LIGHT ON THE WAY OF HOLINESS.
By R. P'S.
AUTHOR OF "THE SECRET OF VICTORY," "THY RMAKER IS THY
HUSBAND," "IS THE VII. OF ROMANS TO BE THE CONTINUED
EXPERIENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN?" " THROUGH
DEATH TO LIFE," ETC., ETC.
"PURIFYING THEIR HEARTS BY FAITH."
Acts xv. 9.
REVISED EDITION.
NEW YORK:
ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & CO.,
770 BROADWAY, COB. Of 9TH STREET.




Tese pages, written  in  America from
week to week for a periodical, were collected
by an  English publisher and issued in bookform.    They  are  now  printed-with  the
Author's revision-for circulation  in his native country.
THE PUBLISHER.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by A. D. F. PRINDOLPEI & CO.,
k the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.




PREFACE.
"T    HE faith which was once delivered to tle
saints" was a faith which made them victorious over the world, the flesh, and the devil. By
it Enoch walked with God three hundred years,
having before his translation this testimony, "that
he pleased God." And yet God has "provided some
better "-not an inferior-" thing for us" in. this
dispensation, which is noontide glory as compared
with the twilight of revelation to the infancy of
our race. The danger of the hour has been in occupying men's souls, not too much, but too exclusively, with their standing in Christ, while the standard of walk which should accompany it has been
deemed as impracticable. Our privileges form tho
measure of our responsibility. The reception of
the free and full remission of sins through Him
"who his own self bare our sins in his own body
(3)




iV                PREFACE.
on the tree," is incomplete, unless the expressed
purpose of that sin-bearing be also accepted:
"that we being dead to sins should live unto
righteousness."  Christ in mercy' gave himself
for us," but it was in order "that he might redeem
us from all iniquity."
A work of faith allows of no apology, and requires but little explanation. Written with the
simple and earnest desire to remove prejudice from
honest hearts, and to lead fellow-believers into a
perfect soul-union with Jesus, these papers are not
intended to enter upon the range of systematic
theology.  As to their essential truth, I have
proved it in my own experience, as have also many
witnesses around me, and I do not shrink from
the solemn responsibility before God of pressing
the truth, which forms their subject, upon Christians everywhere. And yet, since every transmission of God's light is refracted by the medium
through which it passes, I should not be surprised
if advancing light should modify these statements
upon some details and interpretations of passages,




PREFACE.                 V
not affecting the essential truthfulness of the views
here urged. We are not infallible. While enlightened, we are not inspired. While it is God's
own light, His glorious light, in which we walk,
yet we are not yet able to gaze upon all its fullness.
May our spiritual vision be made clear, by a fall
deliverance from sinning, to behold the glory of
God in the face of Jesus Christ!
In the words of another, "There is within me
an inward testimony to the truth, so deep that all
the world cannot shake it. It is the work of God
upon my heart. Who will dare limit the power
of God? Who will say that God, whose love is
infinite as it is free, cannot give such proofs of
love as He pleases to His creatures? Has He not
the right to love me as He does? Yes, He loves me,
and His love is infinite. I do not doubt it. And
He loves you too, dear M-, in the same manner. This is eternal love manifested,-the heart
of God drawn out, expressed towards his creature.
"In this state we understand the mutual secrets
of the Lover and the beloved. Who will so deny




Vi                PREFACE.
the truth of the Lord as to question this? Whea
I hold my Beloved in my arms, in vain does any
one assert,'It is not so; you are deceived.' I
smile inwardly and say,'Mlly Beloved is mine and 1
am His.' If we receive the witness of men, how
much greater is the witness of God 1"




CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.               PAGE
L'aT ODUCTORY,    -    -    -    -              9
CHAPTlER 12.
A WAY TAUGHT IN THE BIBLE,        -    -       19
CHAPTER LIT.
A WAY IN CHRIST,..34
CHAPTER IV.
A WAY HID FROM MERE INTELLECT, AND REVEALED BY
THE SPIRIT TO THE SOUL HUNGERING FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS,         -    -    -               51
CHAPTER V.
IT EXALTS THE ATONEMENT OF OUR LORD,   -    - 68
CHAPTER  VI.
IT MUST MEA THE SOUL VICTORIOUS OVER INWARD AS
WELL AS OUTWARD SIN,  -    -    -    -   85
CHAPTER VIT.
IT IS THE FULFILLING OF THE LAW OF THIS DISPENSATION.. -    -    -    -    - 100
CHAPTER VIhL.
IN EXALTING CHRIST IT MUST HUMBLE THE BELIEVER   121
tCHATER IX.
ILLUSTRATIVE CASES,        -.      -       182




ILLUSTRATIVE INCIDENTS.
PAGE
LIGHT UPON JUSTIFICATION AND.ON SANCTIFICATION, - 14
A CHRISTIAN PHYSICIAN,                            29
THE ACTRESS AND HOME MISSIONARY,  -    -    - 46
A MANUFACTURER,  -        -64
A PRESBYTERIAN MINISTER,      -           -       80
AN AUTHOR,      -    -                            94
AN EVANGELIST,.- -96
A MAN OF BUSINESS      -    -    -    -    -  18
A REVIVAL,      -    -    -    -    -    -  132
KADESH BARNEA,   -    -    -                   - 143
CITY PASTOR,    -    -    -    -    -    -   146
A YOUNG MERCHANT AND A BIBLE-CLASS TEACHER, - 153
THE circumstances narrated as illustrations in this work
have all come under the Author's own personal experience or
observation, and are given with the conviction of their literal
truth in every particular.




JIOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
ELOVED READER, - Do you feel that
your expectations at conversion have been
practically realized as to the righteousness, peace,
and joy, in the Holy Ghost, which you then
read were the characteristics of the kingdom?
Is there not some terrible deficiency in your
experience, for which you are unable wholly
to account? Did you not expect to be kept
more perfectly than results have realized, and
had you not the warrant of the Word for
this?  When you compare your own inward
experience with others who, like yourself, it ifay
be, have lived prayerfully, and in earnest devotedness of outward effort to God, do you not find the
same sad and God-dishonoring story of unsancti(9)




10 H       OLNESS THROUGH FAITH.
fled affections and wandering desires: a divided
heart, with, it may be, outward failure in temper,
or otherwise; things that have, with fearful certainty, been the index of remaining inward corruption? Would you be willing, when you are
leading a sinner to Christ, for him to see all that
remains in your own heart of unbelief?
When some certain form of sin, known to your
own soul, is presented to you, although you turn
from it, is there not a response down deep in the
soul, that contradicts the verdict that you have
given, and which says of the evil thing, in unmistakable tones, " I LOVE IT!" Ah! there is the fatal thing
-you love it after all.  Now what a man loves, in
a certain sense, that man himself is in character.
His affections show the central powers of his
being. Out of the same fountain come sweet
waters' and bitter, and upon the same tree grow
grapes and thorns.
Leaving for the present the question whether
those who claim to have received Holiness through
Faith are in the right way, would it not be the
greatest blessing of your life, beyond all earthly
gifts, if there were some means of your receiving
and grasping the rest of soul, the full victory over




INTRODUCTORY.             11
sin, and the hourly communion with the Lord,
which these claim to have received by faith? As
a young minister said lately to the writer, "I
would give all the world to believe and feel as you
do,-I would give up iny property, my prospects,
my all!" While he could not trust our way of
faith, he saw that the end set forth contained blessings immeasurably beyond what he had, or expected to have, in this life, and blessings that the
Word seemed in many passages to set before him.
So far, my brother, we agree together. We
greatly long that you and we might "walk by the
same rule, and mind the same thing," " having the
same mind, being of one accord, of one mind."
How much else is there also that we agree in perfectly; that we were ruined, hopeless, helpless sinners, going down to hell, when God, in his wondrous mercy, quickened us by his Spirit to see our
lost condition, and then led us to the cross, to behold Jesus bearing " our sins in his own body on
the tree." We together know that, being born of
God, we received, in addition to the old nature
(the flesh) a new nature, an actual existence begotten of God, of "incorruptible seed;" and that,
believing in Jesus, we have eternal life. Together




12        IIOLITESS THROUGHf FAITH.
we have turned to God from our old idols, " to serve
the living and true God; and to wait for his Son
from heaven," as our hourly expectation. Together we are begotten " unto a lively hope by the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." It
may be that together we have learned from the
same pages by the same Spirit, to come out from
the world and be separate-refusing the wellwatered plains of Sodom, in order to dwell on the
mount with faithful Abraham, possessing nothing
-as to the spirit of our lives-but a tent for our
pilgrimage, and an altar for our sacrifice. We have
both, perhaps, in this path, parted with much or
most that men hold dear, as to ease or reputation.
And lastly, we both with equal honesty of purpose, I trust, desire to know the whole of God's
blessed truth, and knowing it, to walk in it.
In all this we have long been and are now with
you. During many long years of earnest service
for God, we were also with you in the disheartening
life of bondage, which you confess, to inward corruption; the old or natural man continually
brought us "into captivity to the law of sin,
which was in our members."  We verily looked
for a progressive, partial deliverance and were




INTRODUCTORY.              13
sometimes cheered by the temporary withering of
some particular branches of the corrupt tree; but
after long years, we found it still vigorous, and
sending forth fresh shoots.
We have gone a step farther, and it may be
with you, in that, in public, in private, and in
print, we opposed a teaching which we verily believed to be a lowering of God's standard of holiness, joined to spiritual pride. Being blind to
the light, we denied the evidence of those who had
sight, and who said that the sun shone. We did
not understand that what was claimed was not
"absolute perfection," but that up to the measure
of to-day's consciousness they were kept by faith, and
that all the glory was given to Christ equally and
in the same way with that of remission of sins.
Like yourself, we were stumbled-just as sinners
are by false professors-by seeing the counterfeits
of this life in Christ. WVe did not remember that
from an angel of light, down to the smallest
things, Satan's plan always is to counterfeit God's
work and truth; and that wherever there was a
counterfeit, there we were to look for a divine
truth, carefully distinguishing between them.
Dear brother, in how many things have we




14        HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
agreed together! And now may I in the fear of
God tell you how that, while thus one with you, I
have been compelled to go farther, step by step,
in much prayer, and with much close searching of
the divine word. Follow me prayerfully, for I
write in calm confidence that God will guide you
and me if we are willing, as little children, to be
led by the Spirit.
LIGHT ON JUSTIFICATION AND SANCTIFICATION.
First, however, permit me to relate two simple
incidents. Soon after my own conversion I sat
down beside a dear relative, an earnest man, and
a student of the Scriptures, to show him justification by faith, from the Word. We turned to passage after passage that were, to my own soul, as
luminous as day. After going through them all,
his reply was, "Well, by thus picking out passages
here and there through the Bible, you can make
up what looks like a doctrine of justification by
faith alone and without works, but take the whole
of the Scriptures together, and they never meant
any such doctrine."  When he became a Christian
himself, he found justification by faith alone, in




INTRODUCTORY.              15
letters of light, from cover to cover of the Bible!
A few months since I urged upon another dear
friend, a most devoted Christian, the principle of
sanctification by faith, and not by works or effort;
and he gave a similar reply, verily believing that
the whole thing was misapprehension of Scripture
and spiritual pride. Later, it pleased God to give
him a sight of his inward corruption and deep
need, and to show him how he could by faith enter
into the glorious liberty of those who know the
full practical power of resurrection life in their
souls, and to lead him into it by the Holy Ghost.
The doctrine of sanctification by faith, an immediate
work, now shines for him in letters of light upon
every page, as it were, of Scripture; and he finds
that in living this life of sanctification he is, for the
first time, really sitting humbly at the feet of Jesus.
His real life of presumption and self-confidence, he
now sees, was lived by him while he refused sanctification by faith alone; and that instead of being
a testimony to self, as he formerly supposed, the
way of holiness is a testimony to the power of the
blood of Jesus. He no longer depends partly on
himself or his progress in knowledge, but in a directway only on Christ, and finds what it is to be




16       IHOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
indeed "redeemed from  all iniquity," pure in
heart, and "filled with the Spirit."
We could multiply instances, did space permit
among the most instructed, earnest, and devoted
Christians whom we know; for it is to the earnest and devout and not to the careless, that God
shows this divine secret. These will illustrate the
possibility of your seeing the whole subject at
some future time in a wholly different light.
Dear brother, with such a practical experience
of inward failure as you frankly confess to, and
with the testimony within your hearing of numbers
who have for years walked in the same path with
yourself of outward devotedness, and confessed inward failure, are you willing to believe that there
may be some way of victory provided by grace,even if ours be not it, —that you have not yet found
out: some way of becoming actually "dead to
sins," and "living unto righteousness "?
We both would, of course, say in advance that,
if there be such a way, it must present these characteristics 
1. It must be a way taught in the Bible,
2. It must be a way in Christ.
3. It must be a way hid from mere intellect,




INTRODUCTORY.             17
and revealed by the Spirit to the soul hungering
for righteousness.
4. It must exalt the atonement of our Lord.
5. It must make the soul victorious over inward
as well as outward sin.
6. It is the fdlfilling of the Law of this dispensation.
7. In exalting Christ, it must humble the believer.
Should you find a way with these characteristics,
would you be willing to lay aside your preconceived notions, and receive with meekness this
word of grace and power? Do you shrink from
Jesus taking full possession of your soul, turning
out all the money-changers, and making it a holy
temple for the Lord? Since your privileges as a
believer are no less than those of Paul, are you*
willing to receive such a power from on high as
would enable you to say, "I am  crucified with
Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ
liveth in me;"-" To me to live is Christ;"-" Ye
are witnesses, and God also, how holily, justly,
and unblameably, we behaved ourselves among you
that believe."
2




18        HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
"The perfect way is hard to flesh;
It is not hard to love;
If thou wert sick for want of God.
How swiftly wouldst thou move!"
I trust that you will allow me the privilege of
again addressing you on this important subject,
and meanwhile remain yours in thee loving fellowship of the gospel.




