxed old, and were ready to vanish away. Altar and cherubim,
sacrifice and incense, ephod and breastplate, Urim and Thummim--their work was
done. Even of the most sacred emblem of all, that which was the "pattern of
things in the heavens," the ark itself, it had been foretold: "They shall say no
more, The ark of the covenant of the Lord; neither shall it come to mind;
neither shall they remember it; neither shall they visit it; neither shall it be
magnified any more." Of the temple itself the Master had said that not one stone
should be left upon another.

All the emblems of the old dispensation were now forever suspended. In their
room the Lord had appointed only two; and they chosen with a singular aptness at
once to suggest ideas and to avoid image representation: the water, wherein the
mind could see a symbol of the cleansing Spirit, but the eye no attempted
likeness; the bread and wine, wherein the body and the blood are forcibly
brought to mind, but no personal similitude set before the eye. These two only
were the unartistic emblems which Christ had ordained for his Church. His was to
be a religion of the understanding and the heart, wholly resting on the
convictions and the principles, building nothing on sense, and permitting
nothing to fancy. In strict keeping with this spiritual stamp of Christianity
was the symbol which, once for all, announced to the Church the advent of her
conquering power; the power by which she was to stand before kings, to confound
synagogues, to silence councils, to still mobs, to confront the learned, to
illuminate the senseless, and to inflame the cold; the power by which, beginning
at Jerusalem, where the name of Jesus was a byword, she was to proclaim his
glory through all Judea, throughout Samaria, and throughout the uttermost parts
of the earth. The symbol is a tongue, the only instrument of the grandest war
ever waged: a tongue--man’s speech to his fellow-man; a message in human words
to human faculties, from the understanding to the understanding, from the heart
to the heart. A tongue of fire--man’s voice, God’s truth; man’s speech, the Holy
Spirit’s inspiration; a human organ, a superhuman power. Not one tongue, but
cloven tongues. As the speech of men is various, here we see the Creator taking
to himself the language of every man’s mother; so that in the very words wherein
he heard her say, "I love thee," he might also hear the Father of all say, "I
love thee."

How does that fire-symbol, shining on the brow of the primitive Church, rebuke
that system which would force all men to worship God in one tongue, and that not
a tongue of fire, but a dead tongue, wherein no man now on earth can hear his
mother’s tones! Cloven tongues sat on each of them; so that each had not only
the fire-impulse to go and tell aloud the message of reconciliation, but also
the fire-token that all mankind, of whatever nation, kindred, people, or tongue,
were heirs alike of the gospel salvation, and of the word whereby that salvation
is proclaimed.

Blessed be the hour when that tongue of fire descended from the Giver of speech
into a cold world! Had it never come, my mother might have led me, when a child,
to see slaughter for worship, and I should have taught my little ones that
stones were gods. "Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth
wondrous things! And blessed be his glorious name forever; and let the whole
earth be filled with his glory. Amen and Amen!"


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 5: 4. EFFECTS IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWED BAPTISM OF FIRE.
========================================================================

CHAPTER IV.

EFFECTS WHICH IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWED THE BAPTISM OF FIRE.

SECTION I.--SPIRITUAL EFFECTS. THE first effect which followed this baptism of
fire is thus described: "They were all filled with the Holy Ghost." This
expression is so clearly joined with the record of the miracle that we easily
suppose that it is itself intended to express miraculous inspiration; but this
is not its constant, nor even its most frequent, use in the Old Testament. It is
sometimes employed to describe an inspiration antecedent to a miraculous
manifestation, and sometimes one antecedent to a purely moral manifestation.
Examples of the latter occur in several cases of "speaking the word of God with
boldness," when the circumstances were such that human nature unassisted would
have shrunk from the danger.

John the Baptist wrought no miracle; yet of him it was said that he should be
"filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother’s womb." Here the expression denotes
some inward and spiritual operation, which may take place in the silence of an
infant’s heart, and show its fruit in the quiet ways of childhood. Had he been
filled with the Holy Ghost immediately before commencing to preach, we should
have connected the former with the latter as an official, rather than as an
inward and moral, qualification. When men were required to fill the office of
deacons--not to work miracles, not to speak with tongues, but to promote the
brotherhood and good feeling of the Church, by a better regulation of its daily
relief to the poor--the qualification demanded was, that they should be "men
full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom." Again, Barnabas "was a good man and full of
the Holy Ghost and of faith." This is said of him not as accounting for any
miracles or tongues, but in relation to the fact that, when he had seen the
converts at Antioch, "he was glad, and exhorted them all that with purpose of
heart they would cleave unto the Lord." Again, when the apostles were first
called to bear witness for Christ before the rulers, "Peter, filled with the
Holy Ghost, said unto them," etc. Here we have no working of miracles, no
speaking with foreign tongues; but we find the man who, when left to his own
strength, denied his Master, now filled with a moral power which makes him bold
to confess that Master’s name before the rulers of his people, and with a wisdom
to speak according at once to the oracles of God and the exigency of the moment.

After this first persecution was reported to the disciples generally, they,
moved and distressed, appealed to the Lord in prayer, crying: "And now, Lord,
behold their threatenings; and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness
they may speak thy word." The answer to this prayer is recorded in terms more
striking than in any other case, except that of Pentecost: "And when they had
prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were
all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness."
Here, being "filled with the Holy Ghost" was not followed by any miraculous
effects whatever, but was an inspiration, the result of which is special moral
strength--strength to confront danger and shame; strength to declare all the
gospel, though, in so doing, they periled every interest dear to them. Our Lord
had promised to his disciples miraculous light and power by the Spirit; but it
was not as a miracle-working power that he had chiefly foretold his coming. It
was as a spiritual power, a comforter, a guide unto all truth, a revealer of the
things of God, a remembrancer of the words of Christ; one who would convince the
world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment; one who would embolden the
Lord’s servants to bear witness before the most terrible adversaries, and would
guide their lips to wise and convincing speech. Had it been his design that they
should expect the Holy Spirit chiefly as a miraculous power, the leading
promises would have had this aspect. When he first clearly proclaims that the
Comforter should come as a substitute for his own presence, he marks the classes
who shall know him, and those who shall not. The distinction between them lies
not in apostleship or ministry, not in gifts or powers, but in being of the
world, and "not of the world." "Whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth
him not, neither knoweth him; but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and
shall be in you." (John 14:17) Not, "For he will work miracles by you." That was
not promised to all. Not, "He will prophesy by you." That he did not promise to
all. But he did promise to all who are "not of the world" that he should dwell
with them and be in them. Nor is this promise confined to the apostolic age, or
to the times immediately succeeding. "That he may abide with you forever" gives
an interest in the personal influences of the Comforter to the disciples of all
ages, as well as to those of the first days. This promised substitute for the
personal presence of Christ was one whom the world should not see who was to be
invisible to the natural eye, undiscernible by the natural mind, yet known and
discerned by believers, though not seen; known not by outward sign, but by
inward consciousness. Our Lord’s expression is to be strictly noted: "The world
seeth him not, neither knoweth him; but ye know him"; not, "Ye see and know
him." in one respect the disciples and the world were to be alike: neither
should see him. Yet the disciples should "know" him; for "he dwelleth with you,
and shall be in you." Their knowledge of him was to come not by sense, but by
consciousness. Was this "being in them" to be an ordinary grace of believers or
to be coupled only with office or supernatural endowments? The want of it is
made by St. Paul conclusive against the claim of any man to be considered even a
member of Christ: "Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the
Spirit of God dwelt in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is
none of his." This passage, however, like many others, expresses only a
participation of the Spirit in some degree, without indicating what that degree
might be; leaving it open to doubt, were there no other passages bearing upon
the point, whether some might not be blessed with the indwelling of the Spirit,
who yet were to be debarred from the fuller privilege expressed in the strong
words, "filled with the Holy Ghost."

Eyesight is the necessary basis of what is called a painter’s or a poet’s eye;
the sense of hearing, the necessary basis of what is called a musical ear; yet
eyesight may exist where there is no poet’s or painter’s eye, and hearing where
there is no musical ear. So may the human soul be "filled with the Holy Ghost,"
having every faculty illuminated, and every affection purified, without any
miraculous gift. On the other hand, the miraculous power does not necessarily
imply the spiritual fullness; for Paul puts the supposition of speaking with
tongues, prophesying, removing mountains, and yet lacking charity, that love
which must be shed abroad in every heart that is full of the Holy Ghost.

"Filled with the Holy Ghost!" Thrice blessed word! Thanks be to God that ever
the tongues of men were taught it! It declares not only that the Lord has
returned to his temple in the human soul, but that he has filled the house with
his glory; pervaded every chamber, every court, by his manifested presence.

"That ye might be filled with all the fullness of God" is a prayer at which we
falter. Is it not too much to ask? Is it not a sublime flight after the
impossible? Let us remember it is not, "That ye might contain all the fullness
of God." That would be more impossible than that your chamber should contain all
the light of the sun. But it can be filled with the light of the sun --so filled
that not a particle of unillumined air shall remain within it. When, therefore,
the hand of the apostle leads you up toward the countenance of your Father; when
you approach to see the light which outshines all lights, "the glory of God in
the face of Christ Jesus," put away all thought of containing what the heavens
cannot contain; but, humbly opening your heart, say, "Infinite Light, fill this
little chamber!"

Reason says, "It may be"; Scripture says, "It may be"; but a shrinking of the
heart says, "It cannot be--we can never ’be filled with all the fullness of
God.’" When Paul had uttered that prayer, perhaps this same shrinking of heart
had almost come over him. How does he meet it? Glancing down at his wonderful
petition, and up at his almighty King, he breaks out: "Now unto him that is able
to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the
power that worketh in us,--unto him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus
throughout all ages, world without end. Amen." Yea, Amen, ten thousand thousand
times. The words of this doxology had been holy and blessed in any connection;
but they are doubly blessed, closely following, as they do, the prayer, "That ye
might be filled with all the fullness of God." Nor should we forget that the
power which Paul here adores is not some abstract and unmoved power of Deity,
but "the power which worketh in us." What is this power? The Holy Ghost--"might
by his Spirit in the inner man."

What a labor of expression do we find in 2 Corinthians 9:8, when Paul wants to
convey his own idea of the power of grace as practically enabling men to do the
will of God! "And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye,
always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work."
Here we have "abound" twice, and "all" four times, in one short sentence.
"Abound" means not only to fill, but to overflow. The double overflow, first of
grace from God to us, then of the same grace from us to "every good work," is a
glorious comment on our Lord’s word: "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, which they that believe on him should receive; for the Holy Ghost
was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified." The believer’s
heart, is placed, like the cistern, in communication with an invisible source;
the source constantly overflows into the cistern, and it again overflows. Happy
the heart thus filled, thus overflowing with the Holy Spirit! Where is the
fountain of those living waters, that we may bring our hearts thither? "He
showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the
throne of God and of the Lamb." (Revelation 22:1) There is the fount, there is
the stream--the Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son. To the throne of
grace! to the mercy seat! and you are at the fountain of all life. Nor seek a
scant supply at that source. "Be filled with the Spirit" sounds in your ears;
and, if you believe, not only will a well "spring up within" you, but rivers
shall flow out from you. The Spirit, as replenishing the believer with actual
virtues and practical holiness, is ever kept before our eye in the apostolic
writings. "That we might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being
fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God:
strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience
and long-suffering with joyfulness."

Putting these various expressions together, what a view do they give of the
riches of grace! "All sufficiency," "in all things," "always," "abound to every
good work," "fruitful in every good work," "strengthened with all might,"
"according to his glorious power," "according to the power which worketh in us,"
"filled with all the fullness of God." Eternal Spirit, proceeding from the
Father and the Son, answer and disperse all our unbelief by filling our hearts
with Thyself! The expression, "filled with the Holy Ghost," places before us the
human spirit restored to its original and highest fellowship. In many respects
that spirit is alone in this world. It finds here nothing that is its own equal.
Everything upon which it can look is its inferior in both nature and powers.
Earth and sky, beasts and birds, are the instruments of its comfort, or the
subjects of its thoughts, but never can share in its cares or affections. The
fields never say, "We enjoy thy presence," nor the stars, "We return thine
admiration." The lower animals can take no part in its deep movements of hope
and fear; can shed no light on its problems of justice, pardon, and the world to
come. In the spirit of its fellow-man alone can it find an equal; and in
communion with it, though it often solaces, often both wounds and defiles. Yet
it is the nature of man to seek an object kindred to himself, but superior.
Probably this is necessary to all natures which are at the same time rational
and finite. But where can man find a being kindred to himself, and yet superior
to him? Below the sky he is head, yet upward his instincts turn--upward toward
some one brighter or greater than himself.

What can answer to those upward aspirations of the soul? Its Creator. After
years spent in search of happiness, the human spirit penitently returns toward
its God, and, trusting in the atonement of his Son, finds forgiveness for the
past. Then does the great Comforter, the Witness of the Father’s love, the
Spirit of adoption, give the manifestation of the Divine favor which David
delighted to call "the light of thy countenance." This manifestation may be
gentle, or it may be rapturous; but in any case it is comforting. When gentlest,
it touches chords of satisfaction more delicate than were ever reached by the
most subtle joy of intellect; when most rapturous, it carries with it an assent
of the whole judgment such as no previous enjoyment, however tranquil,
commanded. The thirst of the soul has no deeper seat than is now reached. Wisdom
has no remonstrance, expectation no disappointment, fear no warning. It may be
in a profound calm, it may be in an unspeakable joy; but it is with core-deep
consciousness that the soul feels it has now touched, yea, tasted, its supreme
good, and that, for time or for eternity, it needs no more than to abide in this
blessedness, and improve this fellowship.

How can that be special which is universal? God is not far from every one of us.
Every man who moves upon the earth moves in him. How, then, can he be specially
present with one man more than with another? Strictly speaking, perhaps it is
more a question of manifestation than of presence. Electric agency may be
present everywhere, but it rarely makes itself visible in a flash. Heat may be
present everywhere, but is not everywhere manifested by fire. Jude said: "Lord,
how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?" God
is with all, but is unseen by any eye, and, alas! undiscerned by many a spirit.
He does not withdraw his presence from any part of his universe, or his care
from any of his creatures; but, as a human frame may be moving amid the light of
the sun, and see no light, so may a soul be moving in that universe which is
fuller of God than the atmosphere at noontide is of sunbeams, and yet discern no
God.

All objects require a suitable faculty, or they are unperceived. Sound exists
not to the eye; light exists not to the ear; flavor exists not to the touch. It
is of no avail that an object is, unless our nature has the special faculty
whereby we can descry its presence. A strong magnetic power may be acting on the
compass, whereon the steersman concentrates his attention; but eye, ear, hand,
smell, taste, give no report of its presence to the mind; and he first learns
that it was there by the crash of the ship on a coast which he thought was far
away. Our Lord said, in reply to Jude: "If any man love me, he will keep my
word; and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode
with him." This is more than mere presence. Presence may be unfelt, and
therefore forgotten; may be with displeasure, and therefore joyless. But this is
presence manifested--"We will come to him"; gracious --the coming is from
"love"; habitual and involving fellowship--both of these ideas lie in, "Make our
abode with him."

Two men are walking upon the same plain, and each turns his face toward the sky.
The light of the sun is shining upon both; but one sees no sun, while the other
sees not only light, but the face of the sun, and his eye is overpowered with
its glory. What makes the difference between the two? Not that one is in
darkness, and the other in light; not that one is near the sun, and the other
far away; not that one has an eye differently constituted from the other; but
simply that there is a thin cloud between heaven and the one, and no cloud
between it and the other. The latter cannot only trace evidence that there is a
sun, and that he is up, but has the presence of that sun before his face, and
his glory filling his eye. So two men stand in relation to the universal and
all-present God. One believes, infers, intellectually knows, that he is--aye,
that he is present--yet he discerns him not; it is a matter of inference, not of
consciousness; and though believing that God is, and that he is present, he
sins. Another spiritually discerns, feels his presence; and he learns to "stand
in awe, and sin not."

Suppose the case of a cripple who had spent his life in a room where the sun was
never seen. He has heard of its existence, he believes in it, and, indeed, has
seen enough of its light to give him high ideas of its glory. Wishing to see the
sun, he is taken out at night into the streets of an illuminated city. At first
he is delighted, dazzled; but after he has had time to reflect, he finds
darkness spread amid the lights, and he asks: "Is this the sun?" He is taken out
under the starry sky, and is enraptured; but on reflection finds that night
covers the earth, and again asks: "Is this the sun?" He is carried out some
bright day at noontide, and no sooner does his eye open on the sky than all
question is at an end. There is but one sun. His eye is content; it has seen its
highest object, and feels that there is nothing brighter. So with the soul: it
enjoys all lights, yet, amid those of art and nature, is still inquiring for
something greater. But when it is led by the reconciling Christ into the
presence of the Father, and he lifts up upon it the light of his countenance,
all thought of anything greater disappears. As there is but one sun, so there is
but one God. The soul which once discerns and knows him feels that greater or
brighter there is none, and that the only possibility of ever beholding more
glory is by drawing nearer. The operation of the Holy Spirit implies a
quickening of the nature of man by an impartation of the Divine nature, and
every increase of it implies a fuller communion of the Eternal Father with his
adopted child. When the soul of man is "filled with the Holy Ghost," then has
God that wherein he does rejoice--"a temple not made with hands," not reared by
human art, of unconscious and insensible material; a temple created by his own
word, and living by his own breath. In that living temple he displays somewhat
of his glory. In the Shekinah of the sanctuary he could manifest majesty only.
In this living temple he can manifest truth, purity, tenderness, forgiveness,
justice--the whole round of such attributes as his children below the sky are
capable of comprehending.

