========================================================================
  PARACLETOS, OR THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST
  by Sherlock Bristol
========================================================================

Bristol's teaching on the baptism of the Holy Spirit, examining the biblical
evidence for this experience, its relationship to conversion, and its
significance for empowering believers in Christian life and witness.

  Chapters: 14

------------------------------------------------------------------------
  TABLE OF CONTENTS
------------------------------------------------------------------------

    1. 01 - Chapter 01
    2. 02 - Chapter 02
    3. 03 - Chapter 03
    4. 04 - Chapter 04
    5. 05 - Chapter 05
    6. 06 - Chapter 06
    7. 07 - Chapter 07
    8. 08 - Chapter 08
    9. 09 - Chapter 09
   10. 10 - Chapter 10
   11. 11 - Chapter 11
   12. 12 - Chapter 12
   13. 13 - Chapter 13
   14. 14 - Chapter 14

========================================================================
  CHAPTER 1: 01 - CHAPTER 01
========================================================================

CHAPTER I.

"Paracletos" defined as the Holy-Helper and more than "The Comforter," ax the
word translated in the English Bible.

Jesus said in John 16:13, "When he the Spirit of Truth is come, He shall guide
you into all truth" And the fair inference from this passage is, that the Holy
Spirit in his alliance with the human soul, becomes its aid in the acquisition
of every specie* of useful knowledge." "He will lead you into all truth." Why
not? Is He not interested in the entirety of our welfare? Is there anything
which affects our growth, our usefulness, or our happiness, beneath His notice?
Has He not numbered the hairs on our head? And has He not gone below us to feed
the sparrows, and deck the flowers of the field? We are expressly told that He
inspired Bezaleel and his fellow-workmen, with skill in constructing and
decorating the Tabernacle in the Wilderness, and also, that He called and
qualified the Judges of Israel who from time to time were raised up to guide the
Lord’s people and deliver them from their enemies. And did He did not go forth
with their armies and help them overcome their foes*? Nor can we doubt that when
David invented his stringed instruments for the Sanctuary Service, the Holy
Spirit as truly aided him then, as when he wrote the Psalms they were intended
to accompany. Nor have we of this nineteenth century, reason to doubt the
influence of the Holy Spirit, in the wonderful and almost miraculous inventions
and discoveries which have been made since its commencement, and especially
during its latter half. It is as if an unseen hand had touched the springs of
human thought and inspired" them with an activity unknown before. And that these
wonderful inventions are designed for a purpose, over yonder, better >and
grander than ever entered the inventor’s thought! Solomon represents the Holy
Spirit (so we think) as saying "I wisdom dwell with prudence and find out the
knowledge of witty inventions, rejoicing in the habitable parts of the earth;
and my delights are with the sons of men." And is not this variety in the Holy
Spirit’s work in instructing the human soul, that which is represented in
Revelation 12:6, as "the seven spirits of God sent forth into all the earth?"

We are not therefore quite satisfied with the rendering the translators gave in
our English Bible to the Greek, word. "Paracletos." They translate it "the
Comforter." But it literally means, one "called upon," "kala," to call, and
"para," for or upon. Perhaps we should say "The Called Upon." One who has come
into our world to help needy humanity, and stands ready, at every human door, to
help those who want his assistance and ask for it. If, for example, we are in
sorrow, and ask for sustaining grace, and He comes and wipes away the tears;
then He is our Comforter. If in perplexity, and know not what to do or whither
go, and He takes our hand and leads us out, then He is our Guide. If we are
sorely tempted and feel our feet sliding and call for help, and He comes to the
rescue and delivers us from our strong enemy, then He is our Deliverer, the
Captain of Salvation. If as a student, I need stimulus and illumination, to
acquire the mental discipline and knowledge I am in pursuit of, and He comes to
my aid, then He is my Teacher. If I feel my soul is polluted and unfitted for
His Holy residence, and I call on him to come and cast out the unclean thoughts
and desires, which like unclean spirits cling so fondly there, and he comes and
drives them away, then He is my Sanctifier.

If the book of God is largely sealed to me, and fails to give comfort as it
should, and He comes and breaks the seals, and makes it luminous, then He is the
Interpreter. In short, the Holy Spirit fills so many offices, beside that of
Comforter, that we prefer the more general term of Patron or Helper, as more
fitly expressing the work He does for men. And yet a more literal-rendering
still of Paracletos, is, as suggested above, that of The Called Upon. A
distinguished Greek scholar, a learned Professor in a Theological Seminary, when
asked to translate Paracletos in a single word, replied, "I cannot. It would
take a dozen strong English words to give the full meaning, so extensive are the
aids properly covered by it!"

It is as if in some city, there were some one, so given to help all who are in
any distress, or need of help of any kind, and so able to help, and so
successful in helping, and so absorbed in the work of helping, that it seems to
constitute the only business of his life. Great multitudes go to him asking for
relief and not one that is worthy is sent empty away! Crowds throng the streets
which lead to his house by day, and many are the applicants who call upon him
after the sun has set and some during the small hours of the coming day; Yet
unwearied, he is ever ready to hear the plea, and rise and give the worthy
applicant as much as he shall need. At length he comes to be known as "The
Called Upon!" Such is the Bible designation, of that great being, whose work in
this world, and especially among Christians, it will be the object of the
following chapters to describe. "The Called Upon!" How suggestive, reader, of
what you have done a thousand times! Of what millions more have done and are
doing still! Indeed, is there a being on the earth or has there ever been, whose
mind has opened wide enough to take in the idea of God, but has felt his
brooding sympathy at times, has been taught the better way, and has been helped
by a hand unseen? "Thou art the confidence of All the ends of the earth and of
them that are afar off upon the sea." So says the Psalmist’ And such we believe
will be the confession of all our race, when before the throne in the coming
judgment, the nations kneel and confess before God the facts and experiences of
life.

"We need thee every hour, Stay thou near by; Temptations lose their power, When
thou art nigh!"


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 2: 02 - CHAPTER 02
========================================================================

CHAPTER II. The Work of the Spirit under the Mosaic Dispensation. In the brief
synopsis of events before the flood, we read these mournful words: "And it
repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him at his
heart. And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man! And this
expression "Strive with man," implies an earnest and persistent struggle on the
Spirit’s part to hold men back from sin and the threatened doom. A like record
is made of his efforts to save the Israelites on their way to Canaan, when it is
said, "They rebelled and vexed his Holy Spirit." Another still and not less
strong in the expression, "How can I give thee up Ephraim? How shall I deliver
thee Israel? How shall I make thee as Admah? How shall I set thee as Zeboim?
Mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together!" This on the
one hand. On the other we read of his successful work in a multitude of
instances. There were Enoch and Elijah, so sanctified by his power and so
ripened for heaven, that they were not suffered to see death, but were
translated! Others like Moses, David and Melchisadek, become types of the coming
Messiah! All their great teachers, we are told, spoke as they were moved by the
Holy Ghost. Indeed, the list of the Spirit’s triumphs in converting and
sanctifying men, while yet the nations were groping and feeling their way amid
the shadows of the old dispensation, and awaiting the rise of the Sun of
Righteousness, is too large to be transcribed here.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 3: 03 - CHAPTER 03
========================================================================

CHAPTER III. The Work of the Holy Spirit under Messiah’s reign, and in what
respects it differed from that under Moses. 1. In the measure of Divine
influence imparted to individuals. The great atonement, by the blood of the
Messiah, opened the door for a wider and richer display of God’s mercy and
generosity towards sinners. God’s government is vast! Countless are the hosts
which are interested in it! It is evident from the Scriptures, that beings,
other than those of the earth, looked with wondering eyes on God’s treatment of
a world of sinners! When the angels sinned, at once the law was executed, an(jl
they were cast out of heaven! But when man had sinned, punishment was largely
withheld! The judgment was delayed, and pity and mercy and love combined to
bring him to repentance! What did it mean? Was it possible that the Great Father
and Governor was so moved by sympathy for his children, born in a world where
devils roamed and tempted them, that he would fail to stand by the law which had
hitherto been held so sacred. And when the mercy seat was planted in the
tabernacle, and offerings made thereon, angels are represented as looking down
upon it and studying into its meaning! Paul interprets the cherubim above the
mercy seat as meaning, "which things the angels desire to look into." But when
the Lamb of God condescended to human incarnation! to humiliation so low! and at
last poured out his blood on the Altar of Sacrifice! then were the seals of the
great mystery broken! and the Cherubim above the mercy seat flew back to heaven
crying, Amen! Amen! God is just and God is gracious! And his fidelity to his
government can be questioned nevermore! No, not if millions of repentant
prodigals are forgiven and restored! And now open wider than ever the windows of
heaven and let richer showers than ever fall upon men I If we are asked to show
that larger measures of the Spirit are imparted to persons since Jesus came than
ever before, we refer to Peter preaching after he had received the holy baptism
in which 3,000 were converted in one day, and that in a city notorious for its
prejudice against Christ and His disciples! In vain is previous history searched
for a parallel with the power which attended that day’s preaching. So too, the
Apostle Paul stands head and shoulders above the seers and prophets of the Old
Testament in the marvelous power which attended his footsteps, while "from
Jerusalem round about to Illyricum, he fully preached the Gospel of Christ!" So
of many others, the companions or successors of these men. Baptised with the
Holy Ghost they went every where preaching the word, planting Churches, and
leading sinners to Christ in numbers so great that kings on their thrones saw
the signs of the Son of Man coming in his kingdom with power and great glory! No
section of earth’s previous history, shows anything like a similar endowment of
Spiritual .power! Coming down to more modern times, we behold Wesley and
Whitfield, men as entirely dissimilar in mental traits, as two men well could
be. Yet both filled with the Holy Ghost, and each leading unto the Lord, in his
own way, men and women in numbers far beyond those so led by any of the Old
Testament Prophets, or even Peter and Paul in the new! Later still, and even in
our own times, men like Spurgeon in Europe, and Moody and Mills in America,
astonish the world, by the power which attends them in preaching the Gospel. Did
not Jesus say, John 14:12, "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall
he do also, and greater’ works than these shall he do, because I go unto my
Father!" But there is another difference in the operations of the Spirit, under
the new dispensation which distinguishes it from the old.

2d. In the enlarged area of his work. Under the first Dispensation, while he was
everywhere doing his work among the sons of men, leaving not a single soul
destitute of his influence, his first and especial work was among the lost sheep
of the House of Israel, raising up prophets among them, imparting to them a
special revelation, walling them in also and separating them born the nations by
special institutions and promises. But the seers of the Old Testament clearly
foresaw, this was not always so to be, They beheld in Messiah’s day, the
partition wall broken down, and thus they prophesied, "It shall come to pass in
the last days, saith the Lord, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh!"
"It shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established in the top of the mountains and shall be exalted above the
hills, and all nations shall flow unto it, and many people shall go and say,
Come ye and let us go up to the Mountain of the Lord to the house of the God of
Jacob, and he will teach us his ways and we will walk in his paths. And he shall
judge among the nations and rebuke many peoples and they shall beat their swords
into plow shares and their spears into pruning hooks, and nation shall not lift
up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more! Passages like
these abound in the Old Testament, and they teach, what facts abundantly show,
that on Messiah’s day, the work and success of the Holy Spirit, would be greater
outside the Jewish people, than within their borders!

3. Unusual classes of people receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit under the
new dispensation. In the old, his special gifts were largely confined to the
priesthood, the seers, and the first-born in the family. Now, all were invited
to share in it, the sons and daughters, the young men and old men, the servants
and handmaidens; not one is excluded! what ever their employments, or social
condition, the greatest of heaven’s gifts is laid at their door! The language
conveying the gift is this, "I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your
sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, and
your old men dream dreams, and on the servants and on the handmaidens, will I
pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy." That is, they shall like the
ancient prophets preach the will of God, with the manifest sanction of his
power! This precious truth, that every Christian in Messiah’s day could receive
the baptism of the Holy Spirit, received clear illustration and confirmation in
the Pentecostal object lesson. In that wonderful outpouring of the Spirit, the
cloven tongue as of fire sat upon each of them, and they were all filled with
the Holy Ghost and glorified God, as the Spirit gave them utterance!


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 4: 04 - CHAPTER 04
========================================================================

CHAPTER IV. The Pentecostal Baptism, a great object lesson. This remarkable
outpouring of the Spirit stands out in the Bible, with a prominence, which draws
all eyes unto it! Nothing equals it in the book of revelation. It is a great and
startling object lesson, which Christians of all subsequent ages should study,
and in it learn by what great force, personal sanctification is to be secured,
and the world converted to God. What does this object lesson teach?

1st. It clearly teaches that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is a great spiritual
endowment bestowed upon Christians, subsequent to their conversion. In the case
of many of these who first received it, it came years after their first
induction into the family of God. Perhaps this is not always so, but we believe
it is, usually. We say "usually" because we have occasionally seen converts and
heard of others who received the Great Gift simultaneously with conversion. Bat
such cases are rare. As a rule, converts after their conversion have a hard task
in the effort to control their thoughts, passions, their speech and spirit.
There is so much carnality left, so much of the world and the devil within, and
around, while the spiritual man is feeble and the measure of the Spirit is
small, that they often stumble and fall! And for a time they have a seventh
chapter of Romans’ experience. At length, like Israel in trouble, they cry unto
the Lord for help and are delivered. They receive a double portion of the Holy
Spirit and move into the 8th chapter and rejoice with joy unspeakable and full
of glory! There is so much of God in them now, that the devil flies, the flesh
is subdued and the world is overcome! I say this is the usual experience. It was
so in the apostles day. It is so now. We pass from experience to Bible proofs
that this view is correct. The Apostles who received this gift on the day of
Pentecost were Christians and had made considerable attainments in the Divine
life. This is clear from the language which Christ uses concerning them, in that
memorable prayer offered before his apprehension. "I have given them thy word
and the world hath hated them because they are not of the world even as I am not
of the world. While I was with them I kept them in thy name and none of them is
lost but the son of perdition." "Now ye are clean but not all." Such language
proves clearly that they were converted people. Yet these were the very persons,
to whom "the Spirit of Truth, the Comforter" was promised, over and over again
in that memorable after-supper-talk, as a friend who was yet to come in fullness
to their aid and abide with them forever. So, too, after his resurrection, and
just before his ascension, "Being assembled with them he commanded them that
they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father,
which saith he ye have received of new. For John truly baptized with water, but
ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence." And these were
the men who conducted that prayer-meeting of ten day’s continuance and held the
brethren fast to the promise, till they were all with one accord in one place,
and upon whom on the tenth day the Baptism came, and they were all filled with
the Holy Ghost! Thenceforth they were a very different class of men from what
they were before! So far as the record goes, the inference is strong that the
entire 120 in that upper room, who prayed for that baptism so long, were without
exception, Christians, not less devout, than the average Christian in our modern
churches. Probably far more so, for it cost something to be a Christian in those
days of persecution and crucifixion! And if such men needed the Holy Baptism,
shall the modern Church member be content with conversion and say "that is
enough for me! I have been forgiven have a hope and have no need of any higher
or greater blessing!" Passing along a little further in the story of the
Apostles we read of Phillip going down to Samaria and preaching the Gospel and
that "many believed and were baptised both men and women! And when the Apostles
at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God they sent to them
Peter and John, who when they were come prayed for them that they might receive
the Holy Ghost, and they laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy
Ghost." What stronger proof do we need that the influence and measure of the
Spirit which brings about conversion, is not oil that me need and all that is
provided f What greater proof that the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, is a
Christian endowment, and far above that received at conversion. 2. This great
object lesson teaches that we must ourselves personally seek the gift, if we
would have it. It came not to the Apostles unsought. Witness the ten days’
prayer meeting. 3. That all classes can have it, that all need it whatever their
lot, be they servants or handmaidens, old or young. 4. In that object lesson we
see how God’s people can from weakness rise to power. The Holy Ghost must come
upon them, and then he that is feeble among them shall be as David and the house
of David as the Angel of God. 5. In it we see how Christians are to be
sanctified. That is lifted to a life of steadfast walk with God and victory over
the powers of sin. By the reception within of this large measure of the Holy
Spirit. Thus were sanctified Peter and his brethren. 6. In it too we see how the
nations are to be converted unto the Lord. 7. We see also that if the Church
would see sinners converted, it must first of all be baptized by the Holy Ghost.
So much at least, this object lesson teaches. We shall enlarge on these topics
in subsequent chapters. We leave them for the present.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 5: 05 - CHAPTER 05
========================================================================

CHAPTER V. The Pentecostal Endowment Permanent in its Essentials. Was the
Pentecostal endowment of the Spirit designed solely for the Apostolic age, or
intended in its substantial elements for the Christian Church down through the
entire Messianic? Was the promise of the gift made to us as well as to the
Apostles and their brethren? Is the gift within our reach as truly as within
theirs? Questions of immense practical importance! They concern us personally.
They concern the Church of God, and they deeply concern a world lying in
wickedness. If the gift is for us, how sinful to live without it! If it is only
in part for us, we need to know what our portion is, and to rise up and take
quick possession! It is the settled belief of the writer that when the Holy
Spirit came to take the place of the departed Jesus, he came to abide with the
Church down through the ages, its Sanctifier, its Inspirer and Helper in
converting the world to Christ. Indeed, what less can we make of Christ’s words,
"I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter that he may
abide with you forever! " And when that Comforter came, he came not empty
handed, but with gifts rich and manifold. Thus Paul enumerates them, in 1
Corinthians 12:1-31 Chap. "To one is given the word of wisdom, to another
knowledge, to another faith, to another gifts of healing, to another miracles,
to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another divers
tongues, to another interpretation of tongues by the same Spirit." In another
place, Galatians 5:23, he tells us "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." The sum of
all this long enumeration of the gifts the Spirit bestows, is that the gifts he
imparts are as varied as the wants of believers were at that time, or would be
down to the end of time. And if that is so, it follows that some of them would
be specially adapted to their times, and incidental to the introduction of the
New Testament, its verification as the word of God, but not needed after that
work was done, and therefore subsequently to be withheld. Such we believe was
the power to work miracles, to write inspired books, to speak with tongues, and
in some cases to forecast the future. We do not see how the Apostles could have
transmitted to us the Gospels and the Epistles as writings divinely inspired,
unless the Holy Ghost had confirmed them by miracles. But when the word was
verified as Divine, and the world had received evidence sufficient to convince
honest and earnest men that the New Testament is God’s Book, then it was
eminently fit that this feature of the Baptism should be withdrawn, or
eliminated from the gifts bestowed. For the laws of nature as we call them, are
all the laws of God, they are all very dear to Him, since they were enacted in
infinite wisdom and love, and necessary for the highest welfare of His children.
If, therefore, He sets any of them aside, it must be temporarily, and at spaces
few and far between. And even then only as few laws as possible, must feel the
interference. The vast importance of the verification of the New Testament,
alone warranted and demanded the bestowment upon its writers of miraculous
powers. But when that end was answered, reason says they should be withdrawn,
and history shows they were. But surely the withdrawal of them did not involve
those other all important gifts which were needed still and will be down to the
end of time. We shall all admit that the great value of the latter day
outpouring of the Spirit the Pentecostal Baptism, lay in its power to convert
sinners and sanctify Christians. This done universally, or even generally, the
millennium will have come, and the earth will be but a vestibule of heaven! But
miracles have very little direct influence in bringing about either
sanctification or conversion. Much less than the masses of people think. Let us
look at a few examples. The raising of Lazarus from the dead did not convert the
Jewish Sanhedrim, though its members well knew of its occurrence, they resisted
its influence and sought to kill Lazarus to put his testimony out of the way!
Judas had been an eye witness to Christ’s miracles from the first, yet they did
not change his wicked heart, but he continued a hypocrite and a thief, and
finally, betrayed his Lord for 30 jrieces of silver! The officers and soldiers,
who were sent to apprehend Jesus, so felt the stroke of his power when he
advanced to meet them and said "I am he," that "they went backward and fell on
the ground!" Yet they rose and rallied against him! And when a few moments
after, they saw Jesus heal with a touch the right ear of Malchus, which Peter
had cut off, still, unchanged in heart, they proceeded to bind Jesus and lead
him away to Annas and Caiaphas for condemnation and crucifixion! And when the
whole multitude uttered the hoarse cry "crucify! crucify him!" Doubtless their
voices were lifted up with the rest and probably that of Malchus too.

