Salvation and Sealing
‘FAITH saves usy but how? — by making us aware of Christ, who saves. Faith does not make things what they are but shows us them as they are in Christ. Certain systems lay a pressure upon the subjective side greater than the spirit of man is at all times able to bear; working out all things from the depths of individual consciousness as if truths were not there at all until they are manzfestly there for us. Happy for us if Christ can look there and find his own image reflected, however faintly; but we must look at Him, at the sun in the heavens, not at the sun in the brook, its broken and ever varying reflection.” — Dora Greenwell.
“TF we can learn aright how Christ was sealed, we shall learn how we are sealed. ‘The sealing of Christ by the Father was the communication of the Holy Ghost in all His fullness to Him, authorizing Him unto and acting His Divine power in all the acts and duties of His office, so as to evidence the presence of God unto Him and appropriation of Him. So in God’s sealing of believers He owns them and gives them His Holy Spirit to fit them for their relations, to enable them unto their duties, to act their new principles, and every way to discharge the work they are called to do. He gives them the Spirit of power — of love — and ofa sound mind. And hereby does God seal them.” — John Owen,
AITH in the promise and in the person of Jesus Christ is that which secures salvation to us; the enduement of the Holy Spirit is that which gives us power in laboring for the salvation of others. The word on which we rest for the one blessing is, “Verily, verily, I say unto you he that believeth on me hath everlasting life;”” the word on which we rest for the other blessing is, “Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.” And we find in Scripture that there are two seals for attesting these two promises: “He that hath received His testimony “ath set to his seal that God ts true.” John 3: 33. “After that ye believed ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of Promise.” Eph. 1: 13.
Very simple and beautiful is the way of faith as described in the first of these texts. To believe what God says concerning his Son is the first requirement for obeying the Gospel. Faith simply believes what God has declared, and accepts what he has done for us through the redemption of his Son. And here is the sharp distinction between him that believeth and him that believeth not. God has borne witness to his Son that he is the Christ. ‘Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ?” asks John; but ‘ Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God,” * says the same apostle. Such is the great gulf between faith and unbelief. Again, God has declared that we have life in his Son and in him alone. ‘And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Sons.7 - But: ‘says the Scripture.once: more, ‘He that believeth not God hath made him a liar, because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son;”’ while on the contrary, “he that receiveth his testimony hath set to his seal that God is
true.”
* x John 5: 1. 4/3 Johns: txonair.
Now we cannot emphasize the fact too strongly, that it is faith in the Son of God and faith only by which we are saved. Feeling may act very powerfully in connection with the Spirit’s work in us, but it is faith alone that can appropriate Christ’s work for us. And in no way can we so honor God as by taking his promise, “He that believeth on the Son hath life,” and stamping it with the signet of our faith — “That zs true.” Not because we have proved it or felt it, but because God has said it, is our assurance. ‘“Said I not unto thee that 2f thou wouldest believe, thou shouldst see the glory of God?” asks Jesus. Our order would have been, let me first see and then I will believe. But trust is never so simple and genuine as when it is blind,and has nothing to rest on but the bare word of God. Faith and reason are like the two compartments of an hour-glass; the one can only be full when the other is empty. That is to say, faith is at its best when it has nothing of proof or reason to rest upon, but grounds its assurance absolutely in the testimony of the Lord; and it is at its least when it believes only because of clear demonstration. Whatever of evidence or emotion therefore comes in as proof, detracts just so much from faith’s simplicity, and from our full share in the benediction, ‘ Blessed are they that ave not seen and yet have believed.” * Again and again the Scriptures declare that he that believeth on the Son ath eternal life — hath it, that is, in germ and embryo, as one has the harvest who has the seed from which it springs. The words of Scripture are called indeed “the incorruptible seed.” To receive and credit the word of God concerning his Son is therefore to receive life or regeneration. ‘“Being born again not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible, by the Word of God which liveth and abideth forever.” +
Thus in the beginning it was those that “gladly received the word” that were baptized and added to the church. All this puts weighty emphasis on the duty we have been urging, of sealing God’s promises with our hearty and confident amen. And we would commend a faith that even seems audacious, like that of the sturdy Covenanter, Robert Bruce, who requested as he was dying, that his finger might be placed on one of God’s strong promises, as though to challenge the Judge
* John 20: 29. deteret ate reg,
SALVATION AND SEALING. ya
of all with it as he should enter his presence.* As we stand face to face with the Word we cannot be too bold.
