CHAPTER IX. GIFTS IN THE PRESENT CENTURY

“Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you; so that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Corinthians 1:6, 7.SGOM 109.1

We trust the reader will not forget our proposition, that if a single well-attested instance of the manifestation of the Spirit of prophecy, or of any gift of the Spirit, can be produced this side of the apostles, then the force of every objection or argument against their perpetuity throughout the entire Christian dispensation is destroyed. For if they can be shown to have existed at any time since the apostles, then there is no reason remaining why they may not exist through all time, as long as the gospel is preached to the world.SGOM 109.2

As the apostle Paul said, “I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord.” And facts and occurrences which are presented justify this application of the apostle’s words. The trance or vision of William Tennent is well known to the churches. The writer of this first heard of it about twenty-five years ago, through the pastor of a Baptist church of which he was a member. The pastor related it as an instance of a modern manifestation of God’s Spirit, in which he had the fullest confidence. The account of it was published in the Evangelical Intelligencer in 1806, and placed in the Memoirs of Tennent’s life in 1815.SGOM 109.3

Mr. Tennent was once pastor of a Presbyterian church in Freehold, New Jersey. He was respected by all as a man worthy of the fullest confidence. His biographer says of him:-SGOM 110.1

“If there ever was a person who deserved to be believed unreservedly on his own word, it was he. He possessed an integrity of soul, and a soundness of judgment, which did actually secure him an unlimited confidence from all who knew him. Every species of deception, falsehood, and exaggeration, he abhorred and scorned. He was an Israelite, indeed, in whom there was no guile.”SGOM 110.2