Thus inhabited, not only is the soul of man unutterably blessed, but his body
reaches dignity, the thought of which might make even flesh sing: "Your body is
the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God; and ye are
not your own." Not your own, for purchase has been made--"Ye are bought with a
price"; not your own, for possession has been taken--"Know ye not that ye are
the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you" (1 Corinthians
3:16, etc.) A holy man, whose presence breathes an unworldly air around him,
whose name is identified with a constancy of godly actions, is a visible
monument and remembrancer of God. Each member of his body is as a temple vessel.
By it holy works are done, and the will of the parent Spirit on moral points
expressed by material instruments. His spirit is led by the Spirit of God. His
"mortal body" is quickened by the Spirit "that dwelleth in him." He not only
"lives in the Spirit," but "walks in the Spirit"--his visible acts, as well as
his hidden emotions, being "after the Spirit." The natural man has disappeared
from his life and actions. Another creature lives. Thoughts, purposes, works,
which his nature never prompted, which, when prompted by revelation, his nature
could not attain to, now abound, as sweet grapes on a good vine. This precept is
embodied in his life: "Neither yield ye your members as instruments of
unrighteousness unto sin; but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive
from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God."
(Romans 6:13) In this the power of the Holy Ghost is practically manifested by a
reversal of the relations of the human spirit and the flesh, To persons yet in
the body, the apostle says: "Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so
be the Spirit of God dwell in you." Not in the flesh, yet in the body! The
unconverted man has a spirit, but it is carnalized; the play of its powers, the
studies of the intellect, the flights of the imagination, the impulses of the
heart, are dictated by motives which all range below the sky and halt on this
side of the tomb. The spirit is the servant of the flesh; and man differs from
perishing animals chiefly in this, that for carnal purposes and delights he
commands the service of a spiritual agent--his own soul. The Holy Spirit as
man’s regenerator reverses this state of things. He quickens the spirit, and
through it quickens the frame; so that, instead of spiritual powers being
carnalized, a mortal body is spiritualized; instead of soul and spirit being
subjected by the flesh, flesh and blood become instruments of the Spirit. Limbs
move on works of heavenly origin and intent. Thus a direct connection is
established between the will of the Supreme Spirit and the material organs of
man. A purpose originates in the mind of God; by his Spirit it is silently and
swiftly transmitted to the spirit of his child, and by this to the "mortal
body." Then, as an iron wire on the shore of the Crimea expresses the will of
the British Queen in London, so do the earthly members of a mortal express, in
the outward and physical world, the purpose of the Holy One. This is redemption
achieved; this is adoption in its issues; this is the new life; this is human
nature restored, man walking in the light--"God dwelling in him, and he in God."
Then his life is a light, and a light so pure that it gives those on whom it
shines, not the idea of "good nature," but of something heavenly. They see his
good works, and "glorify his Father which is in heaven"; not extol his
character, but feel that he is raised above his own character, and is "God’s
workmanship, created anew in Christ Jesus unto good works." A piece of iron is
dark and cold: imbued with a certain degree of heat, it becomes almost burning
without any change of appearance; imbued with a still greater degree, its very
appearance changes to that of solid fire, and it sets fire to whatever it
touches. A piece of water without heat is solid and brittle: gently warmed, it
flows; further heated, it mounts to the sky. An organ filled with the ordinary
degree of air which exists everywhere is dumb; the touch of the player can
elicit but a clicking of the keys. Throw in not another air, but au unsteady
current of the same air, and sweet but imperfect and uncertain notes immediately
respond to the player’s touch; increase the current to a full supply, and every
pipe swells with music. Such is the soul without the Holy Ghost; and such are
the changes which pass upon it when it receives the Holy Ghost, and when it is
"filled with the Holy Ghost." In the latter state only is it fully imbued with
the Divine nature; bearing in all its manifestations some plain resemblance to
its God; conveying to all on whom it acts some impression of him; mounting
heavenward in all its movements, and harmoniously pouring forth, from all its
faculties, the praises of the Lord. The moral change wrought in the disciples,
by the new baptism of the Spirit, is strikingly displayed in the case of one
man. A difficult service was to be performed in Jerusalem that day. Had it been
desired to find a man in London who would have gone down to Whitehall a few
weeks after Charles was beheaded, and, addressing Cromwell’s soldiers, have
endeavored to persuade them that he whom they had executed was not only a king,
and a good one, but a prophet of God, and that, therefore, they had been guilty
of more than regicide--of sacrilege; although England had brave men then, it may
be questioned whether any one could have been found to bear such a message to
that audience. The service which had then to be performed in Jerusalem was
similar to this. It was needful that some one should stand up under the shadow
of the temple and, braving chief priests and mobs alike, assert that He whom
they had shamefully executed seven weeks ago was Israel’s long-looked-for
Messiah; that they had been guilty of a sin which had no name; had raised their
hands against "God manifest in the flesh"; had, in words strange to human ears,
"killed the Prince of life." Who was thus to confront the rage of the mob and
the malice of the priests? We see a man rising, filled with a holy fire, so that
he actually forgets his danger, and seems not even conscious that he is doing an
heroic act. He casts back upon the mockery their charge, and proceeds to open
and to press home his tremendous accusation, as if he were a king upon a throne,
and each man before him a lonely and defenseless culprit. Who is this man? Have
we not seen him before? Is it possible that it can be Peter? We know him of old:
he has a good deal of zeal, but little steadiness; he means well, and, when
matters are smooth, can serve well; but when difficulties and adversaries rise
before him, his moral courage fails. How short a time is it ago since we saw him
tried! He had been resolving that, come what might, he would stand by his Master
to the last. Others might flinch; he would stand. Soon the Master was in the
hands of enemies. Yet his case was by no means lost. The governor was on his
side; many of the people were secretly for him; nothing could be proved against
him; and, above all, he who had saved others could save himself. Yet, as Peter
saw scowling faces, his courage failed. A servant-maid looked into his eye, and
his eye fell. She said she thought he belonged to Jesus of Nazareth. His heart
sank, and he said: "No." Then another looked in his face, and repeated the same
suspicion. Now, of course, he was more cowardly, and repeated his "No." A third
looked upon him, and insisted that he belonged to the accused Prophet. How his
poor heart was all fluttering! And, to make it plain that he had nothing to do
with Jesus of Nazareth, he began to curse and swear. Is it within the same
breast, where this pale and tremulous heart quaked, that we see glowing a brave
heart which dreads neither the power of the authorities nor the violence of the
populace; which faces every prejudice and every vice of Jerusalem, every bitter
Pharisee and every street brawler, as if they were no more than straying and
troublesome sheep? Is the Peter of Pilate’s hall the Peter of Pentecost, with
the same natural powers, the same force of character, the same training, and the
same resolutions? If so, what a difference is made in a man by the one
circumstance of being filled with the Holy Ghost!

Oh, for high examples of God’s moral "workmanship"! Oh, for men instinct with
the Spirit: the countenance glowing as a transparency with a lamp behind it; the
eye shining with a purer, truer light than any that genius or good-nature ever
shed; limbs agile for any act of prayer, of praise, of zeal, for any errand of
compassion; and a tongue of fire! Oh, for men on whom the silent verdict of the
observer would be, "He is a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost"! Never,
perhaps, did earthly eyes see more frequently than we see, in our day, men with
ordinary Christian excellences; men in private life whose walk is blameless; men
in the ministry who are admirable, worthy, and useful. But are not men "full of
the Holy Ghost" a rare and diminished race? Are those whose entire spirit
bespeaks a walk of prayer, such as we would ascribe to Enoch or to John; whose
words fall with a demonstration of the Spirit, and a power such as we conceive
attended Paul or Apollos; who make on believers the impression of being
immediate and mighty instruments of God, and on unbelievers the impression of
being dangerous to come near, lest they should convert them --are such men often
met with? Do not even the good frequently speak as if we were not to look for
such burning and shining lights--as if we must be content, in our educated and
intelligent age, with a style of holiness more level and less startling? Do not
many make up their minds nevermore to see men such as their fathers saw--men at
whose prayer a wondrous power of God was ever ready to fall, whether upon two or
three kneeling in a cabin, and wondering how the unlearned could find such
wisdom, or on the great multitude, wondering how the learned could find such
simplicity? Nevermore see such men! The Lord forbid! Return, O Power of
Pentecost, return to thy people! Shed down thy flame on many heads! To us, as to
our fathers, and to those of the old time before them, give fullness of grace!
Without thee, we can do nothing; but, filled with the Holy Ghost, the excellency
of the power will be of thee, O God. and not of us!

CHAPTER IV.

CONTINUED SECTION II.--MIRACULOUS EFFECTS

"THEY began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance." It
is not said, "with unknown tongues." In fact, the expression, "unknown tongues,"
was never used by an inspired writer. In the Epistle to the Corinthians, it is
found in the English version; but the word "unknown" is in italics, showing that
it is not taken from the original. Speaking unknown tongues was never heard of
in the apostolic days. That miracle first occurred in London some years ago. On
the day of Pentecost no man pretended to speak unknown tongues; but just as if
we in London suddenly began to speak German, French, Spanish, Russian, Turkish,
and other foreign languages, so it was with them. Not one tongue was spoken that
day but a man was found in the streets of Jerusalem to turn around and cry:
"This is my tongue, wherein I was born!" The miracle lay in the power of
speaking the tongues of adjacent nations, from which individuals were in
Jerusalem at that very time. This is not only miraculous, but a miracle in a
very amazing form; perhaps, as to its form, the most amazing of all miracles.

Matter is a great and pregnant thing. To us its properties are not only
wonderful, but exceedingly mysterious. When we see it flourishing while we fade,
towering in hills, or careering in waves, or spread out in the firmament, we
almost feel as if it were greater than we. Yet we are ever proving that, in
spite of appearances, matter is less than mind. Mind searches out matter, wields
it, molds it, makes it the servant of its will. Mind, then, being the superior,
it follows that a work wrought in mind is greater than one wrought in matter.
Miracles in seas, mountains, the firmament, or the human body, display a power
which rules the frame of nature and the frame of man. Yet, as the sphere of
these is matter, the whole order may be called the physical miracle--works above
nature, wrought upon physical agents in attestation of the revelation of God.
But beyond this lies a higher miracle, of which the sphere is mind; and which,
therefore, we may call the mental miracle--works above nature, wrought in
attestation of the revelation of God. Of this order, two forms had been
witnessed previously--inspiration, and prophecy; but now a new miracle in mind
was to challenge the belief of all Jerusalem. This miracle, as to its moral
impression, differed totally from all physical miracles--even from that complex
and most peculiar miracle, the raising of the dead, wherein we see a power which
matter and spirit, animal life and mental illumination, equally obey. That
miracle stands alone; yet the chief impression which it makes, and certainly the
impression which all purely physical miracles make, is that of power. They
suggest also, indeed, the idea of wisdom, else the power would not go so
unerringly to its end; and of goodness, else power so irresistible would move,
not to bless, but to destroy. Yet the leading impression produced is undoubtedly
that of power. In such miracles we recognize chiefly "the high hand and the
stretched-out arm." In inspiration, we see the mind of man enabled to sit down
among the morning mists of things, and to write a book which will stand while
the world stands. In prophecy, we see the mind enabled to look through a
thousand years, and describe what lies beyond so plainly that, when it is
unfolded to ordinary sight, it shall at once be recognized. Both these miracles
bring us, not so much into the presence of a Ruler as into the presence of a
Spirit. In beholding a sea dried, or a wilderness strewn with food, we feel
ourselves near the Lord of nature and the Stay of life. So here we feel
ourselves near the Fount of all mind, whose own knowledge depends neither on
material phenomena nor on the lapse of time; whose mode of acting on the human
mind is not by laws analogous to those whereby the latter acts on material
organs, or on its kindred minds through them. As, however, we watch the miracle
of tongues, a strange solemnity falls upon us: we feel as if we had left the
region where mind slowly and dimly learns through sense, had crossed some
invisible line into the land of spirits, and were standing before the Original
Mind. What knowledge of mind so minute as that which scans every sign whereby
every mind expresses its ideas? What power over mind so unsearchable as that
which can fill it in an instant with new signs for all its ideas--signs never
before present to it, yet answering exactly to those which others had been
trained from childhood to use? A number of Galilean peasants issue from an upper
room into the streets of Jerusalem. A strange fire is in every eye, a strange
light on every countenance. Each one looks joyful and benignant, as if he felt
that he was carrying the balm for the world’s sores in his breast. Each has
plainly a word to say, and wants listeners. Probably their steps turn toward the
temple, which, during the ten days, had divided their presence with the upper
room. One meets with an Arab, and addresses him; another goes up to a Roman, and
in a moment they are deeply engaged; a third sees a Persian, a fourth an African
from Cyrene; and, as they go along, each one attaches himself to some foreigner.
He tells a strange tale strange in its substance, equally strange in its
eloquence; a new and unaccountable eloquence, wonderful not for grace,
expression, or sweet sound, but for power.

One hearer in Latin, another in Coptic, another in Persian, another in Greek,
exclaims first at the wonder of the story, and then at the wonder of the
narrator: "Art not thou a Galilean? Whence, then, hast thou this fluency of
Latin?" He answers that he has received it to-day by gift from God. A smile
curls on the lip of the Roman, and he turns around to a neighboring group. There
an Egyptian has just been putting the same question, and received the same
answer. Yonder is an excited little knot, where a Parthian declares that the
tongue in which a man has told him of the death, resurrection, and ascension of
Jesus, is his mother tongue. People from Jerusalem are mocking, and saying, "The
men are full of new wine"; but the strangers, on speaking one to another, find
that they have all been hearing precisely the same things in their "own
tongues."

Those faces of different complexions, on comparing their opinions, darkle with awe. They find that in all this diversity of tongues the same tidings are repeated, and thus see the unity of matter in the variety of language: they find that the men who speak are unschooled peasants, yet are all gifted with the same unheard-of power; and thus see in the variety of speakers the unity of inspiration. The tongues are the tongues of all mankind; but the impulse is one, and the message one! From what center do all these languages issue? The same instinct which leads back the thought from speech to a mind, leads it back from this universal speech till it stands awe-struck in the presence of the Central Intellect of the Spirit which "formeth the spirit of man within him"---of the Supreme Mind, to which all mind is common ground; of the Father of thought!

It would be impossible to conceive any form of credential so well framed to
certify that a doctrine was the immediate issue of the mind of God. The bare
thought of such a miracle as that of tongues, had it only been a thought, would
have made in itself an era in the history of man’s intellect; and it may be
fairly questioned whether such a thought could have originated in anything else
than in the fact. The leading feature of the new religion was to be a Divine
teaching upon things invisible and spiritual--on points of which the unaided
powers of man could give no conclusive solution. For such a teaching, no
attestation could be so apposite as one that accredited it as a message from the
Spirit, which "searcheth all things." The universal call to man was worthily
issued into the world by a sign which showed that it came directly from the only
wise God, who gives understanding, and holds the keys of thought. The command of
all languages, by one consentaneous impulse, proclaimed the new message to be
the Word of God. The great question for humanity is, Hath God spoken? Are we
poor wanderers each left here to his own light, and Heaven looking down in
eternal silence on all our straying and perplexity? Hath the Parent Spirit,
whence these spirits of ours come, surrounded them with his infinite presence at
every step of their stumbling and perilous journey, and never once, from the day
of Adam to our day, signified that he saw, and heard, and felt? Has he dealt
with the soul of man as with "the spirit of a beast," that could never bless him
and never break his law? Are all words the words of erring man, and all lights
those doubtful and deceptive lights, following which so many have miserably
perished? Is all doctrine the guesses of thinkers, or the juggling of priests?
Has God never, never spoken?

"God spake all these words, and said!" On the Pentecost of Israel, from out of
the fire on Sinai, came "a mighty voice," which, sweeping down from the distant
peak as if from a throne at hand, filled the ears of three millions of people,
or more, as if they had been a little group. Ten times the Voice sounded
mysteriously over all that awed and quivering host, till human nature, smitten
to the core, cried out, "We die, we die!" The Voice had uttered only gentle and
wholesome laws, laws binding man to God, and man to man, laying sure paths to
peace and blessedness, and the Voice awoke only the response: "Let not God speak
with us, lest we die." (Exodus 20:19)

Thus, in the old time, a whole nation could be appealed to, that all words were
not uncertain, nor all questions open: "Ye came near and stood under the
mountain; and the mountain burned with fire unto the midst of heaven, with
darkness, clouds, and thick darkness. And the Lord spake unto you out of the
midst of the fire: ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only
ye heard a voice. And he declared unto you his covenant which he commanded you
to perform, even ten commandments; and he wrote them upon two tables of stone."
As in the Pentecost of Israel, so in the Pentecost of Christianity, the Lord
once more speaks "out of the midst of the fire." Now, however, the accompanying
tokens are not physical, but mental: employing many human minds and human
tongues as his instruments, yet manifesting the unity of that impulse whereby
they are all moved, he makes not merely the people of one nation, but the
representatives of all nations, feel that God hath spoken. Yes, tell it wherever
there are ears to hear, tell it to the ends of the earth: God hath spoken; man
has not been forgotten; guesses are not all our light; there is a gospel, a
"speech of God"; questions affecting salvation are settled, and our way to holy
living and happy dying traced by the Hand which rules both worlds. With regard
to the gift of tongues, some serious questions have been raised, especially by
the learned. One is as to whether the miracle was really in the speaker, and not
in the hearer; so that although all that was spoken was in one language, the
ordinary language of the disciples, yet the hearers of different nations each
heard in his own tongue. For this opinion, as for all opinions, it is possible
to cite some considerable names. But had it been as here supposed, the symbol of
the miracle would not have been cloven tongues, but manifold ears. The double
declaration of the narrative perfectly corresponds with the symbol. As regards
the speakers, it says that they "spake with other tongues"; as regards the
hearers, that they "heard every man in his own tongue." When St. Paul finds
fault with the use of the gift of tongues in Corinth, he does not blame the
hearers for lacking an ear that would interpret their own tongues into foreign
ones, but blames the speakers for speaking "with the tongue words not easy to be
understood" by the unlearned; and the only reason he ever assigns why the
auditors could not understand is, that they were unlearned; clearly showing that
a foreign language was employed, which education might have enabled them to
understand, but for the understanding of which miraculous power does not seem
ever to have been given. If the supposition of the miracle in hearing, instead
of in speech, has been resorted to with a view to simplify the miracle, it
defeats its own object; for, to sustain that supposition, the miraculous
influence must have been exerted on a number of persons as much greater than in
the other case, as the hearers were more numerous than the speakers. At the same
time, the nature of the miraculous operation would be in every respect equally
extraordinary.

Another question is as to whether the speakers understood what they said in the
foreign languages. The doubt as to this is not raised upon the narrative of the
Pentecost, but on certain expressions used by St. Paul in writing to the
Corinthians. There he says, "Let him that speaketh in an unknown tongue pray
that he may interpret"; and again, "If one speak in an unknown tongue, let one
interpret." Hence it would appear that some could speak with tongues, who could
not render into their language that which they had spoken. This, however, is not
clear; for he also says: "Greater is he that prophesieth than he that speaketh
with tongues, except he interpret, that the Church may receive edification."
Here he supposes that the person who possesses the gift of tongues does also
possess the power of interpreting into the common language that which he has
uttered in a miraculous way. But even granting that some were unable to
interpret, so as to edify the Church, that which they had themselves spoken, it
would appear that this did not at all arise from their not understanding what
they had said, but from their being destitute of the gift of prophecy, whereby
only they could edify believers. As to any doubt whether the person speaking
really understood his own utterances, it is completely removed by the text, 1
Corinthians 14:14-19 : "For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth,
but my understanding is unfruitful. What is it then? 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. Else when thou shalt bless
with the spirit, how shall he that occupieth the room of the unlearned say Amen
at thy giving of thanks, seeing he understandeth not what thou sayest? For thou
verily givest thanks well, but the other is not edified. I thank my God, I speak
with tongues more than ye all; yet in the Church I had rather speak five words
with my understanding, that by my voice I might teach others also, than ten
thousand words in an unknown tongue." Here, publicly praising "with the
understanding" is taken to be, so praising that a common man may understand; and
publicly preaching "with the understanding" is taken to be, so to speak as "to
teach others also." To praise and to preach in public without these, is to act
without understanding. The words, "he understandeth not what thou sayest,"
though "thou verily givest thanks well," settle the whole matter. They take it
for granted--as, indeed, the apostle does all through --that the speaker clearly
understands himself; but the fault is, that he uses speech which was never given
for the sake of intercourse with God, but for that of intercourse with man, in a
way that defeats its own object. Speech is man’s revelation of his own spirit to
his fellow-man; and when nothing is revealed, it becomes a mockery. Feelings and
thoughts are the language which God listens to: man hearkens in the air, God in
the soul within. To speak to him, we need no sounds: sounds are for human ears,
and useful only when the ear can recognize the meaning. The fact that some who
could not prophesy, could yet speak with tongues, is apparent in several parts
of Scripture, and is a singular proof at once of the generality and the
diversity of gifts. The lower gift, that of tongues, was more generally diffused
than the higher, that of prophecy. The miracle indicated not only the origin of
the new doctrine, but also its sphere. It was a message from the Father of men
to all men. National diversities, instead of being a barrier before which it
stood still, were opportunities to display its universal adaptation. Each
various tongue was made an additional witness that it had come for "every people
under heaven." Our Lord’s last words, "the uttermost part of the earth," had
here a strange and multiplying echo. A force was set in motion, which claimed
all humanity as its field; a voice was lifted up, which called upon every nation
to join its audience.