There is again another sealing which is mentioned in the Scriptures, and which supplements this as a divine testimony to the fact of acceptance. “After that ye believed ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise,” + says Paul writing to the Ephesians. There are many allusions in Scripture to this transaction, and the general tenor of these references indicates that it is a special enduement of the Spirit subsequent to that regeneration of the Spirit which takes place when one believes. Such is the inference in the epistle to the Corinthians where the apostle, addressing those who have been established in the promises of God, adds, ‘ Who hath also sealed us and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.” As our faith authenticates the Lord’s promise by setting to it our yea and amen, the Holy Spirit now authenticates us as the sons of God by giving to
* A sublime instance of this boldness of faith 1s given by Dr. John Brown, in his Horae Subsecivae, of a Scotch woman who was asked on her death-bed, “What would you say if God, after all he has done, should let you drop into hell?”? She replied, ‘‘E’en as He likes; but if He does He’ll lose mair than Wildo:””
t Eph. 1: 13, “f In whom having also believed ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of Promise.’’? (Revised Version.) iv 2 Cor, 1; 22.
us the first-fruits of our inheritance, in the joy and assurance and guidance and strength of the - indwelling Comforter. On this ground rests the solemn appeal in the epistle to the Ephesians — “Grieve not the Spirit of God zz whom ye were sealed unto the day of redemption.” *
While there is much that is mysterious and difficult to apprehend in this subject, we believe that we can get more light concerning it from the example and experience of Jesus Christ than anywhere else, since he is the pattern for his brethren in all things. Jesus says, referring to himself, “For Him hath God the Father sealed.”+ This evidently refers to what took place at his baptism. Let us go to the banks of the Jordan and witness the divine transaction and that which follows it. As he comes forth from the water we see “the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting upon him,” a voice is heard from heaven saying, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased;” Jesus “being fall of the Holy Ghost, returned from the Jordan;” he is ‘‘led by the Spirit
’
into the wilderness;”’ he afterwards returns ‘27
the power of the Spirit;” and going into the syna-
* Eph. 4 30. John 6: 24.
gogue he applies to Himself the words of the prophet, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. *
This was our Lord’s enduement or sealing by the Holy Ghost in preparation for his public service. And what an impressive lesson it is for us, that, though he was the divine Son of God, yet He henceforth did all things in dependence upon the
Spirit; from the beginning of his ministry, when he said, “/ by the Spirit of God cast out devils,” to the end when “through the Eternal Spirit he offered up himself without spot unto God.”’ Now mark how every feature of the Lord’s sealing is reproduced in that of his disciples, after the Holy Ghost has come upon them. They also have the assurance of sonship; ‘the Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirits that we are the children of God.”y They have the same divine guidance, “for as many as ave led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” = They are indwelt by the same Spirit; “and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost.” They are endued with the same energy;
* Luke 4: 1-20. + Rom. 8: 16. Rom. 8; 14, ) Acts2: 43 t: 8 1 John 23.27.
“ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.” They have the same divine unction; “the anointing which ye have received abideth on you.”
Here certainly is one seal for both Master and disciple, since all the lines and features of the two impressions exactly correspond. In the case of Jesus Christ this transaction was a distinct and divine enduement for his public ministry. Is it so with his followers? Certainly it was with the first disciples. “The same event happened to the body of believers on the day of Pentecost which befell the Lord at the Jordan. Both alike were baptized with the Holy Ghost. “Is the day of Pentecost then to be perpetually repeated?”’ it will be asked. To which we answer, “No! and yes!” As the inauguration of the Spirit’s ministry in the church it cannot be repeated. On that day the Holy Ghost in his abiding personal presence came into the church to guide and order and inspire it, henceforth throughout this dispensation. As Christmas was the incarnation of the second person of the Trinity, when the Word was made flesh and tabernacled among us, so Pentecost was a kind of incarnation of the third person when the
t en
Holy Spirit came to dwell in the body of believers, so that each Christian is now “the temple of the Holy Ghost” and the whole church is ‘‘the habitation of God through the Spirit.”