CHAPTER IL
A WAY TAUGHT IN THE BIBLE.
IF the way we are seeking to set forth is indeed
God's highway of holiness, it will bear the
most scrutinizing tests, and it will by them be only
made more clear to the heart that is tender before
the Lord, not contending for a preconceived system
of doctrine, but crying to God to show,-whither.
soever it may lead,-His own truth.
As before remarked, it will have several evangelical characteristics, in which, if it fail, both you'
and I, who hold so much of God's blessed truth in
common, would unite in condemning it. First of
all, I would ask you to come " to the law and to
the testimony," and let us both seek to'clear our
minds of prejudice, so that, guided by the Spirit in
the Word, we may be able to follow where it leads.
As indicated in my last, the Scripture seems to me
to have the doctrine and the life I have received
upon every page, as it were; but I will try to divest myself, if possible, of my own views while I
(19)




20        HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
write, that we may together look straight to the
written Word.
Let us read together Paul's prayer in the Holy
Ghost for the disciples, and for us among them:
"Unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the
power that worketh in us." If we give rein to
our yearnings, asking of God whatsoever things
we desire, what woxld be our first instinctive cry?
That we might be holy, and pure, and conformed
to the image of Jesus Christ. How often has this
been our prayer! -But not being with faith, or
the yielding of the soul fully to Jesus, it was not
answered, nor indeed could be.  Does not our
Lord's gentle rebuke come to our souls: " O ye of
little faith, wen REAsON xE among yourselves?" Was
it by reasoning or by faith that we thought it impossible to " awake to righteousness, and.sin not;"
"perfecting holiness in the fear of God," and serving the Lord "acceptably, with reverence and godly
fear?"
Faith is above circumstances, surroundings, impossibilities, and above the devil himself; and
when we look away from these directly to God, who
can limit His grace and power?   Nay, my




A WAY TAUGHT IN THE BIBLE.        21
brother, when we have made our largest requests
of God, He is still " able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think." I must
freely own that this is my continuous experience.
Day by day, as I walk in this way of faith and holiness, wonder and praise fill my heart for heavenly
communion, inward purity, victory over the world,
abounding peace, and the known presence of Jesus
in my soul, —blessings that rise above my asking
or even my largest thoughts.
W5e have together passed through the third of
Romans, and have had our souls to ring with joy,
as we found joined in the same sentence, "All
have sinned, and come short of the glory of God,"
with, " Being justified freely by his grace through
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus; whom
God hath set forth to be a propitiation through
faith in his blood:"-the complete ruin by works,
and the complete justification by faith, together in
one brief sentence. But, beloved brother, are we
under any less obligation to receive, in the sixth
chapter, in their plain and obvious import, the
words, "How shall we that are dead to sin live
any longer therein?.... We are buried with
Him by baptism into death; that LIKE AS Christ




22        HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
was raised from the dead by the glory of the
Father EVEN so we also should walk in newness
of life."
I exhaust my utmost powers of memory and
imagination to conceive how, as a constant student
of the Word, I could ever have understood God to
mean in this passage anything else than complete
victory over sin, by realized resurrection-life; for
now the continuing in sin seems that monstrous
thing of which the soul exclaims in holy horror,
"How shall we that are dead to sin live any
longer therein?" "Our old man is crucified with
Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that
henceforth we should not serve sin." I know
how to pervert such expressions, for I have often,
to my own shame and loss, turned the edge of
the Spirit's sword by the poor "tricks of the
intellect."
But, my brother, let us now be honest with this
passage. When are we not to serve sin? Plainly
now. From what is this deduced? From the fact
of the body of sin being destroyed ("rendered
inert, or ineffective, as in suspended life," might be
the more exact translation).  When destroyed?
Plainly, previously to our not serving sin. When




A WAY TAUGHT IN THE BIBLE.        23
was the old man crucified with Christ? Evidently,
previously to the destruction of the body of sin.
"The way of holiness," death unto sin and life
unto righteousness, fairly flash in letters of light
through such passages. God give you eyes to
see them!
We have together looked forward to the purity
of heaven as among its chief joys; we have seen,
as it were, the priestly hand of Jesus extended in
blessing over "the pure in heart," as they that
"shall see God."'Reading the possibilities of this
life by the light of our own experience, rather than
by that of the Word, we long looked for real purity
of heart as a privilege reserved for another scene
of 6xistence. One of the most earnest laborers in
the Lord's vineyard in these parts said to me lately,
"If, when I preach, the- sinners round me saw
the remaining corruption of my own soul, the uncontrollable evil thoughts, the self-worship, and the
frequent coldness of my heart, they would not
listen to me. My heart is a cage of unclean birds!"
I have no reason to believe this dear brother to be
worse than many others. I have regarded him as
devoted and faithful beyond most; but he walked
in the searching light of the Word of God, and




24        HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
like Job he abhorred himself, yet without having
gone in faith to Jesus for the remedy.
I own with shame that, had earthly eyes seen me
through and through, as God saw me,-even while
regarded by some as almost a Nazarite in separation from the world,-I could not have preached
even among those who loved me best. rWhen the
light of the Word shines clearly and steadily into
the caverns of the heart, it shows many a revolting
reptile and loathsome insect, not discernible in the
darkness, or even in the twilight! May God keep
us from shrinking from the piercing light of his
own heart-searching truth, for its reception is the
first step towards "purifying our hearts. by faith."
I remember the time when I first saw with clearness the claims of God on me, as one of his children, for purity of heart. I often read of "them
that call on the Lord out of a pure heart;" and
that the " end of the commandment is charity out
of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of
faith unfeigned, from which some having swerved,
have turned aside into vain jangling."  I often
read of "'pure minds," " a pure conscience," and
that I was to be "found of Him in peace, without
spot and blameless." Then I looked within. Oh I!




A WAY TAUGHT IN THE BIBLE.        25
the agony of my soul as I remembered that I was
a -child of God, and that this inward purity was
what God plainly looked for in His children. His
command, "As He which hath called you is holy,
so be ye holy in all manner of conversation," did
for a time seem to me "grievous."  I quailed in
spirit as I reflected on what a fearful upturning
of my whole nature, what terrible conflicts, what
rendings of my soul, must come, before the unclean spirits should be wholly' cast out. All my
past, even my outward devotedness and inward
effort, were seen to be so tainted with self and sin
that " there remained no strength in me; for my
vigor was turned into corruption, and I retained
no strength."  Then, in my despair, my eye rested
on the words "'puriSfing their hearts by faith."
How my soul leaped at these words, as in a moment I saw the possibility of my deliverance " by
faith."  "If then," I exclaimed, "it is by faith, I
will trust Jesus for a pure heart, and now " and
with the act of faith there distilled into my heart,
like the gentle dew, the sweet consciousness of the
cleansing blood and presence of Jesus;-" Christ
formed in me " taking full possession of my soul,
so that with my whole heart I could sing —




26        HOLINESS THROUGtH FAITH.
" Now to be Thine, yea, Thine alone,
0 Lamb of God, I come!"
I know not how to describe it in my own words,
but I know that "this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith;" and since then
to me to live has been Christ in a different sense
and power than I had ever known before. Obedience,-full-hearted obedience,-became then, and
is now, the easy yoke that my Lord promised.
An inward realization of purified affections, a
blessing exceeding abundant above all that I had
been able to ask or to think, has made obedience
simple and natural; so that I can receive that
word, " Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth, through the Spirit, unto unfeigned
love of the brethren, see that ye love one another
with a pure heart fervently." Thus has come a
harmony into my existence, —a re-adjustment of the
whole nature, spirit, soul, and body, to Christ,that must be the wonderful reality of the words,
" Christ formed in you," " Christ in you," the being
" filled with the Spirit," the "not I, but Christ liveth in me,"-and, "the life which I now live in the
flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God."
Temptation comes to me more fiercely than




A WAY TAUGHT IN THE BIBLE.        27
ever before, at times for days together; but temptation is not sin, for my Lord was tempted. There
is, moreover, now this difference —that temptation
finds me within my armor, and behind the shield
of faith, so that it is my privilege to quench-not
some-but ALL the fiery darts of the wicked one.
It seems as though temptation is now from without, rather than from my own heart, and the struggle not so much a wrestling " with flesh and blood,"
as against wicked spirits,-a contest for my position of being seated by faith with Christ in the
heavenly places,-the Canaanite rather than the
wilderness enemies. There is much land yet to be
possessed, but trusting thus in Jesus, the song of
victory precedes the contest, and day by day is
known the power of those words, " Grow in grace,
and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ," and of all that " He is able to do."
Does this seem presumption, my brother?  I
would ask your heart,-not your system of doctrine, — Can we trust Jesus too fully for everything
that his Worl sets before us? Have we not often
seen a trembling, anxious sinner put away from
him the cup of a free salvation, lest it should be
" presumption " to take it just as he was? Was




28       HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
not the presumption in daring to refuse what God
had put to his very lips,-the waters of Life? Have
not we bent all the prayerful energies of our souls,
to teach him that what God gave him, it would be
presumption to reject because of his own unfitness? Did we not specially press upon him that
remission of sins is received byfaith, and that to
try to make himself worthy was to reject Christ
now, and to dare to attempt partly to meet the
claims of God's holiness himself?
You have done this, probably, scores of times,
and now, my brother, suffer me, though but a
" little one," to point yourheartin the same way to
Scripture warrant for receiving by faith, not only
forgiveness of sins, but inward purity of soul.
Christ gave Himself for you, that He might re.
deem you from ALL iniquity, and purify you unto
Himself a peculiar person, zealous of good works.
When is this redemption? Now. From what?
ALL iniquity. What else does his sacrifice propose
to you? To purify you unto Himself. When
ought you to receive the redemption. Now. And
when this purification? Equally Now! How? By
simple faith.
If my poor words present difficulties to your




A WAY TAUGHT IN THE BIBLE.       29
heart, dear reader, I beg you to take some prayer
from God's Word, upon which the Holy Spirit has
flashed its light, as expressing the deep needs of
your soul. Let the theories of your head go, and
permit your heart to go out to God in faith, thus
guided by the Word. If you are mourning over
inward corruption, what can be more simple than
to pray, " Create in me a clean heart, 0 God, and
renew a right spirit within me." Can you doubt
that such a petition, originating in God and returning to Him in the cries of one of His needy children, honestly offered in the name of Jesus, would
be answered by the. grace of a clean heart and a
right spirit?.
A CHRISTIAN PHYSICIAN.
A " beloved Physician," the story of whose work
of faith and labor of love is scarcely second to
that of George Muller in interest and power,
writes,"O how my heart once yearned to know this'victory that overcometh the world 1' I remember
a few years ago, in reading II. Thess. 2, I came to
the 13th verse, where Paul says,' We are bound
to give thanks always to God for you, brethren,




30        HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the
beginning chosen you to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.'
Through sanctification of the Spirit. Here I paused,
and read it over and over again, praying that God
would sanctify me wholly by the Spirit. This
verse comforted me many, many days. I felt that
it was blessed to my soul, but the fullness of its
meaning was not yet revealed to me. The inward
currents of my heart were not stayed. I could not'standfast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ
hath made us free,' for I was' entangled again'
and again'with the yoke of bondage.' I could
not' reckon' myself' dead' to the perplexities and
irritations of daily life, which a heart yearning for
purity condemns as dishonoring to God. More
earnestly than ever, and many times a day, I
prayed for strength to overcome, but found no
rest to my soul, until I stopped' praying for
strength to overcome, and gave myself wholly to
God to be kept.
"At this time the Lord revealed to me in a
wonderful manner, in all its majesty, the power of
the prayer which He taught us to use,' Our Father
which art in Heaven: hallowed be Thy name.




A WAY TAUGHT IN THE BIBLE.        31
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth,
as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily
bread; And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our
debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For Thine is the kingdom, and
the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.' 0
how my soul was filled, as I realized for the first
time that it was His power that was to keep me!for' Thine is the power.'
"The work was all done then,-no more striving, no more praying for strength to overcome, but
simply day by day,' Jesus keep me, for Thine is
the power and the glory,' and there I rest and am
kept.
"I give this little record of personal experience,
hoping that many who desire, but who have not
gained' the victory which overcometh the world,
even our faith,' as they pray,' Lead us not into
temptation, but deliver us from evil, for Thine is
the power,' may realize in all its fullness that the
power belongs to Him who'says He is' able to
keep you from falling.'"
The Psalmist says, " Thy Word have I hid in
mine heart, that I might not sin against Thee."




32        HOLINESS THROUGH FAITtH,
Let any Christian, instead of handling the promises of God as abstractions, take them as the divine seed, —" spirit " and " life," as our Lord terms
them; let him  select some one beatitude, command, or promise, tbat embodies his soul's special
need; let him believe that it contains God's covenant to himself; let him search out other sayings
of God corresponding with this text; let him pray
over it continually, morning, noon, and night, and
even amid the busy scenes of his calling; let him
continually raise his heart to God in supplication
and trust; let him seek to exhaust the possibilities
of faith and prayer, concentrating all the divinelyimparted energies of his soul on the particular truth
embodied in the text; and let him not weary in
well-doing, fully trusting that in due season he will
reap if he faints not;-and he then shall find the
power of Jehovah Himself pledged to the fruitbearing of the seed thus sown and watered by
faith and prayer.
" Forever, 0 Lord, Thy WVord is settled in the
Heaven!" and sooner shall this vast universe fail
in its orbits and sink into remediless ruin, than a
single promise of the eternal God fail toward one
of his little ones, who has thus in faith committed




A WAY TAUGHT IN THE BIBLE.    33
the keeping of his soul to Him in well-doing as
unto a faithful Creator.
God grant that this interview upon paper may
be to His glory, and that He may open your heart
to attend to these things spoken by Paul, as He
did that of Lydia.
I trust that your prayers may go up with my
own to God for a blessing on this intercourse, that
whatever be God's truth, we may both know and
live it to his glory. In this aspiration, and hoping
that you will " suffer the word of exhortation," I
am, your brother in Jesus.
3




CHAPTER III.
A WAY IN CHRIST.
O all his other blessings our heavenly Father
has added this, that his gifts, calling, and
grace, are all "in Christ Jesus, who of God is made
unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption; that, according as it is
written,'He that glorieth, let him glory in the
Lord."'
Chalmers speaks finely of " the expulsive power
of a new affection;" and that love is indeed expul.
sive in its character at first, all who have been
deeply moved, in whatever way, well know. But
they also know that'when a new emotion has
a little spent its energies, there comes a reaction,
proportioned oftentimes to the greatness of the
emotion. In this way is explained, and correctly,
the condition of failure that follows the warmth
and earnestness of the "first love " of Christians.
Feeling a painful void at the time present, their
hearts turn to the memory of an emotion, and that
memory is cherished till it becomes a substitute for
(34)




A wAY IN CHRIST.              35
present, living faith. Or if this snare be severed,
they depend on new discoveries in the truth of
God, to maintain, by the light they inspire, the devotion of their souls. Alas! that men will put His
-gifts between themselves and the living, life-inspiring Christ.
The almost universal character of this experience
shows plainly that there is something wanting in
their. knowledge of Christ, since the gospel itself
is not a failure, to perfect the walk of believers.
I was asked to preach lately to a congregation
where the deacon, in stating the needs of the
members, remarked. "We have just enough religion among us to make us miserable." Nor did
I wonder at his homely expression; for instead
of casting themselves upon Christ to sanctify, as
He had already justified.them, they had been led
to look for power for holiness of walk, too exclusively from the peace resulting from their knowledge of final salvation, from the responsive love
that ought to spring up in their hearts, because of
their known "judicial -standing," and from the
emotions which, were they unfallen beings, would
continually fill their hearts with lively gratitude
for infinite favors bestowed.




36        HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
WVell, indeed, might they feel "miserable," as
they contrasted what they knew ought to be the
love and devotedness of their hearts, with their actual wandering affections and palsied efforts to
serve God. It is enough to make any one posses
sing any tenderness of conscience "miserable" to
live in the unvarying sense of failure, his heart so
often condemning him  for sinning, and without
the hope that he shall ever in this life really please
God in his walk. Nor does the fact that there has
been offered a divine atonement sufficient to meet
all the future judgment of these failures, bring the
relief that the soul needs, while it expects nothing
else than to go on sinning all its days.
" Every breath I draw is sin," was the extreme
statement made to me by a Christian professing
full confidence in the sacrifice of Christ, and seeking to live in separation from the world. I fear
he was right. Every breath is sin to him, if he
has not faith to live without it; for "whatsoever
is not of faith is sin." If sin be the inevitable,
constant condition of the Christian, then is redemption "from  all iniquity" transferred to the
next life; abiding in Christ a hopeless attainment;
to "sin not" a grievous command; and pleasing




A WAY IN CHRIST.            37
God now, an impossibility. The very assurance
of being begotten of God, and the prospect of an
eternity in his presence, make the present condition of sinning "miserable," yea, agonizing, to a
heart happily not entirely hardened by the continual sense of transgression. To believe in, and,
in some degree, to love God, and yet to be among
those who " cannot cease from sin," may well weigh
the soul down with sorrow.
Some resource must be found to meet this.
Like the wandering sheep, who, though set with
his face homewards, will, as shepherds tell us, always choose a wrong path, if such can be found,
rather than the one that leads to the fold; so, instead of going directly to Christ, as my wisdom to
guide, my practical power of righteousness to live
by, my sanctification of spirit, soul, and body, and
my blessed, present redemption from all iniquity,
I formerly turned from Christ, who is both "the
Way" and the entrance into it, to adopt a system
which puts off all those blessed offices of Christ in
their full virtue, as intended for another state of
existence; persuading myself that, "judicially," I
was without spot and blameless, while in reality I
was spotted all over like a leopard, and under




38        HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
often recurring condemnation for inward, even
when not for outward, sins. The atonement of
my Lord became to me too much of a theological
doctrine, rather than the glorious effective reality
which I now find it to be, meeting fully everypresent need of my soul.
Were anything revealed to man as "the power
of God," we should expect it to overcome the world
and all the powerful things in it, inasmuch as it
would be the power of God in direct conflict with
the powers of the world, the flesh, and the devil.
None would deny the power thus revealed being
capable of overcoming all else. The only question
would be, whether God intended to do it in this
stage of existence for those who trusted Him for
it; and this being granted, there wouldremain
but the question of the means and their use.
In the opening of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, he states that the preaching of the cross
of Christ is " the power of God unto us which are
saved;" and that, while a crucified Christ is to the
legalist a stumbling-block, and to the worldly wise
foolishness, to those who are called, Christ is "the
power of God and the wisdom of God." That
through Christ's death on the cross, and his resur



A WAY IN CHRIST.            39
rection-life in the soul, God has provided a power
capable of conforming the children of the kingdom
to the image of its Head, few will venture to deny.
The difficulty seems to come in when any confess
that, having by faith availed themselves of these
resources in Christ, they find their hearts "purified by faith," cleansed " from all unrighteousness,"
and, in keeping his word, "the love of God perfected" in their souls, (1 John ii. 5,) to the limit
of present consciousness.
Thomas Walsh testified, "The Lord gives me
to drink of his love as out of a river. I lay down,
but could not sleep, through a deep and comfortable sense of the love of Christ. His Spirit rested
on me, and made my heart flame with love to my
God and my all. It never entered into my heart to
conceive of thus loving Him with all the heart till
He revealed it unto me by his Spirit. The fire of
divine love burned incessantly in my soul." President Edwards said of Abigail Hutchinson, "She
had from day to day such a sense of the glory of
Christ and of God in his various attributes, that it
seemed to me she dwelt for days together in a kind
of beatific vision, and seemed to have as immediate
intercourse with Him as a child with a father."




