Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.’

Jesus said: ‘ Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit’ (John iii. 5, 6). And Paul wrote to the Romans that, ‘ If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His’ (viii. 9).

So it must be that every child of God, every truly converted person, has the Holy Spirit in some gracious manner and measure, else he would not be a child of God; for it is only ‘ as many as are led by the Spirit of God ‘ that ‘ are the sons of God ‘ (Rom. viii. 14)

It is the Holy Spirit who convicts us of sin, who makes us feel how good and righteous, and just and patient God is, and how guilty we are, and how unfit for Heaven, and how near to Hell. It is the Holy Spirit who leads us to true repentance and confession and amendment of life; and when our repentance is complete, and our surrender is unconditional, it is He who reasons with us calms our fears, soothes our troubled hearts, banishes our darkness, and enables us to look to Jesus and believe on Him for the forgiveness of all our sins and the salvation of our souls. And when we yield and trust, and are accepted of the Lord, saved by grace, it is He who assures us of the Father’s favour and notifies us that we are saved. ‘ The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.’ He is I the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father’ (Rom. viii. 15, 16).

And His that gentle voice we hear, 
Soft as the breath of even, 
That checks each fault, that calms each fear, 
And speaks of Heaven.

It is He who strengthens the new convert to fight against and overcome sin, and it is He who begets within him a hope of fuller righteousness through faith in Christ.

And every virtue we possess, 
And every victory won, 
And every thought of holiness, 
Are His alone.

Blessed be God for this work of the Holy Spirit within the heart of every true child of His!

But, great and gracious as is this work, it is not the fiery pentecostal baptism with the Spirit which is promised; it is not the fullness of the Holy Ghost to which we are exhorted. It is only the clear dawn of the day, and not the rising of the day-star. This is only the initial work of the Spirit. It is perfect of its kind, but it is preparatory to another and fuller work, about which I wish to write.

Jesus said to His disciples concerning the Holy Spirit, that ‘the world (the unsaved, unrepentant) cannot receive ‘ Him, ‘ because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him’; because they resist Him, and will not permit Him to work in their hearts. And then Jesus added, ‘but ye know Him; for He dwelleth with you.’ He had begun His work in them, but there was more to follow, for Jesus said, ‘ and shall be in you’ (John xiv. 17)

When a man is building himself a house, he is in and out of it and round about it. But we do not say he lives in it until it has been completed. And it is in that sense that Jesus said, ‘ He dwelleth with you.’ But when the house is finished, the owner sweeps out all the chips and saw-dust, scrubs the floor, lays down his carpets, hangs up his pictures, arranges his furniture, and moves in with his family. Then he is in the fullest sense within it. He abides there. Now, it is in that sense that Jesus meant that the Holy Spirit should be in them. This is fitly expressed in one of our songs:

Holy Spirit, come, 0 come, 
Let Thy work in me be done! 
All that hinders shall be thrown aside; 
Make me fit to be Thy dwelling.

Previous to Pentecost He was with them, using the searching preaching of John the Baptist, and the life, the words, the example, the sufferings, and the death and resurrection of Jesus as instruments with which to fashion their hearts for His indwelling. As the truth was declared to them in the words of Jesus, pictured to them in His doings, exemplified in His daily life, and fulfilled in His death and His rising from the dead, the Holy Spirit wrought mightily within them; but He could not yet find perfect rest in their hearts; therefore He did not yet abide within them.

They had forsaken all to follow Christ. They had been commissioned to preach the gospel, to heal the sick, to cleanse the lepers, to raise the dead, to cast out devils. Their names were written in Heaven. They were not of the world, even as Jesus was not of the world, for they belonged to Him and to the Father. They knew the Holy Spirit, for He was with them, working in them, but not yet living in them, for they were yet carnal; that is, they were selfish, each seeking the best place for himself. They disputed among themselves as to which should be the greatest. They were bigoted, wanting to call down fire from Heaven to consume those who would not receive Jesus, and forbidding those who would not follow them to cast out devils in His name. They were positive and loud in their professions of devotion and loyalty to Jesus when alone with Him. They declared they would die with Him. But they were fearful, timid and false to Him when the testing time came. When the mocking crowd appeared and danger was near, they all forsook Him and fled; while Peter cursed and swore, and denied that he knew Him.

But the Holy Spirit did not forsake them. He still wrought within them and, no doubt, used their very mistakes and miserable failures to perfect within them the spirit of humility and perfect self-abasement in order that they might safely be exalted. And on the day of Pentecost His work of preparation was complete, and He moved in to abide for ever. Hallelujah!

And this experience of theirs before Pentecost is the common experience of all true converts. Every child of God knows that the Holy Spirit is with him; realizes that He is working within, striving to set the house in order. And with many who are properly taught and gladly obedient this work is done quickly, and the heavenly Dove, the Blessed One, takes up His constant abode within them; the toil and strife with inbred sin is ended by its destruction, and they enter at once into the Sabbath of full salvation.

Surely this is possible. The disciples could not receive the Holy Spirit till Jesus was glorified; because not until then was the foundation for perfect, intelligent, unwavering faith laid. But since the day of Pentecost, He may be received immediately by those who have repented of all sin, who have believed on Jesus and been born again. Some have assured me that they were sanctified wholly and filled with the Spirit within a few hours of their conversion. I have no doubt that this was so with many of the three thousand who were converted under Peter’s preaching on the day of Pentecost.

But often this work is slow, for He can only work effectually as we work with Him, practising intelligent and obedient faith. Some days the work prospers and seems almost complete, and then peace and joy and comfort abound in the heart; at other times the work is hindered, and oftentimes almost or quite undone, by the strivings and stirrings of inbred sin, by fits of temper, by lightness and frivolity, by neglect of watchfulness

and prayer, and the patient, attentive study of His word; by worldliness, by unholy ambitions, by jealousies and envyings, by uncharitable suspicions and harsh judgments and selfish indulgences, and slowness to believe.

‘ The flesh lusteth against the Spirit’ (Gal. v. 17), seeks to bring the soul back under the bondage of sin again, while the Spirit wars against the flesh, which is ‘ the old man ‘, ‘ the carnal mind’. The Spirit seeks to bring every thought into ‘ captivity . . . to the obedience of Christ ‘, to lead the soul to that point of glad, wholehearted consecration to its Lord, and that simple, perfect faith in the merits of His Blood which shall enable Him to cast out ‘ the old man ‘, destroy ‘ the carnal mind’ and, making the heart His temple, enthrone Christ within.

Here on earth a temple stands, 
Temple never built with hands; 
There the Lord doth fill the place 
With the glory of His grace. 
Cleansed by Christ’s atoning Blood, 
Thou art this fair house of God. 
Thoughts, desires, that enter there, 
Should they not be pure and fair? 
Meet for holy courts and blest, 
Courts of stillness and of rest, 
Where the soul, a priest in white, 
Singeth praises day and night; 
Glory of the love divine, 
Filling all this heart of mine.

My brother, my sister, what is your experience just now? Are you filled with the Spirit? Or is the old man still warring against Him in your heart? Oh, that you may receive Him fully by faith just now!

‘HAVE YE RECEIVED THE HOLY GHOST SINCE YE BELIEVED? ‘

Ye shall receive power, after that theHoly Ghost is come upon you.’

THERE is much difference of opinion among many of God’s children as to the time and order of the baptism with the Holy Spirit, and many who believe that entire cleansing is subsequent to salvation ask if the baptism with the Spirit is not subsequent to cleansing and, therefore, a third blessing.

There are four classes of teachers whose views appear to differ about this subject. There are: 
i. Those who emphasize cleansing; who say much of a clean heart, but little, if anything, about the fullness of the Holy Spirit and power from on high. 
2. Those who emphasize the baptism with the Holy Ghost and fullness of the Spirit, but say little or nothing of cleansing from inbred sin and the destruction of the carnal mind. 
3. Those who say much of both, but separate them into two distinct experiences, often widely separated in time. 
4. Those who teach that the truth is in the union of the two, and that, while we may separate them in their order, putting cleansing first, we cannot separate them as to time, since it is the baptism that cleanses, just as the darkness vanishes before the flash of the electric light when the right button is touched; just as the Augean stables were cleansed, in the fabled story of Grecian mythology, when Hercules turned in the floods of the River Arno; the refuse went out as the rushing waters poured in.

In John xvii. 15-26 Jesus prays for His disciples, and says: ‘ I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil. . . . Sanctify them . . . that they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us . . . I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one . . . that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them.’

It is first sanctification (cleansing, being made holy), then filling, divine union with the Father and the Son through the Holy Spirit.

The Scriptures make plain the order of God’s work, and if we looked at them alone, without diligently comparing Scripture with Scripture, as God would have us do, we might perhaps conclude that the cleansing and filling were as distinct and separate in time as they are in this order of statement.

But other Scriptures give us abundant light on that side of the subject. In Acts x. 44 we read of Peter’s preaching Jesus to Cornelius, the Roman centurion, and his household; and ‘while Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word’; and in Acts xv. 7-9, at the Council in Jerusalem, we have Peter’s rehearsal of the experience of Cornelius and his household. Peter says: ‘ Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe. And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as He did unto us; And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.’ Here we see that their believing, and the sudden descent of the Holy Ghost with cleansing power into their hearts, constitute one blessed experience.

What patient, waiting, expectant faith reckons done, the baptism with the Holy Ghost actually accomplishes. Between the act of faith by which a man begins to reckon himself ‘ dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord’ (Rom. vi. I I), and the act of the Holy Spirit, which makes the reckoning good, there may be an interval of time; but the act and state of steadfastly, patiently, joyously, perfectly believing, which is man’s part, and the act of baptizing with the Holy Ghost, cleansing as by fire, which is God’s part, bring about the one experience of entire sanctification, and must not and cannot be logically looked upon as two distinct blessings, any more than the act of the husband and the act of the wife can be separated in the one experience of marriage.

There are two works and two workers: God and man, just as my right arm and my left arm work when my two hands come together, but the union of the two hands constitute one experience.

