Our Lost Estate

By

Joseph Morrison

DEDICATION

This volume, which endeavors to show that the experience of heart holiness as a second definite work of grace is the "estate" lost in Eden, and made possible again to mankind by faith in the incarnation, atonement and resurrection of God's Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, is affectionately dedicated to REV. BUD ROBINSON, who for so many years has beautifully exemplified in his life the graces of the experience of holiness of heart, and who has faithfully proclaimed the truth of it, leading countless thousands into its heavenly enjoyments.

By The Author

PREFACE

Another book on holiness! Has not everything been said about that blessed Bible truth, that can possibly be put into print? Are writers not simply threshing old straw when they present again the lines of truth that converge to form the doctrine, and describe the experience of the second work of grace?

Perhaps this is true. But just as we need new sermons, and fresh discourses on important themes, in order that great truths may have the peculiar quality and flavor of the mind and heart through which they pass, so we need new books on holiness. We cannot have too many, or read too much, about so important a truth and so necessary an experience as heart purity. Inasmuch as the Holy Scriptures declare that without it no man shall see the Lord, every person able clearly to express himself in writing should do his best to spread this needful spiritual possession by the printed page, as well as by the spoken word.

Another reason why more books on holiness should be written is, that some one will catch the special intellectual bent of one author, who will have missed the point expressed by some one else. If the message is inspired of the Holy Ghost, be assured some heart is waiting to be enlightened thereby.

That this effort shall help some soul to obtain and live the life of heart purity is the sole reason for the labor of its production. With an earnest prayer for the blessing of the Master to abide upon each earnest reader of its lines, this work is sent forth.

J. G. Morrison

Chapter 1

WHAT WAS THE ESTATE WHICH WE LOST?

The Scriptures teach us that the human race was created by the fiat of God. From the dust of the earth, He sovereignly created a man. God's breath became his life. Later, He took from that man's side one of his bones and from it created the first woman. They were holy and innocent. In a beautiful garden, growing plentifully with fruits and nuts for their food, among which was also a tree that was called the "Tree of Life," and another called the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil," God placed this newly created pair. He beheld them there, and pronounced them "very good" (Gen. 1:31).

Just what God's plans were for these beautiful human creatures, must be gathered from what He stated to them, after they had been installed in the garden. The Scriptures declare that He blessed them and said: "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth" (Gen. 1:28). From this, we gather that some form of toil was to be their privilege, together with dominion over the earth, with family relations, and, from the "blessing"

conferred and statements that God visited them from time to time, we infer that they enjoyed perfect fellowship with Him, and holy communion.

There can be no doubt but that this first man and first woman were godlike in their appearance, and in their characters, for the Book declares that God created them "in his image."

It is difficult for us in these days, when Sin has had so many thousands of years' sway over the population of the earth, even to imagine what the beauty and nobility were of that couple in the garden. All that we have ever looked upon in the way of human beings, are wrecks of the once glorious creation of God. These first creatures were beautiful, innocent and holy. They had never known the taint of sin. Their hearts had only known the presence of the Spirit of God. Their imaginations had never been darkened by evil thoughts, and they had no heredity with which to be blighted. Hatred had never heated their blood, nor fear blanched their faces, or affected their heart beat. No weakness marred their bodies' beauty, no poison checked their blood's rich flow. No pain had shot athwart their nerves, and no taxing toil had warped bone or muscle from its divine symmetry. No pain or worry or care had furrowed their brows, or racked their brains with anxiety. There they were, fresh as the full blown roses at their feet, and god-like, as their Maker would be, were He flesh. Innocence beamed from every virgin glance of their eyes, and holiness made rich abode within their breasts.

Although they were to subdue the earth, and have dominion over it, which implies toil, yet we cannot understand that it was to be anything like the grinding, sweating, exhausting service that the race has known since sin came into the world. Some kind of employment, some kind of toil, he it suitable and enjoyable, is a divine privilege. Work is far from being a curse, if one is not compelled to labor beyond his strength or time, and is not goaded to it with fear and compulsion. Indeed, in many ways it is one of the greatest blessings that can come to one, and to the healthy human is often a sheer joy. But the kind of work that this weary, sinful old world has known, for the most part, under the grinding, goading, nerve-exhausting, brain paralyzing pressure of slavery, or poverty, or military necessity, or a thousand other burdens, is a million times removed from the happy; leisurely toil, out in the open air, naming the animals, plucking the luscious fruits, weaving a bower of twigs and leaves for nightly shelter from the dews, that we may well suppose was the lot of the innocent inhabitants of the Garden of Eden. The animals knew no ferocity, but were tame with divine placidity. There were no scorching suns, nor freezing winds. No storms; no lightning flash laden with death; no earthquake to swallow its shuddering victims; no simoons; no dashing ocean wave clutching at a suffocated throat; no prowling bandits with hands of violence; no shrieks and woes and distress of a city; no scream of bullet; no flash of murderous knife; no wrecks of commerce, bank, or trade; no siren fire whistle with its midnight conflagration and ruin or explosion of death-dealing bomb. Their toll was a pleasure; their care of the Garden and animals a delight; their food plentifully supplied at hand; their joy in one another's company perfect; their rest sweet and dreamless.

God evidently planned for them some sort of continued family life. They were happy in a perfect mutual affection, their united interests brought joy the livelong day. There was no danger; no fear; no regrets; no remorse; no repining; no burdens to pursue them to repose; no care to drive sleep from their eyes. They were happy; they had every need supplied; contentment filled their hearts; their desires were all gratified; there were no sickness, aches, pains or illness. So far as

we Can gather from the entire record, there was to be no death. Very probably, God intended that there was to be no old age, as we know it now. Children were to be born Without pain, and grow up to an ever youthful manhood. Eternal youth; eternal beauty; eternal health; eternal life; it was all theirs!

If any of our readers object to this picture as being too easy, too soft, too indulgent, to be desirable, let us remind him that just such a goal is the very one that all science, all philanthropy, all schemes of government, trade and trades unions, commerce and labor, are seeking for. The world is endeavoring to secure the very Eden blessedness that is depicted in the first chapter of Genesis as being the lot of the first pair in the garden, before they fell. But the world is endeavoring to secure it without. God. It is feverishly following science, and philosophy, and mechanics, and inventions, preparing for itself a better world, as it Supposes. But, as long as the world leaves out the solution of the sin question, it will have the very thing in its so-called better world that still will ruin it.

Another divine. empowerment that was accorded to the first man and the first woman was dominion. Just how this was to be exercised, it is difficult to say. But happy authority over plant life and animal life was conferred upon them by their Creator. This would surely prove to be another source of interesting employment. What a' wonderful garden. of wonderful possibilities, was given by this wonderful Creator, to this wonderful new creation called man!

But we have only just begun to enumerate the values of the "estate" that was theirs. Think of the daily communion and happy fellowship that they had with God. All that Moses in the mount, or Elijah at the brook Cherith, or Daniel meditating in the lion's den, or praying upon the banks of the river Hiddekel, or David under the open sky at evening thrumming his harp and singing Messianic psalms, or St. John on Patmos isle, or St. Paul caught up to the third heaven, or Savonarola amid the passion of popular public discourse, or Fenelon in nightly meditation, or Madam Guyon singing to the dripping walls of her prison, or George FOX, or John Wesley, or John Fletcher, or anyone else ever knew of the joys of God, and the benedictions of hallowed friendship, and the presence of the Creator were all theirs, and, we confidently believe, infinitely more! God talked with them, as with a familiar friend, in the cool of the day. They had no sin; they had no carnality; they had no hereditary weaknesses; they had no lust in their blood or poison in their veins; perfect joy, perfect light, perfect holiness, perfect innocence, perfect emotion swelled their breasts as they fellowshipped the great Creator! Tender melting love animated them, while the sweet fire of the Divine Presence filled their beings! What an "estate" they had! If they had given God the obedience that He had a right to expect, that "estate" would have been perpetual. And their "estate" had it been handed down, would have been ours. When they lost their "estate" they also lost us our "estate." When they fell, we fell.

"Oh, what a fall was that, my countrymen! Then you, and I, and all of us, fell down."

This beautiful pair lost this wondrous "estate." They lost, through sin, the garden with its fruits, and its Tree of Life. They lost the joy and the happiness and the leisurely toil. Storms burst in upon them where calm had been. The very beasts went mad with ferocity, and inaugurated the bloody orgy of relentless reprisal. The lightnings fell and the pitiless rains poured down, where

before had been the gentle dews. Instead of a beneficent Creator blessing and fellowshipping with them in the Cool of the day, there was an avenging angel with a drawn sword barring the way to the Tree of Life. Innocence gone, holiness gone, dominion gone, God gone! With guilty hearts, with fear-racked brains, with carnality eating into the vitals of their souls, with bodies clothed in the reeking skins of slain beasts, they flee, hand in hand, from the beautiful garden, now wrecked by their sin, and face briars, thorns, pain, sorrow, the curse of God, the guilt of remorse, and the stony paths of a sin-ruined world. They had lost their "estate." They had lost our "estate."

Does the reader express wonderment, that so great a calamity could result from such a seemingly insignificant offense? The chief answer to that must ever be that human beings are illy constituted for determining the awful consequences, or the needful deserts, of a sin against God. Our birth into sin, and close connection with sin, and unhappy experiences with it, though now we are saved from it, disqualify us from passing judgment on the value of even the smallest offense. We have been warped and twisted by sin, our contact with it, and visions of it, till we have lost our sense of its just deserts, and the relation that it bears to all other matters. We can only accept the Eden catastrophe as it stands, transcending human reason and experience, and admit that a seemingly small disobedience to God was enough to wreck a world, throw all life, vegetable, animal and human, out of its divine orbit, and entail a universe of misery upon all its inheritors.

Does it seem to be unfair, that subsequent generations should be involved in the sin and fall of the first pair? We can only reply by saying that the same law is still in effect, and that pre-natal influence dictates much of weal or woe in the lives of people today. Neither can we lay the whole blame, today, upon the tragical disobedience of our first parents. While the woeful results are still visited upon us, nevertheless, while we come into this world with a bias toward evil, we also come with an ability not to yield to it if we but choose not to do so. The same calamitous, tragical occurrence that took place in the Garden of Eden, takes place today in the life of every human being, when he reaches the years of accountability. While the choice toward sin is easier for us each to make, than would have been the choice toward God and righteousness, nevertheless, not one of us is compelled to take it, and in the last analysis, each one, finally, deliberately, chose, just as Eve did, to take the disobedient course. At the threshold of the adultage of each human being, there is again re-enacted the tragedy of the Garden. Hence, it ill-becomes any of us, to sit by and repine at Eve's fatal choice, when, despite that choice, we might have escaped, had we not been guilty of making the same choice that she did.

The question of why God created the human race, when His foreknowledge apprised Him that it would choose the wrong, and refuse the right, is shrouded in the mystery of omniscience. To the average thinker, looking back over the long record of world misery, woe, suffering and ruin, and the inevitable damnation of countless millions, it all seems to be incomprehensible; and it appears inexplicable that God should have created them in the first place. However, this writer, though unable to throw a ray of light upon it, or to satisfy his own reasoning powers with any suitable explanation, nevertheless, has a profound conviction that when the segment of God's dealings that we can behold, and slightly comprehend, is fitted into the rest of the circle of His achievements, many of which we cannot comprehend, we will find that His ways were just and perfect, and that the Judge of all the earth has always done wisely and right. We can trust Him, where we Cannot trace Him, and believe Him where we cannot understand.

The tragical fate, however, of the first experience of the human race with sin, carries with it, to the thoughtful, a most appalling warning. When so great a catastrophe, involving not only themselves, but all animate and inanimate creation, and including unborn generations to the latest hour of the world's history, could result from one disobedience to God, what a fearful effect, though hidden from our eyes, must every sin that is ever committed, carry in its wake!

We feel certain that Christians have too lightly esteemed sin. Secure, as we fancy ourselves to be, under the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, we do not hate and abhor sufficiently the dread monster that effected all this ruin. Sometimes, God's children toy with sin, and just skim the sin line in their daily living. Sometimes they break over that line a bit, and then recover themselves by penitence and prayer. Often, the whole lives of some Christians are a constant zigzag, first over the line for a few hours, or it may be moments and then back to forgiveness and reclamation; thence, in a few weeks, to be over the line again. Some never have acquired a genuine' abhorrence for the awful thing that brought the fearful collapse to the "good" creation of the good God. Some live for years with a bit of regret stirring their hearts because of the "pleasures of sin" that they were compelled to give up, in order to be saved. One of the great needs of this present hour is a mighty tide of hatred for sin to sweep the Christian church. What a gracious effect a tidal wave of sin-abhorrence would have upon the rank and file of God's militant army in this world. What clearing of the mind from semi-sinful thoughts. What frenzied Steeling of the soul against the Subtle chill and coolness of sin's approach. What cultivating of holy fires, to drive away the fatal damps that indicate the unseen presence of the enemy of God and man. What tender watchings of one another, that we might assist in avoiding the proximity, of that which proved so fatal to the perfect world that God had placed in the keeping of the first pair. What a ministry, a mighty wave of sin-detestation would generate. With freedom from the secular affairs of the world, and leisure to devote oneself to the affairs of the Kingdom of God, which is the privilege of the ministry, what agonizings before the throne of God such a sense of hatred for sin would bring. How ministers would cultivate the intense presence of God. How they would watch their own hearts and lives. How they would travel from door to door among their people and pray and exhort the members of their flock. How they would fast and pray, and agonize over a backslider. How they would yearn over him, and "hate the sin that made him mourn," and exercise their faith, till Christ again was formed in him. How seriously they would meet and mingle with one another. With sin's awfulness staring them in the face, and with an avenging Adversary on their heels with uplifted weapons of destruction, and with a consciousness of the brevity of time, its golden moments slipping through their leisurely fingers, and with the hour of death swiftly approaching, to end all opportunity of labor for their lost and dying fellows, they would not, we apprehend, spend their time in idle jest, or senseless repartee, or inane banter, or useless badinage, but in prayer and serious cultivation of their powers of usefulness, they would fellowship one another and cheer each other on, as fellow soldiers meeting for a moment in the lull of the conflict, encourage one another again to attack the foe. And how such a minister would preach I Much of the lack of interest in delivered discourse is because the preacher feels no impending crisis weighing down his heart, no moments freighted with life or death tugging at his soul. But if he possessed a heart crushed beneath a sense of abhorrence for sin, with visions of its assault upon the people for whom he must give an account, with certain knowledge, oftentimes, that the fell monster has, but yesterday, borne off some of the dear lambs of his flock, he would wait for the hour of preaching like soldiers wait for the "zero hour" in times of battle, he would mount his pulpit with a throb of agony trembling in his breast, he would preach "as a dying man, to dying men." He could not be uninteresting if he would. No man

bowed with the agony of a crisis-hour, and speaking the truth of God with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, can fail to move human hearts. Again there would sweep over the Church the days of mighty preaching. A mighty preacher is one who is possessed of a mighty, throbbing, burning, burdensome message, and in pain to be delivered. Then, plow-boys, artisans, sheep-herders, shoe-clerks, soldiers, business men, anybody, can do mighty preaching. Then, again, would roll the tide of marvelous revivals. Not one week campaigns, nor two week efforts; but prolonged, interesting, vital, bewitching, fervent garnering times from a white harvest field.

Oh, that now, we might have such a wave of sin-abhorrence possess God's people. That now, it might begin in you, reader, as we trust it has already begun in the writer of these lines. Let us precipitate it in the name of the Master, who, because of His hatred for it, went through Gethsemane and Golgotha, in His combat with it.

Chapter 2

HOW THE ESTATE WAS LOST

In the story of the tares, in St. Matthew, the householder is made to remark, when he heard that the tares were springing up in the midst of his field, "An enemy hath done this." Consequently, when we ask how the beautiful garden came to be ravished, and the god-like pair induced to sin, and the happy, holy scene turned into death and destruction, the reply is, an enemy did it.

Satan, who ruined the scene, and tempted the holy man and holy woman to follow him into evil, had not always been a devil. There was a time when he was an immaculate, holy, spotless angel of light. He once bore the name of Lucifer, the interpretation of which is "Light-Bearer." Just what special office he filled among the angelic hosts, is beside the point, but we have reason to believe that he was an archangel, and among the very highest of all God's created intelligences. But he fell into sin. What it was that ruined him, no man can say. What powerful temptation overcame him, it is impossible, accurately to state. A guess at it, is all that is allowed us. The Bible intimates that it was pride. His very position, power, wisdom and beauty, very probably led to his undoing. He seems to have gotten possession of the idea that he could rule in God's stead. Some have supposed that he had been placed in charge of the earth before his fall, as a Sort of guardian angel, and, that that was what led him so promptly back to it, after his break with God. Others have supposed that he had been required to pay homage to the newly manifested Son of God, before even the world was created, and that he refused, and this led to his rupture with the Creator. At all events, we do know that he fell. When he fell, he lost all his holiness, all his beauty, all his angelic dominion. He seems, however, to have retained his intellectuality when he went into exile from heaven.

Just where he remained between his fall and the creation of man, it is impossible to say. However, we do know that he was early on the earth scene. There is a notion, current among some religious leaders, that the chief purpose that God had in creating man was to confer upon the human race the positions made vacant by the fallen angels, after He had carefully tested mankind out under a probationary scheme. Whether this can be given any credit or not, we do not know. What we do know, is that the speedy temptation of the human pair, by this great fallen angel, lends some

color to the theory. As though Satan had looked upon this god-like pair, and soliloquized thus: "So this is the being that is to have my place? Well, we will see about that. Maybe I can devilize him, just as I have myself, and lead him to worship me instead of God."

At all events, it looks as though that was what he did. He carefully surveyed the field and planned his attack. He shrewdly guessed, that unless he captured the woman, it would be time wasted to capture the man, for she would re-capture her husband. But if he did succeed in getting her, she would carry the man with her, and in that way he would have them both. Satan avoided Adam, and seems not to have had any direct contact with him. But he approached Eve. With a subtlety and finesse that commands our every respect, he brought his attack to bear upon the most vulnerable and vital spot in her armor. He attacked her faith. God had freely granted to this human couple the use of every tree in the garden except one, and that was the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil." It was not God's original plan, apparently, to confer that sort of ability upon His creatures, and he had forbidden them to touch the fruit of that tree. In doing so, He had assured the children of His creative hand, that in the day that they should eat thereof, they should surely die.

When Satan approached Eve, evidently disguised as a knowing creature of the Garden, called a serpent, but no doubt far different from the creatures that we now know by that designation, for this one could speak, he artfully insinuated that God had not told her the truth. If he did not deliberately declare that God had lied, he did intimate that God had concealed part of the truth from herself and her husband. In other words, he implanted a doubt in her mind against God. The ruse succeeded, and she entertained that doubt. Satan had assured her that God knew that she and her husband, if they ate of the forbidden tree, would not really die, but that, rather, they would be wise, and actually take their places alongside of God, in wisdom. Fortified with the discovery, as she supposed, that God had purposely misinformed them, she visited the Tree. With a doubt in her heart, as to God's word about it, and with faith in that of Satan, she took the fruit, ate it, and later, just as Satan had predicted, induced her husband also to partake of it.

The deed was done. They had disobeyed God. Doubt, as it always does to this day, had broken the connection between them and God, and slowly they lost their god-likeness, their innocence, their beauty, their holiness, their peace of mind, their happiness. It can be well asserted, that from that moment, they began to die. But for God's subsequent hand of restraint, providing a way for them to continue to live, though sinners, they would have sunk to their physical graves, and their doomed spirits would have entered the abode of their Tempter.

The awfulness of their fall was not only measured by what they lost, but also by what they had, so to speak, gained. They had, indeed, lost holiness, innocence and peace, and to their horror and woe, they had gained sin and carnality. Their hearts that had never known hate, now began to burn with that flame from hell. There can be no question but that they immediately began to quarrel. Adam's language in laying the whole blame onto his wife, is proof that they had charged one another venomously about it, soon after they realized that God's word was true, and that death was slowly congealing their veins.

Their bodies were affected. Aches, pains, and weariness took possession of them. Organs, that had hitherto been perfect, now refused to function. They began to wither and grow old. Death had begun, and though it was divinely stayed till many years later, yet it eventually claimed them,

and has claimed every child of the race from that day to this. Look, and you will see in the face of every adult human, some marks of approaching death.

Their minds were affected. The ability to think clearly, intuitively and logically, was lost, and the warped, hazy, illogical condition set in, that has compelled all mankind ever to learn, and never to come to the knowledge of the truth. Fear clutched their hearts. It was the first fear they had known. They were afraid of God -- they had disobeyed Him, and were now reaping the results that He had warned them of. They were ashamed of themselves. They saw their own nakedness, and now comprehended its shame, and sought pitifully to cover themselves with improvised loin cloths made of leaves. Their world around them began to change. It went topsy turvy. Their peaceful animal neighbors suddenly went wild with blood lust and carnage, while the guilty authors of it, slunk fearfully away from the ferocious creatures, and sought concealment among the forest trees. The fruits on which they had so comfortably lived, disappeared midst storm and earthquake, and hunger stared them in the face. God sought them in their sullen, fear-struck hiding place. Instead of the blessings of a pleased Creator, they cowered beneath a withering curse. He robed them in skins, taken reeking from the slain beasts, and expelled them from the Garden, commanding an angel to prevent their eating of the Tree of Life, which, apparently, they had not touched, hitherto. Their hearts were dark with crime, sorrow, remorse, hatred of God, hatred of one another, and slowly there sunk into their souls, that principle of sin, that "flesh nature" discussed in St. Paul's Roman letter; that "old man" which he mentions in Colossians and Ephesians; that "superfluity of naughtiness" of St. James; that "sin which doth so easily beset us," of Hebrews; that "when I do good, evil is present with me," of the seventh of Romans; that "filthiness of the flesh and spirit;" that nature, that has been the basis of all crime, all hatred, all evil, all war, all lust, all malice, all murder, all theft, all brutality, all vice, all false religions, all pollution from that day till the present. That has made the earth run red with blood, that has burned and ravaged, and rioted, and enslaved, and carried the incendiary's torch, and the murderer's dagger, and the hater's poison,. and the talebearer's defamation, and created the false priest and the pseudo prophet, and planted superstition, and inaugurated the inquisition, and destroyed little children, and devised the caste system, and produced the child widows, and robbed heaven, and populated hell, and defamed God, and crucified Jesus Christ. Carnality!

Implanting carnality was the devil's master stroke. Personal sins cannot be inherited, but carnality is handed on from father to son. Personal sins can be forgiven, but carnality is not susceptible to forgiveness, nor to control, nor to law, nor to custom, but breaks out anywhere, and anytime, and harks back at once to its mighty satanic progenitor, and the deeds of its father will it do. By inoculating the soul-stuff of our first parents with the virus of carnality, Satan insured the perpetuation of sin. By this means, he pledged the sinfulness of even a godly parent's offspring. He defiled the race to be.

The deadliness of carnality has not been sufficiently emphasized even by the holiness people. Like some kinds of gas used by the world war combatants, it can neither be seen, smelled nor tasted. The only evidence of its presence was when men began to cough, look pale, breathe with difficulty, wither up, and die. So with carnality. Oftentimes, its presence is difficult to detect. It simulates many human characteristics that are virtues. It lies silent and unfelt sometimes in the soul. Only when the test comes, does its presence become known. Then it reveals itself with terror. Only to those who are expert in dealing with it, is it easily detected. It produces a strange languor

in prayer, a weakness in testimony, a hesitance in service, a disposition to look for something other than the fiery spirit of God with which to operate the activities of the Church. It creates a stingy attitude toward giving, and a longing for the comforts and flesh pots of this world.

The true child of God ought ever to be on his guard against it. He should turn the flaming Spirit of God upon any thing, that remotely appears like an evidence of this old carnal nature, that like an acetylene torch, it may burn every trace of it away. To be free from all carnality is the greatest cleansing fact that a holy Christianity can know. It is well worth your vigilance. Your time cannot be spent to better advantage than to search carefully through your heart, ascertaining whether all carnality has been removed. There can be no greater joy than to know to a certainty, that at last it is all gone. Then, the last citadel of the old enemy who ruined Eden is overthrown, and the soul is ready as far as the sin question is concerned, to meet God.

We fear that even the holiness ministry has not studied with sufficient care, into this dread inheritance, this moral corruption, called "inbred-sin." This is what makes the Adamic fall such a calamity, such an amazing catastrophe. When the sin principle was generated in the hearts of the guilty pair in the garden, it entered into the very fabric of the soul, and became an item for transmission to posterity. Then began the serpent's trail. It flared out in the heart of Cain, and the first born human child became the first to imbrue his hands in his. brother's blood. The first soul to enter the eternal world, there to await the Resurrection and the Judgment, was sent there by an assassin's club, and was a victim of the out-break of carnality. Since that historic crime, ages ago,. the stream of murdered men, women and little children, victims all, of the uncontrolled, lawless spirit of inbred-sin, has increased to a dark, bloody, turbulent tide, that now flows from Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas in one constant hideous river. Poison, knife, exploding weapon, bludgeon, halter, infanticide, fratricide, uxoricide, patricide, matricide, suicide, homicide; and then, a sudden, unusual outbreak of carnality occurs, and men gather in regiments, battalions, brigades and armies, and with bomb, machine gun, poison gas,. heavy cannon, and bayonets; with stealthy approach, mine and counter-mine, heavy bombardment, open struggle, charge and counter-charge, swell the vast number of stricken souls that annually ascend to the bar of God, into a colossal deluge, as black-faced with hate, hoarse with animosity, and ferocious with anger, they kill and hill, and kill till the intermediate abode swarms with souls, hot and bloody from earth's battle fields. What is the animus and occasion of war -- CARNALITY!

Why do not preachers preach against it more? They often mention it, but seem for the most part to give it a semi-harmless caste, as though it emanated from some sprite, or mischievous fairy. Seldom do we hear a preacher take the mask off this dread inheritance of the race and paint it as it is, the first-born and chief offspring of the devil. Sometimes, holiness people tolerate this hideous thing for years, all the while professing to be sanctified wholly, because they do not know the hidden movings, the secret workings of this racial depravity. Oh, would that the ministry would uncover it! Would that they unsheathed sharp swords against it! Would that its evidences might become the theme of prayer meeting exhortation and pulpit utterance. Would that skilled penmen took brief against it, and painted its horrible ancestry, its fearful history, and the bloody tribute under which now it lays the race. Would that periodicals published within the church, for the ministry, laity, young people or children, would utter frequent pronouncements on its symptoms, its subtlety, its deadliness, its ruinous effect upon spirituality, and the absolute certainty that God can never admit it into heaven. Would that the laity, aroused by the need of the present times, would

demand of its ministry more frequent pulpit efforts along the line of this age-long foe, that they would urge a similar need upon our editors and contributors, that they would denounce this inbred menace in prayermeeting, and in Sunday school class, in order that the whole church might put on her beautiful garments of holiness, and freed from the corruption of carnality might shine forth "bright as the sun, fair as the moon, and terrible as an army with banners" (Solomon's Song 6:10).

The possibility of a full deliverance from it, will be discussed in future chapters, but we can anticipate enough here, to say that nothing so honors the atoning blood of Jesus Christ, nothing will be more pleasing to God the Father, God the Son, or God the Holy Ghost, as to secure complete and utter cleansing from it, and nothing will more enhance the influence of any Christian man or minister than to live day by day beyond the touch and tarnish of this depraved nature.

Who will unite in a crusade against carnality? Who will accept the odium of leading an assault against this entrenched foe?. As long as it blocks the path of the believer, his return to the possession of the "lost estate" is barred. Indeed, the lost estate is holiness. Carnality is unholiness. Consequently, this is the great brass gate and the frowning wall, with which our adversary, the devil, would guard against our recovery of that estate. Who will resolutely, by the help of God, assault the walls? Who will crash the gate? These times, in spiritual circles, demand heroic souls. They need men and women who will not count their lives dear unto themselves, that they may be able to obtain a holy heart, and lead others into the same gracious possession.

The times call for a ministry that will be devoted to one thing, and that is the generation of a holy people. Men and women who will face poverty, with a smile, wear Shabby garments if need be, take the small Churches and ride the rough Circuits; who will subdue kingdoms, obtain promises, stop the mouths of lions, quench the violence of the flames of public Contempt, despise the edge of the sword, out of weakness be made strong, wax valiant in fight, turn to flight the armies of the enemy and accept tortures not accepting deliverance in order to plant the Kingdom of Holiness!

The same great Captain that led the gathering of the clans around the Sea of Galilee, and who later gathered a mightier host around the Mediterranean sea, and after that, secured a still greater following around the Atlantic ocean, is now marshaling His armies around the Pacific! Jesus is His name! Holiness is His Kingdom! Who volunteers?

Chapter 3

CAN THE LOST ESTATE BE RECOVERED?

It is admitted on all hands, except among the evolutionists, that man is a fallen creature. Evolutionists allege that man "fell up," whatever senseless conception that may be. But their theory, that man and all else in the universe, has slowly evolved through the millenniums from nothing to what we now see, is so absurd, so untenable, so without a shred of real evidence; so plainly a theory adopted for the purpose of getting rid of one's personal accountability to God, so clearly a bid for escaping the conventional requirements of morality and decency, as to become downright preposterous and laughable, but for the astounding fact that it is seriously held and

taught by supposedly sober, thinking men. For anyone with a grain of concern for his own soul, or the souls of his fellow creatures, evolution has long ceased to be even worth considering. It is the wildest kind of a scientific nightmare that resolves facts into distorted unrealities, and paints the dream-world of its devotees with the phantoms of its own insane desires. Were it not being disseminated in the schools and colleges of the land, it ought not to give spiritually minded men any more concern than a fairy story.