40        HOLINESS THROUGPH FAITH.
Has God provided any lessprivilege in Christfor you,
my brother? Are you willing to put by everything else, including your preconceived opinions,
to receive this fullness of the blessing of the gos.
pel of Christ?
I confess to a tender, sincere sympathy with
those who, beyond many around them, have been
devoted to God, who have been used by God in his
service in saving sinners or teaching saints, and
who yet are unable to find anything in their own
experience corresponding to what is confessed by
some. Reading such narratives in the light of their
own history, or by a system modified, it may be,
to meet the requirements of this consciousness of
continual sinning, these experiences seem to them
egotistical and boastful. Instead of getting "out
of self into Christ,"-they fear that their brethren
are getting out of Christ into self again. This
fear arises from not understanding that, in confessing themselves to be made " dead to sins and alive
unto righteousness," their brethren are confessing
simply that for which Christ bare their sins in His
own body on the tree, as being accomplished in
their souls. (See carefully 1 Pet. ii. 24, and 2.
Cor. v. 17, 18.) Surely the words, "Christ liveth




A WAY IN CiHRIST.            41
in me," and "' For me to live is Christ," cannot
mean less than the habitual victory over sin.
Suffer me, my brother, to recall your own experience in the remission of sins. Its distinctive feature was, that you trusted Christ for your present
felt need of soul, and what you trusted him for you
received.  What your soul needed was remission'
of sins, and after having in vain sought it by efforts
of your own, you found it in faith, apart from  all
effort, a simple receiving from God. The Holy
Spirit quickened your soul to a sense of your need
of pardon, and then satisfied the desires thus begotten in you, by showing you the sacrifice of
Christ.
You must agree with us, that whatever the
Holy Spirit makes us to yearn for, Christ came to
give. Now substitute "purity of heart," "holiness," being "filled with the Spirit," whole-hearted
" love to God and your neighbour," or "righteousness," for the pardon you once felt the need
of; satisfy yourself that the Word sets either of
these privileges before you as a gift for which the
Holy Ghost is making you to hunger and thirst;
then seek this blessing, not by efforts of your own,
-not as a doctrine, not in imitating an experience




42        HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
of another, not in an emotion: but in the Lord
Jesus Christ throughfaith,-and who then shall limit
the extent to which your desires shall be satisfied?
And when "filled with the fruits of righteousness,
which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise
of God," who shall then hinder you from proclaiming what the Lord hath done for your soul 2
In no way so effectually as by following the example of Paul, in freely declaring what Christ has
done for and in you, can you lead others to the
same all-powerful Saviour. "The husbandman
thiat laboureth must be first partaker of the fruits,"
and the Lord's witnesses must witness that they
themselves experience what they teach. Satan's
kingdom is not much disturbed by preaching
which tells men that they ought to "go up and
possess the land," while the preacher has to confess that he has not done soo thus giving "an evil
report of the land," and practically saying, "We
are not able to go up against the people; for
they be stronger than we." -God give us leaders
like Caleb, who say, "Let us go up at once to
possess it; for we are well able to overcome it;"
men of the faith of Paul, who "can do all things
through Christ strengthening" and who will at




A WAY IN CHRIST.            43
God's command blow the ram's horn till the
Canaanite walls fall down.
The British ambassador was a true man, though
he told the incredulous Eastern despot, who had
never been where water froze, that in his country
they walked on hardened water, and though he
was dismissed as a liar. Our testimony ought to
be credited, at least by Christians, when we affirm
that in the path where we tread, Christ is both
able and willing to sustain us to the utmost limit
of our faith, even though to the eye of sense, only
unstable water be visible. None are so manifestly
and pitiably weak as the "little children " of the
kingdom, when without the presence of Christ;
but none so strong as they wlho, without reserve
abandon themselves perfectly to Christ to live in them,
perfecting his strength in their weakness.
I know your love for the Lord and his cause,
my brother.  I know  the virtue-the earnest,
manly effort-that you have added to your faith.
I know, by my own former experience, the unsatisfactoriness of the current of your inward life,
even though you have seasons of joy, when the
Lord comes to you as one that tarrieth for a night,
and abideth not. I know that God has given you




4:4       HOLINESS THIROUGH FAITH.
hungerings and thirstings after righteousness, so
that you might even speak of " gnawings of
hunger;" and that they were not given to tantalize you, but that you might so receive Christ as
to have them satisfied.
Now, that you have not gone to him aright is
evident, or you would have been "filled." I will,
in true Christian love, use great plainness of
speech. You have failed,-not Christ. I feel confident that the point of.your failure is in not
having committed unreservedly everything to
Christ, in perfect self-abandonment. If I do not
hold my ALL,-spirit, soul, and body,-committed
to Him, I am walking with heavy weights, and
miserable. Somnetimes, becoming conscious of a
weight, before unsuspected, I find it a sore effort
to part with it; but my soul is in bondage till it
is laid aside. Then it rises free before God. Try
this, my brother, this laying aside every weightTHE VERY LAST ONE, whether it be care, or trans
gression, and you will then rise into the cloudless
atmosphere where God's light can shine down
upon you unhindered, where you no longer frustrate the grace of God, and where you can know
"Christ formed in you."




A WAY IN CHRIST.              45
Practical sanctification and purity of soul, with
the consciousness of them, are as surely God's
gift as is the forgiveness of sins; but the method
is faith. It is a calling, and in Christ. It is a
grace, and this grace "came by Jesus Christ."
Apart from Christ, we are instruments of unrighteousness to sin, as my hand is a rotting piece
of flesh apart from my heart and.brain. But,
joined to Christ, we become instruments of righteousness unto God, just as my hand is full of life
by its connexion with my heart, and rightly guided
by its connexion with my brain. The thickness of
a piece of paper will sever my hand's connexion with
heart and brain, and yet the union may be maintained through a lifetime without interruption.
It is just in this way that all our life, our strength,
our righteousness, is in Christ, not in ourselves,
except as we are receiving from Christ. We are
not only weak, and poor, and helpless, but we are
nothing, absolutely nothing apart from Christ.
Yet inf Him we have all things. O! blessed union,
which joins us to the living heart and living Head,
each one, members in particular of the oNE, body.
0! miracle of grace, which gives us life for death,
and incorruptibleness for corruption. Since faith




46         HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
is the channel of communicable life, 0 Lord, increase our faith!
"If our faith were but more simple,
We should take Him at His word;
And our lives would be all sunshine
In the sweetness of the Lord."
THE ACTRESS AND HOME MISSIONARY.
While addressing a company in one of the mis.
sion-houses in New York, I noticed a young woman
much affected. I found after the meeting that she
was an actress who had been brought to the point
of turning her back on all her past life; but she was
unable to believe that such a sinner as she was
could receive the grace that was set before her.
To my explanations of the divine sacrifice for sinners she only exclaimed,
" 0 yes, sir, —I know that it's all true, but I can't
believe that it isfor me."
It seemed too great "presumption" for her to
believe that all her sins were blotted out, and she
at once placed in the family of God. I left her in
this condition of mind, longing for salvation, and
yet too faithless to believe that it was for her.
It was very instructive to see immediately after'




A WAY IN CHRIST.               47
ward a striking illustration that upon whatever
level we may be walking, the same failure of faith
to take the grace intended for us may be found.
Lacc offaith to receivefrom God, is the sin that doth
so easily beset us, and lies at the root of every failure,
all the wayfrom thefirst quickening of the Spirit, onward to the highest altitudes of devotedness and service to God.
Upon parting with the actress, I was introduced
to a refined,matronly, Christian woman, who, I understood, was giving her life to this gospel work
among the abandoned. Her whole heart was in her
work with an energy and simplicity that I have never
seen surpassed.  HIer joy was to spend her years
in the midst of this moral leprosy, raising the cross
among the dying souls around her.  But even
while thus laboring for Christ, she was feeling most
deeply her need of some privilege greatly beyond
her present experience. So in earnest was she
that she had just passed a sleepless night of sorrow
and of prayer, for the full and satisfying revelation
of Christ, with the complete victory over her own will.
She knew that her sins had been forgiven her, and
that she truly loved Jesus.  Work for Jesus was
the most delightfil thing in the world to her.




48        HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
" Sacrifices " were to her only privileges; but she
mourned over the remaining evil of her own soul.
She hungered for righteousness, and was not filled;
the fountain of her heart, which ought only to well
up with sweet waters, sent forth both bitter and
sweet. She knew that there was in the gospel a
redemption "from all iniquity;" but she had not
found it. She knew that Christ bore her sins that
she might become "dead to sin, and alive to righteousness," but she had not attained to it. If work,
as some suppose, could bring a full blessing, surely
it woaild have been found here. But her need was
one which work could not supply.
The secret of this unsupplied need was soon found.
Full of faith for God's work in others, and up to
a certain point in herself, she needed to open the
door of her heart yet more widely that the King of
Glory might come in. This dear saint, who had
so often taught the lesson, to anxious sinners, of
faith, as the means of blessing, now saw that the
very same lesson was to be learned by herself upon
a diffQrent level. The very words that a few moments before had been said to the awakened actress,-trust in Christ for what her soul felt the need
of,-were now to be applied to herself. She had




A WAY IN CnIEI3T.              49
prayed for inward holiness and full victory over
sin, without faith to receive the immediate answer
in Jesus.
Unbelief was the obstacle to the full answer,
just as in the prayer for mercy from the awakened
sinner. To sinner and saint alike, upon whatever
level, unbelief is the bar, while faith is the channel
of God's blessing.  When Christians pray for full
cleansing of soul and deadness to sin, the answer
is unto them  exactly according to their faith or
their unbelief. Full faith gives the full deliverance;
partial faith the partial victory.  So much faith,
so much deliverance, no more, no less!  If we
would live up to the gospel standard of holiness, we
mnust believe,p to the gospel standard of faitth. Every
complaint of leanness, failure, or sinning, is but a
confession of want of belief. The stream can ascend
no higher than the passage that conveys its waters
from the fountain.  Faith is the channel. While
the fountain is infinite in depth and in height, its
flow is regulated by the channel opened for it.
Shortly after this interview, the actress found in
Christ, through faith, pardon for all her sins, and
the missionary upon her high level of Christian experience also found in Christ, through faith, cleans4




r50      HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
ing "from  all unrighteousness." Faith in each
grasped the promise, "My God shall supply all
your need, according to his riches in glory by
Christ Jesus."
May what is here written in prayer be also read
in prayer!  "We pray always for you that our
God would count you worthy of his calling, and
ffill all the good pleasures of his goodness, and
the work of faith with power, that the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and ye
in Iim, according to the grace of our God, and
the Lord Jesus Christ."




CHAPTER IV.
A WAY HID FROM MERE INTELLECT, AND REVEALED BY
THE SPIRIT TO THE SOUL HUNGERING FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
T IIERE is a path which no fowl knoweth,
and which the vulture's eye hath not seen:
the lion's whelps have not trodden it, nor the
fierce lion passed by it.... The gold and the
crystal cannot equal it..... G(d understands
the way thereof, and He knoweth the place thereof."
Whatever may be the primary application of
these words, they well express the closing of the
way of holiness to every effort of the intellect.
The consciousness of almost the whole race,
sinners as well as " professors," is against it; for
error is always with the many in these evil days;
and however much men may differ about other
things, they are nearly all agreed as to the impossibility of living without sin. "Eye hath not
seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the
heart of man, the things which God hath prepared
for them that love Him. But God hath revealed
(sI)




52       HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
them unto us by his Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth
all things, yea, the deep things of God."
These things prepared by God are not all postponed to a future scene, but are even now
spiritually discerned. We are neither surprised
nor disappointed, much as we may be pained,
when the testimony to the present fullness of
blessing is rejected. To some the Sun of righteousness has already arisen with healing in his
wings, in a sense never before known, albeit the
mists of educational prejudice or doctrinal system
may hide his rans from the vision of those around
them. We therefore intreat you dispassionately,
prayerfully, and humbly, to seek wisdom of God,
whether these things be so.
"The blood " is the meritorious and only ground
upon which any of God's blessings can reach us
without frustrating the eternal justice of the Rule?
of the universe, but the means selected by God
are the indwelling and guidance of the Holy
Spirit. First the blood, then the anointing oil,-.
forgiveness, and then cleansing. Were the merit
and power of the blood more fully applied by
faith, then would the power of the Holy Ghost in
Christians be more known.