If my left arm acts quickly, my right arm will surely respond. And so, if the soul, renouncing self and sin and the world, with ardour of faith in the precious Blood for cleansing and in the promise of the gift of the Holy Spirit, draws nigh to God, God will draw nigh to that soul, and the blessed union will be effected suddenly. In that instant, what faith has reckoned done will be done, the death-stroke will be given to ‘ the old man’, sin will die, and the heart will be clean and wholly alive toward God through our Lord Jesus Christ. It will not be a mere ‘ make-believe’ experience, but a gloriously real one.

It is possible that some have been led into confusion of thought on this subject by not considering all the Scriptures bearing on it. What is it that cleanses or sanctifies, and how? Jesus prays: ‘ Sanctify them through Thy truth: Thy word is truth’ (John xvii. 17). Here it is the word, or truth, that sanctifies.

John says: ‘The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin ‘ (I John i. 7). Here it is the Blood. Peter says: ‘ God………….put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith ‘ (Acts xv. 8, 9). And Paul says: ‘ That they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith ‘ (Acts xxvi. 18). Here it is by faith.

Again, Paul writes: ‘ God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit’ (2 Thess. ii. 13). And again, ‘ That the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost’ (Rom. xv. 16). And Peter writes: ‘ To the strangers . . . elect . . . through sanctification of the Spirit ‘ (I Pet. i. 1, 2). Here it is the Spirit that sanctifies or makes clean and holy. Is there, then, confusion here ? Jesus says, ‘ the truth’

John says, ‘the Blood’; Paul and Peter say, ‘faith’, and ‘ the Holy Ghost’. Can these be reconciled? Let us see.

Here is a child in a burning house. A man at the peril of his life rushes to the spot above which the child stands in awful danger, and cries out, ‘Jump, and I will catch you! ‘

The child hears, believes, leaps, and the man receives him; but just as he turns and places the boy in safety, a falling timber smites him to the ground wounded to death, and his flowing blood sprinkles the boy whom he has saved.

A breathless spectator says: ‘ The child’s faith saved him.’ Another says: ‘How quick the lad was! His courageous leap saved him.’ Another says: ‘ Bless the child! He was in awful danger, and he just barely saved himself.’ Another says: ‘ That man’s word just reached the boy’s ear in the nick of time, and saved him.’ Another says: ‘God bless that man! He saved that child.’ And yet another says: ‘ That boy was saved by blood; by the sacrifice of that heroic man! ‘

Now, what saved the child? Without the man’s presence and promise there would have been no faith; and without faith there would have been no saving action and the boy would have perished. The man’s word saved him by inspiring faith. Faith saved him by leading to proper action. He saved himself by leaping. The man saved him by sacrificing his own life in order to catch him when he leaped.

Not the child himself alone, nor his faith, nor his brave leap, nor his rescuer’s word, nor his blood, nor the man himself saved the boy, but they all together saved him; and the boy was not saved till he was in the arms of the man.

And so it is faith and works, and the word and the Blood and the Holy Ghost that sanctify.

The Blood, the sacrifice of Christ, underlies all, and is the meritorious cause of every blessing we receive, but the Holy Spirit is the active agent by whom the merits of the Blood are applied to our needs.

During the American Civil War certain men committed some dastardly and unlawful deeds, and were sentenced to be shot. On the day of the execution they stood in a row confronted by soldiers with loaded muskets, waiting the command to fire. just before the command was given, the commanding officer felt a touch on his elbow and, turning, saw a young man by his side, who said, ‘ Sir, there in that row, waiting to be shot, is a married man. He has a wife and children. He is their breadwinner. If you shoot him, he will be sorely missed. Let me take his place.’

‘All right,’ said the officer; ‘ take his place, if you wish; but you will be shot.’ ‘ I quite understand that,’ replied the young man; but no one will miss me.’ And, going to the condemned man, he pushed him aside, and took his place. Soon the command to fire was given. The volley rang out, and the young hero dropped dead with a bullet through his heart, while the other man went free.

His freedom came to him by blood. Had he, however, neglected the great salvation and, despising the blood shed for him and refusing the sacrifice of the friend and the righteous claims of the law, persisted in the same evil ways, he, too, would have been shot. The blood, though shed for him, would not have availed to set him free. But he accepted the sacrifice, submitted to the law, and went home to his wife and children. It was by the blood; every breath he henceforth drew, every throb of his heart, every blessing he enjoyed, or possibly could enjoy, came to him by the blood. He owed everything from that day forth to the blood, and every fleeting moment, every passing day and every rolling year but increased his debt to the blood which had been shed for him.

And so we owe all to the Blood of Christ, for we were under sentence of death-‘ The soul that sinneth, it shall die’ (Ezek. xviii. 2 0) -and we have all sinned, and God, to be holy, must frown upon sin and utterly condemn it, and must execute His sentence against it.

But Jesus suffered for our sins. He died for us. ‘ He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities . . . and with His stripes we are healed ‘ (Isa liii.:5). ‘ Ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold . . . but with the precious blood of Christ ‘ (I Pet. i. 18, 19) ; ‘ Who loved me, and gave Himself for me’ (Gal. ii. 20). And now every blessing we ever had, or ever shall have, comes to us by the divine sacrifice, by ‘ the precious blood ‘, And ‘ How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation? ‘ (Heb. ii- 3). His Blood is the meritorious cause not only of our pardon, but of our cleansing, our sanctification; but the Holy Spirit is the ever-present, living, active cause.

The truth or word which sanctifies is the record God has given us of His will and of that divine sacrifice, that ‘precious blood’. The faith that purifies is that sure confidence in that word which leads to renunciation of all self-righteousness, that utter abandonment to God’s will, and full dependence on the merits of ‘ the precious blood’, the ‘ faith that works by love’, for ‘ faith without works is dead’. And thus we draw nigh to God, and God draws nigh to us, and the Holy Ghost falls upon us, comes into us, and cleanses our hearts by the destruction of sin and the shedding abroad within us of the love of God.

The advocates of entire sanctification as an experience wrought in the soul by the baptism with the Spirit subsequent to regeneration call it’ the second blessing ‘.

Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.’

HOW shall I know that I am accepted of God?that I am saved or sanctified? The Bible declares God’s love and pity for sinners, including me, and reveals His offer of mercy to me in Jesus Christ, on condition that I fully repent of my sins and, yielding myself to Him, believe on Jesus Christ and, taking up my cross, follow Him. But how shall I know that I have met these conditions in a way to satisfy Him, and that I am myself saved?

1. The Bible cannot tell me this. It tells me what to do, but it does not tell me when I have done it, any more than the signboard at the country cross-roads, pointing out the road leading to the city, tells me when I have reached the city.

2. My religious teachers and friends cannot tell me, for they cannot read my heart, nor the mind of God toward me. How can they know when I have in my heart repented and believed, and when His righteous anger is turned away? They can encourage me to repent, believe, obey, and can assure me that, if I do, He will accept me and I shall be saved; but beyond that they cannot go.

3. My own heart, owing to its darkness and deceitfulness and liability to error, is not a safe witness previous to the assurance God Himself gives. If my neighbour is justly offended with me, it is not my own heart, but his testimony that first assures me of his favour once more.

How, then, shall I know that I am justified or wholly sanctified? There is but one way, and that is by the witness of the Holy Spirit. God must notify me, and make me to know it; and this He does when, despairing of my own works of righteousness, I cast my poor soul fully and in faith upon Jesus. Says Paul: ‘ Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God’ (Rom. viii. 15, 16). ‘And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father’ (Gal. iv. 6), Unless He Himself assures me, I shall never know that He accepts me, but must continue in uncertainty all my days.

Come, Holy Ghost, Thyself impress 
On my expanding heart; 
And show that in the Father’s grace 
I share a filial part.

The Founder says: ‘Assurance is produced by the revelation of forgiveness and acceptance made by God Himself directly to the soul. This is the witness of the Spirit. It is God testifying in my soul that He has loved me and given Himself for me, and washed me from my sins in His own Blood. Nothing short of this actual revelation, made by God Himself, can make anyone sure of Salvation.’

John Wesley says: ‘By the testimony of the Spirit, I mean an inward impression of the soul, whereby the Spirit of God immediately and directly witnesses to my spirit that I am a child of God; that Jesus hath loved me, and given Himself for me; that all my sins are blotted out, and I, even I, am reconciled to God.’

This witness of the Spirit addressed to my consciousness enables me to sing with joyful assurance:

My God is reconciled, 
His pardoning voice I hear; 
He owns me for His child, 
I can no longer fear; 
With confidence I now draw nigh 
And Father, Abba Father! cry

When the Holy Spirit witnesses to me that I am saved and adopted into God’s family as His child then other evidences begin to abound also. For instance:

I. My own spirit witnesses that I am a new creature. I know that old things have passed away and all things have become new. My very thoughts and desires have been changed. Love and joy and peace reign within me. My heart no longer condemns me. Pride and selfishness, and lust and temper, no longer control my thoughts nor lead captive my will. I am a new creature’ and I know it, and I infer without doubt that this is the work of God in me.

2. My conscience bears witness that I am honest and true in all my purposes and intentions; that I am without guile; that my eye is single to the glory of God, and that with all simplicity and sincerity of heart I serve Him; and, since by nature I am only sinful, I again infer that this sincerity of heart is His blessed work in my soul and is a fruit of salvation.

3. The Bible becomes a witness to my salvation. In it are accurately portrayed the true characteristics of the children of God; and as I study it prayerfully, and find these characteristics in my heart and life I again infer that I am saved. This is true selfexamination and is most useful.

These evidences are most important to guard us against any mistake as to the witness of the Holy Spirit. The witness of the Spirit is not likely to be mistaken for something else, just as the sun is not likely to be mistaken for a lesser light, a glow-worm or a moon. But one who has not seen the sun might mistake some lesser light for the sun. So an unsaved man may mistake some flash of fancy, some pleasant emotion, for the witness of the Spirit. But if he is honest, the absence of these secondary evidences and witnesses will correct him. He must know that so long as sin masters him, reigns within him, and he is devoid of the tempers, ,races and dispositions of God’s people as portrayed in

the Bible, that he is mistaken in supposing that he has the witness of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit cannot witness to what does not exist. He cannot lie. Not until sin is forgiven does He witness to the fact. Not until we are justified from our old sins and born again does He witness that we are children of God; and when He does so witness, these secondary evidences always follow. Charles Wesley expresses this in one of his matchless hymns:

How can a sinner know 
His sins on earth forgiven? 
How can my gracious Saviour show 
My name inscribed in Heaven? 

