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passeth knowledge," that "our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ," and that "the Lord is our everlasting light, and the days of our mourning ended;" we thus know that we have received "the promise of the Spirit," and have been "filled with the Holy Ghost." In waiting for the fulfilment of "the promise of the Spirit," we at length become conscious that "all things are made new," that we have new power over our propensities, and over all evil principles within and. around us, that our powers of apprehension and comprehension are enlarged, that we know the things which are freely given us of God," that the truth of God is in our hearts "as a burning fire shut up in our bones," that our obedience is not forced by dint of our own wills, but sweetly "constrained by the love of Christ," that the spirit of prophecy has been given us, and that we are able, as we never were before, to "speak to edification, and exhortation, and comfort," and that "having all sufficiency for all things, we are ready for every good work." In the consciousness of such experiences we know that "Christ has prayed the Father for us, and that He has sent us the Comforter, that He may abide with us for ever," and that "Christ Himself has baptized us with the Holy Ghost."

"If

In seeking for this "enduement of power from on high," we must ever bear in mind the revealed conditions on which this crowning blessing of the new dispensation is promised. This condition is definitely specified by our Saviour. ye love me, keep my commandments, and I will pray the Father for you, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever." "The promise of the Spirit" is fulfilled in the experience of those only who 'obey God," "love Christ, and keep His commandments." In seeking for "the promise of the Spirit," we must do so

in a state of supreme dedication to Christ, and of absolute subjection to His will.

Here I notice the fundamental mistake of those who suppose that "the baptism of the Holy Ghost" is always given in regeneration. In confirmation of such a conclusion, they cite such passages as these: "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His," and "your bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost." The inference of such persons is, that none but those who have been “baptized with the Holy Ghost" have the "Spirit of Christ" at all, and that the bodies of none but such are "the temples of the Holy Ghost." The Spirit is, first of all, we should bear in mind, in the heart of the sinner as a convicting and converting power. When the sinner has become "a believer in Jesus," the Spirit continues in the heart of the convert to perfect him in the love and obedience which is the necessary condition of his being "baptized with the Holy Ghost." Prior to His crucifixion, Christ told His disciples that the Spirit whom the Father would send as the Comforter was even then in them: " He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you." From the beginning of the world, after the Fall, the Spirit had ever been in the hearts of all saints, and their bodies had been "temples of the Holy Ghost." Yet, as the great central promise of the new dispensation, "the Holy Ghost," I repeat, "had never been given until after Jesus was glorified." Those who accept of the work of the Spirit in regeneration and as realised in the common experience of the Church, as the promised "baptism of the Holy Ghost," shut out from themselves "the everlasting light" of the dispensation under which they are permitted to live. How absurd it is, also, to call the common work of the Spirit among the mass of believers "the baptism of the Holy Ghost," "the promised

enduement of power from on high," and "the sealing and earnest of the Spirit in our hearts"! Are these Christians "beholding with open face, as in a glass, the glory of God"?

Are they being "changed into the same. image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord"? Are they being "filled with all the fulness of God"? Are they "rejoicing with joy unspeakable and full of glory," and "ready for every good word and work”? Is their "joy full "? Is "God their everlasting light," and are "the days of their mourning ended"? These are

but examples of the revealed common experience of all who have been "baptized with the Holy Ghost." We should make ourselves ridiculous if we should set up any such pretensions in behalf of the class of believers above referred to.

Let all who are waiting for "the promise of the Spirit," watching for His coming "more than they who watch for the morning," bear this thought with them continually, that Christ is now present to their faith, to do for them all that their present state requires, and that the Spirit is also in them to perfect in them the love and obedience requisite to the reception of "the promise of the Father," that all that is needed is being done in the best possible manner, and that as soon as the way is prepared, they will be "filled with the Holy Ghost." "If the vision tarry, wait for it," and wait for it with the assurance that you "shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence." "In due

time you will reap, if you faint not."

CHAPTER VIII.

RESULTS OF THE BAPTISM RECEIVED.

THE reader may be interested and instructed by receiving some specific account of the effects of the baptism received among us. In regard to myself, I would say, that since that time the Bible in its entireness has been to me a new book. When I became conscious that I was "reading it with new eyes," I read it through and through for the specific purpose of renewing my apprehensions of all its life-imparting revelations. I had, up to that time, been a very careful and critical student of the Bible, making it my fixed habit, unless necessarily prevented, to study critically at least one chapter every day, and that with all the human helps at my command. Now no portions of the Sacred Word appeared more new to me than those which I had most carefully studied, and, in the critical sense, most fully understood. There was "spirit and life" in all I read. While I thus walked up and down amid those great revelations, "the exceeding great and precious promises" beamed down upon me as morning stars in a firmament of everlasting light and love. "I know now," I exclaimed, "that 'all things are mine; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come, all are mine, and I am Christ's, and Christ is God's.'" The promises render absolutely sure to every believer all this. It is, however, when, and only when, we have re

ceived "the anointing," that we do know, or can know, "the things which are freely given us of God," and consequently "that all things are ours."

I will allude here to some specific facts in my experience. I have already alluded to the absolute subjection of the temper, appetites, and other propensities which directly tempt to sin. I have found the promises equally efficacious in respect to tendencies, the action of which tend to weaken our activities or diminish our power, but which cannot be regarded as sinful. I was, for example, from the first, impeded in the discharge of certain functions of my sacred calling by a natural timidity, which rendered me hesitating and fearful in the circumstances referred to. I earnestly besought the Lord, provided I could serve Him more. efficiently without it, to "take from me this thorn in the flesh." The next chapter in the Bible that came in my course of reading contained the divine message to Joshua: Only be strong, and very courageous." The admonition thrilled through every department of my nature, till timidity and fear departed in a moment, and I felt myself girded with a divine courage and strength for "every good word and work." It is by thus trusting in and pleading the promises at a throne of grace that "he that is feeble. among us becomes as David, and the house of David as God, as the angel of the Lord before Him."

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From my earliest memory I had been oppressed with the most terrible fear of dying, and horrified at the idea of being buried. When alone by myself, I would frequently cry out with horror at the thought of being nailed up in a coffin, being let down into the narrow house, and covered up there. Hence the funeral and the burial were to me the most frightful places of which I could conceive. This sentiment oppressed me in all its strength after I became a Christian,

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