Need we go back to Sinai and see the people worshiping a golden calf, crying
"thee be thy Gods, O! Israel which led thee out of Egypt," while yet the
towering mountain before them trembled at the presence of Him, who had but a few
days before, uttered with a voice two millions could hear, the ten commandments?
Need we recur to this as a proof that in all ages miracles have had no direct
power to convert and sanctify men, and often very little that is indirect? What
a startling example in this line were the people of Israel in all their journey
from Egypt to the promised land! Did they not stand for half a year in Goshen
and behold the ten dire plagues fall upon Egypt? Did they not hear the midnight
wail which went up from every Egyptian house, when the startled family arose and
found their first born dying or dead? Did they not see the waters divide and
allow them to pass over into the Arabian peninsula dry shod, while Pharaoh’s
host was overwhelmed and drowned? And when their little store of food was spent,
were they not for years fed with the manna which fell from heaven? But did all
these and many other miracles, convert or sanctify the multitude? Far, far from
it! They continued impenitent; they rebelled and vexed his Holy Spirit so that
"He sware in his wrath that they should not enter into His rest!" We may add
that the baptism of the Holy Ghost, did not always imply a power to work
miracles. John was full of the Spirit. But John wrought no miracles, nor is it
probable that one in a hundred of the Christians who received the great gift had
the power to work a miracle. Paul asks, with an implied negative, "Have all the
gift of healing? Do all work miracles!" And in a discussion of the comparative
value of the gifts imparted by the Spirit, he exalts charity, or a heart full of
love to God and Man, as far above all the rest. We have dwelt thus long on this
feature the miraculous of the Pentecostal baptism, because many have such
exaggerated views of it that when it had answered its purpose of confirming the
word and was withdrawn from the Church they think there was little left worth
seeking, and fall back upon such Spiritual endowments, as the Apostles had
before Pentecost, as about all Christians can now rationally expect. Indeed a
distinguished Theological Professor in a letter to me on the subject argued that
Theological students should not consider this baptism an indispensable
prerequisite to their going forth from the Seminary to preach the Gospel. But
that rather with the ordinary preparation should go forth under the General
Order, "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel," and expect to receive
occasional baptisms while about their work. I give the sentiment of his letter.
But this was not the Master’s view of it. The Apostles had spent three years
under his personal instructions. They were endowed with power to confirm their
words by miracles. They had just spent forty days with him, listening to his
words while he spoke to them "of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God."
But in spite of all that preparation, in his view, they lacked a most important
preparation. It was richer endowment of the Holy Spirit! Accordingly he bade
them seek and obtain it before entering on the sacred work. Hear his words,
"Tarry in Jerusalem till, &c." Wait for the promise." Commanded that they should
not depart from Jerusalem till "ye have received the promise." The repeated
injunctions, thoroughly emphasize the’ importance of the Great Gift. The ten
days of prayer for it which followed bespeak its importance also! Then followed
the Gift itself, with its astounding results! its effects on the 120 who
received it! on the thousands converted! on the people of Jerusalem and the
devout men who were gathered there from every nation under heaven! Results well
worth those ten days of waiting and of prayer! Had our Lord sent forth his
disciples, as the Professor whose sentiments we have quoted would send out his
students, he would have sent them to disaster, defeat, and discouragement. Their
past showed it. They were timid and weak and they needed a great reinforcement
from on high before they could make an attack on the entrenchments of the enemy.
We see it in our Church work. The Church must be prepared for a revival before
it can expect one. It must take the stumbling blocks out of the road. It must be
baptized with the Holy Ghost 01 it is not fit to cooperate with God in winning
souls! "Sow not among thorns!" has been the standing theme of such men as
Finney, and Avery, and Moody, and Mills, and a thousand other evangelists. Why
then should not the candidates for the Ministry desire and seek a like
preparation a baptism of the Spirit, before they enter on the same great work?
But the example of our Lord, in this line seems more striking still! He, our
Great Exemplar, did not enter on his work of preaching the Kingdom of God, till
he had received in an open and manifest form, the baptism of the Holy Spirit!
"John bore record and said, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven as a dove
and it abode upon him." And in his first recorded sermon, He said "The Spirit of
the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach." And if a being
exalted like Him, with wisdom and miraculous power, and of life absolutely
perfect did not think himself qualified to preach the glad tidings, till first,
specially endowed by the Holy Ghost if his inspired Apostles also must have the
same great gift, what presumption in us to enter the work as if qualified
without it! Is it not going in the face of the most impressive example, in all
the Book of God? And why, let me ask, was that great example recorded and set
before us? Leaving these considerations we proceed to lay before the reader,
other and more direct arguments which we think fully prove that the outpouring
of the Spirit in Pentecostal richness, was designed for our age not less than
for the Apostolic.

1st. Because we need it and must have it for personal sanctification. By
sanctification I mean establishment and confirmation in the ways of God. A
Seventh Chapter of Roman’s experience, so largely prevalent in our Churches,
cries piteously towards heaven for an endowment of Spiritual power far beyond
^that received in conversion! That was -precious; a gift beyond all price! It
convicted of sin, it led to Christ, it secured forgiveness. To use a figure of
speech, it delivered us from Pharaoh! It led us across the Red Sea, and put a
new song in our mouth as we stood on the other shore! But is this all our God
has for us? Are we to stay here in this comparatively barren land all our days?
No! No! there is a land of Canaan over yonder richer far than this, and itself a
type of a still better land beyond. We need not stay here coursing back and
forth in the wilderness of Sinai, struggling with foes and oft times with
doubtful success. True, there is distance and obstacles between us and our
inheritance. But Joshua’s and Caleb’s have been over there, and have brought to
our sight the fruits of the land. More over we have a leader who will conduct us
there, with pillar of clouds by day and of fire by night! Rise let us go and
take quick possession! No careful reader of the New Testament has failed to see
that the Pentecostal Baptism, effected a great moral and Spiritual change in the
Apostles and their companions. They were no more vacillating, cowardly,
unbelieving and weak. On the other hand they were strong iii the Lord and in the
power of his might. Hear them say "He that is born of God overcomes the world /"
"Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world," and "The weapons of
our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God to the pulling clown of
strongholds; casting down imaginations, and every high thing which exalts itself
against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought to the
obedience of Christ! "Now thanks be unto God who always causeth us to triumph in
Christ." k 2 Corinthians 2:14. Indeed, sanctification, victory over sin,
holiness, is all through the Bible ascribed to the Holy Spirit. Not that we are
inactive in the matter, but the Great Agency is his. If therefore we would be
holy, we must have the Holy Spirit come and dwell in us. We must have the
Pentecostal baptism. That which sanctified the Apostles can sanctify us, and
nothing short of it will answer our turn.

’2d. We need the additional endowment to win others to the Lord. Before the
Apostles received it, they had little power as preachers and conveyancers of
truth to men. They were weak, they were human, what could they do in a contest
with the depravity of the human heart and all the powers of darkness?

Christ knew their incapacity but told them they should receive power not many
days hence; and bade them tarry in Jerusalem till that power was given in the
baptism of the Holy Ghost. So it is with Christians in modern days, who have to
contend with the same great obstacles; they need and must have the same Great
Helper working with them and speaking through them with Pentecostal power. Since
then we need so greatly this baptism, both for the work within and that without,
is not the presumption rational, that he who has done so much else for us, will
do this also? Paul said, "My God shall supply all you need," and if this is not
our great necessity, who can tell us what that necessity is?

3d. The promises of this great gift look beyond Apostolic days. Peter said,
referring to it and it alone. "The promise is unto you and to your children"
This means, even tying the words down to absolute literalness, the extension of
the blessing to the next generation. But properly interpreted, and according to
Bible usage, it means to your descendants. But he adds "to all that are afar
off" the fair construction is, afar off in time, as well as in space. But lest
we should limit it to that age, as so many are disposed to do, he adds, "Even to
as many as the Lord our God shall call." This settles the matter. It shows that
the offer of the Pentecostal baptism is made to all who hear the Gospel call, in
any age, in any land, be they Jews or Gentiles, bond or free, young or old, in
Asia or Europe, or the Isles of the Ocean. No matter when or where they shall
hear the Gospel’s call, with it also shall go the offer of the baptism of the
Holy Ghost! If then, serious minded reader, the Lord our God has sent his call
to you, to repent, believe and be forgiven, let me ask you to read and reflect
on Peter’s assurance, that a further gift is in store for you also such as he
and his brethren had just received, the Baptism of the Holy Ghost! And yet again
hear the Master say, "I will pray the Father and he shall give you another
Comforter, and he shall abide with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom
the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him. But ye
knew him, for he dwellcth with you, and shall be in you!" This passage also I
take to mean that the Comforter whom the father was to send in baptismal power,
did not come on a visit, brief and confined to Apostolic days, but to remain
through the ages till this world is brought back to God. His was to be a
permanent residence! He was "to abide with us forever /"

4. The Conversion of the Nations, foretold by the prophets as taking place down
the ages, far beyond Calvary, and hard by the millennium, clearly shows a power
of the Holy Ghost, displayed on a scale far beyond that exhibited at Pentecost!
Thus speaks Isaiah in the 60th Chapter of his prophecy. "The Gentiles shall come
to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising! Lift up thine eyes
round about and see! All they gather themselves together! they come to thee! Thy
sons shall come from far and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side! The
abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee, and the forces of the
Gentiles shall come to thee! Thy gates shall be open continually! they shall not
be shut day nor night, that men may bring unto thee the forces of the Gentiles,
and that their kings may be bought!" In the 2nd Chapter the same Prophet
referring to this same time, says "It shall come to pass in the last days, that
the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the
mountains and all nations shall flow into it. And many peoples shall go and say,
Come ye and let us go up to the Mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of
Jacob; and he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths; for out of
Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, and he
shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many peoples, and they shall
beat their swords into plough-shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks, and
nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any
more." Other old testaments prophets foresaw and described in graphic verse the
great revival in which the nations of the earth, as with one heart shall turn to
the Lord! Paul also speaks of "the fullness of the Gentiles" coming into the
fold of Christ and after that the Jewish nation coming too! Romans 11:25. That
this great revival has not occurred is obvious. That it is yet to occur is
certain. The question we propose is, how is it to be brought about? The obvious
answer is, "the Holy Ghost still abiding in the Churches, will yet exert a power
on the Church and on the nations, far beyond that which Peter witnessed in the
Great Pentecostal revival at Jerusalem! Since this latter brought to Christ only
a few thousands, while the former is to bring into the kingdom, the great
nations of the earth!

5th. Another argument which proves that the Baptism of the Holy Spirit belongs
to our age, as well as to the Apostolic, and one which seems to us unanswerable
is the commandment laid upon us, to be filled with the Spirit. "Be not drunk
with wine, but be filled with the Spirit." This is the Saviour’s voice to us,
spoken through his servant, Paul. The command implies the ability as well as the
duty and the privilege. But the expression "Filled with the Spirit," is the
equivalent of "Baptised with the Holy Ghost." Take a few passages like the
following: "They were fill filled with the Holy Ghost!" Acts 2:4. "And they were
all filled with the Holy Ghost and they spake, &c.," "That thou mightest receive
thy sight and befitted with the Holy Ghost." Acts 9:17. I need not quote other
passages, since the command to be filled with the Spirit, means that w r e
should receive as large an induement as our capacities will allow or our cup
contain. More than this Pentecost did not give. Less than this all our limited
capacities can receive and use, will neither meet the requirement, "be filled
with the Spirit," or our obvious duty and our need. And should any of our
brethren deny the immanence in the Church, of the privilege and duty of
receiving the Pentecostal baptism, they will surely admit the duty and privilege
of being filled ’with the Hob) Spirit. Well, brethren, we will meet you there,
and be content, if you will inquire at God’s altar, how large a measure of the
Spirit received is implied in being filled with Him, and with the further
purpose not to rest till that measure is received, and you are filled with all
the fullness of God, and your cup can contain no more!

One more argument we urge to show that this great induement belongs to us,
equally with the Apostolic Church. It is that work that time till now, God has
been raising up witnesses who have confessed the reception of this baptism, and
whose lives and successes have shown that they were not mistaken. We refer to
such eminent workers in the Church as Luther, Zwingle, Wesley, Whitfield,
Finney, Mills and Moody, who have told us how they sought this blessing, and how
they received it. Conspicuous among them was John Wesley. This remarkable man
laid the greatest stress upon this gift, and even insisted that no preacher was
fitted for his work, till indued with special power from on high! He called it
the "full assurance of faith," and a conscious indwelling of the Spirit.
Accordingly great numbers of Methodist preachers were led to seek and receive
the great blessing, and hence the power and unparalleled growth of their Church.

Beginning but a little over a century ago, preaching the Gospel to the poor,
beside the highways and hedges, without a house of worship, a college or
seminary, they went forward converting sinners, forming classes of inquirers and
converts, ordaining class leaders, exhorters, preachers and elders, often, and
generally uneducated, but full of faith and the Holy Spirit, and men in whose
mouths burned the tongue of fire! What has God wrought by these obscure and
feeble men, since our century began? Long since they shot by all other
Protestant denominations and left them far behind, in numbers of churches,
communicants and hearers! Whence this wonderful growth? We answer, the other
Protestant bodies have depended largely on human learning, prestige, patronage
and power, and very little on the Holy Ghost! Hence their slow growth and
weakness. But with the Methodists, the baptism of the Holy Ghost was everything,
hence their success and in that was the hiding of their power.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 6: 06 - CHAPTER 06
========================================================================

CHAPTER VI. The Blessings of this Baptism confers upon the Christian personally.

1st. It will vivify his consciousness of the presence of God. Why not? Since in
it God says " / will dwell in them and walk in them!" And this indwelling of the
Spirit is too great a matter to escape a vivid consciousness of a new source of
life and power within. This consciousness of God’s presence, is of great
importance in the Christian life. When we have it we are strong. When it is
absent we are weak. God has put great stress upon it. Hence he has sought to
impress his presence upon us by works of artistic skill, which meet us wherever
we turn, saying, “Lo! God is here! behold his handiwork! “Prayer is largely an
effort on our part to get near to God, in the sense of becoming more deeply
impressed with a sense of His presence and love. But in spite of both, a
majority of Christians complain of a lack of this abiding sense of the Divine
presence. Even in closet prayer, while on their knees they often detect a
forgetfulness of God, shocking and sinful. How shall this defect be remedied? We
reply, the remedy is found alone in the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said,
John 14:16-17, "I will pray the Father and He shall give you another Comforter,
and He shall abide with you forever, even the spirit of truth, for He dwelleth
with you and shall be in you!” And His indwelling will give vividness and
constancy to our sense of His presence. And there is nothing like the sense of
God’s presence and power, to give the Christain strength, confidence and peace.

2d. This baptism removes all doubts of acceptance. John says "We know that He
abideth in us by the Spirit He hath given us." And Paul says, " The Spirit
itself beareth witness with our Spirit, that we are the children of God." With
this baptism the last doubt in regard to that great matter takes its final
departure. As well could the Prodigal Son have doubted his reconciliation with
his father, when clothed from his ward-robe, sitting at his table, and music and
dancing filling all the house with joy. This inward witness of acceptance,
received on shipboard by Wesley returning to England from Georgia, was the first
token of his having been baptised by the Holy Spirit.

3d. This baptism fills the soul with love to God. Many Christians, and perhaps
we may save all, before its reception are often troubled by a conscious absence
of that love to God which he claims, and which they know is his proper due. They
are conscious of ardent love of human beings, but alas! the barrenness of the
heart on the side towards God! And they mourn over it. And they wonder how it
was that David, in that far back time, could say, “Whom have I in heaven but
thee, and there is none upon earth I desire beside thee!" Sometimes, indeed,
they are conscious of emotions of love to God, but they are so far short of what
they should be, they derive little comfort there from. But when the baptism
comes, and the Holy Ghost enters the home of the soul, and His train fills the
earthly temple, the things of God and of Christ are so presented that the
fountains of the heart are opened and love flows forth from God into the soul
and ebbs back from it to Him, and the whole house is filled and flooded. So it
was on the day of Pentecost, and so it ever has been, is now and ever will be,
where this Great Gift is bestowed. Other means to awaken love towards God in
these sin-frozen hearts of ours, it is quite proper we should use, but the chief
and only effectual power which will elicit it in fulness, will be the power from
on high the Holy Ghost. This is Bible teaching and this is experience an
experience we all need and ail may have, and one we all shall have if we set our
hearts upon it and cry mightily unto God for it. For there is not one among all
His gifts He is more anxious to bestow. " If ye, then, being evil, know how to
give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father who is in
heaven give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him."

4th. It greatly quickens the conscience and enlarges the area of apprehension of
right and wrong. The Holy Spirit becomes our guardian, an instant prompter when
sin and Satan draw nigh. He -cannot endure to have his temple denied his ward
taken captive and led astray. Accordingly, the baptised soul instantly sees the
rightness or wrongness of a multitude of things not thought of as such before.
Said an Apostle, “The anointing ye have received abideth in you, and ye need not
that any man teach you, but as that same anointing teacheth you of all things
and is truth." And Jesus said, “False prophets should arise after Him and
deceive, if it were possible, the very elect." Implying extreme difficulty in
their case, if not absolute impossibility. And that because of an inward light
which would reveal to them the wolf though clad in the clothing of a sheep.
There is nothing which will so effectually guard people from error as the
entrance within of the Spirit of God. But if we discard Him the great Teacher
and trust to human learning, and human reason, there is no telling how far we
may go astray. Error will spread in our Churches in proportion as they become
destitute of vital piety and the Holy Ghost. No creeds can hold them then, and
of what use would it be if they could?

5th. This baptism restores dwarfed and distorted mental faculties to symmetry
and balance again. Sin has wrought sad distortions among the faculties of the
human soul. The ancient equilibrium is largely lost. Lost partly by inheritance
from a wicked ancestry, and in part by our own wicked conduct. Men are lame,
halt, blind, and paralyzed in mind as well as in body. And when the Spirit
undertakes the work of re-construction, a great work indeed is before him. One
is a giant in intellect, but in sensibility a dwarf. In another the sensibility
is unnaturally developed and the passion of the moment carries all before it I
In another the will power is abnormally developed and stubbornness is
characteristic. In another carnality reigns supreme. But why enumerate, when
scarce a man is found who is not conscious of some mental or moral weakness
which limits his usefulness, mars his character and disturbs his peace. And the
perfect symmetry of the primeval man as lie came forth fresh from the hand of
God, where, Oh where shall we find it? Alas! the distortions sin has made!
Thanks to God the Holy Ghost has come, to restore the balance and repair the
wreck. Let me give an example : While the writer was in the Theological Seminary
he had a class-mate who was a specialist in mathematics. They were his hobby in
college and in the seminary his taste in that direction was scarcely diminished.
And why he studied Theology, we, his class mates could scarcely divine, save
that an aunt who paid his bills desired it. I remember how languidly he was wont
to come into our prayer meetings and what an iceberg he was while there. If he
took any part it was so formal, and so cold. As we neared the time of graduation
and licensure, a great revival occurred, and in it our friend was visited by the
world’s Great Healer. He saw as never before, his great defects, and prominent
among them this want of sensibility towards moral and spiritual things. That
part of his nature was torpid The old hymn expresses his state when it says :
The rocks can rend, The earth can quake, The mountains to their centre shake. Of
feeling all things show some sign, But this unfeeling heart of mine. Others
talked of love but he had none. The Bible gave him no comfort.

