d without his illumination it must be hidden
from our understanding.

Thus we have had the enduement of the Spirit presented to us under
three aspects--sealing, filling, and anointing--all of which terms, so
far as we can understand, signify the same thing--the gift of the Holy
Ghost appropriated through faith. Each of these terms is connected
with some special {93} Divine endowment--the seal with assurance and
consecration; the filling with power; and the anointing with knowledge.
All these gifts are wrapt up in the one gift in which they are
included, and without whom we are excluded from their possession.

While thus we conclude that it is a Christian's privilege and duty to
claim a distinct anointing of the Spirit to qualify him for his work,
we would be careful not to prescribe any stereotyped exercises through
which one must necessarily pass in order to possess it. It is easy to
cite cases of decisive, vivid, and clearly marked experience of the
Spirit's enduement, as in the lives of Dr. Finney, James Brainard
Taylor, and many others. And instead of discrediting these
experiences--so definite as to time and so distinct as to accompanying
credentials--we would ask the reader to study them, and observe the
remarkable effects which followed in the ministry of those who enjoyed
them. The lives of many of the co-laborers with Wesley and Whitefield
give a striking confirmation of the doctrine which we are defending.
Years of barren ministry, in which the gospel was preached with
orthodox correctness and literary finish, followed, after the Holy
Spirit had been recognized and appropriated, by evangelistic pastorates
of the most fervent type, such is the history of not a few of these
mighty men of God.

{94}

Let not this great subject be embarrassed by too minute theological
definitions on the one hand, nor by the too exacting demand for
striking spiritual exercises on the other, lest we put upon simple
souls a burden greater than they can bear. Nevertheless we cannot
emphasize too strongly the divine crisis in the soul which a full
reception of the Holy Ghost may bring. "My little children, of whom I
travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you" (Gal. 4: 19),
writes the apostle to those who had already believed on the Son of God.
Whatever he may have meant in this fervent saying, we doubt not that
the deepest yearning of the Spirit is for the informing of Christ in
the heart, in order to that outward