A WAY HID FROM MERE INTELLECT.  53
The perpetual prayer of the Church of England
is, " Al/mighty God unto whom all hearts are open,
all desires known, and from whom no secrets are
hid; cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly
love Thee, and worthily magnify Thy holy name."
Connect this with the soul-inspiring words of our
blessed Lord in Mark xi. 22-24: "Have the faith
of God. For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed,
and be thou cast into the sea; and 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. Therefore I- say unto you,
What things soever ye desire, when ye pray,
believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have
them." And again: "All things whatsoever ye
ask in prayer, believing,.ye shall receive." After
half a century of experience of the power of this
promise, the apostle is enabled to add by the Holy
Ghost: " And this is the confidence that we have
in Him, that if we ask anything according to his
will, He heareth us. And if we know that He
hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we
have the petitions we desired of Him." "And




54       IIOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him because we.
keep his commandments, and do those things that
are pleasing in his sight."
The only question would then seem to be,
whether "the first and great commandment," as
recited by the Lord Jesus —" Thou shalt love the
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy
soul, and with all thy mind "-is included in the
"righteousness of the law," which is to be " fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after
the Spirit."  How strange that we should ever
have doubted it! We ask, then, according to
God's will when we believingly pray,' "Cleanse
Thou our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy
Spirit, that we may perfectly love Thee, and
worthily magnify thy holy name!"  And when
the petition is granted, who shall say that it is
presumption to affirm that our prayers have been
answered? The acknowledgment is "glorying in
the Lord" as truly' as the owning that we are
saved from future wrath.
Is it not strange that God's children can mock
their Father in heaven by Asking for things that
they do not expect to receive-shall we say hard7y
really desire-in this life? and that, themsel'vs




A WAY HID FROM MERE INTELLECT.  55
too faithless to be able to receive full answers to
their prayers, they should be grieved by those who
say that they have asked, and have received what
they prayed for. I confess to have been myself
once stumbled by a dear brother saying that he
did indeed love God with all his heart, soul, and
mind. Of his exterior holiness of life none could
doubt, for we have never known any one who
seemed so uniformly filled with the Spirit. It was
the testimony of an inmate of his family that his
whole life was consumed in praise, prayer, and
working for God. Measuring his faith and blessing by my own little measure, I thought that
there must be some self-delusion; but when it
pleased God, in answer to months of prayer, to
open in power to my soul that word, "He that
dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in
him," I found to my own surprise and joy that it
was the Spirit's work so to fill my poor wavering
soul, that, so far as I was conscious, I did and do
now love God with my whole heart, soul, and
mind. I ask to be preserved from ever again
judging of the faith of others by my own smaller
measure. It is " accor'ding to the riches of his
glory," and not according to man's limits, that God




56        HOLINESS THROUGHI FAITH.
fills his trusting children "with might by his
Spirit in the inner man."
Many a tender soul that loves the Lord finds its
acutest suffering in the consciousness of a divided
heart and wandering affection, so that it has often
in substance exclaimed"'Tis worse than death my God to love,
And not my God alone! "
As in many congregations true lovers of God are
kept bound hand and foot in grave-clothes by the
teaching all around them, that it is presumption
in any one that is not dying to be sure of going to
heaven: so now are many precious and tender
souls restrained by the grave-clothes of the doctrine
that habitual sinning is the inevitable condition of
God's own saved saints, and that the command to
love the Lord with our whole heart, soul, and
mind, can only be fulfilled through death,-that
the bride may not wholly love her husband till her
heart is about to be stilled in the grave. May the
same divine voice which, in our death in trespasses
and sins, said to us " Come forth! " be also effectually heard saying, "Loose him and let him go I "
Let the taste and atmosphere of a past death




A WAY HID FROM MERE INTELLECT.   57
pass away with the bestowal of " life more abundantly." IHe who spake by a human voice to
Lazarus is speaking through Christendom to his
saints by his Spirit, and giving us by his divine
power "all things that pertain to life and godlitess, through the knowledge of Iim  who hath
called us to glory and virtue," and making us " partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the
corruption that is in the world through lust."
There is one point in this subject which we find
from letters received, is not understood, though
repeatedly stated. When the Christian thus puts
on the Lord Jesus Christ, or recognizes Him living
in his heart, and reigning in victory over sin, he is
not thereby made complete in understanding, or
in judgment, or in doctrine. Ie simply is placed
where he by faith receives from God power to act
day by day up to the given measure of light upon
his duty. It is the power of overcoming all
discerned evil that is bestowed; and as the Spirit
enlightens the conscience (or consciousness) from
time to time faith gives the victory. "Beloved, if
cur hearts condemn us not, then have we confidence
toward God." This is all that is claimed.
To-morrow  I may discern evil in things in




58       HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
which to-day I am living without condemnation.
Were the sight of angels given us, we could
scarcely take one step in our mingled surroundings. It has not pleased God to reveal at once
either the whole measure of his grace and power,
or the whole nature of the evil things around uw
This principle is clearly stated by Paul. "Let us
therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded,
and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God
shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless,
whereto we have already attained, let us walk by
the same rule; let us mind the same thing." A
heathen converted last week may be now walking
up to the standard to which he has " already attained," and yet be in practices from which a further knowledge of God's will shall separate him.
Through all the steps of his advance he may,
through Christ, have no'stain on his conscience
(or knowledge). Thank God! there is provided in
Christ, who lives in the heart by faith, power to
walk from day to day without blame before God in
love, in fulfilment of every duty as progressively
revealed.
The divine principle to a Christian is,-" Whatsoever is not of faith is sin," and conversely what



A WAY HID FROM MERE INTELLECT.   59
soever is of faith is not sin. " Without faith it is
impossible to please God," but with faith it is possible to please God. I breathe to-day the atmosphere of the love of God, every past sin forgiven,
and through the blood of cleansing, without a
present sense of transgression,-not a cloud to
separate me from God; but I may not be able to
walk to-morrow with a clear conscience in all the
paths I tread to-day. Nevertheless I am to-day
walking in the light, having fellowship with God,
and knowing that the blood of Jesus Christ, His
Son, cleanseth me from all sin. This might be
termed a Christian, not a Divine, nor an angelic
nor yet an Adamic "perfection;" but those who
by faith enter into its privileges may overcome the
world, and be conscious that up to the present
capacity of the poor, weak vessel, they are filled
with the Spirit.
The great practical question is-not the metaphysics of sin,-but what pleases God; and what
pleases Him should satisfy the believer's heart.
Enoch, in a dispensation that was scarcely as the
dawn to our own glorious day, " pleased God," and
surely our privileges in resurrection-life are not
below those of Enoch. John was able to say,




60        HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
"We keep his commandments, and do those things
that are pleasing in his sight," and God is working
in some hearts and lives " that which is well-pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ."
It follows from this that persons who have great
light in the teaching of Scripture may be walking
outwardly in advance of the sanctified but ignorant Christian, while yet the one is sinning and
under a sense of condemnation, and the other,
more ignorant but more trusting, walks with a
conscience void of offence. The understanding of
"all mysteries and all knowledge " would be but a
poor equivalent for the simple faith that always
takes Jesus for all that IHe reveals Himself, and so
finds present victory.
To "be filled with the Spirit " is one of Christ's
"commanding  promises and promising  commands." It is connected with the warning to the
Ephesians not to allow themselves to be carried
beyond their natural condition by the stimulus of
wine, but rather to- be filled with the Spirit, that
psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs should fill
their mouths, while they made melody in their
hearts to the Lord. The apostles, when filled with
the Spirit, had to defend themselves from the




A WAY HID FROM MERE INTELLECT.   61
charge of drunkenness, and those who yield themselves up to be filled by the Spirit may, to an unbelieving world, or to cold-hearted, sinning professors, seem like men "filled with new wine," or
appear to them as David did to l ichal, when he
danced before the ark, even though God hath given
them the "Spirit of power, and of love, and of a
sound mind."
The great hindrance to being "filled with the
Spirit" is the pre-occupation of the heart with
worldliness or sin, so that room is not left for the
manifestation of the Spirit.  God's Spirit is the
Spirit of Holiness, and it cannot dwell with sin, or
even with the love of the world. I tremble for
"professors of religion" as I read these words,
"If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." " He that hath my commandments, and keepeth thenm, he it is that loveth Me;"
and " If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ,
let him be Anathema Maran-atha."  I thank God
that I have not to determine to whom they apply.
We are solemnly warned that " they that are in
the Jtesh cannot please God;" and the Word adds,
" But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if
so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now




62        HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is
none of his." And it adds the texst, "And if
Christ be in you the body is dead because of sin; but
the Spirit is life because of righteousness."  "For
if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye,
through the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the
body, ye shall live." The words are God's, not
ours. Shall we turn the edge of these solemn
tests to professing Christians by vainly trying to
conform them to some theological system? Or
shalt we receive them in their solemn and deeply
searching lessons, rousing us from every sleep of
false security?
When God by the Spirit leads any one into this
humble and clean condition, where the whole
power of the atonement is by faith received, then,
emptied of all else, he can be filled with the Spirit.
What is needed is this emptying of all self-merit,
self-effort, self-worship, self-guidance, self-praying,
and self-acting. As the air rushes into a vacuum,
so the Spirit must fill the soul emptied of self.
The great need of our time is Holy Ghost power
in our ministry.  There is many a professor as
harmless to Satan's kingdom as the cannon-ball
that the child rolls across the floor. But put the




A WAY HID FROM MERE INTELLECT.   63
power behind it, and it will fly like lightning on
its mission of destruction to the strongholds of the
devil.'There is many a rusting locomotive, a
mere obstruction in the way. Apply but the steam
to it, and it would draw thousands heavenward.
Without the almighty power of the Holy Ghost,
preaching is but the sounding brass and tinkling
cymbal. Oh! my brother, what would you not
give to have this power of God that will make
you a flaming herald of the gospel, imparting to
your soul at all times the unction and power of
the Holy Ghost, so that God's purposes should be
always accomplished in and by you? God does
not so much ask you to give, as to receive. Do
not "frustrate the grace of God," which now
in this stream of full and present salvation is
flowing around you. Erect no barriers to its
waters,-hinder no drop of its fulness from covering your soul. Take Jesus now for all that He
presents Himself to you as able to do, yielding
yourself without the smallest reservation a living
sacrifice, made holy by the altar on which your
thank-offering is laid. When you have done this,
do not shrink from  owning yourself among the
holy brethren, who lift up holy hands without




64       HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
wrath or doubting to the holy God, from whom
you have that command-possible to faith only,
but to faith surely possible-" BE YE HOLY, FOR I
AM HOLY.
A MANUFACTURPER,
a Christian who had for many years been preaching Christ a Saviour for sinners, while yet he
found himself living under a painful sense of
inward corruption, remarked, among the workmen
under his care, a few who seemed different from
the professors around them, in that they seemed
so filled with the Spirit, so much in prayer, and
bearing into the workshops such a uniform sweet
savour of Christ. These men, closely associated
with their employer in Gospel work, often pressed
upon him the privilege of a present, practical, full
sanctification in Christ. Against this doctrine he
had the strongest prejudice, constantly opposing
it by every argument as a dangerous heresy.
At the solicitation of one of these Christians he
set apart an evening to examine with him the
Scriptures upon the subject, and being versed in
theological argument he was able to silence the




A WAY HID FROM MERE INTELLECT.   65
explanations of the praying workman. Sometimes a different reading or translation seemed
to break the power of the text urged upon
him; sometimes another meaning could be got
out of it; and, sometimeS, where there was no
other escape, it was interpreted in a forensic or
judicial sense, with a denial of its practical application. The pious workman, conscious, notwithstanding all the arguments, that Christ was
formed in his own soul, closed the interview
sadly, feeling that though overcome by argument,
no one could take from him the living, blessed
reality of faith that did overcome the world, the
flesh, and the devil.
Not long after, he one day said to his employer.' When in the morning I entirely trust my soul
to the keeping of Jesus, relying on Him alone to
be preserved from transgression through the day,
He always answers my faith and does keep me
from known sin."
This simple testimony from an honest Godfearing Christian, went home to the heart of the
reasoner.  Where argument failed, a faithful
witnessing prevailed. He had denied it as a
doctrine, but he could not gainsay so simple and
5




66       IT LINESS THRO-UGH FAITH.
scriptural an experience of faith.  "Can it be
true?" he said to himself. The clouds of a deficient
theological system were pierced, and like a gleam
of sunshine over.his soul, came the blessed hope
that his life might become a victory where it had
been a failure, holy where it had been unholy,
blameless where it had been sinful.
Prayer and the study of the Scriptures now
seemed to open the very heavens to his soul.
Instead of asking Christ to help him, he now
handed everything over to his Saviour, to do for
and in him. When temptation assailed him, as
one would put a screen between his face and a
scorching fire, just so by faith he uniformly
placed Christ between him and the snare, and
rejoiced in beholding his Saviour only, the temptation being shut out. His soul was filled with
wonder as from day to day he thus found himself
so fully delivered from his besetting sins.
The obstacle of unbelief, with its resulting
transgressions, being thus taken away, there
followed, some time after, while waiting upon his
knees in silence before God, the wonderful
baptism of the Spirit, in a power which he had
never conceived possible in this life, and he




A WAY HID FROM MERE INTELLECd.   67
became, and now remains, after several years,
solemnly conscious of the fulfilment of that
promise: "If a man love me, he will keep my
words: and my Father will love him, and we will
come unto him and make Our abode with him."'
Thus, Christ, God's Way of holiness, hidden
from his intellect, was revealed to his heart, even
before he  could  clearly  state the  Scriptural
doctrine as to "Holiness through Faith."  Since
then years have passed, bringing with them constantly enlarging blessings, both in the conversion
of sinners and in the leading of saints into soul
union with Christ,-tenfold beyond any ever known
before. The Scriptures are now, from cover to
cover, radiant with  the doctrine of a present
practical sanctification, as well as justification, in
Christ. Both were received by the same simple
faith.
" How Thou canst share Thy life with us,
Yet be the God Thou art,
18 darkness to my intellect,
But sunshine to my heart."




CHAPTER V.
IT EXALTS THE ATONEMENT OF OUR LORD.
IN this chapter, before writing which, I have
waited for some weeks in special prayer for
enlightenment and guidance on so solemn a subjerct,
I desire to point out how greatly the atonement is
exalted by trusting to it for a present salvation
from sinning.
In the Epistle to the Hebrews, which deals so
specially with the sacrificial aspect of our Lord'l
work, we find the various forms of the word " sanctify" more often than in all the other epistles combined. It was that Jesus "might sanctify the
people with his own blood," that He "suffered
without the gate." " For if the blood of bulls and
of goats," the epistle argues, "and the ashes of an
heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the
purifying of the flesh; how much more shall the
blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit
offered Himself without spot to God, purge your
conscience from dead works to serve the living
God?"  "Now once in the end of the world hath
(68)




EXALTS THE ATONEMENT.           69
He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of
Himself." 
Opening with the declaration  of how  Jesus
takes his place as the fulfilment of every type,
this epistle shows that the law made nothing perfect, bitt that there is the bringing in of a better hope.
It further shows the continual sacrifices failing to
"make the comers thereunto perfect," and then
declares that we are, by the fulfilment of His will,
"sanctified through the offering of the body of
Jesus once for all." In harmony with all this we
find the epistle concluding: "Now the God of
peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord
Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through
the blood of the everlastizg covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in
you that which is we!l pleasing in his sight, through
Jesus Christ; to whom  be glory for ever and
ever."
It is because this sanctification, to which we bear
testimony, is through the blood of Jesus, that we
feel confidence in casting ourselves unreservedly
upon Christ, to receive its accomplishment.  The
gospel has been too much preached as though
Jesus had said, "Be thou convalescent: try not to




70        HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
sin," rather than, "Behold, thou art made whole:
sin no more."  When the leper, kneeling, cried,
"If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean," the
compassionate reply followed at once, "I will; be
thou clean." It is the blood of Jesus Christ, applied to those who walk in the light, that now
"' cleanseth us from all sin;" and even should our
feet for a moment stumble, it does not follow that
we were not treading the highway of holiness;
nor should we for a moment lose our confidence,
but see to it that the same flash of consciousness
which shows us our fall should also bring its confession, and, with the confession, the re-cleansing of
the soul "from  all unrighteousness."  Nor will
then the believing heart, even after so sad an
event as a transgression, doubt its sanctification or
fear its confession; for it hears the command,
" What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common."
The subtlety of Satan is perhaps nowhere more
shown than in stopping the saints short at one
half the truth conveyed in passages of Scripture.
Half-texts rob- Go'd's  children  of  half their
present joys and half their power of service, as
well as half their future crowns for service. I




EXALTS THE ATONEMENT.          71
preached for ten years on the words,' IWho his
own self bare our sins in his own body on the
tree," before I realized the expressed purpose of
that sin-bearing to be, that we should become actually, and not as a mere figure of speech, "dead
to sins and alive to righteousness."  "Who gave
Himself for us " was always a precious word; but
the other half of the text was not received into my
heart,-" to redeem us from all iniquity;" for such
a present redemption was too much for my faith.
However much I might rejoice in the atonement
as washing away the stains made by sin, I had not
learned to forego self confidence so entirely as to
receive the blood as cleansing the fountain, the
very source of evil thoughts, murders, and so on. I
did not see that the reason that this fountain of the
heart sent forth both sweet and bitter waters was,
that the blood had not been allowed to manifest its
full virtue in cleansing from all unrighteousness.
"The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth usfrom all sin" was probably more constantly on my
lips than any single passage of Scripture for ten
years, before I saw that its application was not
primarily to cancelling the record of sin, but to the
inward cleansing of the souls of those who "walk