He saw also that this moral torpor must be removed, or His ministry would be
barren. He came to believe that the Holy Spirit could remove this defect. That
it was one specialty of His mission to restore the lost balance sin had made,
and repair the wreck the Devil had wrought. Earnestly he sought the assistance
of the Great Helper in this matter. Importunately he prayed. For nearly a week
the struggle lasted. But it ended in victory. A victory as wonderful to the
writer and probably to the subject of this spirit-healing, as would have been
the restoration of a paralyzed arm to its normal condition and use. And we doubt
whether the subjects of the Pentecostal baptism were, on an average, changed
more than he. He was filled with the Spirit. His tongue was loosed, and he
praised God as the Spirit gave him utterance. In our prayer meetings he became,
after this, one of the first to speak or pray, and God gave him the tongue of
fire. Often his deep feeling quite choked his utterance. In the years of his
subsequent service in the ministry, deep feeling on his part, and on that of his
hearers, became a characteristic of his religious services. And so it was till
he was not, for God took him. This example was not alone in that revival. Others
in different lines of mental and moral derangement received like restoration and
help.

Allow us to mention another. He was also a Theological student. In early life he
had been a sailor. I believe a mid-ship man in the Navy. He had visited many
ports of the world, and like many seamen, had indulged in vices of the lowest
type, until his soul as well as his body had become polluted almost beyond
description. In his deep degradation, the Spirit sought him out, he was
converted and began a course of studies for the ministry. When I knew him he had
reached the Theological Seminary. But Oh! the stains still left behind in the
soul, by those sins of his youth. Oh! the pictures still unerased in the
chambers of imagery. How could they be effaced? In the great revival the
Pentecost in our Seminary, he came to believe that the Holy Ghost coming to
abide in fullness with him could cleanse the temple and cast out these loathsome
pictures. Earnestly he asked and the Spirit came and cast out those odious
things and cleansed the Leper. Thenceforth he became one of the purest men in
thought, in feeling and imagination I ever knew. It was to him wonderful!
wonderful! wonderful! It was wonderful to us all who were intimate with him and
to whom he told in confidence, what great things the Lord had done for him. He
preached many years, but has gone to his home and has doubtless realized the
truth of Christ’s words, " Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see
God. " A Theological Professor who was very intimate with this man, said to me :
" He was so thoroughly cleansed from his former foulness of thought that I came
to regard him as the purest minded man I ever knew. " Brethren, may the Holy
Spirit reveal to each of us our sad defects and the changes needful to give us
symmetry in mental and moral traits. And in seeking restoration of the lost
balance, may we not, by unbelief limit the Holy one of Israel. Is it too much to
ask the Great Deliverer to do for us a thing so great? Paul says of him : " He
is able to do for ns exceeding abundantly above all we can ask or even think! "

6th. This baptism of the Spirit is indispemible to an appreciation of the Sacred
Scriptures. The 2d Chapter of 2d Cor. is almost wholly devoted to an elaboration
of this truth. In it Paul says, "For 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. Now we have received, not the Spirit of the world, but the
Spirit which is of God, that we may know the things which are freely given us of
God. The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are
foolishness to him, neither can he know them, for they are Spiritually
discerned." The Holy Spirit is the world’s Great Teacher. And while He instructs
his pupils in all kinds of knowledge, His especial and most loved work is within
moral and Spiritual lines. Why should it not be? Since there are laid the
eternal foundations of character, of growth, of usefulness and happiness. And
there our need of an instructor is great, not alone because of the superior
importance of these things, but because of the error, and darkness and
depravity, which Sin and Satan have brought into our world. We know it, we all
know it, and feel it at times and cry out for some one to lead the blind by a
way they know not. Then comes the Holy Helper, and offers us His hand. But what
if we thrust Him away and proudly trust to the rush-light of human reason to
guide us in these great matters, as the irreligious scientists and unbaptised
teachers of Theology in Germany and America have done and are doing? What, but
that our feet stumble on the dark mountains, and while we look for light he
turns it into the shadow of death and makes it gross darkness. This need of the
Holy Ghost dwelling in us, to enable us to understand and appreciate the
Scriptures, is witnessed by human experience. There are millions of people who
will testify, that before conversion the book of God had little interest to
them, but after conversion became the book above all others, filled with
interest and precious truth. And the more we have of the Spirit’s light, the
more golden its pages, and the richer its mines of truth. Therefore it is that
to appreciate this Book of books we must have the baptism of the Holy Ghost.
Knowledge of the ancient languages, of Hebrew, Greek, Latin and German, can
never take its place. No more can the lore of the library or the discipline of
the schools. Give a man all these and base them on superior natural parts, and
he will be a child in the knowledge of God’s word compared with men filled with
the Spirit, like Finney, Moody and Spurgeon Standing, therefore, in the light of
God’s Word, and of human experience as well, we declare no man fitted to preach
the Gospel, or to interpret it to others, until he has received the baptism of
the Holy Spirit. Did not Christ assume this when he bade the disciples not to go
out to preach till they received it, and when he said of the Holy Spirit, “When
He, the Spirit of Truth is come He will lead you into all truth." And when the
Spirit did come what a wonderful enlightenment the minds of Peter and his
fellow-disciples received, in regard to the teachings of the Bible. Yet how
largely is this Divine qualification to preach or teach theology, ignored in our
Churches. For example, when our Churches, especially the larger ones and the
most wealthy, want a minister, they usually look for a man learned, eloquent and
attractive. One who is orthodox according to the standards of their
denomination, one who has pleasing manners, and will be likely to fill their
house of worship, and reduce to a minimum the financial burden. The ordinary
piety, such as is deemed necessary to Church membership, of course, is required.
But the question, has he received the baptism of the Holy Spirit since he
believed, is never asked, or deemed of any special importance. His views
regarding water baptism and its proper subjects are often closely questioned.
But the baptism of the Holy Ghost, or his views regarding that, is passed over
as of no account. So when we are looking for a man to fill a chair in a
Theological Seminary, we inquire after some one learned in the theological lore
of America, and England, and Germany; one who understands the ancient languages,
has fair qualities as a lecturer or teacher, and the ordinary reputation for
piety and orthodoxy* Satisfied on these points he is inducted into his office as
one fully qualified for his place. When! Oh! when is the question asked, what he
knows about this baptism personally, and when is the question asked even as to
his views of the matter? So when candidates for license or ordination come
before ecclesiastical bodies, who ever heard of their being asked, "Have you
received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?" No. A hundred other questions, not a
tenth part as important are asked and discussed, but that one left out entirely.
But should it happen to be asked, and were the candidates to reply that they
knew nothing of such baptism, where is there the council, which like the Master
would remand them to the Seminary, till imbued with power from on high? True it
is, we lay our hands on them according to the ancient custom. But what does it
mean? Do we expect them through us to receive the holy baptism, as the Apostles
did when they laid their hands On the converts in Samaria and elsewhere? No,
this is not the expectation of the candidates, or of those who thus set them
apart to their work. What is it but a form whose ancient power has long since
departed? Alas! How can those who never received this gift impart it to others?
"Such as I have give I thee," is all we can do or say.

7th. Another result of this baptism is the sanctification of the body. By this
we mean a subjugation of the passions, virtually constant and complete. " He is
the saviour of the body. " In this baptism the Spirit enters the body and makes
it his temple in a special and larger sense than ever before. Henceforth he is
to be consulted as to its use and is to be appealed unto for help in the
government of its impulses and passions. And while he will never interfere with
the divinely established supremacy of the will, He nevertheless assists it in
bringing them into subjection to the Divine will. This is indeed a great
victory, the conquest over the carnal appetites and their subjection to the
rules of conscience and duty. The power of the carnal forces know all men,
especially those who have made a serious effort to bring them under. This is
most graphically portrayed in the seventh chapter of Romans, ending in the
despairing cry, " Oh! wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body
of this death?" But when the Holy Spirit enters in force and takes a part in the
conflict, the flesh weakens and the Spirit triumphs, and the freed soul says
with Paul, " I keep my body under, " and " thanks be to God who giveth us the
victory. " And since that day unnumbered witnesses have risen up and testified
to the power of the indwelling Spirit, to give a victory over the flesh, they
had never found feasible before.

8th. Another blessing which comes with this gift, is the sanctification of the
soul and all its wonderful faculties. Because the Spirit invests it and them
with influences which work to conform them to the Christlike pattern and as Paul
says, " Brings into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. " Bad as
is the work of sin and Satan in the body, it is worse in the soul. What a nest
of foul things is there! "What rebellion, what hatred, what envy, pride and
malice! How filled with unbelief, murmuring, ingratitude, selfishness and lust.
The intellect imbruted! the will enslaved! The conscience seared! The
imagination roving uncurbed among scenes of corruption and sin! The
sensibilities clinging to things unworthy and rejecting God and all things holy
" And God saw that the iniquity of man was great upon the earth and that every
imagination of the thoughts of his heart was evil and only evil continually! "
To remedy such a condition of the human soul demands a baptism of the Spirit,
rich Pentecostal and persistent. And nothing else will ever do it.

9th. There is nothing like the Baptism of the Holy Ghost to give a man dauntless
courage in declaring God’s truth and standing* by the right in the face of
opposition no matter how great, how relentless and cruel! If God is in the soul,
enthroned there in this baptism, why should the man be afraid? David said,
"Though an host should encamp against me my heart shall not fear. Though war
should rise against me, in this will I be confident." The Apostles before the
baptism were cowardly like other men, but no sooner did they receive this great
gift, than they preached the word with all boldness a boldness that astonished
the multitude and so cowed the rulers and the priesthood that when they
apprehended them, they did it carefully and " without violence. " So onward,
wherever they went preaching Christ and his Gospel, opposition and cruelty had
no terrors to these men, for the Holy Ghost was in them. Had not Jesus told
them, “When brought before kings and magistrates take no thought what ye shall
say for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost that speaketh in you?” In
the great anti-slavery agitation which occurred during the half century before
the Civil War, how cowardly the conduct of a vast majority of the ministers and
church members in the slave States! How fearful about saying a word against the
slavery which surrounded them, albeit like Wesley, they knew it to be “The sum
of all the villainies!” And the ministers and Church members of the North were
scarcely less timid than they. Alas! the record of cowardice these men have left
behind! Who of them but is ashamed today of the record then made? Had these men
been baptised with the Holy Spirit, as were Peter and John at Pentecost, they
would have seen with clear vision the gigantic sinfulness of slavery; they would
have held it up in all its hideousness, before its patrons and their rabble
following, and God would have been with them, and have given power to their
words. Possibly a few of them might have been martyred. But not many. The
hanging of 500 ministers in the South by proslavery mobs and politicians, would
have aroused in all the South a power of conscience and sympathy with their
martyred ministers, against which the nullifiers and nabobs of the South could
not have stood up for an hour. If ten men of God could have saved Sodom, five
hundred such men could have saved the South; saved us the horrors of the war,
its carnage of 500,000 men, and its vast financial and moral losses. Indeed,
slavery could never have gotten a foothold in America, had its preachers fought
it with unflinching courage. But the ten men were not in Sodom, nor the 500 in
all the South. A like want of courage, in the ministry and Church in the matter
of temperance, is today making a like record for men and devils to sneer at half
a century hence. O! for the courage and faith which says, "God is our refuge and
strength, a very present help in trouble! therefore we will not fear tho’ the
earth be removed! though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea!
tho’ the waters thereof roar and be troubled, and the mountains shake with the
swelling thereof!" O! for a seeking of such courage as Peter sought and found in
the baptism of the Holy Ghost! Alas! the moral cowardice which so largely
pervades our pulpits, and annually comes forth from our seminaries. Once fill
these men with a sense of the Infinite God in them, and Peter’s and Paul’s
courage would instantly leap into the saddle all along the line, the hosts of
heaven would join them, and victory and conquest be wide-spread and speedy.

10th. The baptism of the Spirit imparts a new unction and power in prayer. I
have known Christians and even ministers, whose prayers seemed forced and
formal, an official service they must needs go through, in obedience to the
demands of custom, and one which was neither blessed to themselves or others.
Some follow a round of topics, with little variation from year to year. Others
supply the want of spontaneity an d the spirits promptings, by the use of a book
of prayers written a century ago and abounding in antique and sonorous phrases.

Others there are, who hasten to the mercy seat, as if a great attraction drew
them there! They love to pray and it is with a special unction that they sing,
“Sweet hour of prayer! sweet hour of prayer!" They have joy and liberty in
prayer. Nor they alone! Others are uplifted thereby! Often more than by the
sermon which precedes or follows. I have heard people say, “That prayer was the
best of all the service to-day!” Oh! the value of these prayers in the Holy
Ghost, which bring people into the Audience Chamber of God! No preacher is fit
for its most important work unless he knows what it is to “pray in the Holy
Ghost " and have the Spirit help his infirmities. No doubt Peter and John and
James and the rest could pray with an unction after the baptism they never had
before. Even so it is today. In nearly all our Churches there are men and women
of limited education and slow of speech, everywhere else, save at the mercy
seat. There the tongue is loosed and with remarkable ability and propriety, they
pour forth their wants and those of the people before God. What propriety of
expression! and often a wealth of imagery, not their own but evidently of God.
But more startling still is the power which attends the prayer. We are told of
the dying master whose pampered pastor had tried in vain to help him in his
dying struggle, who sent to the field for the slave, " Tom," to come and pray
for him. When Tom came in, hat in hand, barefoot and covered with sweat and
dust, the dying master grasped his hand like a drowning man and said, "Tom your
master is a great sinner. God won’t hear his cry for mercy. But I have stood
outside your cabin and heard you pray and I felt that God was hearing you. Can
you pray for your dying master? And how the aged field hand Tom bowed and talked
with God and how the Holy Ghost came down and brought salvation to the dying
man. Finney in his auto-Biography, often speaks of " Father Nash " an old man
who attended the great revival meetings in Western New York, whose prayers
carried with them results wonderful, Divine. The prayers of John Knox have a
world wide fame. Such prayers are among the gifts imparted in the Pentecostal
baptism. No Christian should rest until he knows what it is to pray in the Holy
Ghost. llth. this after conversion induement confirms us in the way of holiness.
This is Bible testimony and experience also. Says Paul in Ephesians 1:13, " In
whom (Christ) after ye believed ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.
" The holy Spirit of promise refers to the promised baptism of the Holy Ghost,
inaugurated at Pentecost. He came " after they believed " and His coming sealed
them for God’s service and kingdom In another letter, that to the Corinthians, 2
Corinthians 1:22, He says, "Now he that established us with you in Christ, and
hath anointed us is God, Who also hath sealed us and given us the earnest of the
Spirit in our hearts. " In this he tells us, that not alone does that Gift of
the Spirit seal, or confirm us as Children of God, but brings us a foretaste of
the heavenly life. This sealing is signally set forth in the case of the
Apostles and those who received its first installment. Vacillating, weak and
easily turned aside before, now they move off before us with a strength of
purpose and firmness of step, which shows the strengthening and healing power of
the Holy Ghost. And as it was with them so it has been with thousands since, who
have sought for and received the same blessing. And if we desire this sealing,
this confirmation in God’s service, we must seek it in the Holy Baptism
administered by that Great High Priest who alone baptises with the Holy Ghost
and with fire.

12th. Finally the baptism of the Holy Ghost, creating and maintaining a high
degree of spirituality in our Churches, alone will keep them from gross
departures from the standards of Orthodoxy, the Bible and true religion. The
spiritual man believes the Bible. It is luminous to him. The Holy Ghost has made
it so. All its doctrines just fit his nature and wants. It furnishes spiritual
food as plainly from heaven, as the manna that sustained Israel for forty years.
He needs the Bible revelation of a heavenly Father’s love and care. He needs and
must have Jesus, the God-man as his redeemer, and he cannot live without the
Holy Spirit resident in his very body sanctifying it and helping him to control
its turbulent passions, and his language is, " How sweet are thy words to my
taste sweeter than the honey and the honey comb. " Once let him become cold in
his love and remiss in duty, and skepticism begins to creep in insidiously and
gain larger and larger place, till at last seven devils more wicked than the
first enter in and take possession of the house where once an Orthodox life and
unwavering faith walked hand in hand lovingly toward heaven Confessions of
faith, iron-clad creeds, never yet kept a denomination or a Church, or an
individual from wandering from the great standard of truth and falling into
heresies absurd and fatal. But let the Holy Ghost enter an Apostate Church or a
skeptics heart and how swift the return to the path of truth and the obvious
teachings of God’s holy word.

Illustrations of this abound in the history of nearly all our revivals of
religion. We will give one out of a thousand which could be given. A Unitarian
lawyer of eminence, called upon Mr. Finney while engaged in revival labors in
Rochester, New York, and proposed to discuss with him the question of our Lord’s
Divinity. Mr. Finney said I will do so, provided, you will kneel down with me
and pledge yourself to the Lord, that from this time on you will follow the
light" so fast as He reveals it. The lawyer was angry, and denounced the
evangelist as cowardly and ungentlemanly. A legal friend suggested that Mr.
Finney’s request was rational, for said he, "Of what use would it be for him to
spend his valuable time in communicating further truth to a man, who don’t
follow the light he now has, and will not promise to follow the further light
which may dawn upon him. " I think it was the Judge at whose bar he was wont to
plead who said this. After some days of struggle between his pride of opinion
and position on one side, and his conscience and the Spirit on the other, the
lawyer entered his office, barred the door, and on his knees surrendered himself
to the leadings of conscience and the Holy Spirit. And then, the sight of
sinfulness and guilt immeasurable, a lifelong alienation from God, a rejection
of infinite claims arose in gigantic proportions before him. Could such a sinner
as he be pardoned? And then he saw that the Jesus of Unitarianism was not enough
for him. He needed the God man to meet a case like his, and when he had found
him, he rushed into the evangelist’s room and said, "Now I know that Jesus is
Divine, for none but an infinite Savior could atone for such sins as mine. "
"Whoever shall do my will he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God."
Brethren, solicitous about the orthodoxy of the Church, behold its great
Conservator. It is the Holy Ghost; the Spirit of Truth. Once in the soul, the
letter will not long be wanting there.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 7: 07 - CHAPTER 07
========================================================================

CHAPTER VII.

How this great blessing adds to our ability to do good to others. The personal
blessings we have been considering imparted in the holy baptism, cannot be
confined to ourselves. The candle lighted from heaven refuses to be hid under a
bushel. It shines on ail around. Each of the personal gifts enumerated in the
foregoing chapter has its outgoing influence adopted to bless as many as it
shall reach. But there are certain other advantages it gives to Christians and
ministers of the Gospel, to which we desire to call special attention.