We who in Christ believe 
That He for us hath died, 
We all His unknown peace receive, 
And feel His Blood applied. 

His love, surpassing far 
The love of all beneath, 
We find within our hearts, and dare 
The pointless darts of death. 

Stronger than death and Hell 
The mystic power we prove; 
And, conquerors of the world, we dwell
In Heaven, who dwell in love.

The witness of the Spirit is far more comprehensive than many suppose. Multitudes do not believe that there is any such thing, while others confine it to the forgiveness of sins and adoption into the family of God. But the truth is that the Holy Spirit witnesses to much more than this.

He witnesses to the sinner that he is guilty, condemned before God, and lost. This we call conviction; but it is none other than the witness of the Spirit to the sinner’s true condition; and when a man realizes it, nothing can convince him to the contrary. His friends may point out his good works, his kindly disposition, and try to assure him that he is not a bad man; but, so long as the Spirit continues to witness to his guilt, nothing can console him or reassure his quaking heart. This convicting witness may come to a sinner at any time, but it is usually given under the searching preaching of the gospel, or the burning testimony of those who have been gloriously saved and sanctified; or in time of danger, when the soul is awed into silence so that it can hear the ‘still small voice’ of the Holy Spirit.

Again, the Holy Spirit not only witnesses to the forgiveness of sins and acceptance with God, but He also witnesses to sanctification. ‘ For by one offering He (that is, Jesus) hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us’ (Heb. x. 14, 15)

Indeed, one who has this witness can no more doubt it than a man with two good eyes can doubt the existence of the sun when he steps forth into the splendour of a cloudless noonday. It satisfies him, and he cries out exultingly, ‘We know, we know!’ Hallelujah!

Paul seems to teach that the Holy Spirit witnesses to every good thing God works in us, for he says: ‘ We have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God ‘ (I Cor. ii. 12). It is for our comfort and encouragement to know our acceptance of God and our rights, privileges and possessions in Jesus Christ; and the Holy Spirit is given for this purpose, that we may know.

But it is important to bear in mind God’s plan of work in this matter. 
I. The witness of the Spirit is dependent upon our faith. God does not give it to those who do not believe in Jesus; and if our faith wavers, the witness will become intermittent; and if faith fails, it will be withdrawn. Owing to the unsteadiness of their faith, many young converts get into uncertainty. Happy are they at such times if someone is at hand to instruct and encourage them to look steadfastly to Jesus. But, alas! many old Christians through unsteady faith walk in gloom and uncertainty and, instead of encouraging the young, they discourage them. Steadfast faith will keep the inward witness bright.

2. We must not take our attention off Jesus, and the promises of God in Him, and fix it upon the witness of the Spirit. The witness continues only while we look unto Jesus and trust and obey Him. When we take our eyes off Him, the witness is gone. Many people fail here. Instead of quietly and confidently looking unto Jesus and trusting Him, they are vainly looking for the witness; which is as though a man should try to realize the sweetness of honey, without receiving it in his mouth; or the beauty of a picture, while having his eyes turned inward upon himself instead of outward upon the picture. Jesus saves. Look to Him, and He will send the Spirit to witness to His work.

3. The witness may be brightened by diligence in the discharge of duty, by frequent seasons of glad prayer, by definite testimony to salvation and sanctification, and by stirring up our faith.

4. The witness may be dulled by neglect of duty, by sloth in prayer, by inattention to the Bible, by indefinite, hesitating testimony, and by carelessness, when we should be careful to walk soberly and steadfastly with the Lord.

5. I dare not say that the witness of the Spirit is dependent upon our health, but there are some forms of nervous and organic disease that seem so to distract or becloud the mind as to interfere with the clear discernment of the witness of the Spirit. I knew a nervous little child who would be so distracted with fear by an approaching carriage, when being carried across the street in her father’s arms, that she seemed to be incapable of hearing or heeding his reassuring voice. It may be that there are some diseases that for the time prevent the sufferer from discerning the reassuring witness of the heavenly Father. Dr. Asa Mahan told me of an experience of this kind which he had in a very dangerous sickness. And Dr. Daniel Steele had a similar experience while lying at the point of death with typhoid fever. But some of the happiest Christians the world has seen have been racked with pain and tortured with disease.

And so there may be seasons of fierce temptation when the witness is not clearly discerned; but we may rest assured that if our hearts cleave to Jesus Christ and duty, He will never leave or forsake us. Blessed be God!

6. But the witness will be lost if we wilfully sin, or persistently neglect to follow where He leads. This witness is a pearl of great price, and Satan will try to steal it from us; therefore, we must guard it with watchful prayer continually.

7. If lost, it may be found again by prayer and faith and a dutiful taking up of the cross which has been laid down. Thousands who have lost it have found it again, and often they have found it with increased brightness and glory. If you have lost it, my brother, look up in faith to your loving God, and He will restore it to you. It is possible to live on the right side of plain duty without the witness, but you cannot be sure of your salvation, joyful in service, or glad in God, without it; and since it is promised to all God’s children, no one who professes to be His should be without it.

If you have it not, my brother or sister, seek it now by faith in Jesus. Go to Him, and do not let Him go till He notifies you that you are His. Listen to Charles Wesley:

From the world of sin and noise 
And hurry, I withdraw; 
For the small and inward voice 
I wait with humble awe;

Silent am I now and still, 
Dare not in Thy presence move; 
To my waiting soul reveal 
The secret of Thy love.

Do you want the witness to abide? Then study the word of God and live by it; sing and make melody in your heart to the Lord; praise the Lord with your first waking breath in the morning, and thank Him with your last waking breath at night; flee from sin; keep on believing; look to Jesus, cleave to Him, follow Him gladly, trust the efficacy of His Blood, and the witness will abide in your heart. Be patient with the Lord. Let Him mould you, and ‘He will save, He will rejoice over thee with joy; He will rest in His love, He will joy over thee with singing’ (Zeph. iii. 17); and you shall no longer doubt, but know that you are His. Hallelujah!

There are in this loud stunning tide 
Of human care and crime, 
With whom the melodies abide 
Of th’ everlasting chime,

Who carry music in their heart 
Through dusky lane and wrangling mart, 
Plying their task with busier feet 
Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat.

And that ‘ holy strain’ is but the echo of the Lord’s song in their heart, which is the witness of the Spirit.

‘ HAVE YE RECEIVED THE HOLY GHOST SINCE YE BELIEVED?

Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.

A MINISTER of the gospel, after listening to an eminent servant of God preaching on entire sanctification through the baptism with the Spirit, wrote to him, saying: ‘ I like your teaching on the baptism with the Holy Ghost. I need it and am seeking it; but I do not care much for entire sanctification or heart-cleansing. Pray for me that I may be filled with the Holy Ghost.’

The brother knew him well, and immediately replied: ‘I am so glad you believe in the baptism with the Holy Ghost, and are so earnestly seeking it. I join my prayer with yours that you may receive that gift. But let me say to you, that if you get the gift of the Holy Ghost, you will have to take entire sanctification with it, for the first thing the baptism with the Holy Ghost does is to cleanse the heart from all sin.’

Thank God, he humbled himself, permitted the Lord to sanctify him, and he was filled with the Holy Spirit and mightily empowered to work for God.

Many have looked at the promise of power when the Holy Ghost is come, the energy of Peter’s preaching on the day of Pentecost, and the marvellous results which followed; and they have hastily and erroneously jumped to the conclusion that the baptism with the Holy Ghost is for work and service only.

It does bring power-the power of God-and it does fit for service, probably the most important service to which any created beings are commissioned, the proclamation of salvation and the conditions of peace to a lost world; but not that alone, nor primarily. The primary, the basal work of the baptism, is that of cleansing.

You may turn a flood into your millrace, but until it sweeps away the logs and brushwood and dirt that obstruct the course, you cannot get power to turn the wheels of your mill. The flood first washes out the obstructions, and then you have power.

The great hindrance in the hearts of God’s children to the power of the Holy Ghost is inbred sin-that dark, defiant, evil something within that struggles for the mastery of the soul, and will not submit to be meek and lowly, patient, forbearing and holy, as was Jesus; and when the Holy Spirit comes, His first work is to sweep away that something, that carnal principle, and make free and clean all the channels of the soul.

Peter was filled with power on the day of Pentecost; but evidently the purifying effect of the baptism made a deeper and more lasting impression upon his mind than the empowering effect; for years after, in the Council in Jerusalem, recorded in the fifteenth chapter of Acts, he stood up and told about the spiritual baptism of Cornelius, the Roman centurion, and his household, and said: ‘And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as He did unto us; And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith’ (verses 8, 9). Here he calls attention not to power, but to purity, as the effect of the baptism. When the Holy Ghost comes in to abide the old man’ goes out. Praise the Lord!

This destruction of inbred sin is made perfectly plain in that wonderful Old Testament type of the baptism with the Holy Ghost and fire recorded in the sixth chapter of Isaiah. The prophet was a most earnest preacher of righteousness (see Isa. i. I o-2o), yet he was not sanctified wholly. But he had a vision of the Lord upon His throne, and the seraphims crying one to another: ‘ Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory.’ And the very posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried and how much more should the heart of the prophet be moved! And so it was; and he cried out: ‘Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.’

When unsanctified men have a vision of God, it is not their lack of power, but their lack of purity, their unlikeness to Christ, the Holy One, that troubles them. And so it was with the prophet. But he adds: ‘ Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged’ (verses 6, 7). Here again, it is purity rather than power to which our attention is directed.

Again, in the thirty-sixth chapter of Ezekiel, we have another type of this spiritual baptism. In Isaiah the type was that of fire, but here it is that of water; for water and oil, and the wind and rain and dew, are all used as types of the Holy Spirit.

