From the journal of of one leading the Pentacostal movement (1800's)The following are extracts from a narrative penned at the time by one who took a leading part in the movement: At this period I was, by professional arrangements, called up to London, and had a strong desire to attend the prayer-meetings which were then privately held by those who spoke in the power, and those who sought for the gifts. Having obtained an introduction, I attended; my mind fully convinced that the power was of God, and prepared to listen to the utterances. After one or two brethren had read and prayed, Mr. T. was made to speak two or three words very distinctly, and with an energy and depth of tone which seemed to me extraordinary, and it fell upon me as a supernatural utterance, which I ascribed to the power of God; the words were in a tongue I did not understand. In a few minutes Miss E. C. broke out in an utterance in English, which, as to matter and manner, and the influence it had upon me, I at once bowed to as the utterance of the Spirit of God. Those who have heard the powerful and commanding utterance need no description; but they who have not, may conceive what an unnatural and unaccustomed tone of voice, an intense and rivetting power of expression - with the declaration of a cutting rebuke to all who were present, and applicable to my own state of mind in particular - would effect upon me, and upon others who were come together, expecting to hear the voice of the Spirit of God. In the midst of the feelings of awe and reverence which this produced, I was myself seized upon by the power; and in much struggling against it was made to cry out, and myself to give forth a confession of my own sin in the matter, for which we were rebuked; and afterwards to utter a prophecy that the messengers of the Lord should go forth, publishing to the ends of the earth, in the mighty power of God, the testimony of the near coming of the Lord Jesus. . . . From this period, for the space of five months, I had no utterances in public; though when engaged alone in private prayer, the power would come upon me, and cause me to pray with strong crying and tears for the state of the Church. On one occasion, about a month after I received the power, whilst in my study, endeavouring to lift up my soul to God in prayer, my mind was so filled with worldly concerns that my thoughts were wandering to them continually. Again and again I began to pray, and before a minute had passed I found my thoughts had wandered from my prayer back into the world. I was much distressed at this temptation, and sat down, lifting up a short ajaculation to God for deliverance; when suddenly the power came down upon me, and I found myself lifted up in soul to God, my wandering thoughts at once rivetted, and calmness of mind given me. By a constraint I cannot describe I was made to speak - at the same time shrinking from utterance, and yet rejoicing in it. The utterance was a prayer that the Lord would have mercy upon me and deliver me from fleshly weakness, and would graciously bestow upon me the gifts of His Spirit, "the gift of wisdom, the gift of knowledge, the gift of faith, the working of miracles, the gift of healing, the gift of prophecy, the gift of tongues, and the interpretation of tongues; and that He would open my mouth and give me strength to declare His glory." This prayer, short almost as I have now penned it, was forced from me by the constraint of the power which acted upon me; and the utterance was so loud that I put my handkerchief to my mouth to stop the sound, that I might not alarm the house. When I had reached the last word I have written, the power died off me, and I was left just as before, save in amazement at what had passed, and filled with thankfulness to God for His great love so manifested to me. With the power there came upon me a strong conviction - "This is the Spirit of God; what you are now praying is of the Spirit of God, and must, therefore, be the mind of God, and what you are asking will surely be given to you." A later Entry in the same JournalThese events occurred in 1831. In the following January he again visited the metropolis. Could a dozen Christians of any class be induced today to attend a prayer meeting at 6:30 a.m. on a winter morning? But scores of city merchants and professional men were then meeting daily at that hour to plead for Pentecostal blessings. At one of these meetings, the morning after his arrival in London, Mr. Irving called on him to read and pray. And he tells that, while he was reading Malachi 4:The power came upon me, and I was made to read in the power. My voice raised far beyond its natural pitch, with constrained repetitions of parts, and with the same inward uplifting which at the presence of the power I had always before experienced. When I knelt down to pray, I was carried out to pray in the power for the presence and blessing of God in the midst of the church; in all this I had great joy and peace, without any of the strugglings which had attended my former utterances in power Another Entry at a later dateIf I understood not the words I was made to utter, it was consistent with the idea of the utterances of the Spirit, that deep and mysterious things should be spoken. If I were commanded to do a thing of which I saw not the use, was I to dare to pause upon God's command? If, indeed, the things were clearly contrary to God's truth, it would have been clear God had not spoken it; but if it was a thing indifferent, surely (I reasoned) God is to be obeyed. If anyone is once persuaded that the Spirit of God speaks in him by any particular mode or communication, it will henceforth be his study only to discern that he does not mistake his own feelings or impulses for that communication; for, when the communication is decided to be from God, faithfulness to God steps in, and all the faith and love and simple reliance on God, which the Christian through faith possesses, will be enlisted to perform the command.Entry Awful, therefore, is the mistake, if a seducing spirit is entertained as the Holy Spirit of Jehovah. The more devoted the Christian seduced, the more implicit the obedience to the seducing spirit.Yet so it was, and the fact stands before us as a proof the most fearful errors may be propounded under the guise of greater light and zeal for God's truth. "As an angel of light" is an array of truth, as well as holiness and love, which nevertheless Satan is permitted to put on, to accomplish and sustain his delusions. It is yet more mysterious, and yet not less true, that the truth so spoken was carried to the hearts of several who, on this day, heard it, and these services were made the means of awakening them, so far as the change of conduct and earnest longing after Christ from that day forward can be an evidence of it.The words "as an angel of light" recur as a refrain throughout the narrative. Many a one will exclaim: "How could a movement which denounces the