72       tIHOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
in the light as He is in the light." When a sinner
is converted to God, he is brought to Jesus the
Light, which shines upon and into him. If he
then walks in the Light,-or in Jesus,-He shines
through and through him, revealing hourly the
things that are contrary to God and to holiness;
and as they are revealed by the light, they are
cleansed by the blood. A walk in the true Light
always leads to the blood of cleansing. Thus we
find that if we walk in the light as He is in the
light, God and ourselves have fellowship one with
another, and then we realize that the blood of
Jesus Christ cleanseth us inwardly from all sin.
"Whatsoever doth make manifest is light, and
all things that are reproved are made manifest by
the light."  Happy child of God, who, as from day
to day he walks in the light, shall bring everything
that is made manifest in his outward or inward
life, to the fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness, and find himself thus hourly cleansed inwardly from all sin, and possessing a heart that,
condemning him not, leaves him in confidence toward God.
Nothing short of this is wallking in the light. It is
solemn to remember that if any one saith that he




EXALTS THE ATONEMlENT.         73
has fellowship with God, and walks in darkness,
he lies, and does not the truth. It is God that
says so! Alas, how many around us are claiming
to have fellowship with God, while yet they walk
in darkness, with defiled consciences and stumbling
steps! Would that I could say something to arouse
them to the fact that God must have realities.
"Awake to righteousness, and sin not."  Self-persuasion that we have fellowship in a simple recognition of the truth, is not a reality. The soul
must yield itself up to the Holy Spirit, to be led
in a walk in the light, where everything is given
up to God, and everything received from Godwhere "all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ.     F.. For
He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no
sin, that we might be made the righteousness of
God in Him."
In reply then to the question often asked us by
dear brethren, who value the precious blood of
Christ, and who feel % jealous fear lest it should be
set aside or slighted, " If you are walking thus in the
way of goliness, where is the need of blood? " we
reply that we exalt the atonement far more than
ever before. It is most blessed to bring the out



HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
ward actions to the atonement for remission of
sins, but is it not far more blessed to bring the inward being or soul to the cross, so that the body
or root within us of all sinning may be kept continually in the place of death, and that putting on
the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness, it alone may be alive and
active?
Ah! beloved friends, there never was so much
need of the blood as now, because it is only by
that blood every moment applied that we can walk
here. That blood was shed not only to wash
away the stain which sins had left upon us, but to
wash inwardly the sin itself away; and if I am
not sinning at this moment, it is because the deep
inbred sin of my nature, which would make it
utterly impossible for me to please God, is being
at this moment purged by the blood of Christ.
And this seems to be the teaching in 1 John i. 710; ii. 1. We are told here that if we walk in the
light, the blood of Jesus cleanseth from all sin, not
only from the stains of sin, or the punishment of
sin, but from sin itself. (1 John i. 7.)
This, however, must not make us think sin is
eradicated otherwise than in our participation of




EXALTS THE ATONEMENT.          75
Christ. The angels themselves would instantly
find corruption in their souls, were they separated
from the great Source of life. WTe have no independent holiness. We are to be vividly alive to
the fact, that it is only as we are every moment
cleansed that we can at all walk in the light of
God, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity
(ver. 8). But this need not discourage us; for if
we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, and He does do it (ver. 9). As
though a child by disobedience had fallen into the
mire: the first thing is the confession, then the
forgiveness, and then the stains are all washed
out. And last of all, lest any from being thus
cleansed should forget they had been sinners, we
are again reminded of the sorrowful fact (ver. 10),
but are at once told that these very things have
been written to us "that we sin not." (ii. 1.)
Let us suppose that here is a spring of water
which is poisoned in its very source, and which
can of course therefore send forth none but
poisoned waters. But a remedy is found which
counteracts the poison, and makes the waters
pure and sweet. That remedy is applied in the




76        HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
very source of the spring itself, and the waters
flow out therefore pure and sweet. But they do
so only so long as it is applied. The moment
the remedy is stayed, that very moment the
poisonous waters flow out as foul as ever. Now,
this is what the blood of Christ does for us,-it
reaches the very spring itself, "purifying our
hearts by faith," cleansing us "from all filthiness
of the flesh and spirit," and enabling us by faith
to realize that wondrous statement that "every
man that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself,
even as He is pure."  We purify ourselves, not
by effort, but by faith; not by works, but by the
precious blood of Christ. This clean and humble
condition, however, is ours only while the blood
is applied by faith, for the very moment faith
ceases to apply it, corruption ensues, and the same
old bitter waters flow out.
It is mistaking the very meaning of the word
to suppose that the blood of Christ cleanses only
from the stains and guilt of sin, and that unless
sins are committed we do not need its present
application. We need it far more to prevent our
sinning, than even to wash it away when committed. We need it to purge our consciences, to




EXALTS THE ATONEMENT.           77
purify our hearts, to deliver us from our sins; and
we have a very faint conception of its infinite
worth when we confine its power to cleanse, only
to obliterating the record of our sins, and to
washing away their stains.
The little stone by the road side receives dust
from -every passing wind. The shower has often
cleansed it, but it has always become again soiled.
Another stone of the same lustre lies near by, but
within the brook. It is perpetually cleansed and
kept clean by the flowing waters. Clouds of dust
may pass over it, but they do not reach it, and it
always reflects the clear rays of the sun. All its
cleansing, all its purity is in the stream, not in
itself.
There is no need, therefore, for continuing in
sin in order that grace may abound; for grace
much more abounds in our being cleansed from
sin, and hence obtaining a continual deliverance
from it, since it is grace, and grace only, that does
it all. And none know the worth of Jesus like
those whose hearts have been opened to receive
all the salvation He died to procure, even a salvation from sinning as well as a salvation from hell;




7*8       HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
nor can any sing with such a depth of meaning as
these the simple yet precious words"I'm a poor sinner, and nothing at all;
But Jesus Christ is my All in all."
Oh, my brother, how shall you and I ever jPraise
God enough for such a wonderful salvation, so
manifested in the souls of those who will receive it
by faith, and triumph through Christ, amid all the
works of Satan, and in the presence of his apparently full victories in the world around us. Let
us, therefore beware lest the atonement of our Lord
be dishonored by too much limiting its results to
the future world, thus making our Lord to accomplish in death what Hle is not willing to do in our
life. Let us remember that whosoever confesses
Christ with the mouth unto salvation, should also
believe in his heart unto righteousness-practical
righteousness-and that when we call Him by his
name, the Lord Jesus Christ, we are supposed to
believe of him that for which He is so calledKing, Saviour, the Anointed. He is thus named
because God sent Him to rule in his kingdom in
our hearts,-to save us from (not in) our sins, and
to purify unto Himself a holy priesthood.




EXALTS THE ATONEMENT.          T9
I prayed long over that text, "They overcame
him by the blood of the Lamb;" but, thank God,
I know its meaning now by a blessed experience,
that the blood of Christ cleanseth, not only the
stream, but the fountain. I keep carefully to the
word, "cleanseth," not hath cleansed once for all,
but now cleanseth by the continual application
of faith. -From the cleansed heart, prepared for
the manifestation of the Holy Ghost, must necessarily flow the fruits of the Spirit; for the blood
of atonement and the oil of the Holy Spirit go
together.
Were the life commencing in this walk of
Christian holiness prolonged on earth a thousand years, and were it to progress indefinitely,
each day learning and practising more perfectly
the lessons of Christ, there would be realized
at the close of such a life, yet more deeply than at
its commencement, the need of the blood of Christ.
We may build upon it, but never can we leave it
behind, nor cease to need its merits as our only
ground of confidence before God.
There is some fearful mistake when the same
fountain is found to " send forth at the same place
sweet water and bitter i "-when there come from




80        HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
the same heart love and hatred, joy and variance,
peace and  envying, longsuffering and wrath,
gentleness and strife, faith and heresies, meekness
and emulations;" out of the same mouth blessing
and cursing."  It is said of those " that are
Christ's" that they have crucified the flesh, with
its affections and lusts, not that these things continue alive.
The Lord grant you and me, if we "live in the
Spirit," to "also walk in the Spirit," so continuously
and entirely cleansed by the blood of Jesus, as
that out of a perfect-heart shall flow only rivers of
living water, to the salvation and refreshment of
many.
The Lord make you not faithless, but believing
for larger blessing,-the " exceeding abundantly"
-above all that you have ever asked or thought.
A PRESBYTERIAN MINISTER.
"I had been preaching with much joy one
evening, during an awakening in a neighbouring
church, on the text,'The blood of Jesus Christ,
His Son, cleanseth us from all sin,' and seeking to
teach through it, to the sinners present, their
privilege of immediate and fall remission of sins,




EXALTS THE ATONEMENT.          81
through the blood of Christ. On returning to my
lodgings with a Christian brother, he spoke to me
of his enjoyment of the address, and then went on
to make some remarks on teaching half truths
from  half texts. He related how that for ten
years he had constantly preached from the words,' Who his own self bare our sins in his own body
on the tree,' without ever teaching the complement
in the last half of the verse:'that we being
dead unto sins, should live unto righteousness.'
He had taught abiding in Christ, without its result
of sinning not. He had often said'Who gave
himself for us,' without adding,'that He might
redeem us from all iniquity.' I was led to see
that the text I had preached from was addressed
to my own soul primarily, rather than to the sinners before me, and that it was myself who needed
the lesson. The Holy Spirit opened to my understanding that if I, a Christian, would walk in the
light, as God is in the light, I should have fellowship with Him in a sense little as yet conceived of,
even amid all my earnestness; that I should know
inwardly, as a blessed reality, that'the blood of
Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin;' and that all
my groanings for deliverance from my inward cor6




82        HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
ruptions, should be met by the fountain opened for
sin and uncleanness. I cannot define fully the effect
upon my own soul of the words of my friend, but
never had I been filled with such precious views of
the purifying power of Christ.
"This blessed view of the cleansing blood
opened up more and more on my soul for two years
-a period of prayerful investigation, and yet of
anxiety lest my friend were not in error in his understanding of these texts.  All this time I was
praying God to show me my full privileges in
Christ, but to save me from heresy. I met my
friend several times in the railway cars, when he
always earnestly set before me the fulness of
present privilege that was in Christ, and at our
command through faith, illustrating his views by
Christian experience.
"At a conference meeting of Presbytery, it was
one evening proposed to consecrate ourselves more
definitely and fully to God, and the act was accompanied by a wonderful baptism of the Spirit,
which opened to my soul the hope of the near
consummation of my soul-longings. Shortly after
this, I invited the brother who had opened these
things to me, to address the church under my care.




EXALTS THE ATONEMENT.           83
At the close of his address, on being' dead to sin,
and risen with Christ,' I spoke to the people of
the power of Christ to save from their sins all those
who would fully consecrate themselves, and trust
Eim..
"During that week I was led to see, as never
before, the privilege of an entire soul-rest in
Christ, and that it was to be entered into by faith.
On the Lord's day, I preached twice on this subject, from a full soul, and after the evening service
I proposed to a Christian manufacturer that a few
Christians should meet together the next day to
enter into rest. I did not say to seek rest, but, so
confident was my faith,' to enter in.' Ten earnest,
godly men, mostly from  his workshops, on the
following day, knelt down in my friend's warehouse, among the boxes. We remained on our
knees an hour and a quarter, in prayer, praise, and
consecration. Of us, too, it might be said,'And
when they had prayed, the place was shaken where
they were assembled together, and they were all
filled with the Holy Ghost.'
"I have been conscious ever since that it was
then and there that in a definite transaction with
God, I entered into a complete soul-rest in Christ,




84        HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
a rest, through the cleansing blood, which my soul
has never lost for one hour since. It was attended
by the satisfying certainty that whatever spiritual
blessings I thenceforth claimed in simple faith
should be mine.
"Since then I have received answers to my
prayers for holiness as never before. I have again
and again realized more growth in one day, than
before in a whole year. From that time my
soul has been filled with a wonderful divine consciousness of the actual, in-wrought reality of the
expression,'I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet, not I, but Christ liveth in me.'
Instead of pining for rest, I am continually
praising God for realized rest, the deep, inward
Sabbath-keeping of my blood-cleansed soul. I can
now see no limit to the possibilities of the life of
Christ in my soul, since I have accepted the atonement in its full purposes, both of pardon and
holiness."




CHAPTER VI.
IT MUST IAEKE THE SOUL VICTORIOUS OVER INWARD
AS WELL AS OUTWARD SIN.
THERE is an experience, not universal, it
may be, to all who profess the name of
Jesus, but uniform, so far as my observation extends, in those who walk in the full, searching
light of God, and who honestly bring their deeds
to this light. The work of conversion has been
unmistakable; the assurance of final salvation is
unvarying; the apparent devotedness to God is
exemplary; the joy in the study of the Word
great; and the access to God in prayer at times
soul-inspiring. This condition of soul may continue for years, and through watchfulness and
prayer, outward sin mnay be mostly avoided. The
heart finds, even though often overcome by inward
evil, great happiness in working for Jesus. Though
sometimes brought into sorrow for transgresssion,
through sudden temptation, the sense of forgiveness is clear. And yet, through all these privileges, there is the continued and undefined, yet
(85)




8 3  H     OLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
painful feeling, as though a cloud intervened
between God and the soul, —a cloud which neither
earnest, self-denying  service, nor attainments,
however large, in scriptural truth, are able wholly
to dispel. Work is sometimes entered on, and
even recommended, as a relief to this unrest.
This uneasy sense of the lack of full, unhindered
fellowship with God is the great sorrow of many,
if not most Christian hearts.
But the plummet has not yet sounded to the
depths of the soul: and to those who do not shrink
from it, another step of faith is yet to be taken.
Far down, deep below the current of the previous
consciousness, while occupied with the intense activities of Christian life, there are the continual
motions of inward sin. The spiritual vision now
discovers a great sink of iniquity within, so that
instead of " a pure heart," there is conscious inward impurity. The quickened and tender conscience is convicted by the Holy Spirit of a deep,
in-wrought pollution, antecedent to any acts of sin.
This, which had been a doctrine before, becomes
now a soul-harrowing, conscious reality. Self-distrusting and self-renouncing before, the soul now
becomes self-abhorring, and cries out " Create in




MAIhES THE SOUL VICTORIOUS.       87
me a clean heart, 0 God, and renew a right spirit
within me 1" It is not now so much a question of
manifested sins, as of sin as their root, that the
soul must grapple with. " M3ust I ever find within
me an active fountain welling up bitter waters
along with the sweet fruits of the Spirit? Am I to
be for ever conscious of inward impurity? Is death
alone to be my inward deliverer? Can I never
call upon God out of a pure heart,-a heart consciously cleansed?" the soul now bitterly exclaims.
The Holy Spirit never creates hungerings and
thirstings after righteousness but in order that
Christ may fill the longing soul. These convictions
of inward sin in a believer, so remarkable in their
parallel to the work of conviction as to outward
sins in an unbeliever, bring the saint a second time
to the cross. Once it was forgiveness of sins for
which the soul cried out; now it is cleansingholiness. A holy intensity of desire to be indeed
entirely the Lord's, and to find Christ formed
within and reigning in resurrection-life over inward as well as outward sin, takes possession of
the heart. Nothing can now satisfy it without the
consciousness of having received that blessed result
of the sin-bearing of Jesus, the "being dead to




88        HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
sins," and the living "unto righteousness" (see
2 Peter ii. 24)-inward and outward purity. The
soul which before pleaded for the impossibility of
ceasing from sin, and consoled its own consciousness of failure by the narratives of the failures of
the saints, now rather uses them as warnings, and
instinctively turns with indescribable longings to
the highest standards of practical holiness that
the Scriptures or the examples of saints present,
and pleads THE BLOOD as the means of cleansing.
Glimpses of the possibilities of a different and
a higher life burst through the clouds of sorrow
for indwelling sin, that envelope the soul. All
remnants of confidence in self-effort wither in the
remembrance of past failure, and the awful sense
of the holiness of God. The occasional soulinspiring views of the scriptural standard of inward purity combine with the convictions of the
Spirit of God, to bring the soul into an agony of
self-despair, which finds vent in such language as
"Who shall deliver me from the body of death? "
This is the very place to which the Holy Spirit
has led the soul, and He who to all its former
prayers for holiness seemed to have " answered
not a word," now finds that it has reached the




