rcises through you the plenitude of his
gracious power. We cannot seek Him at the hand of Christ in vain.
Dare to believe this: dare to believe that if your heart is pure, and
your motives holy, and your whole desire fervent--and if you have dared
to breathe in a deep, long breath of the Holy Spirit--that according to
your faith so it has been done to you; and that you may go forth
enjoying the same power which rested on the Baptist, though you may not
be conscious of any Divine afflatus, though there may have been no
stroke of conscious power, no crown of flame, no rushing as of the
mighty wind.

God is still able to vouchsafe to us as large a portion of his Spirit
as to the disciples on the day of Pentecost. We are not straitened in
Him, but in ourselves. The power of his grace is not passed away with
the primitive times, as fond and faithless men imagine; but his Kingdom
is now at hand, and Christ, standing on the threshold of the century,
waits to lead his Church to greater triumphs than she has ever known.
Oh that He would hasten to come forth from his royal chambers! Oh that
He would take his throne as Prince of the kings of the earth! Oh that
He would put on the robe of his majesty, and assume the sceptre of his
unlimited and almighty reign. Creation travails; the Spirit and the
Bride invoke; the mind of man has tried all possible combinations of
sovereignty, and in vain.

"O Lord Jesus Christ, who at thy first coming didst send thy messenger
to prepare the way before Thee; grant that the ministers and stewards
of thy mysteries may likewise so prepare and make ready thy way, by
turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; that,
at thy second coming to judge the world, we may be found an acceptable
people in thy sight, who livest and reignest with the Father and the
Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen."

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOHN THE BAPTIST***

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