The Lord says, through Ezekiel: ‘Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and ye shall keep My judgments, and do them.’

Here again, the incoming of the Holy Spirit means the outgoing of all sin, of ‘ all your filthiness, and from all your idols’. How plainly it is taught! And yet, many of God’s dear children do not believe it is their privilege to be free from sin and pure in heart in this life. But, may we not? Let us consider this.

I. It is certainly desirable. Every sincere Christian and none can be a Christian who is not sincere-wants to be free from sin, to be pure in heart, to be like Christ. Sin is hateful to every true child of God. The Spirit within him cries out against the sin, the wrong temper, the pride, the lust, the selfishness, the evil that lurks within the heart. Surely, it is desirable to be free from sin. He wills that I should holy be; That holiness I long to feel, That full divine conformity To all my Saviour’s righteous will.

2. It is necessary, for without holiness’ no man shall see the Lord’. Sometime, somehow, somewhere, sin must go out of our hearts-all sin-or we cannot go into Heaven. Sin would spoil Heaven just as it spoils earth; just as it spoils the peace of hearts and homes, of families and neighbourhoods and nations here. Why God in His wisdom allows sin in the world, I do not know, I cannot understand. But this I understand: that He has one world into which He will not let sin enter. He has notified us in advance that no sin, nothing that defiles, can enter Heaven, can mar the blessedness of that holy place. ‘ Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in His holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully ‘ (Ps. xxiv.3, 4). We must get rid of sin to get into Heaven, to enjoy the full favour of God. It is necessary.

Choose I must, and soon must choose 
Holiness, or Heaven lose. 
lf what Heaven loves I hate, 
Shut for me is Heaven’s gate.

Endless sin means endless woe; 
Into endless sin I go 
If my soul, from reason rent, 
Takes from sin its final bent.

As the stream its channel grooves, 
And within that channel moves; 
So does habit’s deepest tide 
Groove its bed and there abide.

Light obeyed increaseth light; 
Light resisted bringeth night; 
Who shall give me will to choose 
If the love of light I lose?

Speed, my soul, this instant yield; 
Let the light its sceptre wield. 
While thy God prolongs His grace, 
Haste thee to His holy face.

3. This purification from sin is promised. Nothing can be plainer than the promise of God on this point. ‘ Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.’ When all is removed, nothing remains. When all filthiness and all idols are taken away, none are left.

‘But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord’ (Rom. V. 2 0, 2 1), Grace reigns, not through sin, but ‘ through righteousness ‘ which has expelled sin. Grace brings in righteousness and sin goes out.

‘ If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin’ (I John i. 7). Hallelujah!

‘Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness ‘ (Rom. vi. 18).

These are sample promises and assurances any one of which is sufficient to encourage us to believe that our heavenly Father will save us from all sin, if we meet His conditions.

4. Deliverance is possible. It was for this that Jesus Christ, the Father’s Son, came into the world, and suffered and died, that He might ‘ save His people from their sins ‘ (Matt. i. 2 1). It was for this that He shed His precious Blood to ‘ cleanse us from all sin’. It was for this that the word of God, with its wonderful promises, was given, ‘ that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust’ (2 Pet- i. 4); by which is meant escape from inbred sin. It was for this that ministers of the gospel-Salvation Army officers-are given, ‘ for the perfecting of the saints ‘ (Eph. iv.12), for the saving and sanctifying of men (Acts xxvi. 18). It is primarily for this that the Holy Ghost comes as a baptism of fire: that sin might be consumed out of us, so that we might be made meet for ‘ the inheritance of the saints in light’ (Col. 1. 12); that so we might be ready without a moment’s warning to go into the midst of the heavenly hosts in white garments, ‘washed in the Blood of the Lamb ‘. Glory be to God for ever and ever!

And shall all these mighty agents and this heavenly provision, and these gracious purposes of God, fail to destroy sin out of any obedient, believing heart? Is sin omnipotent? No!

If you, my brother, my sister, will look unto Jesus just now, trusting the merits of His Blood, and receive the Holy Spirit into your heart, you shall be ‘ made free from sin ‘; it ‘ shall not have dominion over you’. Hallelujah! Under the fiery touch of His holy presence, your iniquity shall be taken away, and your sin shall be purged. And you yourself shall burn as did the bush on the mount of God which Moses saw; yet you, like the bush, shall not be consumed; and by this holy fire, this flame of love, that consumes sin, you shall be made proof against that unquenchable fire that consumes sinners.

Come, Holy Ghost, Thy mighty aid bestowing! 
Destroy the works of sin, the self, the pride; 
Burn, burn in me, my idols overthrowing; 
Prepare my heart for Him, for my Lord crucified.

‘HAVE YE RECEIVED THE HOLY GHOST SINCE YE BELIEVED? ‘

Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.

Just before His ascension, Jesus met His disciples for the last time, and repeated His command that they should ‘ not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father’, and reiterated His promise that they should be ‘ baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence ‘.

Then’ they asked of Him, saying, Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? ‘ They were still eager for an earthly kingdom. But ‘ He said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in His own power’, or authority. And then He added, ‘But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you (Acts I – 4-8).

They wanted power, and He assured them that they should have it, but said nothing of its nature, or the work and activities into which it would thrust them, and for which it would equip them, beyond the fact that they should be witnesses unto Him ‘in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth’. After that the Holy Ghost Himself was henceforth to be their Teacher.

And then Jesus left them. Earth lost its power to hold Him, and while they beheld Him He began to ascend; a cloud bent low from Heaven, receiving Him out of sight, and they were left alone, with His promise of power ringing in their ears, and His command to ‘wait for the promise of the Father ‘ checking any impatience that might lead them to ‘ go a-fishing’, as Peter had done some days before, or cause an undue haste to begin their life-work of witnessing for Him before God’s appointed time.

For ten days they waited, not listlessly, but eagerly, as a maid for her mistress, or a servant for his master, who is expected to come at any moment; they forgot their personal ambitions; they ceased to judge and criticize one another, and in the sweet unity of brotherly love, ‘ with one accord ‘ they rejoiced, they prayed, they waited; and then on the day of Pentecost, at their early morning prayer meeting, when they were all present, the windows of Heaven were opened, and such a blessing as they could not contain was poured out upon them. ‘And suddenly there came a sound from Heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost.’

This was the inaugural day of the Church of God (Acts ii. 2-4); the dawn of the dispensation of the Holy Spirit; the beginning of the days of power.

In the morning of that day there were only a few Christians in the world; the New Testament was not written, and it is doubtful if they had among them all a copy of the Old Testament; they had no church buildings, no colleges, no religious books and papers; they were poor and despised, unlearned and ignorant; but before night they had enrolled three thousand converts, and they had aroused and filled all Jerusalem with questionings and amazement.

What was the secret? Power. What was the secret? God the Holy Ghost. He had come, and this work was His work, and they were His instruments.

When Jesus came, a body was prepared for Him (Heb. x. 5), and through that body He wrought His wondrous works; but when the other Comforter comes, He takes possession of those bodies that are freely and fully presented to Him, and He touches their lips with grace; He shines peacefully and gloriously on their faces; He flashes beams of pity and compassion and heavenly affection from their eyes; He kindles a fire of love in their hearts, and lights the flame of truth in their minds. They become His temple, and their hearts are a holy of holies in which His blessed presence ever abides; and from that central citadel He works, enduing the man who has received Him with power.

If you ask how the Holy Spirit can dwell within us and work through us without destroying our personality, I cannot tell. How can electric impulses fill and transform a dead wire into a live one which you dare not touch? How can a magnetic current fill a piece of steel, and transform it into a mighty force which by its touch can raise tons of iron, as a child would lift a feather? How can fire dwell in a piece of iron until its very appearance is that of fire, and it becomes a firebrand? I cannot tell.

Now, what fire and electricity and magnetism do in iron and steel, the Holy Spirit does in the spirits of men who believe on Jesus, follow Him wholly and trust Him intelligently. He dwells in them and inspires them, till they are all alive with the very life of God.

The transformation wrought in men by the baptism with the Holy Ghost, and the power that fills them, are amazing beyond measure. The Holy Spirit gives:

I. Power over the world. They become Dead to the world and all its toys, Its idle pornp and fading joys.

The world masters and enslaves people who have not the Holy Spirit. To one man it offers money. He falls down and worships; he sells his conscience and character for gold. To another it offers power. He falls down and worships; he sacrifices his principles and Sears his conscience for power. To another it offers pleasure; to another learning; to another fame; they fall down and worship, and sell themselves for these things. But the man filled with the Holy Ghost is free. He can turn from these things without a pang, as he would from pebbles; or, he can take them and use them as his servants for the glory of God and the good of men.

What did Peter and James and John care for the great places in the kingdoms of this world after they were filled with the Holy Ghost.? They would not have exchanged places with Herod the king or with Caesar himself. For the gratification of any personal ambition these things were no more attractive to them now than the lordship over a tribe of ants on their tiny hill. They were now kings and priests unto God, and theirs was an everlasting Kingdom, and its glory exceeds the glory of the kingdoms of this world as the splendour of the sun exceeds that of the glow-worm.

The head of some great business enterprises was making many thousands of dollars every year; but when the Holy Spirit filled him money lost its power over him. He still retained his position, and made vast sums; but, as a steward of the Lord, he poured it into God’s work and has been doing so for more than thirty years.

After Pentecost the disciples in Jerusalem held all their possessions in common, so completely were they freed from the power and love of money.

A rising young lawyer got filled with the Spirit, and the next day said to his client: ‘ I cannot plead your case. I have a retainer from the Lord Jesus ‘; and he became one of the mightiest preachers the world has ever seen.

A popular lad got the fiery baptism, and went to his baseball team and said: ‘Boys, you swear, and I am now a Christian; I cannot play with you any more.’ God made him the wonder of all his old friends, and a happy winner of souls.

A fashionable woman got the baptism, and God gave her power to break away from her worldly set and surroundings, live wholly for Him, and gave her an influence that girdled the globe.