Mankind has been infinitely greater, better, and holier than we now know him to be. This is the teaching of the Bible. This is corroborated by the ancient traditions of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, Greeks and Romans. To this idea, -comes reinforcement from the scientific horticulturists. They declare that all fruits and grains give "internal evidence" of having been bigger and better than we now find them. They even state that weeds were at one time grain or fruit producing plants. Luther Burbank, who, while he was alive, could hardly be classed as a Christian, or even remotely as a believer in Biblical truth, has stated that fruits were once, in his judgment, twice or thrice the size and lusciousness that they now are; that the development of plants, vegetables, fruits and flowers, under his seeming magical hand, was but the return, through careful cultivation, of these growing things, to the condition that they once possessed. The cultivation, breeding and development of animals would seem to teach the same thing. The world is a fallen planet. The animal world and the vegetable world are fallen. Man is fallen. We realize that many think that his advance in civilization is a proof to the contrary. They point out the upward march of the race from primitive barbarism to civilization, and declare that the race is slowly evolving, and will eventually reach a high and perfect stage. We are sure that unless they relate the ascension of the race to the second coming of our Lord, that their reasoning is incorrect. History shows that the race has many times risen, and again collapsed. The present day civilization is not the only one that the race has known. To be sure, it is the only one that has had the benefit of Christianity, and that is the very reason it has risen to the heights that it now enjoys. But other advances failed because of the fact that the sin question was never solved. In all its advance, the very seeds of dissolution and collapse were still retained. The thing that ruined the race in the first place, that is sin, was still left in each civilization that arose, and ere long that fact brought again the ruin from which it had been lifted. In the present day civilization the race has had the benefit of Christianity. But there is every sign just now that, largely speaking, the modern world is rejecting the very thing that has made this civilization greater than the ones that preceded it. The Holy Trinity and the Holy Bible are being rejected, flouted, laughed at, and ignored. The solution of the sin question, that had taken place in the hearts of a considerable number of the people of the last few generations, is now being tabooed, sneered at, and kept from the hearts and minds of the rising generation. There can be no other consequence than collapse. Already the signs of it are at hand. The world war would never have broken out, but for evolution and modernism. It was the teaching of the modern universities that precipitated the bloodiest four years, the most hideous slump back toward the savagery of barbarism, that the world has known since Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem. The only safety, the only salvation, the only hope, of the human race is in the teachings, the ethics, the standards and the experiences of the religion of Jesus Christ. Whenever the race to any considerable extent, embraces these, it begins to climb. Whenever it ignores, evades, derides and rejects these, then it begins the same decline that it has witnessed times without number in other ages. It is now on the down grade. It approaches another collapse!

Religiousness is one of the few universal characteristics of humanity. Man is a worshipping being. Every man, woman or child has something to which he pays homage in a religious way. Just because the thing they worship is not connected with a church may cause them to insist that they are not religious, but nevertheless they are. Many people are most religious when they claim irreligion. However, of all the religions of the world, of all the objects of worship in all the earth, with gods many and lords many, with every human being paying homage in his heart to some object of veneration or worship, there is but one among them all that offers, or claims, or proposes to solve the sin question. None of the great outstanding religions offers to solve it. None of the new, modern, up-to-date religions offers to solve it. Each religion (save one) passes the sin problem by, and seeks to secure the homage and devotion of its worshipers without touching that absorbing question. Indeed, each one of these religions promises to save a person in his sins, but none of them offers to save him from his sins.

It is the unique distinction of the religion of Jesus Christ to make the claim that it will, if its conditions are met, actually save a person from his sins! It seems to this writer that this unique claim, if it can be proved that such is verified by facts, is the strongest proof, for the divinity of the system of religion that is called Christianity, that can be found. Let us briefly review the alleged facts of Christianity, and then examine frankly into the above remarkable claim.

Let the reader remember, that after the sin of our first parents in the Garden of Eden, God was confronted with a desperate situation -- a self perpetuating race that was morally ruined, and cursed with an especially dangerous, devilish, inwrought principle of sin, called carnality. This race was inhabiting a world that was in confusion from the same dread offense, and bearing a burden of more or less chaos. How to redeem a sinful being, and at the same time not put a premium on the sins that made him sinful, was the question, it seems certain, that occupied the mind of the Creator. In other words, how to save mankind, and at the same time, publish to the world of spiritual intelligences God's dread hatred of sin, and its fearful deserts, was the problem.

God's first step was to put into effect a temporary arrangement whereby sinners could be forgiven, and their need of atonement referred on ahead, so to speak, to the ultimate tribunal that was to provide for this. Through typical altars, offerings, and ceremonies, this temporary plan was made effective. Bleeding beasts and blazing altars became the sign of God's presence and forgiveness. A "shekinah" fire was the peculiar pledge of the favor of the most High. This Old Testament plan did not claim efficacy for itself, but constantly looked ahead to something of which it was but the type.

This temporary arrangement perfected, God's next step was to begin an elaborate system of prophetic statements concerning the culmination of His plan for restoration and redemption of the ruined race that He had on His hands. He had already begun this, when He first discovered the guilty pair in the garden. At the moment of their deepest agony of discovery, and crushed under the awful curse that outlined the punishment of the couple and that of their descendants, God had made an enigmatical promise that the "seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head" (Gen. 3:15). >From thence to the age of redemption's culmination, He is constantly weaving into the doings and sayings of His chosen people, a thread of prophecy, much of which when read today, in the light of subsequent events, seems like the declaration of an eye witness.

He makes it clear that His redemption plan shall center around, and shall have its culmination in the person of a Man! As intimated above, He is to be peculiarly the "seed of the woman." Woman who had been the chief offender, was to be the chief channel of honor in the restoration of the race to its lost position of holiness. From this brief prophetic utterance in the garden, God proceeds to indicate the nation through which the Redeemer is to come, the family that shall be His line, the circumstances that shall indicate His near approach, the city in which He shall be born. He also causes His various prophets to outline His character. He is to be divine; to be the deity Himself; to be God's Son; the government is to be upon His shoulder; He is to be called the "Prince of Peace;" His birth shall be miraculous, He shall be the child of a virgin; He shall be rich, and yet He shall be lowly; He shall be a King, and yet shall be cast out and rejected of men; through Him shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, and yet He shall be a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; He shall dwell in Nazareth, a despised village; called out of Egypt, a seemingly impossible thing, and yet He should sit upon the throne of His father David forever. But the most astonishing and unbelievable thing of all was that this mighty One was to be slain -- put to death, and by that death He was to justify many -- and yet, astounding to relate, He was to live forever. Even some of the incidents of His life were prophetically revealed. He was to heal the sick, and bless the poor, and to ride, a lowly, humble figure, into Jerusalem upon a colt, the foal of an ass. He was after His death to lie in the donated tomb of a rich man, and yet live to govern His people forever, and issue the law from Zion's hill.

Another step toward his marvelous redemption was taken by the Creator, when He chose Abraham as the human channel through which He was to come. Then He expanded that family to a nation, and then narrowed it again to "David's line." The vicissitudes and changing fortunes of this family, this nation, and this "line," are all meted out in providential manner so as to "prepare the way of the Lord, and to make His paths straight."

God made additional preparation by means of nations outside of Israel. He exalted the haughty, stern-faced Roman nation, and gave them the rulership of the world. He brought its highways under their care, the ships of the sea He placed in their hands, the nations at their feet; and when the fateful hour of His Son's advent drew nigh, there was an unusual calm resting on the world, a freedom from wars, and a civilization that was in the grip of a nation that could maintain by force the peace of the world. All things were ready. It was the fullness of time. The hour approaches. The clock of destiny is about to strike.

An angel from heaven wings his way to the humble home of a Jewish priest, Zacharias by name in the "hill country" of Judea, and the announcement to him and his wife Elizabeth, of the birth of the great forerunner of Jesus Christ was made. Six months later, another angel left the court of the skies and apprised the virgin Mary, that she had been selected as the mother of Him that was to bring redemption to the descendants of Adam, who lost it for himself and us in the first days of creation."

And now there unrolls before the reader one of the most singular and astounding tales that has ever been heard. Its familiarity has robbed it of much of its amazing wonderment. Here in the walks of earth's human race appears a strange Being. He is human in every outward appearance, and lives as do his fellow men, and yet grows more and more strange and wonderful to the gaze and the thought of those with whom He lived. He was poor. He never had, so far as the record

shows, a penny of money all His adult life. He lived on the chance charity of any who might invite Him in. He walked all His life, except for one short ride, on which occasion He fulfilled a noted prophecy. The description of His appearance has not been handed down, but His character and teachings are fairly well recorded in a small volume called the New Testament. He was ever different from everyone else. Others struggled for comforts and riches, He preferred poverty. Others wanted a home, He traveled the highway and slept in the mountain. Others sought for the good opinion of their fellows, He courted nobody's opinion but that of His "Father," by which term He referred to God. Others were helpless, in the presence of storms, but they subsided at His word. Others were fearful in the extreme of diseases, but those who were under the power of this dread enemy of mankind leaped into robust health at His approach. Others saw their friends succumb to death, but He mastered the grave whenever He saw fit. Others ignored and oppressed the poor, but He chose them for His companions and founded a Kingdom in which the poor are His prime ministers. Others feared that the future would upset and ruin all their plans, but He planned for endless ages as though He governed the laws of futurity.

His teachings were the amazement of the day in which they were delivered, and it is not too much to say that the world has never realized or appreciated them to this day. His church which He founded has but a limited idea of their meaning, power and beauty.

He incurred the enmity of the Jewish cultured and leading classes. They resolved upon His death. He calmly predicted that to die was the very purpose for which He came into the world. He declared that that death would enable Him ultimately to draw all men unto Himself. Then follow His arrest, His mockery of a trial, while His shivering disciples stood by, or hid from sight. He is condemned, while never uttering a word of self defense. He is led out to die laden with His own cross, upon which the Romans, incited by the Jews, nailed Him. And there on Calvary's hill He died, the sublimest spectacle of humility, love, forgiveness and suffering. Three days later He rose from the dead, and His disciples began with boldness to proclaim that He was God's Son, the long expected Messiah of the Hebrews. Soon He ascended bodily to heaven, and not long after, the waiting disciples were marvelously filled and endowed by the coming of the Holy Spirit, and sallying forth they defied persecution, many of them even unto death, and preached a salvation from all sin in the name of this wonderful Jesus who is called the Christ.

From the very outset, Jesus Christ taught that the chief purpose of His coming into this world was to solve the sin question. While He was soon acknowledged as the greatest preacher that had ever been seen or heard, He, himself, claimed that He had not come from heaven primarily to preach but to save men from sin. He was a noted and marvelous miracle worker, and a constant healer of the diseases that afflicted human bodies, yet He declared that He had not come primarily to heal men's bodies, but to heal their souls of the plague of sin. To save from sin was His constant theme. To persuade men to accept such a salvation was His chief effort. We insist that His ability to do this, is His greatest claim to divinity.

His disciples quickly became known as holy men. They testified that they had been saved from sin. They alleged that He who had saved them, could save anyone who would fulfill the simple conditions. They declared that what had been lost in Adam, so far as the sin question was concerned, was restored in every one who would accept Jesus Christ as a Savior, and utterly trust His atoning blood. Indeed, these sacred writers use extreme terms when writing about this matter.

St. Luke records the words of Zacharias to the effect that those who belong to Him may be delivered from their enemies and serve Him without fear in holiness and righteousness all the days of their lives (Luke 1 :74-75). What greater enemy could exist than carnality? How could one serve Him in holiness, unless this interior enemy were destroyed? Another states that they had their hearts purified by faith in Him. Another declares that all who truly trust Him can be saved to the uttermost. While the great Apostle to the Gentiles asserts that th is Jesus Christ not only died for sinners, but that He gave Himself to the Church that He might sanctify it, until it should be without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.

The clear teaching of Scripture, and the clear harmony of the whole story of the lost estate of Eden, is to the effect that it can be, and is, restored in Jesus Christ. There are certain physical and mental restorations that await the morning of the resurrection day, but everything that pertains to the stain of sin, the pollution of sin, the guilt of sin, and the results of sin as it relates to our standing with God, is completely recovered from, through faith in the Victim that gave His life a ransom for us on Golgotha's hill.

The "lost estate" has been recovered. Through faith in Jesus Christ our Lord, all sinners can find God's full pardon for their sins. Through the deeper efficacy of His blood, all pardoned souls can find a cleansing from that inbred principle of sin that underlies and is the basis of every sinful deed.

What the first Adam lost, the second Adam has regained. Where sin abounded, grace doth now much more abound. Where the dreadful festering sore of sin existed, there the Balm of Gilead is applied and we have perfect healing. Where hatred and envy and selfishness found lodgment, now love abounds. Where Satan ruled, now Jesus Christ reigns in perfect love!

Chapter 4

THE PROCESS OF RECOVERY -- REGENERATION

How can a person be saved from sin? This is one of the 'greatest questions that has ever been asked. Upon its answer, so the Bible teaches, hangs the weal or woe of a conscious soul for eternity. It has profoundly affected human beings for ages. An answer to it has been sought in hundreds of different ways. Men have enacted extreme penalties upon themselves in their effort to obtain peace with the God whom they had offended. Superstition, witchcraft, necromancy, spiritism, and religious cults have been developed in an effort to find peace for the soul, and a sense of the favor of God. God has a simple, feasible, workable plan whereby a lost soul can find salvation, and an estranged heart may obtain rest with Him.

There are a few special characteristics that God's plan must possess. Our familiarity with the account of how the estate was lost, is helpful in order for us to understand what we must possess when the estate is restored. For, in the last analysis, when salvation is complete, the race must have back all that Adam had before he fell. Indeed, the race may, and we believe that it shall, have more than he had, but at least it must have as much as he possessed. Otherwise the enemy will have gained some sort of an advantage over God, and put something into effect, that He can never

overcome. When the whole sin episode is finished, and the restored race is again inhabiting a renewed earth, the character of God requires that everything lost to man by the fall, must be fully restored.

The first characteristic of the redemption that God offers to a fallen race, is, therefore, a solution of the sin question in each person's case. Any kind of a so-called salvation that makes an allowance for remaining sin cannot be the kind that God plans to bestow. His plan is never to save a man in his sins, but to save him from his sins. Such was the promise to Mary when first the angel broke the news to her that she was to be the mother of this mighty Savior. "Thou shalt call his name Jesus," said the angel, "for he shall save his people from their sins" (Matt. 1:21).

The second characteristic of a salvation that really saves, is a transformation of the moral and physical life of the candidate in order that he shall be enough like the Creator, so that he may live a life here below free from sin, and be comfortable with Him when he is called on to dwell with Him in heaven. Anything less than this would break up the whole plan. The original arrangement in Eden, called for a constant and habitual fellowship with God that would be absolutely intolerable if the candidate were not like Him. We must like what He likes, we must hate what He hates, and we must love Him and desire to enjoy His holy presence forever. Unless we can be like Him, this is unthinkable. The very thought of anyone with sin in his being,. enjoying the burning, holy presence of God is incredible.

A third characteristic is service. A salvation that does not eventuate in service is spurious. The very ground work of salvation is missionary. God's efforts to redeem the race were purely unselfish missionary efforts. The moment that the salvation of Jesus Christ begins to take effect in the heart of a candidate, he begins his life of service. Such a service cannot cease or salvation will cease. It is tireless and never ends. Death simply transfers its efforts to another sphere.

When we inquire how these characteristics are obtained, we find that the first step is to hear the truth I The truth is contained in the Bible. It is revealed chiefly through the church, which is an organization of those who have experienced the saving truths of the Word of God, and are banded together for the care of one another and the salvation of those who have not found the light. While the entire church is charged with the revelation of the truths of the Bible, nevertheless, the ministry, a special portion of the church, is peculiarly obligated with its propagation. The Bible contains the history of God's dealings with the human race. In it can be found the exhortations and predictions of the prophets, the religious songs and ecstatical utterances of the hymn writers of past ages; the story of the life of Jesus Christ, and His marvelous truths, and the teachings and exhortations of His disciples.

The Bible is inspired. It was dictated by the Holy Spirit. It claims that for itself, and its effect upon the lives and actions of many millions of people proves the claim to be correct. The first great step in the salvation of a human being, is to lay upon his sinful heart the truths of the Bible. This is done chiefly by preaching. It can also be done by singing, testimonies, private admonitions, teaching, and by the printed page. We are assured that God's Spirit especially blesses and accompanies His Word. The prophet Isaiah declares that it will not return unto Him void. The psalmist David states that when the Word enters a human heart, it bringeth light. Another sacred writer avers that God's Word breaks the heart to pieces, and is a discerner of its thoughts and

intents. Preaching is not supposed to be the views and opinions of the preacher, but a faithful presentation of the teachings of the Word of God. Testimonies are not supposed to be mere emotional utterances, but the faithful delineation of the effects of the Word of God upon the speaker's own heart, and the consequences that came of it. Scriptural preaching, scriptural testimonies, scriptural singing, will ever, when accompanied with the Holy Spirit's presence, result in a profound conviction for sin, on the part of the hearer. Men cannot bear the plain preaching of the Word of God. They either yield to its convicting power, or they resent it, and fight against the hold that it takes upon them.

This conviction of the truth of the Bible, the fact of sin, and its damning awfulness, the wrath of God and the certainty of endless punishment, is an indispensable preliminary to salvation. It is true that small children may be led to a saving knowledge of the Lord, without feeling the pungent horrors of conviction, but often even in children, the Holy Ghost works a very keen and distressing sense of need, before He applies the forgiveness of God, and acceptance though our Lord Jesus Christ. But for adults, who have rejected Him, and lightly evaded the requirements of His grace, and possibly hardened their hearts repeatedly to the approaches of His Spirit, there cannot be any forgiveness without a deep contrition, and convicting sense of merited ruin. Sometimes such a conviction carries with it the consciousness of keenest distress. Bowed under the heavy burdens of guilt and estrangement from God, some are disposed to yield to Satan's artful temptation that their days of grace are over. But the darkest hour of a genuine realization of the soul's lost condition, is often the nearest moment to pardon and relief. If the soul will that moment throw itself without reserve upon the merits of Jesus Christ, and truly accept the atonement in His shed blood, extending to Him a sincere faith in the verity of His promises, and the efficacy of the cross for curing sin, there will something happen that is real and entrancingly delightful. A genuine miracle will be performed in the consciousness of that person. He will be justified from all his sins, before the Judge of all the earth. That is, he will be forgiven, and his transgressions will be blotted out of the memory of the Lord and of heaven's record. Oftentimes they are blotted out of the candidate's own memory. He is a changed man. Instead of being a refugee from the vengeance of broken laws, and burdened with the demerit of sin and unrighteousness, he is pardoned; he is forgiven. The book containing the charges against him is destroyed. He is clear before the court of heaven. "Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more" (Heb. 8:12).

Simultaneously with the forgiveness of his sins, there is another marvelous change takes place in the heart and mind of that person. A new Christ-nature is imparted unto him. A spiritual life is given. When the first pair sinned they died spiritually, and, but for the immediate intervention of God, would have perished physically; and, finally, years after, did so. Since that day, every child of the race has entered this life with the penalty of spiritual death upon him. Spared during infancy through the unconscious application of the atonement of our Lord, he seals the doom of spiritual death upon himself when, at the years of accountability, he chooses the way of sin. All the days of a sinner's life are spent in spiritual death. Only when he comes to God, through the atonement of His Son, and, confessing all, he penitently falls at His feet, and trusts the atonement of His blood, does there pass upon him, simultaneously with the pardon of his sins, the impartation of the new life of God. It is the same kind of spiritual life that Adam lost in the garden. The life which he forfeited there, is now restored to each humble believing soul. That soul which was dead in trespasses and in sins, is now alive from the dead. This is called regeneration. Living again with the life of God. This is what is called the "New Birth," without which no person may

see the kingdom that Jesus founded. This is the first great experience necessary to the restoration of our lost estate. This is the spiritual transaction that admits one to the invisible "church," or "called out ones," that Jesus denominated as His body, and which is His representative here on earth.

Reader, if there is any question in your mind, or any doubt in your heart, as to the possession of this experience that makes of you a "new creation" in Christ Jesus, you ought not to wait a moment, but hasten to assure yourself of the possession of this necessary step toward that holiness which God demands of every soul who enters His heavenly home.

The chief evidence of having passed from death unto life, and of having possessed oneself of this gracious experience of regeneration, is the "witness of the Spirit." This is mentioned in Romans where St. Paul says, "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God" (Rom. 8:16). This witness consists of an inner consciousness that God has accepted the merits of His Son, has approved of our sincere penitence' and surrender, and has operated over the medium of our faith, and accomplished the work of forgiveness and regeneration.

No person should be satisfied that regeneration is really his, without the witness of the Spirit, for without it we have no proper means of telling when we are truly born again. However, many in their anxiety to possess the witness of the Spirit, have fallen into the unhappy habit of seeking directly for that witness. Instead of abandoning themselves to the mercy of God, through repentance and faith, leaving Him to bestow the witness when He is assured that such repentance and faith are complete, they have struggled and agonized with their hearts set upon some special sort of "feeling," which they are willing to accept as the witness. Because that did not occur, they have tortured themselves sometimes for days and weeks, and even gone years without a satisfying consciousness of sins forgiven.

It is useless to dictate to the Holy Spirit, as to how He shall assure one of forgiveness and the new birth. The only thing to do is to examine carefully one's penitence and contrition, and, satisfied that this is perfect, then examine one's faith. If these are genuine and as near perfect as a seeking sinner, assisted by the Holy Ghost, can make them, then there is nothing more that one can do, and the Holy Ghost who is faithful, will bestow a consciousness of pardon and regeneration. He never mocks His creatures, and if there is not a realization of a finished work, it is because there is something lacking in surrender or faith. But we beg of our reader, if he is not already enjoying the marvelous work of regeneration, not to rest in his efforts, till he is positively assured by the witness of the Holy Ghost that the work is truly done.

The matter of restitution should be considered here. That is, of correcting as far as is within one's power, the wicked deeds of his now past life. Some spiritual leaders allege that no surrender and repentance can be complete until one has made restitution. We agree that a perfect willingness to make restitution must be reached, before one's surrender is complete. But as for actually putting restitution into effect before accepting Jesus Christ, and becoming possessed of His salvation, we do not believe it to be necessary. If the willingness to make all possible restitution, and every correction of past sins and offenses, is sincerely made before God, He will accept the will for the deed, and ,will accord His forgiveness. Then the Holy Ghost will grant soul joy in the possession of that salvation, and such ability to make wrongs right, and such an unction

in testimony when apologies are tendered, crooked paths straightened out, borrowed articles returned, and thefts and purloinings paid for with interest, as greatly to further the blessed Kingdom of God, in the very act of restitution. If one attempts all this before he has received the assistance of the Holy Ghost, he will do it with such sadness and compulsion, and so appear to have it literally wrung from him by force of his feelings of necessity, as greatly to lessen the usefulness of it to the spread of the Kingdom. Many people have been known to be put under deep conviction by their own sins, by the apologies, restitutions and confessions of those who had newly found the light of salvation. But let the new born soul remember that when a pledge of restitution is made, be very faithful to keep it.

In addition to the inner consciousness of salvation mentioned above, there are also some corroborating evidences. There is the presence of joy, because of the fact that one has been brought from darkness to light, and the sins that were dogging one down to hell are now blotted out. There is a sweet and tender love for God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. They seem personally real, and graciously near. The cross and Calvary take on a hallowed meaning. Songs concerning the blood or the wounds of Jesus become sacred and affecting. Worship takes on a new meaning, and the fellowship of the saints, even with some whose friendship seems far from desirable, ordinarily speaking, becomes precious indeed. Prayer is real and often keenly enjoyable. The passion for the salvation of others becomes aroused, and oftentimes the best soul-winning days that a person knows is when one has been newly won to Christ. If these corroborating evidences are lacking, one may well doubt his acceptance with God.

One of the especially corroborating evidences of regeneration we desire to consider at a little greater length. That is the matter of testimony. A truly regenerated soul will at once begin to testify. While making allowance, with all consideration, for the timidity of many persons, and realizing that often there are some who cannot easily express themselves even when moved by the regenerating powers of God, yet we must insist that every new born soul must testify. "With the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation" (Rom. 10:10), so states the Apostle Paul. Our divine Lord also declares that "whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven" (Matt. 10:32). Testimony is necessary. There seems to be a finishing touch to salvation that is not accorded till one has openly confessed Him. We can readily see, if we stop to consider, the need of this. Depending, as the Kingdom of Jesus Christ does, for its spread, on telling the news to other people, either through the lips of the ministry, or through that of the laity, then testimony takes on an importance second only to the preaching of the gospel. Indeed, unless a sermon is reinforced by the testimony of the preacher, and some of his fellow Christians who have already found the Lord, much of its convicting force will be lost. A fine body of testifying church members is almost necessary for any very wide spread of a salvation revival.

It strengthens the faith and power of a new born soul to testify. Such a person will find that the oftener he can witness for God, salvation and the Bible, the oftener will he be blessed, and the stronger will he become. While wisdom should be employed as to witnessing among the enemies and rejecters of our Lord, nevertheless it has been known to result even there, in a great conviction falling on the unsaved, and of being the means of leading those who were total strangers to His grace, to mercy and salvation.

Let every regenerated soul beware how he ceases studying the Scriptures, testifying, and praying. Nothing will cool one off so quickly and completely as neglecting any of these three. It only takes a few neglectful spells to deprive you of the joy and confidence which belongs to a child of God. It is rare for anyone to grow cold, subside and become indifferent where he maintains these three assistances in an earnest and faithful manner.

Chapter 5

THE BOUNDARIES OF REGENERATION

In discussing what regeneration does for a child of God, and what it does not do, we are entering a field of age-long controversy. Some religious teachers allege that, barring a reasonable growth in grace, this experience is all that is accorded to Christians in this life. Others, and among that number the writer enrolls himself, declare that regeneration is a limited experience; and that beyond it, but still in this life, there is to be had another and greater work of grace that ushers in the complete cleansing of the soul from even the principle of sin.

We can comprehend this better, perhaps, by considering first what the experience of regeneration does do, and then by ascertaining what it does not do. As we have noticed in Chapter Four, regeneration means the implantation of life. This initial step, then, in the Christian life, means that the soul has in it, the life of God. This brings a peace to which a sinful soul is a stranger. Life always manifests itself in some way. Growth is one evidence of it. To the newly converted person, there begins at once a marvelous development in the things of Christ. Prayer becomes a gracious habit, and takes on fresh and delightful significance. The Bible becomes more and more a source of light and strength. Its perusal is, to the soul, somewhat as food to the body. Passages hidden away in the heart, and conned over in memory, yield rich spiritual flavor, and new views of truth. Testimony takes on enhanced importance, and becomes increasingly a channel for revealing to others the dealings of the Lord. Providences are filled with new meaning, and the blessings and mercies of God become a matter of daily gratitude and joyful meditation. Fellowship is real, and the delight of conversing on spiritual things grows with the passage of the days.

Another mark of life is appetite and assimilation. That is, to eat and digest food. Spiritually we feed on God. But God is administered to us through the Word, Worship, Fellowship and Meditation. A truly regenerated soul will hunger for the Word of God. To read it, or to hear it read and expounded becomes a source of genuine pleasure. One's appetite for the Bible and one's ability to assimilate it, will increase with use and exercise. Worship, to a true Christian, will be as natural as to think; private worship in one's home, and public worship with one's fellow Christians, and the constant sense of communion that a person can have, moment by moment, whether at work, in times of recreation, or in the midst of pressing business. Meditation, the art of "talking to one's self" about things divine, will become a great pleasure, a rich source of profit, and one of the greatest defenses against loneliness that any mortal can have.

The forgiveness of sins, or the justification side of regeneration, is always a part of the experience of one who has been truly born again. This is a marvelous comfort and relief, and one

should walk very carefully before the Lord in order to prevent the possibility of forfeiting that sweet sense of pardon and relief which justification brings from the harassing wolves of sin.

In the Old Testament we are told that God has a book in which He has written all the names of those who belong to Him. Also in the New Testament Jesus assures His disciples that their names were written in heaven. Again in revelation there is reference made to our names being enrolled in the "Lamb's book of life." This blessed enrollment of our names on God's heavenly record takes place at the moment of regeneration, and becomes a matter for thanksgiving and gratitude. While it is, like justification, a transaction that takes place in heaven, yet its gracious comfort is felt in the heart of the believer, that he, too, is now enrolled among the blood washed in the book of God.

Adoption, also, is an accompaniment of regeneration. While the experience of justification brings the pardon of all one's sins, and takes place in the mind of God toward a sinner, and regeneration is a work of God's grace, recognizing that fact by planting the new life of Christ in the penitent's heart, adoption is an act of God recognizing that soul as legally a part of His blessed family, and according him the rights and privileges of a child. He is now a member of God's household both by being begotten of the Spirit, and also by being legally adopted and enrolled in the roster of heaven. There is enough in a genuine case of conversion to keep the redeemed soul shouting for ages. The glorious fact of forgiveness, the thrilling new life that witnesses in his soul, the consciousness of being enrolled in the book of God, and adopted in the heavenly family, is a step toward the estate which he lost in Eden, that is great enough and real enough to keep him rejoicing as he pushes on toward still better things. "Then was my mouth filled with laughter and my tongue with singing."