Again, this manifestation met and answered all doubts which might have arisen as
to the power of our Lord to gift his servants with language and utterance
needful for their coming contest with the whole world. He had told them that,
when brought before rulers and kings for his name’s sake, it would be given to
them what they should say: "For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your
Father which speaketh in you." (Matthew 10:20) He had evidently referred to such
Divine aid in speech when he told them that they should receive power after that
the Holy Ghost was come upon them, and that they should be his witnesses, even
"to the uttermost part of the earth." Moses had feared to plead before Pharaoh,
from a dread that utterance equal to the gravity of the mission could not be
given to him. Jeremiah had feared on a similar ground.

Nothing is more natural than that one who feels himself charged with a sublime
truth, on the proper delivery of which infinite interests depend, should
distrust his ability to frame suitable language. It is very probable that such
thoughts had troubled the disciples in the contemplation of the great work which
lay before them. If so, what an answer did they receive in the miracle of
tongues! He who enabled their lips to pour forth the testimony in words they had
never spoken, and never heard, could surely give them every measure of
propriety, of clearness, of copiousness, of power, whereof human speech was
capable. All questions as to how copious diction could be imparted to the
unready, and force to the feeble; how the slow could be made impressive, and the
tame eloquent, were here answered. The old promise, "I will be with thy mouth,"
received an unlooked-for commentary. The effects which the Spirit of the Lord
could produce upon the human tongue were shown to be illimitable by any natural
impediment. The ground of confidence as to their success in preaching was
conspicuously changed from talent, learning, office, or credentials, to the
working of the Holy Ghost. Their power ceased to be a question of natural
ability, and became one of Divine gift. The measure of the former might be
greater or less, without materially affecting the fruit of their work; but this
would exactly correspond with the degree of the latter.

Andrew had heard the Baptist preach, had seen how his words had plowed up the
rude feelings of the soldier, and at the same time commanded the subtle
conscience of the scribe. He had heard the Lord himself, when every word struck
the ear as a wonder. Probably he had always thought it impossible that such
swordedged sentences should ever come from his lips, or from those of "his own
brother Simon." He might conceive that he should be able to repeat the substance
of the lessons which the Lord had taught them, and that, when he stood before
counselors and magistrates, he should be enabled to assign a reason for his
hope. Perhaps he would think it possible that, when filled with that new
Comforter, who had been so often promised to them, he could address a multitude
with feeling. But as to words like fire, melting and burning the spirits of men;
words like hammers, breaking in pieces the hearts of stone; words that should
rush on the congregation with a force too overwhelming to be called eloquence,
should win a conquest too rapid and too complete to be called persuasion, should
make the speaker not only a prodigy, but a power, his hearers not only an
orator’s audience, but a Master’s disciples, --as to such words as these, how
was it possible that they should ever proceed from him, or Simon? So might he
naturally reason; but when he finds himself fluently telling a man from the
shores of Cyrene the whole story of the birth, and death, and resurrection, and
ascension, in a tongue which he had never heard before; when the African assures
him that it was the tongue of his native town--then, had you asked him, "Is it
now impossible that you or Simon should speak with a voice mightier than the
voice of a prophet, or that the least of your company should be greater than the
thunder-tongued Baptist?" he had answered, "With God nothing is impossible."

"And it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and
began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance." The
tongue of fire rested upon each disciple, and all spoke with a superhuman
utterance. Not the Twelve only, the Lord’s chosen apostles; not the Seventy
only, his commissioned evangelists; but also the ordinary believers, and even
the women. The baptism of the Spirit fell upon all, and spiritual gifts were
imparted to all--not equally; for the expression, "as the Spirit gave them
utterance," seems to indicate a diversity of gifts, which accords with other
passages in the New Testament. It is not probable that each one could speak
every language; for St. Paul says of himself, that he "spake with tongues more
than they all," clearly implying a limit in that gift, and a different limit in
different persons. And it is certain that all had not the gift of "prophesying"
suited to address such congregations as that soon about to meet, or even
publicly to teach in ordinary assemblies. As in his later operations, so now,
the blessed Spirit would doubtless show "diversities of operations," giving to
"one the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge, to another prophecy,"
etc. But the cloven tongues sat upon each of them, and, by the joint effect of
spiritual life imparted and of spiritual gifts bestowed, all were instantly set
upon spiritual services; all led to become active witnesses for Christ and for
his cross. The fire did not fall on the Twelve to be by them communicated to the
Seventy, and by them again to the ordinary flock. It came as directly on the
head of the disciple whose name we never heard, as on that of the beloved and
honored John. It did not confound John the Apostle in the promiscuous mass, or
place his office at the disposal of the multitude; but confirmed it, and fitted
him by new gifts to adorn and make full proof of his ministry. But it did not,
on the other hand, leave the ordinary believers as mere spectators to see the
spiritual work of the Lord committed wholly to the selected ministry; their part
being passively to receive spiritual influences and illumination from those who
had direct access to Him with whom is the supply of the Spirit. This original
blessing meets beforehand the error, which was likely to spring up, from looking
on the true religion in the light in which all false ones are ever regarded--as
a mystery to be confined to an initiated few, on whose offices the multitude
must depend for acceptance with the invisible Power. Here was a religion that
did single out and lift up some above their fellows, investing them with a high
and solemn ministry; but from their ministry it swept away all seeming
priesthood. The usual idea of priesthood is that of a power standing between man
and God, through which alone we may draw near and find mercy at his hands. But
so far from any such characteristic belonging to the ministry of the gospel, it
is distinguished as being an office, the special labor of which is to point each
man direct to God, and to assure him that between him and the throne of grace
there is no power, visible or invisible, and no mediator but One to whom alike
apostle, evangelist, and the humblest penitent must look. True, all were not
apostles, all were not evangelists, all were not prophets; but, in the only
sense in which any were priests, all were priests. The one altar of the Cross,
the one sacrifice of the Lamb, the one High Priest within the veil, were alone
to be named in any light of peacemaking with God. To all, the privilege of
offering up the sacrifices of praise and of prayer, of living bodies and of
worldly goods, was equally open. No man was made a depository or storehouse
wherein spiritual favors should be laid up for the use of those who might
purchase or implore them at his hands. He was most honored who could most
successfully turn the trust of men away from all other advocates, and fix it
upon the Son of God alone.

"They all began to speak." This shows that the testimony of Christ was not borne
by the ministry alone; that this chief work of the Church was not confined to
official hands. The multitude of believers were not mere adherents, but living,
speaking, burning agents in the great movements for the universal diffusion of
God’s message. Many feel as if religion, on the part of the ministry, was to be
a matter of bold and public testimony; but on that of ordinary Christians, a
heart secret between themselves and God. Let such sit down in sight of that
first Christian scene; let them behold every countenance lighted up with the
common joy, and hear every tongue speak under the common impulse, and then ask
Bartimeus, or Mary, if the private disciple has not just as much cause to be a
witness that Jesus lives, and that Jesus saves, as either James or John. Let
them ask if it is like their religion that one lonely minister shall, on the
Lord’s day, bear witness before a thousand Christians, who decorously hear his
testimony as worthy of acceptance by all, and then go away, and never repeat the
strain in any human ear.

Looking at the universal movement of that pentecostal day, who could think that
the new religion was ever to come down to this? that speaking of its joys, its
hopes, its pardon, its mercy for the wide world, was to be considered a
professional work, for set solemnities alone, and not to be a daily joy and
heart’s-ease to evergrowing multitudes of happy, simple men? Cheerless is the
work of that Christian minister who, at set times, raises his testimony in the
ears of a people, all of whom make a practice of hiding it in their hearts!
Blessed in his office is he who knows that, while he in his own sphere proclaims
the glad tidings, hundreds around him are ready, each one in his sphere, to make
them their boast and their song! Spiritual office and spiritual gifts vary
greatly in degree, honor, and authority, and he who has the less ought to
reverence him who has the greater, remembering who it is that dispenses them;
but the greater should never attempt to extinguish the less, and to reduce the
exercise of spiritual gifts within the limits of the public and ordained
ministry. To do so, is to depart from primitive Christianity.

SECTION III.--MINISTERIAL EFFECTS. Our immediate connection with the gift of
tongues, was a gift less startling as a phenomenon, but more influential as an
instrument for the recovery of mankind. Peter was soon called upon publicly to
deliver the Lord’s message. Then, undoubtedly, he spoke not in any foreign
tongue, but in his native dialect. He had often spoken before, yet nothing
remarkable is recorded of his preaching, or its effects. He is now the same man,
with the same natural intellect, and the same natural powers of speech; and yet
a new utterance is given to him, the effects of which are instantly apparent.

Never was such an audience assembled as that before which this poor fisherman
appeared: Jews, with all the prejudices of their race--inhabitants of Jerusalem,
with the recollection of the part they had recently taken in the crucifixion of
Jesus of Nazareth--met in the city of their solemnities, jealous for the honor
of their temple and law; men of different nations, rapidly and earnestly
speaking in their different tongues: one in Hebrew, mocking and saying, "These
men are full of new wine"; another inquiring in Latin; another disputing in
Greek; another wondering in Arabic; and an endless Babel besides, expressing
every variety of surprise, doubt, and curiosity. Amid such a scene the fisherman
stands up; his voice strikes across the hum which prevails all down the street.
He has no tongue of silver, for they say, "He is an unlearned and ignorant man."
The rudeness of his Galilean speech still remains with him; yet, though
"unlearned and ignorant" in their sense as to polite learning--in a higher sense
he was a scribe well instructed. As respected the word of God, he had been for
three years under the constant tuition of the prophet of Nazareth, hearing from
his lips instruction in the law, in the prophets, and in all the "deep things of
God." On whatever other points, therefore, the learned of Jerusalem might have
found Peter at fault, in the sacred writings he was more thoroughly furnished
than they; for though Christ took his apostles from among the poor, he left us
no example for those who have not well learned the Bible, to attempt to teach
it.

Yet Peter had no tongue of silver, no tongue of honey, no soothing, flattering
speech, to allay the prejudices and to captivate the passions of the multitude.
Nor had he a tongue of thunder; no outbursts of native eloquence distinguished
his discourse. Indeed, some, if they had heard that discourse from ordinary
lips, would not have hesitated to pronounce it dry--some of a class, too
numerous, who do not like preachers who put them to the trouble of thinking, but
enjoy only those who regale their fancy, or move their feelings, without
requiring any labor of thought. Peter’s sermon is no more than quoting passages
from the word of God, and reasoning upon them; yet, as in this strain he
proceeds, the tongue of fire by degrees burns its way to the feelings of the
multitude. The murmur gradually subsides; the mob becomes a congregation; the
voice of the fisherman sweeps from end to end of that multitude, unbroken by a
single sound; and as the words rush on, they act like a stream of fire. Now, one
coating of prejudice which covered the feelings is burned, and starts aside;
now, another and another; now, the fire touches the inmost covering of
prejudice, which lay close upon the heart, and it, too, starts aside. Now, it
touches the quick, and burns the very soul of the man! Presently, you might
think that in that throng there was but one mind, that of the preacher, which
had multiplied itself, had possessed itself of thousands of hearts and thousands
of frames, and was pouring its own thoughts through them all. At length, shame,
and tears, and sobs overspread that whole assembly. Here, a head bows; there,
starts a groan; yonder, rises a deep sigh; here, tears are falling; and some
stern old Jew, who will neither bow nor weep, trembles with the effort to keep
himself still. At length, from the depth of the crowd, the voice of the preacher
is crossed by a cry, as if one was "mourning for his only son"; and it is
answered by a cry, as if one was in "bitterness for his firstborn." At this cry
the whole multitude is carried away; and, forgetful of everything but the
overwhelming feeling of the moment, they exclaim: "Men and brethren, what must
we do?" No part of the proceedings of the day strikes us with a deeper or more
lasting impression than the amazing change in Peter which is here manifest. We
are continually prone to consider the power of a minister as a natural power,
simply intellectual. Here was a man who, in all probability, had passed the
period of life when eloquence is most forcible, without having distinguished
himself by any such power. He comes forward with a most unwelcome message, to
address an unfavorable audience, himself unskilled in the arts of oratory; and
yet, such is the power of utterance given to him that he produces an effect the
like of which had never been known before in the history of mankind. Never has
it been recorded in any other instance, that three thousand men were in an hour
persuaded by one of their own nation, of obscure origin and uninfiuential
position, to forego the prejudices of their youth, the favor of their people,
and the religion of their fathers. "I will be with thy mouth," is more
strikingly fulfilled here, in those extraordinary effects of the speaking of an
ordinary man, than in any other form in which the power of God could be
displayed, through the instrumentality of a human tongue. There is no part of
the whole series of events which has a more direct bearing upon the permanent
work of the Christian Church. This is the first example of prophesying in the
New Testament sense; not the limited sense of foretelling, but the more
comprehensive sense of delivering a message from God, under the impulse of the
Spirit of God, and by his aid. In this the speaker has the double advantage of
ascertained truth to declare--truth which his own understanding has received,
which he can enforce by citing the word of God--and of aid direct from the
Spirit in uttering it. This gift is conspicuously placed by St. Paul above that
of tongues: "Greater is he that prophesieth than he that speaketh with tongues."
The gift of tongues was "for a sign to them that believe not"; and even to them
only under certain circumstances, when they were addressed in a tongue which
they understood, and that by one of whom they had proof, or what amounted to
strong probability, that he had not learned it in a natural mode. For the union
of these two requisites nothing was so favorable as the meeting of a number of
foreigners in one city, and hearing natives of the country speak all their
different languages. A foreigner appearing in a city, and professing to speak
its language by miracle, would lie under the suspicion of having learned it
before he came; and persons speaking foreign tongues in the presence of their
own unlearned countrymen would seem to utter gibberish. This Paul puts strongly
to the Corinthians: "If the whole Church be come together into one place, and
all speak with tongues, and there come in those that are unlearned, or
unbelievers, will they not say that ye are mad?"

If a number of persons in Corinth had a gift in Hebrew, or in Latin, and their
fellow-townsmen, who knew only Greek, came and heard a rush of unmeaning sounds,
and were told that it was a miracle, it might be, but it was not a miracle to
them. If they saw an African peasant speaking fluently in Greek, then, indeed,
they would be startled; and if once assured by any means that he had not learned
it, they .would recognize a miracle. But the effect of persons resident in a
place using the gift of tongues could only be to satisfy the learned of a
miracle. For the unlearned it would be simply bewildering. Suppose that, in the
city of Oxford, the stonemasons, joiners, and shoemakers heard a few of their
own number uttering something in Latin: they would only be impressed with a
belief that they had gone mad, or were amusing themselves with gibberish. But
did the learned men of the university find these groups discoursing on the
doctrines of the gospel in the


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  CHAPTER 6: 5. PERMANENT BENEFITS RESULTING TO THE CHURCH
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CHAPTER V.

PERMANENT BENEFITS RESULTING TO THE CHURCH.

AMONG the permanent benefits resulting from Pentecost, we cannot include the
visible flame. Of it we never again find any mention in the course of the
apostolical history: it appears to stand related to the Christian dispensation
as the fires of Sinai did to the Mosaic--the solemn token of supernatural power
upon its inaugural day.

Neither are we warranted in looking upon the "gift of tongues" as one of the
permanent privileges of the Church. Only twice, throughout the Acts of the
Apostles, do we find any record that it accompanied the first introduction of
Christianity to a place; and both these instances are very peculiar. The first
was in the house of Cornelius, when Peter, preaching to his Italian auditory,
felt some misgiving whether he might not by possibility be doing wrong, should
he include them within the fold of the Church; but he saw a great change pass
upon the men before him, and heard them begin to speak with other tongues, and
thus saw that, as to themselves at the first, the Lord had now given a Pentecost
to the Gentiles. The other case is that wherein the disciples at Ephesus, who
had been instructed in the baptism of John, but had not so much as "heard
whether there was any Holy Ghost," received the word at the hands of Paul, and
began to speak with other tongues. These two cases excepted, we never read of
this miraculous gift immediately attending conversions effected under the
preaching of the apostles. It would not be just, from this circumstance, to
infer that these were the only cases in which the gift was bestowed; but we may
at least infer that it was not an invariable accompaniment of the first
appearance of Christianity, even in the apostolic days.

Considerable question, as to whether it was designed to be a permanent gift of
the Church, is raised by St. Paul’s discourse on this particular gift, in his
letter to the Corinthians. It has been already remarked that he there shows it
to be destitute of any power of edification for the Church, and therefore not to
be a gift likely to continue, where all were convinced of the truth of
Christianity. "Tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them
that believe not." The only specific use assigned to the miracle is that it is a
sign to them who believe not. In any community, then, in which the whole
population had become believers, this sign ceased to be called for.

It seems to be frequently taken for granted that the chief value of the gift of
tongues was to enable the possessors of it to preach the gospel to the natives
of countries whose language they did not otherwise understand; but this is never
set forward, in the Acts of the Apostles, as a reason for the gift. A solitary
stranger, possessing the gift of tongues, and passing into a country the
language of which was to him otherwise unknown, would have a great advantage in
that gift; but, as has been already noted, not the advantage of thereby
impressing the people of the country with a sense of the miracle for they would
probably believe that he had been taught their tongue--but of ability at once to
proceed with his work and mission. It is, however, to be remarked that we never
find this advantage quoted as one of the results of the gift. Except in the case
wherein the gift of tongues was used as a sign to the disciples that the
Gentiles were admitted into the dispensation and community of the Spirit, the
gift was no sign "to those who believe." Its one use was "a sign" to
unbelievers, and even to them not in ordinary circumstances; for them prophecy,
and not tongues, was the profitable gift. Not adapted to edify the Church, or to
bring ignorant unbelievers to repentance, and fitted only to be a sign under
exceptionable circumstances, this gift does not seem clearly designed to be
either universal or perpetual. We are not called upon to say that it will never
be restored to the Church; for that is never said in the word of God; nor should
we ridicule or talk disrespectfully of the faith of any Christian who devoutly
expects its restoration. All we say is that we have not scriptural ground to
claim it as one of the permanent gifts of the Spirit; and we may add that, if it
ever return to the Church, it will be, not a mystification, but a miracle; a
real speaking with "other tongues," not a speaking in some unheard-of, unknown
tongue.

Having premised thus far, we come to the serious question, whether the Christian
Church derives any advantage whatever from the dispensation of the Spirit,
beyond that of looking back to a glorious period of miracle and power at her
origin--a period which she may not regard as the dawn of a long and brightening
day, but as a wonderful time of mysteries and portents, which were to have no
permanent place in the Church. It may seem strange thus plainly to put the
question, whether Christianity really has any benefits permanently resulting
from Pentecost; but it is necessary to do so, in order honestly to meet, not so
much well-digested and formally expressed opinions, as a habit of feeling often
prevailing among professed branches and members of the Christian Church.