Paul said: ‘ The world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world ‘ (Gal. vi. 14) – Men could whip and stone and imprison his body, and cut off his head, but his soul was free. It was enslaved and driven by no unholy or inordinate ambition, by no lust for gold, by no desire for power or fame, by no fear of man, by no shame of worldly censure or adverse public opinion. He had power over the world; and this same power is the birthright of every converted man, and the present possession of everyone who is wholly sanctified by the baptism with the Holy Ghost.

2. Power over the flesh. The body which God intended for a ‘ house beautiful’ for the soul, and a temple holy unto Himself, is often reduced to a sty, where the imprisoned soul wallows in lusts and passions, and degrades itself below the level of beasts. But this baptism gives a man power over his body.

God has given to man such desires and passions as are necessary to secure his continued existence. Not one is in itself evil, but good and only good; and when controlled and used, but not abused, will help to develop and maintain the purest and highest manhood. The appetites for food and drink are necessary to life. Another desire is intended to secure the continuance of the human race. And so all the desires and appetites of the body have useful ends, and were given to us in love by our heavenly Father for high and essential purposes, and are necessary to us as human beings.

But the soul, cut off from fellowship with God by sin, seeks satisfaction in sensual excesses and the unlawful gratification of these appetites, and so sinks to depths of degradation to which no beast ever falls. Thus man becomes a slave; swollen and raging passion takes the place of innocent appetites and desires.

Now, when the Holy Spirit enters the heart and sanctifies the soul, He does not destroy these desires, but purifies and regulates them. He reinforces the soul with the fear and love of God, and gives it power, complete power, over the fleshly appetites. He restores it to its full fellowship with God and its kingship over the body.

But while these appetites and desires are not in themselves sinful, but are necessary for our welfare and our complete manhood, and while their diseased and abnormal power is cured when we are sanctified, they are still avenues through which we may be tempted. Therefore, they must be guarded with care and ruled in wisdom. Many people stumble at and reject the doctrine of entire sanctification because they do not understand these things. They mistake that which is natural and essential to a human being, for the diseased and abnormal propensity caused by sin, and so miss the blessed truth of full salvation.

I knew a doctor, who had used tobacco for over sixty years, delivered from the abnormal appetite instantly through sanctification of the Spirit. I knew an old man, who had been a drunkard for over fifty years, similarly delivered. I knew a young man, the slave of a vicious habit of the flesh, who was set free at once by the fiery baptism. The electric current cannot transform the dead wire into a live one quicker than the Holy Spirit can flood a soul with light and love, destroy the carnal mind, and fill a man with power over all sin.

3. Power over the devil. The indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit destroys all doubt as to the personality of the devil. He is discerned, and his malice is felt and known as never before.

In the dark a man may be so skilfully attacked that his enemy is not discovered, but not in the day. Many people in these days deny that there is any devil, only evil; but they are in the dark, so much in the dark that they not only say that there is no devil, but that there is no personal God, only good. But the day comes with the Holy Spirit’s entrance, and then God is intimately known and the devil is discovered. And as he assailed Jesus after His baptism with the Spirit, so he does today all who receive the Holy Ghost. He comes as an angel of light to deceive, and as a roaring lion to devour and overcome with fear; but the soul filled with the Spirit outwits the devil and, clad in the whole armour of God, overcomes the old enemy.

Power ‘ over all the power of the enemy ‘ (Luke x. 19) is God’s purpose for all His children. Power to do the will of God patiently and effectively, with naturalness and ease, or to suffer the will of God with patience and good cheer, comes with this blessed baptism. It is power for service or sacrifice, according to God’s will. Have you this power? If not,it is for you. Yield yourself fully to Christ just now, and if you ask in faith you shall receive.

‘HAVE YE RECEIVED THE HOLY GHOST SINCE YE BELIEVED? ‘

Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.’

THOSE who have not the Holy Spirit, or who do not heed Him, fall easily and naturally into formalism, substituting lifeless ceremonies, sacraments, genuflections and ritualistic performances for the free, glad, living worship inspired by the indwelling Spirit. They sing, but not from the heart. They say their prayers, but they do not really pray. ‘ I prayed last night, mother,’ said a child. ‘Why, my child, you pray every night!’ replied the mother. ‘ No,’ said the child, ‘ I only said prayers, but last night I really prayed.’ And his face shone. He had opened his heart to the Holy Spirit, and had at last really talked with God and worshipped.

But those who receive the Holy Spirit may fall into fanaticism, unless they follow the command of John to try the spirits whether they are of God ‘ (I John iv. I).

We are commanded to ‘ despise not prophesyings but at the same time we are commanded to ‘ prove all things ‘ (I Thess. v. 2o, 21). ‘ Many false prophets are gone out into the world ‘ (I John iv. I) and, if possible, will lead us astray. So we must beware. As someone has written, we must ‘ believe not every spirit; regard not, trust not, follow not, every pretender to the Spirit of God, or every professor of vision, or inspiration or revelation from God’.

The higher and more intense the life, the more carefully must it be guarded, lest it be endangered and go astray. It is so in the natural world, and likewise in the spiritual world.

When Satan can no longer rock people to sleep with religious lullabies, or satisfy them with the lifeless form, then he comes as an angel of light, probably in the person of some professor or teacher of religion, and seeks to usurp the place of the Holy Spirit; but instead of leading ‘into all truth’, he leads the unwary soul into deadly error; instead of directing him on to the highway of holiness, and into the path of perfect peace, where no ravenous beast ever comes, he leads him into a wilderness where the soul, stripped of its beautiful garments of salvation, is robbed and wounded and left to die, if some good Samaritan, with patient pity and Christlike love, come not that way.

I. When the Holy Spirit comes in His fullness, He strips men of their self-righteousness and pride and conceit. They see themselves as the chief of sinners, and realize that only through the stripes of Jesus are they healed; and ever after, as they live in the Spirit, their boast is in Him and their glory is in the Cross. Remembering the hole of the pit from which they were digged, they are filled with tender pity for all who are out of the way; yet, while they do not excuse or belittle sin, they are slow to believe evil, and their judgments are full of charity.

Judge not; the workings of his brain 
And of his heart thou canst not see; 
What looks to thy dim eyes a stain, 
In God’s pure light may only be 
A sear, brought from some well-won field, 
Where thou wouldst only faint and yield.

But the man who has been thus snared by Satan forgets his own past miserable state, boasts of his righteousness and thanks God that he was never as other men; he begins to beat his fellow-servants with heavy denunciations, thrust them through with sharp criticisms, and pelt them with hard words. He ceases to pity and begins to condemn; he no longer warns and entreats men in tender love, but is quick to believe evil, and swift to pass judgment, not only upon their actions, but upon their motives as well.

True charity has no fellowship with deeds of darkness. It never calls evil good, it does not wink at iniquity, but it is as far removed from this sharp, condemning spirit as light is from darkness, as honey is from vinegar. It is quick to condemn sin, but is full of saving, longsuffering compassion for the sinner.

2. A humble, teachable mind marks those in whom the Holy Spirit dwells. They esteem very highly in love those who are over them in the Lord, and are glad to be admonished by them. They submit themselves one to the other in the fear of the Lord, welcome instruction and correction, and esteem open rebuke better than secret love (Prov. xxvii. 5). They believe that the Lord has yet many things to say unto them, and they are willing and glad for Him to say them by whom He will, but especially by their leaders and their brethren. While they do not fawn and cringe before men, nor believe everything that is said to them, without proving it by the word and Spirit of God, they believe that God ‘gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ’ (Eph. iv. 11, 12); and, like Cornelius, they are ready to hear these appointed ministers, and receive the word of -the Lord from them.

But Satan seeks to destroy all this lowliness of spirit and humbleness of mind. One in whom his deadly work has begun is ‘wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason’ (Prov. xxvi. 16). He is wiser than all his teachers, and no man can instruct him. One of these deluded souls, who had previously been marked by modesty and humility, declared of certain of God’s chosen leaders whose spiritual knowledge and wisdom were everywhere recognized, that ‘ the whole of them knew no more about the Holy Ghost than an old goose’. Paul, Luther and Wesley were much troubled, and their work greatly hurt, by some of these misguided souls, and every great spiritual awakening is likely to be marred more or less by such people; so that we cannot be too much on our guard against false spirits who would counterfeit the work and leadings of the Holy Spirit.

It is this huge conceit that has led some men to announce themselves as apostles and prophets to whom all men must listen, or fall under the wrath of God; while others have declared that they were living in resurrection bodies and should not die; and yet others have reached that pitch of fanaticism where they could calmly proclaim themselves to be the Messiah, or the Holy Ghost in bodily form. Such people will be quick to deny the infallibility of the Pope, while they assume their own infallibility and denounce all who dispute it.

The Holy Spirit may lead to a holy rivalry in love and humility and brotherly kindness and self-denial and good works, but He never leads men into the swelling conceit of such exclusive knowledge and superior wisdom that they can no longer be taught by their fellowmen.

3. Again, the man who is filled with the Spirit tolerates those who differ from him in opinion, in doctrine. He is firm in his own convictions, and ready at all times with meekness and fear to explain and defend the doctrines which he holds and is convinced are according to God’s word, but he does not condemn and consign to damnation all those who differ from him. He is glad to believe that men are often better than their creed and may be saved in spite of it; that, like mountains whose bases are bathed with sunshine and clothed with fruitful fields and vineyards, while their tops are covered with dark clouds, so men’s hearts are often fruitful in the graces of charity, while their heads are yet darkened by doctrinal error.

Anyway, as ‘ the servant of the Lord’, he will ‘ not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil’ (2 Tim. ii. 24-26).

But when Satan comes as an angel of light he will, under guise of love for and loyalty to the truth, introduce the spirit of intolerance. It was this spirit that crucified Jesus; that burned Huss and Cranmer at the stake; that hanged Savonarola; that inspired the massacre of Bartholomew and the horrors of the Inquisition; and it is the same spirit, in a milder but possibly more subtle form, that blinds the eyes of many professing Christians to any good in those who differ from them in doctrine, forms of worship or methods of government. They murder love to protect what they often blindly call truth. What is truth without love? A dead thing, an encumbrance, the letter that killeth!