Another gracious ability that is conferred upon a regenerated soul, is power to refrain from committing sin. While this is accomplished, as we shall see, by a great and almost continuous struggle, yet if the truly converted soul will make the struggle, and manfully wage a warfare against his spiritual foes, the worst of which he will find in his own heart, there will be accorded him a blessed sense of victory from time to time. Many believe that this continued struggle with interior enemies and the occasional victory that obtains is the best that can be hoped for in a Christian life here below. Many whole denominations claim that it is useless to look for anything greater or to hope for more. In this we are sure they are mistaken and their attitude only condemns untold thousands of sincere people to a Christian life of ceaseless struggle, and only occasional victory. However, we desire to say that regeneration is a mighty transaction, removing the guilt of all committed sins, and their pollution from the soul, and implanting so gracious a new life, as to enable the new born convert, with a manful effort to refuse to commit sin any more.

Some opponents of the second work of grace have alleged that holiness people must belittle regeneration, and minify the justifying power of God, in order to lay a suitable ground for the work of entire sanctification, or heart cleansing. This we frankly deny but claim that after allowing for regeneration everything that the Scriptures claim for it there is still much necessary ground that can only be covered by a second work of grace.

In fact, we allege that a soundly converted man will have as fine an attitude (according to all the light he has) toward all outward demands of righteousness, as he will ever have when he is

sanctified wholly. Our relation to the demands of outward righteousness are fully met when we are regenerated. It is for something altogether different that sanctification equips us.

Having discussed what the experience of regeneration does for us, let us turn our attention to a consideration of what it does not do for us.

It does not remove from the heart the principle of sin. This is frankly admitted by almost all teachers of religion. Indeed, the presence of the principle of sin in the heart of Christian believers has never been seriously questioned, except by a small group of people a couple of centuries ago. All denominations admit and claim that it is to be found there. The war against holiness has never been waged over the fact of carnality or depravity existing in the human heart; all admit that. But the battle has been fought over the question whether or not it can be removed this side of the hour and instant of death.

Though the presence in the heart of a believing Christian of remaining native depravity, is admitted on all sides, yet it is pertinent to a theme of this sort to consider it somewhat at length.

Regeneration imparts a new Christ life to the soul of the candidate, but that life seems clearly to be limited and oftentimes fluctuating. Occasionally it will flow full, and then, under temptation or hardships, it will ebb and contract, until at times it will almost seem to be gone. Our divine Lord seemed to recognize this when He said, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly" (John 10:10). Here is a distinct recognition of the fact that there is such a thing as the impartation of life, and then it also recognizes that later, it is possible to have that life increased to an overflow. He also conveys somewhat the same idea when He speaks of a saved person having salvation in him like a "well of water springing up into everlasting life" (John 4:14). Then a short time thereafter, He states that with the coming of the Holy Ghost, a person should have His salvation pouring out of his heart, in "rivers of living water" (John 7:38).

Then again, the converted person is graciously pardoned, forgiven, justified. This is a real and conscious element in one's salvation. Yet it seems extremely difficult to maintain that blissful condition. Soon after a splendid period of worship and prayer, the Christian often finds himself saying something, or doing some small deed that is a bit extreme, or doubtful, or off-color; when the sense of forgiveness vanishes, a cloud comes over the soul, and the joy of justification is not renewed until one has begged the pardon of his heavenly Father, and also very likely apologized to those among whom the offense was committed. This will happen, with some persons, several times in a week, and occasionally, two or three times in a day. Many of the bedside scenes of the justified are nothing more than an effort to pray back to forgiveness, after the small, but serious lapses of the day. This has been so generally the experience of justified people down through the ages, that one whole denomination, in preparing a ritual prayer for its people has inserted one that asks for daily forgiveness for sins which it seems to see no way to prevent the commission of; and in providing a prayer for those who are preparing to partake of the Lord's Supper, it offers this: "We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness which we from time to time most grievously have committed."

This writer frankly admits that against all men, no matter how holy, there lie at the close of every day offenses that have unconsciously been committed or omitted, against the perfect will of

God. But these offenses, we do not understand to be sins, in the ordinary meaning of that term, but rather they are trespasses, that is, unconscious, unwitting, unintentional lapses from the perfect divine plan for us. But the above prayer does not contemplate such offenses as unintentional lapses from God's will. Note that it states "manifold sins and wickedness," and further adds that these terribly sounding acts and deeds have been "most grievously committed," and the balance of the prayer adds "in thought, word and deed."

We do not care to enter into the discussion of this, further than to use it as an illustration to show that pardon is, seemingly, lost and renewed among millions of Christians almost daily. Does the religion of Jesus offer nothing better than this? Is this the "salvation from sin," of which St. Paul boasted? Is salvation from sin to be a chronic state of sinning, and a chronic application of pardon? Would an earthly court count such a citizen as one that was desirable, if each day he was haled before the bar for offenses against the law of the land, and was pardoned each day, with the certain knowledge both in the mind of the judge and in the mind of the culprit that he would be up again the next day for the same offenses, making the same plea?

It is certainly true that the regenerated have a divine life imparted to them in conversion. Nevertheless, this new life is associated in that heart with an old sin nature, or principle of sin, or native depravity. These two natures war against each other. What one seeks to do, the other seeks to prevent. What one loves the other hates. The human soul thus becomes a battle ground between opposing forces, and while gracious ability is conferred upon the genuine Christian to win in this contest, yet there is a strife over almost every duty that is necessary to be done, and the battle is never really ended, but is renewed over the same things week after week. Many times there is a fight over prayer, over the daily reading of the Bible, over attendance on prayermeeting, over the plain preaching of the pastor, over one's gifts to the Lord, over testimony, and, indeed, over practically everything almost that one is called on to do. The Christian warfare, in the regenerated life, is not so much against outside foes, as against that old carnal heart that came over with one from the walks and ways of sin.

A gracious ability not to commit sin, is, to be sure, granted to the genuinely converted soul, but with the presence in him, also, of that old tendency toward sin, that old carnal mind, there is an ever recurring disposition to yield and lapse again into the sins from which God's Spirit rescued him. This throws a cloud over much of the justified life. This, many times, keeps one confessing when he should be rejoicing. It often makes his testimonies sound like tales of woe, when they ought to be paeans of victory. This puts thousands of people in the class with Jeremiah, when they ought to be shouting with St. John, "He that believeth on me, out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water" (John 7:38). It imprisons him inside the Seventh of Romans lamenting "When I would do good, evil is present with me," and "Oh, wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death," when he ought to be in the Eighth of Romans shouting, "For the law of the Spirit of life . . . hath made me free from the law of sin and death."

There is accorded to the justified man the ability to love God, but he soon finds that this love is imperfect. Instead of consuming his soul, and chaining his whole attention to the blessed things of the kingdom and of the life hid with Christ in God, he finds that, though love for God is there in his heart, yet it allows a love for the world to bid for his attention, a love of dress and adornment to cloud the sky of his soul, and a longing after the flesh pots of Egypt to contend for his

affection for heavenly things. The "leeks" and the "onions" and the "garlic" of the world keep wafting their odors in his spiritual nostrils, and he finds that it is necessary to make a tremendous fight, in order to keep from following their odoriferous temptation back to where he once partook of their poisonous flavors. Temptation to peevishness, petulancy, crabbedness and ill-temper, constantly assail him, and he frequently finds that he has been overcome thereby, which sends him to his knees with heart cries for pardon when he bows at his bedside at night. "Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there?" "For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace." Is there no complete cure for a soul thus harassed by the principle of sin?

Genuine conversion certainly drives the devil out of the human heart, and turns it over as a habitation of God through the Spirit. But it is certainly true, also, that there is a sinful nature left in that heart, and that nature will exude its sinful stench into that Christian heart until that nature is cast out. There will be a never-ending warfare until the sin nature is cleansed away. It is this heart corruption that is the wail of the regenerate. Indeed, it is frankly admitted and bemoaned by practically all denominations. "Because the carnal mind is enmity against God. For it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be."

Can such a carnal, God-antagonizing thing as this principle of sin be allowed to enter heaven? If it comes there, will not it break out sometime as did Satan, when he was there, and repeat the very revolution that took place then? It seems to be the teaching of Scripture, that this carnal mind will never be allowed to enter that blest abode. Regenerated people must be rid of it, if they plan to spend a happy eternity with God, in the hill of God's heavenly Zion.

Chapter 6

IS REGENERATION THE EXTENT OF SALVATION IN THIS LIFE?

If a vote of the Christian world should be taken, as to whether regeneration were the extent of salvation in this life, there can be no doubt but that the people, who believe in a second work of grace, those who believe in a second touch of God's salvation hand which brings heart cleansing to the humble, consecrated, seeking believer, would be far out-voted. The holiness people are in a minority numerically. If a vote by denominations were taken, it would be found that entire church bodies do not agree that there is anything better than regeneration until one has passed the portals of the grave, and denominationally the people who believe in heart cleansing as a second work of grace, would be in a hopeless minority.

Indeed, when we look at the array of those who are opposed to us in this matter, we find many eminent, pious and learned men. We do not intend to reflect upon their piety or their learning, by taking issue with them in this matter. We only allege that in spite of their learning, and in spite of their piety, the truth of a clean, holy heart, received as a second work of grace, by the baptism of the Holy Ghost, is clearly taught and insisted upon in the holy Scriptures.

A pertinent inquiry might be made just at this point, however. How can learned, studious and godly men be mistaken in so important a matter as this? Our answer is that during the progress

of the ages, practically every good and blessed doctrine that has been revealed from heaven, has been lost to humanity, and hidden at various times under the debris of events, and if we refused any doctrine because the pious scholars of any particular age were not at that time accepting it, we would be compelled from time to time to reject every wholesome teaching that God has ever intrusted to mankind. Notice how Israel, in the Old Testament days, forgot at times her heaven-bestowed law, and at one time every volume of it seemed to have disappeared, until one was, at length, found amid the rubbish of the temple. At other times her scholars so incrusted over the plain meaning of the law with their interpretations, as to rob it of all its significance. Some of Jesus' most determined attacks on the Jewish hierarchy were made at this point.

Then recall how down through the dark ages, every doctrine, practically, was lost amidst the clash of worldly interests and the decayed condition of the church. After the second century, doctrine after doctrine disappeared until even the Sonship of Jesus was invaded by the eminence accorded to the Virgin Mary, who was, in the minds of most people His superior and ruler; and God, himself, was superseded for the most part by the claims of the pope. There were no salvation doctrines taught, or insisted upon, except amidst a fringe of peoples hid away in the mountains and dens and caves of the earth. The Reformation under Martin Luther was the rediscovery of the long lost doctrine of "justification by faith." When it was propounded by the German monk, the vast majority of the then existing scholarly and pious men declared that Luther was a heretic, and was unscriptural. All the time, there lay the blessed doctrine of justification and regeneration by faith, hidden away in the Bible, and scholarly men by the thousands stumbled over it every time they read the Book, and yet could not see it.

Later on, as God began to bring His people back more and more from the sad darkness of the medieval times, and through the saintly Fox and the godly Wesley restored the teaching of entire sanctification as a second work of grace, is it any wonder that many refused to believe a teaching, that to them was as new as justification by faith was new to the men of Luther's day? Yet, we believe that we can show to the readers of this volume that it is as surely taught in the sacred Bible, as is the great doctrine over which Martin Luther and the scholars of his day battled.

Look at our own day in regard to unbelief about some of the teachings of the Word of God! Take divine healing. Only a few decades ago, a person was considered to be a gross fanatic who dared to anoint a sick person with oil in the name of the Lord, and pray for his healing. It is becoming more common now, but during all the furor against it, that doctrine was safely lodged in the teachings of the Bible all the time. Take the teaching of the second coming of our Lord. This writer can recall when it was considered the wildest sort of fanaticism, to accept the fact that His coming was imminent and would be bodily and visible. Yet who will have the hardihood to deny that it is not taught in the Word? The fact that eminent men, or that scholarly men, or that pious men pronounce against a teaching is no assurance that it is not scriptural and worthy of acceptance as a portion of the Word of God. The only question to solve is, what does the Bible really teach on the matter? Not what does my church say? Nor what does my pastor say? Nor what do a majority of the people who call themselves Christian say? But is there good and sufficient grounds in the plain utterances of the Bible for us to stand on, in contending. for it? If there is a "Thus saith the Lord," on any important issue, then all other arguments and contentions sink into nothingness.

Practically all students of the Bible admit that there is taught therein some sort of sanctification. Just what that "sort" may be, is often a mystery to them, but they admit, for the most part, that it is there taught. Some allege that any sanctification accorded to the believer is really conferred in the moment of conversion. This is a Calvinistic idea that the holiness of Jesus, which in reality, it is claimed, can never be ours, is imputed to us, through the kindness of the Lord, when we accept Him as our Savior. The objection to this is, that it passes by so many statements that carry the very apparent import that His holiness may be imparted, and not necessarily imputed. Such a statement as the one where it says "that we might be partakers of his holiness" (Heb. 12:10), and where the Holy Ghost is said to be "in you," and the numerous uses of the word "be," in "be ye holy," "be ye perfect," and such a statement as "The very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thess. 5:23), can bear no other interpretation than that there is something along the line of holiness, that can be imparted to one, or else language loses all its significance.

There are others who insist that after a genuine regeneration, there is nothing further that one can possess in this life, except to grow and develop toward a better condition of spiritual life. The holiness people all happily agree in growing in grace.' They claim, however, that one must get into grace before one can grow in it. In other words they make a distinction between growing into grace and growing in grace. We believe that the Scriptures clearly teach that one can grow up toward regeneration, for instance, and maybe take some time in reaching a full case of conviction, sufficient to enable one to surrender and trust the grace of God, and thus enter the experience of justification. But when the surrender is complete, and the faith is exercised, the change from the state of a sinner to that of a justified believer is instantaneous. In the same way, a converted soul that is now become a Christian, may grow toward holiness and spend considerable time, it may be, getting light on that wonderful second work of grace, or the seeker may use weeks or months in bringing himself to the state of complete consecration, or in exercising a faith that is perfect enough to bring about the. cleansing baptism from on high, but finally, when these preliminary conditions are complete, the experience of full redemption from the carnal mind is instantaneously conferred.

Following the reception of the experience of heart cleansing, or entire sanctification, there may be, indeed, ought to be, a great growth and development in all the graces of the Lord Jesus Christ. But this is the growth of the soul in the grace of holiness, and not its growth into it. One must be planted in the house of the Lord, before he can flourish in the courts of our God.

Still another theory, is that Christian believers are sanctified at death. The persons holding this view claim that this is conferred as a dying grace. The claim is made that all our lives we must be tormented with the assaults of inbred carnality, and battle against it, but never be delivered from it, until the hour we come to die. Then, in our efforts to be ready to meet God in peace, we can reach the stage of full sanctification of the soul.

There can be no doubt but that there is some truth in this theory. But the truth is there, not because of the impossibility of securing the blessing of a clean, holy heart before the hour of death, but because many did not genuinely try, owing to their believing this erroneous theory, to secure the sanctifying grace any sooner. Then, too, there are many who have never heard of the second work of grace, and when they came to die, they fulfilled all the essential qualifications for securing

this gracious work of God's atoning grace, and entered naturally into the possession of it. Their death was glorious and happy. Not because they had secured some special unction known as "dying grace," but because, though they did not know the name of the experience they had received, nevertheless, they had secured that entire sanctification without which no man shall see the Lord.

However, they might have received it much sooner, if they had been properly taught and led. Just as a man with a check for a goodly sum of money in his pocket, cannot buy himself any dinner until he has the check cashed, and goes hungry, we will imagine, all day, and then just before the bank closes at night hurries in and secures his money. He gets at last, what he might have possessed early in the morning. He buys a good meal at nightfall, when he might have had one any time during the forenoon, had he but presented his check. So, no doubt, hundreds of people are sanctified wholly just as they come to die, because they had never faithfully tried to get it before that hour. They might have had it in the morning of their lives, and enjoyed the sweet cleansing, and blessed power of His Presence all the day through, instead of waiting till the night-fall of death.

The final theory that we present, is what we believe to be the true one, that God's solution for the sin problem is involved in two great works of grace, Justification (which includes, of course, the idea of regeneration), and Sanctification. That the former comes to the poor, lost sinner, reeking with crimes, it may be, and lost from God, dead in trespasses and in sins, and because of his surrender of himself to Jesus Christ, and through faith in His atoning blood, brings forgiveness of all his sins and transgressions. At the same time, he is simultaneously born again -- from above, and made a new creature in Christ Jesus, with the new -Christ life implanted in his heart, and his name written in heaven, and himself consciously adopted into the family of God. Then, the moment that this has really occurred, and he is a child of God, he becomes eligible to the second work of grace, or that of entire sanctification. Just as soon as he can intelligently offer himself as God's living child to his heavenly Father, in a full, deep, lasting, perpetual, all-inclusive consecration, and can then exercise his faith for the cleansing of his heart, the baptism of his soul with the Holy Ghost, that moment, God is ready, and according to His promise, will undertake for that soul its utter cleansing from the inherited carnality, the inbred corruption, the Adamic nature, the racial depravity which he has inherited, and will at the same time fill it with the light, love and fullness of the Holy Ghost.

This is the solution of the sin problem. If such a soul will continue to maintain such a full consecration, and will continue to exercise such a complete faith in the promises of God, that person can live in the sweet possession of such a mighty deliverance from the principle of sin, and can enjoy a wondrous degree of the presence and fullness of God's holy Spirit. He is then delivered from all sin both actual and inherited. He is ready for the most satisfactory service that he can render. He is also ready, so far as the question of sin is concerned, to meet his Maker, and to render his account at the Judgment bar of Christ.

After the soul is entirely sanctified it is not delivered from all its infirmities, such as poor judgment, faulty memory; a frail, infirm or sickly body; impaired reasoning faculties; inability of seeing both sides of a question, or narrow-mindedness; the difficulty of always instantly detecting the sometimes varying line between right and wrong; a disposition toward intensity that occasionally breeds fanaticism. All of these may sometimes be found in those whose hearts are pure. It is at this point, it seems to us, that the wide differences obtain between that school of

Christians which claims that it "sins in thought, word and deed" every day, and those who profess holiness. We feel sure that such people mistake infirmities, and fallen human characteristics that still adhere to the wholly sanctified, as sins. Then when they hear the holiness people claim that God has cleansed them from all sin, and still see in the holiness people the same infirmities that they have mistaken in themselves for sin, they feel that the professedly sanctified are sadly mistaken, and the sanctified people feel that the others are surely not saved at all, if they, as they profess, sin every day. Possibly if there could be a little clearer definition of what is sin, and what is not sin, but is mere fallen humanity, offered to the Christian public, there would be less of unkind criticism among the people who claim Jesus Christ as a Savior.

All of these infirmities will, however, be removed from the redeemed ones when they reach the resurrection day. A new body will then be given God's children, and a new, perfect mind will be accorded. Then, with holy hearts received here below, and with perfect minds and bodies given us at humanity's crowning day, we can rejoice with eternal life in the renewed earth, glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

Chapter 7

CAN CARNALITY BE ERADICATED IN THIS LIFE?

As we have stated in another chapter, Christians generally admit the existence of a sin principle, or a moral corruption in the hearts of believers, after they have been regenerated. The evidence of it among Christians is to be found everywhere. Fretfulness, peevishness, sensitiveness, anger, malice, jealousy, place-seeking, time-serving, a hunger for money, a subtle catering to the rich, a disposition to evade searching truth, and a thousand other manifestations of this tainted disposition, can be seen in the Church of God. We do not mean that any one of these is carried to an extreme, so as totally to disqualify one for membership in the church, but we mean that little evidences and signs of these corrupt qualities are constantly appearing among God's people.

This is what causes so much backsliding among new converts. The young Christian is hardly more than received into the church, before he encounters some evidence of this moral corruption among the older members, and his heart is chilled. He had supposed that here, in the church of the living God, he was to find a place where the ordinary manifestations of sin that run riot in the world would not be found. Or he detects something of the sort in his own heart, and hurrying to some pillar in the church, asks for a reason for the appearance of this depraved feeling in his soul. The answer convinces him that all the others have the same thing, only they have become accustomed to it, and so do not worry about. it as much as he is doing. This disappoints him, and dampens his ardor. Soon he begins to ask himself what is the use? Or he drops his prayer life, his ringing testimony, and his study of the Word of God, and soon he is again in darkness.

We do not allege that were all converts wholly sanctified within a short time after they were converted, that all backsliding would be eliminated from the church. There are many who profess to have been made possessors of this wondrous grace, who are by no means living up to its requirements. They either did not receive it, when they supposed they did, or they did not retain it afterward. They are "holiness" people, but they are not "holy" people. As long as the church is

made up of human beings, it will contain some fallen ones. But. we do declare that if every new convert could be led at once into the blessing of heart purity, that the possibility of backsliding would be greatly lessened, and the chances of his lapsing from grace be much reduced.

But there are many, and some of them very earnest, devout people, who declare that this old sin principle, which every believer brings with him when he comes into the regenerated life of a Christian, can never be removed from the hearts of men, in this life, while the contention of the holiness people is that it can be. Both parties admit that the atonement of Jesus was full and complete, and that atonement plans to bring about the sanctification of the soul from all its inbred corruption sometime. The difference is, that the opposers of the second work of grace claim that it cannot be done here and now, but that it can be done in the moment of glorification. The contention of those who accept the second work of grace is that it can be done now, here in this life, just as soon as the candidate will fulfill the necessary conditions of consecration and trust.

The writer of the Gospel of Luke makes Zacharias say that the coming of Jesus would mean that His people should be delivered out of the hands of their enemies, and "might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness, . . . all the days of our life" (Luke 1:74, 75). Here the inspired volume states that holiness can be had in this life, and that it was to be had in connection with the coming of Jesus Christ into this world. Again, Matthew's Gospel states that the angel who announced the birth of Jesus to Mary, stated to her, "Thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall Save his people from their sins" (Matt. 1:21). To save one from one's sins, it would seem that that salvation should be made effective right here and now. The mighty blessing of glorification deals with the infirmities, limitations, and fallen conditions of the mind and body, but the Scriptures invariably declare that the solution of the sin problem is to be wrought out here and now. The Book seems to declare quite emphatically that nothing that is tainted with sin, or corrupted with the sin principle can be allowed to pass the portals of the grave and be admitted into heaven, hence all moral corruption must be removed in this life.

Again, in the fifth chapter of Matthew, our Lord presents the beatitudes. Every one of them refers to this life, and not to the glorified life after death. It says, "Blessed are the poor in spirit" (Matt. 5:3). Where is that poverty of spirit to be had, here on earth, or somewhere in eternity? "Blessed are they that mourn!" (Matt. 5:4). Inasmuch as there is no mourning in heaven among God's people, it must mean that they were to mourn here on earth. "Blessed are the meek" (Matt. 5:5). Does one never need to be meek until one reaches eternity's shore? "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness" (Matt. 5:6). This can only be applicable to something that occurs in this life. "Blessed are the merciful" (Matt. 5:7). Mercy must be exercised here, where there is much that is wrong, and afflictive, and cannot mean that it is to be exercised in eternity. "Blessed are the pure in heart" (Matt. 5:8). This can be nothing other than holiness, and holiness that is possessed and enjoyed right here on earth. If it can be possessed here, then there must be some way that carnality can be removed from the heart, for no heart can be pure and holy unless the inbred moral corruption is removed.

Again in the 19th chapter of Matthew, a man came to Jesus and inquired what he should do that he might inherit eternal life. In answering, Jesus said, "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments" (Matt. 19:17-21). The man avowed that he was keeping the commandments, and inquired what further he lacked. Jesus said: "If thou wilt -be perfect, go and sell," etc. Here the

Master differentiates between "entering into life," and "being perfect." Without endeavoring to fasten any far-fetched meanings to these terms, used here by our Lord, we would still insist that the term "perfect," must come graciously near to meaning what we denominate holiness. In case this is allowed, then it means a relief from inherited corruption, and that too in this life.

Again in the 15th Chapter of Acts, the Apostle Peter tells to the assembled conference of Christian brethren at Jerusalem, in the eighth and ninth verses, about the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Gentiles, and then sententiously states what the results of that baptism were: "And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us; and put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith" (Acts 15:8, 9). Here it is distinctly stated that what the Gentile converts received was heart purity, and that it was received by faith. It also states that this was the very thing that the disciples at the initial occasion of Pentecost received. If the hearts of these Gentiles were made pure, then the inherited corruption must have been removed; and of course, if it were removed, then it is clearly demonstrated that this corruption of the moral nature, with which the entire race is afflicted can be removed in this life.

But another objection is encountered at this point. Some allege that while it can be abstractly proved by the Scriptures, that this harassing depravity can be removed, that nevertheless samples of its possession, at least in modern times, cannot be found. The statement is not infrequently heard: "Well, I have never seen a holy man!" And this remark is often made with an air of finality, as though that forever settled the possibility of any human being ever possessing the scriptural experience of the removal of the corruption of the moral nature.

Let us first say in answer to this, that it must be borne in mind, that though the questioner has never seen any one who possessed this grace, that nevertheless if the Scriptures clearly teach its possibility, and especially if they commend and demand its possession in order that a soul shall be fit for its heavenly abode, then, whether anyone has it or not, still it is there to be had, and the Holy Book distinctly states that it must be possessed in order to qualify for meeting the great Judge. If any given number of people, with whom the objector is acquainted, do not give evidence of its possession, so much the worse for them, that is all. God demands it clearly in His Word. He has provided for it, as we have seen in the incarnation of His Son. The mighty statements on faith, and the possibilities incident to its exercise, infer that anything that is within His will, that human hearts may desire, can be had. Then, if there is no person to be found who possesses this freedom from the moral defilement of carnality, it is no indictment against the truth, it is no reflection on the experience, it is not the fault of God the Father; God, the Son; or God, the Holy Ghost. It is wholly the blame of the people called Christians, either because they have been erroneously taught, or because they have deliberately refused to qualify, or because they have carelessly neglected to meet the conditions. Whatever it may be, the failure is wholly theirs. This very fact removes much of the weight and seriousness of this objection.

However, let us consider this objection a bit further. It is well to bear in mind that any questioner of these matters of Christian experience, has a limited observation. In order to have a statement that no one had ever seen a holy person, carry much weight, it would have to be made by some one who had examined carefully a. very large percentage of all the persons who claimed to be free from this corrupt nature. Nothing short of at least a majority of those who were thus professing should be examined, and in case then there were not one that was found living up to all

the requirements of such a freedom from inbred moral defilement, the opinion thus rendered would carry some weight. But what are the facts? Those who have the privilege of examining any considerable percentage of holiness professors never make such a remark. Indeed, it is almost invariably heard among those who have never examined any, or at most very few. If a person had examined all in any one given community, and found none in possession of this grace, still any honest investigator would be compelled to admit that there might be some in the next community. Like the king of Siam, when told by a European that in Europe he had seen water in winter time grow as solid as the earth, and that rivers would sustain animals, so that they walked freely on their surfaces. The king was later heard to say that he had heard of many wonders, but this one he did not believe, because he had, himself, lived through many winters, and had never witnessed such a thing as solid water. Had the king but moved to another portion of the earth, he would have seen whole lakes and large bays, and even oceans frozen many feet thick. It depends a great deal on who surrounds one, as to whether he can find among them holy men and women. This writer confesses to have seen them, lived with them, dealt with them, labored with them, for many years. They were full of faults in many ways, to be sure, but their hearts were, we are sure, free from all moral defilement, and filled with perfect love to God, and perfect love to their fellow men.

There is also another angle at which we can view this objection. When a person is sufficiently filled with antagonism to holiness, and unbelief in the Word of God, as to state that he had never seen a holy man in all his observation, then it must be that such a soul is dark within, and unhappily blinded by prejudices against the possibility of the cleansing power of the atonement of Jesus Christ. The query then naturally rises, would such a person recognize moral purity in case he should chance to see it? It is a matter of history that some of the saintliest persons have been the most greatly traduced by their enemies. The foes of our divine Lord were free to call Him a "gluttonous man," and to assert that He cast out devils "by Beelzebub, the prince of devils," and Himself had a devil. Martin Luther was branded as a heretic, and except for the intervention of his friends, would have been burned at the stake, and he was a godly man. Huss, a beautiful character, and Wycliff, a devout old man, and Ridley of saintly repute, were martyred as enemies of the church and the government. George Fox, the white hearted Quaker, and John Knox, the spiritually minded Scotsman, and John Wesley, who went about doing good, and a thousand others of whom this world was not worthy, were hounded and persecuted, and some of them imprisoned, and others cruelly maligned as agents of Satan. The whole land in which we live, honors and believes in Abraham Lincoln, and yet during the fearful war between the states, he was the object of hate and ridicule, travesty and caricature, his honor questioned and his motives traduced by literal millions both north and south. Yet all the time he was an earnest, high-minded patriot, who loved both sides and was in grief and heartache over the catastrophe that had rent asunder his countrymen. We allege that oftentimes one's heart is so hardened against a doctrine, that he simply does not want to believe it, and refuses the very evidence that would convict his mind, were his prejudices removed. Such an one has disqualified himself from being able to detect truth. His own heart is so full of carnality, and his own eyes are so filled with it, that he thinks and feels and sees carnality everywhere. The Scriptures record that when the Lord lauded Job, and called Satan's attention to his perfection, that Satan could not see it, and endeavored to convince Jehovah that He was mistaken concerning His great servant.

When a person can never recall any man, or woman, a wife, a sister, a neighbor, a friend, mother or grandmother, pastor, church leader, or any one who was free from the moral corruption

which the race has inherited -- no one who was ever filled with perfect love -- none who were sweetly, beautifully holy, and who does not believe that a person lives who has such an experience, has become himself so sodden with the very thing that we are discussing, until he is disqualified from being a judge of holiness should it appear before him.

Earnest Christians throughout all ages have solemnly testified that God had graciously removed from them the moral corruption inherited from the race, and that their hearts were all aglow with the holiness of the Holy Ghost. Shall human testimony be received in courts of law, and not be received for the confirmation of scriptural truth?