Nothing is more common than to find the whole system of Christianity, as an
organization for recovering mankind from their sinful condition, spoken of,
treated, and trusted in, as if it had been clearly ascertained that it was
neither more nor less than a deposit of Divine doctrine cast upon the earth,
forsaken by the Divine Power, and left to make such way among men as it might by
the inherent force of truth, and the permission of auspicious circumstances.
Cases are stated in which it is taken for granted that Christianity can make no
way, simply because natural difficulties exist, such as natural agency cannot in
reason be expected to overcome. Anything like a consistent counting upon a
superior power acting with the truth, and making it triumph over difficulties,
such as on natural grounds are unconquerable, jauntily dealt with, as pertaining
to those whose religion is not entitled to the veneration which Christianity
has, by the lapse of ages, gained from mankind. In everything practice is in
danger, if theory be falsified; and after the right theory has been abandoned,
the maintenance of right practice is always precarious, and never
long-continued. If it be the true theory of Christianity that the living power
of the Holy Ghost, additional to pastoral agency, additional to scriptural
truth, additional to every doctrine and every ordinance--a power by which the
truth is applied and the agent quickened for his work--is not to be expected as
continually resident and active in the Church, that theory ought to be clearly
stated and formally recognized on the part of all Christians. If it be not the
true theory, we should take care that it do not color any of our habits of
thought. A religion without the Holy Ghost, though it had all the ordinances and
all the doctrines of the New Testament, would certainly not be Christianity. In
it the presence and power of the Spirit are ever taken to be the vital element.
Our world without its atmosphere--though the same globe, with the same physical
characteristics, would be another world; and, if inhabited at all, must be
inhabited by a race governed by laws altogether dissimilar to those under which
human life is sustained. The change from the Church of the New Testament to a
Church without the Holy Ghost would certainly not be less in its kind than this.

All who seriously handle Christianity must recognize the presence of the Spirit
as an integral part of its system and power; but if this presence is to be in
some occult and inconceivable manner resident in an abstract Church--not in the
hearts of individual believers, not in the living temple of animated bodies and
sanctified souls, but in a holy Church made up of unholy members, in a sacred
ministry made up of secular persons, in holy houses where worldly multitudes
gather, and in holy books which ungodly ecclesiastics handle--if this is to be
the presence of the Spirit, then the debate as to whether it is to be expected
in perpetuity or not need excite little interest. If his presence is to entitle
men to promulgate new doctrines contradictory to those already revealed in his
own word, and even to withhold that word from the mass of their fellow-men, on
the plea of denying them a deceptive guide and substituting an infallible one,
then would his presence become a self-contradiction and a danger. In none of
these lights have we the slightest reason given in the word of God to expect the
presence of the Spirit. We hear not of him there as dwelling elsewhere than in
the bodies of believers, or ever yielding to future ages the right to depart
from the ancient ways and the clear revelation of the Son of God. Neither do we
find the promise of his presence so given that all action and effort on the part
of Christians is to be made at every moment dependent on each person’s own
impression of the Spirit’s movement within him. But while, on the one hand, we
do not expect the permanent presence of the Spirit with the Church in the Romish
sense, or in the sense maintained by estimable Christians of the Society of
Friends, we must, on the other hand, maintain, as we have said, that without his
presence and operation in the hearts of believers, and in Christian agents, we
cannot have the Christian religion. We do not expect visible signs or miraculous
gifts; for these were not the substantial blessing and grace imparted at
Pentecost, but were to them only as heralds and ushers. The real grace and
blessing lay in what we have called the spiritual influence of the Holy Ghost,
acting on the believer’s heart; his ministerial influence, acting on the Church;
his converting influence, acting on the world. These, we contend, are necessary
to the identity of the Christian religion, and were bestowed for all ages, and
will to the end of the world be shed on those who perseveringly "wait" for the
baptism of fire.

Whence arises a persuasion which we seldom find formally stated, but constantly
trace in the words of thoughtful men--that our mind is cut off from communion
with the Father Mind, and, though able to draw knowledge from physical objects
and from the minds of men, is without any access to the Source of spirit, or any
recognizable lights from him? On what inch of ground in all the realm can we
rest the notion that the Spirit of God does not communicate actively and
directly with the spirit of men? Is it that we are so completely outcasts that,
though without doubt capable of being acted upon by the Divine Being for Divine
intents, he will not touch subjects so mean? This would be the death knell of
intellect and morals; for, if thus cut off from the Source of light, our souls
must be lost in the dark at last. The sense of sin gives to the conscience a
feeling of banishment, the only answer to which lies in redemption. It is vain
to answer it by mere reason; for reason offers no footing for the feeling,
except on ground which revelation first discovers, and then bridges over by the
cross. Is it that our mental perceptions are all derived through physical
organs, and that none such existing as channels between God and the soul, no
communication can take place? Few would be so bold as to say this; many are bold
enough to assume it. What! no communication but through physical organs? They
never explain communication, but only increase the mystery. Physical organs, it
is true, are only acted upon from without, by physical objects; and all our
sensations come through such organs. But they never have sensations. The organ
receives an impulse from the light, the air, or other outward object, and
transmits that impulse to the brain, producing a vibration there; but what a
gulf between a vibration in a brain and a sensation of a soul, or an idea of
heaven, or an emotion of joy!

It seems no mystery that two men should be able to communicate, but a great one
that they should be able to do so through an iron wire, when they are a thousand
miles apart. One makes a secret fire carry a thought from his mind through a
wire toward the mind of the other--a sensation is given, and both an idea and an
emotion follow; but the wire feels none of them. The impulse passes along it,
and the mind interprets that impulse, and turns it into the image of a dying
father, a newborn babe, a ruined fortune, or a sovereign saying, "Well done!"
All the sensation, perception, emotion, lie within the mind, none of them in the
wire. It is just so with organs: they transmit impulses, but they know nothing,
feel nothing, and explain nothing, The power of communication is a mental power.
Spirit knows, and gives knowledge. The wonder is not that a mind can impart its
ideas to a mind such as itself, but that, being shut up in a silent chamber
whence branch out wires incapable of one thought or feeling, it can pour along
these a vivid and changeful fire which conveys its feeling to another.

"No man," says Paul, touching on these things, "knoweth the things of a man,
save the spirit of man which is in him." To you all minds are invisible. True,
the mind of your neighbor is in all respects the fellow of your own; yet you
cannot tell what is within it. It may be forming plans for your ruin or for your
good; but this is beyond your eye, or ear, or heart’s divining. Every man dwells
in the invisible, and often rejoices to look out upon a race, no one of which
can look in upon him; yet oftener does he rejoice to pour himself into others,
and multiply his own feelings in the spirits around him. When the invisible
"spirit of man" wills to make known "the things of the man," it has easy, though
mysterious, means at command. A man is seated in his chamber, and deep things
are passing in his mind. His mother sees that he is thinking; but ask her to
tell his thoughts, and she is at a loss. His wife looks into his eye, and knows
that he is feeling; but ask her what is the spring and course of his emotion,
and she is in the dark. His little daughter sees something lofty on her father’s
brow; but what it is, she knows not. Presently a thousand people are before him,
and "the spirit of the man" is opening itself: a stream of thought is pouring
from it--thought which ranges from the most familiar objects at hand to those
which are hidden in the bosom of eternity. Yet all these thoughts, mingled with
suitable emotion, pass straight from his unseen soul into the souls of the
thousand people. How is this accomplished? Between him and them is floating a
something which we call "sound." The keenest eye cannot see it; the most
delicate touch, or smell, or taste, can find no trace of it. As it is rushing
upon the ear, both eye and hand search in vain for it; yet is it carrying
invisible thought, from a soul invisible, by channels invisible, into the silent
places of many souls, where the thoughts it raises are invisible to the nearest
neighbor, till expressed in looks or words. The mind of the speaker pours a
succession of impulses through hidden chords to his tongue and lips: these
strike the air, in which the stroke makes a wave; that strikes on the drum of
the ear, which causes a quivering of a nerve behind, that a quivering of the
brain; and then the soul inside sees an image of Stephen dying, or Paul falling
on the high road, or Elijah ascending, or Jesus at the right hand of the Father!
What connection is there between a wave of air, a quiver of the brain, and an
idea of heaven or hell, of sin or holiness? That the connection exists, is
plain; but how? Make it plain how "the spirit of man," which "knoweth the things
of a man," can reveal them within other spirits. All we can say is, God has
appointed a channel of communication, given to the spirit means of expression,
and to its fellows means of perception. With this fact before us, illustrated
not only in the one form just cited, but in a thousand forms every day, upon
what pretext do we set up a cry of mystery as to the communication of the Spirit
of God with man? Absurdity can reach no limit greater than that of supposing
that the central intellect knows no avenue to all intellect; that is, is
defective in means of expression. Despair can hurl humanity no lower than to say
that God, able to commune with it, enlighten, renew, and impel it, yet distantly
stands away; for, if no communication exists, the reason lies in him. To say
that the defect is not in his power of expression, but in our power of
perception, changes nothing. If he cannot "reveal the things of God" to man,
with such powers of perception as man has, he cannot adapt the expression of his
own will to our state.

Many who shun the extreme of denying that God does hold communion with human
souls, yet cover the truth with a soft but cold cloak--a cloak of snow--by
always speaking loudly of the mystery. What is the way of the Spirit? How can
man recognize the voice, the eye, the countenance of God? How is it possible to
feel his anger or his favor, his presence or his withdrawal? Is it not a
mystery? Yes, it is a mystery; but it is nothing more. A mystery is a thing we
are most accustomed to. I know no one thing which I perfectly know; I know ten
thousand which are full of mysteries. The nail of my finger is a mystery; the
fact is manifest, the mode undiscoverable. About my hand I can ask more
questions than all mankind can answer; wrist, arm, shoulder, all have mysteries.
As I approach the heart, the brain, what crowds of questions rise and are
checked by the known impossibility of an answer! If "the way of the Spirit" were
capable of perfect explanation, the whole universe would be a riddle; for why
should that which was so high be fully known, and every common thing under our
eye contain mysteries? The mystery involved in the Lord’s communicating with any
of his creatures is far less than that of our communicating one with another. He
is of infinite intelligence: he planted the ear, he gave man speech; for him,
therefore, to communicate with any spirit existing must be easier than for the
sun to shine.

"Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man
the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." The apostle does not
say this of heaven; he is not even alluding to it, for it is "the glory that is
to be revealed": whereas he says of the "good things" here in view, "God hath
revealed them unto us by his Spirit." These good things, then, are not
teachings, for of them eye, ear, and mind take cognizance; nor heaven, for it is
not yet revealed; but those blessings which "are prepared" for those who come at
the Lord’s call--pardon, adoption, and the favor of God. Anticipating the
inquiry, "How can those things be--how can acts of mercy, which pass in the
invisible world, be revealed to us?" the apostle gives this simple illustration:
"What man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him?
Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God." If the things
of God are beyond our eye, ear, or discernment, so are those of a man; and if
man can make his mind known, how much more the All-wise! "Now we have received,
not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know
the things that are freely given to us of God." Adoption is an act seen by no
man; and were no communication of it made to him in whose favor it hath passed,
he could never by his senses or reason discover it. Though adopted, he would lie
in the spirit of bondage. But that we may not be ignorant of this essential
change in our relation to our heavenly Father, not ignorant of the things which
his grace has bestowed, he has provided a Comforter, whose benign work it is to
solace our hearts by letting us "know" what the Lord hath done for us. The
belief that God does not commune with man is no result of reason. Reason has no
footing for it. It is, indeed, hardly a belief; it is a feeling, followed by a
sort of half-seen mental conclusion. A boy, conscious of deserving his father’s
anger, somehow thinks he will not be received at home. Men, conscious that they
are aliens from God, recoil from the thought that the very breast wherein they
have caged things unclean may be a shrine of his presence. A feeling of moral
improbability, of unfitness, leads the mind to shrink from such a hope. Hope,
indeed, it does not seem at first: the boy forgets the hopefulness of standing
by his father’s side in the dread of coming under his eye; forgets the joy of
regaining his favor in the heat of enmity to his rule and restraints. A natural
difficulty to the Creator’s communion with his rational creatures never existed.
A moral one did; and never was problem so deep as, How could the Holy One take
the impure to his arms, and yet continue the Holy One? That problem has been
solved. The Holy meets the unholy over the blood of atonement. There is death
for evildoing, wrath against iniquity, yet mercy for the repenting. Sin is not
encouraged, innocence is not confounded with guilt; and yet the fallen are
lifted up. This moral difficulty being met, and no natural one ever having
existed, did the Lord not commune with the soul of man as with his own
"offspring," the only reason must be that he pleased to cut off from such
fellowship. To affirm this would be to run into downright opposition to the
whole scope of revelation. Not a few of those who, if formally expressing their
belief, would maintain that the Spirit is to abide with the Church in all ages;
that the idea of impossibility in his communing with man is absurd, and the cry
of mystery unmeaning; nevertheless, in practice, effectually shut out his agency
from their own view, and that of those who may be under their influence, by
continually speaking of the truth, the truth only, as the power to renew this
sinful world. Far be it from us to undervalue holy truth, and, above all, that
truth which flows untainted from the fount of inspiration; but a truth, even
when Divine, is never more than a declaration of what is. It is not the power
which renews the human soul, but the instrument of that power; not the electric
current, but the conductor along which the current flows. It is necessary, as
necessary as the metal wire to the telegraph; but, alone, it is as inefficient
as the wire when the hidden power does not pervade it.

You may teach a man the holiest truths, and yet leave him a wretched man. Many
who learn in childhood that "God is love," live disregarding, and die
blaspheming, God. Thousands who are carefully taught, "Believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, and thou shall be saved," neglect so great salvation all their days.
Some of the most wicked and miserable beings that walk the earth are men into
whose conscience, when yet youthful and unsophisticated, the truth was carefully
instilled. Did the mere truth suffice to renew, there are towns, districts, aye,
countries, where all would be saints.

Unmindful of this, and not considering the danger of diverting faith from the
power to the instrument, however beautiful and perfect the instrument may be,
many good men, by a culpable inadvertence, constantly speak as if the truth had
an inherent ascendency over man, and would certainly prevail when justly
presented. We have heard this done till we have been ready to ask, "Do they take
men for angels, that mere truth is to captivate them so certainly?"--aye, and
even to ask, "Have they ever heard whether there be any Holy Ghost?" On one
occasion it was our lot to hear a preacher of name, preaching before a great
Missionary Society from the text, "I am come to send fire upon earth." Choosing
to interpret the fire referred to in this passage as the power which would
purify and renew the earth, he at once declared the truth to be that power, and
most consistently pursued his theme, without ever glancing at anything but the
instrument. Afterwards hearing the merits of the sermon discussed by some of the
most eminent ministers of his own denomination, and finding no allusion to its
theology, we asked, "Did you not remark any theological defect?" No one remarked
any, till the minister of some obscure country congregation broke silence, for
the first time, by saying, "Yes; there was not one word in it about the Holy
Spirit." The belief that truth is mighty, and by reason of its might must
prevail, is equally fallacious in the abstract, as it is opposed to the facts of
human history and to the word of God. We should take the maxim, that truth must
prevail, as perfectly sound, did you only give us a community of angels on whom
to try the truth. With every intellect clear, and every heart upright, doubtless
truth would soon be discerned, and, when discerned, cordially embraced. But
truth, in descending among us, does not come among friends. The human heart
offers ground whereon it meets error at an immeasurable disadvantage. Passions,
habits, interests--aye, nature itself--lean to the side of error; and though the
judgment may assent to the truth, which, however is not always the case, still
error may gain a conquest only the more notable because of this impediment.

Those who compliment Truth upon her might have need of much self-possession.
What world do they dwell in, that they can utter such flattery under the gaze of
her clear and sober eye? What are these nations yet neglecting commercial and
political truth, though all their interests invite them to embrace it? What
these "enlightened" populations that have had religious truth again and again
held up in their view, but have angrily rejected it, though to the entailing
upon themselves innumerable social disadvantages? Where is the town where truth
always prevails, or the village where error wins no victories? Do they who know
human nature best, when they have a political object to carry, trust most of all
to the power of truth over a constituency? or would they not have far more
confidence in corruption and revelry? The whole history of man is a melancholy
reproof to those who mouth about the mightiness of truth. "But," they say,
"truth will prevail in the long run." Yes, blessed be God, it will; but not
because of its own power over human nature, but because the Spirit will be
poured out from on high, opening the blind eyes, and unstopping the deaf ears.
The sacred writings, while ever leading us to regard the truth as the one
instrument of the sinner’s conversion and the believer’s sanctification, are
very far from proclaiming its power over human nature, merely because it is
truth. On the contrary, they often show us that this very fact will enlist the
passions of mankind against it, and awaken enmity instead of approbation. We are
ever pointed beyond the truth, to Him who is the Source and Giver of truth; and,
though we had apostles to deliver the gospel, are ever told not to deem it
enough that it should be "in word only, but in demonstration of the Spirit and
in power."

We well know that many who speak of the truth as accomplishing all, do not mean
the truth without the Spirit to apply it; but what is meant ought to be said.
Hold fast the truth as an instrument divinely adapted and altogether necessary;
but in magnifying the instrument, never forget or pass by the agent. The Spirit
in the truth, in the preacher, in the hearer; the Spirit first, the Spirit last,
ought to be remembered, trusted in, exalted, and not set aside for any more
captivating name. There should never be even the distant appearance of wishing
to avoid avowing a belief in the supernatural, or to reduce Christianity to a
system capable at all points of metaphysical analysis. If no supernatural power
is expected to attend the gospel, its promulgation is both insincere and futile.
In their reluctance to acknowledge any supernatural element in religion, many
take refuge in the idea that, after all, we are not to expect what the primitive
Christians enjoyed. If this means that we are not to expect miracles, to it we
have no possible objection. If it means that we are to expect less grace, we can
give it no kind of credit. Nothing can be more contrary to the whole spirit and
genius of revealed religion than that the progress of years and events should be
coupled with a diminishing amount of Divine life and grace among men. All things
promise us progress, not retrogression. No principle of Christianity, and no
passage of the Christian Scriptures, warrant the expectation that the system is
to decline with age, and to grow dim before its day ends. The mode of thinking
to which we now refer, seems to be closely connected with the favorite idea of
unbelief in the world--that of the Almighty "leaving," as men express it, one
and another province of his territories to the care of secondary principles and
powers.

Limited as the human mind is, the idea of combining attention to the general and
to the particular always presents to it an extreme difficulty. In its own
experience, when taking a general view, it necessarily overlooks particulars;
when minutely attending to particulars, it necessarily overlooks generals.
Unconsciously transferring the idea of its own limitation to the Supreme Power,
it would ease him of the incomprehensible task of at once minutely caring for
every atom, and gloriously ruling the universe. But in the presence of the
universal, the distinction between the particular and the general fades away.
Artificial lights either shine in one particular apartment, leaving the street
dim, or shine upon the street generally, leaving each particular apartment of
the houses dim; but when the universal light arises, he knows no distinction
between general illumination and particular. Every little casement in the world
is equally lighted as the broad valley of the Ganges, and every solitary daisy
as well shone upon as if there were no other thing upon earth to lighten.