The body is necessary to our life in this world, but life can exist in a deformed and even mutilated body; and such a body with life in it is better than the most perfect body that is only a corpse. So, while truth is most precious, and sound doctrine to be esteemed more than silver and gold, love can exist where truth is not held in its most perfect and complete forms, and love is the one thing needful.

For the love of God is broader 
Than the measure of man’s mind; 
And the heart of the Eternal 
Is most wonderfully kind.

4. The Holy Ghost begets a spirit of unity among Christians. People who have been sitting behind their sectarian fences in self-complacent ease, or proud indifference, or proselytizing zeal, or grim defiance, are suddenly lifted above the fence, and find sweet fellowship with each other, when He comes into their hearts.

They delight in each other’s society; they each esteem others better than themselves, and in honour they prefer one another before themselves. They fulfil the Psalmist’s ideal: ‘Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! ‘ (cxxxiii. I). Here is a picture of the unity of Christians in the beginning in Jerusalem: ‘And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness. And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common’ (Acts iv. 31, 32). What an ideal is this! And since it has been attained once, it can be attained again and retained, but only by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. It was for this that Jesus poured out His heart in His great intercessory prayer, recorded in john xvii., just before His arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane. He says, ‘ I pray for them. . . . Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their word; That they all may be one.’ And what was the standard of unity to which He would have us come? Listen!

‘As Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us: that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me.’ Such unity has a wondrous power to compel the belief of worldly men. ‘And the glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them; that they may be one, even as We are one: I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me’ (verses 9, 20-23). Wondrous unity! Wondrous love!

It is for this His blessed heart eternally yearns, and it is for this that the Holy Spirit works in the hearts of those who receive Him. But Satan ever seeks to destroy this holy love and divine unity. When he comes, he arouses suspicions, he stirs up strife, he quenches the spirit of intercessory prayer, he engenders backbitings and causes separations.

After enumerating various Christian graces, and urging the Colossians to put them on, Paul adds: ‘And above all these things put on charity (or love), which is the bond of perfectness’ (Col. iii. 14) – These graces were garments, and love was the girdle which bound and held them together; and so love is the bond that holds true Christians together.

Divine love is the great test by which we are to try ourselves and all teachers and spirits.

Love is not puffed up. Love is not bigoted. Love is not intolerant. Love is not schismatic. Love is loyal to Jesus and to all His people. If we have this love shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, we shall discern the voice of our Good Shepherd, and we shall not be deceived by the voice of the stranger; and so we shall be saved from both formalism and fanaticism.

‘HAVE YE RECEIVED THE HOLY GHOST SINCE YE BELIEVED? ‘

Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.’

It is the work of the Holy Spirit to guide the people of God through the uncertainties and dangers and duties of this life to their home in Heaven. When He led the children of Israel out of Egypt, by the hand of Moses, He guided them through the waste, mountainous wilderness, in a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, thus assuring their comfort and safety. And this was but a type of His perpetual spiritual guidance of His people.

‘But how may I certainly know what God wants of me? ‘ is sure to become the earnest and, oftentimes, the agonizing cry of every humble and devoutly zealous young Christian. ‘How may I know the guidance of the Holy Spirit? ‘ is asked again and again.

1. It is well for us to get it fixed in our minds that we need to be guided always by Him. A ship was wrecked on a rocky coast far out of the course that the captain thought he was taking. On examination, it was found that the compass had been slightly deflected by a bit of metal that had lodged in the box.

But the voyage of life on which we each one sail is beset by as many dangers as the ship at sea; and how shall we surely steer our course to our heavenly harbour without divine guidance? There is a wellnigh infinite number of influences to deflect us from the safe and certain course. We start out in the morning, and we know not what person we may meet, what paragraph we may read, what word may be spoken, what letter we may receive, what subtle temptation may assail or allure us, what immediate decisions we may have to make during the day, that may turn us almost imperceptibly, but none the less surely, from the right way. We need the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

2. We not only need divine guidance, but we may have it. God’s word assures us of this. Oh! how my heart was comforted and assured one morning by these words: ‘And the Lord shall guide thee continually’ (Isa. Iviii. I I). Not occasionally, not spasmodically, but ‘ continually ‘. Hallelujah! The Psalmist says: ‘This God is our God for ever and ever: He will be our guide even unto death’ (xlviii. 14)- Jesus said of the Holy Spirit: ‘ Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth’ (John xvi. 13). And Paul wrote: ‘As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God’ (Rom. viii. 14)

These Scriptures establish the fact that the children of God may be guided always by the Spirit of God.

Guide me, 0 Thou great Jehovah, 
Pilgrim through this barren land; 
I am weak, but Thou art mighty; 
Hold me with Thy powerful hand.

3. How does God guide us?

(a) Paul says, ‘We walk by faith, not by sight’ (2 Cor. v. 7) and, ‘The just shall live by faith’ (Rom. i. 17). So we may conclude that the guidance of the Holy Spirit is such as still to demand the exercise of faith. God never leads us in such a way as to do away with the necessity of faith . When God warned Noah, we read that it was by faith that Noah was led to build the ark. When God told Abraham to go to a land which He would show him, it was by faith that Abraham went (Heb. xi, 7, 8). If we believe , we shall surely be guided; but if we do not believe, we shall be left to ourselves. Without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb. xi. 6), or to follow where He leads.

(b) The Psalmist says, ‘The meek will He guide in judgment’

(xxv. 9). From this we gather that the Spirit guides us in such manner as to demand the exercise of our best judgment. He enlightens our understanding and directs our judgment by sound reason and sense.

I knew a man who was eager to obey God and to be led by the Spirit, but who had the mistaken idea that the Holy Spirit sets aside human judgment and common sense, and speaks directly upon the most minute and commonplace matters. He wanted the Holy Spirit to direct him just how much to eat at each meal; and he has been known to take food out of his mouth at what he supposed to be the Holy Spirit’s notification that he had eaten enough, and that if he swallowed that mouthful it would be in violation of the leadings of the Spirit.

No doubt the Spirit will help an honest man to arrive at a safe judgment even in matters of this kind, but it will doubtless be through the use of his sanctified common sense. Otherwise, he is reduced to a state of mental infancy and kept in intellectual swaddling clothes. He will guide us in judgment; but it is only as we resolutely, and in the best light we have, exercise judgment.

(c) John Wesley said that God usually guided him by presenting reasons to his mind for any given course of action.

The Psalmist says, ‘Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel’ (Ixxiii. 24) and ‘ I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go’ (xxxii. 8). Now, counsel, instruction and teaching not only imply effort upon the part of the teacher, but also study and close attention on the part of the one being taught. Thus this guidance of the Holy Spirit will require us to listen attentively, study diligently and learn patiently the lessons He would teach us; and we see that the Holy Spirit does not set aside our powers and faculties, but seeks to awaken and stir them into full activity, and develop them into well-rounded perfection, thus making them channels through which He can intelligently influence and direct us.

What he seeks to do is to illuminate our whole spiritual being, as the sun illuminates our physical being, and bring us into such union and sympathy, such oneness of thought, desire, affection and purpose with God, that we shall, by a kind of spiritual instinct, know at all times the mind of God concerning us, and never be in doubt about His will.

4. The Holy Spirit guides us:

(a) By opening up to our minds the deep, sanctifying truths of the Bible, and especially by revealing to us the character and spirit of Jesus and His apostles, and leading us to follow in their footsteps-the footsteps of their faith and love and unselfish devotion to God and man, even unto the laying down of their lives.

(b) By the circumstances and surroundings of our daily life.

(c) By the counsel of others, especially of devout and wise and experienced men and women of God.

(d) By deep inward conviction, which increases as we wait upon Him in prayer and readiness to obey. It is by this sovereign conviction that men are called to preach, to go to foreign fields as missionaries, to devote their time, talents, money and lives to God’s work for the bodies and souls of men.

5. Why do people seek for guidance and not find it?

(a) Because they do not diligently study God’s word and seek to be filled with its truths and principles. They neglect the cultivation of their minds and hearts in the school of Christ, and so miss divine guidance. One of the mightiest men of God now living used to carry his Bible with him into the coal mine when only a boy, and spent his spare time filling his mind and heart with its heavenly truths, and so prepared himself to be divinely led in mighty labours for God.

(b) They do not humbly accept the daily providences, the circumstances and conditions of their everyday life as a part of God’s present plan for them; as His school in which He would train them for greater things; as His vineyard in which He would have them diligently labour.

A young woman imagined she was called to devote herself entirely to saving souls; but under the searching training through which she had to pass saw her selfishness, and she said she would have to return home and live a holy life there, and seek to get her family saved something which she had utterly neglected-before she could go into the work. If we are not faithful at home, or in the shop, or mill, or store where we work, we shall miss God’s way for us.

(c) Because they are not teachable, and are unwilling to receive instruction from other Christians. They are not humble-minded.

(d) Because they do not wait on God and listen and heed the inner leadings of the Holy Spirit. They are self-willed; they want their own way. Someone has said, ‘That which is often asked of God is not so much His will and way, as His approval of our way.’ And another has said, ‘ God’s guidance is plain, when we are true.’ If we promptly and gladly obey we shall not miss the way. Paul said of himself, ‘I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision’ (Acts xxvi. 19). He obeyed God at all costs, and so the Holy Spirit could guide him.

(e) Because of fear and unbelief. It was this fearfulness of unbelief that caused the Israelites to turn back and not go into Canaan, when Caleb and Joshua assured them that God would help them to possess the land. They lost sight of God and feared the giants and walled cities, and so missed God’s way for them and perished in the wilderness.

(f) Because they do not take everything promptly and confidently to God in prayer.

Paul tells us to be ‘instant in prayer’ (Rom. xii, 12) and I am persuaded that it is slowness and delay to pray, and sloth and sleepiness in prayer, that rob God’s children of the glad assurance of His guidance in all things.

