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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 traits 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. It 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. His 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 sacred

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. The 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. I felt an ardency of soul to be, what I know not otherwise how to express, emptied and annihilated; to lie 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 21.

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, never, 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 him was, seal my soul forever thine. I 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 I 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 that 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. At this very juncture I was most delightfully conscious of giving up all to God. I 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