1st. The recipient of this blessing will know how to lead others up into it. In
all our churches there are men and women hungry for this higher blessing. Their
pastor should be to them a Joshua or a Caleb, who has been over into the
promised land and therefore knows the way and can lead them there. And sadly
lacking is the preacher who has no experience in this line, having only received
the first installment of spiritual power that which accompanies the ordinary
conversion. In this matter he is a blind guide. And when his people come to him
and ask him about the higher heights of Christian experience, he is obliged to
say, " I know nothing of them, I have not been there. " I a in reminded of a.
clergyman who under great distress of mind, because of his spiritual weakness
and carnality, his leanness within and barrenness without, went to the President
of a noted Theological Seminary for counsel. He opened his heart to the
President, who asked him, after all, if he regarded himself as a Christian? And
when our friend replied in the affirmative, he closed the interview by saying, "
We here have come to regard the ordinary Christian as a pretty good thing. " As
the inquiring minister left the President’s study, he asked himself, " Is this
poor pittance which I enjoy, all the rich Gospel was designed to give? " and he
came back and told me the story, a discouraged and almost broken hearted man.
Brother preacher, when your hungry flock come to you with like questions, must
you for want of experience answer them in like manner? And “when they ask for
bread, give them a stone. "

2d. As a rule also it will give him a fertility of speech, an aptness of
illustration, and a power in appeal, which he will feel is imparted by the
Spirit. Others, too, will be in like manner impressed. Paul recognizes this and
its great importance, when he asks the Ephesian Church to pray for him, "that
utterance might be given him, that he might open his mouth boldly, to make known
the mystery of the Gospel." The Pentecostal baptism gave to Peter and all his
brethren a power of utterance to which they had been strangers heretofore. And
the tongue of fire that sat upon each, was a type of the new power of speech the
Spirit imparted. Jesus promised this help of the Spirit in speech when he said,
"It shall be given you in that hour what ye shall speak! For it is not ye that
speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in yon" Matthew 10:1-42:
Spurgeon and Moody and Finney, and all successful evangelists and many others,
recognize this great help of the Spirit in their work. Spurgeon used often to
pause in mid-discourse, and placing his hand on his brow, would say " Brethren,
pray for me, I must have more of the power of the Holy Ghost." Finney did the
same. We do not claim that those who have received this baptism at all times are
conscious of this help, this unction from the Holy Spirit in speech. I judge
Paul did not at times, for he tells the Corinthians, how he "was with them in
weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling." He confesses that in speech he
was rude, (2 Corinthians 11:6) and that his alienated brethren said "his speech
was contemptible." I judge he was not always remarkable for eloquence. But Paul
tells us that however weak he might appear in speech, the Holy Ghost so much the
more gave power to his words, and made them successful, and God was the more
glorified thereby. Not infrequently the Holy Spirit is doing his mightiest work
in the congregation when the preacher is imagining his address a failure. Why
this occasional absence of unction, we may not fully know, but that it answers
important purposes we can plainly see. We will mention some which occur to us.
1. It deepens the sense of gratitude for the gift when it is enjoyed. The State
of Grace is contrasted so vividly in our experience with that of Nature. 2. It
serves as a reminder of our personal weakness. It bids us cease from man whose
breath is in his nostrils and depend wholly on God. 3. It serves the great
purpose of maintaining the Spirit of prayer in a Church for its pastor, while he
dispenses the Word. Thus when the Spirit of prayer began to flag in Spurgeon’s
congregation, and when he put his hand upon his brow and said, "Brethren, pray
for me, I need more help from above," then a thousand heads were bowed, the help
came; the preachers strength was renewed and God was glorified. This was a very
common occurrence in Mr. Finney’s labors. Away back in Moses’ time, we find the
same feature of Divine working forcibly presented. It is recorded in Exodus
17:11-12, "And it came to pass when Moses held up his hands Israel prevailed,
and when he let down his hands Amalek prevailed. But Moses hands were heavy, and
Aaron and HUT stayed up his hands, the one on the one side and the other on the
other side, and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun, and
Joshua discomfited Amalek." So ever since, the Heralds of Divine truth, although
the} T had been anointed and Baptised by the Holy Ghost, have been greatly
dependent for sustained unction on the prayers of the brethren. The Holy Spirit
thus by the occasional weakening of the preacher’s hands, teaching the brethren
to be constant in prayer. Of this I feel certain, that this occasional absence
of conscious help from the Spirit, cannot in all cases be charged to some overt
act of Sin.

3d. The baptism of the Spirit will give the preacher great confidence in the
Gospel and the remedies it offers. All about in his field he will find men
groaning under the power of sin. Men who have striven often and long to break
its dominion over them, but have failed. And now courage and confidence almost
gone, they are inclined to give up the struggle and float downward with the
stream. But if the preacher evinces in his confident words and in his holy life,
his faith in One Mighty to Save such men will come to him, as once Nicodemus
came to Jesus, by night,’ to ask him how deliverance can be obtained. Blessed my
brother will you be, if with a strong voice, you can tell them the story of your
own deliverance and give them the assurance that he who saved you, can save them
also. So too it will be when you stand before the people declaring all the words
of this Divine life if you can add, " / speak what I know and testify to what I
have seen. " The experience of a baptism of the Holy Ghost forms a background of
confidence in preaching, nothing else can supply.

4th. We do not see how a preacher can select wisely his field of labor unless he
lives on most intimate terms of communion with God. We believe the Holy Spirit
will indicate to the preacher who walks close with him, where his proper field
is, and where it is not, as He did to Paul and Phillip. And that it is these
spiritual indications which should determine this matter and not the wedge of
gold or the Babylonian garment. So too his messages will be suggested and opened
to him by that Spirit, which all abroad in his congregation knows the message
needed. oth. This baptism will impart force to the preacher’s words and carry
conviction of their truth to the hearer’s heart. After Jesus had been inducted
into the preacher’s office by the baptism of water at Jordan and by the Holy
Ghost, we are told that his hearers were astonished at His teaching, for His
word was with power. The Apostles before they received the baptism at Pentecost,
spoke only as men endowed with the ordinary and natural unction. After it with
an effect astonishing and a force well nigh irresistible! They were endowed with
power from on high. This new and enlarged power of the Spirit attending their
labors was their great dependence, as from Jerusalem they went forth to preach
repentance to a sin-loving world. Paul says, “My speech and my preaching was not
with persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of
power.” 1 Corinthians 2:4. To the Thessalonians he writes, “Our Gospel came not
unto you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Ghost," 1 Thessalonians
1:5. Moody says after seeking this baptism and receiving it, “I went to
preaching again. The sermons were not different. I did not present new truths.
And yet hundreds were converted! I would not now be placed back where I was
before that blessed experience if ’you would give me all Glasgow." Rev. B. Fay
Mills gives similar testimony and ascribes the marvelous success attending his
evangelistic labors to a baptism of the Holy Ghost, received some years after
his conversion. Brethren in the ministry, have you received this power Christ
promised the disciples? Can you obtain it? Have you sought it as for hidden
treasure? Can you do ^our work without it? Let me suggest that you not only set
your heart on gaming it, but ask some of your devout brothers and sisters to
help you in prayer to God that you may receive the anointing and that they pray
for you while you preach. Let me add that almost without exception, the men of
power in all our denominations laboring now or in the past, have confessed their
indebtedness to a special baptism received in answer to fervent prayer, for
their great success and the power which attended their speech.

6th. This alliance of the Holy Spirit with the soul of man, was designed to
afford important aid in ones calling, whatever it may be. The man who works in
the coal mine and the woman at the washtub, can each expect the Holy Spirit’s
aid as truly as the minister in the cathedral or the monarch on his throne. So
that he may do his work the better and with richer enjoyment, because of the
great gift. O! for the time when the farmer, the tradesman, the blacksmith, the
doctor, the lawyer and the politician shall each consecrate his business to God
and cry mightily to Him, to set apart by a special baptism, himself and his
business to His glory! No doubt the average Christian prays for and expects a
measure of Divine aid in his work. A small measure at least. What we plead for
is the larger measure, the cup full and overflowing, made possible, where our
Redeemer ascended on high, leading captivity captive and giving gifts to men.
Few there are who do not feel at times that they are living far below their
privilege. The writer once said to a member of his Church, "Dr. S., what a
mighty man you would be if baptised with the Holy Spirit and your powers were
fully awakened, sanctified and brought into action! " He made no reply, and as
he walked away I fancied I had offended him. Some days after, meeting me, he
said, " No, I am not half the man I ought to be. And as the spirit of the Lord
often stirred up Sampson between Dan and Bethel before his great power was
developed, so it is with me. The Holy Ghost often reproves me for my imbecility
and barrenness, and tells me what I might be and ought to be. But alas! The
vision passes and I subside back within the old lines of spiritual weakness and
inefficiency. The full grown man in Christ, endowed with His strength and power,
I am not and fear I never shall be." Alas! Who can measure this vast reservoir
of latent power in our Churches? How shall it be developed, brought forth and
applied to the world’s conversion? Our answer is, The baptism of the Holy Ghost
alone will do it. That which made the early Churches so mighty in doing the work
of God the baptism of the Holy Spirit, that and that alone will develop this
power with God and men. But that day will never come, till the Churches of God
come to believe that such a blessing is in store for them and seek after it in
faith and an importunity like that evinced in the great ten-days prayer meeting
which preceded its first bestowal.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 8: 08 - CHAPTER 08
========================================================================

CHAPTEK VIII.

We pass now to consider the terms on which the Great Gift is bestowed.

1st. We must pray for it as a definite induement offered by Christ to his
people. li stands out before us as quite distinct from the measure bestowed in
conversion, in the prophecy of Joel. So also in the Saviour’s promise of it in
the After Passover discourse. And it was treated as such, by the disciples in
the ten-day’s prayer meeting, held by them in Jerusalem, before the blessing
came. For it they waited. For it they prayed, nor would they leave the holy city
until it came! And in that waiting, and in that praying for ten successive days,
for a blessing supplementary to conversion, what an example they left behind,
for the imitation of the Church in the subsequent ages! God loves to have us
pray for definite objects. Such prayers mean something. General prayers very
little. And when the prayer for a specific object is answered, then we know that
God hath heard us, and our faith is strengthened. Had the Apostles and their
brethren in that upper room, neglected to concentrate their united petitions on
the great blessing promised, and for which they were required to wait; and had
they spent their time in prayers for other and general objects of human need,
would they have received it? In the writer’s opinion, they would not. In all
revivals of religion, it is the prayer/or definite objects the Spirit indites
and the Spirit answers. In a town the writer once visited, there lived a
Presbyterian minister, noted for his conservatism and love of order. In a
revival which visited his people, he became very anxious for the conversion of a
lady parishioner. After a very earnest conversation with her at her house, he
called upon an Elder to pray. Now the Elder had his round of orderly prayer and
he was proceeding with his routine of confession, ascription, thanksgiving,
etc., when the minister cried out, "Yes, Yes, Lord, but what we want now is Mrs.
’s conversion!" And that is the way this gift comes to men if it comes at all.
It is definitely prayed for, definitely sought and definitely bestowed. And if
in its coming, it brings the wealth of gifts narrated in a previous chapter, it
is worthy of such seeking and they who will not so seek it, it is not fit that
they should obtain it. If this view be correct, is it any marvel that so few of
our ministers and Church members receive the blessing, since so little is said
about it, in the pulpit or in the seminary, that the great majority have no very
definite views regarding it? The rule for the acquisition of this great gift is
thus given by the wise man: "If thou criest after knowledge and liftest up thy
voice for understanding, if thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as
for hidden treasure, then shall thou understand the fear of the Lord and find
the knowledge of God. " 2d. Another condition of its bestowal is persevering and
importunate prayer. This feature of prevailing prayer is very impressively
brought to view in different parts of the Bible. There is Jacob’s all night
wrestling with the Angel, and the morning’s persistency, when halting on his
dislocated thigh he cried out, "/ will not let thee go until thou bless me. "
There is the SyroPhenician woman, following Jesus so long and refusing to be
turned back by the rebuking disciples and even the Master’s apparent rejection
of her suit for a time. More to the point still stands out before us that ten
days prayer meeting, in which the disciples daily met, and continued to pray
till the blessing came. Who ever heard of a prayer meeting so long and for one
definite object before or since? We are told that immediately after the
ascension of our Lord from Mount Olivet, the disciples returned to the city,
went up into an upper room and began to pray and prepare for the Great Gift,
which the Saviour had promised to send from the Father. They continued thus to
meet for prayer and conference over the matter, until the morning of the tenth
day when the answer came. That they were tempted to give up the search before
the ten days had passed, cannot be doubted, for they were human. God be praised
that they did not. And whensoever the modern Church shall accept the prophecy of
Joel as applicable to it, in all its essential richness, and shall seek for the
great blessing with the purpose to obtain it evinced in those ten days of
conference and prayer, then we may lift up our eyes, for the blessing will be at
hand. Possibly some reader may wonder at the withholding of this most important
endowment so long. They ask, “Why was it not bestowed at once, when the first
prayer was offered for it in that upper room? Or at least after one day of
prayer, and thus have saved nine days of valuable time for preaching the
Gospel?" We reply, 1st. The time required in the seeking was suggestive of the
great value of the gift. The gift is wonderful! The Holy Spirit coming to take
up his residence in our poor dwelling! In the bestowal ought not God to require
efforts on our part, which show that we appreciate the gift? 2d. In those ten
days of prayer, the disciples were being prepared to receive the Heavenly
resident, as is the broken ground for the seed and for the shower. Step by step
God was revealing to each of them, in clearer and yet clearer vision, a personal
destitution and weakness, the Holy Ghost alone could remedy. And thus when he
should come, awaken a degree of gratitude, which else has not been felt and
returned to God.

Another reason for the delay, and for the earnest and protracted seeking
required was, that so sought and obtained, they would be more careful to cherish
and hold it fast. What costs us little is lightly prized. What costs us much,
is, as a rule, tenaciously retained.

Other reasons there doubtless are in the mind of God, for earnest and often
protracted seeking, before we receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost. God has set
a price upon wisdom and a thousand other blessings and time and effort are
indispensable conditions of attaininent, and why should this be an exception?
Why should not the effort to gain it be proportioned to its value? If we are not
willing to strive earnestly and long if need be for so great a gift, is it safe
that God should entrust us with it? But lest this long seeking and prayer by the
Apostles for the gift before they received it, should lead the Church of
subsequent ages and Christians of all conditions, to anticipate a similar delay
in their case, we are immediately given examples of its quick reception after
prayer and effort for it. Such was the case of the Samaritan converts, on whom
Peter and John laid their hands and prayed, and they received the Holy Ghost.
Such was that of the Gentile Cornelius and his family, who received the Holy
Baptism under the first sermon which Peter preached. So it was with those
partially enlightened disciples at Ephesus, who had not so much as heard that
the Holy Ghost had been given. Under a single discourse upon the matter, they
sought and received it. These are exterior boundaries drawn for us, encouraging
the seeker to hope for its quick reception; but if delayed, to persevere,
assured that he will reap if he faints not. Thus it is in modern Christian
experience; some receive the gift the baptism, after a brief seeking and some
perhaps on the very day of conversion. Others climb slowly upon the rock, with
many a backward slip and fall, before their feet are establised there. Their
experience seems well described by Job, when he says, " Behold, I go forward,
but He is not there, and backward, but I cannot perceive Him, On the right hand
where He doth work, but I cannot behold him! He hideth Himself on the right hand
that I cannot see Him! But He knoweth the way that I take when He hath tried me
I shall come forth as Gold" Job 23:10. 3d. The gift must be sought in faith.
"Without faith it is impossible to please God." "He that cometh to God must
believe that he is, and that he is a re warder of those who diligently seek
him." To be successful in this matter, the seeker must believe in view of the
evidence before him, that there is such an after-conversion induement in store
for God’s people. And this faith is in part intellectual and in part volitional.
The intellect affirming the proof sufficient, that God has offered to his people
this larger measure of the Spirit spoken of. The will pledging hearty support
and cooperation in efforts to obtain it. The doubter will not succeed. Let not
that man think he shall receive anything from the Lord. The faith we are now
speaking of is generic, and though of vast importance, is to be distinguished
from the more specific and appropriating faith to be considered further on.

4th. Another Condition, is the purpose to give the Spirit entire sway, in the
control of our persons and affairs. He will brook no rival on the throne when He
comes to reign within. It is an additional realm He proposes to add to our
domain, and a new and larger consecration is suitable and is demanded. And hence
in the experience of receivers of this, double portion of the Spirit, there has
usually been at the threshold, a struggle of soul like that at conversion, as if
the Saviour stood before them saying, "Are ye able to drink of the cup that I
drink of, and to be baptised with the baptism that I am baptised with"? Nor is
the gift bestowed, till consent is given and the consecration made.

5th. Another very important condition of its bestowment is a purpose to make
suitable confession of God’s mercy in the gift, after it has been received. "
Come," said the Psalmist : " All ye that fear the Lord and I will tell you what
he hath done for my soul." Said Paul : "With the heart man believeth unto
righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto Salvation." Romans
10:10. The Baptism the Apostles received at Pentecost, they freely confessed
before the world, and Luke was inspired to record it. Wherever they went, they
testified to this supplementary gift of the Holy Ghost, as a part of their
witness of what Christ had done for them, and was ready to do for others. And if
J -there be such a gift for the Lord’s people, and we have received it, why
should we not confess it to the glory of God, and encourage others to seek the
same? A purpose to keep still about it, and not confess it, we all know is fatal
to a sinner’s effort to find God. Not less so is the effort to gain this
baptism, while our proud heart is purposed to hide the lamp under a bushel! This
is the testimony given to UB by nearly all the men of power, whose experiences
in this line have come down to us. We need not adopt any specific phraseology.
We need not say we are "perfect," or have "perfect love," or are "wholly
sanctified," or have lived such and such lengths of time without sin. No! No!
this is not our meaning. To the writer all these terms are more or less
objectionable. But we can confess that we have received a Baptism of the Holy
Ghost. Have obtained thereby victories over beseting sins, never found
practicable before. That we have a peace which passes our power of utterance are
enabled to live for considerable periods of time with a conscience void of
offense towards God and man, and that we know by blessed experience the force of
the words " His name shall be called Jesus, for He shall save His people from
their sins." Be the terms what they may, they must involve a frank and fearless
confession of the great blessing, or God will count us unfit to receive it. Not
a few receivers of this gift, have made confession of having been long held back
from it, by the fear of man the loss of ecclesiastical standing, and the censure
of men they held in profound respect. And not till this was overcome, and
reputation was laid on the Altar of Sacrifice was the gift received. But
thousands come up to that high barrier, as once Israel came to Kadesh Barnea,
stopped there, and turned back into the wilderness again! The fear of man
bringeth a snare.

6th. The final conditions, we mention, on which the baptism of the Spirit is
imparted, is a personal application of the promise. We will designate the
exercise we have in mind appropriating faith.