Since this wonderful event has come to pass, the Holy Spirit’s home and place of ministry is here on earth, just as truly as Jesus Christ’s present habitation and seat of intercession is in heaven at God’s right hand. Therefore we need not pray for the Comforter to be sent down, for he is here as truly as Christ was here in the days of his humiliation. But while this is true, we are to remember that the presence of the Spirit is one thing,and the power and fullness of the Spirit another. When Jesus sent forth the seventy on their ministry of grace he said, “Behold I give unto you power,’ * and then invested them with his own divine prerogatives of preaching, and healing, and casting out demons. So the Spirit who is now present in the church gives-power for service to those who seek it. In this sense the experience of Pentecost can be repeated. It is still our privilege to pray for the baptism of the Spirit, and to tarry in supplication until we be “endued with
* Luke 10: 19, power from on high.” And a careful reading of the Acts of the Apostles would seem to indicate that this experience is something quite distinct from regeneration, being no less than an investment of the believer with a special divine energy and efficiency for carrying on God’s work.* “Did ye receive the Holy Ghost when ye believed?” + asks Paul of certain disciples at Ephesus. Believers and disciples they certainly were, but this did not carry the certainty with it that they had received the power of the Spirit. On the contrary, they lacked this until by the laying on of the apostles’ hands ‘the Holy Ghost came upon them”; then they “spoke with tongues and prophesied.” After the day of Pentecost we hear Peter urging his hearers, by obeying the gospel, to seek for “the gift of the Holy Ghost,” adding, “for the
* God’s sealing of believers is his gracious communication of the Holy Ghost unto them, so to act by divine power in them as to enable them unto all the duties of their holy calling, evidencing them to be accepted with him both to themselves and others, and asserting their preservation unto eternal salvation. The effects of this sealing are, gracious operations of the Spirit in and upon believers, but the sealing itself is the communication of the Spirit unto them. For it is not said that the Holy Ghost seals us, but that we are sealed with him. He is God’s seal unto us.... Where God sets this seal such effects will be produced as shall fall under the observation of the world.’ — Zohn Owen (1616- 1683).
Acts 19. 2. (Revised Version.)
SALVATION AND SEALING. Fi
promise is unto you and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.” So that like the upper-room disciples we can come pleading an explicit promise when we ask for the fullness, and power, and indwelling of the Comforter.
Have we noticed how almost every great conquest of preaching or working recorded in the Acts is introduced by the words, “and being filled with the Holy Ghost,’* he did thus? In this record of the early church’s history we have the autobiography of the Holy Ghost, if we may say so; or rather the opening chapter of such an autobiography. It is the acts of the Spirit, as he moves and empowers men, of which we are here reading. Have there been no subsequent chapters of this book unfolding in later times? Let the lives of some modern saints as they shall pass before us answer this question. Let us look at their closet exercises, and at their field conquests, and ask if it does not seem that we have in these latter-day Christians a fac-simile of the sealing and wonder working of the first disciples.
Now sealing we hold to be the divine side of
* Acts 4: 8, 13: 19. Eph. 5: 18,
‘
2 A consecration — God’s token of approval and acceptance of our self-surrender to Him. When the soul offers itself as the soft and plastic wax he can stamp it with his signet-ring, marking it thus as his own peculiar property,and setting it apart for his own peculiar use until the day of redemption. Often the sealing is effected without observation or recognition on the part of its subject. Its ¢vazts are visible, — assurance of adoption, power in testimony, the joy of the Holy Ghost, and the blessed sense of belonging entirely to the Lord. These constitute the signature of the Spirit’s work upon the heart. But the operation itself may have been quite silent and unobserved. On the other hand, in scores of devoted Christian lives this divine transaction has been most distinctly noted. I¢ has been signalized and made forever memorable by a conscious and definite experience.