devil and all his works, and which promotes piety and honors Christ be satanic?" But this ignores the solemn warning of our divine Lord, "They shall deceive, if it were possible, the very elect. "A moment's thought might satisfy us that the false could never deceive the elect if it did not simulate all the characteristics of the true: honor paid to Christ, a high tone of spirituality, and a beautiful code of morals. This was not the raving of profanity or madness. It was the bold assertion of a disputed right. Satan claims to be the firstborn, the rightful heir of creation, the true Messiah, and as such he claims the homage of mankind. Men dream of a devil with horns and hoofs, an obscene monster who tempts the depraved to acts of atrocity or shame. But the Satan of Holy Writ "fashions himself into an angel of light," and "his ministers fashion themselves as ministers of righteousness" (2 Corinthians 11:14-15, RV). Do angels of light or ministers of righteousness corrupt men's morals, or incite them to commit acts of vice or crime? Such is the Satan of Scripture, a very different being from the mythical devil of Christendom, who though omnipresent - for he is always at the side of every man and woman and child - devotes his powers to making children disobedient and adults vicious. The Satan with whom we have to do is "the old serpent" of Eden, "the power of darkness" of the betrayal and crucifixion of the Son of God - that awful being whose divinely given title is "the god of this world" - not the instigator of its vices and its crimes, but the controller of its religion. Through ignorance of all this, people- are deluded into assuming that any man who displays "spiritual power" and is "a minister of righteousness" must be a minister of Christ. Such is the Satan of Scripture, a very different being from the mythical devil of Christendom, who though omnipresent - for he is always at the side of every man and woman and child - devotes his powers to making children disobedient and adults vicious. The Satan with whom we have to do is "the old serpent" of Eden, "the power of darkness" of the betrayal and crucifixion of the Son of God - that awful being whose divinely given title is "the god of this world" - not the instigator of its vices and its crimes, but the controller of its religion. Through ignorance of all this, people- are deluded into assuming that any man who displays "spiritual power" and is "a minister of righteousness" must be a minister of Christ. In these solemn days when the Christian dispensation is drawing to a close and the professing church is drifting to its predicted doom, Satan is preparing the way for the supreme delusion of a travesty of the incarnation. For "the man of sin" will be energized by him "with all power and signs and lying wonders" to impersonate the Christ and thus to command the worship of mankind. What wonder is it then if he feigns to honor Christ and bears testimony to His advent! In common with Christians generally, Mr. Baxter attributes all spiritual power to either God or Satan; demons are altogether ignored. But the Gospels testify to the activity of demons during the ministry of Christ on earth, and the Epistles warn us of a renewal of demoniacal activity in the "latter times," before His return. "All Scripture is Godbreathed," but it would seem that sometimes the revelation was made with special definiteness, and this particular warning is prefaced by the words, "the Spirit saith expressly." And it relates not to any new development of moral evil in the world, but to a new apostasy in the professing church, a cult promoted by "seducing spirits" of a highly sensitive spirituality, and a more fastidious morality than Christianity itself will sanction (1 Timothy 4). The Gospel narrative indicates that some demons were base and filthy spirits that exercised a brutalizing influence upon their victims. But the Lord plainly indicated that these were a class apart ("this kind," Mark 9:29). They were all 11 unclean spirits," but in Jewish use the word akathartos connoted spiritual defilement. That it did not imply moral pollution is proved by the fact that demoniacs were allowed to frequent the synagogues. And the crowning proof is the fact that the Lord Jesus was charged with having a demon though not even His most malignant enemies ever accused Him of moral evil. It was only by prayer that these filthy spirits could be cast out, whereas pious demons acknowledged Christ and came out when His disciples commanded them to do so in His name. The most mysterious fact about these demons was their eagerness to acknowledge the Lord and to pay Him homage. For we read, "Devils came out of many, crying out and saying, Thou art Christ, the Son of God. And He, rebuking them, suffered them not to speak; for they knew that He was Christ" (Luke 4:41). It is an incidental but most striking proof of His deity that while the Jews rejected Him and His own disciples halted in their confession of Him, the demons, under some strange compulsion, gave this clear, bold testimony to His divine character and mission. This was not an isolated incident. We read again that "the unclean spirits, whensoever they beheld Him, fell down before Him, and cried, saying, Thou art the Son of God" (Mark 3: 11, RV ). The mystery of it all is immensely deepened by reference to 1 John 4:2-3; and Mr. Baxter tells us that it was the seeming failure of the test there indicated that confirmed Edward Irving and his followers in their delusion. And the record adds, "He charged them much that they should not make Him known." The Lord refused their homage, and it is impossible to believe that, at this time, Satan could have prompted it. Indeed, the facts disprove the figment that demons are mere puppets of Satan and that they act only under his orders. As fallen members of the heavenly hierarchy, they probably differ from one another not only in their capacities but in their idiosyncracies. If the present-day apostasies of spiritualism, Christian ................................................................................................................................ The career of H. J. Prince, of the Agapemone, deserves a passing notice in this connection. There lies before me, as I write, a statement from the pen of his relative, the late Mr. A. A. Rees of Sunderland, whom I knew personally as a man of sound judgment and a true Christian minister. For five years, at Lampeter College, Prince and he were best friends. And he adds: Nor did I ever see or hear of an individual more thoroughly devoted to God than he was during that period. . . . His private life, of which I was a perpetual eyewitness, was in harmony with what he appeared to be in public. . . . He was unusually blessed, both in the edification of saints and the conversion of sinners, long before he entered the public ministry. He was a man of prayer and self-denial; and few were more deeply acquainted with the Scripture.