MAKES TIlE SOUL VICTORIOUS.      89
point of self-despair where these prayers for purity
can be answered. It is then that the heart, unable
to define its experience in the suddenness and the
joy of its discovery of the present power of Jesus
to save from  sin, breaks out, "I thank God
through Jesus Christ our Lord! "  And thus, in
the joyful sense that there is "now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus," the soul
goes on to realize that " the law of the Spirit of life
in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of
sin and death. For what the law could not do,
in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and
for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: THAT THE
RIGHTEOUSNES OF THE LAW MIGHT BE FULFILLED IN
US, WHO WALK NOT AFTER THE FLESH, BUT AFTER
THE SPIRIT!"
Doth not the present heaven of privilege, in
putting off the old man, and putting on the new
man, which after God is created in righteousness
ancd true holiness, burst through these inspired
words, my brother, upon your soul?
He who'has thus taken Christ finds a sweetness
in communion never before experienced, and a
victory over inward and outward sins that he




90        HOLINESS - THROUGH FAITH.
never conceived of as possible for him in this life.
The atonement becomes more intensely real than
ever before, as the expression of the love of the
Father.  The solemn scene upon Calvary, God
manifest in the flesh suffering for man, seems unveiled to faith as never before. Jesus is now
realized answering the prayer"Be of sin the double cure,
Save from wrath and make me pure!"
A new sense of oneness with Christ fills the heart.
The Scriptures are radiant with promises of
present sanctification,-a redemption from  all
iniquity,-studied a thousand times, but never
understood till now. Prayers for holiness are now
answered, and a holy joy, a divine peace, a rest
in God, and the witnessing of the Holy Spirit to
the work of Christ,for the soul and in the soul,
ensue.
This experience, where enjoyed, is in most
cases strongly marked, as a definite step of faith,
which, —whatever may be the after-growth in
grace,-practically brought the soul at a definite
period  into  new  and  overwhelmingly lovely
practical relationships to Christ,-relationships




MAKES THE SOUL VICTORIOUS.         91
which ought to have been entered into.at conversion, but which are, alas! mostly deferred till
after a long and God-dishonoring experience of
wilderness failure. Sometimes, however, like the
time of justification, the exact period is less
defined, the blessed Word having distilled like the
dew into the Lydia-like worshipping heart. But
whether the experience be the work of a moment or
of a year, it is the gracions operation of the Spirit,
taking of the glorious things of Christ: and his
salvation, and showing them unto us.
Now we must inquire, What is the condition as
to indwelling sin into which the soul is thus by
faith brought? Is it, or is it not, an inward
cleansing from all unrighteousness?  So glorious
is this revelation of Jesus as a Saviour from sin,
and so complete faith's present overcoming of the
world, that the consciousness cannot be trusted for
a reply. We may well hesitate to accept the experience, even of our own hearts, if it be unsupported by Scripture, as well as contrary to that of
others.  Consciousness does not so much take
note of the quiescent state of the soul, as of its
activities. Whether because we do not feel the
inward motions of sin, for a longer or shorter
period, it is therefore purged, it is not in the range




92        HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
Of consciousness to determine. Where we dare not
answer, the Scripture is very definite as to what is
wrought in the soul, and if the Word, fairly rendered, corresponds with our consciousness, may
we not trust our convictions, as the witnessing of
the Spirit. We are told that the blood "cleanseth
us from all sin," -'i from all unrighteousness;"
that we are "made free from sin," as once we
were "free from righteousness:'" "free from  the
law of sin and death:" " light in the Lord:" and
that " the truth as it is in Jesus," is the putting on
" the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." The less we limit
the intent of this large class of passages, and the
more we cast ourselves upon Christ to have the
real meaning accomplished in our souls, the better
shall we understand them. Happy he who seeks
prayerfully to raise his practical experience up to
the level of God's word, rather than to lower
God's word to the level of his own experience!
We know no one who interprets these terms in
their absolute sense, as though the unconditioned
holiness of God were ours.  The Scripture addresses our need and our consciousness, carefully
avoiding all metaphysical distinctions. My conviction is, that we do well to act on this scripture




MAKES THE SOUL VICTORIOUS.          93
plan of not analyzing these things, but that we
should simply receive theni in their plain and obvious import. Care must be taken in our definitions of "sin" and "holiness."  A condition necessarily imperfect in even the knowledge of what
is evil, and which is capable of hourly progress
in holiness, is scarcely, in the accepted meaning of
words, to be therefore called sinful and unholy.
We seek to use terms in the intuitive sense, comprehensible by the great mass of Christians to
whom the sacred Scriptures are addressed.
God's commands are not grievous, and He does
not set before his redeemed children a line of obedience through which the grace and truth that are
by Jesus Christ cannot lead them. We could not
say, as do some, that the injunctions of Jesus are like
the law, given but to manifest the sin of believers,
so as to cast them more entirely upon the atonement. Nay, my elder Brother would not leave me
in so miserable a condition.  He came to save His
peoplefrom and not in their sins. To the flesh, or
old nature, these commands are superlatively impossible, but to the Spirit-led disciple there must be
far more possibility, in this dispensation, of having
the testimony that we please God, than when
Enoch walked'with God for three hundred years.




94        HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
AN AUTHOR.
Permit me to relate some simple incidents,
illustrating the views here given.  About three
years since, I was earnestly pressed to visit a
Presbyterian minister with whom I had labored
in tent-preaching ten years before, He had for
probably twenty years borne an eloquent and
most clear testimony to justification by faith
alone, both in his preaching and in his writings,
issued by millions from the press on both sides of
the Atlantic, and had lived a life of unusual
practical devotedness to God. The Holy Spirit,
however, had been leading him to a discovery of
his inward corruption and deep needs, such as is
referred to above.
After our first greetings, I inquired of him in
substance"Have you, my brother, found Jesus a Saviour
from this constant sinning?"
"No," was the reply;' " and I feel my need of
some power beyond what I have yet known."
"Do you," I asked, " believe it the will of Jesu3
to give you power uniformly to overcome the
world?"
"I do."




MAKES THE SOUL VICTORIOUS.       95
"And how only can such a victory come?"
I again inquired.
" By faith alone," he replied.
"Are you willing to yield yourself," I said, "to
trust the Lord to work in you, to will as well as to
do, of his good pleasure? Are you willing to
trust Christ to do all that you have failed in?"
" I am."
I only added as I looked him full in the face,
W WTHEN?'?
There was a severe struggle and a pause. He
had not expected to be brought so soon to the test
of yielding the last remains of unbelief in the
power of Jesus, of giving up the very last corner
of his heart to Christ; but faith triumphed as he
exclaimed" NOW!"
Immediately he was filled with a peace in the
Lord, such as he had not known before since his
conversion, and found a victory over sin, and a
power in preaching Christ "with the Holy Ghost
sent down from  heaven," such as he had never
before realized.  Recent intercourse with him
assures me that he would not for worlds exchange
his present experience of victory over sin and




96        HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
communion with Jesus for the former life, emi.
nently devoted and successful in winning souls as
it was.
AN EVANGELIST.
One more incident among many. In a large
tent, where, in 1857-8-9, we preached to the nonchurch-going-masses, a young man, who came to
mock, remained to pray, found Jesus, and went
forth to proclaim His salvation with great success.
For a while he took a charge as a Presbyterian
minister, but his unusual abilities as a public
speaker led him into other work, in which he
travelled firom Maine to California, reaching with
his voice probably millions of his fellow-creatures,
and with many seals to his ministry of the Word.
While earnestly laboring in an extensive field,
he came to realize this need of inward holiness.
After long prayer, I pressed him so earnestly to
come and visit me, that, although the distance
was near a hundred and fifty miles, and his engagements urgent, he dropped everything, and
came. Other calls pressing upon me, our private
interview was limited to about an hour. There,
in the solemn searching light of God, he reviewed




MAKES THE SOUL VICTORIOUS.       97
his life, inward and outward. The remedy for all
sin and sinning was presented to him, and he saw,
by the light of the Word, that it was indeed to be
found in Jesus Christ. He could not, however,
have faith for it. We knelt before God for the
Spirit to show him the full power of Jesus, and to
plead his sacrifice. His agony grew greater. He
cried out, "Oh my unbelief! my unbelief!" so
loudly, as to resound through the house. We
could only wait upon God to show the cause of his
not finding through Jesus the victory which he
sought. It was then recalled to my memory that
the brother had said that once he had, as he
thought, cast himself upon Jesus for this victory
over sin, and then immediately, to see if he were
indeed able to overcome, had voluntarily placed
himself in circumstances of temptation, and had
failed as formerly. He wanted a sign before he
would believe. He was now led to see that this
was not faith, and that he must, as in attaining to
a knowledge of remission of sins, believe without a
sign, simply upon the word of Jesus. The last difficulty was removed, and his soul entered into a joy
and communion with Jesus which he had not known
since his first hours of faith in his tented birthplace.
7




98        HOLINESS THROUGIH FAITH.
Upon his return those in the Gospel laboring
under his direction around him wondered at the
heavenly change wrought in him, though they
knew not the cause. A day lately spent with him,
after the interval of a year, gave the additional
assurance, were it needed, that this second coming
to the cross was to him indeed the work of the
Holy S.pirit, opening the way to such victory over
sin and self-abnegation as he had not before
known.
Permit me, in closing this chapter, to remind
you that I do not present this secret of the Lord
as a doctrine to be discussed, but as a life to
be enjoyed. I well know how little access it has
to the hearts of professors, even while they lament
their own backslidings, and how almost all, however they may differ in other things, unite in opposing it. I believe, however, that you are humbly
and devoutly waiting upon God to open it to your
understanding and heart, ready to follow whereever his truth may lead. And should I have the
privilege of removing any difficulties, or of piercing the clouds to bring down a ray of hope for
deliverance from this body of death, then my pur.
pose in writing will be gained.




MAKES THE SOUL VICTORIOUS.       99
I know that the Holy Spirit alone can really unlock to your soul these treasures that are in Christ
for every child of God who will hold out emptied
hands to grasp them. I only add, When Christ
places them in your hand, grasp them; hold them
firmly, watchfully, feverently to the end. And so,
having in this sphere become a partaker of the
divine nature, having escaped the corruption that
is in the world thiough lust, an entrance shall be
ministered to you abundantly into the everlasting
kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.




CHAPTER VII.
IT IS THE FULFIIvNG OF THE LAW OF THIS DISPENSATION.
IT is remarkable how many dear Christians
there are who would gladly go to the stake
rather than deny their Lord, and yet who confessedly fail frequently, or even habitually, in the
smaller acts of hourly obedience and consecration;
and who live under a painful sense of their lack of
love and obedience to God. It is remarkable, too,
how many there are who appear to have given
God the supreme place in their affections, who yet,
-unconsciously in some cases,-retain for themselves, and for their idols, corners, hidden places
as it were, in their hearts. Strange is it, too, how
great the shrinking is from the thorough searching
of the soul, and from yielding these last outposts
after the general surrender has been made to God:
-when so much of the heart has been cleansed,
how great an aversion there is to the completion
of the work. How many things will a man lose
d tfhe old life, how near will he voluntarily come
to death, and yet at the last point refuse to "lose
(IOO)




FULFILLING OF THE LAW.         101
his life." The evil doings of the old or natural life
may be put aside to a large extent, but the life it,
self, though nigh unto death, is retained by some
apparently slender thread of existence. This, however, is sufficient to sustain the vitality, which anon,
in a most unexpected moment, springs up again in
fearful energy.
Death is a bitter thing to nature, whether it be
the death of the body, or the yielding up of "the
flesh" to death; the crucifixion of "the old man,
that the body of sin might be destroyed;" the burial
"by baptism into death;" the reckoning ourselves
"dead indeed unto sin." And yet, until this is
known, it is a weary and unequal struggle between
the flesh and the spirit, with often most God-dishonoring results.
When the Christian, who is as yet not fully at
rest in the' Lord, is honest before God, and when
he will come to his knees in sincerity with the
heart-prayer, "Search me, 0 God, and see if there
be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way
everlasting," there will then always be found some
point of will reserved from God, some secret place
of the heart not yielded, some method of acting
condemned by conscience and yet allowed, or some




102       HOLINESS THROUGHI FAITH.
act of faith from which the soul yet shrinks. It is
most important to come into the full light of God,
that this may be defined to the soul, so that instead of a general and indefinite sense of soulweariness and separation from God, there may be
the distinct consciousness of what God calls for at
his hands. This is often God's first answer to the
prayer for a clean heart, the light exposing the evil
before the blood can cleanse. It is the purpose of
our Lord's work, accepted in all its blessed provisions, that our souls should be filled with love and
obedience, and that dwelling in the full sunshine of
His love and favor, we should realize His love and
His joy fulfilled in ourselves. It is most blessed to
have a hope opened to the soul of walking thus,
not sometimes in special seasons of command, but
always. What the soul needs is the Way in which
this can be accomplished, definitely set before it.
This result is not attained unless there be that
distinct work in the heart by which the temple is
emptied of all defiling things, and cleansed by the
blood of Jesus. It can then be filled with the love
of God, and consciously and definitely established
in entire consecration and obedience. "Whoso
keepeth His word, in him verily is the love of God




FULFILLING OF THE LAW.        103
perfected: hereby know we that we are il Him."
To this agrees that word of our Lord, "He that
keepeth liy commandments, he it is that loveth
M/e."
"Oh that I could live thus! " exclaims some soul,
wearly of its wanderings and falls, footsore and despairing of ever having a heart that shall condemn
it not, and leave it confidence before God,-able to
enter into God's dwelling-place of love. Do you
inzdeed desire it? And if some Way, clearly proven
by Scripture, were set before you,-a Way possible to you just now,-would you at any sacrifice
enter upon it?
We take it for granted that you so far trusted
Jesus, as to realize that He did indeed bear your
sins in His own body on the tree, —even though
you do not yet find the declared result of being
"dead unto sins, and alive unto righteousness," —
and that you are not now in condemnation of soul
by the remembrance on your part of past " sins and
iniquities," which God is pledged to " remember no
more." We assume that you are not living wilfully
in any known sin or open act of rebellion, and that
you are groaning for that full union of soul with
Christ which the Scripture sets before you.




104      HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
Can I cease from sin, and dwell in love and in
God?
God is our Father. He does not reap where
He has not sown. He commands no impossibilities of us. He is not more unreasonable than
earthly parents. No command is without the
means of its fulfilment attached to it. Faith and
love can meet any requirement of God, for the
one brings His own power into the scene, and the
other places us in God's own atmosphere of love
as our dwelling-place. "For this is the love of
God, that we keep His commandments, and His
commandments are not grievous." It would seem
to be beyond question that God has provided a
Way of obedience and holiness, and if you have
not attained to it yet, He whose command is
"Awake to righteousness, and sirn not," tenderly
assures your heart by these words, "And this is
the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask
anything according to His will, He heareth us.
And if we know that he heareth us, whatsoever we
ask, we know that we have the petitions we desired
of Him." If it be, then, according to His declared
will that we " abide in Him " and " sin not," do not




FULFILLING OF THE LAW.         105
hesitate to ask in confidence for such a grace, nor
fail to use the means which He has provided.
It may be, however, that your theory of what is
included, in this dispensation, in "the fulfilling of
the law," and "in pleasing God," may be different
from the definitions of Scripture. We are not
called to the standard of a different dispensation
from that in which our lives are to be lived. We
are not called to walk by the rule of angels who
"excel in strength," while we exceed all other creatures in weakness, nor yet even by the rule of the
yet unfallen Adam. Neither is our standard that
which will be ours in glorified bodies. "Like as
a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth
them that fear Him; for He knoweth our frame,
He remembereth that we are dust." The obedience
to which Christ is wooing us is not the legal obedience, a stainless perfection of knowledge and act
impossible to these clouded faculties. That would
indeed be an impossible and therefore grievous
command. "If ye are led of the Spirit, ye are not
under law." We are called to a hearty and supreme love of God, and to love our neighbour as
ourselves. "Love is the fulfilling of the law." "A
new commandment I give unto you, That ye love




106       HOLINESS THROUGHI FAITH.
one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love
one another."  "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision;
but faith which worketh by love."  "Love is of
God: and every one that loveth is born of God,
and knoweth God." " If we love one another, God
dwelleth in us, and His love is perfected in us."
" Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul,
and with all thy mind..... Thou shalt love thy
neigbour as thyself. On these two commandments
han'g all the Law and the Prophets."
Any commandment beyond the plain requirements of Christian morals is all "briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy
neighbour as thyself." It was on the occasion of
our Lord's enjoining the duties of love upon His
disciples that He said, " that ye may be the children
of your Father which is in heaven..... Be ye
therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is
perfect."  That is, as I judge, Receive "the love of
God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost,"
and let that love be "made perfect" in you as children of a heavenly Father. The Holy Ghost is
given to accomplish what were indeed impossible
otherwise.




