A student of the Scriptures need not be told how closely the ceremony of anointing was related to all important offices and ministries of the servants of Jehovah under the old covenant. The priest was anointed that he might be holy unto the Lord (Lev. 8: 12). The king was anointed that the Spirit of the Lord might rest upon him in power (1 Sam. 16: 15). The prophet was anointed that he might be the oracle of God to the people (1 Kings 19: 16). No servant of Jehovah was deemed qualified for his ministry without this holy sanctifying touch laid upon him. Even in the cleansing of the leper this ceremony was not wanting. The priest was required to dip his right finger in the oil that was in his left hand and to put it upon the tip of the right ear, upon the thumb of the right hand, and upon the great toe of the right foot of him that was to be cleansed, the oil "_upon {89} the blood of the trespass-offering_" (Lev. 14: 17). Thus with divine accuracy did even the types foretell the two-fold provision for the Christian life, cleansing by the blood and hallowing by the oil--justification in Christ, sanctification in the Spirit. If we ask now what this anointing is, the reply is obviously the Holy Spirit himself. As before he was the seal attesting us, so now he is the oil sanctifying us--the same gift described by different symbols. And as it was the Aaron who had been the first anointed who was qualified to anoint others, so with our great High Priest. It is he within the veil who gives the Spirit unto his own, that he may qualify them to be "an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession" (1 Peter 2: 9, R. V.). "But ye have an anointing from the Holy One, and ye know all things" (1 John 2: 20). Christ in the New Testament is constantly called "the Holy One." And because the Spirit was sent to communicate him to the people, they are made partakers of his knowledge as well as of his holiness. If it should be said that this unction of which John speaks is miraculous, the divine illumination of evangelists and prophets who were commissioned to be the vehicles of inspired Scripture, we must call attention to other passages which connect the knowledge of God with the Holy Ghost. "For who among men knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of a man which {90} is in him; even so the things of God none knoweth save the Spirit of God" (1 Cor. 2: 11, R. V.). The horse and his rider may see the same magnificent piece of statuary in the park; the one may be delighted with it as a work of human genius, but upon the dull eye of the other it makes no impression, and for the reason that it takes a human mind to appreciate the work of the human mind. Likewise only the Spirit of God can know and make known the thoughts and teachings and revelations of God. This seems to be the meaning of John in his discourse concerning the divine unction: "But the anointing