Thus it is taught in the Bible. " Whatsoever things ye desire when ye pray,
believe that ye receive them and ye shall have them. " Mark 11:24. " And this is
the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His
will he heareth us. And if we know that He heareth us, we know that we have the
petitions that we desired of Him." John 5:15-16. " If any of you lack wisdom,
let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it
shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering, for he that
wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven by the wind and tossed. Let not that
man think that he shall receive anything from the Lord. " James 1:5, James 1:7.
This faith is yet more strongly placed before us by our Saviour in Mark 11:23, "
Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, whosover shall say to this
mountain, be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea, and shall not doubt in
his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to
pass, he shall have whatsoever he saith. " All these passages enjoin the faith
of expectancy, or as we have designated it above, appropriating faith before its
reception. The last passage startles us! A mountain plucked up by the roots by
faith and cast into the sea! Of course it is a figurative mountain, a moral
mountain, Christ has in view. The natural mountains are well enough where they
are. It is only those moral mountains, which rise between our souls and duty our
souls and heaven, that need to be torn up and cast away. And the duty taught is
that when we ask the Lord to help us remove them from the path to Him and
heaven, that we shall not doubt that he hears us, begins at once the work, and
will cast them into the sea, if we hold fast without wavering our faith. This
faith is immensely important. The want of it shuts great multitudes out of the
kingdom of God and out of the enjoyment of religion. Great multitudes of serious
minded men and of convicted sinners, go by themselves to pray; they confess
their sins, they try to give their hearts to God, they ask help from above and
then instead of believing in the mercy and generosity of God, and relying on His
simple word, they look after some feeling or experience, before they cast
themselves on His mercy and take Him at His word and march off in the
performance of duty. They seek after a sign. Whereas the thing to be done in
such an hour, is to believe. Repentance first, belief second, and neither
acceptable without the other. So it is with this great Messianic Gift, of a
double portion of the Divine Spirit. If we want it were to ask for it, read what
God has said about it, awaken ourselves to the importance of receiving it, and
when we begin to pray for it, believe that God is deeply interested in our
receiving it, and then and there lovingly takes our hand and will lead us into
it, if we persevere and faint not. This is the road to it, the path which, if
pursued will lead one to where he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost. In
conversing on this subject, some days since with a clergyman, he said in
substance, " I have been seeking after this blessing of which you speak, I have
been searching after those sins of heart which limit the work of the Spirit in
me and through me. I have tried to consecrate myself anew, I have asked for the
Holy Baptism, I have done so again and again, but I do not obtain it I remain
the same as I have been for years! Tell me, what is in the way What more can I
do?" I replied, you can believe. What you should have done after the
consecration you speak of, was to believe that then and there your -loving and
infinitely interested Heavenly Father did join hands with you and say, " It is
enough " / accept the consecration. Do not question my generosity and love, but
rise up, ask for light and expect it. When a duty comes before you, ask me to"
help you to lean on my arm. When the Tempter assails, fight him not alone, but
call on the name of the Lord. " And when I repeated to my friend the words of
Jesus, "Whatsoever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive them and ye
shall have them," and asked, did you believe that you were receiving them? He
shook his head and said, " I did not." And when I asked what advice he would
give to a sinner who was trying to give up all to God’s control and had done so
as far as he could see, but got no relief, the obvious answer was, "I would tell
him to believe that God did accept him for it cannot be that God will not accept
a soul that is intent on a life of loyalty and love. I would tell him to have
faith in God. To give firm credit to God’s representation of himself in His
word."

If to this it be objected that we may be deceived in the matter of consecration,
albeit we may sincerely strive to give up all and think we have done so. We
reply this is scarcely possible, for it cannot be that God, who is so deeply
interested in our salvation, will fail to show us wherein we come short, when He
sees us desirous of seeing our sin and putting it away. What would we do in case
of our child, desirous of knowing if anything he did was offensive? We would
surely make it known to him. One passage of God’s Word shows what God will do in
such a case. " If in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this
to you." At the shout of faith the walls of Jericho fell and the people went up
and took full possession! They believed and shouted victory before a stone fell!
This faith of expectancy, or appropriating faith, has been to the writer for
many years, a matter of great practical utility. He has been in the habit daily,
and almost hourly, of seeking help from the Holy Spirit. And when he asks, of
affirming to himself "He hears and answers my prayer, and he begins now.’’ May
the writer add that with that prayer and faith, answers have come with
surprising uniformity and quickness too. So uniform has this experience been,
that the language of Paul seems most appropriate in his case "The life that I
live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God," Galatians 2:20.

We should not infer that God does not design to answer our prayer, because it is
not fully done at once. The pious Israelites prayed while in captivity for
restoration to the promised land, and the rebuilding of the Holy City and
Temple. And their prayers were indited by the Holy Spirit. But it took years to
bring about the answer while God was raising up Cyrus and Darius to be His
instruments in doing it. We pray for crops of grain, but it takes time and
various agencies to bring about the answer. The words to Daniel are in point,
"From the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand and chasten
thyself before God, thy words were heard. But the Prince of the Kingdom of
Persia withstood me one and twenty days," Daniel 10:12. The answer begins when
the prayer of faith begins, in all matters acceptable to God. Let us then seek
the great induement, assured at the outset, that it is in store for us; that God
is deeply interested in our obtaining it, and that we shall not fail save
through half heartedness or unbelief. He longs to draw nigh to us and have us
draw nigh to him in a blessed experience, which shall have more than the power
of miracles, in revealing to us the presence of God, His sympathy, His love, and
Great Salvation! For this great blessing with a quiet faith, look! look! look to
God for a leading thereto. Thus Spurgeon gained the victory and the power. And
as you look, believe in the love that calls and urges. Seek not for a sign.
"Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed!"

Before leaving this part of our subject, it may be well to caution the seeker
against forming plans as to the experiences which shall attend upon the coming
blessing. If he does, he will be likely to be disappointed. " My ways are not
you ways saith the Lord. " As it is with conversion, so it is with this
superadded gift. Rarely are the anticipated gifts realized in either case, when
the blessing comes. Two essential things are to be looked for. They are, 1st.
Victory over sinful propensities by a power that has come to dwell within us.
And 2d. Unction and help in Christian work. If you have these two things, then
you have received the baptism. And this leads me to add, that as many Christians
cannot tell when they entered upon the narrow way, or how they were led into it,
so many have received this baptism by steps so gradual that they cannot point to
any special experience marking the event. What matters it, so long as in either
case they have the treasure? The writer was once conversing on this subject with
a brother beloved in the ministry, and he turned and said to me sadly, "
Brother, I have had no such experiences as those you speak of, although I feel
that God helps me in my work and in my inward warfare. " I replied, " Your
consistent life, we all admire. It affords ample evidence to us that you have
passed from death unto life and that the mighty Helper is the strength of your
arm. And whenever I hear you preach, I feel deeply impressed with the conviction
that the Holy Ghost has developed in your heart the truth you are preaching and
is aiding you in its delivery. And so it is when you pray, the Holy Ghost
assists you. " But while there are many such cases as these, the great majority
will gain the gift, by a direct and conscious seeking. And it is undoubtedly the
privilege of all, sooner or later, to be so filled with the Spirit, that every
doubt on this matter shall pass away forever.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 9: 09 - CHAPTER 09
========================================================================

CHAPTER IX. The Gift distinguished from its Counterfeits. In this world so
largely ruled by the father of lies, counterfeits are common. There are false
prophets, false Christs and false Gods! Preachers in sheep’s clothing, but
inwardly ravenous wolves, abound. There are sham conversions, and even men
pretending to have received this last Great Gift of the Spirit, whose claims are
spurious and whose examples have brought the doctrine into reproach.
Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, and we can plant our feet upon
it, and distinguish between the solid rock and a heap of sand. Real gold has
abiding constituents that base metals and imitations never possess.

1st. The baptism of the Holy Ghost causes its beneficiaries to adhere
tenaciously to the Bible, because He inspired it. Holy men of old who wrote it,
spoke and wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. And when He enters a soul,
it is not to lead it to re pudiate His own words, or to treat them lightly.

Christ prayed "Sanctify them through thy truth thy word is truth. Show me then a
man who substitutes his own fancies for the obvious teachings of God’s Word, or
has loose views regarding its authority, and I will show you one who is still in
his sins, and has not the Spirit. The central sentiment of those who have
received Him is thus expressed, "To the law and to the testimony, if they speak
not according to his Word, it is because there is no light in them."

2nd. Another distinguishing feature of the Holy Baptism is, an increased
affection for the Church of God, and a firm adhesion to it. I mean, of course,
true Churches, such as believe in Conversion, in the Bible, and in Christ.
Albeit men receiving this Gift, see more clearly than before, the low grounds on
which most of their brethren are walking, they do not separate themselves from
them saying, "Depart from me for I am holier than thou." But with loving
sympathy akin to that of the Master, and inspired by the Holy Ghost, they abide
with them, and seek to lead them up to the heights of privilege above. How
lovingly Peter and John went to those in Samaria, converted under Phillip, but
had not received the great blessing, took them by the hand, greeted them
lovingly, and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. And so
wherever the preachers of those days went, they gathered the converts,
instructed them in their privileges, and sought to lead them into the
possession. Depend upon it therefore, that when professed receivers of this
blessing withdraw from their Church connections, voluntarily, and unforced,
another Spirit than that of love actuates them, and it is another baptism
diverse from that of the Holy Ghost, which has fallen on them. Says Jude, "There
be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit I "

3d. The true Baptism is eminently, charitable in the modern sense of that word,
while the false is sensorious and given to severe criticism and judging.
"Charity thinketh no evil. " It ""covers a multitude of sins. " The more of
Divinity there is in a man’s soul, the more his heart is filled with love to God
and his brethren. He will not judge them coldly and without sympathy. How
lovingly and tenderly Paul speaks of his brethren of the Jewish Church in Rome
9th : " I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience bearing me witness
in the Holy Ghost, that I have ,great heaviness and continual sorrow in my
heart. For I could wish myself accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen
according to the flesh, who are Israelites," &c. Such a spirit is given a man
when the Pentecostal blessing comes and stays with him, while he enjoys it. When
therefore, a man professing to have received this gift becomes a sharp critic on
his brethren and delights in parading their faults before others, you may safely
regard his experience, as at heart, only a counterfeit of the true coin of
heaven.

4th. The genuine baptism leads to increased activity in all useful lines and in
all Gospel work. How quickly the Apostles went to work, after the baptism came
upon them! Paul received the blessing and what a life of labor he entered upon
at once. So in these last days, when men like Moody, Finney, Spurgeon and Mills
receive this gift, then the great work of life begins. Whittier well says:

"Not to ease or aimless quiet, Doth the inward answer tend, But the works of
love and duty, As our beings end."

Wherever this baptism is professedly received, if it does not lead to increased
activity and unselfish labors, where it leaves a man selfishly ruminating on his
personal security and rich experiences, content to see others drift down the
stream while he is on the shore, there we may be sure the Great Pentecostal
blessing never came. It is only a counterfeit.

5th. Greatly enlarged fruitfulness is another feature, which distinguishes the
true anointing from the false. Manifestly, the original and primal advent of
this gift upon the Apostles and early Christians greatly increased their moral
and spiritual fruitfulness. What multitudes were converted under their labors!
Jesus said, John 15:5, "He that abidethin Me and I in him the same bringeth
forth much fruit." And again, "Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much
fruit " More forcible still and entirely conclusive on this point are the words
of Jesus, recorded in John 7:38-39. "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 Jesus was not yet glorified. “This immensely
rich promise affirms a vast increase of spiritual power and fertility, ever
attending the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, Why should it not be so, when to our
natural power, there is added that of the Holy Spirit? Shall I be more specific
in elucidating this part of our subject? Let me say then:

1st. When you pray, you will have a consciousness that the Holy Spirit helps you
and others will feel it too. God will seem to them very near!

2d. When you speak in testimony or exhortation God will help you and make your
words impressive.

3d. Your very silence, will at times impress people more strongly than words
could do, that God is with you, enabling you to control the unruly member.

4th. Your exemplary and conscientious conduct, will after a time impress those
who look on and see it with the reality and practibility of the religion you
profess. You may not see much of it on earth, but you will in heaven. For your
prayers are all laid up, your tears bottled, your words of warning registered
and your general influence the Holy Ghost is gathering in a cloud above, which
by and by will descend in showers of blessings. Only believe, thou baptised
child of God, persevere in prayer and labor and you will yet see the verity of
Christ’s words, “He that abideth in me the same bringeth forth much fruit. " But
the counterfeit baptism beareth only briars and thorns. “Wherefore by their
fruits ye shall know them. "


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 10: 10 - CHAPTER 10
========================================================================

CHAPTER X.

How can the savor of this Baptism be obtained^ And is it ever lost?

We have before shown that it exerts a powerful sealing influence. Many passages
affirm this. We need not repeat them here. In accord with them, is the testimony
of Christian experience. The Baptism once enjoyed can never be forgotten! Its
peace, its joy, its victory and communion with God, will remain engraved on the
memory, as doubtless are pictures of heaven on the minds of the Angels who fell!
Life ever after will be to such, as was captivity and slavery to Israel, when
they sang so sadly, "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down! Yea, we wept
when we remembered Zion! We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst
thereof! How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land!" And this sweet
memory of liberty lost, will lead to many a stout uprising against the powers
that oppress. And in some of them, most likely the lost ground will be regained.
Hence in part the recovering and sealing power of the Gift, when once received.
And hence while great numbers go back who have received in conversion the first
installment of spiritual power, those who receive the second, with few
exceptions, hold on their way. Yet we have reason to believe, there are sad
exceptions to the rule. Paul intimates this when in his letter to the Church in
Galatia he asks, “Are ye so foolish, having begun in the Spirit, are you now
made perfect in the flesh? " And in the exhortation, not to “quench the Spirit
whereby they had been sealed , " he certainly intimates that even such are in
danger. And more strongly still he warns against the danger when he says, " It
is impossible for those who have tasted the heavenly gift and were made
partakers of the Holy Ghost, if they fall away to renew them again unto
repentance. " We think we have known some such during an observation of nearly
seventy years, who evidently received the Great Gift, ran well for a time, and
afterward relapsed, finally and fatally. We call to mind one, who received,
apparently, this blessing. God anointed him to preach; for a time he ran well;
God blessed his labors, and souls were converted under his preaching. But his
views were sharply criticised by his brethren, wrongfully I think, both as to
the assaults on his Theology and in the spirit of severe censure manifested. He
retaliated, withdrew from the Church and went off with a faction, which finally
broke up and was scattered to the four winds. Poor man! He is dead now, but I
fear he never regained the height from which he fell.

I knew yet another, who while in the Theological Seminary, seemed to receive
richly of this gift, and for a time seemed to walk in heavenly places in Christ.
But when he went to preach where his father lived, south of Mason an Dixon’s
line, he was fiercely persecuted and driven from his native State on account of
his views of slavery. And north of that line, even in the free States he was
shut out of Orthodox pulpits, assailed by the mob and caricatured by the press.
By degrees his spirit become soured, his tongue censorious and vituperative. He
left the Church, denounced it unsparingly and finally lost all faith in the
Bible and I believe in God. Such cases, though rare are sufficiently numerous,
to warn us that as once the angels fell from their lofty principalities, so even
eminently sanctified men, are liable to fall from their steadfastness. On the
question, how shall the savor of this holy anointing be retained? We reply :

1st. By retaining a perpetual sense of dependence on the Indwelling Spirit. The
convert who commences his religious life in conscious weakness, looking wholly
to God for help, finds himself sustained. But when he has waxen strong and
became fortified, as he thinks, by experience and knowledge and Christian
association? and leans on them, then his strength departs and his enemy assails
and overcomes him. So also is the man of Pentecostal endowments shorn of his
strength, when he fancies himself so rooted and grounded in character that no
wind of temptation will ever overthrow him. This was the fatal mistake of a
noted sect of modern Perfectionists, now nearly extinct. They held that they had
asked God to make their faith perpetual and had exercised faith that He would,
and that therefore the banner of holiness was nailed to mast head, and falling
into sin thenceforth was impossible! To retain our standing, there must be
preserved a perpetual sense of personal weakness and absolute dependence on the
Holy Helper. Nor will continual watchfulness, prayer and effort become obsolete,
while we are in the flesh and in a world of Devils and sin.

2d. To retain the blessing, we must seek a constant growth Forgetting the things
behind, we must press forward to those before. Even after this baptism there
remains much land to be possessed. Said Paul, " Brethren, I count not myself to
have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgeting the things behind and
reaching forward to those before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the
high calling of God in Christ Jesus. " It will not therefore do for the man who
has received this baptism to rest on his laurels, but like an army to which the
King has sent a great re-enforcement, it must lift its tents and march forward
to larger conquests. So must he seek growth and enlargement and richer and yet
richer acquisitions. Says the Psalmist, " He shall be like a tree planted by the
rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; " and Isaiah, "
They go from strength to strength;" and Paul, " We all with open face beholding
as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory
to glory! Even as by the Spirit of the Lord! "


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 11: 11 - CHAPTER 11
========================================================================

CHAPTER XI. The attitude the Church in its varied organizations should take with
relation to this Baptism of the Spirit.

PROFESSORS OF THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES.

We will begin with the Professors in our Theological seminaries. Brethren, we
have a profound respect for you and your calling and an ideal of possibilities
of usefulness before you, it will be difficult fully to express. We believe God
has put within your reach the power to quadruple the influence of the next
generation of missionaries and preachers of the Gospel. Into your hands God has
placed the power of moulding the men, intellectually and spiritually, who, going
forth from the seminary, year by year, are to break the bread of life to the
Churches and the people of the world. The mark of your hand will be upon them
and their work so long as they live. Their Theology will, with an exception here
and there, be your Theology. Your conception of Christ, their conception. Your
views of the Holy Spirit’s work, their views. And your experience of his power
to sanctify, empower for work and fill with the fullness of God, will go forth
with them into their fields and be the living model present and impressive, all
their days! Nor will your influence in this respect, terminate with them, but
will travel on, transmitted from hand to hand, to generations unborn. And if
there be a class in the Church of God, more important than any other, around
which our Churches should gather to offer up special prayer in their behalf,
that class is made up of the Professors in our Theological seminaries. Possibly
some may deny that their influence and power is so great. To this we reply. If
it is not, it ought to be. Yes, and it can be and will be if the Professor is
filled with the Spirit as it is his privilege to be. Who ever spent an hour in
Finney’s Theological lecture room and was not impressed with the power of his
prayer, and the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit there? Brethren of the
seminary, the actuality of your influence is one thing, the possibilities are
quite another! Suffer the writer to make some suggestions as to your duty in
relation to this Baptism of the Spirit.

1st. You need it personally in the fulness of its power. You sit in Moses’ seat.
You need the power which rested on him, and you can have it in largest measure
if you will. Your communion with God may be so blissful, that when you come from
the closet before your classes as Moses from the Mount, so will your face shine,
that you will need to vail an experience too bright to utter. Moody said the
experience of this Baptism he had in New York, was too rich and sacred for
specific description. So it may be with you. And if any need to know, in largest
measure what this blessed Baptism is, they are the successors of Peter and John
and Paul, who like them are to hand down to generations below them, the Gospel
in its fullness of experience and doctrine and power. If Peter and Paul needed
this baptism, can you do without it? If Jesus must have it, can you dispense
with its aid?

2nd. Let it be a cardinal doctrine of the Seminary, that the Holy Ghost is the
Great Instructor in your school, presiding over every study every lecture, every
session! So important is this doctrine of the Spirit’s teaching and illumination
of the inspired Word, that in the writer’s estimation, especial attention to the
matter should be among the first doctrines taught, and deeply impressed upon
students as they enter the school. Let your school be emphatically the school of
the Holy Ghost.

3d. May the writer urge upon you special lectures and studies upon this topic,
so that your graduates may no more come forth from the Seminary, with no
definite opinions or views regarding it, as has heretofore been true. It is too
great a matter to be thus ignored and pushed into the back ground.