FULFILLING OF THE LAW.         107
It would seem, then, that love is God's law
and standard in this dispensation, and that whatever is not contrary to love does not now bring
condemnation upon our conscience; entire obedience to the recognized guidance of God's Spirit
being, of course, included in our love to God. A
child's service may be accepted and acceptable,
although not yet perfect. There may be many
mistakes of judgment, things done through involuntary not wilful ignlorance, that are not contrary
to love,-on the principle that to him that knoweth
to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin. And
yet it is true that all our ignorance, all our failures
in the best of our service, all our lack of conformity
to the perfect example of Christ, need the applica.
tion of "the blood of Christ, who through the
eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God,"
that he might purge our conscience from the dead
works of a legal obedience, to serve the living God
through a divinely-implanted love. We cannot
claim any perfection beyond this, that up to the
furthest line of to-day's consciousness, we have the
witness that we do love God and our brethren, and
keep a conscience (or knowledge) void of offence.,
It must, however, not be overlooked, that this




108       HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
soul-attitude of obedience involves a perpetually
increasing light, as well as a perpetually growing
conscious conformity to God. Increasing light is
the essential condition of obedience. Each day of
full obedience is a dav of advancing, knowledge.
Yesterday's standard of walk will not answer for
to-day. The past twilight did not discover some
defiling bone in my tent, and it did not then bring
an evil conscience; but, in the clearer light of today, the same contact would bring condemnation.
The essential thing is not perfect light, or perfect
knowledge, but perfect obedience to the light and
knowledge already bestowed.
A just consideration of this truth would remove
many difficulties from those in doubt about the
possibilities of a full sanctification. It is not perfect knowledge, perfect wisdom, or perfect attainment, but simply a perfect heart-that is, a heart
yielded without any reserve.to God-to walk in entire obedience and perfect trust. It is that yielding ourselves to God, " as those that are alive from
the dead," which can only be known after a practical experience of having been " buried with
[Christ] by baptism into death." It is the power
of resurrection life with Jesus. So far from this




FULFILLING OF THE LAW.        109
experience of grace being the completion of God's
work, as is sometimes understood, it is but the condition of soul-health, in which a continuous, unchecked progress in the divine life is possible. It
is the well-grafted and healthy tree which can grow
rapidly and mature its fruit. After having presented our bodies a living sacrifice to God, then, transformed by the renewing of our mind, we are privileged to " prove what is that good, and acceptable,
and perfect willof God " in all the details of daily life.
A few days since, my gentle little girl, two years
old, attracted by an inkstand, innocently picked it
up, poured its contents over her new white dress,
and, pleased with the performance, she finished the
contents over my own clothes, and then looked
joyously into my face for approval. Had the child
been older and wiser it would have been a transgression, and she would have needed correction;
but, as I saw what was done, I could only say,'; You knew no better, my little one;" —and, I
thought of my Father in Heaven, and said, " Does
He exact impossibilities of my ignorance, while I
walk in communion with Himself and up to the
light He gives me? "
"Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have




110       IiOLINESS THROUG-H FAITH.
we confidence toward God. And whatsoever we
ask we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing
in His sight. And this is His conmnandment, That
we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus
Christ, and love one another, as He gave us commandment. And he that keepeth His commandments dwelleth in Him., and He in him. And
hereby we know that He abideth in us by the Spirit
which He hath given us."  The Holy Spirit is the
direct WBitness to our spirits as to whether Christ
is abiding in us and we in Him. Having this, we
are satisfied. To any cavils from those who tell
us that it is impossible, we may have little to answer, but our inward consciousness responds, "My
Beloved is mine, and I am His!"
How can I attain to this dwelling in love and in
God?
" Such a life seems impossible for me."  So did
the knowledge of the free, full, perfect forgiveness
of past sins once seem. But it became true to
faith.
"The placing it as a perfect love bestowed on us,
rather than as a legal obedience, instead of lessening my difficulty, seems rather to increase it." So




FULFILLING OF THE LAW.         111
did setting forgiveness. of sins as the free gift of
God, and shutting you out from the least ray of
hope through your own legal obedience, once seem
to place salvation further off. But in like manner
we are now bringing you nearer to the attainment
of your soul's desires, for we are setting before
you God's own way.
" But the withdrawal of all hope of accomplishing this result by dependence on my prayers, vows,
and efforts, seems to take away all props and helps."
Such has been our principal aim in leading sinners
to the cross for remission of sins. In like manner,
when your present hopes and efforts are all proved.and acknowledged to be ineffectual, you will be
ready to lose your own life; —the self that must be
denied,-that you may find the resurrection-life of
Christ in all its glorious power. You may heretofore have somewhat denied self's evil doings; now
you have to deny self in its very centre. You may
have heretofore denied some of the acting,of the
old life; but now you must lose that li:e its'Of, in
order that you may experience that " whatsoever is
born of God overcometh the world."  You must
know that the old man is crucified with Him, that
the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth




112       HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
we should not serve sin,-an actual transaction of
your soul with God,-before you can say, "I am
crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I
now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son
of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me."
"God is love. He that dwelleth in love dwell.
eth in God, and God in him.... As He is, so
are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but
perfect love casteth out fear." If the memory of
all past failure, the sense of present despair and
helplessness as to dwelling in love and in God,
should bring you to the point of exclaiming, "' 0
wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me'
from this corrupting body of sin? " you are in such
a place before the cross for inward cleansing, as
you once were for the forgiveness of sins. Never
had yoa been so near mercy's door as when you
despaired utterly of self-merit, and of your own
efforts. And now again, in that despairing of self
and all its actings, of the old life and all its doings,
you feel your need of the further results of the
cross, for- inwardly cleansing from all sin, and
dwelling in love and in God, and you are just prepared to "thank God through Jesus Christ our




FULFILLING OF THE LAW.          113
Lord," and to realize that "the law of the Spirit of
life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law
of sin and death,.... that the righteousness of
the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after
the flesh, but after the Spirit."
What may be, in your case, the last weight to be
laid aside, what the last item of self-will to be surrendered, the last thread of the old life to be severed, is known only to your own conscience, enlightened by the Spirit of God. It may be that
you know of nothing in your present or future that
you withhold from an entire consecration; that you
feel as though no self-will or mental reservation interfered with the yielding of the whole being as a
living sacrifice laid upon God's altar. If so, and,
yet your soul has not entered into the full rest of
God, there is but one thing remaining,-that is, to
yield up your unbelief as to God's acceptance of
the offering. The gift is sanctified by the altar,
and what we bring to it, by touching the altar, becomes holy and acceptable to God. Our faculties
and emotions are not in themselves unholy; but
have become so only by being yielded to Satan, and
the same faculties and emotions yielded to God are
made holy " instruments of righteousnes to Gbd."




114       HOLINESS THRO'UGH FAITH.
" For as ye have yielded your members servants to
uncleanness and to iniquity, unto iniquity; even
so now yield your members servants to righteousness, unto holiness.... Atow being made free
from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your
fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life."
Can you not, dear Christian, believe that God
now accepts and sanctifies that which you bring,
and that through faith it is now and may be henceforth, yours to dwell in love and in God?
Plainly, as once the results of faith for the remission of sins were received the very moment that
faith was exercised; so now the very moment you
trust Christ for realized deadness to sins and life
unto righteousness, you shall find it accomplished;
and the foundation havin-g been thus laid, your
faith may extend to dwelling in love and in God.
The very name of "believer" which you take, forbids that you should defer the reception of any
blessing, for grasping which you are called to
believe the promises of God.
The difficulty of realizing that this perfected
trust and its accompanying perfect love is now for
us, is lesselned by the remembrance that it is not
our own natural love, the emotions proceeding from




FULFILLING OF THE LAW.          11l
our own souls, which constitute " the love of God."
"The peace of God" is not our peace of soul toward God, but His own eternal peace, in which He
dwells without change, amid all the convulsions of
Ilis universe, throughout eternity; and which He
sends down into the hearts of His trusting children.
In like manner, "the love of God " is not born of
" the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of
God."  It is an actual divine gift, like the Holy
Ghost, by which it " is shed abroad in our hearts."
It is not a condition of soul into which we ourselves can gradually grow, but a divine grace be.
stowed on and established in the trusting heart.
Since it is of God, it is perfect in its character, free
and immediate in its bestowal, and through a continuing faith and obedience, permanent in its results; and since it is the soul's deepest need, Now
is God's time for its reception. I see not how any
believer need despair of its full power, since it is a
gift, and- it is from God, and is to be received as a
gift, undeserved but freely bestowed.
Once received, then follows the responsibility of
keeping ourselves in the love of God. This injunction is found between the "building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy




1136      HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
Ghost," and the joy of "looking for the mercy of
our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal Life." The
path of faith is aiways an advancing path, and yesterday's building seems to-day but as a foundation
laid, so that there is the perpetual further building
on the foundation once laid. "Praying in the
Holy Ghost" surely authorizes prayer that God's
love may be "made perfect" in us up to the utmost limit of the present capacity of these small
vessels.
Oh that this gift of God in all its fulness might
be received into hearts which have too long dwelt
in the changing atmosphere of failing natural
emotions! Listen to the tender tones of thy
Beloved who speaks, and Now says, "Rise up, my
love, my fair one, and come away. For, lo, the
winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing
of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is
heard in our land: the fig-treeputteth forthher
green figs, and the vines with the tender grape
give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one,
and come away." Oh, that thou wouldst abandon
thyself to this love of Jesus until thou canst say,
"He brought me to the banqueting-house, and his




FULFILLING OF THE LAW.         117
banner over me was love. Stay me with flagons,
comfort me with apples; for I am sick of love."
There are those whose very hearts do melt within
them as they experience this divinely-begotten love
of God. Such an one, a simple child-like heart, a
few evenings ago, in the prayer-meeting, said, "I've
had just one drop of the love of Jesus, and just that
one drop would fill all your souls."
It is the full acceptance of this love of God, and
the creation of its response by the Holy Ghost in
the heart, which can alone satisfy the claims of the
Heavenly Bridegroom, who tells us that his "love
is strong as death:.... many waters cannot
quench love, neither can the floods drown it; if a
man would give all the substance of his house for
love, it would utterly be contemned."  Jesus
tenderly both offers and claims such a divinely,
inwrought love for us when He says, " Love Me."
Thank God, if the feeling of the need of this
overcoming divine love has been created in the
heart of my reader, even though it be, for the moment, nigh unto despair as to experiencing it. The
creation of the felt need of a grace promised to
faith in the Word, is the first step, and a great one,
toward the supply of that need. Lay that need




I i8      tOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
before God,-not to go away and forget it amid the
myriad voices that are in the world and in the
heart; but to keep it as the soul's cry continually
before'the throne. Can there be any doubt as to
the result?
A MAN OF BUSINESS,
living in the busy whirl of large commercial operations, writes, "I have great joy in recalling the
time when first those words were effectually illuminated to my soul by the Holy Spirit:' God is love.
Re that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in
him.' I could not deny that a marvellous work
had been already done in my soul, in a divinely inwrought faith, which placed Christ between me and
temptation, just as a screen, placed before the fire,
shuts out the fire, leaving only the grateful colors
of the screen before the eye. I had already known
the faith which overcomes the world, inward or outward, and something, at least, of what it was to
abide in Christ, with its blessed results. Yet in
the thought of dwelling in love, and in God, and
God in me, there was a vista opened before me
that seemed at first to overwhelm my faith with a
sense of impossibility. I dared not say, however,




FULFILLING OF THE LAW.        119
that any promise of God was' not for me,' and I
felt that God's hand was on me for this also. I do
not remember any sudden baptism of love or of joy,
but as I continued in prayer and faith for this gift
of God, I became conscious of a marked change in
my inward life. The stirrings of bitterness or contention seemed to die out. I shrunk from thinking or hearing evil of any one. There seemed an
atmosphere of divine love graciously formed around
and within me, so that it did not now seem so much
effort or restraint to meet sudden injury or insult
with love, as the simple and natural expression of
the inward life of God in the soul. I remember
the hour in which I became conscious that my
prayer had been in a measure answered. Although
I feel that all yet received from God is but a drop
from the ocean of divine love,-yet it is that drop,
and I know that' God is love. And he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him.''And hereby we know that He abideth in us, by
the Spirit, which lIe hath given us."'
We find, then, thatI. Christ's command involves the truth that the
believer CAN cease from conscious transgression,
and dwell in love and in God.




120       HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
II. It is in an unreserved abandonment of soul to
Christ only, that the believer can learn HOw to dwell
in love and in God.
I1l. Faith's Now is the time WHEN the believer
may dwell in love and in God.
We are called with Abraham, who left his all at
God's command, to put our trust in "God, who
quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which
be not as though they were;" and follow "the Father of all them that believe," who "staggered not
at the promise of God through unbelief, but was
strong in faith, giving glory to God; being fully
persuaded that what He had promised He was
able also to perform." This is the faith which
brings God into the scene, negatives the verdict of
experience, sight and sense,
"And cries, it shall be done."
"Let us therefore as many as be perfect, be thus
minded: and if in anything ye be otherwise minded,
God shall reveal even this unto you.  Nevertheless
whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the
same rule, 1et us mind the same thing."




CHAPTER VIII.
IN EXALTING CHRIST IT MUST HUM1BLE THE BELTEVER.
T is manifest that every approach to God must
humble him who draws near, and the nearer
the place into which faith brings the believer, the
more entire the withering of the flesh and self.
The two evils which separate the soul from the
Saviour are sin and self-righteousness; and of these
two things, self-righteousness seemed to be the more
effectual barrier during the days of our Lord's ministry on the earth. The self-righteous Pharisees,
who wore Scripture texts up and down their garments, and who would not eat their soup till the
tithe of their mint and anise had been paid, deri
ded Him; but the publicans and sinners heard Him
gladly, and were saved. We are all born Pharisees.  Pharisaism  is bred in our very natures;
and, if we escape the upbraidings of conscience for
gross sin, the natural resource of the evil of our
hearts is this legal self-righteousness.
Although this evil of self-confidence is that with
which the "'Way of holiness through faith" is
(I 2I)




122       HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
most frequently charged, and, although the confession of salvation in its full, practical, present sense
might sometimes seem to give ground for it, yet in
truth it is as effectual an antidote to pharisaical
self-confidence as it is to sinning. It was precisely
here, in the self-despairing confession of entire helplessness, the conviction burned into our very souls
by the consciousness of inward failure, that we
reached that point where a new view of the privilege of present redemption in Jesus, from all iniquity, made us burst into the exclamation, " I thank
God through Jesus Christ our Lord! " It then became all Christ; and the soul, which could not stop
to define the doctrine, joyously embraced the living
Christ to receive from his hands a practical death
to sins and life unto righteousness.
The doctrine, without the life-giving power of
"Christ formed in you," is but the colorless shadow,
the faint copy of the living, breathing reality. It
is the possessors of this shadow who have brought
reproach upon this " Way of holiness," by an imitation, which, while it presents some of the outlines, lacks the reality of the resurrection-life in
Christ. We know that the devil always imitates,
but never originates, and we ought not to be igno



EXALTING CHRIST HUMBLES THE BELIEVER. 123
rant of his devices to throw at every point discredit on the truth of God. There seems to be a
special and most marked effort by the evil one to
destroy in every way the testimony of those who
preach a redemption from all iniquity. We are not
careful to reconcile the fleshly walk of those who
evidently profess without possessing or practicing
the truth of God, whether the "profession " be that
of pardon of sins, or that of the faith which gives
real victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil
There is a wide difference between "professing"
and " confessing." Peter professed what he would
do, and he fell. Paul confessed Christ living in him,
and he triumphed. In a more exact translation of
the Epistles we should find the word " profess " applied in an evil sense to those who, "professing
themselves to be wise, they became fools;" while
we should read of Timothy that he "confessed a
good confession before many witnesses." It is just
here that the point now before us lies. We profess nothing of ourselves, but we confess that " Je.
sus, who delivered us from the wrath to come,"
now keeps us, by. the power of God, practically
within that kingdom which is righteousness, peace,
and joy in the Holy Ghost.