The Bible clearly teaches that the sin principle can be removed in this life, and the preponderance of the testimonies of the saints corroborates this teaching. This is another step that God is enabling His people to take, in their effort again to possess, through the grace of His Son, our lost estate.

Chapter 8

IS THE ERADICATION OF THE CARNAL NATURE DESIRABLE?

It would hardly seem as though a discussion of this phase of the question would be needed. It would appear at a glance apparently that if any human being in the world could secure the removal of moral pollution from his soul life, that he would hasten to have it accomplished. However, the experience of Christian workers in endeavoring to spread the gospel of salvation from sin, leads them to the conclusion that there are not hundreds, but millions, who do not desire to be saved from sin. While we deem it to be certainly true that few, if any, actually desire to lose their souls, or suffer torture or punishment in the hereafter, still they do not desire to be saved from sin. If they could be assured that they could continue to sin, and yet in eternity be safe from punishment or suffering, they would, so we confidently believe, eagerly choose that sort of an arrangement. This is one of the reasons that accounts for the rapid spread of pseudo religions, and false schemes of so-called salvation. As soon as men realize that these religions offer them, according to their teachings, the privilege of continuing in sin, and yet of obtaining a freedom from the results of sin in the world to come, then they hurry to embrace the offered plan. This also is one of the reasons why a genuine religion of salvation from all sin, and that too, in this present life, receives the support of such a meager following, and why many lapse therefrom.

In the whole world, so far as we are informed, there is not a religion that offers genuine salvation from all sin in this life, except the religion of Jesus Christ. Nor, among all of the almost countless phases of Christianity, is there one that promises salvation from all sin in this life, except that phase that is held by the second blessing holiness people. All others allow for some form of sin or carnality during our stay on earth, and only offer a remote freedom from these spiritually ruinous qualities in the hereafter. This accounts, at least in part, for the slow growth of holiness among the peoples of the world, and also accounts for the rapid growth of those phases of Christianity that do not insist upon a destruction of every item of moral corruption that obtains in the soul.

There are countless numbers of human beings who really love sin. They have persuaded themselves that there will be no future retribution visited upon its results in eternity, and consequently they see no reason why they may not indulge it here in this life as much as they may desire. Many love anger, revel in malice, cultivate hate, enjoy being unkind, and thrive best, in their own estimation, when they are most antagonistic toward God. There are millions of thieves in the world, who love to steal. To be sure, they dislike being caught, because it is so very pleasant and comforting to one's self complacency to have mankind think well of one. But, nevertheless, they love to steal, legally, if they can, illegally if they must. They steal in trade and business; in politics and government; in domestic affairs and within the home circle; they will refuse; if they can, to pay their bills; they put off the paying of their accounts till the creditor is weary and "charges it off;" they "jump" their boarding house dues, run away from just debts, and hide out till obligations are outlawed; swindle one another in stocks and bonds; run banks when they know they are on the verge of failure; manipulate shares and squeeze financial opponents to death; "corner" commodities and steal from the poor and hungry. If you offer these people salvation from this, they chuckle, laugh, and refuse.

Some men like to kill. Human life to them has little or no value. A human opponent is to them much the same as an animal to be gotten rid of. Men and women will kill their own children, and children will slay their parents. Wives and husbands often kill one another, and bandits shoot down helpless victims, while gangs, in great cities, war with gangs, using machine guns and high powered cars. Offer them salvation and they will sneer at it! They do not want to be saved from sin. Sin is exciting. It offers a thrill. Thousands of people will sell their souls for a thrill. Justice follows criminals with such leaden feet, that most of them escape, and, what if they do not get away? The pursuit, the capture, the trial, the publicity of being found guilty, the execution (if it comes to that), is all an exciting thrill, and is that not what millions live for?

This being the case among the outside, sinful people of the world, it is not strange that it has a counterpart in the Christian Church. Thousands in the Church do not want to be freed from all sin. They are fearful, to be sure, that there might be something to the teaching of the Bible on the matter of retribution in the coming world, and in- order to escape that, they feel that a church membership is desirable. But they do not desire to be genuinely godlike. Holiness is too tame for them. To be freed from anger, they think, would rob them of the very thing that would enable them -to resent invasion of their rights. To be saved from a degree of malice would prevent them from getting even, and taking a "dig" at the other fellow when the occasion offered. They want some sense of their own superiority left in their hearts, and humility is not acceptable to them. They cultivate a little bit of worldliness, now and then, and desire personal adornment. They ape the world, and do not desire to be saved from place seeking, money hunger, or displays of importance.

It is beside the point for us to say that such are not regenerated. That is not the item of discussion just now; what we are stating is that they are church members, and professing Christians, and yet they do not want to be freed from all inbred corruption.

Take a step nearer and examine the people who we feel reasonably sure are in a regenerated state. Even among these are some who must be preached to with great earnestness before one can generate in their hearts the desire to be freed from the carnal mind. They will admit that such an experience is possible, and they, perchance, will unite with some holiness church, and

approve of other people's seeking and securing the blessing of a holy heart; and sometimes, even, they will pay their money for the support of evangelism that will lead people into this sort of a Christian life, but they will not earnestly seek freedom from heart corruption themselves. Or if they do, it is with such reluctance, and hesitation, and such an attitude of "I am ready any time the Lord wants to give it to me," that they never obtain. Down deep in their hearts there is not yet planted a great hunger for holiness. They have not arrived at the place where they had rather be delivered from the carnal corruptions of the sin principle than to have anything else in the world. They do not seem to have lost their regeneration, and they are in love with holiness after a fashion, but they are not weary and outraged and desperate at the workings and evidences of the "old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;" they are willing to wait till some future time to receive the "second touch;" they feel reasonably cheerful at the fact that there is a bit of the deadly moral corruption still in their hearts; they are not frightened at the possibility of this breaking out and occasioning their downfall; the fact that there is some of that "enmity against God," that has damned the world, and lodged its millions in hell, still in their hearts, does not seem powerfully to move them; they can hear strong holiness sermons, and admit the truth of the spoken discourse, and yet not cry out for deliverance; they can witness the risings of carnality in their own hearts from time to time, and yet not greatly fear. Oh, how subtle, is this ancient devil-derived corruption! It is like the tuberculosis bacillus which feeds upon the health of light hearted beauty, and paints its spurious roses upon the cheek of the one it has doomed to die. It is like leprosy in the body of a babe born of leprous parents, which is said to be exceedingly fair and attractive without, yet the virus feeds on its tissue, poisons its blood, and prepares ere long to break out in the hideousness that characterizes the adult leper. It is like the golden liquor that "giveth its color in the cup," concealing meanwhile the inevitable results when "it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder." So is this soul corruption in human hearts. It was inherited from the devil. It permeates with its cancer-like corruption the moral tissues of life. It pours its virus into the spiritual currents of our Christian beings, and conceals with subtle insidiousness its polluted approach, and seems often to paint its bloom of false holiness upon the cheeks of the ones it has doomed to perdition.

Is there nothing that can be said, is there nothing that can be written or preached that will arouse earnest people to hate this subtle foe? One of the present day religious deficiencies is a lack of deep-seated hatred for evil in all its phases. The present day Christianity among our holiness people is not serious enough. It is not desperate enough. One would think, by the way we act, that this eternal war against an eternal foe were a holiday excursion, instead of "war to the knife, and knife to the hilt." Our enemy never gives any quarter, why should quarter be extended to this deadly foe? Can we not arouse ourselves? Can we not bestir God's people? There are holiness campmeetings nowadays that never hear a holiness sermon, from beginning to end! There are holiness churches where there are not ten per cent who ever profess to be genuinely rid of the carnal mind. There are holiness preachers who do not preach on that blessed theme from one month's end to the other.

Can we not arouse a fear in the hearts of God's truly regenerated people against the miasma of carnality? Recall the vilest murder of which you have ever read an account; note all the dastardly particulars; the deadly malice; the long season of hate; the stealthy plan and approach; the black hatred that would assassinate a fellow human in the midst of his loving children and by the side of his trusting wife, who were depending upon him; the exploding of the murderous pistol from ambush; the quick plunge of the hate-whetted knife; the sudden disappearance while the

murdered man's life-current crimsons the garments of his shrieking companion! What did that? What caused that hideous crime? What induced that man to be a murderer? What hurled that unthinking and probably unready soul into eternity? What widowed that wife? What orphaned those innocents? CARNALITY! Out of the moral corruption of that murderer's soul there grew the black flower of hell that would strike the life from a fellow creature. Reader, fellow Christian, is there just a trace of that same virus in your own heart? Have you a bit of that "enmity against God" in your being? If you have not been wholly delivered from the sin principle, from that dark festering moral corruption that adheres in every heart, even after one's sins have been forgiven, and one's name is written down in God's life book above, then you possess some of the same identical element 'that exploded the murderer's pistol, and flashed the assassin's knife. Oh, that we could stir some heart to see its danger! Oh, for language to paint the picture as black as it really is!

All the hate that the world has ever known, since Cain crouched by the pathway, and bludgeoned his brother Abel to death, in the long ago; all the murders that have darkened the annals of history, and painted scenes of black blood-lust in the hearts of human beings; all the quarreling, bickering, fighting, and assaulting; all the stealing, thieving, robbing, burglary, and banditry; all the lusting licentiousness, raping, illicit sex appeal, harlotry, whoremongering, effeminacy, trial marriage, illegitimate child birth, prenatal murder and bastardry; all wars and fighting, and pillaging and burning of looted towns, and slaughtering of men, and appropriation of women captives, the wars of Alexander, the wars of Caesar, the wars of Wallenstein and Tilly, the sack of the Netherlands, the Napoleonic horrors, the "Black Hole of Calcutta," the "Bloody Angie" at Spotsylvania, the massacre of General Custer, the world war with its twenty million victims, is all, all, all due to the moral corruption of the human race, the carnal mind that is in every child of Adam; (until it has been burned away by the sanctifying baptism of the Holy Ghost), that old principle of sin that lingers in the hearts of the regenerated. Oh, reader, have you a trace of it in your heart? Have you been freed from every taint of it? Can you look up into the face of God, and assure Him that, as He knows your heart, you do not know how you can abandon yourself any more to Him than you are, and that you do not know how you can trust Him for the cleansing of your innermost heart any more than you are now trusting him? Unless you can do this, dear reader, you are now cherishing in your own bosom some of the very same virus, some of the very corruption, some of the carnality that caused Adam's expulsion from the garden, Cain to slay Abel, and that has brought all the woes, and horror, and blood, and licentiousness, and damnation and ruin upon this race! Do you want it there? Are you nursing it? Are you excusing it? Are you cherishing it? Would you like to carry this black something to the Judgment with you? Would You like to have the glorified Christ see it? Would you like to have Him of the thorns and the nails and the pierced side, find your heart tainted with the very corruption that jammed the thorns down onto His holy brow, and drove the nails through His hands (that had been laid with healing and blessing onto sick and fevered humanity), and that thrust the spear into His side, which was throbbing with a God-like love for you? And yet that will be your portion, if you do not rid yourself of this inbred pollution. The sorrowful, heartbroken look that the Master gave Peter, when enemies were hounding Him to His death, and Peter was denying with oaths and curses that he had ever known Him, was not more piercing, sad and pathetic than will be the look that will fall on you, reader, who have named His name, received the merit of His grace, accepted His salvation, been accorded a place on His heavenly roster, united with the church that calls itself after His blessed name, and posed as one of His followers, and yet now appear before His Judgment throne with your heart dark with moral

defilement; your soul still clinging to the very carnal nature that animated the hearts of His enemies and caused them to spill His blood.

Can it be that you do not desire to be freed from this foul remnant of the sin life in which you once lived? Is it not desirable to have a - clean heart? Is it not the most happy possession that one could secure this side of heaven? Is not likeness to Him, His purity, His meekness, His humility, His other-worldliness, His obedience and His sacrificial spirit a desirable obtainment? The Lord commands that you should possess freedom from carnality when He says, "Be ye holy, for I am holy!" (1 Peter 1:16). He promises it, when He says, "If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son, cleanseth us from all sin! (1 John 1:7). He declares that no one can hope to see God in peace except the man who is "pure in heart." His preparation for living with Him in "Zion's hill," is to have "Clean hands, and a pure heart" (Psalm 24:3,4). Can you feel, then, reader, that it is a matter of indifference whether you have carnality removed? That you can go on day by day, allowing the "remains of sin" to pollute your being, and not be moved desperately to have it cleansed away? Better far that you lived on the bread of affliction, and the water of sorrow, until your frame tottered with weakness, and succeeded thereby in having your soul set at liberty (if that would do it) from the moral corruption of carnality, than to feed fat as many do, glibly pattering the shibboleths of the holiness movement, and yet retain the dark stain of the principle of sin to be your Nemesis at the great day of eternal reckoning.

Oh, that we could reach the ears of every sleeping Christian in the Church of God! Oh, that we could secure the attention of every unsanctified man and woman in the holiness movement! We would call ceaselessly to awake and seek freedom from this carnal heart that checks prayer, and halts testimony, and cools fervor, and opens a door to the return of the enemy that once possessed it, and keeps one constantly on the verge of backsliding, and puts a wail in the bedside pleas, instead of a shout of joy, and grieves God, and hurts your influence, and makes of the Bible a book of condemnation instead of commendation, and originates differences at home and in the church, and occasions loss of temper, and sometimes results in downright lapses from the faith, and the soul's final plunge into hell.

Is it desirable to be freed from it? If it is not, then well might we ask: Is heaven desirable? Is escape from hell desirable? Is the smile of God worth having? Is the commendation of Jesus our Lord at the Judgment a matter to wish for? Is eternal felicity with God in the celestial world something you want? Would you have back the lost estate which Adam once possessed? If you answer, "Oh, yes, these we ought to have!" then, according: to the terms of the atonement of Christ, the commands and promises of God, the office work of the Holy Ghost, we must be holy!

Chapter 9

IS HOLINESS A NECESSITY OR A LUXURY?

It will be remembered that the estate that was possessed by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden consisted, spiritually speaking, of holiness. When they sinned against God, this was lost. That the Scriptures seem to teach, that only in an accommodated way was this quality restored to

them. Even then, it was to a greater or lesser degree imputed and not imparted. Through faith in a Redeemer to come, represented by the slain lamb, and the smoking altar, they were forgiven, and a degree of holiness was assigned to their credit.

But with the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, God brought into being His great plan, not only for imputing the merits of the Redeemer to those who accepted and believed in Him, but arranged actually to make them "partakers of his holiness." There is a clear intimation throughout the sacred record that through the atoning blood, there was brought into existence the plan for recovery of the "lost estate."

There is a good reason for this. The heavenly Father, before the fall of Adam, fellowshipped graciously with him. It was because the man and his Creator were so alike in character that enabled them to do this without discomfort and restraint. When sin entered, and the character of the man changed, then the fellowship ceased. Their ability to fellowship one another was in their mutual holiness of character.

In the process of the restoration of mankind to the estate that was lost in Adam, we can readily see that one of the prime necessities is that he shall be restored to holiness. His forgiveness and regeneration are merely a step toward that desired end, but are not the end itself. When, therefore, a Christian secures forgiveness for his sins, and the regeneration of his soul, he has just begun in the good way in which God designs for him to walk, -- the object or purpose of which He has already purchased with the blood of His Son. If a Christian stops short then, of holiness of heart, he is a case of arrested development. He has not attained to the chief end of the atonement. He has but entered the ante-chamber of the edifice called "the Kingdom of God." The ante-chamber, to be sure, is a welcome protection from the pursuing beasts of sin. He is in his Lord's house, and under his Lord's protection. Many at this point are contented to revel in their safety, and rejoice in their security, and to be satisfied with the degree of fellowship, that the Lord of the mansion is able with occasional visits to bestow upon them. But all the time, there is the great parlor of the "House," with its attractive couches, its satisfying food, its cheering pictures, and its constant fellowship with the Lord Proprietor of the place, that invites to further entrance. Is the divine Lord pleased to have one tarry in the ante-chamber while the guest room awaits him?

The Scriptures bear this out. God clearly commands that we be holy when the inspired apostle writes, "Be ye holy, for I am holy" (1 Peter 1:16). Here it is in the imperative mood. It is as much of a command as "thou shalt not steal." One has just as much right to disobey the one about stealing as the one about holiness. The Lord is, no doubt, very pitiful, and full of compassion, and will tolerate much in His children, because of their ignorance, that He does not approve, and will thus continue to keep from breaking with many of His sons and daughters, when they unwittingly remain in the ante-chamber; nevertheless, there can be no manner of question but that He wills that they should come into the guest room, and desires that they should do so, and here in the above Scripture commands that they should enter. He also gives the reason why He commands holiness. He says, "for I am holy." That is, He desires and commands His children to be holy, because they are to enter His holy dwelling, and fellowship with Him forever more. This they cannot do, unless they are holy men and women. Men touched with moral corruption cannot fellowship intimately with deity. He proposes, then, that He will apply the blood of His Son, and cleanse them from all their unholiness, in order to fit them for fellowship with Himself.

The Scriptures further allege that "He is able to save them to the uttermost, who come unto God by him." Which can scarcely be interpreted to mean salvation from the depths of sin, only, but which must also include the heights to which He is able to bring them, after He had rescued them from the pit in which sin had lodged them. The "uttermost" to which God can lift a fully abandoned soul, cannot be thought of as less than that degree of heart purity, that characterized the race when first He created it. If He could create a race holy, in the beginning, He certainly is able to restore it to that same degree of holiness, if the members of it are fully abandoned to Him, and fully, believingly committed to His hands. To argue other than this, would be to argue that the devil had brought something to pass that God was helpless to undo, and that he had twisted a sin-thread that God could not untwine.

Again the Scriptures state that God calls us to holiness. "For ye are not called unto uncleanness, but unto holiness; he that rejecteth, rejecteth not man but God." Shall God call His children in vain? Does He not mean what He says? Can His call go unheeded, and yet we find favor in His sight? It distinctly' states that "He hath not called us unto uncleanness." What has every regenerated soul found lurking in his heart, but a degree of uncleanness? What is that turbulent temper that would break out, and scold and complain, but for your very prayerful and agonizing resistance? Is that clean? What is that spirit of resentment that rises and asks for expression, and would obtain expression, too, but for your humble call upon the Lord for help? Is that clean? What is that secret spirit of pride that longs to ape the world, and pines because of narrowness of the way that will not permit a truly regenerated soul to give room to pride, but that still, occasionally, looks with longing at the things of the world, and the people of the world, and sighs for the ways they have and the dress and adornment they possess? Is that clean? What is that stinginess that rises and protests against your paying your tithe to God, or longs to expend it on yourself and let God's cause go uncared for? Is that clean? What is that peevishness, that petulancy, that whimpering and whining that, but for much waiting on God, would break out in your life? Is that clean? And He states that He did not call you unto uncleanness. Do you suppose that He is content then to have you remain where you are harassed by it? Does He not desire to save you from it? Is God happy with the sort of experience that you possess? If God is not satisfied with your experience then you can never be, and any experience unsatisfactory to you, is displeasing to Him.

But He does declare that He has called you unto holiness. Here He contrasts "uncleanness" with "holiness." Then holiness must be a freedom from all these unclean things It must be a freedom from a secret spirit of pride. From a temper that would defile you. From a disposition of resentment, touchiness, get-even, slap-back, or retaliation. From all desire of the world, or the things of the world, or worldly ways, or worldly doings. A freedom from all the moral defilement that produces these is holiness. This is that to which God has called us. And He states that if we object to this, or "resist" this, we are not resisting some preacher, or some movement, or some church, but that we are resisting God himself. Be careful reader, what you do, when you oppose holiness. God is the God of holiness. He loves heart purity. He has declared that He will have a holy people. Beware how you oppose even those who are called holiness people. They may have peculiarities, and they may be a bit eccentric, they may be, to your notion, extravagant, but, if they have found purity of heart, then God declares they are distinctly His kind of people. If you offend them, beware, you are offending Him!

The writer to the Ephesians states that "Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself, a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish" (Eph. 5:25-27). If Christ purchased all this for His Church, if He made all arrangements to sanctify and cleanse it, if He planned to fix it up so that it might not have spot or wrinkle, if He designs His "called out" people to be without blemish, then we submit that it is the duty, as well as the high privilege of His church, to possess itself of this wonderful objective that He has purchased for it. Can Christ he satisfied with a church that does not yet have what He planned for it? Can He look with complacency on it? Can He bless it as otherwise He would? Will He not yearn over it, and plead with it, through the ministrations of His Spirit, and chide it, and beckon to it, and urge it, and call to it, with providential dealings, and rest not night or day till His own beloved people who have been called out of sin, are called into holiness, and stand before Him "without spot or wrinkle or any such thing"? Can we think of Jesus Christ who shed His blood to obtain this marvelous inheritance for His people, resting content until the last one has found that objective that He prized so highly for them, as to suffer and die to obtain it for them?

And reader, what would you think of a people who had already been called out of sin, and partaken of His grace to that degree, being still satisfied to retain a bit of that old corruption that filled the hearts of His enemies when they slew Him? Or what would you think of a people that would be so dilatory, so negligent, so indolent in the way, whose feet would drag with such leaden weights in their pursuit after the very thing that. He came all the way from heaven to bring to them, through the sacrifice of His cross? Can a Christian, himself, be content without holiness? Can he rest easy when he is harassed every now and then with the sin principle? Can he look at the wounds and bruises and blood stains of his Lord, and realize that "Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate" (Heb. 13:12), and then go on day after day without a mighty struggle, to obtain that for which our Lord suffered the unmentionable agonies of Gethsemane and Calvary? Can there be such a prize as to be made spotless and without blemish by the application by the Lord himself of the merits of His death, and we not want it? Can any one call himself a Christian and assume such an attitude of indifference toward the purchase of the sweat of Golgotha? In the Hebrew letter, the 12th chapter, and 14th verse, we read "Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord" (Heb. 12:14). No, this does not mean, we apprehend, that no unsanctified man or woman shall ever look on the face of the Lord Jesus, because the opposite of that is taught in many places. We are told, in fact, that every one of us shall stand in His holy presence and render there an account of our whole lives. But it means, so we are convinced that no man shall see the face of the Lord Jesus Christ in peace and comfort unless he stands before Him with a clean holy heart. Can, then, this matter of holiness be one that a Christian can contemplate without concern? When we are distinctly assured here on the authority of the Word of God that we cannot stand before Him at the great Judgment day with comfort, or satisfaction, or peace, if there is a lingering remnant of the moral corruption in our beings that was left there after we had been forgiven and our names written in His blessed book; how can we then be indifferent to the need of having it cleansed away? Is it not the paramount duty, as well as the marvelous privilege of a Christian to hasten at once, and seek with "strong cryings and tears," to have this depraved nature removed? Can a person, in the light of these great Scriptures, longer fancy that the experience of heart purity is a mere spiritual luxury? Does it not, in view of the utterances of the Word of God leap at once into the position of a necessity?

Let us reason on this important matter a bit. What keeps a human being from the sweet fellowship of God? Is it not his utter unlikeness to Him? In what does that unlikeness consist? Is it not in the holiness of God, and the unholiness of the man? What can possibly give one a sense of great comfort as he faces the Judgment bar? Will it not be the possibility of having a moral similarity with the Judge? What can give that similarity? Holiness.

But some one interposes, will not Jesus, who has been our accepted Savior, vouch for us, accredit us, and accept us, and take His stand in our stead, at the Judgment Day of God? There are several things that must be said to that proposition. The first is, that Jesus is to be the Judge, and it is before Him that we must all appear. "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ" (2 Cor. 5:10). The second is, that however much He may be our accepted Savior, that very acceptance carries with it the obligation on our part of obeying Him. He has called us to holiness, and if we have not obeyed Him, will He take His place by our side and accredit us, and vouch for us, and appear in our stead, thus guilty of disobedience? The third thing is, that we can hardly expect the blessed Son of God to ally Himself with persons who are cherishing, and excusing, and palliating the existence of the very thing in their hearts that animated the minds of His own murderers. His chief errand into this world was to make the race a "partaker of his holiness." The grand purpose of His advent was to die in order to sanctify the people. His greatest gift was of Himself to His own Church, in order that He might "sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish." If we appear, then, before His judgment seat not having obeyed Him, and still possessing moral defilement, and the carnal sin principle, is it reason for us to expect Him to look upon us with pleasure, and to extend His hands in peace and blessing? Will He then be, in point of fact, our Savior? Can He be the Savior of disobedient, carnal souls who have had the light of the second work of grace, and refused or neglected to walk therein?

Oh, friend, who reads these lines, are you made wholly free from this contaminating, dangerous enemy that would thwart the purpose of the coming to earth of the Son of God, make light of His promises, defy His commands, disregard His wishes, and think to make Him a companion and associate of the very nature He came to destroy?

Holiness is a necessity to any follower of Jesus Christ. It is the only thing that can fit one for the heavenly home wherein He dwells. It alone can equip the soul for eternal fellowship with the divine. To buy back the lost estate of Adam's race and lift it out of sin into holiness was the very purpose of His coming. The establishment of the Church was for the purpose of having a household, that would encourage one another forward into that "holiness without which no man can see the Lord." The ministry exists primarily for the purpose of winning men from the ways of sin, and then conducting them on into the ripe fitness for heaven. "Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus" (Col. 1:28). The highest object of prayer is reached only when one is praying for the perfect Christian holiness to be possessed by those for whom he prays.

Woe unto that believer who looks upon heart holiness as a luxury. Would Jesus Christ suffer the agonies of the garden and the cross in order to purchase for us something that we did not actually need and that was only a superfluity? On the contrary it is as great a necessity as is

forgiveness of sins. It is as needful in order to carry your soul to heaven, as the justification of your soul in God's sight. It is as necessary as the implantation of new life in the person who is "dead in trespasses and in sins" (Eph. 2:1) at the time of the new birth. It is the one altogether necessary experience that the soul must have, in order to qualify it for admission to the gates of pearl.

Woe unto that church that fails to lead its members on into the cleansing of the heart. It is as false to its heaven-intended purpose, as would be a man who invited a freezing traveler out of a fearful ice storm, into a great house where there was no fire, nor means of producing. one, and yet assuring him that he was safe. He would walk, benumbed with cold from great room to great room looking for warmth and comfort. He would peer out into the wild storm of the night, and hesitate to re-enter that fierce whirlwind of death. He would turn back again to tramp his freezing way from frigid room to frosty hall. At length he would fall, and chill, and die, as much a victim to the cold in the house, as he would have been had he remained without in the blast. So is that church that kindles not the fire of holiness within her borders. To be sure, it offers a species of shelter, but the numbness of moral corruption is as sure to prove fatal within such a fold, as would the blasts of open sin in the outside world. No church can be the house of God unless it leads men to holiness; unless it inculcates the need of holiness; unless it shows the possibilities of holiness; unless it enables its people, who have entered it for safety, to find freedom from the moral defilement of inbred sin.

Woe to that ministry that contents itself in winning men away from sin, and then leaves them there to fight a hopeless battle against that inward foe, that at length opens again the gates of man-soul to the enemy and causes the last state of that man to be worse than the first. Woe to that ministry that does not set an example of holiness in its own heart and conduct; that allows slight evidences of carnality to besmirch the snowy garments of its priestly office; that excuses evidences of the "old man" (Rom. 6:6), stating that we are just being human; that gets peevish, and petulant, backbites and criticizes, seeks out the good places, and insists upon the good salaries. A fearful condemnation shall await it at the Assize of God. Woe to that ministry that ceases to agonize over souls, that they may be sanctified wholly, that commercializes the office of Shepherd of the flock, that complacency that looks upon the ministerial office as a field for gathering fees, and not an occasion when one shall battle desperately for the souls of men that they shall be saved from sin, and led into holiness. What shall such a shepherd say when he stands before the Great Bishop and Overseer of the Church?

Woe unto the Christian layman who neglects the central idea of Christianity, who evades the purpose and purchase of the shed blood of Jesus Christ, who thinks to carry unholiness with him to heaven. Who would bring a heart still tainted with the moral corruption that filled the hearts of the men who crucified our Lord, into His majestic presence at the day when He makes inquisition for blood, and think to get by with it.

Holiness is necessary. It is necessary here on this earth. It is necessary in order to calm the fears of the one whose soul is preparing to leave the body. It is necessary to give us "boldness at the day of judgment, because as he is so are we" (1 John 4:17). It is necessary when "the books are opened" (Rev. 20:12). It is necessary in order to live with a holy God in a holy heaven "while the years of eternity roll."

Chapter 10

ENTIRE SANCTIFICATION

The first great step in the process of recovering the race from the condition of sin, unto which the enemy had enticed it, is regeneration. This has already been considered in chapter four and is, as we have seen, a gracious and amazing experience. It is a literal miracle which brings the soul out of spiritual darkness and death, into the light and life of forgiveness.

The second great step is entire sanctification, which we are to discuss in this chapter. This is a second work of grace, and is as distinct, and is witnessed to by the operation of the Holy Spirit upon the consciousness of the candidate, as clearly as the Spirit witnessed to the first experience or regeneration.

The expression, "entire," is seemingly employed because of the fact that the experience of regeneration is, in some degree, an act of cleansing. All committed sins are graciously forgiven, and the pollution of these is largely purged away. To speak technically, one is sanctified when he is regenerated, but he is not sanctified wholly. It is this latter qualification of "entire" or "wholly" that characterizes the experience that destroys the carnal nature, and frees the heart from inherited moral corruption. This is an important distinction, in our judgment. Many persons get wonderfully blessed while seeking God, and under the urge of such a buoyancy, they feel that they are sanctified wholly. Later on, they discover the workings of the carnal mind still within their hearts, and are led to doubt whether there is in this teaching the mighty results that are claimed. The truth of the matter is, they were sanctified, so to speak, but they had not reached the point where the real crucifixion of their own hearts had taken place, and the "old man of sin" utterly slain. When this place is reached, they will be sanctified wholly! It is very important that this be clearly grasped, so that seekers will not confound an ecstatic emotion for the destruction of the moral corruption, which they have inherited.