4th. Insist upon the indispensableness of this baptism as a qualification for
preaching the Gospel. And do not recommend a man for licensure or ordination
till he gives evidence of having been ordained and endued with power from on
high. Suffer the advice of your brother thus far, and when the chariots shall
come to take you up, may Elijahs mantle fall from the shoulders of each of you
upon the sons of the Prophets. A WORD WITH THEOLOGICAL STUDENTS. The attitude of
the Theological students of our country in relation to the subject we are
discussing, stands next in importance to that occupied by their Professors and
teachers. Indeed, they are soon to take their places and teach Theology to
another and a larger generation. It is the hope of the writer, and indeed his
expectation, that they will be more devout than their fathers, will have a
larger experience of the Spirit’s power, and do an immense work in leading our
Churches up into the higher life. We cannot be far off from the millennium that
perennial hope of the Church, and you, the Theological students of the twentieth
century, and the last decade of the nineteenth, may have the golden privilege as
well as responsibility, of completing the conquest of the world for Christ. But
depend upon it, brethren, institutions of learning will never do it, nor logic,
nor eloquence, nor any and all possible organized institutions and societies of
men. Nay, without the Holy Ghost inspiring them, they may hinder the Gospel more
than help it. Witness the Theological Seminaries of Germany and other parts of
the world. Your own personal experience has doubtless taught you that victory
over besetting sins is not insured by favoring circumstances, nor yet by dint of
the human will. Nothing brings victory in that warfare, but the Holy Spirit
coming to our aid. Just so is it with the larger warfare, between the Church and
the world. Unless the Holy Ghost goes forth with the people of God, they are as
surely defeated, as were the Israelites when Jehovah went not forth with their
armies. What then is the great thing you need? It is the indwelling Holy Spirit.
And you need Him in richest measure. And the burden of this appeal to you is
that you seek His indwelling and bestowments in Pentecostal fullness. That you
give the Holy Spirit possession of the whole house. Don’t turn Him off with a
room or two. Nor like Israel, rest on your arms, while there remain large
territories of the land of promise yet unoccupied and unsubdued. If you have
read carefully the considerations brought forward in chapter 5th, adduced to
prove that a Baptism of the Holy Ghost, like that bestowed at Pentecost was
designed for the modern Church as well as the Apostolic in all essential
elements, I am persuaded you must believe there are great gifts in store for
God’s people, sadly ignored, neglected and unsought. But should you fail to
agree with us there, we shall surely be at one in the admission of the duty and
privilege of being "filled with the Spirit. " May the Lord show you how much
that implies, and pour upon you the Spirit from on high till with David you say,
" My cup runneth over! " Were the Thelogical students of the world thus to seek
and thus to find, what life and power would be imparted to our Churches and
revivals would fill the land!

Suffer me again to call your attention to that sample seeking of the Spirit,
which at Pentecost brought the blessing upon the Apostles and their brethren.
Our Lord was crucified on Friday. On Sunday, which was the second day of the
passover week, he arose early from the dead. That was the day when the first
sheaf of the opening harvest was waived before the Lord. Leviticus 23:11. Fifty
days from that waiving came the Passover festival. Leviticus 23:16. We are told
that after his resurrection, Christ was seen of the disciples for 40 days. Acts
1:3. Then he led them out as far as Bethany, where he was parted from them and
ascended up into heaven. This leaves ten days before the feast of Pentecost.
Among his last words were these "Behold I send the promise of my father upon
you, but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from
on high." This power was that which accompanied the Pentecostal outpouring of
the Spirit. The disciples returned to Jerusalem, and at once went up into an
upper room, and began a meeting of prayer for the great blessing. Did it come at
once? No! not in answer to the first prayer, and not at the end of the first day
of prayer. Will it come tomorrow the second day? The Master has not said. They
pray on and talk over the matter till the sun has set, and still the blessing
lingers. A third day of prayer and conference over the matter and it does not
come! a fourth! a fifth! a sixth! a seventh! and still it is withheld! What can
it mean? No doubt the faith of some is weak and faltering. Perhaps some of the
faint-hearted suggest there must be some misunderstanding of Christ’s words, and
they had best give up the so far unsuccessful search. But stronger faith of
others held them to the promise. Meantime in their talk over the situation their
small numbers the power of their foes their personal imperfections the artifices
of the world, the flesh, and the Devil, all arrayed against them more and more
the sense of need pressed upon them, and more and more they could appreciate the
value of the gift when it should come. They were ripening for the reception. The
ground was being broken up and prepared for the shower which was gathering. Thus
they entered on another week of prayer. Three days pass in it, but it has not
reached them! But it is coming! The pressure of an inward importunity gives
assurance that it is at the doors. Early on the morning of the tenth day they
hasten to that upper room and with one accord lift up their voices to God! It is
enough! Their faith has been sufficiently tried. The gift comes down and they
are all filled with the Holy Ghost and speak the word with a power unknown
before. Let me call your attention specially to the length of time occupied in
this prayer meeting for this blessing before it came. It was a long prayer
meeting. Few have been like it. Who knows of one in the history of the modern
Church? How puerile beside it, the usual preparation for a revival! Perhaps the
long course of preparation inaugurated by Rev. B. Fay Mills in the cities where
he is subsequently to hold revival meetings, resembles it; as did similar
preparatory meetings insisted upon by Rev. John T. Avery and other evangelists.
But those latter imitations come far short of the original in intensity of
purpose and in the time actually spent in fervent prayer for the gift. Yet those
ten days were the most profitable of all in their past history. Perhaps of their
future also. What changes they wrought in the men and women who were there!
Changes in experiences and in power to do good! What if they had faltered and
ceased to pray for the gift at the end of the first week? Then Pentecost to them
had never come! And at the end of the ninth day of fervent seeking and patient
waiting, had they given it up as a fruitless search, how sad the failure! No
doubt they were tempted to do so before the Lord saw fit to crown with glory
that ten days probation of prayer! What an example, rare and suggestive, our
Lord holds up before those who in the after ages should set their hearts on the
reception of the same great gift. It suggests the holding of some such prayer
meetings in our modern Theological Seminaries for the like endowment! Conducted
aright, I believe they would be followed by surprising results. If held once in
a year, in all our Churches and colleges, and seminaries, I believe this world
would be essentially evangelized, and the millennium brought in, in an hundred
years.

Brethren of the Seminary, Students and Professors, allow me to suggest a program
of topics to be prayed over and considered during those ten days. I would
suggest two daily sessions forenoon and afternoon, and the evening spent by each
in his room alone with God, in private prayer, heart-searching, and meditation.

Day 1st. A solemn convocation of Students and’ Professors, and spent largely in
prayer for the Holy Spirit to make those ten days blessed and eventful like
those which preceded the day of Pentecost..

Day 2nd. The passages relating to the Baptism of the Holy Ghost in the Old
Testament and the new, carefully read, considered and prayed over. Very likely
this to be satisfactory, would occupy the sessions of two days and perhaps more.

Day 3d. Personal experiences and testimony given, of answers to prayer, and
helps received from the Holy Ghost with the view of ascertaining, how much
larger help we may hopefully seek from him, in these and other lines.

Day 4th. Personal confessions of besetting sins, not yet conquered advice asked
and given as to the way to victory.

Day 5th. Extracts read and considered relating to the baptism of the Spirit,
found in the biographies of such men as Wesley, Finney, Taylor, Spurgeon, Madame
Guion, Tennant, Brawnwell and others.

Day 6th. Sermons from preachers who have definite views and experiences relating
to it. ,

Day 7th. The Spiritual experiences and measures of the Spirit a man must have to
be an effective preacher of the Gospel.

Day 8th. What constitutes a call to preach the Gospel and on what principles
shall one make choice of his field of labor?

Day 9th. ’Revivals, by what means brought about, and how converts and church
members can be kept from backsliding.

Day 10th. Review of the meetings testimonies given as to their value, and helps
received therefrom. Of course, brethren, you will regard the above on]y as a
rough and suggestive outline, and to be varied as maturer thought or
circumstances may suggest. What the writer desires is that you in your seminary
try once, at least, the result of following the Apostolic example. He has never
known but one such, or nearly such prayer meeting. And of that he will give an
account as he remembers it. During his Theological course, a special vacation of
one week was given the students. Some took a limited outing and others stayed at
home. Of the latter, there were a few, who, dissatisfied with their religious
condition, agreed to spend the week in an effort to draw near to , God and seek
a baptism of the Spirit and an elevation to a higher plane of holy living. I
think there were half a dozen or so of such, who on the first day of vacation,
quietly went into the Theological lecture room to pray. They were in earnest and
God met them. As they began te pray, the Holy Ghost helped them to a vivid view
of their great necessities. And they prayed, consciously aided by a power from
above, with an importunity which could not be denied. And this power in prayer
fell upon all. When the noon bell rang they rose and went out, but how softly
they walked! In the afternoon there were perhaps twenty, who heard of the
meeting and were drawn there by a mysterious power. And now the power of God was
more manifest still! The spirit of prayer carried all before it. The next day
the room was crowded and mingled with agonizing prayers and struggles for
deliverance, there were voices of joy and gladness, almost shoutings of
deliverance, from men who but yesterday were clanking the chains of sin. I had
been out some fifteen miles with a friend. But news reached us of the great work
of God among our school mates and I hastened back, to see a sight Pentecostal
and astonishing! Indeed, it lacked little of a literal repetition of that noted
day! For they were all of one accord. We -were astonished at the unwonted power
with which they spoke and praised God as the Spirit gave them utterance. They
spoke as with tongues of fire! And miracles of deliverance from the bondage of
sin, were performed by the mighty Spirit which was there. The work continued
through the week, when the usual studies were resumed. But the influence of that
prayer meeting long remained. My class mates, who at that meeting gained
deliverance from sins, which had long annoyed and clung tenaciously to them,
carried their credentials of emancipation all their days. Two of them whom I now
have in mind, received the tongue of fire. Thenceforth they spoke as men whose
hearts were full. Full of love to God and zeal for souls. They have gone home
now. But being dead, they yet speak. Brethren of the seminary, the ten days
prayer meeting over the topics suggested is quite in the line of your studies.
The time thus spent would not be thrown away. It might bring blessings as great
as did that memorable Apostolic prayer meeting. The bare possibility of it, is
an ample warrant for following the great example. TO THE MINISTERS OF THE
GOSPEL.

1st. Brethren : I have somewhat to say to you the angels of the Churches the
embassadors of the Lord Jesus. Having myself been a preacher for the space of
half a century, I know somewhat of your needs, your heart yearnings and your
trials. Of your needs, in order to greatest efficiency, that which I mention
first is this reception of a double portion of the Divine Spirit. Comparatively
fruitless were the Apostles, though endowed with miraculous powers, until they
received the Holy Baptism at Pentecost. After that, a converting and sanctifying
power attended their labors, which made them ten fold more effective than
before. So it was with Moses and Joshua and Elijah and David and Sampson and all
the prophets of the Old Testament. But when the Spirit of the Lord came upon
them there was an immense augmentation of their power. So it has been from
Pentecost down to our era. Men and women like Madame Guion, Mrs. Kogers, Luther,
Wesley, Whitfield, Finney, Spurgeon, Moody and Mills, sought this larger
endowment; some of them, if not all with strong crying and tears, and they
obtained it, many of them with an experience too sacred to be specifically
described. Thenceforth their labors were attended with wonderful success. Let me
call your attention to a single passage of Scripture, where success is strongly
promised. John 7:38-39, " He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said,
out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water! This spake he of the Spirit
which they that believe on him should receive, for the Holy Ghost was not yet
given. " This remarkable passage gives promise of an immense influence for good,
possible to the believer. Elvers of living waters flowing from him! Not a mere
rill of the water of life! Not a brook! nor rivulet, but a river! And not one
only, but rivers of living waters! Brother preacher, this is an assurance for
your encouragement. It was intended to make you dissatisfied with small results
and to inspire in you a hunger and thirst after such an additional endowment,
that you should go and bear much fruit. " Herein is my Father glorified that ye
bear much fruit. " But did Jesus mean that this immense, this royal fruit
bearing, set forth under the figure of " rivers of water " flowing from the
believer, should attend the steps of Christians only partially endowed as were
the Apostles when these words were spoken?

Far from it! For inspiration adds, " This spake he of the Spirit which they
should receive who believe on Him, for the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because
the Son of man was not yet glorified. " That is, this promise of enlarged
usefulness was to characterize those and those only, who should receive the Holy
Ghost in the rich measures bestowed on the day of Pentecost! The cases of the
Apostles, of Moody, of Millls and Spurgeon illustrate this. But on what
condition did the Apostles receive the great endowment which made them so
fruitful? They sought it. They prayed ten days for it. Their persistency of
prayer and waiting for it so long, showed their earnestness and importunity and
faith in Him who had promised It is safe to say they never would have received
it, had that importunity, that faith and that seeking definitely for this
blessing been wanting.

Brethren, have you thus sought this endowment of power foretold by Joel and
promised by our Lord? Have you heeded the lesson taught by the Pentecostal
object lesson God has hung up in the vestibule of the Christian temple? If not,
is it strange that only rills flow from you, instead of rivers of living waters,
as was true of Christ’s own disciples before Pentecost and its baptism. Heed not
the idea that this great gift is not de%i4rily to be sought. Go up into that
upper’ room and listen to those earnest prayers. "What is it they are praying
for? It is for power. Don’t imagine yourself equipped for preaching by years of
study in college or in the seminary. No, not even had you miraculous power added
thereto and such piety and measures of the Spirit, as the Apostles had before
Pentecost. " Tarry in Jerusalem till ye be endued with power from on high. "
Advice that higher than that of your Theological Professor. I beseech you heed
it. Like David say, " I will not give sleep to mine eyes nor slumber to my
eyelids till I have found a place for the Lord, a habitation for the God of
Jacob" a place in my heart where his Spirit in fullness can dwell and through me
do all his pleasure. So shall the Holy Ghost enter and his train shall fill the
temple. Thenceforth shall flow forth from you rivers of living waters. One shall
flow through your family, refreshing it and making it like a watered garden!
Another shall run through your Church and Congregation, strengthening
Christians, converting sinners, and repressing sin.

Through your correspondence shall flow another river. And through the
ecclesiastical body with which you associate will flow yet another, and all
these shall roll onward, long after the man who set them in motion has passed
away, thus bringing to pass the saying "He that abideth in me the same bringeth
forth much fruit."

2nd. The next thing that we as Preachers need, in order to success, is a Church
in like manner endowed and cooperating with us. All successful Evangelists and
winners of souls to Christ . have felt this. But how shall we lead the flock,
except we first, like Joshua, go over into the promised land, and thus become
qualified to conduct our brethren there? So did Peter, and John, and Phillip,
and Stephen, and Paul, and thus were qualified to lay their hands on their
brethren and they also received the Holy Ghost. The husbandman that laboreth
must first be partaker of the fruits.

3d. Let me ask you brethren, are you satisfied with the Spiritual Condition of
our Churches? Do the meagre results of preaching and labor in them, as reported
in the Annual Statistics, satisfy you? Many of our Churches hardly keeping up
with the depletions by deaths and removals, and the entire denomination adding
on an average, scarce half a dozen to a Church! Vast is the machinery employed,
but small the output!

Alas! Where is the success of the early Church? Where is Pentecost? Where the
Baptism of the Holy Ghost? To come nearer home brethren, does your personal
success fill out your ideal of the power which should attend Christ’s
Embassador? Do you feel that power fills your study, fills your desk, fills your
heart and the house of God where you preach the Gospel? Have you in your Church
Aarons and Hurs whose hearts follow you in pastoral visitation, in the
preparation of your discourses; and while you preach, do you see heads bow in
prayer for you, that the Spirit of God may carry home your words? Have you
instructed your people into their high privileges under Pentecostal endowments?
Have you ever preached to them one sermon on the Baptism of the Holy Ghost? If
not, is it not high noon day for opening before them this great matter? Oh! How
we each need a rich personal experience of the blessing to lead others there!

Say not I am alone and have no helpers to aid me in rising to these Gospel
heights! Quite possibly, even in your Churches there may be hidden ones, who
like the two holy women Moody speaks of as aiding him so much, are praying for
you, that you may be endowed with the power. Seek them out and ask them to pray
for you that you may obtain the double portion and pray for you also when you
preach. No helpers! Where is the Holy Ghost? Where the arm of the Lord? And
where the exceeding great and precious promises? O! for some Elijah at our side
> to pray, ." Lord open this man’s eyes that he may see I And the -Lord opened
the young man’s eyes and he saw and behold the whole mountain was full of horses
and chariots of fire round about Elijah! " With helps so mighty, let us rise to
our privileges and take possession. TO OUR BAPTIST BRETHREN.

We bear you record, brethren, that you have an especial zeal for what you
believe to be the proper mode of baptism, and the proper subjects. But there are
two kinds of Baptism that of water and that of the Holy Ghost. The one a Symbol,
the other is the Substance. The one a great reality, the other only its shadow!
Man administers one, God the other. The difference in their value and relative
importance, no tongue can tell.

John the Baptizer is held in high repute by our Baptist friends. Let us hear
what he has to say on this important matter. Matthew 3:11. " I indeed baptize
you with water unto repentance. Bat he that, cometh after me is mightier than I,
whose shoes I am unworthy to bear. He shall baptise you with the Holy Ghost and
with fire." Following Matthew, each of the other Evangelists repeats in his
Gospel this most emphatic testimony of John, to the infinitely superior
importance of the Baptism of the Holy Ghost And the intent of thus putting
John’s words in all the Gospels was, that no one who should read but one of
them, should ever question the superior importance of being baptised with the
Holy Ghost over that of a baptism of water. The Apostles, before Pentecost had
been baptised with water, and doubtless at the hands of Jesus Himself. But that
did little towards making them in heart or hand what they needs must be to do
the work before them. That was accomplished in the baptism of the Holy Ghost.
And brethren, the promise of that baptism, in all its essential richness, .is to
you and to your children and all that are afar off, even to as many as the Lord
our God shall call. How much you need it to sanctify your heart and life and to
give you power in speech and prayer! How much your membership in the Church
needs it also! Yet, how have you treated it? You have honored John’s baptism;
how have you treated Christ s? You have preached on water baptism, many, many
times! Did you ever preach one sermon on that of the Holy Spirit? You have urged
men to be immersed, that is, the body. How much did you ever urge upon them the
importance of that great Pentecostal Baptism, in which the souls are cleansed
and filled with all the fullness of God, so that thence onward, God shall dwell
in them and walk in them? I will not reprove you for your zeal for what you
regard as the proper mode of water baptism. But Oh! this neglect of the other!
This practical ignoring and pushing into the background, that which God intended
should be foremost and overshadowing, has been a sin reprehensible and
inexcusable.

Let me ask you to begin a just reform, by preaching at lest three sermons on the
baptism of the Holy Ghost where you do one on the baptism of water. And further,
be as sure that you and your brethren are baptised by the Holy Ghost in latter
day fullness, as you are that you have been totally immersed in the water, which
is at best only its material shadow! What is the shadow to the substance and
what is the husk to the corn? A WORD WITH MY METHODIST BRETHREN.

Beloved I am a Congregationalist, naturally such, and such by education. I was
converted in that Church, have worked in its harness all my life thus far, and
expect to unto the end. But my heart is full of tender feeling towards my
Methodist brethren. I admire your strong adhesiveness one to another, your
laborious and self-denying preachers, your aggressive work among the poor and
helpless. I rejoice in your wonderful growth, and at the bold and advanced stand
your great conferences have taken against the saloon curse, and the political
parties which pander to it. But most of all I admire your pronounced belief in
the baptism of the Holy Spirit, as a latter day blessing, as well as Apostolic.
Your honored founder, John Wesley the Paul of modern times who from Jerusalem
round about to Illyricum fully preached the Gospel, gave an emphasis to this
doctrine, equaled by no other man within the last 1,000 years. Honoring this
great feature of Christ’s dispensation, God honored him. The Holy Ghost, whose
baptismal power he preached, wrought wonderfully with him. Souls were converted
wherever he went. Nor was that all. In almost every gathering of converts large
enough to form a class, there was raised up some one suitable to be a
class-leader. On him he laid his hands and prayed that he might receive the Holy
Ghost. And forth-with he developed a power in counsel, speech and prayer, which
was not of Earth! So in larger circles of classes, exhorters and local preachers
were raised up, who well supplied the local want. Then in the larger circles of
Churches, itinerant preachers, elders and bishops arose, each anointed for his
specific work, and usually wonderfully adapted for it. In all these gradations
of leadership, the one great and indispensable thing insisted upon by Wesley,
was that the man must have received the baptism of the Holy Ghost, or be deemed
unfit for the place. No learning or power of oratory was allowed as a substitute
for this super-natural gift. This was Apostolic. This was of the Holy Ghost. And
this doctrine, brethren, with its attendant realization, has in my opinion been
the source of your wonderful growth and prosperity. But while your growth is
wonderful, not less so in my estimation, have been the vast numbers of men, who
from obscurity and the vales of ignorance, have been raised up and endowed with
powers of persuasion and eloquence, not unlike that possessed by the primitive
Church. Especially have they been successful in the great work of the Church,
that of converting men. Not infrequently, a simple class-leader, being more
efficient in that line than a Professor of Theology! And indeed knowing more
than he, about Christ as a Saviour from sin and sinning! But brethren, while
your past has been glorious, your future is dangerous Suffer a friend to suggest
some of its sources.