(g) Because of impatience and haste. Some of God’s plans for us unfold slowly; and we must patiently and calmly wait on Him in faith and faithfulness, assured that in due time He will make plain His way for us, if our faith fail not. It is never God’s will that we should get into a headlong hurry; but that, with patient steadfastness, we should learn to stand still when the pillar of cloud and fire does not move, and that with loving confidence and glad promptness we should strike our tents and march forward when He leads.

When we cannot see our way, 
Let us trust and still obey; 
He who bids us forward go, 
Cannot fail the way to show.

Though the sea be deep and wide, 
Though a passage seem denied, 
Fearless let us still proceed, 
Since the Lord vouchsafes to lead.

Finally, we may rest assured that the Holy Spirit never leads His people to do anything that is wrong, or that is contrary to the will of God as revealed in the Bible. He never leads anyone to be impolite and discourteous. ‘Be courteous’ (I Pet. iii. 8) is a divine command. He would have us respect the minor graces of gentle, kindly manners, as well as the great laws of holiness and righteousness.

He may sometimes lead us in ways that are hard for flesh and blood, and that bring to us sorrow and loss in this life. He led Jesus into the wilderness to be sore tried by the devil, and to Pilate’s judgment hall, and to the Cross. He led Paul in ways that meant imprisonment, stonings, whippings, hunger and cold, and bitter persecution and death. But He upheld Paul until he cried out, ‘Most gladly . . . will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake’ (2 Cor. xii. 9, 10). Hallelujah! Oh, to be thus led by our heavenly Guide!

He leadeth me! 0 blessed thought! 
0 words with heavenly comfort fraught’ 
Whate’er I do, where’er I be, 
Still ’tis God’s hand that leadeth me.

Sometimes ‘mid scenes of deepest gloom, 
Sometimes where Eden’s bowers bloom, 
By waters still, o’er troubled sea, 
Still ’tis His hand that leadeth me.

Lord, I would clasp Thy hand in mine, 
Nor ever murmur or repine, 
Content, whatever lot I see, 
Since ’tis my God that leadeth me.

And when my task on earth is done, 
When by Thy grace the victory’s won, 
E’en death’s cold wave I will not flee, 
Since God through Jordan leadeth me.

HAVE YE RECEIVED THE HOLY GHOST SINCE YE BELIEVED ? ‘

Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.’

I KNOW a man whose daily prayer for years was that he might be meek and lowly in heart as was his Master. ‘Take My yoke upon you, and learn Of Me,’ said Jesus; ‘for I am meek and lowly in heart’ (Matt. xi. 29).

How lowly Jesus was! He was the Lord of life and glory. He made the worlds and upholds them by His word of power (John i., Heb. i.). But He humbled Himself and became man, and was born of the Virgin in a manger among the cattle. He lived among the common people and worked at the carpenter’s bench. And then, anointed with the Holy Spirit, He went about doing good, preaching the gospel to the poor, and ministering to the manifold needs of the sick and sinful and sorrowing. He touched the lepers; He was the Friend of publicans and sinners. His whole life was a ministry of mercy to those who most needed Him. He humbled Himself to our low estate. He was a King who came ‘lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass’ (Zech. ix. 9). He was a King, but His crown was of thorns, and a Cross was His throne.

What a picture Paul gives us of the mind and heart of Jesus! He exhorts the Philippians, saying, ‘ Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves ‘; and then he adds, ‘ Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross’ (Phil. ii. 3-8)

Now, when the Holy Spirit finds His way into the heart of a man, the Spirit of jesus has come to that man, and leads him to the same meekness of heart and lowly service that were seen in the Master.

Ambition for place and power and money and fame vanishes, and in its place is a consuming desire to be good and do good, to accomplish in full the blessed, the beneficent will of God.

Some time ago I met a woman who, as a trained nurse in Paris, nursing rich, English-speaking foreigners, received pay that in a few years would have made her independently wealthy; but the spirit of Jesus came into her heart, and she is now nursing the poor, giving her life to them, and doing for them service the most loathsome and exacting, and doing it with a smiling face, for her food and clothes.

Some able men in one of our largest American cities lost their spiritual balance, cut themselves loose from all other Christians, and made for a time quite a religious stir among many good people. They were very clear and powerful in their presentation of certain phases of truth, but they were also very strong, if not bitter, in their denunciations of all existing religious organizations. They attacked the churches and The Salvation Army, pointing out what they considered wrong so skilfully and with such professions of sanctity, that many people were made most dissatisfied with the churches and with the Army.

An Army Captain listened to them, and was greatly moved by their fervour, their burning appeals, their religious ecstasy, and their denunciations of the lukewarmness of other Christians, including the Army. She began to wonder if after all they were not right, and whether or not the Holy Spirit was amongst us. Her heart was full of distress, and she cried to God. And then the vision of our slum (now Goodwill) officers rose before her eyes. She saw their devotion, their sacrifice, their lowly, hidden service, year after year, among the poor and ignorant and vicious, and she said to herself, ‘ Is not this the Spirit of Jesus? Would these men, who denounce us so, be willing to forgo their religious ecstasies and spend their lives in such lowly, unheralded service? ‘ And the mists that had begun to blind her eyes were swept away, and she saw Jesus still amongst us going about doing good in the person of our slum officers and of all who for His name’s sake sacrifice their time and money and strength to bless and save their fellow-men.

You who have visions of glory and rapturous delight, and so count yourselves filled with the Spirit, do these visions lead you to virtue and to lowly, loving service? If not, take heed to yourselves, lest, exalted like Capernaum to Heaven, you are at last cast down to Hell. Thank God for the mounts of transfiguration where we behold His glory! But down below in the valley are children possessed of devils; and to them He would have us go with the glory of the mount on our faces, and lowly love and vigorous faith on our hearts, and clean hands ready for any service. He would have us give ourselves to them; and if we love Him, if we follow Him, if we are truly filled with the Holy Spirit, we will.

A Captain used to slip out of bed early in the morning to pray, and then black his own and his Lieutenant’s boots. God mightily blessed him. Recently I saw him, now a Commissioner, with thousands of officers and soldiers under his command, at an outing in the woods by the lake shore, looking after poor and forgotten soldiers, and giving them food with his own hand. Like the Lord, his eyes seemed to be in every place beholding opportunities to do good, and his feet and hands always followed his eyes; and this is the fruit of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

‘HAVE YE RECEIVED THE HOLY GHOST SINCE YE BELIEVED?

Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.’

ARE you ever cast down and depressed in spirit? Listen to Paul: ‘ Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost’ (Rom. xv. 13) . What cheer is in those words! They ring like the shout of a triumph.

God Himself is ‘the God of hope’. There is no gloom, no depression, no wasting sickness of deferred hope in Him. He is a brimming fountain and ocean of hope eternally, and He is our God. He is our hope.

Out of His infinite fullness He is to fill us; not half fill us, but fill us with joy, ‘ all joy’, hallelujah! ‘ and peace ‘.

And this is not by some condition or means that is so high and difficult that we cannot perform our part, but it is simply ‘in believing ‘-something which the little child or the aged philosopher, the poor man and the rich man, the ignorant and the learned can do. And the result will be abounding ‘ hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost’.

And what power is that? If it is physical power, then the power of a million Niagaras and flowing oceans and rushing worlds is as nothing compared to it. If it is mental power, then the power of Plato and Bacon and Milton and Shakespeare and Newton is as the light of a fire-fly to the sun when compared to it. If it is spiritual power, then there is nothing with which it can be compared. But suppose it is all three in one, infinite and eternal! This is the power, throbbing with love and mercy, to which we are to bring our little hearts by living faith; and God will fill us with joy and peace and hope by the incoming of the Holy Spirit.

God’s people are a hopeful people. They hope in God, with whom there is no change, no weakness, no decay. In the darkest night and the fiercest storm they still hope in Him, though it may be feebly. But He would have His people ‘ abound in hope ‘ so that they should always be buoyant, triumphant.

But how can this be in a world such as this? We are surrounded by awful, mysterious and merciless forces that at any moment may overwhelm us. The fire may burn us, the water may drown us, the hurricane may sweep us away, friends may desert us, foes may master us. There is the depression that comes from failing health, from poverty, from overwork and sleepless nights and constant care, from thwarted plans, disappointed ambitions, slighted love and base ingratitude. Old age comes on with its grey hairs, failing strength, dimness of sight, dullness of hearing, tottering step, shortness of breath and general weakness and decay. The friends of youth die, and a new, strange, pushing generation that knows not the old man, comes elbowing him aside and taking his place. Under some blessed outpouring of the Spirit the work of God revives, vile sinners are saved, Zion puts on her beautiful garments, reforms of all kind advance, the desert blossoms as the rose, the waste place becomes a fruitful field, and the millennium seems just at hand. Then the spiritual tide recedes, the forces of evil are emboldened, they mass themselves and again sweep over the heritage of the Lord, leaving it waste and desolate; and the battle must be fought over again.

How can one be always hopeful, always abounding in hope, in such a world? Well, hallelujah! it is possible ‘through the power of the Holy Ghost’, but only through His power; and this power will not fail so long as we fix our eyes on eternal things and believe.

The Holy Spirit, dwelling within, turns our eyes from that which is temporal to that which is eternal; from the trial itself to God’s purpose in the trial; from the present pain to the precious promise.

I am now writing in a little city made rich by vast potteries. If the dull, heavy clay on the potter’s wheel and in the fiery oven could think and speak, it would doubtless cry out against the fierce agony; but if it could foresee the purpose of the potter and the thing of use and beauty he meant to make it, it would nestle low under his hand and rejoice in hope.

We are clay in the hand of the divine Potter, but we can think and speak, and in some measure understand His high purpose in us. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to make us understand. And if we will not be dull and senseless and unbelieving, He will illuminate us and fill us with peaceful, joyous hope.

I. He would reveal to us that our heavenly Potter has Himself been on the wheel and in the fiery furnace, learning obedience and being fashioned into ‘ the Captain of our salvation’ by the things which He suffered. When we are tempted and tried, and tempest tossed, He raises our hope by showing us Jesus suffering and sympathizing with us, tempted in all points as we are, and so able and wise and willing to help us in our struggle and conflict (Heb. ii. 9-18). He assures us that Jesus, into whose hands is committed all power in Heaven and earth, is our elder Brother, ‘ touched with the feeling of our infirmities’ (Heb. iv. 15), and He encourages us to rest in Him and not be afraid; and so we abound in hope through His power, as we believe.