"He leaves, he leaves; he creates and leaves--leaves to the course of nature;
leaves no general laws." Such is the crude language we continually hear from men
who would transfer the small ideas of human sense to the infinite sphere of the
Godhead. The idea of the Omnipresent leaving, forsaking any part of his own
dominions; putting a limit to himself; creating, in fact, the most
incomprehensible of all incomprehensible things, a place where there was not a
Creator--the idea of his presence being an effort, or his embrace and
superintendence of nature being a task, is unworthy even of the dignity of
physical science, much more of the sweep of human thoughts. On the wings of the
wind; on the universal flow of electric power; on the swift sunbeams, filling up
with a finite infinity the whole expanse of the solar system at once; on the
light of a fixed star present with our eye, and at the same moment present
through space inconceivably immense at every point from our eye to the star, and
then away as far beyond, and round and round again at all conceivable points of
the circumference on every side--on these confessedly finite objects our thought
may rest, and rise step by step till it easily springs to the idea of a complete
and consistent Infinite, a presence literally everywhere, a power constant as
eternity, an activity to which inaction would be effort, an eye to which
attention is but nature, and slumber would be an interruption of repose.

Those who would exclude the Divine Being from his own universe have been often
exclaimed against, and justly; but how much more may they be exclaimed against
who would exclude him from his own Church, and from communion with his children?
Had his power been exhausted by the act of creating and establishing the Church,
and then had he committed its future course to the development of natural laws
and the inherent power of the truth, himself retiring from all action in the
great battle whereupon he had set his servants, we might reasonably look upon
Christianity as a religion which, perhaps, was better than others, more
serviceable to the social interests of those who embrace it, and more genial in
its influence upon the destiny of mankind; but higher motives than these for its
propagation, or greater strength for the men who undertake the task, could not
be calculated on. So far, however, from this being the case, the express promise
with regard to the Spirit was, "He shall abide with you forever"; and when about
to leave the disciples as to his bodily presence, the Saviour said, "And, lo, I
am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." A presence, this, better
than a bodily presence--a presence by his Spirit and his power, whereby the
souls of his children are made glad, and their hearts made strong, not in some
solitary village of Galilee for the evening, but at the same hour all over the
earth, wherever two or three are gathered together in his name. That presence
will never be withdrawn while there is a believer whose heart embraces the
promise; and such believers will not fail while the world stands. So far from
anything in Scripture countenancing the idea that Christians of all subsequent
ages were to be deprived of that Divine help which constituted the strength and
holiness of the primitive disciples, we have no intimation that they were to be
even inferior in spiritual attainments. On the contrary, everything countenances
the expectation that, as generation succeeds generation, the influence of holy
faith and holy example will steadily tend to the elevation of the standard. As
Christianity makes progress among a population, every new household which
becomes imbued with it is an additional power toward elevating the standard of
character in that neighborhood. It is impossible to calculate the influence
exerted, even in a country like our own, where religion has yet so much to do,
upon those who are still ungodly. In many points their consciences have been
trained, by force of example and precept, to a tenderness and activity which
Christian doctrine alone could give; and, as age after age rolls on, and the
proportion between the saints and sinners becomes altered, the latter
diminishing, the former growing, the image of God in man will be yet more and
more brightly seen, if not more conspicuously, in some rare and blessed
individuals, yet much more generally, as a common ornament and glory of human
nature. For a Christian now to expect to be made as holy by the grace of God as
the saints of the New Testament, so far from being presumption, is scarcely a
worthy measure of faith. It may be fairly said that, if we are not better than
those who went before us, we are not so good; for the very light of their
example sheds upon us an influence to which nothing corresponding was shed upon
them, and thereby gives us a dear advantage, by which, with a similar measure of
grace, we ought to present a character more complete. Were it once proved that
our moral strength in the present day was natural, then, indeed, might we
reasonably limit our expectations, but not to partial attainments and incomplete
holiness; for on that ground the reasonable limitation would be, not, "We shall
attain to much, though not as much as the early Christians," but, "We shall
attain to nothing." Our Lord’s word is not, "Without me ye can do little," but,
"Without me ye can do nothing." If it then be settled that in this age, as in
the first, our strength is not of nature, but of the Lord, the reasonable range
of our expectation, now as then, is to be measured by his glorious power. The
question no longer is, Of what are we capable in ourselves, or by ourselves?
but, What can he perform? and to what extent can he manifest forth his glory by
making us monuments of his power, and mirrors to display his image? That grace
of his which was shed so plentifully on the believers of the first days, is not
an intermittent radiance, like the flash of a human eye, but is steady as the
glory which streams from the face of the sun. Waning or exhaustion it does not
know; and from age to age, from generation to generation, his saints will grow
more and more mature, human life will increasingly reflect the glory of the
Lord, and display his power to make weak mortals, beset with temptations, meet
to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.

Some who gladly admit that the Church, generally, may advance in Christian
virtues, yet hesitate to believe that individual Christians in our day are to
enjoy the same comforts of the Spirit as were so conspicuous in the primitive
Christians. Among these latter nothing is more noticeable than filial confidence
and joy: their reconciliation to the Lord, their interest in the death and
intercession of Christ, their consciousness of regeneration, of deliverance from
sins once reigning over them, their clear foretaste of heaven, and their peace
in the prospect of death, shine throughout the New Testament and all the early
records of the Church. This was the natural "fruit of the Spirit," the natural
effect of such a Comforter as the Redeemer had promised dwelling in the heart.
Take this characteristic away, and they would at once fall from the level of
"children of light," of "heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ," down to that
of the votaries of other religions, among whom personal "joy in God" and
prospects of immortal bliss are things unknown. As we said before, that a
religion without the Holy Spirit would not be Christianity, so we may say that
religionists without the Spirit in their hearts would not be Christians. "Ye are
in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have
not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." It requires much of that cold
daring which men may acquire as to things spiritual, for any one who even
respects, though he should not study, the record of Christianity at its source,
to teach that it is not a common privilege of believers to enjoy a sense of
their salvation, and to walk in the light of God’s forgiving countenance. No
scrap of Holy Writ even seems to favor this attempt to sink modern Christians to
a point almost infinitely below that of ancient ones: for who can measure the
distance between a soul which is singing, "We know that we have passed from
death unto life," and one that is saying, "I cannot hope to know, till death
strikes me, whether or not I shall escape dying forever"? A change more serious
can hardly be imagined in the relations of the Lord to his people than would
take place under the Christian dispensation, if, beginning by enabling believers
to say, "We have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the
heavens," he ended by leaving them in utter doubt as to their future destiny;
if, beginning by giving them a sense of his favor, clear as day, unspeakably
joyful, he ended by leaving them to serve him throughout life, without ever
feeling conscious that he smiled upon them; if, beginning by holding communion
with them, he ended by leaving them to doubt whether he was even reconciled. It
is trifling at once with a man’s common sense and with his most sacred hopes and
fears, to tell him that he is called with the same calling as the early
believers, by the voice of the same Redeemer, under the same covenant of grace,
and with the same promise of adoption; but that, while his brother, ages ago,
had "peace with God," and "joy unspeakable and full of glory"--knew himself to
be a child and then an heir of God, and daily felt that heaven was his home--he
is to proceed on his pilgrimage without any of these comforts, and learn at the
end whether or not his soul is to perish. Who has given any man the right to
assert that such a change has taken place in the relation of the adopting Father
to his adopted children, affirming him to have grown, in our age, too
indifferent to soothe their hearts, and make them partakers of the joy which he
spreads among the angels when he declares that the ’lost is found"? The change
which the supposition we are combating would require in the office, or, at
least, in the operation, of the Spirit himself, under the very dispensation of
the Spirit, is sufficiently grave, one might imagine, to make the least careful
pause, ere he assumed that it had taken place. The act wherein the Everlasting
Father absolves a guilty being from his offenses, and recognizes him before the
angels as an heir of his glory, must ever be of deep importance in the
government of God. Of old time, when that great act took place, heaven rejoiced;
but the deed did not remain without effect upon earth. The King had proclaimed a
pardon, and that proclamation must have effect. The Comforter sped to the
mourner’s heart. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." With the
presence of the Comforter, the captive found "deliverance," and he that was
bound, an "opening of the prison"; and, tasting the liberty of the children of
God, he sang, "O Lord, I will praise thee: though thou wast angry with me, thine
anger is turned away, and thou comfortedst me." Are we, then, on the word of
some men, without one intimation of Scripture to support them, to believe that
the Spirit has so essentially changed his mode of dealing with a forgiven
sinner, that now the decree of pardon promulged above, and hailed by angels,
receives no effect in the soul of him whom it absolves? that the Comforter
abstains from comforting, leaving the ransomed captive still to mourn his
captivity, without relieving him of his load or of his chain? O Dove of Peace,
ancient Comforter of the pilgrims who traveled this heavenward road before us,
they say that thy wing has grown weary with the lapse of time!

How great a change would take place also in the privilege of believers! "We are
of God," "born of God," "heirs of God," "followers of God, as dear children,’’
"fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God"--"once darkness,
now light in the Lord." Such was the sense of adoption enjoyed in apostolic
times. Of all the privileges wherewith the soul of man ever has been blessed, or
ever can be blessed in this life, by far the most consoling and elevating is the
sense of adoption into the family of God. No man can read the New Testament, and
deny that this was an ordinary characteristic of the believers then living, or
that it was a main element of their strength, kindling in them a joy which made
them ready to face reproach and emulate high service. Where is the intimation
that this privilege was to be denied to Christians in succeeding ages? When Paul
says, "But I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all
long-suffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to
life everlasting," does he give any intimation that the believers of following
ages, though they should be believers just as he, and should obtain "life
everlasting" just as he, and should have his case and his mercies before their
eyes, as "a pattern" whereby to measure their expectations from Jesus Christ’s
"longsuffering," were yet to lose an essential portion of the believer’s
joy--namely, the power of saying, "But I obtained mercy"? Even the Psalmist,
under a dispensation lower than our own, could say, "I said, I will confess my
transgressions unto the Lord, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin." Does
he hint that this is a privilege to which only a few can attain, and from which
the children of God, in the better days to come, shall be ordinarily debarred?
"For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee, in a time when thou
mayest be found"--conveying a clear intimation that just as he, on confession of
his sins, found forgiveness--such forgiveness as healed the grief of soul which
he describes a moment before, and enabled him to sing, as he here does, "Blessed
is he whose transgression is forgiven" (Psalms 32:1-11)--so would every
godly-disposed person find an acceptable time, if he prayed to the same merciful
Lord for like forgiveness. No godly man, no one whose heart was seeking after
God, in the day of David, could read this without feeling that the ’blessedness"
of absolution was held out to him as his privilege. Indeed, all through the
Psalms it is taken for granted that the righteous man rejoices in his forgiving
God. And does the grace of our blessed Redeemer grow narrower as time advances?
Does he gradually withdraw the light of his countenance till upon us of the
latter days complete darkness settles, and we are doomed to grope our way
through life’s temptations without the encouragement of one smile from him, and
at the end to set a doubtful foot on the threshold of eternity? The idea of any
such deterioration in the privilege of believers is totally groundless, without
one prop in Scripture or in reason. In a structure of ice, formed in cold
seasons, and melts away when brought either into the sunlight of Scripture or
the warmth of living Christian society. We could not easily believe in any
accession to our privileges, beyond those of our brethren in early times, unless
it were clearly taught in the word of God; but if, without Scripture proof, we
must believe either in an increase or in a diminution of them, we should choose
the former, as far more supported by the analogy of the Lord’s dealings with
men.

"Peace" was the Saviour’s legacy to his followers; peace to be imparted by the
Comforter; peace which the world cannot give, and which passeth understanding.
He leaves no hint that this legacy was to be recalled before "the end of the
world." Indeed, in both the Old Testament and the New, happiness is an essential
part of religion; that kind of happiness which is called "joy in God through our
Lord Jesus Christ." The reigning of such joy in any human bosom clearly
presupposes that the individual is satisfied of the reconciliation of God to
him, notwithstanding his sins. Wherever this is doubtful, distrust, fear, and
gloom must ever accompany the contemplation of the Most High; and this gloom
would settle most densely on the most contrite spirit. Happiness is to be a
feature of religion to the last. That odious caricature of Christianity, which
offers to the view of the world a man with all the doctrines of the gospel on
his lips, but gloom on his brow, disquiet in his eye, and sourness in his
bearing, has done infinite injustice to our benign religion, and infinite harm
to those who never knew its worth. Now, as in the days of Solomon, "her ways are
ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace"; now, as in the days of
David, she "puts gladness into the heart, more than in the time that their corn
and their wine increased"; now, as in the days of Paul, she gives "joy and peace
in believing." Happiness is not a separable appendage of true piety; it is part
of it, and an essential part: "The joy of the Lord is your strength." Some would
regard happiness as if it were to religion what a fine complexion is to the
human countenance--a great addition to its beauties, if present; but if not, no
feature is wanting. In the sacred writings, from first to last, it is regarded
as a feature which cannot remove without both wounding and defacing. The kingdom
of God is not only "righteousness," but "righteousness and peace and joy in the
Holy Ghost."

While that kingdom stands, this "joy in the Holy Ghost" will be the privilege of
the children of God; and let no man stand between the humblest believer of this
our day and the full light of his Redeemer’s countenance. Let none take it for
granted that the work of God in the soul of man has degenerated; that the
merciful Father no more gladdens the prodigal he accepts, by letting him know he
loves him; that Jesus no longer says, "Be of good cheer: thy sins be forgiven
thee"; or that when a penitent is accepted as a son, the gracious Comforter does
not now, as in the old time, hasten on his dovelike message to diffuse heavenly
peace in another troubled bosom. The assertion sometimes confidently made, that
the witness of the Spirit to our adoption is given to some believers, years
after their conversion, as the reward of special holiness, has not even a
pretext of scriptural footing. The witness of the Spirit, so far from being the
reward of sanctification, is one of its chief springs; for without love there is
no holiness, and we only love because we feel that God first loved us. "Because
ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying,
Abba, Father." Not because you are old and eminent among the sons of God, but
because you are sons: it is not a good-service reward, but a birthright; not a
crown of distinction, but a joy of adoption. "In whom ye also trusted, after
that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom, after
that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise." Here the
order is, "Ye heard, believed, were sealed": no long period of doubt and labor
intervenes between the believing and the sealing. The father of the prodigal
does not keep him for years, working "as one of his hired servants," before he
prints the fatherly kiss of reconciliation on his cheek and on his heart. The
hackneyed objection, that it is presumption for any one to say that he is a
child of God, takes too much for granted. It never is presumption to acknowledge
what you are. Had David never been taken from the sheepcote and made king, it
would have been presumption in him to say that he had; but when it was the case,
he was in gratitude bound to own and to commemorate the mercy shown to him. So,
if a man has not been delivered from the dominion of sin and adopted into the
family of God, for him to say that such is the case is presumption; but if he
has, then not to praise his Redeemer for it would be ingratitude. Saying that it
is presumption for any one to call himself the child of God, takes it for
granted that no one is; or else it is absurd. Presumption has many forms; and it
is worth considering, whether a great and good Being would most disapprove the
presumption which expected too much from his goodness, or the presumption which
dared positively to disbelieve his promise.

Many who readily admit that, to some extent at least, the Church in all ages
will enjoy the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit, and who would not deny that
the first believers were favored with direct manifestations of the favor of God,
yet make a difficulty of believing that, when sinners are forgiven in the
present age, they are comforted by the Spirit manifesting himself in their
hearts, and crying, "Abba, Father"? They do not deny that, even in our day,
forgiven sinners are solaced with a confidence that they are forgiven; but they
see prudential reasons against admitting that this is imparted by the direct
witness of the Spirit, and would arrive at it by a process which, however
unwittingly on their part, removes the office of sealing the adopted children of
God from the Spirit, and gives it to the reason of man. They teach the seeker of
salvation that, instead of looking to the cross for mercy, till the Spirit, as
the Comforter, "reveals the Son of God in his heart," he is certainly to look to
the cross, but not to expect that to bring any such manifestation; on the
contrary, he is only to learn what are the marks of a child of God, to compare
his life with them, and, if it and they agree, his mind will arrive at the
comfortable persuasion that he is a child of God. This is one instance of the
common error of taking part of a process for the whole. On the part of the
Christian, the comparison of the scriptural marks of the regenerated with his
own character is not only good, but absolutely necessary: for, no matter what
may be his supposed comforts, joys, or revelations. if, in his life. he is not
led by the Spirit of God, he is not a son of God. But because certain evidence
is essential as a corroboration, it does not follow that it is the chief
evidence of the fact, the first ground of conviction. As a guard against
delusion, a strengthening of our confidence, and a constant stimulus to press
forward to the things which are before, a sober judgment passed upon our own
progress in grace is scriptural, rational, and indispensable. As the mode of
binding up the broken heart of a penitent, of imparting to him the first feeling
of filial confidence in the Lord, it is neither scriptural nor rational. It
never can be the original ground of consciousness in any soul, that, through the
abundance of grace, I, even I, am an adopted child of God.

Yet this is the consciousness to be given, and that not to the heart of one who
is "whole," but of one who is "sick"; not of a man who thinks that he is good,
who is ready to interpret everything in his own favor, and has no feeling that
he is vile, or that the Lord is angry with him; but of one who now feels what
probably he believed all his life--that he is a sinner, covered with dark and
filthy spots, the displeasure of the Lord hanging over him for many unholy
deeds, and his poor soul both fitted for destruction and exposed to it. Until
painfully sensible of his need of Christ, no man flees to him for refuge; and
one in this state of feeling is soberly told that his burden is to be removed,
and the sense of his salvation to be originated, by his being satisfied of the
agreement of his own life with the fruits of the Spirit, as stated in the word
of God.

What are those fruits? "Love, joy, peace," etc., or "righteousness and peace and
joy in the Holy Ghost." No enumeration of the fruits of the Spirit will be found
which excludes peace and joy, much less love; and from these graces--if, indeed,
not from the last-named alone --spring the various fruits which unitedly
constitute "righteousness." The poor penitent, then, is not to be first relieved
of his load, and given to feel that God loves him; but, previous to obtaining
such Divine comfort, he is to become satisfied that his love, joy, peace, and
other graces, are such as mark the children of God--that is, while yet feeling
that the Lord is angry with him, he is to love the Lord; while yet feeling that
his soul is unsaved, he is to feel joy in the Holy Ghost. If it be said that the
feeling of the Lord’s wrath and his own danger is removed before the filial
affections appear, then a direct action of the Comforter, antecedent to his
satisfaction with his own graces, is admitted; and if that be denied, there is
no alternative but to conclude that, at the same time and in the same heart, one
can both feel that he is under God’s anger, and love God as a forgiving Father;
can feel that he is in danger of hell, and enjoy spiritual peace. If the sense
of wrath and danger is removed before the fruits of the Spirit appear, there is
a direct witness of the Spirit himself; if not till after, the totally
incompatible states of mind just mentioned must coexist. The relation of the
fruit of the Spirit to the witness of the Spirit is clearly indicated to us.
John says, "We love him because he first loved us." Here the fruit, "We love,"
is made consequent on our sense of the fact, "He first loved us." To say that we
first know that God loves us, because we feel that we love him, is to make the
fruit of the Spirit the foundation of the witness of the Spirit: a relation
totally repugnant to the principle announced in this text, and pervading the New
Testament, as, indeed, also the Old. "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not
all his benefits; who forgiveth all thine iniquities." The fact of forgiveness
ascertained is the ground of filial gratitude; not filial gratitude the ground
from which the fact of forgiveness is inferred.