The diary of Jonathan Edwards furnishes a remarkable exhibition of the various stages of the Spirit’s work in the heart. Huis conversion was clearly marked; and at a later period his full consecration and separation unto God not less distinctly. He gives us this record of a surred hour: —
“Once as I rode out into the woods for my health in 1737, having alighted from my horse in a retired place, as my manner commonly has been, to walk for divine contemplation and prayer, I had a view that was for me extraordinary, of the glory of the Son of God, as Mediator between God and man, and his wonderful, great, full, pure, and sweet grace and love, and meek and gentle condescension. The grace that appeared so calm and sweet, appeared also great above the heavens. he person of Christ appeared ineffably excellent, with an excellency great enough to swallow up all thought and conception — which continued, as near as I can judge, about an hour; which kept me a greater part of the time in a flood of tears and weeping aloud. J felt an ardency of soul to be, what L know not otherwtse how to express, emptied and annihilated; to le in the dust and be full of Christ alone; to love him with a holy and pure love; to trust in him; to live upon him, to serve him; and to be perfectly sanctified and made pure with a divine and heavenly purity.” *
We have heard Edwards called “the Isaiah of the Christian dispensation,” profound wisdom and seraphic devotion being so wonderfully united in him. Certainly here is a scene in the great theologian’s life which is strangely like that which the
* Works, V. I, p a1. prophet has so vividly pictured in his own.* There is the same overpowering vision of the Lord, the same melting of heart before his awful purity, and the same self-surrendering consecration to his service. If the sealing of the Spirit can ever be discovered in the lives of modern saints, we should say that here is a conspicuous instance. And as we hear him preaching at Enfield not long after, when, as he speaks, the impression of eternal things is so powerful that men cling to the pillars of the church, trembling before the impending terror of the Lord, which he so vividly pictures, we exclaim, ‘“Truly, the anointing which he hath received abideth on him’! Who shall say that if Christ’s servants are still “filled with the Holy Ghost” and speak the word of God with boldness, the place of assembly will not still be shaken?
As for the great theologian himself, he furnishes a rare example of baptized intellect. His reasoning is a kind of lofty adoration — a magnificent “Te Deum” set to argument. The pathway of his thought is often fairly ablaze with love, while his love seems ever to find the highest expression in
* Isaiah 6; 1-8.
contemplating the greatness and glory of God. Where others are subdued by the manifestations of divine goodness, his heart seems most melted and his affections most powerfully kindled by viewing the matchless holiness and infinite sovereignty of God. He gives a most impressive example of great powers consecrated and anointed.
Turning from the profound theologian to a
youthful student, we find a similar working of the Spirit, and similar exhibitions of power in the Lord’s service. James Brainerd Taylor had been converted at the age of fifteen. Six years after he experienced a remarkable blessing from the Spirit. All his subsequent papers refer to this date as the most important era in his Christian life. This is his account, somewhat abridged, of what then occurred: —
“It was on the 23d of April, 1822, when I was on a visit to Haddam, in Connecticut. Memorable day! The time and place will never, no, zever, be forgotten! I recur to it at this moment with thankful remembrance. For a long time my desire had been that the Lord would visit me, and fill me with the Holy Ghost — my cry to aim was, seal my soul forever thine. 1 lifted up my heart in prayer that the blessing might descend. - I felt that I needed something I did not possess. ‘There was a void within which must be filled, or I could not be happy. My earnest desire was then, as it had been ever since professed religion six years before, that all love of the world might be destroyed — all selfishness extirpated — pride banished — unbelief removed — all idols dethroned — everything hostile to holiness and opposed to the divine will crucified; that holiness to the Lord might be engraved on my heart, and evermore characterize my conversation. My mind was led to reflect on what would probably be my future situation. It recurred to me, I am to be hereafter a minister of the Gospel. But how shall I be able to preach in my present state of mind? I cannot — never, no, never shall I be able to do it with pleasure, without great overturnings in my soul. I felt that I needed ¢hat for which I was then, and for a long time had been, hungering and thirsting. I desired it, not for my benefit only, but for that of the church and the world. AZ this very juncture I was most delightfully conscious of giving up all to God. [was enabled in my heart to say, Here, Lord, take me, take my whole soul, and seal me thine — thine now and thine forever. ‘If thou wilt thou canst make me clean.’ Then there ensued such emotions as I never before
experienced. All was calm and tranquil — and a heaven of love pervaded my whole soul. I had a witness of God’s love to me and of mine to him. Shortly after I was dissolved in tears of love and gratitude to our blessed Lord. The name of Jesus was precious to me; ‘”I’was music in my ear.’ He came as King, and took full possession of my heart; and I was enabled to say, ‘I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.’ Let him, as King of kings and Lord of lords, reign in me, reign without
a rival forever.’ *
The invariable accompaniment of such visitations of the Spirit, we find throughout the whole subsequent history of this young man. His communion with God was of the most elevated and transforming character. It seemed literally as though it were Christ for him to live. For wherever he went he exhibited the Lord Jesus so conspicuously, in his example, in his words and in his persuasions, that men could not resist the power with which he lived and spoke. Dying at the age of twenty-eight, his labors had nevertheless been such a blessing to his generation, that many servants of God, living till threescore and ten, might be glad to leave behind them such a record. His
* Memoir, pp. 86, 87.
