That the filling of the Spirit belongs to us as a covenant privilege seems to be clear from the exhortation in the Epistle to the Ephesians, which is confessedly of universal application: "Be not drunken with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit" (Eph. 5: 18). The passive verb employed here is suggestive. The surrendered will, the yielded body, the emptied heart, are the great requisites to his incoming. And when he has come and filled the believer, the result is a kind of passive activity, as of one wrought upon and controlled rather than of one directing his own efforts. Under the influence of strong drink there is an outpouring of all that the evil spirit inspires--frivolity, profanity, and riotous conduct. "Be God-intoxicated men," the apostle would seem to say; "let the Spirit of God so control you that you shall pour yourself out in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs." If such divine enthusiasm has its perils, we believe that they are less to be dreaded than that "moderatism" which makes the servants of God satisfied with the letter of Scripture if only that letter be skillfully and scientifically handled, rather than giving the supreme place to the Spirit as the inspirer and motor of all Christian service. 3. _The Anointing of the Spirit_. After the baptism and temptation we find our Lord appropriating to himself the words of the prophet, as he read them in the synagogue of Nazareth: {88} "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor" (Luke 4: 18). Twice in the Acts there is a reference to this important event in similar terms: "Thy holy servant Jesus, whom thou didst anoint" (Acts 4: 27, R. V.). "Jesus of Nazareth, how that God anointed him with the Holy Ghost and with power" (Acts 10: 38). And as with the Lord so with his disciples: "Now he that establisheth us with you in Christ, and anointed us, is God" (2 Cor. 1: 21, R. V.).