There are gracious emotions, 'tis true, connected with the reception of the experience of entire sanctification, but no one should be led to feel that it is all emotion. If we do, then, as soon as the emotion subsides a bit, under the routine of ordinary living, or the stress of temptation, the candidate will imagine that the experience has been lost. But if one waits on God with a humble, complete abandonment of one's self, the past, the future, the present; all utterly yielded to Him, for Him to possess, and guide, and use just as He wills, and then trusts Him fully to cleanse the depraved nature away, and to fill one with the Holy Ghost, there will not only come a blessed emotion, but also a definite consciousness that He is now doing that for which the surrender was made, and the soul will be enabled to say, with certainty, that the witness has been given, and the cleansing is complete. The soul will then have its first feeling of complete spiritual satisfaction.

The great John Wesley used to say, when teaching this experience to his converts, that it was such a sweet, beautiful, soul-satisfying possession, that "the only way to get the dogs to worry it was to put a bearskin on it." That is, in other words, it is the caricatures of holiness that excite the contempt and opposition of many of its enemies. Many strange and peculiar teachings have attached themselves, first and last, to this great doctrine. Many odd, eccentric and even very

objectionable persons have upheld it, until it has partaken, after a manner, of some of the disgust that was felt toward the ones who preached about it. However, we must never allow a doctrine of the Bible to be discarded because of the grotesque and outrageous misrepresentation that has been made of it. If we did that, there is hardly a blessed doctrine in the Book that would escape; for practically all its good teachings have at some time been wrested from their meanings, twisted to make a trap to catch the unwary, or warped completely out of shape, to fit some private. scheme of so-called salvation.

Let us proceed to take the "bearskin" off this holy truth of heart purity, and see what it is that its enemies have flouted, hated, objected to, and scornfully discarded. We desire to call, then, the attention of the reader to a few things that entire sanctification is not, in order to clear the ground for a full consideration as to what it is.

In the first place, entire sanctification is not in any sense an absolute perfection. Absolute perfection is a qualification that God claims for Himself, and He will not, very probably cannot, share this with another. It is very possible that the holiness that God possesses, is the very same hind that exists in the heart of the truly sanctified, but the degree is not the same. Just as the ocean water in a pail is the same as the water that rolls in the ocean's depths, but the degree is vastly different. When one is wholly sanctified, his heart is filled with perfect love, and that is the same kind of love that God possesses, but there is a vast difference in the degree of it.

Again, entire sanctification is not the kind of holiness that angels possess. The angels who have kept their first estate, and have never sinned against God, possess a unique position with regard to that. They have never sinned Since their creation they have obeyed God without a flaw or a mistake. But the kind of holiness that men can secure, must always be the kind that is accorded to beings who have been sinners. We have disobeyed God.. We have hated His divine holiness. We have been redeemed through the grace of His Son. We have come up out of a horrible pit. We have been hewn from the rough boulders of sin. Now that we present ourselves before Him, for His holiness, it cannot be the innocent kind such as angels possess, but it must be the kind that can be accorded only to men who have been "plucked as brands from the burning." No, we do not profess to be angels, when we receive this great blessing, but just common men and women, woefully weak, still under the curse of the fall, as to mental and physical powers, but pure and holy in heart, and filled with His perfect love.

Then again, entire sanctification is not, as we have intimated above, the sort of complete perfection that was the happy privilege of Adam and Eve when they occupied the Garden of Eden in their unfallen state. Their bodies were perfect, while ours are full of the possibilities of pain, weakness, abnormal appetites and passions, decay and final death. Their minds were perfect, and they needed not to learn, but possessed an intuitive knowledge. The minds of human beings, even after they are wholly sanctified, are subject to weakness, frailty, imperfect judgment, poor memory, indecision, and failure often, to see the effect that will spring from a certain cause; all of which have been entailed on them by the fall of the race, and will last this life out. The reader ought to understand that God has put His redemptive plan into effect by dispensations and not all at once. In the Old Testament days He brought a degree of regeneration into effect, but did not introduce entire sanctification in all its fullness, till Pentecost Many of the Old Testament saints, no doubt, had a blessed degree of holiness, but it was not filled full, and rounded out, as we may

possess it now, after the descent of the Holy Ghost, and the inauguration of His dispensation. So, today His faithful people can have the sin problem completely solved, and come into His holy presence with a pure heart, but all these days we must carry with us the defects of our fallen and imperfect bodies, and the weaknesses and imperfections of our blighted mentality. In a future chapter we desire to consider the degree of salvation that shall be accorded us when we reach the experience of glorification, but suffice it to say here, that it will be this marvelous blessing that will remove the defects of the physical, and accord us our perfect resurrection bodies, and will also transform our halting, enfeebled mentality into that suited to the heavenly knowledge and companionship into which we shall come. If all holiness people would look well to this feature of the redemptive plan of God, they would not place the experience of holiness too high, or demand too much of their sanctified friends and fellow Christians. Another thing that entire sanctification does not do: It does not lift a soul to such a height that it cannot sin, if it chooses to do so. Many detractors of holiness declare that we teach that a person cannot sin, but this is not true. In near thirty years of association with holiness people, and in listening to all sorts of holiness preachers, we have never heard one state such a position. However, we do teach, and fully believe, that the Scriptures teach, that this experience does remove the carnal sin principle from the hearts of God's fully abandoned, fully trusting people, and fills them. so graciously with the Holy Ghost as to enable them not to sin. The blessing of heart purity fills them full of the holiness of God, so as to make anything that is remotely like sin, abhorrent to them. This effectually enables them to refrain from committing sin, if they are aware that it is sin. But however well sanctified a person may be, he nevertheless must be constantly on his guard against the insidious inroads of this malady of hell. At no time, can one remit the eternal vigilance that is ever the price of heaven. We apprehend that Satan never abandons the possibility of encompassing the downfall of any saint, and keeps his name, as it were, on his list of possibilities until that soul is safe in paradise. If this eternal watchfulness could have little more place among us, we feel sure that lapses from the faith would be fewer than they are.

So far are the holiness teachers removed from alleging that a person can reach the place where he cannot sin, that they admit that one can never reach such a place this side of the grave. Indeed, it is freely declared that a person can be almost within reach of the goal of heaven, and yet, at that point, if he so desires, can turn back, and perish in the flames of woe. All the more, then, we should be on our constant guard! All the more ought we to go forth each day thrice armed! All the more should we never neglect prayer, Or suitable testimony, or attendance upon the appointed means of grace, or any portion of "the whole armor of God." For if we are in jeopardy every hour, then let us "watch and be sober," lest that jeopardy prove our ruin.

Another negative for entire sanctification is this, viz., that it does not place a person where he cannot be tempted. It would be almost absurd to discuss this, but for the fact that serious-minded men actually declare that holiness preachers so proclaim This is a great mistake. No holiness preacher of any reputation for intelligence or sanity ever made such a declaration. Temptations will continue during our entire sojourn in this "vale of tears." Instead of entire sanctification lessening temptation, it has a tendency to increase it. To be sure, the temptations will be modified some, after one has been freed from the moral corruption of the carnal mind. But they will be found surrounding us on every hand. Temptations to spiritual pride; to think that we are, in some way, God's favorites; to believe that there is little or no real love for God outside the holiness people; to let down in spiritual fervor; to think that now we are sanctified wholly, we do not need to be as

careful about attending services for God's worship; to criticize those who have not seen the light of holiness, or those who have lapsed from the way; to assume that we can tell just who has backslidden and who has not -- those who agree with us, of course, must be, we are apt to think, all right, and those who have dared to differ with us are certainly fallen! We may be tempted to think that God has spoken to us, giving us information about other people. And so on, almost endlessly. Temptations will dog our steps, until we have left the earth for eternity.

Temptation is, we believe, a part of the necessary training for God's people here below. Rightly considered it is only a testing time, and all moral beings need tests now and then, in order to reveal to them their spiritual whereabouts. Those who succumb, will soon find themselves in a sadly lapsed state. Those who successfully combat the enemy when he appears in the guise of temptation, will find themselves promoted. Indeed, the whole plan of temptation is not unlike the officers' camps that the government conducted after America entered the World War. Young men were assembled in officers' schools. They were compelled to dig ditches, only to fill them again, for digging another day. They marched up hill in their heavy accouterments, only to march down again. They were made to march on the "double time," when there was nothing at the end of the race to have occasioned their haste. What was it all for? To prepare them for the commissions they were to carry into the war. Many of them were made into majors and colonels when they arrived in France. If one refused to dig ditches, or climb the hills, or to "double time" with heavy loads, he was left behind to come over later as a private, or to do the cleaning up about the camp, as a "conscientious objector." But he received no promotion, and was entrusted with no responsibility.

We may well believe that those who successfully pass through the spiritual testings of this life, will be promoted to the positions of responsibility and trust, in the world to come. Those who refused to endure, and succumbed to temptation, will receive no heavenly commissions. Holiness will help us endure. Holiness will put the thrill into the spiritual ditch-digging, and the spiritual hill-climbing. Holiness will send us up the dusty spiritual road with heavy burdens on our shoulders, preparing for the promotions of the skies.

Another negative to place over against entire sanctification is this: This beautiful blessing will not always equip its possessor to present, on all occasions, a perfect conduct. Conduct is graduated by knowledge and information. Holiness does not confer upon the candidate perfect knowledge but does confer perfect love. With a woefully limited knowledge, and oftentimes shortage of information, even sanctified people frequently make mistakes that result in conduct of which we must sometimes disapprove.

When will the world learn, and when will the holiness people learn, that a heart may be pure, motives just, intentions without a flaw, and yet the conduct sadly off-color. Many people with holy hearts have been judged unjustly, harshly, and with unkind criticism, for some imperfect action, that resulted from limited knowledge or faulty information, when if they had known more, they surely would have offended less. Oftentimes it is almost a certainty that if the ones who criticized had themselves known as little as the one against whom they were hurling their unkind remarks, they would have done no better. How careful we ought to be not to judge. How silent should be our lips when others are being considered. Little do we know what limited light, and deficient information, our erring brother labors under. Until we can know, judgment is better reserved!

Let it be here frankly stated, that while we uphold, believe, and experience, the gracious second work of grace that sanctifies the heart wholly from inherited carnality, yet we just as frankly admit that every saint comes nightly to his couch with many instances against him of unintentional offenses against the perfect will of God. It will always be safe for people who are sanctified wholly to pray with tender unction, "forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." These debts do not refer, we insist, to known sins, or willful offenses against God. They refer to those comings-short of the perfect will of our heavenly Father, of which all mankind is more or less guilty every day, and for which the most beautiful saint needs forgiveness. They are not sins, as we understand that term, but are unwitting transgressions. Only a perfect knowledge of the whole will of God could possibly prevent this. Who is capable here below of such knowledge? Who, except the divine Son of God, ever possessed it? When the resurrection day shall dawn, and we are accorded our perfect intellects, and can be "clothed upon" with our bodies prepared for celestial habitation, then we will cease even to transgress any phase of the beautiful will of God, and will serve Him in complete perfection, and perfect conduct.

Having cleared away some of the rubbish, and debris, that have accumulated around this beautiful truth of full salvation, obscuring its beauty, lessening its attraction, and marring its power, let us proceed to discuss more definitely some of its positive features. Regeneration, the initial experience, looking to the recovery of the "lost estate," cast Satan, that ancient enemy, out of the heart, but left a moral corruption within. The experience of entire sanctification removes that moral depravity. In regeneration we obtained something that we bad never had before, viz., the life of God. In entire sanctification we lost something that we had possessed all our days, the carnal mind. In regeneration we received the love of God imparted to our forgiven hearts. In entire sanctification we had that love "made perfect." In regeneration we obtained "peace with God." In entire sanctification we obtained "the peace of God." In regeneration we had the Holy Ghost "with us." In entire sanctification we have the Holy Ghost in us." When we were converted to God, the Holy Ghost became our Guest. We welcomed Him, and deferred to Him, but, nevertheless, He was a Guest. When we entered entire sanctification, we turned all the affairs of our lives over to Him, and He became our Host. The difference between a guest and a host, is very marked in many ways. One comes to visit, the other is the Lord of His own house.

When the heart of a believer is sanctified, not only is the inherited corruption of inbred sin destroyed, but the heart is filled with the Holy Ghost. Indeed, the Spirit is the agent who applies the efficacy of the atonement of Jesus, and accomplishes the cleansing. The heart is cleansed when He baptizes it. His baptism is a baptism of cleansing. The soul of man is then made "a habitation of God, by the Spirit." That is' the Holy Ghost dwells there. He moves in and imparts the graces of the Lord Jesus. He brings the gentleness of the Lord into a heart that has known impulsive and resentful temper; the humility of the Christ, where erstwhile there was pride and vanity; the obedience of the Son of God, where but yesterday there was hot resentment against God's will; the sell-sacrifice of Mary's Son, where selfishness and grasping greed held sway; the "otherworldliness" of the lowly Nazarene, where "until the day dawned, and the day star arose in our hearts," there was a passion for this world with its follies and fashions; the love of the King of kings, where but lately there had been "a habitation of dragons;" "the mind of the Master," where had once been the erring mind of sinful flesh.

When entire sanctification is come, then love becomes perfect. With hatred gone, and envy no more, and jealousy driven away, and pride cast out, and anger transformed, and malice removed, and unholy ambition sanctified, and place-seeking banished, and avarice nailed to his cross, and covetousness "clean gone forever," the heart now released from its bondage to moral corruption, swells with the ecstasy of perfect love to God, perfect fellowship with all God's children, and a tender compassion for the lost members of Adam's race.

'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true, As for the grass to be green and skies to be blue, 'Tis the natural way of living."

With the coming of a clean, holy heart, the soul rises in its grasp of God, to a "full assurance of faith." The Father becomes very real. Jesus the Son, in all His offices of prophet, priest and king, is apprehended by the believer with a beauty never known before; while the Holy Ghost sheds His sweet radiance throughout one's being. Now is the sin problem, for that soul, solved. Now, the "estate," lost in Adam, is so far as its relation to the problem of sin, restored. It only remains for the weaknesses, and defects, and lost ideals, and limitations, and crippled aspirations, of the mind; and for the pains, aches, fevers, wearinesses, decay, debility, atrophy, sub-normal appetencies and final death of the body, to be recovered at the resurrection hour, when, together with the renewed earth, that shall then be brought through the baptism of purifying fire into "the glorious liberty of the children of God" (Rom. 8:21), and we, shall have restored, in all its holiness, beauty and power, the "lost estate," and sin's night shall be forever ended!

Oh, friend, who is now perusing these words, answer: Have you received this experience? Is the sin principle destroyed within your heart? Are the motions and evidences of carnality no more? Has the Holy Ghost arrived? Does perfect love fill all your heart and mind? Are you sanctified wholly? Are you in the center of God's will for you? Is the sin problem solved?

Remember, reader, there can be no solution of it other than the one presented by Jesus Christ, and we believe that the teaching herewith of the second work of grace, comes the nearest to His plan for solving the age-long problem, of any teaching offered among the millions of His followers. The world has never solved it. Various religions have never solved it. Materialism will never accomplish the object in view. Philosophy does not reach the spot. Intellectuality and scholarship go a thousand miles astray from the desired consummation. But Jesus Christ, with His dying screams on Calvary, and His dripping blood that flowed down the rugged beam of wood on which He died, can, and does, with two works of grace here on earth, and one that waits the springing from their moldering beds of "all that are in their graves" (John 5:28), solve it. Friend, He can solve it for you!

Chapter 11

COMPLETE CONSECRATION, OR THE HUMAN SIDE OF THE EXPERIENCE

For the purposes of discussion, the experience of entire sanctification may be divided into the human side of the blessing, and the divine side. The human side is that qualification that a

person must reach before God is able to fill the heart with His cleansing power. In other words, it is the conditions which must be met, or fulfilled, before God will release the sanctifying energy from the skies that purifies the heart.

Inasmuch as this chapter discusses man's side of the great experience, it becomes an item of considerable importance, that the reader should study this with care, if he is a seeker for the experience of full salvation from inherited depravity, or if he is a minister, and desires to teach the way of holiness, in sermon or conversation.

The first requisite for obtaining the experience of entire sanctification is that the candidate shall have been scripturally and definitely regenerated. That is, that he shall be in possession of all his privileges as a regenerated or justified soul. We mean that he shall be, at the time that he becomes a seeker for this second work of grace, living up closely and loyally to all the demands of the life that he entered at conversion. Entire sanctification is in no sense an experience of reclamation. It is not a recovery from backsliding. It is no renewal of one's faith in God, after that person has been living for some time in a lapsed state. On the contrary it is another experience, on beyond, and in addition to, anything that a person may receive in the regenerated life. It is not merely a thrill and an ecstasy. Persons can have great, and sometimes deep emotion, during the regenerated life. Full salvation is generally manifested by a deeper emotion than is usually experienced at conversion, but there have been a few instances that have fallen under this writer's observation, of people appearing to have less emotion when sanctified wholly, than when they were regenerated. It is not usually the case, but such instances do occur.

Remember what a genuine case of regeneration involves: A real penitence for all sin, and a complete turning away from it, as a thing greatly displeasing to God. A conscious forgiveness of all known offenses against God. A knowable witness by the Holy Ghost that God has for Christ's sake forgiven one, and written his name down in the "Book of Life." A regeneration or new birth that changes and transforms the life so that all sinful practices are now foregone, and all sinful associates, and places of resort are forsaken, together with a sense of union with and a testimony for Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and a love for and relation with His people.

While enjoying all this, and consciously living with the sense of His approval resting upon one, then that soul is a proper candidate for the experience of entire sanctification. If one should find that he was not experiencing all this, then it is perfectly proper to become a further seeker for a genuine, positive, and realizable experience of regeneration. We have found, in many years of public ministry, that there are hundreds of professed Christians who think they are living up to all the light of regeneration, who find that when a really scriptural standard of this initial experience is held up, they are woefully short of it. There are not many churches, even among some of the most spiritual denominations, but will find a few in their membership who do not measure up to the requirements of the new birth, as set forth in the Word of God. Because of this very fact we have dwelt with some minuteness upon the evidences of the new birth, in order to prevent any person from approaching this great experience of heart holiness, with insufficient preparation. Be very sure that you are a truly justified Christian, before you become a seeker for the further grace of entire sanctification. Let it ever be remembered that the outward life of a Christian is brought into all needful conformity to the requirements of righteousness, by the initial or new birth experience. One ought to be everything that a child of God should be, in his outward conduct, in his relation to

his fellow men, his family, his church, his state and his nation, under the initial grace of Christianity, before he sets out in his search for a holy heart. Entire sanctification does not affect, or deal with, the outward acts of a man, but it deals with the inherited moral depravity of his heart. The new birth has already adjusted his outward life toward God and man, and now sanctification adjusts his interior life. This is a very important matter, because in this way a person can more easily tell whether a candidate is truly a Christian or not. If he comes as a seeker for holiness with his outward life in the community, or in his home, all awry with maladjustments toward spiritual standards, then he is in no sense a candidate for an interior work of entire sanctification, but needs the work of full and genuine regeneration. This is the reason that holiness meetings and holiness altars attract the very best Christians in a community. It is because they are already living faithful justified lives, and yet realize that there is an interior cleansing of which they stand in need.

The next step is to consecrate yourself, as a living child of God, to Him forever, in order to be made holy. The word, "consecrate," is said to mean in the original, "to place in the hand." That would mean that you, a redeemed soul, saved now from the commission of all sinful practices, and living a life of prayer, praise and loyal service, voluntarily, and with longing desire, place your all in His hands for the purpose of being made holy. The motive of one's coming to God in this way as a humble seeker for a holy heart, is usually a great conviction of need. It can almost certainly be said that if a person has never received the experience of holiness, and yet seriously declares that he has never had any sense of the need of an interior cleansing, since he became saved, he is an abnormal human being We have met one or two cases like this, in over thirty years of connection with the holiness movement, and association with all sorts of people seeking the experience of the second work of grace. In each case, however, we found that the person was peculiar in other ways, abnormal about business and home affairs, and full of eccentricities. Religious history and personal testimony, from the New Testament days to modern times reveal, however, that this heart hunger for holiness amounting to a great and profound conviction, is found. in practically all truly regenerated hearts. Many have felt so terribly burdened for a clean heart, that they have found their desire amounting to agony. Often their friends have feared for their physical welfare. Occasionally they have fancied that these convicted ones were losing their minds, and time and again people have been sadly persecuted by their own relatives, or by their friends in the church, because of this overwhelming desire for holiness.

When this agony of soul is on, it is well for the seeker carefully to go over every item of his devotement of himself to God. It is well to have the heart say a glad "Amen" of earnest approval to everything that the Spirit may bring to one's mind, and thus be sure that consecration is complete. The reader should be careful to note that it does not necessarily follow, that God is planning to exact everything of one, though He may pass it in review before your eyes. This writer has known several persons who agonizingly yielded to the question concerning a willingness to go as a missionary, while their period of heart burden over holiness was on, and then later, never felt a single impulse toward going. God evidently was sounding them out to see whether the consecration and abandonment was complete, and in order to have the utterly surrendered soul itself realize that if He called it would go. We have also seen men and women say yes to a complete donation of all their earthly goods, while the seeking days were on, and when they had gloriously obtained the purity for which they sought, they found many ways to use that property for the advancement of the Kingdom of God, and there was no intimation that God wanted it all disposed of. It is just possible that this was what Jesus meant when He told the rich young ruler to

sell all his goods and give to the poor, and then come and follow Him. It is barely possible that had he started to do so, Jesus would have accepted the will for the deed, and directed him to use it otherwise. If, however, He meant for the young man to do exactly as His words imply, it would have been vastly better for him, and for future generations, if he had obeyed. And we would caution the seeker, to be sure that when he says yes, to God, during the agony of self crucifixion, that he really means it, and will be absolutely ready to obey, for otherwise it will be but a hollow mockery, and it is fatal to play with situations where Deity is involved.

The seeker should make sure that from henceforth, his time shall be at the disposal of God. While He allows us, for the most part, to decide just what we think He desires that we should do, in regard to the devotion of certain items of time, yet it does not take very much experience in relation to the Church, nor much perusal of the Word, before we realize just about what is demanded of a fully consecrated soul. There must be time allotted each day for prayer. No family can be so busy as to neglect it, and stay right with God. Though school may demand the young people's attendance, and business call for the husband, and a thousand duties wait for the housewife, yet, if that family, or the heads of it, are wholly consecrated to God, they will arise a bit earlier, they will adjust the demands of the school and business, and devote a suitable amount of the day to humble, fervent worship. Bible study cannot be neglected, or one will lose his full sense of consecration. Complete consecration cannot sleep an extra hour on the Sabbath and let the minister agonize under the burdens of the coming church service, while the wholly consecrated layman rests. Full devotement to the Lord will demand that you rise as early on Sunday as on weekdays and spend that extra time in earnest prayer. Time must be taken for private devotions. However much one may worship with his family, this will not take the place of private communion.

Your full consecration must also include your body. The apostle suggests this, "I beseech you therefore by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice." This will naturally include all the uses to which a sanctified man can put his body. How ought one, who is sanctified wholly, to treat his body, which now has become the temple of the Holy Ghost? What ought he to eat? How often ought he to fast? What ought he to put on that body? How much exercise ought it to have? What about the gratification of its appetites? For sanctification will not change the appetites of the body. It will give one ability to regulate them, but he must do this with his own sanctified intelligence. These physical appetites are a fruitful door through which many temptations to the sanctified come. These doors must be regulated, by intelligence, and guarded by discernment. However graciously sanctified, one can never dispense with his good common sense, this side the resurrection day. Ask yourself the question, will I govern all my body's desires as one should, whose heart is now fully. freed from unholy carnality, and filled with the Holy Ghost? Will I give my body rest enough? Will I be careful and not let it grow lazy and indolent and spend too much time in rest?

Sanctified people must ever remember that while the body is sanctified to God, that sanctification only covers the matter of the taint of sin. It does not restore the primitive perfection that made Adam physically perfect. The body, though now in His holy keeping, and occupied by His holy Spirit, is still a fallen body. It is weak, and will require your best watch-care lest its weakness become a snare to your holy heart. It is subject to fallen appetites and desires, and will keep one constantly on the alert, lest Satan take an advantage of this, and overcome you. St. Paul

declares, "I keep under my body, . . . lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway" (1 Cor. 9:27). There can be little doubt but that through this door has come the fall of more Christians, than probably through that of any other. Ministers by the score have fallen at this point. In spite of a wholly sanctified heart, physical desire is not dead, and requires the greatest watching, with much prayer, and, becoming lax at this point, history is witness that many have collapsed, made shipwreck of their salvation, carried others with them to the pit, occasioned the backsliding of countless more, and finally made their bed in hell. It cannot be too impressively stated, that eternal vigilance must be maintained over the physical appetites, despite the full sanctification of the soul.

The mind must be placed in God's hands. The sacred Book declares that "whatsoever is of good report, . . . think on these things" (Phil. 4:8). The intellect is another of the items that, though it is relieved from all taint of sin, when one is sanctified wholly, yet is still in the weakness of the fallen state. Holy men will ever be compelled to study in order to acquire knowledge. Extra care must ever be taken to prevent the thoughts from wandering. The apostle to the Gentiles declares that he made an effort when with his converts, to enable them to "bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." It is an easy thing, many times, to think erroneous thoughts, while all the time keeping one's every activity safely within the realm of propriety, but "as he thinketh in his heart, so is he" (Prov. 23:7). If one has committed his mind to the keeping of God, he cannot read books that will poison it against God, or any phase of His holy religion. This is precisely the gate that has admitted modernism. It is just here that evolution entered, and carried away many of God's best people. Some people prate learnedly about the "freedom of the mind." A sanctified man cannot have any freedom of the mind, outside the blessed truth of the Bible, and the will of Jesus Christ. One might just as well talk about an American having freedom to think treasonable thoughts against the government of this country. This cannot be, if he is to remain an American. He may do so, if he chooses to become an enemy, but never as a loyal citizen. Neither can one read books that undermine the teachings of the Bible and still be a Christian. Nor can one follow silent thoughts that reflect on God, or on the Trinity, or on the atoning blood of Jesus Christ, or on any other fundamental truth of the Scriptures, and continue to be a loyal Christian. Hence the mind must be consecrated to God. It must pledge itself that it will be true to Him. It must promise with deep sincerity that it will ever resist all erroneous and strange doctrines, that reflect upon the teachings of the Bible. This phase of one's consecration is exceedingly important, because all heresy comes, not so much from outward sins that men commit, but from intellectual treason against the truth. We are well aware that minds tinctured with modernism will reply that all the advancement of the Church during the dark ages was made because men dared to think contrary to the teachings of the priesthood about them. But this was when the real Bible was denied to people, and they were asked to remain loyal to the traditions of men. Now, however, the Bible is with us. It has been translated from the original languages in which it was first written. Now we possess it in all its beauty and power. Dare we now to throw the door wide open to men to think about it as they will, and yet call them Christians? This is exactly what has brought modern unbelief into existence. It was because men felt privileged to place their own private interpretation on the sacred Book. No one can do that, and remain a loyal follower of Jesus Christ. "Whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected" (1 John 2:5). Let the candidate promise faithfully, with all the earnest sincerity of his heart, that he will accept the Book at face value, and keep the Word of God. Several splendid ministers have fallen at this very point. They once were shining lights in the firmament of the

holiness movement, but their minds were solicited by the temptation to accept some private explanation of portions of the Word of God. Yielding here, they soon began to bring the whole Book into question. Ere long, they were wholly at sea. Their public addresses lost all scriptural compass with which they had formerly been guided. They became derelict ships in the wide ocean of religious thought. Let your consecration, then, include a deep faithful pledge that you will be true to the 'Scriptures, and that you will guard yourself against the writings of men that would poison you against it, as you would guard your body against material poison.

Another item of consecration must be one's conduct. Deeds always speak more loudly than words. Regardless of what you may profess as to the condition of your heart, unless your conduct verifies that profession, the world will accept your deeds as the expression of the real man, and allow that your words are false. Consequently you must pledge to the Lord, as you wait before Him in deep abandonment, that whatsoever you do, you will do it all to the glory of God. Your speech must be "seasoned with salt" (Col. 4:6), for, "by thy words shalt thou be justified, and by thy words shalt thou be condemned" (Matt. 12:37). "Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment" (Matt. 12:36). How careful one's speech should be in order that we may give no offense. At home one should be unusually careful of what one is prompted to say. The shelter of home leads people to be off their usual guard, oftentimes, and to a person's relatives, sometimes frank speech takes on a tartness, that will soon open a wide door to the reentrance of the old moral defilement that entire sanctification removed. Argument, unless conducted with great sweetness and regard for the person opposed, will generate sharp feelings before one is aware. The Lord never said for us to go and argue the gospel, but to preach it. He never said that we were to argue about water baptism, but to disciple all nations. He never said that we were to hair-split over just how much carnality was left in a converted soul, or whither it went when it was removed, or how it was able to return when it came back, but to testify of Jesus and His power to save.