college and seminary vacations were spent in evangelistic labors, and during these seasons he toiled like an apostle. Night and day with tears he warned men.’ Publicly and from house to house he exhorted, and entreated and prayed. And wherever he went, revivals seemed to break forth as though he carried some resistless divine influence in his person, and hundreds in a town would be converted during a single visit. His own soul meanwhile lived in the most exultant fellowship with the Father and the Son. He makes the same record that Edwards does, that the one memorable season of divine visitation was followed by many others, in which the tides of heavenly love and delight filled and flooded the soul. The joy of that first baptism and its accompanying power remained unto the end.
Undoubtedly the regeneration of the Spirit and the enduement of the Spirit are often embraced in a single experience.* Christian Eddy, who lived to prove so remarkably how the faithful house ser-
*“Both gifts came upon St. Paul at once — the indwelling of the Holy Ghost and the enduement for service. ‘This was so with him, but individuals have different experiences in that regard Often the enduement comes later than conversion,
because it was not sought at the time of conversion.” — Dr. Andrew Bonar.
vant and the illustrious saint may be combined in one, gives an example of this experience. She says artlessly — “At my conversion it seemed as though the Dove rested on my heart, and he has never left me since” !* So they also thought, thou true yoke-fellow of Christ, who beheld thy holiness and steadfastness in the gospel. If the gift to win the hardest and most hopeless sinners to Christ, and amid all rebuffs to keep the crown of meekness unsullied, be not an evidence of the baptism and abiding of that Spirit which descended like a dove and rested in power upon the Lord, we know not where such evidence could be found. The career of this Cornwall servant is a sufficient demonstration, if any were needed, that the highest endowments of the Spirit are not alone for the eminent theologian and the deeply instructed saint. So is the history of William Carvosso, the humble fisherman on the coast of England. He had not learned to write his name till after he was sixty-five years of age. But at twenty-one the Lord wrote upon him his new name. One year after, he records that he was visited with a gracious anointing of the Spirit. He had wrestled in
* Consecrated Women, p. 231.
secret places for the power of the Lord to come upon him, and on March 13th, 1772, in a little prayer meeting, he relates that a most blessed experience was granted him. He says : —
“* Now I felt that I was nothing and Christ was all in all. Him I now cheerfully received in all his offices — my Prophet to teach me, my Priest to atone for me, my King to reign over me. Oh what boundless happiness
there is in Christ! and all for such a poor sinner as I.”
The evidence that he at this time received a special effusion of the Holy Ghost is very strong, for he became henceforth one of the most success. ful fishers of men that the church in latter times has seen. A sketch of his devoted life records that “at one place, Cambuslang, where he went from house to house, through the day, and held class-meetings at night, seven hundred or more were hopefully converted to God.”
We have cited these two examples, which might be greatly multiplied, to show how the humblest instruments when filled with the Spirit are lifted to the same plane with the mightiest.
In being introduced somewhat into the private history of eminent revivalists, we have the strongest confirmation of the view which we are advocating in this chapter. Almost all of them carry the cherished secret of some special divine visitation by which they have been empowered for their work. There are men upon whom no ordaining hands have been laid, whose success might well be the envy of the most honored ministers, if envy were allowed in such a field. The most painful experience of the ordinary pastor is the lack of direct results — so many sermons to which there is no response, and from which there is no visible impression. Say what we will about the educating power of the pulpit, there ought to be no such fixed gap between ministerial effort and spiritual success. Every good workman, whether merchant, mechanic, farmer, builder, or student, is able to see the definite issues of his toil at the end of the year. So ought the “workman that needeth not to be ashamed,” whom the Scriptures commend. He should use his sermon as a means to a definite end — the converting and sanctifying of souls — and should be disappointed if he fails to see this end attained. The evangelist labors on this principle, and often reaps immense harvests. Has he
any secret to communicate to pastors? Sometimes he has. We will refer to one who has been. used of God to turn thousands to the obedience of the faith. Ina season of confidential communion with brethren and fellow-workers, he narrated this experience which was taken down from his lips: —
“It was in connection with evangelistic services which I was conducting in Scotland in the early part of my ministry, that I experienced a marked visitation of God’s Spirit. While preaching one evening there fell on me suddenly such an overpowering impression of the realities of the world to come as I had never known before. It seemed as though hell opened to my gaze, and I saw the misery of the lost in all its unutterable woe, while heaven, at the same time, revealed its glories to me so that I apprehended something of the unspeakable blessedness of the redeemed of Christ in glory. So powerful was the impression that I was overcome with weeping, and in spite of all my efforts at restraining my emotion was compelled to retire from the church. In my room alone for hours the visitation continued. I lay there weeping and bewailing before the Lord, that I had loved him so little and served him so coldly. I was led after awhile to give myself away to him in an everlasting covenant. I prayed that he would just take me and empty me utterly of self and fill me with his Spirit. I gave myself up to him to be despised and rejected and counted a fool for his sake, if I might be the means thereby of saving perishing souls, Never has the memory of the hour left me;
never can it leave me.”’