1st. You are greatly in danger of filling your Churches with unworthy members. I
have noticed that in your conferences a premium seems to be offered for the
report of largest numbers added to the Church. So that he who presents the
largest list is counted worthy of the most desirable appointments. I do not say
this is universal, but in my observation it has been so general, that a great
temptation is placed before the preacher, to report as large a list as possible.
Accordingly, not a few confidently pronounce those who came forward in their
meetings for prayer, converted, and rush their names on the class books. And
when the probation has passed, receive them into full membership, unless
something special turns up against them, or they voluntary withdraw. In
protracted meetings I have held with my Methodist brethren, I have often been
shocked by the reckless proclamation as converts, of people who had simply come
forward for prayer and had said in a whisper or aloud, that they felt some
degree of relief. Oh! it is wicked to help people to a false hope to encourage
them to build their house upon the sand!

2d. You are in danger of becoming proud and boastful over your numbers. Already
you have surpassed all other denominations of Protestants in this country, and
are yearly adding enormously to your membership. Satan will take advantage of
this and tempt you as he did David, to number Israel. I fear he is doing it now.
Let me warn you against this pride of numbers and may the Lord preserve in your
ranks the humility of your early days, while He increases your list a thousand
fold.

3d. Another danger I must not fail to warn you against, is that of
denominational selfishness. Denominations are as liable to be selfish in their
policy and their work, as are the individuals who compose them. We the
Evangelical Christians of different names are all brethren. And all the tribes
of our Israel are dear to the Lord. And we are to love one another and seek each
others prosperity as the brothers and sisters of the same family. But when we
become selfish and seek to push our denomination ahead of all others, and
delight in our own advancement, however it may affect others, we may not only
bring reproach upon Christianity, but offend the Master also. In remonstrating
some years since with a Presiding Elder, for some such work of selfishness, he
replied, “I intend to start a Methodist Sabbath school, wherever I can get
fifteen scholars to join it.” “And Abraham said to Lot, let there be no strife
between me and thee and between my herd-men and thy herd-men, for we are
brethren! Is not the whole land before thee? If thou wilt take the left hand,
then I will go to the right, or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go
to the left. "

4th. Another danger and that the greatest of ail, is that becoming great and
renowned, honored and respected, for your eloquent orators, your learned men,
your colleges and seminaries, the number of your houses of worship and the vast
population to which you minister, that by a slow but gradual process, your
reliance will imperceptibly be transferred from the Holy Ghost to these great
forces, as that by which you expect to advance and conquer. "Jessuran waxed fat
and kicked. " Prosperity to a Church is more dangerous than poverty and much
more to be feared. This was the rock on which the early Church was wrecked. When
that Church was small in number, poor in purse, destitute of scholars and
learned men, and surrounded by foes fierce and implacable, then it looked upward
with steadfast eye to the Holy Ghost. On Him they depended. They sought the
great baptism and they received it. And God was manifest in them, alike in
prayer meetings and at the martyrs stake! These were the days of most rapid
growth. Not because " the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church, " but
because the Church ivas illuminated! The Holy Spirit shone through it, revealing
human selfishness and God’s salvation. And when they spoke it was not with
enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and with
power. But alas! When they had grown great in numbers, had built great Churches,
had schools of Theology and of science, and had otherwise become renowned and
influential, they began to rely on their earthly power and less and less on the
Spirit. Farther and farther they wandered, as less and less became their
conscious dependence on the Spirit of God. And that, brethren, is your danger;
that you become proud of your numbers, boastful of your schools, your great men,
your missions, and your money. May the Lord save you from the demoralizing
influences prosperity so often brings! May he keep you ever humble; not by
stripes, but by loving and suggestive influences, such as he much prefers to the
rod. Continue to proclaim as on the housetop, that we live under the
administration of the Holy Ghost! that he is as ready now as in Apostolic days
to descend in Pentecostal power, and sanctify his people. Let the Churches seek
the great blessing as they did in the days of the sainted Wesley, and your final
success will be assured. Suffer this word of friendly warning, brethren. And may
the twentieth century look down upon a sanctified Methodist Church, in every
important locality on the face of the earth.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 12: 12 - CHAPTER 12
========================================================================

CHAPTER XII.

Experiences of this Baptism testified unto by eminent Christians. This appeal to
the Churches would be incomplete, were the writer to omit in conclusion, the
giving of samples of experiences of this Baptism of the Spirit, testified unto
by men and women eminent for consecration and usefulness. We will first present
that of Dwight L. Moody, as given by him in a great revival meeting in the City
of Glasgow, Scotland. Mr. Moody said : "I can myself go back almost twelve
years, and remember two holy women who used to come to my meetings. It was
delightful to see them there! When I began to preach I could tell by the
expression of their faces, that they were praying for me. At the close of the
Sabbath evening meeting they would say to me, ’We have been praying for you/ I
said ’why don’t you pray for the people?’ They answered, ’you need the power.’ I
need the power? I said to myself! why, I thought I had power. I had a large
Sabbath School and the largest evening congregation in Chicago. There were some
conversions at the time. I was in a sense satisfied. But right along these two
Godly women kept praying for me, and their earnest talk about a ’special
anointing’ set me to thinking. I asked them to come and talk with me, and we got
down on our knees. They poured out their hearts that I might receive an
anointing from the Holy Spirit; and there arose a great hunger in my soul. I did
not know what it was. I began to cry as never before. The hunger increased. I
was crying all the time that God would fill me with his Spirit. Well, one day in
the city of New York, Oh! what a day! I cannot describe it. I seldom refer to
it. It is almost too sacred an experience to name. Paul had an experience of
which he never spoke for fourteen years. I can only say that God then revealed
himself to me, and I had such an experience of his love, that I had to ask him
to stay his hand. I went to preaching again. The sermons were not different. I
did not present any new truths. And yet hundreds were converted. I would not now
be placed back where I was before that blessed experience, if you would give me
all of Glasgow. It would be but the small dust of the balance." On another
occasion Mr. Moody said, referring to this experience, "The blessing came upon
me suddenly like a flash of lightning. For months I had been hungering for this
power of service, I had come to a point where I think I should have died if I
had not got it. Since then I have never lost the assurance that I am walking in
communion with God, and I have a joy in his service which makes it easy work."
This experience has a bearing on the questions Should this baptism be definitely
sought, and does it sometimes come suddenly, and does it abide now, as in the
days of Peter and Paul?

REV. B. FAY MILLS. This distinguished Evangelist, whom the Holy Spirit is
leading from State to State, and from city to city, and through whom he is
working with wonderful power, is also one who like Moody, and Finney, and
Wesley, and Whitfield, and Peter and Paul, believes in a Special Baptism of the
Holy Spirit. He is one, too, who like them sought it, and as he believes
received it, and hence mighty works da show forth themselves in his labors. In a
letter to the Author, he thus alludes to his experience "You are right in
thinking I have received an especial Baptism of the Holy Spirit. I had been
preaching for a number of years, and with considerable success, before I so much
as realized, what was meant by the power of the Holy Ghost. The blessing came to
me, as the result of the emptying of my heart and life before God, and the
shutting up of myself to Him, and a subsequent season of severe testing. My life
has been transformed by the definite fulfillment of the promise of God, in the
joy and strength and power of the Holy Ghost."

We submit that the testimony of such a man, whose success is so marvelous, and
whose praise is in all the Churches, as to the way by which the Lord led him
into the baptism, which has so revolutionized his life and his labors, should
have especial weight with all practical and earnest men.

MISS FEANCES E. WILLAED.

We next give the testimony of Miss Frances E. Willard, President of the National
W. C. T. U., and the most distinguished Christian woman of America, if not of
the world. This lady was hopefully converted at Evanston, 111., in A. D. 1859.
For some six or seven years she lived the usual halting and advancing lower
plane Christian life. Then a great change came over her an uplift in experience,
in vision and in power a baptism of the Holy Ghost! Thus she speaks of it and
thus she was led thereto. "In 1886, Mrs. Bishop Hamline came to our village.
This saintly woman placed in my hands the life of Hester Ann Eodgers, Life of
Carvosso, Life of Mrs. Fletcher, Wesley’s sermons on Christaiu Perfection and
Mrs. Palmer’s Guide to Holiness. My reading of these books and my talks with
Mrs. Hamline deeply impressed me. Soon after Dr. and Mrs. Phebe Palmer came to
Evanston and held meetings in our Church. One evening when Mrs. Palmer had
spoken with marvelous clearness and power, she asked those who were desirous of
entering into the higher Christian life, to come forward and kneel at the Altar.
I and my mother went and kneeling, in utter self abandonment I consecrated
myself anew to God." Then there arose a severe testing, such as Mr. Mills
alludes to, in which one sacrifice after another came before her, as the
conditions of receiving the Great Gift she longed for. One after another were
laid on the Altar, even to “the pretty little jewels" on her person. This done,
she writes: "A great peace came to my soul. I cannot describe the deep welling
up of joy that gradually possessed me. I was utterly free from care. I was
blithe as a bird that is good for nothing but to sing. I did not ask, ’ Is it
duty? * but intuitively knew what to do. The conscious emotional presence of
Christ, through the Holy Spirit, held me. I ran about upon his errands just from
love! Life was a halcyon day!" This continued without interruption till it was
somewhat dimmed by yielding to advice not to confess the gift of God, in a new
place to which she went to live, and where the doctrine had been brought into
disrepute by the strange freaks and follies of some professing the Gift. This
she mourned over as a grievous mistake and a sin, nevertheless she largely
recovered the lost ground and still enjoys a large measure of the early joy, and
grace and power.

REV. EDWARD PAYSON. In the State of Maine, no minister has ever equaled Edward
Payson, in power as a preacher, or in religious influence over the people. That
he received this Baptism of the Holy Spirit, is evident from such records of his
words and writings as follow. In a letter to a friend thus he writes: " Were I
to adopt the figurative language of Bunyan, I should date this letter from the
Land of Beulah, of which I have been for some time a happy inhabitant. I can
find no words to describe my happiness. I seem swimming in a river of pleasure,
which is carrying me to the great fountain! God is now, literally, my all and in
all, and while He is present with me, no event can in the least diminish my
happiness, and were the whole world at my feet, trying to minister to my
comfort, they could not add one drop to my cup." A similar experience is
described by President Edwards of a pious lady whom h6 knew. The Tennant
brothers of New Jersey, have left behind a like record of their own experiences.
And the death-beds of ten thousand Christians have evinced a power of the Holy
Ghost, triumphant over disease, weakness and pain, super-human, Divine and
semi-miraculous. One question we wish to ask the reader in view of them, viz: Is
it not possible to have this rich endowment this vivid sense of God’s presence
this victory over temptation this full assurance of faith, and power of
utterance long before we reach the chamber of death? We need it in the open
field of active labor, where we can use it for the Glory of God, and the
Salvation of men.

Admit we need dying grace, more yet we need the grace to live, and work for
Christ.

We have the testimony of several others at hand, such as James Brainard Taylor,
Rev. Chas. G. Finney, etc., but they accord so perfectly with those already
given, that it seems superfluous to add them. In the mouth of two or three
witnesses shall every word be established. We will add however some points on
which all the witnesses agree those withheld, and those given.

1st. They all confess the reception of this blessing, at periods considerably
distant from conversion. In nearly all cases years after, as was true of the
Apostles.

2d. That it did not come to them, till definitely sought, and that too, with
strong persistency and importunate prayer.

3d. That its coming was not after the ideal of a gradual growth, advocated by
many, but rather after the Pentecostal pattern, and so marked by peculiar
experiences that ihey could not doubt it was from God.

4th. They each confess to a severe testing of their willingness to do and suffer
for Christ, somewhat like that which takes place at conversion, before the
Spirit in double portion came upon them.

5th. That with the blessing, there came an enlarged sense of the Divine
presence, a new faith in His power, victory over sinful propensities, courage
and liberty in declaring God’s will, peace, joy, and an assurance of acceptance^
which made doubt thenceforth impossible. In these things and more they all
agree. It will hardly do for Christians lightly to set aside the testimony of
these witnesses, backed as they are by Apostolic example, and warranted by the
promises of our Lord. Nor is it safe to look around and ask, "Have any of the
rulers of the Pharisees had this experience? and gauge our privileges in this
line, or our duty to God, by attainments common in the Churches. It is to the
Bible we must go, and to its exceeding great and precious promises, to learn the
measure of our privileges and duties, and not to the ever-varying phases of
religious life and doctrine prevalent in religious circles.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 13: 13 - CHAPTER 13
========================================================================

CHAPTER XIII. The Divinity and Personality of the Holy Spirit.

Since the foregoing was written a brother in the ministry has recalled my
attention to the general ignoring of the Holy Spirit and his work in the
religious literature of the times. He also claims that not a few members of our
churches deny the personality of the Holy Ghost, and interpret the words " Holy
Spirit," "Comforter," etc., as indicative only of a moral and spiritual
influence proceeding from the Father and the Son. He suggests that something
more written on both these points would be pertinent and profitable. To the
first matter we called attention in the introduction. We will add here as a
further striking proof of a drift of the modern church from her anchorage in the
Spirit, and his agency, the fact that the Bibliotheca Sacra, while published at
Andover for the period of thirty-six years from 1844 to 1879, did not contain a
single article on this vastly important subject. And this silence of the great
Theological Quarterly was matched by a similar silence of the pulpit during all
those years, and has been to this day. Is this because of the rapid increase and
extension of human agencies, and a natural absorption in them and dependence on
them? Possibly. There is doubtless danger here, even as there is to the wealthy
to trust in their riches, and the strong to lean on their strength. But whatever
may be the cause of this feature of our modern Church literature, there is need
that we speedily retrace our steps and say with Paul, " / will not dare to speak
of any of those things, which Christ hath not wrought by me, though mighty signs
and wonders by the power of the Spirit of God. " The New Testament from
beginning to end, abounds in exultant records of the work of the Holy Ghost.
More than two hundred times between Matthew and Revelation, he is spoken of and
His mighty work in the early Church. A like frequent acknowledgement of Him, is
requisite in modern Church literature, to keep the people from forgetting Him
and leaning on an arm of flesh. The other matter referred to by my friend the
denial of the personality of the Holy Spirit is graver still. And the results of
such a denial, the writer believes, will not be less disastrous than the denial
of the Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thus Mr. Spurgeon speaks of it on page
191 of his late biography: " We have before us the wretched spectacle of
professedly Orthodox Christians, publicly avowing union with those who deny the
personality of the Holy Ghost. " And because the English Baptist Union did this,
he and the Churches which he had planted, withdrew from it and became
independent. We will therefore give this matter more lengthy consideration. We
begin with the confession of the unity of the Divine being and nature that there
is one God and only one. This is asserted positively and often in the Old
Testament. It is repeated in the New, and it is grandly confirmed by the
unmistakable evidence-of unity of design, manifest in all the works of creation.
These two great books Creation and Revelation, testify that God is one. With one
voice they cry, " Hear O! Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord! " The Deity is
revealed in the Bible and brought home to the understanding of men, under the
names and personalities of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In each of these
personalities a special presentation of the Divine character and aid is given.
To each is ascribed personality and Divine attributes. No candid reader of the
book of God can escape the conclusion that it reveals God to us, as one in being
and three in personal representation of Himself to us. And if this is so, it
must be because God saw that such presentation of Himself to the human family,
would most fully reveal His love and help us in our low estate. It would have
been one of the easiest things conceivable, for God so to have spoken of the
Holy Ghost and also of the Christ, as to have forestalled and prevented all the
long controversy over the question of the Trinity the Divinity of Christ, and
the personality of tbe Spirit. To that end it was only necessary to use words
according to their common use and natural meaning. But for some reason the book
of Inspiration so speaks of the Holy Spirit that earnest believers, with rare
exceptions, accept Him as a Person, pray to Him as Divine, look to Him for help,
and love and worship Him as God. But our friends ask for proofs that the Holy
Ghost is recognized in the Bible as a Person, and more than a Divine moral
influence. We cannot enter largely into the discussion of this matter, but will
give a few points. In John 14:1-31: 1G, Jesus said to the disciples, "I will
pray the Father, and He shall give you Another Comforter Paracletos, that He may
abide with you forever." The word Paracletes, translated comforter, is a noun in
the masculine gender, and designates a person, as truly as do the words, Jesus
or Jehovah. And the promise of Another Paracletos by implication says "I have
been your Comforter hitherto, but now I am going away, but I will ask the Father
and He shall send you another Comforter, who will be my successor, and He shall
abide with you forever." In verse 26, of the same Chapter he adds, "But the
Comforter, the Holy Ghost, Whom the Father will send in my name, He shall teach
you all things, etc." Here also is given the name of a person, and not of an
influence, and three times His personality is taught in the italicized noun and
pronouns. In the next Chapter, John 15:26, the same testimony to the personality
of the Spirit is given in the words, "But when the Comforter is come, Whom I
will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth
from the Father, He shall testify of me." In the next Chapter, John 16:7, Jesus
said, "It is expedient for you that I go away, for if I go not away, the
Comforter will not come unto you; But if I depart I will send Him unto you, and
when He is come He will reprove the world, etc. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of
truth is come, He will guide you into all truth for He shall not speak of
Himself, but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak, and He will show you
things to come, He shall glorify me, for He shall receive of mine and show it
unto you." What means this repetition of the personal name Paracletos, and the
long list of personal pronouns which follow in these last quotations? How easy
to have said "it" if only an influence, and not a person was meant. And if
Paracletos is not a person, what shall we make of the expression, "He shall not
speak of himself?" But these are not the only passages of Scripture which speak
of the Spirit as a person. In Acts 13:2, “As they ministered to the Lord and
fasted, the Holy Ghost said, separate Me Barnarbas and Saul, for the work,
whereunto I have called them. " Here the Holy Ghost speaks, as a person and
says, " Separate Me (or unto Me) Barnabas and Saul, to the work whereunto / have
called them.” The use of the two personal pronouns, I and Me and the act of
speaking, assume in the strongest form the personality of the Holy Spirit. More
emphatically still is the personality of the Spirit declared in the Baptismal
formula which our Lord gave His disciples in Matthew 28:19, "Go ye therefore,
and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Ghost." Here the personality of the Spirit is put on a par with
that of the Father and the Son. And here by direct injunction of Christ, each
person entering the visible Church down through the ages, in the ordinance of
baptism is taught, in the most impressive form, the doctrine of the Trinity and
the personality of the Holy Ghost. And let me ask why, in such an hour, in a
rite so solemn and impressive, when the sensibilities of the convert, like
melted wax are so warm and impressible, why choose that occasion for the use of
language so expressive of the personality of the Holy Spirit ’? Surely it
bespeaks the vast importance of the doctrine. It says in effect, "Let no man
enter the visible Church until first taught that he has a personal Father God, a
Redeemer Jesus Christ the Son, and a personal Indweller and Sanctifier the Holy
Ghost!"