Not only must the speech be guarded with great care, but the actions of one's daily life must be in full conformity to the experience of holiness. Every business transaction, every errand, every bit of buying or selling, where you go, how long you stay, who went with you, everything, everything, everything is now to be enacted as though you were already standing at the judgment bar of God, whither ere long, every one of us must come, and these very things be reviewed by the Lord Christ Himself. Oh, with what care ought holiness people to walk. How cautiously they ought to speak. Do you know that every word that you utter is being impressed on the record-taking phonograph of the sky? Do you know that a mighty photographic equipment is taking moving pictures of everything you do, and everywhere you go? In the very act of consecration, then, let your soul register a solemn pledge to God that you will carefully adjust all your conduct to the rigid requirements of His mighty experience of holiness, and then when the blessing shall fall upon you, maintain that pledge inviolate unto the end, and. you will give your account to the great Judge with joy and not with grief, when the accounting day shall come.

Finally, consecrate all your affection to God This is the chief thing that He is after anyhow. One's prayers, one's gifts, one's testimonies, one's faithfulness in attendance upon divine worship, are not acceptable unto Him, unless they are performed because you love Him. Offer Him your affection that He may perfect it with His fiery grace. This will please Him more than anything else. He says, "Give me thine heart." Ah, that is what He longs for, it is the hearts of His people! May

He have yours? May He fill it with Himself? May He forever possess it as the temple of His Spirit? May He make it His home? May He cleanse it perfectly of all things that are opposed to Himself? May He hang new pictures on the walls, and place new furniture in its rooms, and sweep and garnish and occupy?

Friend, can you look up into the face of God, and assure Him that you are fully, entirely consecrated to Him forever? Do you now place all your past, all your present, all your future in His hands? Will you allow Him to open the unread pages of the tomorrows, and announce to you just what is therein contained as day by day your life rolls on, and will you accept it with sweetness and humility and utter trust, whether it be joy, or sorrow, or wealth, or poverty, or honor or dishonor, or good report, or ill report? May He have your family, your business, your means, your health, your mind, your body, your everything? No soul can receive, much less retain and possess, the burning fullness of the Holy Ghost in His wholly sanctifying power, unless He can have just such a complete and entire abandonment of the soul to Himself. Will you, then, say a glad "Amen" to all God's will for you? Can He check on you for anything that you have?

Chapter 12

FAITH, OR HOW IS THE DIVINE SIDE OF THE EXPERIENCE OF ENTIRE SANCTIFICATION ACCOMPLISHED?

In our recent chapter we have discussed the necessity of complete consecration, in order to fulfill the conditions of the human side of the experience of full salvation. Now we approach the question, how is the divine side of the experience accomplished? The answer to this is, that God works in all His relations to mankind, over or through the medium of human faith. If we offer God a genuine faith for something, within His will, He promises to accord it to us.

It is some small degree of faith in God, and the truth of His Word, that leads a hungry soul to seek Him in the first place. When sufficient of His holy Word has found lodgment in such a person's heart, he becomes a definite seeker at some place of prayer. There, when his faith is perfect enough, through desperation and agony, so that God can release Himself over it, for the accomplishing of the end for which that faith has been exercised, that person becomes converted, or regenerated.

It is through a determined exercise of faith that such a person continues to possess his regenerated experience. The Word is very clear. It declares that "the just shall live by faith" (Rom. 1:17). Unless a constant and conscious faith is maintained day after day, the power of God cannot be released continuously upon that heart, and soon its spiritual life will languish and die. While a lack of continuous faith is not the only reason why new converts backslide, yet it is one of the prolific causes.

When such a soul learns about entire sanctification, it may be that at first he refuses to believe in it. This, if persisted in, completely cuts him off from the possibility of receiving anything further from God. He may continue this for a time, without forfeiting his regeneration, but not long. If he continues to refuse holiness, he will soon be unable to keep his faith for justification

intact, and will lapse from all salvation experience. It is impossible for one who refuses to believe in the plain teachings of the Scriptures concerning the second work of grace, to approach this "holy of holies," and to release God's burning grace upon himself for such an experience.

If, however, a soul hearing of entire sanctification, shall earnestly, and with an honest heart, begin to study the Scriptures about it, read books in which other men describe this grace, listen to testimonies of people who have obtained the blessing, and in every way cultivate his faith in the possibility of such an experience being in God's will for men, such a person will soon find his faith increasing until it will be strong enough to enable him to become a definite seeker at some place of special prayer for that wondrous baptism with the Holy Ghost.

Whether he finds the experience at once, or whether he must linger for several days in the attitude of a seeker, will depend entirely on whether he approaches the place of prayer with a perfect consecration, such as we have discussed in the preceding chapter, or whether he must wait for some time to enable his heart to offer itself to God on terms of such abandonment as will qualify on the human side. Then, also, it will depend on whether he can exercise for the immediate possession of this experience, a perfect faith. A perfect faith releases God's power perfectly, while a lesser degree will not enable Him to come in the power necessary to burn away the inherited carnality, and sanctify the heart wholly.

So very important is this matter of perfecting one's faith, that we desire to discuss it a little more at length. This great theme of faith has been unhappily neglected by religious teachers for the most part, and it is seldom discussed in pulpit utterance, or religious treatise, with very much definiteness. The allegation of this writer is that faith enables God to operate automatically when its conditions are fulfilled, just as any and all other of God's laws operate. That it permits Him to do what otherwise He cannot do. That faith is, as St. Paul declares in Hebrews 11:1, a "substance." A spiritual substance, to be sure, but a reality, just the same. That this spiritual substance is a medium or connection over, or through which, God can operate to accomplish the thing for which that faith stands. Hence the utterance of Jesus, "according to your faith, be it unto you" (Matt. 9:29). That is, no faith, and you get nothing; some faith, and you receive something; perfect faith and you will receive perfectly, the thing for which your faith stands.

This is in full accord with other great utterances of our Lord in regard to faith. As for instance: "Whatsoever things ye desire, when ye pray, BELIEVE that ye receive them, and ye shall have them" (Mark 11:24). Or again, "shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he saith" (Mark 11:23). And in another place, "If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth" (Mark 9:23). And still again, "all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive (Matt. 21:22).

How is it possible for these statements to be true and for Jesus to have uttered them with such confidence, unless faith, when it is exercised toward God, in any sort of perfect ¦ manner, releases over itself, His divine power for the accomplishing of the very things for which that faith stands? If this be true, then how very important faith is. It was this kind of faith that brought forgiveness of one's sins, when in deep penitence he bowed and pleaded for forgiveness. The reader, if he be a genuinely converted Christian man, will recall that although he sought to obtain

forgiveness in many ways, and confessed all his sins, and repented deeply of them as well, and made restitution for every wrong that was possible, did not obtain the coveted regeneration, which he sought, till he offered to God a real faith. As soon as this was done, instantly the experience was bestowed, forgiveness was accorded, regeneration took place, and he was a saved man. How did it occur? Obviously over his faith. Why did it not occur sooner? Because he had refused, or refrained from, or neglected to offer unto God the only medium through which He could bring it. All the preliminaries of confession, repentance and restitution (or the pledge, at least, of restitution) were necessary, in order to reach the condition where faith could be exercised, but it was faith that enabled God to accomplish the generation of new life in the soul. It was faith that released His power. It was faith that became a medium between God and man, and over this medium God saved him.

It operates the same when one comes seeking for the grace of entire sanctification. One's consecration must be complete, as we have indicated in the previous chapter. But a perfect consecration will not bring entire sanctification. It will also require a perfect faith. It is the faith channel over which the Spirit operates to pour His cleansing fire into the soul, and until that faith channel has been lifted to God, His power is not released upon that soul. Just as soon as it is, then He descends, with the "Spirit of burning," and baptizes the heart with His holiness. Faith brings the cleansing.

It becomes very important then to know, how can a seeker perfect his faith for the experience of heart purity? Our answer would be that if his consecration is complete and genuine, as we have just outlined 4n Chapter Eleven, this will go far toward giving him a perfect faith. The thing that chiefly keeps our faith low, and prevents its perfect exercise, is a lack of utter abandonment to God. With our bodies, souls and spirits utterly yielded to Him, the ground work for a perfect faith is laid. There are a few items of consecration, however, that we might examine a bit more particularly:

Consider well your prayer life. One may do a great deal of praying without much faith, but one cannot generate faith without much prayer. Learn to pray without ceasing. When you retire at night, plead the promises as you drop to sleep. When you waken in the middle of the night, pray yourself to sleep again. As your consciousness struggles back from sleep, devote its first, fresh seconds to prayer. Pray as you clothe yourself for the day. Pray as you perform your morning ablutions. Pray over your breakfast, and then again, if possible, with your family. Pray as you proceed to work. Ejaculate a prayer sentence now and then. Pray at odd seconds during your work hours. Quote His promises to Him. Call His attention to the Word on which you rely. Bring your arguments to His attention. You are, now, we will imagine, seeking to be sanctified wholly. Remind the ever blessed heavenly Father that He has commanded holiness, "As he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy" (1 Peter 1:15). In your prayer suggest that He has commanded it, then He ought to bestow it upon you, a humble believer in His divine Word; and we are sure He will, when your faith will dare to claim it. Remind the Lord Jesus that it was for the very purpose of sanctifying the people that He suffered without the gate; that it is the purchase of His blood. Can He then withhold from one of His fully consecrated children, the very thing for which He died? It is certain He will not refuse, if you will utterly trust Him for it. Remind the blessed Third Person of the Trinity that He purified the hearts of the disciples at Pentecost by faith, and that you, a

modern disciple, are waiting on Him for the same cleansing, and are offering Him the same sort of faith. This will bring the sanctifying power.

As you pray, cultivate the faith faculty. Assure your own sometimes doubting heart that you do believe His every promise. Faith is susceptible of cultivation, just as is one's memory. Venture out on the promises of God, with all the faith you can muster. Trust Him for the experience this moment, and see what happens. The more we sincerely pray, the more faith grows. The more utterly abandoned is our communion with God, the more faith flames into perfection.

Another item of great importance in cultivating faith, is to ascertain with some degree of certainty, whether you have really entered what might be termed the "crucified life" of a genuine Christian. There is a dependence in our hearts on this world, its people, its customs, its honors, its ways, to which we must literally die, in order completely to trust God, and depend on Him. We do not mean, now, just the carnal phases of the world only, but we mean its legitimate hold on one, in a thousand ways. Nor do we purpose that this abandonment should be fanatical and extreme, such as refusing to eat certain foods, that are commonly eaten (unless we know they are injurious to us, personally), or to dress in such an outlandish fashion, as to point us out as extremists. But rather that we die to our hearts to the world, its customs, its ways, its praise, its pull, its ambitions, its rewards. When we are sanctified wholly, we must die to the carnal sin taint of the world, the flesh and the devil, but now we refer to something a trifle more drastic, and that is to die in spirit to many of the legitimate demands of the world. In other words, to possess them, but never to let them possess us. To use them, and yet live above them. To live among them, and yet never allow them to capture, hold and govern us. To die in this way so dead that God can trust us. Trust us, maybe, with wealth, and yet we would live as though we were poor. Trust us, possibly, with the gift of healing, and yet we would be just as humble, free from the effects of fame, or notoriety, or commercialism, or a "holier than thou," feeling, as though we had never laid a hand on the sick or prayed the prayer of faith over one. To die so dead that He could confer upon one, maybe, the ability to lead many souls to full salvation, and yet he would never get heady, or high-minded, or professional about it. So dead, indeed, that if He should elevate you to leadership in some church, that you would still be the same lowly; humble saint of God, that you were when you were a struggling country pastor, a "brush evangelist," or a converted plow-boy. Nothing perfects faith like humility, and lowliness of heart. Nothing enables us to offer a genuine faith to God, like the consciousness that we are truly dependent only on Him, and "in him we live, and move, and have our being" (Acts 17:28). A crucified life puts one where he has nothing to depend on but God. When every tendril of the heart which clings to and trusts in the world has been voluntarily broken and transferred to God, then how marvelously He can operate over a faith like that, and make holy one's heart thus abandoned to Him.

Money, or this world's goods, is one of these tendrils that will cling, almost without our knowing it, to materialism. We are not here advocating any fanatical notions about the necessity of poverty, nevertheless, a willingness to be poor, must be included in every person's consecration, if God's providences will it so. This is a commercial age, and we are bound in a degree to its laws and demands. However, we ought always to remember that God is greater than all the laws of commerce or finance or material necessity. And it is possible to be in the world, subjected to the laws of eating, drinking, buying, selling, and living after the laws of the material universe about us,

and yet to be so utterly lifted above them, as not to be of them, until our real self shall be as free from the demands of the material world, as though they did not exist.

"The love of money" is exceedingly dangerous to a sanctified man, and is often the hardest thing to which to die. It has so many legitimate needs, and so many lawful demands, that before one is aware, he has been caught in its toils, and is trusting his income, his bank account, his check book, more than he is trusting God. A note of commercialism creeps into his daily life. A religious professionalism begins to take the place of the sweet spontaneity of his first Christian experiences. He finds his faith in God failing. Why? He is trusting Mammon. We believe that the Scriptures demand that if one is to exercise a perfect faith for the perfect cleansing of his heart, and is to retain that experience, he must have a marvelous freedom of his mind and soul from the tendrils of materialism, especially as it is expressed in money, property and the needs of daily living. One of the great needs of the hour is for a race of ministers to be generated who shall count it all joy to accept hard, financially unprofitable fields, and till them for Jesus' sake, who will emulate the example of their Lord who went about doing good, Himself the poorest of the poor. We leave so little room for trusting God in the present day organization of the church. Everything must be in sight for the well being of the preacher or he will not accept the assignment. We need a host of "brush" evangelists who will be humble and unpretentious enough to enter a small opening for service, who will map out great circuits as the itinerants of another generation did, and cultivate the small school house and private-residence crowds, and lead stray and wandering souls to holiness. We need great, blazing, fire-baptized evangelists of brilliant ability in holy song, and eloquent utterance, who can evangelize our large churches, receive their splendid emoluments, and yet move among us as humble as little children, and who are willing occasionally to pour out their riches of song and speech upon some humble congregation with as much devotion and unction as though they were ministering to the thousands. We need laymen who will earn money for the kingdom, and not feel that all they secure is their own. Is it not possible to reach a place where money can be earned, handled, amassed and expended, and yet the man who does that live, so to speak, utterly apart from it, in his soul? How can we believe unto the full cleansing of our hearts from inherited moral corruption, unless we can detach, as it were, ourselves from this rushing, money loving world, and watch it go by, as we continue a part of it, and yet hide in the "cleft of the rock"?

Another item that will marvelously assist in perfecting one's faith for the obtainment of the blessing of a clean, holy heart is to cultivate a disposition to sacrifice conveniences. As long as we coddle ourselves, insist that everything must be convenient and comfortable, it is hard to offer the Lord a perfect faith. The Scripture says "endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ" (2 Tim. 2:3).

'Tis true, we have fallen upon soft and easy times, for the most part. Comforts are now so common, conveniences are so handy, luxuries are so within the reach of millions, that we have generated an easy, soft, flabby disposition. If the church, hall or school house is not heated to the perfect temperature, we whine, complain, and fuss about it, or more likely still, refuse to attend. If the weather is rough, we never think of facing the Storm, or chance the possibility of getting wet, or exposing ourselves to inclemency, but remain at home, turn on the radio, take a little religion second hand, and let the cause of holiness care for itself as best it can. If a morning service overruns the dinner hour by ten minutes, we are miffed, or sulky, or refuse to attend the morning

service thereafter, or arise from our place in meeting, at twelve o'clock sharp, and with a set jaw, and a toss of the head, march out, just as the minister is doing his best to make a fitting effect in his closing effort. Such a spirit, whether we are actually guilty in deeds, is ruinous to the perfection of any faith in God.

If we desire a genuine faith that will release the sanctifying power of God upon our hearts, and retain that holy fire till Jesus comes, we must have a spirit of self denial. We must be willing to forego conveniences, and let comforts depart, when God's house, cause, kingdom or hallowed interests call. We must be prepared to hasten to the place of prayer, whether or no the weather shall always be just as propitious as we would enjoy. We must go for worship and praise to God, and not just to consult our comforts and fleshly feelings. We must direct all our efforts to the glory of God, and not to the satisfaction of our own notions, and physical desires.

How can faith be lifted to God when we coddle ourselves so constantly? How can we ever receive, or retain the burning baptism of holiness, the first essential of which is likeness to Jesus. The living Spirit of the Son of God is the Spirit of self sacrifice. How can we be heroes when we refuse to be heroic? How can we believe for the removal of the inherited depravity of the heart, when we are cultivating its retention by the very homage we pay to comforts and conveniences? We are not pleading for discomforts for their own sake. We are not begging that we inconvenience ourselves just for the sake of being uncomfortable. That is popery. That is the mere affliction of the flesh for the sake of doing penance. We are pleading for the development of a spiritual self sacrifice, personal, financial and every other kind. We are endeavoring to state a law of the spirit of life, and that is, faith cannot be lifted. in its perfection where we refuse to undertake things inconvenient for His sake, or to subject ourselves to discomforts when thereby we might honor Him.

Oh, reader, has your faith for the blessing of full salvation been made perfect? Oh, sanctified Christian, is your faith this moment strong, triumphant and complete? Can you release the Holy Spirit into your heart with a fresh, new, and burning consciousness? Is not a fresh consciousness of God the chief thing we need? How can He be made conscious to the soul, especially in His cleansing and energizing power? Only by a perfect faith.

Chapter 13

IS HOLINESS INVARIABLY A SECOND WORK OF GRACE?

Any reader of this volume who has followed us thus far in our efforts to set forth the various phases of this great experience of entire sanctification will naturally conclude that we are firmly convinced that it is, indeed and invariably, a second work of grace. It is possible, consequently that such a person may not see the necessity of including this chapter in the book. However, despite the statements that precede this, and despite the clear intimations that we have endeavored to maintain from time to time, that this experience is a second, definite work of grace, it has seemed wise to us to insert here some of the arguments available, that will prove this to be the case. We do this all the more readily because of the hope that we have, that some of our young

ministers may be able to use this in connection with the support of this holy truth. We trust to thus place in their hands an arsenal of weapons with which they may combat the enemy of holiness.

That the experience of entire sanctification is a second definite work of grace is proved by the fact that all denominations, without an exception, teach it thus. To be sure, many of them allege that this grace cannot be secured at all in this life, with which view we do not concur; but the fact that they do allow that one can be regenerated now in this life, and then alter that, although in another existence, be sanctified wholly, sustains our contention that this experience is a second work of grace. Its obtainment any time, anywhere subsequent to regeneration, proves our point.

That it is a second work of grace is proved by the fact that no minister in the world ever thinks of urging sinners to come forward, or to kneel down, or visit an inquiry room, or do anything else in order to obtain the experience of heart purity or holiness. Sinners, i. e., unregenerated people, are invariably urged to repent, induced to reform, begged to turn away from their sins and seek forgiveness therefor, but never to get sanctified wholly. If this experience were not a second work of grace, it would seem as though one would hear, now and then, an exhortation for sinners to seek it. But this never occurs. This proves that it is never to be possessed by sinners coming directly from their sinful state. It proves that a sinner must first be justified, and then later on he can be sanctified wholly.

That it is a second work of grace is proved by the fact that all of its advocates have so preached and proclaimed. Among its first preachers, in modern times, were John and Charles Wesley, the founders of the mighty revival called Wesleyanism. They clearly write that a person must first be justified and then sanctified. This appears over and over again in John Wesley's diary. George Fox, the saintly founder of the Quaker movement, declared that after he was converted to God, he still felt something within his heart that would misbehave. He went the second time to Jesus, the Savior, and He cast the troublesome thing out, and then entered his heart, and remained there Himself. Richard Whatcoat, an early bishop of the Methodist Episcopal church; John Inskip, a flaming preacher of this grace, about the time of its later spread in the United States; Matthew Simpson, another bishop; McDonald, Gill, Pepper, the Palmers, husband and wife; Lowrey, Haney, Bishop Joyce, Bishop Roberts of the Free Methodist church; Phineas Bresee of the Church of the Nazarene; all of whom have passed on to their eternal reward, were flaming preachers of entire sanctification. Each. one held firmly and continuously that it is a second work of grace, and is obtainable in this life. There are also a host of others, almost too numerous to make mention of, who are still this side the grave, and who are pressing the battle for the cause of holiness as a second work. In fact this writer has never known of an outstanding minister who pressed the cause of entire sanctification, who was not a believer in it as a second work. It is obviously useless to say anything about it, if one gets it 41 at conversion; and equally useless if one is not to receive the sanctifying touch till the resurrection day. Hence all who urge the matter of heart cleansing, all who press people into an experience of the destruction of the moral corruption of the soul called carnality, are, all of them, advocates of the second work of grace. There are, we will admit, some distinguished ministers who claim that one can receive the baptism with the Holy Ghost in this life, as an occurrence subsequent to conversion, and that such a baptism imparts power for service; but even these do not claim that such a baptism eradicates the inherited depravity of inbred sin; indeed, they distinctly teach that it does not. Consequently all who teach

anything about sanctification at all, as an experience, which eradicates the carnal nature, insist that it is always a second work of grace.

Again, that it is a second work of grace is proved by the clear teachings of the Scriptures. Conversion or regeneration is declared to be a "new birth" (John 3:3), or being "born from above," making one a "new creature in Christ Jesus" (2 Cor. 5:17). Then later we are told that one who has been thus born from above, may receive the "baptism with the Holy Spirit" (Acts 1:4). It is very clear then that the baptism with the Holy Ghost is a second experience, because of the fact that only such as were already believers were eligible to it. Besides, the very typical names employed for these spiritual experiences carry the same implication. One is called a "birth," while the other is called a "baptism." It is very clear that if we are to allow the natural analogy to hold, one must be born before he can be baptized. A birth is, furthermore, never confused with a baptism, nor a baptism with a birth. Each is a separate and distinct experience in the physical life, and the baptism is invariably subsequent to the birth. When we examine into the experience of being baptized with the Holy Ghost, we find (Acts 15:8 and 9) that their hearts were purified. This allies the wonderful coming of the Holy Ghost in His Pentecostal anointing, with the cleansing of believers' hearts, the very thing that is accomplished in entire sanctification. We frankly admit that the ones thus baptized also received power for service, just as some ministers contend, as is witnessed by the amazing activities and remarkable courage immediately after the coming of the Holy Ghost, but we also insist that His coming was for the purpose of cleansing, as well as empowerment, and the proof is manifest in that reference in Acts 15:8, 9.

That the baptism with the Holy Ghost and entire sanctification are one and the same, the one being the Agent, and the other being the result, and are a second work of grace, is further proven by considering the spiritual condition of the disciples before the Holy Ghost fell on them at Pentecost, and then by considering their spiritual condition after that enduement took place. We read in John's gospel, the 17th chapter, where Jesus, just before He faced Calvary, was offering His high priestly prayer, in behalf of these same disciples: He says of them, "and they have kept thy word." Strange language this for the Master to employ concerning these men, unless He knew they were regenerated at the time. Do we ever use such language of sinners? Do sinners ever keep God's Word in such manner that any may employ that kind of language of them? Again He declares that they had received God's Word, and had believed on Him, Jesus. Could unregenerated men do as much as that, and still remain unregenerated? Again He declares that He does not pray for the world, but for them whom God had given Him out of the world. "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." It is absurd to suppose that such language can be employed of any but regenerated people. He states of them, again, that "none of them is lost," except the son of perdition, referring evidently to Judas Iscariot. And from this sentence alone it is clear that if none of them were lost, then they must be saved, or justified. Then our Lord climaxes His whole prayer for them, by a petition that they should be sanctified. Evidently, as well off as they were, according to Jesus' own estimate, there was one thing they did not have, and that was sanctification. For them to possess this, He especially prayed. There is no place or time, except the wondrous hour of Pentecost, when they received the fullness of the Holy Ghost, that this prayer could be answered. But when we couple this prayer with His urgent command not to depart out of Jerusalem until they were baptized with the Holy Ghost, found mentioned in Acts 1:4 and 5, we gather at once, that it was Pentecost to which He looked for the fulfillment of His prayer for the disciples' sanctification.

Study now, for a moment, the mighty change that the enduement at Pentecost wrought in them, and we have the very elements of the marvelous experience of entire sanctification, and also its Scriptural setting and occasion. After tarrying in one accord for several days, until the Holy Ghost came "purifying their hearts by faith," as recorded in Acts 15:8 and 9, we see some common men and women, who a few days before were cowering in deadly fear of the authorities who had but recently crucified their Master, sallying forth with a courage that amazes us and preaching with persuasive tongues that hearers were unable to resist; and with a burning zeal that knew no bounds and feared no results, and with hearts of flaming love, but with tender forgiveness, they proclaimed the gospel into the very teeth of the men who had slain their great leader, and carried away with them as disciples some of the very followers of the authorities before whom they had but recently trembled with a great dread. More than that, this enduement enabled them to suffer persecution, even (with some of them) unto death. It lifted them above all sordid sin-taint, made them generous where before they had been self-seeking, bold where they had been timorous, large-hearted where erstwhile they had been leaning toward vengefulness, self-sacrificing, humble, obedient, otherworldly, in short, as near like their divine Master as redeemed souls could well be. Forth they went counting not their goods their own, nor esteeming their lives of any great value, if by suffering and death they could glorify God, or advance the kingdom of their crucified Master, Jesus Christ. Here we have the very marks of entire sanctification. It is conferred upon men whom their Lord had pronounced as having been given Him out of the world, keepers of His Word, none of whom were lost, believers in Him, and possessors at least of a degree of His joy. This proves that entire sanctification and the Baptism with the Holy Ghost are one and the same experience, and that this experience is a second work of grace, conferred upon wholly consecrated men and women who have previously been freely forgiven and graciously regenerated.

Again, that it is a second work of grace is shown by the two gifts that are made to mankind. One is made by God, and is given to sinful men. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). Notice here that God gives His Son. He gives Him to the world. The gift is for the salvation of the world, if it will believe. Here is the other gift. "Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it . . . that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish" (Eph. 5:25, 26, 27). Here Christ gives Himself. Gives Himself for the church. Gives Himself that the church should be holy. Here are two distinct gifts. One is given by God to the world for salvation. The other given by Christ to the church for sanctification. At a glance it is seen that these two gifts, while they are the same Being, are given to two different companies, one the world, with all its sin, misery and wrong, in order to win it to salvation. The other to the church, now already converted, regenerated, justified, or otherwise, it could not be the church, in order to lead it on to holy cleansing. These are two different companies, and two different experiences. The world, if it will believe, is to receive the first experience, and become saved. The church is to receive the second, and it is to result in entire sanctification. This proves that the latter is, then, a second work of grace.

Again, the words of John the Baptist show that this is a second work of grace. John preached in these words: "I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance ; but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire: whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his

wheat into the garner, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire" (Matt. 3:11, 12). John preached "repentance for the remission of sins" (Mark 1:4). That is, his errand and message was one of conversion, or regeneration. No other interpretation can be placed on the expression remission of sins." That is as strong a statement as can be employed for regeneration, and the words of St. Paul in Acts 19, where he chanced upon some of John's converts, indicate that people obtaining the experience that John the Baptist taught, were eligible at once to the second work of grace, or the baptism with the Holy Ghost. Evidently then, John's converts were justified and regenerated people. But he declares that Jesus was coming, and that when He came He would announce another experience; known as the baptism with the Holy Ghost, or the baptism with fire. Then he goes on to explain what this second one would accomplish in the hearts of the people who had already experienced what he, John, was proclaiming. He states that "he will throughly purge his floor" (Matt. 3:12). Examine a moment, that word purge; it is one of the most drastic words for cleanse. It suggests the intensified application of some cleansing agency, and fits, in a remarkable manner, the very contentions that have been maintained by the advocates of the work of grace known as holiness, which results in a pure heart, and holy affections(. Then notice that He calls it "his floor," indicating that it already belongs to Him, by virtue of the first experience, viz., "remission of sins," symbolized by their baptism with water, which they were receiving at the hands of John. "And gather his wheat into the garner." Let this expression of ownership sink into your thinking -- "his wheat!" "Into the garner," -- that is, into the "secret place of the most High," the center of His will, "the holy of holies," where we are "hid with Christ in God," and filled with perfect love.

"But he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." Where can one find a better figure for the cleansing of the moral pollution out of the heart by a "baptism of fire," than in this pregnant sentence? Carnality is here termed "chaff," useless if the wheat is to be made into bread. The "fire," is to be the very thing that John's great successor is to bring. He further declares that it is to be "unquenchable." Nothing (except the believer's own desire in the case) can ever extinguish it, for is it not the holy "fire" of perfect love? It shall burn forever! It shall burn till no "chaff" remains. It shall be the eternal-life-fire that shall make of believers "burning, as well as shining lights." Carry all this over in your thinking now, to the wondrous Pentecostal occasion, and there we have the baptism of fire! There we see the evident "chaff" of carnality burned away. There we find the "unquenchable fire" of perfect love carrying the apostles on and on to victory after victory, until they finally spread the fiery contagion of full salvation into the lands beyond the sea. Down through the "dark ages" it goes, now almost dying out, and then again flaming, like the creeping forest fires. Advancing, receding, flaming up, dying down, it is the very heart of Christianity. Where it is found, there the church prospers, and souls find God; where it is lost, darkness resumes its baleful sway, and decay chills the heart of God's sacred cause. It flames up again during Martin Luther's reformation; brightens into a conflagration under Fox, the great "Friend;" spreads like a prairie fire under the Wesleys; rolls with the "spirit of burning," through colonial America; dies down while brother slays brother during the dark days of civil war; breaks out again in the seventies, under Inskip, McDonald, Simpson, Cookman, and others; is caught up by the modern "holiness movement," and scattered broadcast; is organized into holiness churches; and is now in the hands of the present generation, to be planted, if we will, in every city, country place, and foreign land. Its forked tongues of flame are waving, in our day, to the breeze! Shall we catch up this burning torch of holiness and carry it to the next relay of unborn generations? God grant that we may, with its flame still higher flung than our fathers have ever seen it.