Mental conclusions, as to spiritual truths, do not govern the feelings. The
marks of "a child of wrath" are plainly laid down. Thousands know that they bear
them; and yet this produces no contrition or distress, till the coming Spirit
pierces their hearts. As it is with convincing, so would it be with comforting.
A mental conclusion as to my own spiritual attainments would never dispel a
sense of guilt from my conscience, nor make my trembling heart "rejoice in the
Lord." Did an awakened sinner conclude a hundred times that the marks in the
Bible and the traits in his character agreed, his wounded spirit having no other
balm, all this concluding would never heal his sore. The same voice which spoke
condemnation into his conscience must speak justification; the same hand which
broke his hard heart must bind it up. The deeper the penitence of any one, the
slower would he be to take comfort from any good in himself; therefore, on a
theory which makes this the foundation of comfort, the farther would he be from
finding rest; while, on the more evangelical view, the very depth of his
penitence would drive him the more speedily to bring his burden to the cross,
when it would fall off. This allusion brings Bunyan and his Pilgrim once more to
our view. He does not set Christian to undo his own burden by arguing, "I have
fled from the City of Destruction; I have forsaken house and friends, wife and
children; have resisted temptations to return; have knocked at the gate and
entered in, and am in the narrow path"; but, with all this done, he brings him
to "a place somewhat ascending," where stands a cross, and, "just as Christian
came up with the cross, his burden loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from
off his back." He did not cast off the burden by a process which could easily be
explained; but, when he set his eye on the cross, it fell off itself; and "it
was very surprising to him that the sight of the cross should thus ease him of
his burden." And so it is to others; but, however surprising, do thou, my
penitent brother, heed no other direction than that which points thine eye
straight to the cross; for pardon, for escape from hell, for rest and hope and
purity, look thither, thither, only thither! If thy burden fall not at once, yet
still look, look to the cross; and fall it will, far sooner and far more surely
than if thou attempt to untie it by thy arguments! As Christian thus stood
before the cross, wondering, the "Three Shining Ones came to him. The first
said, ’Thy sins be forgiven thee’; the second stripped him of his rags, and
clothed him with change of raiment; the third, also, set a mark on his forehead,
and gave him a roll with a seal upon it, which he bade him look on as he ran,
and that he should give it in at the celestial gate." This is unsophisticated
Christianity. A burdened sinner, after discouragements and wanderings, comes, at
last, to the foot of the cross. He looks, and is healed; his pardon, freely
given, is tenderly manifested to him. The Father, Son, and Spirit unite to
assure his heart, and give him present and abiding peace. He receives an
evidence of acceptance, where he may always Read his title clear To mansions in
the skies.

After this, the more he "searches" his own self, "and proves" his own self,
"whether he be in the faith," the better for his vigilance and progress. But no
such examining before would have unloosed his burden, or given him the roll. The
theory of an inferential comforting of believers, as a substitute for the
scriptural mode of a "witness" of the Spirit, is singularly hopeless; for, at
every step, it is obliged to lean upon that which it professes to dispense with
and replace. It rests all "quietness and assurance" for penitent hearts on the
fruits of the Spirit; and the very chief of those fruits, "love," etc.,
presupposes the witness of the Spirit by a necessity as clear as that by which
repentance presupposes his convincing operation.

No; the sealing and solacing of penitent believers is not left to mere
reasoning, especially with a foundation so liable to be misapprehended as our
own attainments in grace. It is the work and office of that "other Comforter"
whom our dying Lord promised; and let no man take it out of his hand! He it is
who "cries" in the heart, "Abba, Father"; he who heals, he who bears witness, he
who sheds abroad the love of God, he who enables us to know the things that are
freely given to us of God. Any attempts to escape the mystery involved in the
Holy Spirit revealing the mercy of God to a human soul, only leads to
contradictions and perplexities. To the old question, "How can these things be?"
the one sufficient answer is, "They are spiritually discerned." What the Lord
spiritually reveals, the soul can spiritually discern; and a Divine presence, or
a Divine communication, may be assumed always to carry its own evidence with it,
first to the consciousness, and then, by its fruits, to the reason. "One thing I
know: whereas I was blind, now I see."

It is not to be wondered at that many who are sincere, and even earnest, pass
the days of their pilgrimage in gloom, having no roll in their bosom which they
know can be presented "at the celestial gate"; no conscious title to enter into
the city; no permanent "joy or peace in believing." Nothing is more dangerous
than to divert the eye from the one object of faith. And if persons are not
taught to look, and look upon the cross, until their sins are blotted out, and
the comforting Spirit himself heals their wounds, but to seek rest by noting
their own progress in the Christian graces, and are at the same time left
without any fellowship of saints, through which they might learn by what steps
of fear and doubt, of despair and hope and faith, others, whose whole spirit
savors of the peace of God, obtained that blessing,--is it not natural that they
should walk in dim moonlight, instead of walking in the sun? Yet, even amid
those so dealt with, the Lord oftentimes breaks up man’s theories by converting
a sinner with such manifestation of the Spirit that it would be equally
impossible to persuade him that his peace first came by contemplating his
graces, and to keep him from telling what the Lord had done for his soul. The
character of the Christian Church, as a whole, must always be ruled by the
character of individual Christians; for the Church is but the assembly and
aggregate of individuals. If, then, as the ages advance, the individual
Christian degenerate, the Church must gradually degenerate also, her ministry be
debilitated, and her efforts upon the world be less fruitful. All Christian
character depends on the relations of the soul with its Creator: if these be
cold instead of being joyous, if they be governed by the feeling of a doubtful
reconciliation instead of that of a happy sonship, then, of necessity, the life
is overcast with the shadows of not improbable perdition instead of being sunned
with cloudless hopes of glory; and service is rendered as to an austere Master
instead of to a most forgiving and loving Father. Strike from the language of
the Christian the words, "Our fellowship is with the Father and the Son," and at
once we have a race whose religion is not the religion of John, whose heart
strength is not drawn from the same sources as his.

Whether it be in comforts, in sensible communion with the reconciled Deity, or
in practical sanctification of life, we contend that all Scripture holds out to
his disciples of this actual hour, poor and undeserving though we be, the same
sources and the same measure of grace as were open to our brethren of former
times. There has been no recall of the Spirit, no curtailing of the "abundant
pardon," no abridging of the privileges of the adopted. The promise of the Holy
Spirit was not only to the first converts, but, as Peter, addressing them, said,
"to us, and to our children, and to all that are afar off, even to as many as
the Lord our God shall call." However distant from that spot in Jerusalem, and
however distant from that moment of time, the call might sound, it would carry
with it the promise--even that promise, the fulfillment of which made the early
Church so holy and so victorious. The flames, the tongues, the outward signs,
were not the saving grace of the Spirit. That was "within you," in the soul of
man, and was shown in "new creatures." That saving grace of the Spirit, working
in Christians now, constitutes their identity with those of old. Without this,
in apostolic times, though one spoke with "the tongues of angels and of men,"
and could "work all miracles," he was not a true disciple. With this, in our
times, though one work no miracle, and speak not with tongues, he is a true
disciple; for "as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of
God." Miraculous gifts were not of the essence, but separable attendants, of a
real Christian; and all that was then essential remains to us, unimpaired and
free as ever it was to them.

Father, Son, and Spirit, pardon the unbelief which has imagined that thou didst
repent of the exceeding abundance of grace once given to thy ransomed Church!
Afflict us not, on account of it, by a real withdrawal of thy presence! Manifest
forth thy glory anew, by filling thy children with joy and light, that the world
may see that thine ancient love and grace remain our heritage!

Next to the question, whether the privileges of the modern Christian, as
respects grace, are to be equal with those of the primitive one, comes the
question, whether the Christian ministry is now essentially the same institution
as at first. If believers are not now the same as formerly, it is impossible
that the same religion should be preserved in the world; and if the ministers be
not the same, it is


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  CHAPTER 7: 6. PRACTICAL LESSONS
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CHAPTER VI.

PRACTICAL LESSONS. AT one time we meant to dwell at considerable length upon
practical lessons connected with our subject; but this book is already larger
than we wished it to be, and we will therefore touch only three topics. We may
learn a lesson on the source of power; one on the way to obtain power; and one
on the scale on which our expectations of success should be framed. In the
application of any instrument, no error can be more fatal than one that affects
the source of power. To recur to an illustration before used, any reasoning upon
explosive weapons which assumed elasticity to be the source of power, must lead
completely astray. If this is to be noted in all things, it is especially to be
noted in what affects the regeneration of the world. In merely natural
processes, persons proposing to affect the sentiments of mankind must depend
largely on their influence, their wealth, and their facilities. Christians
frequently permit themselves to fall into a state of mind in which the want of
all or any of these is taken to be fatal to their prospects of success, and the
acquisition of them to be the first step toward making any impression. But
wealth, influence, and facilities, however great, never yet secured results in
the spiritual conversion of men; while the most notable triumphs of Christianity
have often been gained in the total absence of them all.

Others, or the same men at different times, would rather allow their hopes to
rest on order, talent, or truth. But neither are these the source of power.
Order is as necessary in Christianity as are bones, ligaments, and skin in a
man; talent is as necessary as brain, and truth as blood. But you may have all
these, and have a paralytic--aye, have them all, and have but a corpse. You must
have both the breathing spirit and that indescribable something we call "power."
Indeed, the order of the Christian Church ought to be such, her outward
framework so constructed, that she shall not be as a building, which, though it
looks more cheerful when there is life within, yet will stand when there is
none; but rather as a body, which falls the moment the spirit forsakes it, and
tends to decomposition. No Church ought to be otherwise constructed than in
entire dependence on the presence of the living Spirit in all her ministerial
arrangements. Her frame ought to answer to no definition that would suit an
inorganic body; but to answer exactly to the celebrated definition of an organic
one--namely, "that wherein every part is mutually means and end." The pervading
presence of the Spirit should be assumed, so that, if it be absent, the pains of
death shall instantly take hold upon her, and the cry be extorted, "Lord, save,
or I perish!"

We must again recall to mind that most wonderful silence of ten days--that long,
long pause of the commissioned Church in sight of the perishing world. Never
should the solemnity of that silence pass from the thoughts of any of God’s
people. It stands in the very forefront of our history--the Lord’s most
memorable and affecting protest beforehand, that no authority under heaven, that
no training, that no ordination could qualify men to propagate the gospel,
without the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Each successive day of those solemn and
silent ten, the perishing world might have knocked at the door of the Church,
and asked, "What waitest thou for, O bride of the ascended Bridegroom? Why dost
thou not say, ’Come’? Why leavest thou us to slumber on uncalled, unwarned,
unblessed, whilst thou, with thy good tidings, art tarrying inactive there? What
waitest thou for?" And every moment the answer would have been: "We are waiting
to be ’indued with power from on high’; we are waiting to be ’baptized with the
Holy Ghost and with fire.’" This is the one and the only source of our power.
Without this, our wealth, influence, facilities, are ships of war and ammunition
without guns or men; our order, talent, truth, are men and guns, without fire.
We want in this age, above all wants, fire, God’s holy fire, burning in the
hearts of men, stirring their brains, impelling their emotions, thrilling in
their tongues, glowing in their countenances, vibrating in their actions,
expanding their intellectual powers more than can ever be done by the heats of
genius, of argument, or of party; and fusing all their knowledge, logic, and
rhetoric into a burning stream. Every accessory, every instrument of usefulness,
the Church has now in such a degree and of such excellence as was never known in
any other age; and we want but a supreme and glorious baptism of fire to exhibit
to the world such a spectacle as would raise ten thousand hallelujahs to the
glory of our King.

Let but this baptism descend, and thousands of us who, up to this day, have been
but commonplace or weak ministers, such as might easily pass from the memory of
mankind, would then become mighty. Men would wonder at us, as if we had been
made anew; and we should wonder, not at ourselves, but at the grace of God which
could thus transform us.

Suppose we saw an army sitting down before a granite fort, and they told us that
they intended to batter it down. We might ask them, "How?" They point to a
cannon ball. Well, but there is no power in that; it is heavy, but not more than
half a hundred, or perhaps a hundred weight. If all the men in the army hurled
it against the fort, they would make no impression. They say: "No; but look at
the cannon." Well, there is no power in that. A child may ride upon it, a bird
may perch in its mouth; it is a machine, and nothing more. "But look at the
powder." Well, there is no power in that; a child may spill it, a sparrow may
peck it. Yet this powerless powder and powerless ball are put into the powerless
cannon; one spark of fire enters it; and then, in the twinkling of an eye, that
powder is a flash of lightning, and that ball a thunderbolt, which smites as if
it had been sent from heaven. So is it with our Church machinery at this day: we
have all the instruments necessary for pulling down strongholds, and oh for the
baptism of fire! As to the way in which this power may be obtained, here we have
only to recall the lesson of the ten days--"They continued with one accord in
prayer and supplication." Prayer earnest, prayer united, and prayer
persevering--these are the conditions; and these being fulfilled, we shall
assuredly be "indued with power from on high." We should never expect that the
power will fall upon us just because we happen once to awake and ask for it; nor
have any community of Christians a right to look for a great manifestation of
the Spirit, if they are not all ready to join in supplication, and, "with one
accord," to wait and pray as if it were the concern of each one. The murmurer,
who always accounts for barrenness in the Church by the faults of others, may be
assured that his readiest way to spiritual power, if that be his real object,
lies in uniting all, as one heart, to pray without ceasing.

Above all, we are not to expect it without persevering prayer. Prayer which
takes the fact that past prayers have not yet been answered, as a reason for
languor, has already ceased to be the prayer of faith. To the latter, the fact
that prayers remain unanswered is only evidence that the moment of the answer is
so much nearer. From first to last, the lessons and example of our Lord all tell
us that prayer which cannot persevere, and urge its plea importunately, and
renew, and renew itself again, and gather strength from every past petition, is
not the prayer that will prevail. When John in the Apocalypse saw the Lamb on
the throne, before that throne were the seven lamps of fire burning, "which are
the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth"; and it is only by
waiting before that throne of grace that we become imbued with the holy fire;
but he who waits there long and believingly will imbibe that fire, and come
forth from his communion with God, bearing tokens of where he has been. For the
individual believer, and, above all, for every laborer in the Lord’s vineyard,
the only way to gain spiritual power is by secret waiting at the throne of God
for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Every moment spent in real prayer is a
moment spent in refreshing the fire of God within the soul. We said before that
this fire cannot be simulated; nothing else will produce its effects. No more
can the means of obtaining it be feigned. Nothing but the Lord’s own appointed
means, nothing but "waiting at the throne," nothing but keeping the heart under
"the eyes of the Lamb" to be again and again and again penetrated by his Spirit,
can put the soul into that condition in which it is a meet instrument to impart
the light and power of God to other men. When a lecturer on electricity wants to
show an example of a human body surcharged with his fire, he places a person on
a stool with glass legs. The glass serves to isolate him from the earth, because
it will not conduct the fire--the electric fluid. Were it not for this, however
much might be poured into his frame, it would be carried away by the earth; but,
when thus isolated from it, he retains all that enters him. You see no fire, you
hear no fire; but you are told that it is pouring into him. Presently you are
challenged to the proof--asked to come near, and hold your hand close to his
person; when you do so, a spark of fire shoots out toward you. If thou, then,
wouldst have thy soul surcharged with the fire of God, so that those who come
nigh to thee shall feel some mysterious influence proceeding from thee, thou
must draw nigh to the source of that fire, to the throne of God and of the Lamb,
and shut thyself out from the world--that cold world, which so swiftly steals
our fire away. Enter into thy closet, and shut to thy door, and there, isolated,
"before the throne," await the baptism: then the fire shall fill thee; and when
thou comest forth, holy power will attend thee, and thou shalt labor, not in
thine own strength, but "with demonstration of the Spirit and with power." As
this is the only way for an individual to obtain spiritual power, so is it the
only way for Churches. Prayer, prayer, all prayer--mighty, importunate,
repeated, united prayer; the rich and the poor, the learned and the unlearned,
the fathers and the children, the pastors and the people, the gifted and the
simple, all uniting to cry to God above, that he would come and affect them as
in the days of the right hand of the Most High, and imbue them with the Spirit
of Christ, and warm them, and kindle them, and make them as a flame of fire, and
lay his right hand mightily on the sinners that surround them, and turn them in
truth to him. Such united and repeated supplications will assuredly accomplish
their end, and "the power of God" descending will make every such company as a
band of giants refreshed with new wine.

If the source of our power, and the way to obtain it, be so plain, how can it be
that the "tongue of fire" is so rare? What are the hindrances? Is it because, as
many would seem to think, nothing is so difficult to obtain as the grace of the
Holy Spirit? We often hear it said, All effort must he unsuccessful without the
blessing of God, without the accompanying power of the Spirit; and the tone used
indicates that it is therefore proper not to look for any great results, as if
the accompanying power of the Spirit was the only thing not to be counted upon.
The recognition of our impotency without the Spirit, and of the absolute
necessity of his presence and his power, is as needful as the recognition of the
fact that without sunshine and rain all labor and all skill would fail to
preserve the human race for one season. But the sunshine and the rain are
precisely the things which cost nothing, and on which we may constantly depend.
So it is with the baptism and the power of the Holy Spirit. Freer than the air
we breathe, freer than the rich sunbeams, freer than any of God’s other gifts,
because it is the one which has cost him most, and which blesses his children
most, that gift is ever at hand; and when we have done what the Lord lays upon
us to do, it is dishonoring to him to cherish a secret feeling as if he, being
good, not evil, was backward to pour out his Spirit, and to do good to his
children. This feeling of unbelief, wherever cherished, must, on the principles
of the gospel, be fatal to all power. He alone who magnifies the freeness, the
fullness, and the present efficacy of the Lord’s grace, can by the Holy Ghost
accomplish wonders. Trust, firm trust, straightforward, childlike trust, is the
everlasting condition of all cooperation with God. He will not use, he will not
bless, he will not inhabit the heart that, at the moment when it offers him a
request, says, "I doubt thee." In this age of faith in the natural, and
disinclination to the supernatural, we want especially to meet the whole world
with this credo: "I believe in the Holy Ghost." I expect to see saints as lovely
as any that are written of in the Scriptures--because I believe in the Holy
Ghost. I expect to see preachers as powerful to set forth Christ evidently
crucified before the eyes of men, as powerful to pierce the conscience, to
persuade, to convince, to convert, as any that ever shook the multitudes of
Jerusalem, or Corinth, or Rome because I believe in the Holy Ghost. I expect to
see Churches, the members of which shall be severally indued with spiritual
gifts, and every one moving in spiritual activity, animating and edifying one
another, commending themselves to the conscience of the world by their good
works, commending their Saviour to it by a heart-engaging testimony--because I
believe in the Holy Ghost. I expect to see villages where all the respectable
people are now opposed to religion, the proprietor ungodly, the nominal pastor
worldly, all that take a lead set against living Christianity--to see such
villages summoned, disturbed, divided, and then reunited, by the subduing of the
whole population to Christ--because I believe in the Holy Ghost. I expect to see
cities swept from end to end, their manners elevated, their commerce purified,
their politics Christianized, their criminal population reformed, their poor
made to feel that they dwell among brethren--righteousness in the streets, peace
in the homes, an altar at every fireside--because I believe in the Holy Ghost. I
expect the world to be overflowed with the knowledge of God; the day to come
when no man shall need to say to his neighbor, "Know thou the Lord," but when
all shall know him, "from the least unto the greatest"; east and west, north and
south, uniting to praise the name of the one God and the one Mediator--because I
believe in the Holy Ghost.