2. He reveals to us the eternal purpose of God in our trials and difficulties. Listen to Paul: ‘All things work together for good to them that love God.’ ‘ We know,’ says Paul (Rom.viii: 28). But how can this be? Ah! there is where faith must be exercised. It is ‘in believing’ that we ‘abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost’ (Rom. xv. 13).

God’s wisdom and ability to make all things work together for our good are not to be measured by our understanding, but to be firmly held by our faith. My child is in serious difficulty and does not know how to help himself; but I say, ‘ Leave it to me. He may not understand how I am to help him, but he trusts me and rejoices in hope. We are God’s dear children, and He knows how to help us and make all things work together for our good, if we will only commit ourselves to Him in faith.

Thou art as much His care as if beside 
Nor man nor angel lived in Heaven or earth; 
Thus sunbeams pour alike their glorious tide 
To light up worlds, or wake an insect’s mirth.

Again, when afflictions overtake us, the Holy Spirit encourages our hope and makes it to abound by many promises. ‘ Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal’ (2 Cor. iv. 17, 18). But such a promise as that only mocks us if we do not believe. ‘ In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the angel of His presence saved them: in His love and in His pity He redeemed them; and He bare them, and carried them all the days of old’ (Isa. 1xiii. 9). And He is just the same today. To some He says: ‘ I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction’ (Isa. xlviii. 10) and, nestling down into His will and ‘ believing’, they abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost ‘.

He turns our eyes back upon job in his loss and pain; upon Joseph sold into Egyptian slavery; Daniel in the lions’ den; the three Hebrews in the burning fiery furnace, and Paul in prison and shipwreck and manifold perils; and, showing us their steadfastness and their final triumph, He prompts us to hope in God.

When weakness of body overtakes us, He encourages us with such assurances as these: ‘ My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever’ (Ps. lxxiii. 26); and the words of Paul, ‘Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day’ (2 Cor. iv. 16).

When old age comes creeping on apace, we can rely on His promise to meet the need, that our hope fail not. The Psalmist prays: ‘ Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength faileth. . . . Now also when I am old and greyheaded, 0 God, forsake me not; until I have shewed Thy strength unto this generation, and Thy power to every one that is to come’ (Ps. lxxi. 9, 18). And in Isaiah the Lord replies: ‘ Even to your old age I am He; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you’ (Isa. xlvi. 4). And the Psalmist cries out: ‘ The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing; To shew that the Lord is upright’ (Ps. xcii. 12-15)

These are sample promises of which the Bible is full, and which have been adapted by infinite wisdom and love to meet us at every point of doubt and fear and need, that, in believing them, we may have a steadfast and glad hope in God. He is pledged to help us. He says: ‘ Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of My righteousness’ (Isa. xli. 10).

When all God’s waves and billows swept the Psalmist, and his soul was bowed within him, he cried out: ‘Why art thou cast down, 0 my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance’ (Ps. xlii. 5). And Jeremiah, remembering the wormwood and the gall, and the deep mire of the dungeon into which they had plunged him, and from which he had scarcely been delivered, said: ‘ It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord’ (Lam. iii. 26).

When the Holy Spirit is come, He brings to remembrance these precious promises and makes them living words; and, if we believe, the whole heaven of our soul shall be lighted up with abounding hope. Hallelujah! It is only through ignorance of God’s promises, or through weak and wavering faith, that hope is dimmed. Oh, that we may heed the still small voice of the heavenly Comforter, and steadfastly, joyously believe!

My hope is built on nothing less 
Than Jesus’ Blood and righteousness … 
When all around my soul gives way, 
He then is all my hope and stay.

‘HAVE YE RECEIVED THE HOLY GHOST SINCE YE BELIEVED? ‘

Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.’

THE other day I heard a man of God say, ‘ We cannot bridle the tongues of the people among whom we live: they will talk’; and by talk he meant gossip and criticism and fault-finding.

You never can tell when you send a word 
Like an arrow shot from a bow 
By an archer blind-be it cruel or kind, 
Just where it will chance to go.

It may pierce the breast of your dearest friend, 
Tipped with its poison or balm; 
To a stranger’s heart in life’s great mart 
It may carry its pain or its calm.

The wise mother, when she finds her little boy playing with a sharp knife, or the looking-glass, or some dainty dish, does not snatch it away with a slap on his cheek or harsh words, but quietly and gently substitutes a safer and more interesting toy, and so avoids a storm.

A sensible father who finds his boy reading a book of dangerous tendency, will kindly point out its character and substitute a better book that is equally interesting.

When children want to spend their evenings on the street, thoughtful and intelligent parents will seek to make their evenings at home more healthfully attractive.

When a man seeks to rid his mind of evil and hurtful thoughts, he will find it wise to follow Paul’s exhortation to the Philippians: ‘ Brethren, whatsoever things are true . . . honest . . . just . . . pure . . . lovely . . . of good report . . . if there be any praise, think on these things ‘ (Phil. iv. 8).

Any man who faithfully, patiently and persistently accepts this programme of Paul’s, will find his evil thoughts vanishing away.

And this is the Holy Spirit’s method. He has a pleasant and safe substitute for gossip and fault-finding and slander.

Here it is: ‘ Be filled with the Spirit; Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ’ (Eph. v. 18-20). This is certainly a fruit of being filled with the Spirit.

Many years ago the Lord gave me a blessed revival in a little village in which nearly every soul in the place, as well as farmers from the surrounding country, were converted. One result was that they now had no time for gossip and doubtful talk about their neighbours. They were all talking about religion and rejoicing in the things of the Lord. If they met each other on the street, or in some shop or store, they praised the Lord, and encouraged each other to press on in the heavenly way. If they met a sinner, they tenderly besought him to be reconciled to God, to give up his sins, ‘ flee from the wrath to come ‘, and start at once for Heaven. If they met in each other’s houses, they gathered around the organ or the piano and sang hymns and songs, and did not part till they had united in prayer.

There was no criticizing of their neighbours, no grumbling and complaining about the weather, no fault-finding with their lot in life, or their daily surroundings and circumstances. Their conversation was joyous, ,cheerful, and helpful to one another. Nor was it forced and out of place, but rather it was the natural, spontaneous outflow of loving, humble, glad hearts filled with the Spirit, in union with Jesus, and in love and sympathy with their fellow-men.

And this is, I think, our heavenly Father’s ideal of social and spiritual intercourse for His children on earth. He would not have us separate ourselves from each other and shut ourselves up in convents and monasteries in austere asceticism on the one hand, nor would He have us light and foolish, or faultfinding and censorious on the other hand, but sociable, cheerful, and full of tender, considerate love.

On the day of Pentecost, when they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and a multitude were converted, we read that ‘ they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, Praising God, and having favour with all the people’ (Acts ii. 46,47). This is a sample of the brotherly love and unity which our heavenly Father would have throughout the whole earth; but how the breath of gossip and evil-speaking would have marred this heavenly fellowship and separated these ‘ chief friends’!

Lord, subdue our selfish will; 
Each to each our tempers suit 
By Thy modulating skill, 
Heart to heart, as lute to lute.

Let no one suppose, however, that the Holy Spirit accomplishes this heavenly work by some overwhelming baptism which does away with the need of our co-operation. He does not override us, but works with us; and we must intelligently and determinedly work with Him in this matter.

People often fall into idle and hurtful gossip and evil-speaking, not so much from ill-will as from old habit, as a wagon falls into a rut; or they drift into it with the current of conversation about them; or they are beguiled into it by a desire to say something, and be pleasant and entertaining.

But when the Holy Spirit comes He lifts us out of the old ruts, and we must follow Him with care lest we fall into them again, possibly never more to escape. He gives us life and power to stem the adverse currents about us, but we must exercise ourselves not to be swept downward by them. He does not destroy the desire to please, but He subordinates it to the desire to help and bless, and we must stir ourselves up to do this.

When Miss Havergal was asked to sing and play before a worldly company, she sang a sweet song about Jesus and, without displeasing. anybody, greatly blessed the company.

At a breakfast party John Fletcher told his experience so sweetly and naturally that all hearts were stirred, the Holy Ghost fell upon the company, and they ended with a glorious prayer meeting.William Bramwell used at meals to turn the conversation into spiritual channels to the blessing of all who were present, so that they had two meals-one for the body and one for the soul. To do this wisely and helpfully requires thought and prayer and a fixed purpose, and a tender, loving heart filled with the Holy Spirit.

I know a mother who seeks to have a brief season of prayer and a text of Scripture just before going to dinner to prepare her heart to guide the conversation along spiritual highways.

Are you careful and have you victory in this matter, my comrade? If not, seek it just now in simple, trustful prayer, and the Lord who loves you will surely answer, and will be your helper from this time forth. He surely will. Believe just now, and henceforth ‘ let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ (Phil. i. 27).

I ask Thee, ever blessed Lord, 
That I may never speak a word 
Of envy born, or passion stirred. 
First, true to Thee in heart and mind,

Then always to my neighbour kind, 
By Thy good hand to good inclined. 
0 save from words that bear a sting, 
That pain to any brother bring;

Inbreathe Thy calm in everything, 
Let love within my heart prevail, 
To rule my words when thoughts assail, 
That, hid in Thee, I may not fail.

I know, my Lord, Thy power within 
Can save from all the power of sin; 
In Thee let every word begin. 
Should I be silent? Keep me still,

Glad waiting on my Master’s will; 
Thy message through my lips fulfil. 
Give me Thy words when I should speak, 
For words of Thine are never weak,

But break the proud, but raise the meek. 
Into Thy lips all grace is poured, 
Speak Thou through me, eternal Word, 
Of thought, of heart, of lips the Lord.

“HAVE YE RECEIVED THE HOLY GHOST SINCE YE BELIEVED?’