Holiness is a second work of grace, because of the testimonies of those who have experienced it. Below we give a select few of the tens of thousands of testimonies that could be published. Every one of these was a gracious Christian before finding the burning experience that he here records. No sinner has ever been heard to testify thus. This will prove that the grace of entire sanctification is one that is never conferred upon sinners, until after they have been forgiven, regenerated, and adopted into God's family called the Church:

"I have continually testified (for these five-and-twenty years) in private and public, that we are sanctified as well as justified by faith. And, indeed, the one of those great truths does exceedingly illustrate the other. Exactly as we are justified by faith, so are we sanctified by faith." -- John Wesley, Methodist.

"I knew Jesus and He was very precious unto me. But I found something in me that would not always be gentle, kind and loving. I did what I could to keep it down, but it was there. I besought the Lord to do something for me, and He took it out and shut the door." -- George Fox, Quaker.

"I will confess to all the world; and I declare unto you, in the presence of God, the holy Trinity, I am now 'dead indeed unto sin.' I do not say, 'I am crucified with Christ,' because some of our well-meaning brethren say, 'By this can only be meant a gradual dying;' but I profess unto You, I am dead unto sin, and alive unto God." -- John Fletcher, Episcopalian.

"I was distinctly conscious when I reached it. . . . I was then redeemed by a mighty power and filled with the blessing of perfect love." -- Thomas C. Upham, Congregationalist.

"I am ready to testify to the world that the Lord has blessed my soul beyond my highest expectations. People may call this blessing by what name they please: 'faith of assurance,' 'holiness,' 'perfect love,' 'sanctification.' It makes no difference with me whether they give it a name or no name; it contains a blessed reality, and, thanks to my heavenly Father, it is my privilege to enjoy it." -- James B. Taylor, Presbyterian.

"The evidence in my case was as clear and indubitable as the witness of sonship received at the time of my adoption into the family of heaven. Oh, it was glorious, divinely glorious! I could not doubt it. Need I say that the experience of sanctification inaugurated a new epoch in my religious life? Oh, what blessed rest in Jesus! What an abiding experience of purity through the blood of the Lamb! " -- Alfred Cookman, Methodist Episcopal.

"The last year (1873) has been an eventful one to me.

It includes a day memorable among all other days of my ministry, Thursday, July 31st, when God most graciously and sweetly cleansed me from all unrighteousness, and baptized me with the Holy Ghost as never before. Francis Hodgson, American theologian.

These testimonies have been selected as much for their representative character, as for their faithfulness to holiness, as a second work of grace. Here we have several denominations

represented; also flaming youth and mature years. These are but a few of the thousands out of which we might choose. Each one is a commentary on the truth of the contention of this chapter, that entire sanctification is a second work of grace.

Let us exhort anyone who may chance to read these lines, that if you are now a stranger to the "baptism of fire," but are enjoying the grace of justification, that you seek at once for this sanctifying experience of perfect love. That you at once lay all other considerations aside, and devote your time, thought, prayer and effort to the possession of this marvelous grace. Doubtless this is the experience that fell upon the disciples at Pentecost. This is what God bestowed upon the converted Samaritans when Peter and John laid their hands on them, after the gracious revival under Philip was over. This is what cleansed the hearts of the Roman centurion and his converted household. This is what Paul bestowed, by the imposition of his hands, upon the sixteen believers at Ephesus. This is what fired the hearts of the Christians in the first century and made them, despite the fact that they were without a church building, without a hymn book, without a printed page, without a missionary society, without a settled pastorate, without a district or a diocese, and in the face of sternest persecution, antagonistic religions hoary with age, and a population that alternately offered to worship or to slay them, able to conquer their enemies' prejudices, convict their hearts, win their approval and conversion, and a devotion as splendid as that displayed by the early apostles themselves, and finally to capture the governments of the nations. Friend, if you have failed to secure this burning baptism, you have missed the kernel of the Christian faith. You have missed the mightiest stride back toward the recovery of the estate that was lost in Eden, that can be taken in this life. Possibly, and very probably, the recovery that shall be accorded the race when it reaches the "more excellent glory," will be greater than that imparted upon complete consecration and faith, to the humble believer here in this life, and known as entire sanctification, but it can never be more important.

Possibly, reader, you are a minister. Then allow us to entreat of you to obtain at once this experience, unless it is already yours. No minister can endure the taxing demands of the pastorate, the leadership of a church composed of a group of people of variegated characteristics, the conduct of spiritual things, the winning of men from sin and unrighteousness and their advancement into that "holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord" (Heb. 12:14), be a proper guide to the living, and a solace of the dying, an example for the youth, a sage adviser for the mature or aged, and bring fire and enthusiasm from the skies, unless he has been sanctified wholly-baptized with the Holy Ghost and fire.

Fellow minister, contend for this holy truth. It is the very core of the gospel that was given for the purpose of restoring a lost and ruined race to the holiness that was forfeited in the garden of Eden.

Chapter 14

IS HOLINESS OBTAINABLE IN THIS LIFE?

The experience of holiness, or entire sanctification, is the chief step whereby a loving heavenly Father proposes to restore the estate lost in Eden to the human race. Let it ever be remembered that the greatest loss sustained in the fall of our first parents was that of "the image of God." While there is probably no doubt but that this "image" included some of the facts of moral ability with which the race was endowed, as well as the holiness, or perfect heart purity, with which they were created, still holiness was the 'chief feature of that image. This they lost when through disobedience they fell.

We have been endeavoring to show that God's plan to restore this estate is fulfilled in Jesus Christ, and that it is accomplished, so far as this life is concerned, with two works of grace, the first being justification, or regeneration, and the second being entire sanctification, which results in perfect heart holiness.

The Standard dictionary states that entire sanctification is "The gracious act of the Holy Spirit, whereby the believer is freed from sin, and exalted to holiness of heart." You will notice here that it is the believer who is made the recipient of this act of the Spirit. This goes to prove our contention, namely, that this experience is a second work of grace. The further statement of the dictionary is that this act of the Spirit, frees that believer from sin, this is, as we contend, the principle of sin, or the moral corruption, that remains in the regenerate after conversion. It also adds that such a believer is exalted to holiness of heart.

The catechism which has come down in many of the denominations of Christians for ages, states that this experience of entire sanctification is "the act of the Holy Spirit by which we are made holy." Here we have the corroboration of the catechism added to that of the dictionary, in enlightening us as to what this gracious experience consists.

Another religious writer defines the experience of entire sanctification as "An experience awaiting regenerated people, whereby carnality is removed and the heart perfected in love."

The great John Wesley, the founder of the Wesleyan revival of a century and a half ago, declared that it was the great depositum of truth to spread which God had raised the Methodists up. Another time he said, "Where this doctrine is preached, all the cause of God prospers.

If it can be shown that any of our preachers or leaders speak against this, let him be preacher or leader no longer." The book of rules, discipline and government of that people states: "Let us strongly and closely insist upon inward and outward holiness in all its branches." Adam Clarke, a great preacher and leader among them, and author of a famous commentary on the Bible, once said: "If Methodism once gives up preaching entire sanctification, they will soon lose their glory."

We have quoted here, at some length, from the dictionaries, the catechism, and several prominent authorities in a movement that had its rise largely for the purpose of spreading throughout the world, this truth of full redemption from heart uncleanness; in order that we might have the whole case set before the reader, before we begin discussing the especial thought of the chapter, namely, is it possible to obtain an experience like this in this life?

Our first argument is based on the testimonies of the saints of old, some of our religious ancestors, and upon hundreds who live today. Guyon, Fenelon, Fox, Wesley, Fletcher, Clarke,

Watson, Benson, hundreds of the Methodist fathers in America, the modern holiness movement numbering its great leaders by the multiplied hundreds, Free Methodists, Pilgrim Holiness people, Nazarenes. In these last two churches it is the rule to insist that every preacher shall be in possession of this grace, before he is recognized as a preacher. Here we have tens of thousands in early times and literal hundreds of thousands in more modern days, who have lived and died testifying that they had come into possession of the experience of entire sanctification, and "fell on sleep" in the full faith that their hearts were freed from sin, and that they were filled with the Holy Ghost.

All these thousands of people, some of them noted leaders, all of them well known in the communities where they lived, professed that they had received and retained this grace through their lives. If now they had really received the grace they claimed to have gotten, then holiness is obtainable, for these had obtained it. If, however, holiness is not attainable in this life, then all these people were mistaken. It is conceivable how a percentage of them might be mistaken. Say, for instance, that a goodly number had not gauged their conscious feelings correctly, and had mistaken a great emotion for a cleansing of the heart, and had supposed that a wonderful ecstasy which they had received, was indeed the descent of the Holy Spirit, and yet were mistaken in the matter. But in this case we must insist that if holiness is not obtainable, then every one of them was mistaken! For if only one of the entire number who claimed to have received this grace actually did receive it, then that proves that holiness is to be had here in this earthly career. But, if it is insisted that it cannot be obtained at all, if a clean, holy heart is not to be had this side the grave, if the carnal principle that became lodged in the heart of Adam, and through him was handed down to all his descendants, cannot and never has been removed from a human heart until after death, then every one of these hundreds of thousands of people who have so believed, and so claimed, has been deceived and mistaken; and not one of them has been in possession of that cleansing that they declared they had received. They were still in the bonds of the carnal principle of sin, that has warred for ages against the saints of God.

Assuming for the sake of the argument that this is the case, then the one who insists that they were all thus mistaken, must answer for this fact: How could every one of them be thus mistaken? And mistaken in the same identical way? And be able to pass that mistake on from generation to generation? These were, also, among the very holiest people who ever lived on this earth, and yet they were all mistaken in their conscious understanding of what God had done for them. Some of them were people of the keenest thought. Some wrote books that are models of keen thinking, deep erudition, and comprehensive grasp of many things, yet they were one and all totally mistaken in this contention of having a holy heart. They were totally deceived into thinking that they had been cleansed by the baptism with the Holy Ghost. Furthermore, they, thousands of them, lived lives so near to all that they professed,. that their very enemies were unable to find any fault in their actions, their speech, or their business practices. They were free from anger, avoided the very appearance of evil; were instant day and night in their service to God; exhibited perfect love when they were mistreated; when they were reviled, took the mocking with unruffled tempers; went about doing good; never asked for place, position, or favor; "Took joyfully the spoiling of Your goods" (Heb. 10:34); meekly turned the other cheek when they were smitten; yielded up their cloaks when their coats were taken; humbly accompanied their oppressors the "second mile;" were always cheerful under keen adversity; acted like their Master, the Lord Jesus Christ; were instant in prayer; loved their enemies; blessed them that cursed them; and did good to them that shamefully

mistreated them. And yet, if the enemies of holiness, who claim that complete cleansing from all sin cannot be obtained in this life, are sound on their contention, these men and women, some of whom suffered martyrdom for their faith, were all, every one, mistaken. In spite of all their holy living, in spite of all their faithful walk, in spite of all their testimonies, and their devotion, they were rank impostors, not to say deceivers. This is so incredible as to become impossible of acceptance. But if these saints and martyrs were not mistaken, if they actually had come into the possession of this hallowed grace, then holiness is obtainable.

But this is an appeal to Christian experience, and, in the last analysis, it is not wise to pin one's faith in a spiritual matter too much to Christian experience, unless one can show that it is corroborated and reinforced by the plain teachings of the holy Book. Let us appeal to the Scriptures. These holy writings are filled with statements regarding holiness. Bishop Randolph S. Foster, of the Methodist Episcopal church, writing of this same experience, as found in the Bible, emits this literary gem: "It breathes in the prophecy, thunders in the law, murmurs in the narrative, whispers in the promises, sparkles in the poetry, resounds in the songs, speaks in the types, glows in the imagery, voices in the language, and burns in the spirit of the whole scheme, from its beginning to its end. Holiness! Holiness needed! Holiness a present duty; a present privilege; a present enjoyment!"

In the Scriptures God promises holiness to His people. In Deuteronomy 30:6, "And the Lord thy 'God will' circumcise thine heart, . . . to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul."

"Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you" (Ezek. 36:2,5).

"Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled," that is satisfied (Matt. 5:6).

"That we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life" (Luke 1:74, 75).

"Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it, . . . that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish" (Eph. 5:25, 26, 27).

These are God's promises. They are recorded in His Word. They are the utterance of his inspired writers. Either they are true, or they are not true. There is no 'half way, no middle ground. Either He will do what He has here promised, or He will not. That these marvelous Scriptures mean holiness, can scarcely be doubted. Even the beginner must admit that if God will do what is here pledged, there can be nothing else result than a holy heart, a fully sanctified experience. In the first one, an operation on the heart of mankind is offered, that will have as a result the enabling of that one to love the Lord God with all his heart, and all his soul. If a person is truly loving God with all his heart and all his soul, certainly that will mean that he is freed from all things in his being that are opposed to God, and is now in possession of perfect love, he will be in possession of holiness. Another declares that we shall be clean, with the cleansing of God himself, and that all

filthiness, all idols shall be cleansed away -- reader, what else can that mean, than that a person so cleansed by the power of the Almighty God, shall be a holy man? Another states that we may be supremely satisfied, another that we may serve Him in holiness all our lives, another that we, His church, may be sanctified and cleansed so that we do not have spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that we may be holy and without blemish. If language can depict' anything of a spiritual nature, surely here is set forth the very thing that we are discussing, namely, holiness of heart and life.

Now let us suppose, for argument's sake, that God will not keep His word, and will not do this amazing thing for His humble children. What do we confront? If He has promised that He will do this, and now He refuses to keep that promise, what does that prove? Clearly, it proves that God is false. That He will not keep His own solemn pledge.

That His Word cannot be relied upon. If this be the case, then all grounds for trusting Him are removed. Then there is no moral ground on which thinking, reasoning men can stand. Then we have moral chaos. His law is gone, because a false deity cannot expect His creatures to respect and obey His law. Indeed, can there be a law of God, if He be false? His honor is gone, His holiness is gone. We are compelled to say that God is, Himself, gone, for a false Supreme Being is unthinkable. He cannot be God and be false. Hence to say that holiness is not obtainable in this life is to say that God has abdicated His throne, and emptiness fills the heavens, that spirituality is a delusion, faith a fraud, and salvation a dream!

But, suppose that we say that God, having made the marvelous promises will do and keep His word, will fulfill every one of them, will accord to His people what He has so solemnly pledged. Then there can be no other conclusion than that His consecrated and believing children can be made holy in this life. If they can be, then holiness is obtainable!

We find in the blessed Scriptures, that God not only promises holiness to His people, but that He commands them to possess this grace.

"Walk before me, and be thou perfect" (Gen. 17:1).

"Be ye holy, for I am holy" (I Peter 1:16).

"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind" (Luke 10:27).

"Be ye, therefore, perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" (Matt. 5:48).

These are all commands of God, or the commands of His Son, Jesus Christ. They are all in the imperative mood, present tense. They are as binding on the followers of Jesus Christ, as any other command that He ever delivered. Does He not say, "If a man love me, he will keep my words" (John 14:23)? And does He not reinforce this by adding, "He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings" (John 14:24)? We are, then, under solemn obligation to "observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you" (Matt. 28:20).

Will the Master command us to possess something that we cannot possibly obtain? Will He demand of us that which He well knows we cannot secure in this life? Will He constantly leave the impression that we are to be holy here below, nay, absolutely command us to possess it, when He is well aware that this grace cannot be had this side of the resurrection day? To answer these questions in the affirmative is clearly to imply that our Lord and Master is a tyrant. Could He be otherwise, if He would insist with positive command that we be holy, when He well knows that it is impossible? If therefore the enemies of this second work of grace declare, as they have done, that holiness of heart and life is not obtainable in this life, they must do it in the face of the consequences, which are nothing else than that if it is impossible, then Jesus Christ has commanded an impossibility, and is as a result, a tyrant.

But suppose that having commanded us to be holy, He proceeds to authorize and empower us to possess that grace. Suppose that He shed His very blood "that he might sanctify the people." Suppose that we actually can keep His commandments through the merits of His death, and the power of His Holy Spirit, then, will we not be holy? Will not holiness be obtainable? We must either believe that Jesus is a fearful tyrant, commanding that which can by no means be obtained, or else His commands can be met and obeyed, and holiness is obtainable in this life. Which horn of this awful dilemma, reader, will you take?

But, again, the Scriptures state that it is God's will that holiness shall be possessed by His creatures here on this earth.

"According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love" (Eph. 1:4).

"For this is the will of God . . . your sanctification" (1 Thess. 4:3).

"For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness" (1 Thess. 4:7).

In these passages of holy writ we find the will of God, the desire of the most High, the wish and longing of Jehovah. It is that His people shall be holy. Does He wish us to possess something that we are utterly unable to possess? Does He long for us to have that which is unattainable? To say that He longs for us to have it, and will bestow it at the resurrection day, is beside the point, because there is not a scintilla of evidence that this is what He plans to do. If He had planned that we should possess this grace at the Resurrection Day, and not to obtain it here, why has He not so stated? The Resurrection Day and the experience of glorification are practically one and the same. Why has He not urged glorification upon us, as He has entire sanctification? It must be' clear to the reader that it is because He knows that glorification is to come to us after death, while entire sanctification is to be bad right here and now, through the merits of the atonement of His Son, and the power of the Holy Ghost.

If holiness is, then, as we have showed by the Word, His will for His children, and yet, the enemies of this truth state that it cannot be possessed this side the Resurrection Day, can, then, the will of God be done? Is His will a vain thing? Has He simply willed an unattainable ideal for us, and published it in His Word with all the force and conviction of something that He expects us to possess? If all these questions must be answered in the affirmative (and they must be, if we cannot

obtain the experience of holiness in this life), then we are forced to the conclusion that God is toying with the feelings and hearts of His people. That He cannot be a God of love and infinite reason and treat His devoted children thus. That for God to will that we should be holy, and publish His will in His Word, and at the same time know that by so doing He was merely tantalizing His creatures, for they cannot realize His will, nor do His will, nor reach the thing that He has wished for them in His will, if so be that Christians cannot obtain holiness in this life; is to advertise that God is unkind, that He is unjust, and that we are more unhappy to know His will, than if He had not revealed it unto us.

But, suppose, that He has not only willed that we should be holy, but that He has provided an infinite atonement through the death of His Son, and that because of the merits of this atonement, and because of the outpoured Spirit of holiness, He is able to lift us to the place where He can put His will into effect in our hearts, and cleanse us from all the defilement of inherited corruption, and to do it right here in this life, then will not His divine will be put into effect? Will not His will, so far, at least, as making His creatures holy, be done in earth as it is done in heaven? And, if His will can be done, if His wish can be realized, if His desire can be made good in the hearts and lives of His consecrated and believing people, will we not be in possession of holiness? And, if we are in possession of holiness, does not that prove that holiness is obtainable in this life?

Again, let us observe, that this experience of entire sanctification is made the subject of inspired prayers.

"Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth" (Luke 11:2).

"I bow my ..... . that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God" (Eph. 3:14-19).

"And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless, unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thess. 5:23).

"Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth" (John 17:17).

These are inspired prayers. Two of them uttered by the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Two of them offered by the great Apostle to the Gentiles, Paul of Tarsus. That they are praying here for heart holiness, the entire language employed would indicate. That they were jesting, or speaking lightly, or aspiring for something that was beyond reason, it would be sacrilege to assert. Are we, then, taught by the examples of these inspired prayers that we are to ask for what cannot be accorded? Yet that is exactly what we must conclude, if the enemies of this second work of grace are correct, and we cannot possess this sanctifying grace in this life. If this be the case, and these illustrious persons were pleading with God for something that could not be obtained, then how are we to know whether God will grant the answer to any of our prayers? What are we to do with statements like this: "Ask, and ye shall receive"? Or with this: "Whatsoever things ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them and ye sh all have them"? Or with this: "There hath not failed one word of all his good promise" (1 Kings 8:56)? For here we have Jesus himself asking for something for His people that none of them can obtain this side of the Resurrection Day, if so be that holiness is not obtainable. And Paul, the saintly apostle to the Gentiles, is pathetically pleading for something for his converts that no one can possibly obtain, if holiness is unobtainable

in this life. What shall we say, then, that prayer is a mockery? That God simply incites us to prayer by dangling some unattainable ideal before our spiritual eyes in order that we may strive for it, when He knows well that we cannot possess it? Would God tantalize His people in that manner? And yet, this is the very thing that we must allege in case holiness is not to be had this side the grave. If all this be true, then Jesus was deceived, or else was Himself a deceiver. Paul was deceived, and if he were, then his writings that have so blessed the world, were the asseverations of a totally deceived man, and cannot be classed as inspired Scriptural utterances.

But, on the other hand, suppose that God can and does answer prayer! Suppose that He has made ample provision for the answering of these prayers offered by His. Son, and His great minister. Suppose that because of these fervent petitions there should be poured out on the disciples of our Lord, and upon the consecrated and believing converts of the Apostle Paul, the fullness of the Holy Ghost, cleansing away with His fiery presence the inherited moral corruption that remained in their hearts after they had been converted to God, would they not be in possession of holiness? In other words, the very answer to these prayers would mean the coming of holiness to the recipients of the answer. Then if God is a prayer answering Deity, holiness is obtainable in this life.

The Scriptures clearly condition this experience of heart holiness. That is, they set forth certain conditions, which in case they are met, then holiness will be accorded to the one meeting the conditions.

"If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin" (1 John 1:7).

"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).

What if a man fulfills these conditions, will he not have a holy heart? Notice that the first reference states that "If we walk in the light," that something will result. And it declares that that something is that we shall be cleansed from all sin. Suppose that a person should walk in the light, just as the text requires. Will he not have the result, or else prove that God will not keep His word? If then He does keep His word, will not that one who walked in all the light that was thrown upon his pathway, obtain holiness?

Finally, entire sanctification is made by the Scriptures a necessary condition for entrance into heaven.

"Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God" (Matt. 5:8).

"Holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord" (Heb. 12:14).

"And there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life" (Rev. 21:2,7).

If, now, holiness is not, as some say, obtainable, then heaven is not attainable. If we are all commanded to be holy in order to reach heaven, and we cannot be holy, then we cannot obtain entrance to that place. If the reader here insists that multitudes have undoubtedly gone to heaven, who were justified (that is regenerated), but who had never heard of holiness, never been made familiar with the teaching 'of the second work of grace, then we answer by saying that, as they approached the grave, they must have been walking in all the light that God was pleased to accord them, and obtained that cleansing in the hour and article of death. It is unthinkable that there should be moral corruption permitted in heaven. All denominations teach that ere heaven is reached, all moral corruption must be removed. The Roman Catholic church arranges for an unscriptural purgatory, in order to provide for this. Hence heaven is a holy place, and every one who enters there must have become possessed of it before he can be allowed to participate in its felicity. We allege that the Scriptures make no provision for this to be done anywhere except this side the grave. If complete moral cleanness cannot be secured this side the tomb, then it can never be secured at all.

Oh, friend, who reads these lines, are you in possession of this grace? Thousands have testified to the possession of it, and died happily shouting the victory it accords. God promises it, and will surely keep His word. God commands that we shall be holy, and certainly a command with God, is only another way of expressing an enabling act. When God commands, we can certainly obey. God wills our sanctification, and who will dare to claim that His will cannot be performed? Christ prayed for it -- Saint Paul prayed for it, and if we will completely consecrate ourselves, and utterly trust Him, those prayers may be answered at once. It is conditioned, and with His grace assisting us, we can fulfill the conditions and possess it. It is declared to be necessary for entrance into heaven, and our Lord who prepared the place for us, will also by His abundant grace, prepare us for that place. Such a preparation is holiness of heart. Holiness a present necessity, a present privilege, a present possibility.

Chapter 15

THAT PORTION OF THE "LOST ESTATE" WHICH IS RESTORED AFTER DEATH

If the reader will bear in mind that salvation contemplates the restoration of the human race to the holiness, happiness and ideal conditions that prevailed in Eden, it will be seen at a glance that finished salvation has not yet been put into effect. The physical, intellectual and idealistic effects of the fall of the race, have never yet been removed from mankind on earth.

Justification, or the initial experience that men obtain, when they seek God, is called by some religious writers, partial salvation. Entire sanctification, or heart holiness, is called complete salvation, inasmuch as in this latter experience the relation of a person as a free moral agent, toward the matter of sin, is settled. From the moment of his entire sanctification, if he maintains the conditions that obtained for him the experience of Christian purity, his relation to the sin question, so far as his own heart is concerned, is fixed. Not that he can now dispense with the cleansing efficacy of the atonement of Jesus Christ, nor do without the presence and power of the Holy Ghost, or consciously fail in his daily service to God, but rather that his intimate relationship to the Holy Spirit, and the constant and perfect trust that he imposes in the blood, now enables him

to realize a perpetual freedom from all conscious offense against God, and to live momentarily in the joyous light of His approval, offering Him faithful service, according to the light he possesses.

But the last installment of salvation, called glorification, and by some writers, eternal salvation, is not put into effect till after death. Then, somewhere, amid the marvelous occurrences of the hereafter, the new resurrection body, of which the body that Jesus carried from the tomb in Jerusalem is a sample, shall be accorded all of God's truly sanctified children; and an intellectual transformation will be meted out by the divine hand, restoring the recipient to the mental possessions that characterized Adam at his creation; and, for aught we know, infinitely more than this, equipping us for association with angels, redeemed spirits and with Deity himself, and preparing the ransomed one for further achievement in the realms above. The restoration also of the ideals that were forfeited when sin smote the newly created pair, will take place.

There are a great many passages of Scripture that hint at, intimate, and reveal to a degree, the marvelous changes and transformations that will occur to the child of God in the hereafter. There are too many to attempt to quote them all, but a few will suffice to indicate the trend of their teachings. Evidently the great Revelator did not choose that we should have specific information concerning these coming events. He emphasized rather the devotion with which we should attend to the great matter of keeping our hearts holy here on this earth, and the need of walking unspotted before Him during our earthly pilgrimage. For on these depend the possibility of all glorification riches in the coming ages, and if we walk with Him humbly and faithfully in this life, with holy purity in our hearts, an intimation, a fleeting glance, a slight allusion to the coming disclosures, transformations, and unthinkable riches, imparting to us a glowing hope, is all that is needed.

Our Lord declared to the questioning Pharisees, that our existence in the world to come would be "as the angels which are in heaven." This much is wonderfully significant. It reveals that there is awaiting us, a marvelous change which shall take place after death, and the statement in, Acts 3:21, concerning the "restitution of all things," seems to carry with it the intimation that, somewhere in the future, God will restore to His faithful people the entire estate with which Adam was endowed in Eden.

Many of the amazing figures with which the book of Revelation is filled seem to be a panorama of the coming ages, in which redeemed souls shall be ushered into the rewards and promotions awaiting them. Paul's frequent references to "crowns," and "rewards," and his distinct use of the word "glorification" (Rom. 8:30), as an experience that is waiting for God's people after the scenes of this life are ended, adds to the assurance that we are to have bestowed upon us in the tomorrows, a wonderful portion of the salvation which our divine Lord bought for us on Calvary.

There is also permeating the psalms, prophecies and epistles, a distinct intimation that the earth and its creatures are to be transformed, and restored to the Edenic splendor and peacefulness that they knew when mankind first left God's creative hand. (Isaiah 11:6-9) Here in Isaiah we have the classic statement that "they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain." 2 Peter, chapter 10-13, describes a wonderful fiery cleansing of this earth, and the new heavens and the new earth which he there presents are exactly the things needed for the restoration of the earthly portion of the lost estate, and for a place wherein the glorified sons of God may dwell. The renewed earth, of the book of Revelation with its new heavens and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness, and

where there is no more death, nor curse, nor any of the former things, for they have all passed away, is in full keeping with this comforting thought of the glorified experience and the celestial home to come.

At that time the "lost estate" will be completely restored. What loss was occasioned by Adam's offense will have been fully and eternally restored in Jesus Christ our Lord. The peaceful, happy Eden is again man's home, with its animate life redeemed from all ferocity; a perfect earth, with perfect laws, free from animal or vegetable disease and death, inhabited by a human race infinitely wise with the wisdom of God, and forever free from the taint and tarnish of sin, and exempt from all its penalties and weaknesses including death. Earth's six thousand years of sorrowing nightmare will be over. The sin problem will be eternally solved. All of sin, and all who persisted in being stained with it; will be quarantined in the pest house of the universe. Lucifer, the arch offender, and all who followed in his steps, will be incarcerated forever in the lazaretto of the eternities.

With the restoration of the renewed earth, will come no doubt, a close affiliation between it and the heaven of heavens, God's eternal abode. A suggestion of this intimate communion between the holy inhabitants of the cleansed world, and the occupants of the court of God, is found in the statement that the "Lord's house shall be established in the tops of the mountains" (Isaiah 2:2). And while all these future possessions are revealed largely in intimation, nevertheless they serve to quicken the heart beat of redeemed mortals, and inspire deeper desires on the part of a sanctified church to possess those blissful abodes.

The reason we have introduced this subject here is not to offer a field for the display of either the reader's or the writer's speculative faculties. Our purpose is more practical than that. We have brought this view of final salvation to the attention of our reader, in order that we may use it as the basis of a very solemn warning.