Unbelief and neglect of prayer generally go together as preventives of spiritual
power. Let all of us who are painfully conscious that the results just indicated
will never be attained by the instrumentality of men, in the condition in which
we are, simply ask ourselves, How long, how often, how importunately have we
waited at the throne of the Saviour for the outpouring of the Spirit? Let our
closets answer. "The eyes of the Lamb," that are looking through us now, have
noted. Oh, is it any wonder that ofttimes we have been powerless, and ofttimes
have had but "a little strength"?

Want of true faith and neglect of prayer are sure to make place for faith in the
instrument, instead of in the power. When we are not living near the throne, our
minds become occupied with questions of order, of talent, or of truth; or, if we
sink into yet a lower state, with questions of facility, or influence, or
wealth. This Church reform will be followed by great good: the clear development
of such or such a doctrine would bring us revival; more luster or strength of
talents in the ministry would insure progress. We only wait the removal of such
and such hindrances to open this door; for the supply of pecuniary means, and we
shall see good done there; or for the accession to the Church of some person of
influence, and God’s work will prosper yonder. Faith is sadly wasted when
bestowed on such things. Give them their right value, never underrate them,
place them where God has placed them; but the fact that you trust in them shows
that your heart is wrong. Wait not for these--for the power is not in them but
for the baptism of fire.

Among the hindrances which will prevent any one from having the "tongue of
fire," none acts more directly than any misuse of the "tongue" itself. If the
door of the lips be not guarded, if uncharitable or idle speech be indulged, if
political or party discussion be permitted to excite heats, if foolish "talking
or jesting" be a chosen method of display, it is not to be supposed that the
same tongue will be the medium wherein the sacred fire of the Spirit will
delight to dwell. Who has ever worn at the same time the reputation of a trifler
and of a man powerful to search consciences?

Another fatal hindrance is any kind of sensual indulgence. Whatever gives the
least ascendency to the body over the spirit, must gradually subdue and
ultimately extinguish the fire in the heart. This applies to all sloth, to every
luxurious habit, every artificial appetite, and all the pleasures of the table.
It is not a little remarkable that while, at the day of Pentecost, the people,
on seeing the excitement and animation of the Christians, said, "They are filled
with new wine," Paul himself says to us, "Be not drunk with wine, wherein is
excess; but be filled with the Spirit." In both these cases there is a
suggestion, however indirect, yet unquestionably a suggestion, of some analogy
between the condition of being "drunk with wine" and that of being "filled with
the Spirit." Nor do we need to seek far for the grounds of that analogy. To men
of the world wine is a resort when they want something above their natural
strength of mind or body, and in it they seek three things--strength, cheering,
and mental elevation. Under its influence they will do more work than they could
otherwise; they will cast off their cares, and their mental powers will reach a
state which they themselves call "inspiration." That worldly orators, even of
the highest reputation, often seek in wine such animation of their powers as is
necessary to great success, is only too well known. The physical tendency to
seek elevation in such a source cannot be even slightly yielded to, without
fatally affecting the "tongue of fire."

Every Christian, who wishes to retain the life of God in his soul, must hold all
the enjoyments of the table under a strict law of regard to health and to
temperance. For strength, for cheering, and for mental elevation, such as an
extraordinary affliction or public effort may demand, he must look alone to
power from on high--to the strength and comfort and inspiration of the Holy
Ghost. The bare idea of seeking any of these in wine implies a heart already far
fallen into the bondage of the flesh. Even without going so far, one may easily
pass the bounds of moderation, and drink, not for health, but for pleasure. If
the man who drinks to intoxication is miserable and pitiable, he who has learned
the bad secret of "how far he can go," and who even acts upon it, although he
may never be drunk, is daily intemperate. In one aspect, his social influence is
the most dangerous of all; for while one who totally abstains, and one who
drinks under a rigid rule of regard for health and moderation, may each contend
that they are setting the wisest example that can be set, and while the drunkard
may truly say that his very excess is a warning to all about him, he who
habitually shows that he drinks as much as is safe is a lure and an enticement
to push indulgence as far as it can be done without wreck of character.

Another fatal hindrance is what may be called "aiming at literary effect." When
preaching, praying, or any other religious exercise of the tongue is ruled by
the idea of composition, it loses the character of a Divine gift. Under that
idea, utterance especially is by the aid of the Holy Spirit. With those who look
at Christian preaching as an exercise of natural talent, we enter into no
discussion. We speak only to those who are seeking the "tongue of fire"; who
believe that real Christian preaching is effected only by the help of God. To
them, and not to ourselves, we say that nothing will more surely steal away the
fire from our sentences than anxiety to deliver them just as they were
precomposed, or to precompose them with studious regard to literary grace. Study
of style, of words, of the force, forms, and laws of language, we of course
recommend. Efforts on the part of every one to gain the best style of which his
nature admits--the tersest, strongest, clearest, briefest--we equally recommend.
Seeking, like Bunyan, for "picked and packed words," is the instinct of a
teacher. Even the study of the art of speaking, against which the vulgar
prejudice is so strong, we would, with Wesley and Whitefield, encourage.
Mouthing elocutionists may have brought it into disrepute, but that is no reason
why hundreds of us should be maimed in health before mid-life by public
speaking, when we might have done as much work, and done it better, without the
least injury, had we availed ourselves of the science of those who have
philosophically studied and taught upon the voice.

[It is often assumed that speaking is a natural exercise, and therefore needs no
instruction. The word "speaking" covers a fallacy. Conversation in a moderate
tone, and at short intervals, is a natural exercise of the voice; public
speaking, in an elevated tone, and for an hour together, is an artificial one.
Except in very rare cases of persons singularly favored by nature, this
artificial exercise is never performed with the ease of the natural one; and how
often it impairs and even destroys health is too notorious to need any mention.
Such writers as Mr. Cull and Dr. Rush show that under proper training public
speaking may become as easy and as healthy for persons of sound organs as
singing is; and to the neglect of this we owe the loss, in their prime, of many
of the best and ablest preachers that ever lived.]

While, however, we contend that it is the duty of all who take any part in
teaching to labor to the uttermost for every qualification helpful to their
work, two things are to be forever and guardedly shut out. The one is, aiming at
giving intellectual pleasure, instead of producing religious impression; the
other, being careful about words in the pulpit, so as to interfere with
dependence upon God for utterance. In the study, attention to style ought to be
with a view, not to beauty, but to power. In the pulpit, all thought of style is
thought wasted, and even worse. The gift of prophesying in its very ideal
excludes relying for utterance upon a manuscript or upon memory. It is the
delivery of truth by the help of God. The feeling of every man standing up in
the Lord’s name ought to be: "I am not here to acquit myself well, nor to
deliver a good discourse; but, after having made my best efforts to study and
digest the truth, I am here to say just what God may enable me to say, to be
enlarged or to be straitened, according as he may be pleased to give me
utterance or not." With this feeling of the preacher all appearances ought to
correspond. It ought to be manifest that, while he has done what in him lies to
be thoroughly furnished, he is trusting for utterance to help from above, and
not insuring it by natural means--either a manuscript or memory. We put these
two together, because we do not see that any distinction really exists between
them. The plea that the manuscript is more honest than memoriter preaching has
some force, but certainly not much; for he that reads from his memory is, to the
feeling and instinct of his hearers, as much reading as he who reads from his
manuscript. In neither case are the thoughts and feelings gushing straight from
the mind, and clothing themselves as they come. The mind is taking up words from
paper or from memory, and doing its best to animate them with feeling. Even
intellectually, the operation is essentially different from speaking, and the
difference is felt by all. For literary purposes, for intellectual
gratification, both have a decided advantage over speaking; but for the purposes
of pleading, entreating, winning, and creating a sense of fellowship, for
impelling and arousing, for doing good, speaking is the natural, this is the
Creator’s, instrument.

We never say, nor think of saying, that God will not bless sermons read, either
from the manuscript or from the memory; for we are sure that both these modes
are resorted to by holy and earnest servants of his, who seek his blessing, and
obtain it to the saving of many souls. All we say of reading, either from
manuscript or the memory, is that it is not scriptural preaching. It is not
ministering after the mode of pentecostal Christianity; it is a departure from
scriptural precedent, an adoption of a lower order of public ministration, and a
solemn declaration that security of utterance gained by natural supports is
preferred over a liability to be humiliated by trusting to the help of the Lord.
It has its clear advantages, and its clear losses. It secures a gain of
elegance, at the cost of ease; of finish, at the cost of freedom; of precision,
at that of power; and of pleasure, at that of religious impressiveness. A
literary ideal of preaching is vicious. Half-educated people pride themselves on
admiring what they consider intellectual, or "splendid." To men of real mind and
real education, aiming at literary effect is as distasteful, on the one hand, as
are traces of earnestness, looseness, or vulgarity, on the other. Men of great
talent or refinement, when speaking great truths, under holy inspiration, must
be eloquent or pleasing; but an "intellectual treat" is far from being the ideal
of preaching. We have heard efforts of this kind greatly praised, even by aged
and venerable ministers, which, when we look back upon them, after years have
elapsed, we feel ought not to have been called sermons at all. They were
discourses which showed how a certain subject could be treated; but which were
never meant to do any work. An acute and profound philosopher, looking upon the
pulpit from the chair of the historical professor, treats this point in the
following remarkable words:

"Compare, I pray you, gentlemen, the sacred eloquence of the sixth century with
modern pulpit eloquence, even in its most palmy days in the seventeenth century.
I said just now, that in the seventh and eighth centuries the character of
literature had been that it ceased to be a literature--that it had become in
fact a power; that in writing and speaking men concerned themselves only with
positive and immediate results; that they sought neither science nor
intellectual pleasure; and that on this account the age had produced nothing but
sermons or similar works. This fact, which shows itself in literature in
general, is imprinted upon the sermons themselves. Those of modern times have a
character evidently more literary than practical. The orator aspires much more
after beauty of language, after the intellectual satisfaction of his auditory,
than to act upon the deeps of their souls, to produce real effects, notable
reforms, efficacious conversions. Nothing of this sort--nothing of the literary
character in the sermons of which I have just been speaking to you; not one
thought of expressing themselves nicely, of combining images and ideas with art.
The orator goes to the point; he wants to do a work; he turns and turns again in
the same circle; he has no fear of repetition, of familiarity, not even of
vulgarity. He speaks briefly, but recommences every morning. This is not sacred
eloquence; it is religious power."

Whenever we are tempted to think that fruitfulness is only to be looked for in
connection with superior attainments, the image of Peter preaching in Jerusalem,
and of that vast multitude in tears before him, should rise into our view. With
what reverence, not unmixed with sorrow, do we often look back on preachers of
days now gone, perhaps on some whom our own ears have blessed when we heard
them; but more on those of whose mighty voices we have caught faint echoes,
sounding in the bosoms of hoary men who heard them in their youth, and have
never ceased to hear them, though their tongues have long been silent! When
noting our own poor efforts; when seeing how tamely the precepts of Sinai or the
songs of Bethlehem have fallen upon men from our lips; seeing that, after our
closest thinking, we have seemed as those who beat the air; that, after seeking
converts, we have only gained credit; that, when looking for multitudes to be
seized with the thought, "What must I do to be saved?" we have only sent them
away to discuss our faults or our merits, with perchance here and there a heart
touched and contrite ;--when years have thus passed away, and no stronghold of
sin brought down, no province completely conquered from the prince of darkness,
no great awakening to show that there was a power and a God in the midst of the
Church;--when we have seen all this, and much more alike thereto, has not our
disposition often been to open a calculation as to our own abilities and
difficulties before us, concluding, on the whole, that such as we need not
expect to do things which only the mighty could do? How could lips like ours
move mankind? True, apostles and prophets moved them. True, Whitefield and
Wesley, and hundreds of their coadjutors, near to our days and in our own
country, moved them. But then they were the wonders of their age, the seraphim
of earth. But what made them seraphim? They were once no mightier than others as
to converting souls. Unbaptized with fire, or but slightly touched, their
tongues might have charmed, fascinated, set the world discussing their gifts and
extolling their abilities; but they would never have shot fires into the souls
of men, burned by which the stolid would roar, and the stoical melt, the sedate
smite upon his breast, and the corrupt cleanse himself "from all filthiness of
the flesh and of the spirit." Perhaps without the baptism of fire they would
never have gained even the airy fame of orators. Their very eloquence may have
come chiefly from the Spirit of God. At all events, it was that fire which
raised the orator into the apostle, and made their words sound as if Christ’s
first messengers were risen from the dead. The spectacle of Peter preaching at
Jerusalem answers ten thousand arguments of unbelief. Who is that Galilean
peasant, and who are that group beside him? They are men of like passions with
ourselves. In nature, in gifts, in early opportunities, they cannot be ranked
above the average of mankind. Even though they have been favored with the
personal teaching and society of Christ for three whole years, they had not, up
to this period, shown any extraordinary superiority of character. They have not
been even without faults: they have had their disputes among themselves, their
unbelief, their faint-heartedness, their strifes about the things of the world,
their "false brethren"; yet are they indued with a power of speech which passes
all previously conceived reach of eloquence. Is it rational, when looking up to
the Spirit which wrought this in them, to doubt whether or not it is within his
power to baptize his servants now living with such a baptism as would change the
ordinary into the extraordinary, the feeble into the mighty? Whether is it
easier for Him to say, "Speak with many tongues," or to say, "I will give thee a
mouth and wisdom which all thine adversaries shall not be able to gainsay or to
resist"? The former He has said, and common men at once received the power; the
latter He has said, and the same common men received the power. The former power
we do not seek; but all of us who have any heart for our Master’s service, any
real intention to bear a part in the battle for the rescue of mankind, do desire
in our very hearts--yea, long with mournful longing for a tongue of fire--to
tell of the love of the Saviour, and of the woe of sin, in such tones that the
dead ear shall tingle. Is he not able to give the gift now as he gave it then?
Is the distrust of his power in this respect, which we find so common; this
counting on our own impotence as a lifelong companion; this speaking of what we
ought to expect, as if our power must halt where our natural abilities halt;
this thinking it really humble to expect little or no fruit; this thinking it
meek to be happy without fruit;--is all this a fit answer to the baptism and a
fit memorial of the tongues of fire? Do we not there see the Spirit answering
forever all doubts as to what ordinary men can be made, and proclaiming to all
who bear a message from God, that if they will only wait until they are "indued
with power from on high," the effect which of all others will show the working
of that power within them will be this--that they shall be raised above
themselves, and made to speak with a mouth and wisdom which all who know them
will know were not within their natural endowments or attainments? As to the
scale on which our expectations should be framed. In our age, invention by aid
of natural science often seems to leap almost within the bounds of the
supernatural. The impossibilities of our fathers are disappearing, one becoming
a traffic and another a pastime. This has produced a state of mind in which
nothing seems impossible to natural science. Concurrently with this has arisen a
tendency to bring spiritual progress and action within natural bounds. We are
proud of our knowledge of the laws of the natural kingdom, and impatient of any
phenomena which cannot be judged by them. Yet we do not object to judging the
vegetable kingdom by laws totally different from those which we apply to the
mineral, and the animal by laws totally different from what we apply to the
vegetable, and the pervasive fluids by laws different from those we apply to any
of those three kingdoms. To shrink from the marvels of vegetable life because
they are unaccountable on chemical principles, or from those of instinct because
they are unfathomable mysteries on botanical principles, or from those of
intellect because they are inexplicable by the laws of natural history, or from
the mysteries of light because they cannot be metaphysically analyzed and
conditioned, would not be more unreasonable than to shrink from marvels in the
spiritual kingdom, because they cannot be judged by the laws of the natural. The
supernatural has its own laws, and there is a supernatural.

Instead of seeking to keep down spiritual movements to the level of natural
explanation, in an age when natural marvels reach almost to miracles, we ought
rather to be impelled to pray that they may put on a more striking character of
supernatural manifestation. Today more by far is necessary to carry into the
mind of the multitude a clear conviction, "It is the hand of God," than was
necessary in other ages. When men saw few wonders from natural science, they
readily ascribed each wonder to Divine agency; but now that they are accustomed
to see them daily, moral wonders must swell beyond all pretext of natural
explanation, before they are felt to be from God. Is our footing firm? Do we
stand, or do we tremble? Is Christianity to seat herself in the circle of
natural agency, or to arise from the dust, and prove that there is a God in
Israel? Are we to shrink from things extraordinary? Are we to be afraid of
anything that would make skeptical or prayerless men mock? Are we to desire that
the Spirit shall use and work in us just to such a degree as will never bring a
sneer upon us--to pray, as a continental writer represents some as meaning,
"Give us of the Holy Spirit; but not too much, lest the people should say that
we are full of new wine"? To Christianity this is preeminently the age of
opportunity. Never before did the world offer to her anything like the same open
field as at this moment. Even a single century from the present time, how much
more limited was her access to the minds of men! Within our own favored country
a zealous preacher would then have been driven away from many a sphere, where
now he would be hailed. On the continent of Europe, the whole of France has been
opened to the preaching of the word, though under some restraints. In Belgium,
Sardinia, and other fields, it may now be said that the word of God is not
bound. A century ago the Chinese Empire, the Mohammedan world, and Africa,
containing between them such a preponderating majority of the human race, were
all closed against the gospel of Christ. China is open at several points. The
whole empire of the Mogul is one field where opportunity and protection invite
the evangelist. Turkey itself has been added to the spheres wherein he may
labor. Around the wild shores of Africa, and far into her western, eastern, and
southern interior, outposts of Christianity have been established. Wide realms
beyond invite her onward. In the South Seas, several regions which a hundred
years ago had not been made known by the voyages of Cook, are now regularly
occupied. Could the Churches of England and America send forth tomorrow a
hundred thousand preachers of the gospel, each one of them might find a sphere,
already opened by the strong hand of Providence, where a century ago none of
them could have come without danger. The age, if not so remarkable for agency as
for opportunity, is yet very remarkable in this respect, when compared with any
that has preceded it. While, on the one hand, we may well humble ourselves that,
after so long a lapse of time, Christian men are so few, and Christian
operations so feeble, yet, measuring our own day with that of the generation
that went before us, we may devoutly magnify our God. Any one of the three great
divisions of Christians in England--the Established Church, the Methodists, or
the Dissenters--can this day furnish a number of faithful ministers teaching the
truth in the fear of God, and wishful to be the instruments in saving souls,
supported by a number of spiritually-minded laymen ready for every good work,
such that, could they have been presented to John Wesley as the entire force of
godly men in the country, would have made him feel as if the army for the whole
world’s conquest was already raised. Scotland alone could now produce a host of
loyal soldiers ready and able to wage the Redeemer’s war, such as in his day
would have appeared to him almost sufficient to conclude the conquest. Ireland,
too, would offer in this respect an amazing advance. In France, where, at the
conclusion of the great Peace, scarcely any earnest preachers could be found,
they may now be counted by hundreds; and in Germany, notwithstanding all its
mists and its blights, not a few are growing up in vigor.