In laboring with this devoted servant of Christ, we have always been struck with the fixed relationship between effort and result in his ministry. Oftentimes when the sermon has appeared very” ill adapted to the end the effect has been greatest; and what have seemed, humanly speaking, the weakest efforts, have often fallen with unaccountable power upon the hearts of the hearers. It certainly is a reiteration of a lesson which we are very slow to learn, that it is “not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord.” If the preacher’s message is made a medium of the Spirit, and not a work of art, it will not be strange to find the most artless, homely and unstudied utterance often carrying the mightiest results. John Livingstone, the renowned Scots worthy, says: ‘There is sometimes somewhat in preaching that cannot be ascribed either to matter or expression, and cannot be described what it is or from whence it cometh, but with a sweet violence it pierceth into the heart and affections and comes gO THE TWO-FOLD LIFE.
—-*
iramediately from the Lord; but if there be any way to obtain such a thing it is by the heavenly disposition of the speaker.” No wonder at his comment on the ‘sometimes somewhat in preaching,” when the Lord had put on him the signal honor of bringing five hundred souls to repentance under a single sermon, and that, moreover, an unstudied and almost unpremeditated effort. But here too the secret is an open one, for the closet door stands ajar, and behind the pulpit we catch a glimpse of an all-night prayer-meeting, in which the preacher was a participant — a prayer-meeting directed to this single end, of getting the enduement of power upon him who should plead with sinners on the coming day.* Ah, what a mighty make-weight in the scale of success is the baptism of this invisible, impalpable Spirit of Life! Science has perfected a balance so delicate and susceptible, that when two pieces of paper hold the
* “I never preached ane sermon which I would be earnest to see again in wryte but two: the one was on ane Monday after communion at Shotts, and the other was on ane Monday after communion at Holywood; and both these times I had spent the whole night before in conference and prayer with some Christians — without any more than ordinary preparations. Other wayes my gift was rather suited to simple, common people, than te learned and judicious auditors.” — Fohn
Livingstone, 1630.
SALVATION AND SEALING. gI
scales in perfect equipoise, the writing of your name upon one will instantly tip the beam and bear it down. So it is when the signature of the Spirit is put upon the heart by the heavenly sealing. It is a transaction so hidden and so delicate that its subject may be quite unconscious of it as it is passing. But it has often changed the whole poise of one’s life, transforming the weakling into a spiritual giant, so that he who has utterly failed by the energy of the flesh has gone forth victorious in the power of the Spirit.
We are inclined to believe that this enduement of the Spirit has often been confounded with conversion, in the experience of good men. When we hear that Dr. Chalmers, or Legh Richmond,or William Haslam preached the gospel several years before they were really converted, we seriously question the statement, even though these men may have expressed such an opinion themselves. They had during these years honestly believed on the Lord Jesus and confessed him with the mouth, and therefore we must think, that had they been called out of the world they would have been saved. But all this time they may have lacked the witness and power of the Spirit, and therefore exercised a
— — — g2 THE TWO-FOLD LIFE.
comparatively barren ministry. The change which came to them was so radical and so transforming in its effects upon their lives that, knowing nothing of two distinct stages in the Christian life, it seemed to them like the experience of conversion, whereas we judge that the difference in their ministry before and after this change, was quite like the difference between the ministry of Peter before the day of Pentecost, and after that day. In other words, the event from which they dated such a change in their spiritual history we conceive to have been their enduement by the Spirit with power, rather than their conversion. This seems to us a much more rational and scriptural explanation of their experience than the view, that during all the period before this striking change they were lost souls and without part or lot in the salvation of Christ.