Like unto this and additional to it, is the Apostolic Benediction “The grace of
our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the Communion of the Holy Ghost, be
with you all, amen." 2d Cor. 13:14. This language also assumes and proclaims the
personality of the Holy Spirit, equally with that of the Father and the Son. And
being the most suitable and complete of all Biblical forms of benediction for
the closing of religious services, it has by common consent been adopted with
great unamirnity by the Churches of Christendom. And thus in the solemn closing
of each religious service down through the centuries, each hearer leaves the
house of God with words ringing in his ears, which teach the personality of the
Holy Spirit Words assuring him as he goes out into the world, that there is a
Father above who loves him, a Saviour who died for his salvation, and a Holy
Spirit who has come to dwell with him in loving helpfulness and sympathy, to
sanctify, empower and fit him for heaven. And yet again let me ask, why this
teaching of the personality of the Spirit, thus impressively, in the closing
words of each religions service? The answer must be, because of its pre-eminent
importance in the Christian system. That it is of great practical importance is
proven.

1st. By observation. Mohamedans and Jews believe, and strongly assert the unity
of God. But denying or ignoring the personality and indwelling of the Holy
Spirit, as well as the Divinity of Christ, the God they profess to worship is
far removed from them, and their religion is cold, cheerless and barren as the
frozen zone. God is to them a God afar off and not nigh, as He is to those whose
thoughts have to do with a Christ, who has walked in very flesh in our human
paths, and was in all points tempted as we are, and who have also taken the Holy
Spirit into their dwellings, and into their very bodies and souls to dwell with
them all their days, in all efficient love and sympathy. Vast is the moral chasm
between these two classes of believers in God. The powerful influence of the
doctrine of the Trinity is what makes the difference between the two. 2d. It is
agreeable to reason also that the doctrine of the Divine personality of the
Spirit, should exert a happy and powerful influence over those who accept it.
Love in the form of enkindled affection is a great force, lying back of human
willing and human action. Invaluable is its aid in the moral strife and in all
Christian work. But love attaches itself to a personality, and not to an
abstract moral influence. And that personality to affect our human nature
powerfully, must be at hand and not afar off. The old adage, “Out of sight, out
of mind “expresses an experience in this line as well as in another. With what
exquisite satisfaction, John speaks of the preciousness of this personal contact
he had with our Lord! " That which was from the beginning, which we have heard,
which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have
handled, of the word of life declare we unto you. " 1 John 1:1, and 2. So to
love God warmly and strongly there needs to be a presentation to us of Him as an
indwelling Spirit, full of sympathy and love, One with whom we can walk all the
day long and who will never leave or forsake us. One ready to help and mighty to
save.

3d. Experience comes to our aid in proof of this value of the doctrine of the
Personality and indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It is said in John 14:17, "He
dwelleth with you and shall be in you." Many other passages assert His constant
attendance upon our steps, His fellowship with us, and his occupation of the
body itself, making it his holy Temple. This wonderful truth accepted by faith,
and confirmed by helps received from an unseen hand, gives the Christian victory
over temptations of Satan, over fleshly impulses, over the world, and all the
power of the enemy. Because an Almighty personal friend is here by his Will, and
in his heart. David said "I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on
my right hand that I should not be moved." This doctrine of the personality of
the Holy Spirit, his indwelling, his sympathy, his help in every time of need,
is too precious and too important to be left out of the volume of revealed
truth. Nor can it be ignored or underrated, except at the expense of vast
spiritual disaster, if not of spiritual death. Finally, the doctrine of the
personality, of the Spirit receives its complete and satisfactory demonstration
only in the blessed Baptism of which we have been speaking. There is a theoretic
acceptance of Christ as a Divine personage. But in it we no more appreciate Him,
than we do a man of whom we have only seen his shadow. But beyond this there is
an experimental revelation of the God-Man to the soul, given to us by the Spirit
and by Him alone. Paul speaks of this latter when he says, "No man can say that
Jesus is the Christ, but by the Holy Ghost." So also when he says "But when it
pleased God to reveal his son in me." So when Peter said to Jesus. ’-Thou art
the Christ!" The Master replied, "Flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee
but my Father only." In like manner there is a theoretic acceptance "of the
personality of the Holy Spirit, and beyond this an experimental acquaintance
with him, demonstrative, realistic, delightful, helpful and personal. As truly
personal to us as is a father, mother or a human friend. In a letter before me a
lady of eminence, thus speaks of an experience in this line. "Sometimes my
communion is with the Father. Then with the Son. At other times with the Third
Person in the Adorable Trinity. "Another writer says, "In my early Christian
life, Jesus, was the Central Divine Personage around whom my love and thoughts
spontaneously clustered. As a rule, my prayers began with the words, Blessed
Jesus! After a time so was the Fatherhood of God revealed, that the beginning of
my prayer was changed to Our Father! But when at length I received the holy
Baptism, then God was revealed in the personality and work of the Holy Spirit,
He filled my heart, controlled my life, and became the subject of adoration and
largest thought." We think this was true of the Apostles. Doubtless their first
worship was of the Father God. At length Jesus, the Messiah, was so revealed to
them, that they held him by the feet and worshipped him, and like Thomas
exclaimed "My Lord and My God." Afterward came the Holy Ghost at Pentecost, and
filled all the house where they were sitting, and thence onward, their frequent
mention of His name, their exultant experiences of His work, His holy
companionship and power, show a new revelation to them of his Divine nature and
personality. Our hymn books also, the richest depositories of religious
experience, and of a correct and spiritual theology, bring out vividly, the same
experimental apprehension of God, in these three-fold relations of Father, Son
and Holy Ghost. As a sample of the hymns referred to, read the following from
Chas. Wesley:

"Come thou Almighty King, Help us Thy name to sinar, Help us to praise, Father
all glorious, O’er all victorious, Come and reign over us.

Ancient of days.

Come thou Incarnate Word, Gird on Thy mighty sword, Our prayers attend; Come and
Thy people bless, And give Thy word success, Spirit of holiness, On us descend.

Come Holy Comforter, Thy sacred witness hear, In this glad hour; Thou who
Almighty art, Now rule in every heart, And ne’er from us depart, Spirit of
power. To Thee, G-reat One in. Three, The highest praises be, Hence evermore;
His sovereign Majesty, May we in glory see, And to eternity, Love and adore!"
This tri-personality of God then, is an experience, as well as a doctrine of
Theology. And the aim of the doctrine was to lead to the experience, as was the
revelation of a heaven, to lead us there. In closing the discussion of this
great topic, permit the writer to ask, has it not been a serious fault of most
writers upon the Trinity, that they have largely overlooked its practical and
experimental influence upon our race? Have they paused before the startling
announcement, of a Trinity and a Unity in the God-Head, and sought after some
great practical reason there for?

Some want in our human conditions which made it a necessity that God should so
reveal Himself to us? Suffer us also to entreat our readers to give themselves
no rest, till they have each personally gone to these three gates of approach
unto God, and have there been taught in a blessed experience, why these three
gates were made and mankind invited to come unto God through them? The Bible is
a costly book. There is preciousness in all its doctrines beyond the power of
human estimation. They have all a practical value, as well as a theoretical
beauty and consistency. May the Lord teach as in a rich experience the intent
find value of the One we have been considering.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 14: 14 - CHAPTER 14
========================================================================

CHAPTER XIV.

Final Words of Counsel. The earnest desire of the writer, that this treatise
should be helpful, especially to such as in laying down the book shall take up
the purpose, to start forthwith for the King’s highway of holiness, with intent
to walk thereon, even to the City of God, leads him to add an additional chapter
of more specific directions pointing out the way. To men and women of this class
he would say.

1st. Let it be a settled sentiment with you, that there is such a highway of
holiness, cast up by the Lord, on which the ransomed of the Lord may return and
come to Zion a Baptism of the Holy Ghost powerful and Pentecostal an
establishment in holy living, not subject to the interruptions and vacillations,
which usually characterize the first stages of Christian life.

2d. That this privilege of walking on the King’s High-Way is offered to you
personally; as much so, as if your individual name were attached to the promises
relating thereto. "Ho! every one that thirsts come ye to the waters! And lie
that hath no money come! buy wine and milk without money and without price!" "On
that last day the great day of the feast Jesus stood and cried, If any man
thirst, let him come unto me and drink! And he that believeth on me as the
Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. This
spoke he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive, for the
Holy Ghost was not yet given." This Special Gift, the Pentecostal Baptism, is
offered to any man who thirsts. It is offered in abundance in rivers!" It is
offered to you no matter what your circumstances or history.

3d. The difficulties in the way of the attainment of this gift of grace, are far
from being insuperable. God longs to put us all in possession of it. He has cast
up a high way to it. Relays of help are at every point of need. The blind need
not miss the road, nor the lame stumble upon it. It will grieve the Father if
any of us miss it, and the Saviour will weep over our failure, as once he wept
over Jerusalem, saying, Oh! Jerusalem, Jerusalem! And the Holy Spirit too will
be grieved if we will not let Him lead us there. We shall all admit this, and
the admission involves the assurance that the terms of acquisition must be
compliable and reasonable; as reasonable as infinite wisdom and love could make
them. The yoke must be easy and the burden light.

There is an easy way and a hard way of doing duty. The easy way is the way of
faith, where distrusting ourselves., we look to God for help and lean on His
strong arm. It is then and then only, that we run and are not weary, and walk
and not faint. What multitudes testify to this! " For what the low could not do
in that it was weak through the flesh " this the Son of God enables us to do,
"that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after
the flesh but after the Spirit. " The hard way on the other hand, is that in
which we strive to walk alone, and stumble at every step! Giving ourselves
credit for the grace of humility, we think ourselves unworthy that the Lord
should come to our aid where we are! No! But we must hobble on and on, till we
reach a place over yonder, when we hope to meet the host of God, and be escorted
by it into the land of Beulah! Alas! What a mistake! Seeker of salvation, you
need help to begin! To take the first step! “Without Me you can do nothing. "
But you can do all things through Christ who strengthened you! The easy way then
is to lift up your hand to God where you are and cry, " Lord help me to get up,
and help me walk, and lead me on forever more!" And if you will give a decent
credit to His infinite generosity and interest in you if you will believe and
follow His direction, He will guide you step by step and make your life a joy
and triumph! Three things only are needful, consecration, faith, and the help of
One Mighty to save!

4th. It need not take a long time to gain this holy Baptism. We are well aware
that many who have obtained this anointing and whose experiences have been
published, have told us of the long and tedious road they traveled, before they
reached the promised land. It reminds us of Israel’s tortuous journeying and of
the forty years in the wilderness. We are convinced that the idea thence
imparted, that such delay and long seeking is necessary is misleading. Bible
examples, it is safer to follow and they show a shorter road. The longest
examples of seeking the Bible gives, is that of the Apostles, in the ten days
prayer meeting. With Saul of Tarsus there were evidently only three days before
he received his sight and the Gift of the Holy Ghost. Then he began his life
work boldly preaching Christ in the Synagogues of Damascus. Short was the
introduction of the Samaritan Christians, the gentile Cornelius, and those of
Ephesus and elsewhere into the fullness of baptismal influences and gracious
gifts. An eminent Theologian, a man of great abilities and learning, and a
personal friend of the writer, makes a sad mistake, we think, when he writes as
follows :

“Those who have attained a sudden enlargement and elevation of soul, often
undertake to give instructions by which others may be saved the long conflict
which they endured, and be enabled to enter at once upon the blessedness of
victory, as if there were some short cut for the pilgrim to the Delectable
Mountains, without his passing through the Slough of Despond and the Valley of
Humiliation. " We take direct issue with our friend, and deny that there is any
necessity for Christians getting into the slough of despond floundering there
and sadly besmirching their garments and person! By “Slough of Despond, " is
meant a state of discouragement, unbelief and semi-despair, like that of
unbelieving Israel, when they murmured against God and said, " We are not able
to go up and possess the Land! " That was Israel’s Slough of Despond. But it was
recorded not for our imitation, but for our warning, to bid us beware of getting
into it. To teach us how senseless it is and how wicked! Indeed we affirm, there
is no need of it. It is unwarranted and forbidden by the Mighty Leader, who has
taken us by the hand, saying, "Fear not for I am with thee! be not dismayed, for
I am thy God! " "Be strong and of good courage! Be not dismayed for the Lord thy
God is with thee whithersoever thou goest! " We don’t believe Bunyan intended to
teach by this figure what ought to be, or must be, but only what often is, on
account of our sinful weakness and unbelief. But if he did mean that we ought to
go through the slough and must, we take issue with him and declare that, from
the beginning of the Bible to the end, there is not one intimation that in
seeking the kingdom of God and its highest gifts and blessings, we must pass
through a period of doubt, discouragement, despondency a slough of despond and
almost hopeless despair! No! No! A decent faith in God will lead us clear of it
and through a shorter cut into the delectable mountains! Sloughs of despond are
hateful places. God don’t want us to go there or get into them. The devil does.
Who goes there takes, like Israel, the long road and the wrong one. Like Israel
at Barnea, one day of travel in faith and Holy courage will carry us over the
border, quite within sight of Bashan and Pisgah. But who are so well qualified
to give an opinion regarding the short or longer routes as those who have been
over them, took the longer way and now see the mistakes they made? Surely there
was a shorter cut for Israel, than that they actually took up into Canaan. They
might have gone up by the way Jacob and his sons went down into Egypt, or by
some other route west of it through the Philistine country. They ought to have
taken one of them. It would not have taken them more than ten days of travel. A.
miserable want of courage and a wicked unbelief alone made it necessary for them
to take the long route. Hear what God says, "And it came to pass, that when
Pharaoh let the people go, that God led them not through the way of Philistines
though that was near, for God said, "Lest peradventure the people repent when
they see war and return to Egypt!" Sa also after they had crossed an arm of the
Red Sea, they might then in one short year, have gone to Sinai and received the
law, made the journey back, and have gone up into Canaan over its south-east
border. And when they came to Kadesh-Barnea on the border of the Holy Land, the
short cut or march of one day, would have carried them within the sacred
enclosure. But they took it not! They were cowards. They had no faith. And
though urged and entreated by Joshua, Caleb, Moses and the Lord to take the
short cut, they would not but turned back into the hateful desert, and
floundered about in its sloughs of despond for forty years. Teacher of Theology
don’t tell us we must follow that bad example! There is surely a shorter road.
At our very door stands the Holy Sanctifier, saying so affectionately, " Behold
I stand at the door and knock! If any man hear my voice and will open the door I
will come in to him and sup with him and he with Me. " This idea of a long
waiting before we may hope to have the joyful reign of God within is like the
long since exploded teaching that the sinner must go through a long period of
penitent seeking, conviction and almost despair before God would receive him!
Neither of them find their warrant in Bible promises or examples. On the
contrary we can’t come too quickly to our Father’s arms. Every moment we stay
away will grieve Him. Surely there is a short cut to a place of safety and of
help. Now is the accepted time! To-day is the day of Salvation! "

5th. Seek not after a sign. Jesus condemned the Jews for doing so, And the
Spirit has frowned upon many a one since for the same thing. What we mean is
this, when you have consecrated yourself to God and all you have, carefully,
deliberately and as best you know how to do, and have asked Him to put you in
any place and set you at any work He sees fit, and have .asked the Holy Spirit
now to come and take full possession and direction, then take it home to your
heart as an accepted fact, that He has accepted the offering and will from this
moment, lead you forward in the wisest path. Believe it not on account of any
special feeling. But because of His love and his word. In after life, you will
often ask for help and go forward in the discharge of duty, with no special
feeling indicating God’s approval. You might as well begin in this way, relying
on the naked word of God and your conscious consecration of all to Him. Should
the question arise whether you have really laid all on God’s Altar, you can
quietly ask the Spirit to show what is withheld, ’that you may bring it also,
and you may rest assured he will do so. For it cannot be that He will allow one
to be deceived on a point so important, who comes to Him for light. So would not
a loving parent do. Paul says, " If in anything ye be otherwise minded, God
shall reveal even this to you. "

6th. After the consecration and the appropriating faith, there often comes a
brief period of testing the thoroughness of the choice we have made. Don’t be
alarmed. "Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as
if some strange thing had happened to you, knowing that the same afflictions are
accomplished in your brethren in the world." Rather receive it as a token that
God has heard your prayer and has come to ratify the covenant with you. When God
would exalt Abram, and give him the new name of Abraham, he led him through the
test of offering up his only son!

7th. Having entered upon, the high road to holiness and victory, in your upward
reaching after still larger endowments and power, do not forget to render thanks
to God continually, for the gifts already received. There will remain behind,
the great blessings of forgiveness of a life of sin, find deliverance from
Satan’s power. Whatever else you lack or think you lack, never cease to thank
God for these. The best preparation for future blessings, is an appreciation and
thankfulness for those already granted.

8th. Do not fail on all suitable occasions to confess what the Lord has done for
your soul. Such confession is at once due to God will be helpful to others and
give you great boldness in the faith.

We know not how more fittingly to close this appeal for higher and holier living
in our ministry and Churches, than by citing two passages of Scripture; one from
Isaiah and one from a discourse of our Savior: "And a highway shall be there,
and a way, and it shall be called The Way of Holiness; the unclean shall not
pass over it : but it shall be for those; the way-faring men though fools shall
not err therein. No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up
thereon it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there, and the
ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs and everlasting
joy upon their heads." Isaiah 35:8, Isaiah 35:10.

"In that last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried: If any man
thirst let him come unto me and drink! He that believeth on me, as the Sci
ipture 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." John
7:37, John 7:40.

Holy Spirit! faithful guide, ever near the Christian’s side,

Gently lead us by the hand, pilgrims in a desert land;; , Whispering softly
wanderer come, follow Me, I’ll guide thee home, Weary souls, fore’er rejoice,
while they hear thy sweetest voice .

Ever present, truest friend! ever near thine aid to lend, Leave us not to doubt
and fear, groping on in darkness drear; When the storms are raging sore, hearts
grow faint and hopes give o’er, Whispering softly, wanderer come, follow Me,
I’ll guide thee home. When the days of life shall cease, waiting still for sweet
release, Nothing left but heaven and prayer, wondering if our name is there;
Wading deep the dismal flood, pleading nought but Jesus’ blood, Whispering
softly, wanderer come, follow Me, I’ll guide thee home. A CLOSING PKAYER.

Before we part will the reader unite with the writer in the following prayer?

Heavenly Father! in laying down this book, we look upward to Thee and ask, that
if on its pages there is a message from the Lord for us, that we may not fail to
hear and heed it. If in the exceeding great and precious promises of Thy word,
there are measures of Grace and Gospel gifts not yet properly sought by us, and
therefore not received, help us without delay to rise up and take possession if
before each of us there are great possibilities of usefulness. If from us may
flow rivers of living water, suffer us not to rest content, till the possibility
has become an actuality, and the promise of Jesus is in our case fulfilled. We
mourn our unfruitfullness, and that we have wrought so small deliverance in the
earth. Pass over the barren past, we pray Thee, and in mercy forgive. Touch our
hearts, Thou gentle Spirit, and create a hunger there, that shall grow more and
more intense, till Thou shalt enter them with Pentecostal gifts, and fill us
with all the fullness of God! Enlarge our vision of Thy plan of Grace. Increase
our faith, till like Elisha after he had received the double portion, we shall
see the mountains around us, full of horses and chariots of fire, sent, to help
and defend us, from the Lord of Hosts. In the Great Redeemer’s name.

Amen and Amen. THE END.


========================================================================
Source: https://sermonindex.net/books/bristol-sherlock-paracletos-or-the-baptism-of-the-holy-ghost/
========================================================================