these two ideas. Christ's ascension to the Father, as we know, was the condition of the descent of the Spirit; and concerning this the Lord said, "The works that I do shall ye do also, and greater works than these shall ye do, because I go unto my Father." Thus the ministry of the Spirit was announced to be mightier in results than that of the Son. This would not seem easy to credit. If we were ignorant of the facts of science, and some one were to show us a reservoir of water, and tell us that this element is capable of three manifestations, liquid, vapor and solid, and ask us which would be the most powerful, we might say the solid form; and looking at the iceberg which can crush a huge ship as you grind a dry leaf between your fingers, this conclusion would seem to be justified. But science would point at once to the vapor-so light, so impalpable, and in its finer forms so invisible, and remind us that this is the power that is moving our huge steamships, and drawing our countless railway trains, and driving our ponderous factories-the greatest motive force in our modern civilization. The blessed Trinity has been manifested to us in two forms in this dis

* John 14: 12.

pensation. First, he came as the Word made flesh, the incarnate Lord, with the might of his divine manhood, that could silence the winds, still the waves, open the gates of the grave, and reverse the laws of gravitation. Is not this the most powerful revelation of God? “Greater works than these shall ye do," is his answer. When God comes as the secret invisible Spirit, like the wind which we cannot see, and cannot tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth; and when this Spirit shall dwell in his fullness in believers, moving their wills, inspiring their words and energizing their actions, then shall be seen the greatest things for the glory of God and the salvation of souls, that have yet been witnessed. It is this gift of the Spirit as a divine power for service and testimony, that we wish to unfold in the remaining part of this chapter.

This special enduement of strength from the Holy Spirit we have already alluded to in a previous chapter We shall now consider it more at length, as revealed in the divine word and in human lives.

In the case of our Lord Jesus Christ there is a distinct recognition of this enduement, as consti

tuting his preparation for his ministry. After the visible descent of the Holy Ghost upon him at the Jordan, we read that he "returned in the power of the Spirit" into Galilee," and that he went into the synagogue at Nazareth and read and applied 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." In the Acts of the Apostles we hear Peter declaring "How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power,† who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil."

ans.

In the case of his apostles, we find a constant recognition of the same fact. "Now he which establisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us is God," says Paul writing to the Corinthi"The anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you," § writes John. And these, Jesus Christ and his apostles, we boldly affirm to be our exemplars and models in this as in all other things. And the history of God's church abundantly confirms the view that those who have done the greatest work for God, have done it § 1 John 2: 27.

Luke 4: 14.

† Acts 10: 38.

$ 2 Cor. 1: 21.

L

through the unction of the Holy Ghost and power which was on them.

To some this anointing has come almost simultaneously with conversion; to many it has come at a considerable period afterward. The apostles Peter and Paul furnish types of the two classes. Peter we must suppose to have been a regenerated man when he made his confession, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." But how weak an apostle for one naturally so strong; how timid for one so bold; how inefficient for one so zealous! Yet after that on the day of Pentecost he had been baptized with the Holy Ghost, he was utterly changed. He who had cowered before a maid and denied his Lord, now preached like a lion and boldly declared Jesus to be both Saviour and Lord, in the face of all his foes. Paul, on the other hand, was the same man from the very beginning,* because his conversion and his anointing came close together. There have been some Pauls in the modern church, but more Peters-and we shall

* "St. Paul was born a man, an apostle; not carved out as the rest in time, but a fusile apostle, an apostle poured out and cast in a mould. As Adam was a perfect man in an instant, so was St. Paul an apostle as soon as Christ took him in hand."- John Donne, 1573-1631.

cause examples of both to pass in review before us. Let us select from our own times an illustration of a powerful revival preacher.

An eminent authority expressed the opinion some years ago, that probably no man since the days of Whitfield had been instrumental in turning so many souls to God by his preaching as Rev. Charles G. Finney. * Certainly we should not know where to look in recent times, to find such startling and overwhelming supernatural results attending the proclamation of the gospel, as those which were witnessed under his ministry. As he went from place to place evangelizing, whole communities would be thrown under conviction at once; upon his very first utterance the feeling would sometimes be such as “to make the stoutest men writhe on their seats as if a sword had been thrust into their hearts." Hearers who succeeded in repressing their emotion in church would rush home, and unable to contain themselves longer, would "fall upon the floor and burst out into a loud wailing in view of their sins." In one place, so utterly abandoned and godless that it had acquired the name of Sodom, he preached; and

• Kirk's Lectures on Revivals, p. 142.