We give a single illustration of a transaction which we regard as belonging to this class. G. V. Wigram was held in great esteem in the body known as “The Brethren” for his rare gifts and ‘remarkable consecration. For several years a communicant, and in the judgment of one who knew him intimately, “a quickened soul;” living a
tnora)!y hut without a conscious sense of the presence or Christ; there fell upon him one evening a powerful manifestation of the Spirit. He was Kneeling at his bedside, absent-mindedly saying
nis prayers, when, he says:
“Suddenly there came on my soul a something I had never known before. It was as if some One Infinite and Almighty, knowing everything, full of the deepest, tenderest interest in myself, though utter’y and entirely abhorring everything in and connected with me, made xnown to me that he loved myself. My eye saw no one; but I knew assuredly that the One whom I knew not and had never met, had met me for the first time und made known to me that we were together. There was a light, no sense or faculty my own human nature tver knew; there was a presence of what seemed infihite in greatness — something altogether of a class that was apart and supreme, and yet at the same time mak- *ng itself known to me in a way that I as a man could thoroughly feel, taste and enjoy. The Light. made all ‘ight, Himself withal; but it did not destroy, for it was love itself, and I was loved individually by Him. The exquisite tenderness and fullness of that love, the way: appropriated me myself for Him in whom it all was, while the light from which it was inseparable in Him, discovered to me the contrast I had been to all that was
light and love. I wept for a while on my knees, said nothing, then got into bed. The next morning’s thought was, ‘Get a B*ble.’ I got one and it was thenceforward my hand-book.” *
This graphic experience we do not dwell upon in order to emphasize the marvellous element in it — -though it was so intense that its subject referred to it till his dying day with the deepest emotion. The fact on which we would lay special stress is that from that hour, this man was utterly given up to Christ. He laid his large fortune at the feet of Jesus, spending thousands yearly for the furtherance of the gospel, reserving nothing for himself but the pilgrim’s portion, food and raiment. His spiritual gift was not that of evangelist, but of teacher, and in this office he greatly enriched all that sat under his instruction. His ministry, says a co-laborer, ‘like the precious stones on Aaron’s breastplate, sparkled with the varied beauties and glories of the person of the living and glorified Christ.” And considering that this ministry, with its extraordinary consecration and light, dated from that single bed-side experi-
¥he Ministry of G. V. Wigram, Introduction.
ence when he knelt in tears before the Lord, it will not seem strange if we scrutinize that experience to discover if possible its true interpretation. However, let us say distinctly, and let us underscore the statement, that we have not brought forward any of these remarkable spiritual exercises as models for other Christians to copy. Only, it is needful sometimes in: setting forth an obscure truth, to print our argument in illuminated text in order to win attention for it. Afterwards it will be easily read in common type. ‘That is to say, it often requires the most vivid and powerful experiences to impress us with the reality of a certain doctrine; which, after we have once accepted, we can discover in its most ordinary manifestations. We believe that scores in our times have experienced the sealing of the Holy Spirit who can speak of no extraordinary emotion connected with the event. They have received the power from on high and the witness within, and yet they have hardly known when or where these came to them. What we would urge is that there is an anointing of the Spirit for service to which many of us are strangers, and that it is our privilege to seek it with all the heart. How large a proportion of professed Christians, if they were asked, would have to confess that they have never led a soul to Christ. And yet they are true believers and will doubtless be saved at last — saved but unrewarded; fitted to “enter into life”? but not to enter into the highest “joy of the Lord;”’ redeemed through the finished work of Christ, but having no finished work of their own, concerning which the Master can say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
In view of the fearful possibility of being found in such a condition, we trust that our readers, instead of turning aside from the teaching of this chapter, and perchance condemning it as high or mystical or visionary, may be moved to pray with an open and hungry heart that if there be any deeper work and any mightier communication of the Spirit than they have known, it may be granted unto them. And we are most deeply assured, that if in all humility and self-surrender such a blessing be sought it will be found. Ecstacies and raptures the Lord may not choose to give us, nor are these needed. But his Holy Spirit’s fullness and power he will give us if we reverently and patiently seek for it.