The first phase of this warning is this: Inasmuch as God does not remove all the physical effects of the fall, when He sanctifies a person wholly, and inasmuch as He does not lift, in this life, the intellectual handicap that was visited upon this race when it first went into sin, even though a soul obtains an experience of perfect heart cleansing; and furthermore, inasmuch as one's ideals and visions and aspirations are still clouded and hazy, despite the possession of full salvation from sin, a person, especially a minister, or a Christian worker, ought to be extremely cautious lest while leading others into this wondrous grace of heart purity, he unintentionally induces the seeker to feel that he will, with the possession of this grace, be restored to an approximation of the physical and the intellectual perfection held by our first parents before sin had ruined them. While it is true, that both the body and the mind can be sanctified, (1 Thess. 5:23), this does not mean that they are thereby restored to the powers that were forfeited in Eden. It rather means that they are now cleansed from the presence of sin, by the atonement of Jesus, and, though still fallen, are no longer to be the instruments of sin, but to be employed in works of righteousness. The cleansing of them from sin here in this life, paves the way, and prepares them for their final restoration to their lost powers and complete glorification in the age to come.

At this point, consequently, there is need for great wisdom on the part of Christian workers. It is almost as fatal to put the qualifications for the experience of holiness of heart too high, as it is

to place them too low. Though a person is in possession of a clean, holy heart, from which he has had all sin eradicated, he will still find that his ideals will need constant bolstering from faithful reading of the Word of God, and from earnest inquiry after the views of a majority of the saints who possess a similar experience to his own. In places where this has not been done, the ideals and aspirations of professedly sanctified people fall sadly below holiness standards. It is not difficult to find people professing to be cleansed from all sin, who are tolerating tobacco, and even growing and selling, chewing, smoking and snuffing this chief offender among the deadly narcotics. This is due, we believe, to the low ideals that are sure to prevail unless constantly lifted higher by very intimate familiarity with the standards of the Bible, and a close association with others who have found "like precious faith." In this same manner some holiness people will tolerate worldliness of dress, and behavior, and themselves, frequently, at last fall into the same manner of dressing and acting. Only close application of Bible standards, reinforced by example and precept, will elevate these ideals.

It is unsafe to state that every person who has received the experience of holiness, will at once be accorded the necessary wisdom to guide himself aright in every situation. To insist that every person who has yielded to low ideals, has never had the grace of a holy heart, is fundamentally wrong. It is no doubt true, that having yielded to those low views and visions, he has finally forfeited the presence of the Holy Ghost in His sanctifying power, but to say that because he has thus yielded, he consequently could not have received the experience at the time he is supposed to have received it, is an erroneous conclusion. For a worker at an altar of prayer to insist that before one can be sanctified wholly he must have correct views on tobacco, lodges, dress, what to eat or drink, and what not to eat or drink, and a thousand other matters, is insisting on too much. If the person has had light on all these things, then it is necessary to insist that he walk in all light. But let workers be careful not to insist that another person must walk in the light that the worker has got, before the seeker gets such light himself.

Although sanctified wholly every person needs to keep bolstering his ideals. All need education in holy aspiration and conduct even after we have come into possession of a holy heart. For instance, many holiness people need to be educated to give. Alas, the almost stingy donations of countless hundreds who profess to have been made perfect in love. God's cause languishes, and moves forward with halting pace, even among wholly sanctified people, because they have never been educated to the blessed grace of giving. Some holiness people cannot even lift their offerings to God's cause up to the point of the tithe, which the ancient Jew gladly paid two-fold. A considerable degree of this, we are fain to believe, is due, not to the fact that such persons do not have the blessing of holiness, but because they are low in their ideals. Such must be educated and brought up to Bible standards, for low ideals will ultimately result in total loss of one's experience.

A newly sanctified woman will not necessarily know just how to clothe herself in these days of unusual worldliness in the matter of woman's dress. Some, because of possessing the light through attendance on the preaching of His Word, will know at once what is pleasing to the Spirit, in this respect, and what is not, while others will need education. For the sake of imparting the necessary standards and lifting the ideals of new converts, and strengthening the determination of people who are even mature in the way, the Holy Scriptures on these matters should be frequently read, and testimonies secured from God's fully established saints.

To insist that a person who has just been newly sanctified will always be able to adjust and control his mental activities, is an error. Wandering thoughts, unintentional mental pictures of a doubtful nature, erratic plans and unreliable reasoning may persist for years. Much prayer and the practice of the presence of God, has enabled sanctified people to rise above these, and to bring wandering and erratic thinking into blessed captivity to Christ. These things are not necessarily a reflection on one's heart purity, but are an evidence of a mentality that is still under the blight of the fall.

It is also a mistake to insist that a person who has just entered the Land of Beulah of holiness, will be entirely free from unusual appetites and desires. These often persist in a greater or less degree after one's heart has been purified from all moral depravity. With an exercise of will power, which is now freed from the control of carnality that affected it before one was sanctified, a person can refuse consideration to such unusual or abnormal appetites and desires. But to feel the tug of the abnormal appetite, or to realize the presence of the strong desire, is not necessarily an evidence of sin or carnality. However, to let one's mind dwell on these, or to cultivate them till they have reached swollen proportions, and then to cease resistance and to give rein to their expression, is where the moral impurity, that was cast out when your heart was sanctified wholly, reasserts itself. Appetites and desires must be held resolutely in check. They must be curbed and trained; weakened by heroically turning one's mind in another direction, and thus by "holding one's body under," as the Apostle to the Gentiles graphically stated it, one can at length realize in all the outward manifestations of his being that perfect holiness that fills his heart. But there must be education and training along these lines, for perfect freedom from all the items that pertain to our fallen bodies and minds will not be experienced the moment that a person is sanctified wholly. Indeed, they will reassert themselves from time to time during one's stay on earth, and the wholly sanctified must be on the alert against their manifestation.

The matter of evil temper, anger and impatience may be here considered. The chief cause of all these is carnality. When that is burned away by the Holy Ghost, and perfect love has come into the heart, there will be experienced a blessed relief from them. However, to be able comfortably to pass through provoking situations, and to endure with even heart and an undisturbed consciousness the trials, misrepresentations, slanders, privations and petty annoyances of this life, will require years of the cultivation of the graces of holiness. One must keep the holy flame burning brightly by prayer, meditation and testimony, or a lapse will occur. It is at this point that thousands lose their sanctified grace. It is so easy to grow careless, to leave the door unguarded, and to allow, usually unintentionally, an open approach to the enemy, and ere one realizes it, moral corruption has again reasserted itself in the heart..

But to say that every one who is sanctified wholly will never feel the urge toward impatience, or anger, or fretfulness, is to declare that one cannot be tempted. To some sensitive souls, the temptation to anger seems like anger itself, or the temptation to impatience is felt to be that hateful evidence of carnality, but happily this is not true, or there would not be a truly sanctified person among ten thousand. However we must all be carefully on guard, and unusually alert against the possibility of a temptation being transformed into the offense itself. If a person thus assailed will turn quickly to the blessed Lord Jesus himself in prayer for help, instant relief will usually be found.

A word should here be said concerning what is usually termed the grosser passions of the body. These are not impure in themselves, but their improper gratification often leads to impurity. By prayer and watchfulness, by seeking divine assistance when temptation appears, they can be restrained within divinely intended limits. But it is idle and pernicious to teach that these physical desires will not be found among the wholly sanctified. One's concern should not be over the fact that he finds himself in possession of these, but rather to learn what may be pleasing to God in connection with their legitimate gratification. All these appetites and so-called gross passions are nothing other than the ordinary desires of the physical being, and though now they are sanctified, and must never be employed as the instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, nevertheless they are still under the conditions of the fall, and will not be restored, or the fallen conditions lifted, until the new resurrection body is accorded God's saints.

Another of the phases of warning that we would rear upon the basis of the facts of this chapter, is the necessity of eternal watchfulness on the part of every saint. Because their hearts were made pure by the baptism with the Holy Ghost, thousands of God's people have felt that it was possible now to cease guarding the avenues that minister to their minds or bodies. This is a fearful mistake. Let it ever be remembered that physically, mentally, and in relation to our ideals, we are still a fallen race. Sin, to be sure, has been eradicated from our hearts, and we belong utterly to God; but He has so ordained it, that every step of the way in the life of holiness shall be tested out by the enemy, and only as a result of very resolute resistance shall we gain the prize of glorification. We must always bear in mind that our low ideals are sure to prove a channel for our undoing, unless we are constantly on our guard. That our minds will, by erroneous thinking, prove to be the very gateway for the return of moral pollution, unless we are desperately determined to keep the mind in closest relation to the "mind of Christ." That our bodies, despite our holy hearts, are gross, fallen, and subject to passions and appetites, that unless constantly curbed and restrained will be our complete undoing.

It is not too much to say, that thousands of holiness people have fallen from the greatest grace that is accorded in the Holy Scriptures, for lack of alert knowledge on these matters. Ministers of the gospel by hundreds have made shipwreck of their own personal experiences of holiness of heart, and also have sunk their ministerial lives and careers in shame and crime, just because they were too sure that they had reached the place where nothing could befall them. "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall" (1 Cor. 10:12). A wily foe is abroad in the land to encompass the ruin of all. He is no respecter of persons, but loves to ruin the brightest and the best. He is especially wroth with holiness men and women. If he can bait his hook with some natural appetite or desire, possessed by a sanctified man or woman, and then secure through artful manipulation the gratification of that desire illegitimately, he has wrought the downfall of another of God's saints. Let it ever be held in mind that, until we reach the fair haven of eternity, we are "as lambs among wolves."

Let all ministers beware! Satan peculiarly hates the holy ministry. He will ruin a minister's message and plunge his soul into perdition if he can. Despite your sanctified experience, Brother Minister, be doubly on your guard. Remember that your immortal soul which will live eons upon eons after this universe has been turned into molten flame, and that your whole career, your life work, your ministerial standing, your relation to your holy brethren, your exalted place in the

community, and all the souls that you may win to God from this time on, and all the fainthearted ones, who will, because you have fallen, give up the effort to live for God, all, all are hanging on your actions. Wage an eternal warfare against those low ideals that would rob you of all this. Do valiant battle against that insidious approach of modernism through your mind in its fallen condition; this has robbed the holiness movement of some of its greatest ministers; contend with desperation against that desire of your physical being, the gratification of which will ruin you and a multitude of others in hell.

"Oh, watch and fight and pray, The battle ne'er give o'er, Renew it boldly every day, And help divine implore.'.'

Layman, guard yourself. You are in as great danger as he of the sacred ministry. Ten thousand laity, once beautifully sanctified, are now weltering among the damned. Why? They did not watch! Through eye-gate, ear-gate or heart-gate the desire entered. Poor old fallen human nature pleaded for the gratification of its desires. The devil artfully used his power. Gold never had so beautiful a glitter. Business prosperity never seemed to allure with such a persuasive pull before. Infatuation actually, under Satan's hypnotic spell, seemed like love. The Holy Ghost through that sanctified heart begged, pleaded and threatened. But the guard was thrown down. The defense was abandoned. Carnality reasserted itself. The fatal step was taken. The same tragedy of Eden was reenacted. The soul began to stiffen with the frosts of sin. The spiritual nature congealed. The mind lost its ability to grasp divine values. The man reeled, caught at vacancy, fell down, down, down! "And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments" (Luke 16:23).

"My soul be on thy guard, Ten thousand foes arise, The hosts of hell are pressing hard To keep thee from the skies."

Chapter 16

LIVING THE HOLY LIFE

Holiness of heart and life is the greatest spiritual experience taught in the Bible, attainable by redeemed humanity, in this life. Consequently the living of a holy life, from day to day, is of tremendous importance. The sainted Wesley averred that many people obtained the experience of heart purity, but that comparatively few lived the life for any length of time. It is one thing to pray through at a place of devotion, and obtain the cleansing of one's heart by the baptism with the Holy Ghost, and then it is an altogether different thing to live that life moment by moment, and day by day.

God plans by His grace, however, to see us through to daily victory, and if we will only do our part on the human side, a wondrous sainthood will be our reward. The fact that church history

reveals a goodly number who did succeed in living holy lives, amid the most aggravating circumstances, encourages us all to persist in this hallowed achievement.

This chapter shall consist in enumerating the points at which, it would seem to this writer, dangers would surely appear, and an earnest exhortation to give these points especial watchfulness.

One of the most important points to be constantly guarded is one's consecration. The cleansing of the Holy Ghost can only be imparted to one who comes to God with a completely consecrated heart and life. Not an item can be withheld. All must be absolutely laid on the altar of devotement to God before the fire from heaven can be released upon that heart. In exactly the same way the devotement, the utter consecration, must be continued, or a sad forfeiture of the cleansing of the Lord will result.

It is a most helpful spiritual exercise faithfully to inspect one's terms of consecration frequently. The human mind is so frail, and the judgment so faulty, and the darkness of our fallen nature so blinding, that we are unable properly to judge of our own complete and utter consecration to God, without divine assistance. It is for this purpose that He accords the witness of the Spirit, and we ought, in estimating our own consecrated condition before the Lord, to study closely our consciousness of the presence and approval of the Holy Spirit. If there is a warm and tender sense of His presence, and especially of His approval, if we feel graciously led out in prayer, if we can search the soul to its depths and find no ill-feeling toward any person, no rancor, no trace of bitterness, no fever, no desire to have our own way, no disposition to be set and unyielding; but all is sweet, forgiving, tender, unctuous, and redolent with perfect love toward God and mankind, then one has good reason for feeling greatly assured.

If you can examine your property and find that it is all held subject to His blessed will, and that He can do with any portion of it just as He pleases; if you can accept all conditions of life with humble dependence on Him for their continuance or change; if all you have, or desire, or long for is happily and eagerly entrusted to Him without reserve, and there is no lingering sense of condemnation or dissatisfaction, then you may take great comfort in the fact that your consecration is intact and complete.

If you can read the Scriptures, and, after placing the Word of God alongside your own life as a plumb-line, the comforting witness is accorded from the Spirit that you have done the very best you can, to put all its sacred teachings into effect, there is good ground for satisfactory assurance. But this matter of full and complete consecration must be watched faithfully. Any letting down, any withdrawal of aught from His hallowed possession, any feeling of resentment toward neighbor, friend or relative; any lack of generosity, any refraining from full service toward God and the needs of His kingdom; any coldness of heart or chill of devotion ought to send one to a humble search, on his knees, for the spot where consecration has been violated and have it promptly corrected. If hasty words have been uttered, and a depression of spirits has consequently resulted, it is very likely that a humble apology to the one to whom the words were uttered, will be needful, in order to bring again the sweet witness of the Holy Ghost in your heart. But do not, we entreat of you, reader, neglect this. Possess again the burning presence of the sanctifying Spirit at all hazards. Never permit yourself to be content with other than the real experience. Never drag

along trusting that somehow the feeling of dissatisfaction will adjust itself. Make apologies, make restitution, spend hours in prayer, wait on God until again consecration is full and complete, and the fire is on the soul. Anything short of this is not holiness of heart, and a person is only harboring incipient carnality, if he allows himself to continue without the burning baptism which alone cleanses the soul.

A second point of watchfulness must necessarily be one's faith. It is due to faith that we ever found forgiveness of sins, and over this marvelous channel that we first realized that there was such a thing as holiness of heart. Later it was with a mighty exercise of its functions that enabled us to release God on our souls in sanctifying power. Consequently it is very important that we maintain the same sort of faith by which we obtained the cleansing, in order to keep the heart clean. Satan very artfully and with subtlety, attacks a person's faith. He attacked Eve at that point, and assails practically every one in a similar manner. As long as he can keep one from believing God, he knows that he can prevent him from obtaining anything from God in the way of salvation. A lack of faith will keep one also from ever securing entire sanctification. Later on, a similar lack of faith will rob one of it. It is possible to have a perfect consecration, and yet by lack of faith, still be without the joy, fire and enthusiasm of full heart holiness. It is also possible so to let down in one's faith after sanctification, as effectively to ruin one's heart experience.

A close watch, consequently, should be kept on the faith faculty. Cultivate it. Read the great promises of God, and then make a conscious effort to believe them. Work your believing powers constantly. Attempt great things for God with as hearty a faith as you can muster. If Satan can keep you from believing greatly for achievement he can fearfully invade your usefulness in the kingdom, even while you may retain salvation from sin. Make it a point to believe much. Guard your faith jealously. If you realize that faith is getting low, take a special season of waiting on God, reading the promises, searching the accounts of great deeds done by God's saints in other days, till faith is again ascendant. With consecration complete and full, and with faith rich and active, there should be good reason to rejoice and be glad in the happy consciousness of possessing that "holiness without which no man shall see the Lord."

Incident to one's consecration and faith is prayer. It is seldom that a Christian prays too much. It is almost certain that we all pray too little. Much prayer breeds faith. Great faith calls for prayer. Earnest, importunate prayer is almost certain to result in full consecration. Complete consecration depends upon, subsists on, is based on, frequent, passionate, and eager prayer. It is practically impossible for one to retain the blessing of holiness and not be much given to prayer. Prayer affects the one who prays. Prayer affects the ones for whom one prays. Prayer affects the great God to whom one prays. Let one's prayers be simple, whole-hearted outpourings of the heart to God. Let them be frequent. Let them be ejaculatory, if you are pressed for time. Let them be intercessory. But pray, reader, pray I If you would live a holy life, if you would retain the blessing of full sanctification, if you would keep the fires of the Holy Ghost upon your heart, pray! Take time to do it. Omit other things. Few things are as valuable as prayer. If you are in doubt about things, pray. If you are misunderstood, pray. If your heart is not as filled and thrilled as it was once, pray.

Also as a corollary to consecration and faith, is testimony. A sanctified person must testify. Not a mere parrot-like repetition of some set statement, but a real expression of the heart to other

Christians, or to neighbor or friend. Sometimes, when alone, it is not an unwise thing to testify to one's self. Tell yourself how much you love God, recite His marvelous doings in your own ears, and praise Him where none but your Lord, and the enemy, can hear you. This will have a fine tendency toward making your testimony less stereotyped and formal. It is helpful also to testify to some intimate friend, like one's wife, husband, or family circle. The stiffness of set speech and the strangeness of talking in public about one's own experiences, will be greatly lessened by doing this. A testimony should be as free and easy as a conversation, and it certainly ought to be unctuous. Nothing is more stale than a dry, formal testimony. The average layman feels, when participating in a Sabbath service, that he has a right to complain a bit, if a preacher discourses in a dry-as-dust fashion, and he feels that if the proper steps of earnest prayer, and the cultivation of the presence of the Holy Ghost had been taken, that such a juiceless sermon would never have been the result. In something of the same manner a person's fellow worshipers feel when they hear a dry testimony. If you are in earnest, if you are really in possession of the sanctifying Spirit, you will have waited on Him with such tender intimacy before ever coming to the praise service as to have prepared yourself for uttering a fresh, anointed, pungent, original testimony. Cultivate your heart with much prayer, Scripture reading and meditation, and see if your testimony does not improve. When the praise service hour comes, if you find yourself without anything to say, be alarmed. Go to prayer for your own heart condition, for it is impossible to have a really sanctified experience, and not have something to praise the Lord about. If your heart is truly connected with the standpipe of His grace, the faucets of your speech will be ready to spill forth the fact to His glory.

Another accompaniment of a perfect consecration and a genuine faith is a happy generosity in giving. A tenth of one's possessions is surely the minimum. A Christian with the grace of holiness in his heart must never be out-done in large-hearted giving by the Jew under the dominion of the law. Consequently there must be added to one's tithe a frequent praise offering, or love offering, or thank offering. Stinginess has very probably robbed more people of the grace of entire sanctification than any other one fault. Money and property are so needful to us day by day, and the world is now so organized around the matter of material things, the pursuit of which occupies chiefly the attention of its peoples, that it will invade the heart condition of God's own, unless they. have a very great care. Covetousness is named by the Apostle Paul in the same catalogue with the grossest and most wicked sins of the flesh. There can be no doubt but that at the point of consecrating property and wealth eternally to God and holiness is fought the greatest battles that human hearts ever know. If Satan and a carnal heart fought so hard when you were dying to the "mammon of unrighteousness" little wonder that he will return to inject that deadly poison again into your sanctified heart, if he can do so. A large proportion of the "repairs" that Christian people are up for, when revival meetings or camp meetings are on, is because of some form of surrender to this same "mammon of unrighteousness." The only safe place for the truly sanctified man or woman in regard to the matter of money or property, is rigidly to observe tithing, and then to intersperse that with offerings of generous size and cheerful frequency. Watch your own heart in regard to giving. If it is truly sanctified there will be a genuine joy in handing over to God and His cause your gifts. If you detect a hesitancy, a reluctance, a disposition to excuse yourself easily from participating in the financial end of the work of the Lord, if you discover in yourself a proneness to exact less of yourself than of others, or to conceal from the rest your own benefactions because they are not quite as generous as they once were, have a care, for that is almost certain to be a sign of the return of carnality. Faithfully read the blessed Word where it declares that you must "make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness," and "ye cannot serve God and mammon"

(Matt. 6:24), and "Give and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For' with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again" (Luke 6:38), and "lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal, for where your treasure is, there will your heart he also" (Matt. 6:19-21). By keeping your heart plumbed with these spiritual passages, and your offerings to God and His house frequent and as large as your circumstances will at all allow, you will be able to keep your consecration free from the moths of covetousness and the rust of stinginess which have slain their ten thousands.

One of the most blessed adjuncts to living a holy life, is to be on one's guard against a species of ease and sloth. There is a dying out that enables the Holy Ghost utterly to slay the carnal mind, but a person will not have been sanctified wholly, very long, before he will be aware of another death that he must die, if he would constantly retain the holy burnings of the Spirit in all their fullness and flavor. That is a dying out to conveniences and comforts. Not that we mean that one should make his life ascetic, and refuse to use carpets and rugs, rocking chairs and household comforts. No, but we do mean that he must die to all these comforts and conveniences so that when the hour comes to serve God either in church service or prayermeeting, or house to house visitation among the neighbors, in order to enlist another soul in the great concern of its own salvation, they must have absolutely no hold on one! When the meeting hour comes, dress for the battle, and haste to the scene of action. Go there to pray, devoutly kneeling on your knees. Go there to lift, while the messenger preaches, with all the faith that you have. Go there to gather around the altar and stay till victory comes, or till the leader gives the signal for dismissal. To feel that you can have a complete consecration and only attend church services once in a while, when it chances to suit your convenience, or when the weather is just right, or when circumstances serve comfortably; or to remain as you may chance to desire, leaving with an altar service in full sweep, and not take a hand in the battle for souls, is simply to deceive yourself. An entirely sanctified soul does not act that way. It forgets the warm and comfortable home, the pleasant chair, and the unread book or magazine. It regards not the weather, nor hesitates when storms are in the skies. It comes to refresh its own experiences with God and to battle earnestly for the salvation or sanctification of another. The call to such a soul for assistance around an altar is like the bugle blast to a cavalry horse, or the gong that releases the fire wagon for a run to the burning building. Unless you can die to your own comforts and conveniences when God's cause summons, you will in a short time grow lethargic, and lethargy is only another name for laziness, while laziness is a symptom of carnality, and "to be carnally minded is death" (Rom. 8:6).

While entire sanctification is retained by keeping a perfect consecration and a perfect faith, nevertheless the ability to keep one's consecration perfect and one's faith full and complete, depends very much upon whether the wholly sanctified soul early becomes active in the matter of achievement. Unless a person throws himself wholeheartedly into securing the accomplishment of things for the kingdom of God, he will speedily grow lax, become flabby in his soul, and backslide. If you are so fortunate as to have a holiness church of which you are a member, be faithful to all its services, but in addition to this start something that will be your peculiar care. A cottage prayermeeting in your neighborhood, a missionary prayermeeting, a children's meeting, a revival meeting in the next village or community to you; something -- something, into which you can throw all your heart and energy. Distribute tracts; make calls on strangers and invite them to

church; be a "glad hand" committee to stand at the door of the church and welcome newcomers; start a Sunday school class; do something for the cause! A holy life cannot be too passive. There must be some sort of holy action. Unless trees leave out, they die, and unless sanctified people express themselves in deeds, they too will die spiritually. If your business or home or health prevent you from being directly active in your community, then get busy in intercessory prayer, and with achieving faith; bring fire down from heaven by sheer exercise of your believing powers. The Scriptures authorize you to do this, and Jesus gives many mighty statements on faith that ought to encourage us all to do more at this than we do. Believe God for something definite. Lay hold of Him by faith, in a holy passion, for something that is clearly within His will, such as the salvation of your family, the precipitation of a revival in your own home church, or within the boundaries of your district, or for a widespread awakening within the confines of your own denomination, or for a visitation of the Holy Ghost to the mission fields. Grasp the promises with an exercise of importunate faith, such as is described in the parable of the three loaves of bread, and persist without cessation of faith till the promised event takes place. Doing something for the spread of the kingdom, and accomplishing something for the Master, though it is done out of sight and hearing of your fellow Christians, will stir the passions of your soul for holy companionship with Him that will keep your heart quick and sensitive to His presence, and alert to climb the heights of holiness.

Few things are so deadening to spiritual sensibilities as the feeling that you are able no longer to accomplish anything, and like a worn out garment laid aside for uselessness and decay. Helpless though you are, physically, an invalid or a cripple; unable maybe to participate in the active battles for the kingdom, yet you can by faith so release God upon the combatants, or upon some remote field, or upon some loved ones, as to engage all your thinking, and exercise all the passions of your soul. Spiritual idleness kills. Spiritual rust soon eats away the brightest experience. Remember that though active toil is beyond your reach, by virtue of a broken body, shattered health, or the requirements of small children or invalid loved ones at home, yet achievements by faith are always within your grasp. Avail yourself of them, and watch your soul grow rugged and robust, while your flesh is feeble, and your time, perhaps, forcibly denied you.

God's children sometimes forget that though perfect love (which is a result of the sanctifying power of the Holy Ghost), is created in the heart by His indwelling presence, yet that such an obtainment is susceptible of cultivation. Remember that the Holy Ghost is a divine person, and that His presence may be, so to speak, intensified. The more you offer humble, adorable worship to God, the more you defer to the voice of the Spirit within, the more you exalt the matchless Son of God, the more you humbly depreciate self, and call to mind your total lack of merit, or spiritual worth, receiving all from Him as the gift of His wonderful grace, the more the Holy Ghost's presence will be manifested to the soul, and the warmer will grow the perfect love of that heart for God, and for humanity about you. Perfect love can be cultivated. No doubt our age is producing so few great saints, largely because we have so much neglected the art of cultivating the presence and power and activity of the Holy Ghost within our own hearts. Would to God we all might begin to develop great sainthood by the cultivation of a more tender intimacy with the Third Person of the Trinity!. If this is done in the name of Jesus, and for His glory, and that we may the more perfectly represent Him to this death struck world, we believe that all fanaticism that so often springs from what might be termed forced interviews with the Holy Ghost, would be absent, and a tenderer spiritual Christlikeness would be the result.

The necessity of careful, conscientious obedience to God, to the Holy Scriptures and to the combined moral sense of the spiritually minded people about you, is of great importance in living a holy life. This is an age of license. This is a time of throwing off the trammels of the past. This is an hour when self-expression, self-determination, freedom to do as you please, liberty to be happy, are sounding their siren calls midst society, politics and in literature. It has also been heard in the pulpit. Little is said these days about obedience. Yet we hazard the statement that every soul that has lost its standing with God, and fallen over the brink of endless woe, is there because of failure to obey. Satan himself furnishes us with the dazzling example of the highest arch-angel of the skies losing his place, position, and character by failure to obey. The first human pair in the garden followed his unhappy example and advice, and wrecked their souls, their lives, and the world that had been created for them, and handed the ruin on to their descendants, all because of disobedience. We venture further to say that every Christian living today can trace every trouble that he has had in his own heart and experience, to that same fell disposition to disobey God. Consequently there can hardly be placed too great an emphasis on the need of obedience in order to live a holy life. Humble obedience to the Word of God, as interpreted by the majority of spiritually minded people. Glad obedience to the laws of the land in which you find shelter and home. Loyal obedience to the laws of the denomination in which you have elected to make your church home. Thoughtful obedience to the wishes of loved ones and relatives, in so far as this is consistent with loyalty to God and His Word. Obedience throws a chastening restraint about the soul, that is most helpful. It provides the necessary balance wheel for enthusiasm and ardent activity. It enables the cause of God to be organized and collectively to strike the enemy with solid impact. It is the centripetal force that holds the Christian democracy together, and prevents a person from losing sight of the advantages of organization, and of endeavoring to suppress the rebellion, or end the war, by marching in a solitary manner to the battle field, and ignoring the presence and assistance of his comrades, and the orders of the commander-in-chief.

A final suggestion for making a success of the holy life here below, is to cultivate humility. This is a low, sweet, aromatic plant that flourishes in a shy manner at the bottom of a deep ravine, the sides of which are so steep and precipitous that few venture down to where it grows. Once gathered its fragrance is wafted far on the scent-laden air. But so shy is this delicate herb, that if we grasp it too hard, its fragrance disappears, and we find that we are clutching nothing but a handful of withered leaves, that give forth a rank and moldy odor. It is declared by them of ancient times that it cannot be carried out of the deep ravine where it grows, and still retain its delicate fragrance. Can a person know when he is truly humble? That is difficult to say, for when one thinks that he really possesses it, that is the moment that he usually loses it. Words are clumsy in endeavoring to describe this rare but necessary accompaniment to genuine heart holiness. Humility loves to serve, and let the other fellow receive the credit for the deed accomplished. It is more happy laboring in the background than in the forefront. It hews wood and draws water for its Lord, while others receive the plaudits and the praise. It suffers another to be the corner stone, while it is content and joyful in filling in the cracks and bringing up the rear. It cares nothing for recognition here below, gladly awaiting the "well done" of its adorable Lord in the heavens. Its presence is the sweet flower of perfect love, and its perfume is the delicate fragrance of the Christ of Calvary.

Table of Contents

Start