Whether for the direct labors of the pulpit, for united movements of
enlightenment, or the ministering of gentle relief to the wants of human
society, never, never did the sun shine upon so much agency, so much
organization, so much liberty, so much earnest effort. Could we indulge
ourselves by forming our own word, and only think of all the good men, good
societies, and good works, on which the eye may rest, we might rejoice with
unbroken joy, proclaim the full advent of the kingdom of God, and feel ourselves
launched on a benign and brotherly age. But alas! alas! the vast world rolls on,
a turbid and a freezing stream. When we look first at our own little land, then
at the broad earth, we find, for one who fears God and works righteousness,
there are thousands who forget God and work wickedness. Christian agency is not,
therefore, as some amiable theorists would seem to think, chiefly for training
those who are born Christians, or made Christians in baptism, and who need
nothing more than Church ordinances, and an open heaven when they die. It is an
agency raised up to carry out the great work of conversion which the Lord has
begun within the lands of Christendom, and then bear onward the banner until
every nation under heaven bows under it.

It is also an age of progress, as much as of opportunity or of agency. What an
advance has Christianity made, as to the impress upon our national manners
within the last century! On our highest classes and on our lowest, on those who
love God and those who love him not, she has imposed many restraints. The vices
which remain are every day made more hideous to the public eye. How different
the amount of piety in officers and men developed by the horrors of the late
war, from what was ever known in an English army before! How different the
spiritual condition of many of our rural and manufacturing districts from what
they were a century ago! What a change in the morals of the Court, in the
temperance of private entertainments! How much more promising the aspect of
Ireland! How much more animated the religion of Scotland! What an incalculable
advance in America! And within that time the West Indies, Australia, New
Zealand, the Society Islands, the Sandwich Islands, the Friendly Islands, the
Navigator’s Islands, a considerable part of Fiji, and tracts of Southern and
Western Africa, may be written down as provinces added to Christendom. Though in
some of these place much ungodliness remains, yet in most of them a far more
promising state of things exists than was known in any country between the first
days of Christianity and the last century. In other countries, beginnings have
been made and first fruits gathered; as, for instance, in India, China, and
Northern Africa. At the same time, every system of religion not calling itself
Christian has decayed. Mohammedanism, Brahmantam, Buddhism, and Paganism have
lost territory, adherents, and power. Altogether it may be questioned whether
even the progress of the first century has not been equaled, as to positive
amount, by that of the last. But when we look at the agents, means, and
facilities enjoyed during the last century compared with the first, and at the
rapidity with which believers have multiplied themselves in both periods, we at
once feel that, as to propagating power, in the face of adverse circumstances
and small resources, there is no comparison between them.

It is, on the one hand, as wrong and as dangerous to overlook the success which
God has given to his word in the last age, or the unparalleled openings which
promise to the Church future conquest, as it is, on the other, to repose on our
present possessions, as if the conquest was achieved. What has been done is
enough to excite our liveliest gratitude; but if we dwell on it alone, we become
enervated and careless. What remains to be done is enough to excite our deepest
solicitude; but if we look at it alone, we become dispirited and powerless. Even
in England everything is stained: our commerce corrupt; our politics earthy; our
social manners chiefly formed after the will of "the god of this world"; our
streets crying shame upon us; our hamlets, many of them, dark, ignorant, and
immoral; our towns debauched and drunken.

Amid this, much good exists, in which we do rejoice --yea, and will rejoice; but
oh, the evil, the evil is, day by day, breaking thousands of hearts, ruining
thousands of characters, and destroying thousands of souls! Looking abroad
beyond the one little sphere of Britain and America, which we proud boasters of
the two nations are prone to look upon as being nearly the whole world --though
we are not one-twentieth of the human race, how dreary and how lonely does the
soul of the Christian feel, as it floats in imagination over the rest of the
earth! That Europe, so learned, so splendid, so brave--what misery is by its
fireside! what stains upon its conscience! what superstition, stoicism, or
despair around its deathbeds! And yonder bright old Asia, where the "tongue of
fire" first spoke--how rare and how few are the scenes of moral beauty which
there meet the eye! Instead of the family, the seraglio; instead of religion,
superstition; instead of peace, oppression; instead of enterprise, war; instead
of morals, ceremonies; instead of a God, idols; instead of refinement and
growth, corruption and collapse; here, there, thinly sown and scarcely within
sight one of the other, a school, a book, a man of God--one star in a sky of
darkness. And poor Africa! what is to become of the present generation of her
sons? Thinly around her coasts are beginnings of good things; but oh, the blood
and darkness and woe, the base superstition and the miserable cruelties, under
which the majority of her youth are now trained, amid which her old men are
going down to the grave!

All this existed a century ago, but was not then known as we know it now. The
world is not yet explored by the Church, much less occupied; but the exploration
at least is carried so far that we know its plagues as our fathers knew them
not; and if our hearts were rightly affected, we should weep over them as they
never wept; for although the spread of Christianity has greatly multiplied the
number of Christians, the increase of population has been such that more men are
sinning and suffering now than were a hundred years ago.

Taking the forces of the Church, comparing them with the length and breadth of
the world, and then asking, "Are these ever to be the means of converting all?"
we feel that only the promise of God could inspire such a hope. But that promise
is so confirmed, illustrated, and exalted by the success of the past century,
that when we look back to the few faithful men in this country and in America,
men in different circumstances and of different views, who then began in earnest
to call the Churches to their work, and see how far their labors and those of
their spiritual sons have advanced the kingdom of Christ beyond where it stood
then, we are led to say: "Suppose that all the good men, now loving God and
desiring his glory, were but to be multiplied in equal ratio during the next
century, as those few have been during the last century--what an amazing stride
would be made toward the conversion of the whole world!" Is this too much to
expect? Are we to conclude that the force of the animating Spirit is spent, and
that an age of feebleness must succeed to one of power? To do so is fearfully to
disbelieve at once the goodness and the faithfulness of our God. Some say that,
because populations have become familiarized with the truths of the gospel, we
are not to expect the same converting effects as when those truths were new. If
this be so, we had better make way for a generation of rationalists and
formalists, to prepare the ground again for spiritual cultivation! Some say
that, because the age is so educated, intellectual, scientific, and inquisitive,
men are not so susceptible of the influence of Christianity. Then shall we wait
for an age less enlightened and less educated? Some say that the age is so
unduly active, forcing enterprise and commerce to the point of absorbing every
man, that religion is pushed aside. Must we then wait for a duller and more
lethargic time? Some say that the Lord does not give us great success lest we
should be uplifted. Is it his way to promote humility by giving small results to
great agencies, or by giving great results to small ones? And would not results
after the pentecostal scale make any of our agencies seem small? These are
miserable withes wherewith to bind the giant Church of God. Away with them every
one! After going round all the reasons which one hears ordinarily assigned for
the greater direct success of preachers in the last century than now, our mind
finds rest only in that one reason, which carries a world of rebuke and of
humiliation to ourselves: they produced greater effects, simply because of the
greater power of God within them.

Every ray of gospel truth that exists in any man is on our side. All
intelligence, all intellectual activity, all vigor of character, are more for us
than their opposites would be. In fact, they are very much the fruit, the
indirect and secondary fruit, of the past triumphs of religion; for it is
impossible that true godliness shall spread among any people, without
stimulating their intellectual and social energies. It is hard to imagine a
satire on the gospel more bitter than that it should be powerful when new to
men, and impotent when familiar; that it should be good for the half barbarous,
but not for those whom itself had refined; capable of captivating the inert, but
incapable of commanding the masculine and the energetic. We expect ages not less
instructed in Christian doctrine, but far more instructed; not intellectually
duller, but more active; not darker as to science and literature, but
inconceivably brighter; not slower as to invention, enterprise, and progress,
but more vigorous by far. And am I to return to "the glorious gospel of the
blessed God," whereto I feel that I and mine, my kindred, my country, the race
from which I have sprung, the lands in which I have traveled, are all indebted
for their purest and brightest things--and say to it, "When these bright ages
come, thou shalt lag behind, perhaps recollected as one of the infantine
instructors of the world, but distanced by the progress of man"? Let those who
assign reasons for our want of fruitfulness which fairly sow the seeds of
rationalism prepare to render an account when the fruit of their sowing comes to
be reaped.

There is a natural tendency in any movement to lose intensity as it gains
surface. When godliness becomes the habit of large numbers, it is not according
to the laws of human nature that it should retain, in every individual, all the
fervor which it must maintain, in order to exist at all, when it is the
peculiarity of an extremely few. But if this fact is to be recognized, it must
be remembered that the disadvantage which it presents is easily overcome by the
power of grace; and, indeed, a natural counterpoise to this subduing tendency in
practical religion is offered in an equally natural accumulative tendency. That
decrease of distinction between the Church and the world which is so often
noticed does not wholly arise from the Church becoming less Christian, but
partly also from the world becoming less wicked. The testimony of a large number
of decided men gradually and silently imposes on the world a respect for
Christian principles, till the world tacitly accepts many of its moral laws and
social standards at the hands of the Church. Every concession of this kind is an
advantage to those Christians who mean to conquer all; while it is a seduction
to those who repose in the idea of converting a small section of the people,
leaving the rest to live in sin.

Put the ungodly in a minority, then vice becomes a social as well as a spiritual
blemish, and religion an outward as well as an inward comfort. As the multitude
of Christians goes on increasing, there is accumulative power of example,
accumulative power of teaching, accumulative power of prayers, accumulative
power of Christian training in families, accumulative power of purity in habits,
all tending in the one direction--to bring the public sentiment under the
dominion of Christ. Towns and villages exist in this country where, within the
memory of living men, very few godly persons were to be found; but now
one-tenth, one-seventh, and even one-fifth in some cases, of their adult
population, are professing to follow Christ, and living more or less worthily of
that profession. Can any man help feeling that the unconverted people in such a
town are much more likely to be converted than those living where the proportion
of the godly is not more than one in a hundred, or one in a thousand? Who could
not feel, who would not practically acknowledge the feeling of the accumulative
power of Christian progress, if he had to decide in which of two towns his
unconverted son should settle for life--one with a believer to every thousand of
the population, or one with a believer to every ten? He would instantly say, "In
the latter place the prospects of my son’s conversion are vastly greater than in
the other." What we should feel in an individual case we ought to feel on the
great scale--to gather strength and hope, not feebleness, from past successes,
and to become especially impatient of the continuance of sinners in those fields
where notable triumphs of grace have already been achieved. What the Canaanites
were to the Israelites of old, the unconverted dwelling in our towns and
villages are to us at this day. They confuse and weaken us, they allure, they
ensnare us, they lead our children astray, they rob us of the fruit of our
schools, they damp the zeal of our young converts, they entice families into
worldly practices, they tempt our tradesmen, they infect our churches; and
never, until they are totally extirpated, can peace and righteousness flourish
in our coasts. Impatient of their obstinacy everywhere, we ought to be
especially so where victories, won by those who have preceded us, leave us
comparatively little to do; for the uphill fight has been fought, the vantage
ground gained, and now for the power to complete the triumph! The entire
conversion of England and America, within the next fifty years, would not be so
great a work for the Christians now existing as the progress made within the
last hundred years has been for the Christians then existing. Is it rational to
believe that God will less bless his servants in this nineteenth century than in
the one that is gone, if they be equally faithful? or that he will shower on
this generation of ours less marked benedictions than he did on the one to whom
we are indebted for so much? The single consideration of past progress suffices
to prove that, on the ground of experience, we are not warranted to conclude
that the conversion of the whole world is impossible. Much as may be argued from
the slowness of the past progress of Christianity, the last century has so
changed the aspect of affairs as now to cast the weight of the argument from
experience decisively into the scale of hope. Many, however, will continue to
look upon any consistent expectation of the general conversion of men as
illusory: the objections of some resting on their views of the constancy of
human nature, certain, they think, hereafter as heretofore, to present great
numbers of unconquerable opponents to holiness; while others take higher ground,
and believe that the general conversion of our race is contrary to the purpose
of God. When the question, "Is the conversion of the whole world possible?" is
fairly put, the plain answer to it is obviously this: "It is possible, unless it
be contrary to the will of God." If he has ordained that it is not to be, an
infinite obstacle opposes it; if he has not so ordained, the obstacles which
oppose it are finite, and therefore conquerable. Christians can overcome all
things but a decree of God. Has he, then, given us any declaration that he does
not intend to renew the earth, as a whole, in righteousness? We do not mean to
hold any controversy with those who have deliberately adopted the view that the
Christian dispensation is a kind of interlude between the Lord’s lifetime upon
earth and a future earthly reign, meanwhile, bearing witness in his name--a
witness for the conversion of a few and the condemnation of the many. We leave
them with the praise of being perfectly consistent in expecting small results
from the preaching of the gospel and with the responsibility of looking on that
gospel in a light which warrants little faith.

We deal with those who regard the gospel as bona fide "good news" for every
creature; "good news" which those who heard it before me were bound to tell to
me; "good news" which I am bound to tell to every creature living, according to
the extent of my opportunities; "good news" to the effect that "the grace of
God, which bringeth salvation to all men, hath appeared"--news which could not
be told to me as good, if it left any doubt whether it was or was not for me;
"good news" to every creature, "a gospel for thee."

We take the first two announcements by a preacher under the Christian
dispensation, to audiences of sinners, as intended for our instruction and
imitation: "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus
Christ, for the remission of sins"; "God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent
him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities."
Declarations less direct, personal, or comprehensive than these we have no
manner of authority to deliver. We are to "command all men everywhere to
repent"; to call upon every one of them to believe; to assure every one of them
that Christ is "sent to bless him in turning him away from his iniquities." Nor
are we to make such proclamations under the feeling that, although it is our
duty to do it, there is no intention on the part of God to second our testimony
and give it effect. Hope in the result sustained the apostle in his work,
according to his own avowal; for he says, "Therefore we both labor and suffer
reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men,
specially of those that believe." This trust in the God and Saviour of all was
enough to animate any man in labor and under reproach; and such a trust we
should never cast away. The question, whether or not the conversions of the
first ages ought to be looked back to by us, as a standard at which to aim, is
settled by one of the passages already quoted. After joyfully describing the
conversion of the church in Ephesus, where "the word of the Lord" so "mightily
grew and prevailed," St. Paul says, that God has done this, "that in the ages to
come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace, in his kindness toward us
through Christ Jesus." We are living in what were, then, "the ages to come." On
us the light of those "exceeding riches of grace" is shining--shining for our
encouragement--shining that we may believe that in heathen cities, where great
Dianas are adored, we also shall see "the word of God mightily grow and
prevail," heathen rites abandoned, bad books consumed, and the craft of
idol-makers destroyed.

While this collective number of conversions is given to us as an encouragement,
the most remarkable of all individual conversions is placed before us in the
same light. "Howbeit," says St. Paul, "for this cause I obtained mercy, that in
me first Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering, for a pattern to them
which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting." Thus we are
deliberately forewarned to take the most singular conversion that ever occurred
in the early Church, not as a discouragement because of its specialty, but as an
intentional manifestation of the wonderful grace of the Redeemer, by which every
sinner in all ages, who would fain "find mercy," may encourage himself. The
persecutor Paul, converted and forgiven, is for a pattern to individual
believers in "the ages to come." The great multitude of "children of wrath" in
Ephesus who were made to "sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus," are also to
us, of "the ages to come," a pattern of the "exceeding riches of grace." Whether
our faith be tried in respect to the possibility of the conversion of an
individual as unlikely as Saul, or of a number as great as the church of
Ephesus, in either case we should believe that the ancient grace is free and
mighty this day. Thus trusting in "God, who is the Saviour of all men," we shall
both cheerfully "labor and suffer reproach." The same relation which we have
shown to exist between hope and labor is also pointed out to us as existing
between hope and prayer. "I exhort, therefore, that, first of all,
supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all
men." Here no one doubts that we are literally commanded to pray for every human
being; but if we did not carefully attend to the context, we might run away with
a vague idea that we were only to pray as an expression of good will, and that
for temporal and national blessings, especially as allusion is made to "kings,
and all that are in authority"; that, in fact, the "prayers, and supplications,
and intercession, and giving of thanks, for all men," do not mean that we are to
pray, supplicate, and intercede, that all men may be saved and come to the
knowledge of the truth; for that would only be asking what God wills should
never be, and therefore what could not be acceptable to him. But, as if
expressly to anticipate this unbelief, the apostle adds: "For this is good and
acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; who will have all men to be saved,
and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one
Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; who gave himself a ransom
for all, a testimony in due time."

Here our encouragement in prayer, supplication, and intercession for all men is
grounded first on the clear declaration that such prayer is "good and acceptable
in the sight of God our Saviour"--"our Saviour" giving intensity to the
expression, as if reminding us that he who has saved us must be one to whom it
is good and acceptable that we should seek the salvation of all. It is further
grounded on the express declaration of his will regarding others, that he "will
have them to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth."

Here is not only the assurance that we are right in praying that they may be
saved, but right in praying that the truth may be brought to all, and that they
may be saved through its instrumentality; praying, in fact, for the universal
diffusion of Christ’s gospel, and the universal salvation of men in consequence.
It is further supported on the ground of the unity of God, the unity of the
Mediator between God and men, and the unity of man as regarded by his mediating
atonement: "One God, and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
who gave himself a ransom for all, a testimony in due time."

We have, then, the clear example of the first preachers, the express declaration
that the early conversions were as a pattern for the ages to come, the statement
that trust in God as the Saviour of all men was the animating strength under
apostolic toil and shame, the command to pray for all, and the most formally
stated warrant for such prayers boldly to lay hold upon the promises of God.

Many who admit that the scriptural argument points in this direction, yet,
looking at human nature, the present condition of mankind, the proportion of
Christian agency to population, and the past career of man, will, on the whole,
conclude that the conversion of the world is not to be expected. They will also
ask us how we can reconcile such an expectation with the free agency of man. We
will no further answer them than by recalling the fact that every additional
conversion to some extent, however slight, changes the condition of society,
and, in so doing, affects the motives which act upon the unconverted, throwing a
greater weight upon the side of goodness. A few more decided advances on the
part of the Church, in some countries of Christendom, would cast a
preponderating weight of social motives on the side of godliness, leaving little
to be contended against but the depravity of man’s heart, which, even in the
purest condition of society, would be enough to demand the most zealous care for
the conversion of each human being. This bears first on the general question of
natural motives, next on the particular one as to reconciling faith, for the
general regeneration of men, with their free agency. We readily admit that,
logically, we cannot reconcile them, and certainly we are not anxious to attempt
it. All the difficulties which meet us in soberly expecting the conversion of
the entire world, equally meet us in soberly expecting the conversion of an
entire family. Every question of free agency, motives, human nature, past
experience, which enters into the one, enters into the other, though on a
smaller scale. But it is only the scale that differs; the elements are the same.
Yet who that has felt the faith and love of Christ within him, and has kindred
dear to his own heart, has not again and again pleaded that they might all
appear, "no wanderer lost, a family in heaven"? Who does not feel that to
exercise faith that such a prayer shall be answered is good and wise, and
acceptable to God? In fact, all the difficulty exists as to faith for the
conversion of any one individual. The difference between preaching the gospel
with a full expectation of doing no more than saving small companies of saints
from amid multitudes of sinners, on whose shipwreck no influence is to be
exercised beyond holding them a light to sink by, and of looking upon every
converted man as one rescued from a common danger, who is immediately to join in
rescuing the rest--is such, that in the one case, when a little is accomplished,
it is looked upon as what the gospel was sent to do; while, in the other case,
every little is taken as but an earnest of the great, and the great as an
earnest of the universal. While we aim at few, we shall win but few; for, that
our succes


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