1B24     ITOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
So long as there is the least legal taint in our
ideas as to how we were saved from just judgment
for our sins, so long will the taint of self-confidence
be found in the "professor of religion." But, as
soon as the soul recognizes that " salvation is of the
Lord," wholly of the Lord, without work or merit
of our own, then at once the "profession" (implying something partly our own, which we will
carry out), is changed to a " confession made unto
salvation" of what Christ has freely done for us.
Then, without any other trust, the soul rests on
the sacrifice of Christ, and, for the first time, is
thoroughly humbled before the Lord, finding it now
not "presumption to be sure of heaven."
Those who have not the assurance of salvation,
will not believe this; but, judging such a confession by their own legal thoughts of salvation, they
will insist that confidence in Christ is presuming on
one's own merits. Only those who have found that
holiness is no longer a desperate negative strife, but
a blessed positive obtainment or gift, can know how
exactly parallel to the above are the thoughts of
brethren who charge with presumption and selfconfidence those believers who confess Christ as a
present Saviour from sinning.




EXALTING CHRIST HUMBLES THE BELIEVER. 125
It is because with us it is ALL Christ that we are
so humbled, and that we have such confidence. We
find, alas! that the moment anything else intrudes
into the ground of our confidence, our strength is
gone. This life is one of continuous self.despair,
and of continuous trust. The instant that the soul
pauses to rest in anything " already attained," in
that moment our feet slide. Just so far as any element of unbelief qualifies the simple, absolute trust
in Christ, just so far is there transgression. Faith
is the measure of holiness. But, let us always remember, that uniformly victorious faith is not an
impossible faith, but, that as Jesus is the author of
faith, He is, also, the finisher or perfector of faith.
Here again it is ALL Jesus; and, while looking to
him, we are not sent empty away. The vessel may
be small, but it is filled to-day; to-morrow it will
be larger, and still its utmost capacity shall be filled.
Truly, here all "boasting is excluded." By what
law? Of works? Nay, but by the law of faith.
And yet with David we say, " In God we boast all
the day long, and praise thy name forever."  Saved
from Egyptian bondage by the outstretched arm
of Jehovah alone, " neither did we get the land of
Canaan in possession by our own sword, nor did




126      HOLINESS THROVGH FAITH.
our own arm save us, but Thy right hand and
Thine arm, and the light of Thy countenance."
Contrast the holy and happy, yet humble confidence in Jehovah, which says of the Canaan of
rest, "Let us go up at once and possess it, for we
are well able to overcome it," with the faithless
cry, "We be not able to go up against the people,
for they are stronger than we;" and we find the
secret cause of the different positions of God's people. In a late church-meeting, an influential man
arose and said that he loved the Lord Jesus in his
weak way, but that he had sinned very much yesterday and to-day, and he expected that he should
again to-morrow. The same was said by several
others who had taken prominent positions among
evangelical Christians.
It was not said of constitutional defects, nor of
evil not yet discerned as such, but of known and
conscious sins. And these frequently utter their
belief that Christians necessarily commit known
sins.
We could ask, How much sinning is of the nature
of a necessity? If a necessity, upon whom does
it reflect?  Verily, such a doctrine is the very
stronghold of Satan within our lines. The Lord




EXALTING CHRIST HUMBLES THE BELIEVER. 127
have mercy on those who thus dishonor the work
and power of Christ by saying that continuing in
sin is inevitable; and on those, too, who would not
say it so broadly, but who cover up the essence of
the doctrine by indefinite evasions of the issue.
May we beware of this specious form of " humility,"
for, as the stream does not rise above its source, so
their lives cannot rise above their faith, or rather
faithlessness.
Such is the present experience of the church,
her sins culminating in the charge against Israel,
" They limited the Holy One of Israel." According to her faith she is cured, according to her
unbelief the old sin-palsy returns. But we like
not to hold up the unlovely picture. We would
be found not so much testifying against error, as
bearing a faithful witness to the truth as it is in,
Jesus. If we have to speak of error, it is sadly,
and not for controversy. Nor does it befit one
who looks back to so sad an experience of failure,
and who stands from moment to moment by faith
only, to judge his fellow-servants. We would
rather say to them, We have found in Jesus treasures of present practical blessing, such as we
had not, in our former dimness of sight, conceived




128      HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
of as for us in this life. "O taste and see that
the Lord is good; blessed is the man that trusteth in Him..... They that seek the Lord shall
not want any good thing."
We dare not withhold our testimony to the
power of Christ to usward, when we are conscious
before God that it is given in self humiliation
and to his praise.. We saw a part, but now in the
light of God we see full salvation in its glorious
proportions. We were unholy, but by his grace we
are made holy, —saved from sin to the full measure
of our trust in Jesus, and filled with the comforts
of the Holy Ghost. Surely it is no pharisaism to
proclaim, like Paul, what God is doing for us,no vaunting to say that we find Jesus saving us
from our sins. For it is never said by any walking in this sacred light, "I am holier than thou,"
or "I am holy of,myself," or " I can be holy if I
choose." The praise for these blessings, equally
with deliverance from wrath, is all given to Jesus.
We hear from such, " Jesus keeps'me."  "I find
Him to be indeed the double cure."  "The blood
cleanses."  "I am nothing, Christ is alL"  "] am
kept by the power of God."
Dare you,'my brother, reject such a present sal



EXALTING CHRIST HUMBLES THE BELIEVER. 129
vation from sinning, every aspect of which is il.
lustrated by the Word, by Christ, by the light of
Calvary, by the power of the Spirit, by victory
over sin, and by the genuine humility into which
it introduces the believer? I am not so careful
about our agreement in the doctrinal statement
of this glorious privilege, as for the reality in the
soul, which can only be rejected by any to their
most imminent peril. The substance of the life
may be held with some misapprehension of the doctrine. While I am divinely sure of the reality of
the.experience that "Christ liveth in me," and
while, according to my small measure of capacity, I
know what it is to " be filled with the Spirit," I do
not feel perfect in knowledge, nor that I am able to
state the doctrine in the perfect harmony of its
several elements. Test all yourself by the Scriptures, never bringing them down to the lavel of your
experience, but raising your experience by faith to
their full standard of holiness.
If others can state these things, so as to reach
the hearts of their hearers, without illustrating
by personal experience, yet pardon me that in
these letters I have followed the best judgment
that I could gain in prayer. As the preacher's
9




130       HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
confession of Christ as his own Saviour from wrath,
is the best preface to his message, so I have judged that I must witness that I have myself partaken of the fruits, in order that I may not seem to
hold out an impossible privilege to those for whom
I write.
And now, for the future:-I feel it most important not to set before myself any expectation of
ever again sinning against God.* Althouigh my
past experience might seem against such a hope,
and though I dare not either make vows or boast,
I feel it to be most God-honoring to commit. the
keeping of my soul in well-doing unto God, as
* As long as David, without anxiety, trusted God without limit day by day, walking in full faith in that path
appointed him, so long confidence toward God and holy
communion were his. " Saul sought him every day; but
G~od delivered him not into his hand." But forgetting the
miraculous preservation just experienced, and that he was
God's appointed king, he looked at circumstances, instead
of exercising that faith which is above circumstances.
Then came in the evil heart of unbelief, and he " said in
ias heart, I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul."
This distrust of Him who had given him all his victories
was the entrance on the shameful history of failure fr Dm
which at length God restored him, a solemn warning, as
once he had been an example. " Take heed, brethren, lest
there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God." " For by faith ye stand "




BXALTING CHRIST HUMBLES THE BELIEVER. 131
unto a faithful Creator. The very expectation of
sinning would be its prelude, and I must look not
at sin, but at Him who saves from sinning. I can
set no bounds to what God may do for the chief
of sinners, now saved and kept by grace. When
I have thought and asked my largest, I find that
God does for me exceeding abundantly above and
beyond it all. In fact, this seems to be my almost continual experiehce of surprise and wonder
at the manifestation of God in His power, in His
presence, in His imparted joy.
All this is accompanied by deeply increasing
knowledge of self-weakness; for the flesh does,
indeed, wither at the presence of God in the soul,
while yet the Spirit lives and reigns.  And yet
it is only by faith, and only a moment at a time,
I am thus kept. The evil root is ready to spring
up into bitter branches; the flesh is near me,though
I walk not in it; and the " destroyed" body of sin
is ready to " revive" at any moment. Oh, hourly
miracle of grace I Oh, blessed Saviour, to whom
all thy children are privileged thus to cling I




CHAPTER IX.
LLUSTRATIVE CASES.
I. —A REVIVAL.
T HERE is a most important rule of the deal
ing of God with his children embraced in
the statement of the Psalmist, " He made known
His ways unto Moses, His acts unto the children
of Israel." Moses was on the mount, in communion with the ways and purposes of God, while
the children of Israel trembled beneath acts which
manifested the awful presence of God in their
midst. Be it ours with Moses to commune with
Jehovah in the knowledge of his ways, rather than
to have our eyes so upon the world as to see his
acts only. May we, like Abraham, the friend of
God, dwell in heavenly separation, where God
shall not hide from us what He is about to do!
A little church in the country had lost its pastor, and not being able to procure another, they
desired a business man, who lived a few miles
away, and who preached the Word, to minister
among them. He fdund it- in about the condition
(13)




ILLUSTRATIVE CASES.         133
in which so many assemblies are found,-legal
and uninstructed. in some of the first principles
Of Scripture. Few, beside some young persons
recently converted, could say with confidence that
they had eternal life. One of the deacons, however, had a few months before entered with great
power, into the experience of entire consecration
to Christ and victory over sin. Full of faith and
the Holy Ghost, his walk, and even his very appearance, were a testimony to the gospel. He
was, however, comparatively untaught, and his
power of expression was mostly limited to the
simple, tfLough convincing, statement of what the
Lord had done for his soul. The arrangement of
the meetings was of the usual kind-preaching on
the Lord's day to a mixed company of saints and
sinners, and on a week-day evening a prayer-meeting.
At first the gospel was preached, and strong
appeals made to the unconverted, but without apparent fruit, save in two instances. Disheartened
by the limited results, the preacher then, in
anxiety, turned to do that which he should have
done more fully at first-to ask the guidance of
the Spirit, to wait for it, and to act on it alone.




134       HOLINESS THROUGI  FAITH.
The answer came with great distinctness in the
words, " Oh, that salvation were come out of
Zion!  When God bringeth back the captivity df
his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be
glad." It was seen that full salvation should be
in the church, before salvation could flow forth to
sinners. "He made known his ways," to his
weak servant, and full faith was imparted, that
when the believers were experimentally sanctified,
then the power of God in His gospel would save
sinners. Close and careful instruction from the
Scriptures in much prayer was from that time
addressed to the believers, leading them to look
away from themselves to Jesus only as the ground
of the forgiveness of their sins. One by one the
members dismissed their Christ - dishonoring
doubts, and rejoiced in the present possession of
eternal life through faith in Christ only. But
they were not suffered to rest here. The foundation having been laid in Christ, they were to be
built up in their most holy faith. The confession
made by two brethren in their midst of what God
had done for their souls, made the church feel
that they could not take up with any rest short of
the true rest of receiving all from God, and giving




ILLUSTRATIVE CASES.         135
all to God. The aspect in which this practical
sanctification was presented was chiefly as the full
result of the atonemeut,-the privilege purchased
for us by Christ, the entrance upon which thus
became the most solemn obligation. The power
of God in this truth reached their souls one by
one, leading to full experimental union with
Christ, until nearly all shared the blessing. Then
it seemed as though the very windows of heaven
were opened upon them in the floods of spiritual
blessing and joy. The meetings were deeply quiet,
and more and more solemn. The power of the
Holy Ghost was seen wonderfully in the assemblies. As men are "drunk with wine," so were
they "filled with the Spirit, making melody in
"their hearts to the Lord; giving thanks always."
Then with this fulness of joy came the willingness to " fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in their flesh, for His body's sake,
which is the church." Then dawned in their souls
the glory of the humiliation. They saw that the
more they suffered with and for Christ, the more
their place was "without the camp;" the less
that they kept to please the flesh and their natural
love of position, the more they would occupy the




136       HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
real p ace of spiritual blessing. Strong cries went
up to God to hide them, and to honor Christ
They renounced all desire that, as a church, they
should have any honor in the community,-glad
themselves to be little and unknown, if only God
should be glorified in them. They asked one
thing alone,-to have Christ in their midst, ruling
effectually in their hearts and in their meetings,
and then that from them should sound out the
word of the Lord in all that region.
The answer came according to their prayer.
The worldly attenders left their meetings. Their
house of worship was taken from the church.
Some members removed, and others were estranged. They were stripped of numbers, their house
gone, and the places of loved ones were vacant.
Poverty, too, pressed upon them. They were
learning the lesson that God Himself was to be
their only hope and joy. The lessened meetings
were held in a private house, and limited to the
more faithful members only, But God was there.
He had now brought them to the place of need,
which is always the valley of blessing. He who
had " made known his ways" of first, filling Zion
with blessing, in faith that thence salvation should




ILLUSTRATIVE CASES.         137
flow forth, now led their hearts to pray for sinners
in prevailing power. It was not the restlessness
of struggle and effort, so much as the calm confidence of faith, which, acting in the power of
God, must command results,-the firm  step of
soul health rather than the struggle with spiritual
paralysis. It was a solemn season of apparent
failure of all things outwardly, and yet of the
triumph of an anticipative faith.  It was the
Lord's way, his deep lesson in the school of God,
the humiliation before the triumph.
After the more private meeting of the diminished though favored church, they were accustomed to join a much larger company on the
Lord's-day evening near by, in a capacious building, erected for the joint use of all the religious
denominations around. There were, however,
but few meeting there who were walking even
outwardly in Christian paths. Soon prayer was
answered by a deepened finterest in this meeting,
and without any previous planning of revival
services, continuous nightly meetings were called
for. In these the attendance, though good, did
not result in any conversions for near two weeks.
The preacher who had labored in the smaller




138       HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
church proclaimed both God's judgments on sin,
and a free, full salvation to contrite sinners. That
there were no conversions closely tested the faith
that seemed to be just grasping the promised
resilts; but the trial of fqith was "precious"
beyond gold in God's sight. God's ways, as foreseen some months, had all been realized up to this
point; praying for sinners had surely been "in the
Spirit," —and were the meetings to close without
their seeing souls saved? In the smaller and select
meetings the cry went up, but "Jesus answered
them not a word." The answer was delayed,
however, but to bring out the deeper needs of
their souls. At length it seemed as though prayer
must be answered, or the preacher could hardly
live. Night after night, as, after the hard work of
the day, he rode alone through the darkness to
the meetings, his cry went up to God, and the
earnestness of the appeal was at length answered
by the agonizing pleading becoming the effectual
message of grace.
The answer came. Dead souls heard the voice
of the Son of God and were quickened into life.
Large numbers responded to the call to meet after
the preaching those who could answer their ques.




ILLUSTRATIVE CASES.         139
tion, "What shall I do to be saved? " As each one
entered into peace, the loudest call was sounded
by their confession of Christ, and the hearts of
others were reached. Persons gathered from a
distance; the word of the Lord was sounded all
through that neighborhood; meetings were started
in other places around, and thus the faith which
had through all trusted in God was honored.
Before this time, often, in preaching the gospel,
the joy of seeing souls come to Christ had been:
mingled with the deepest sadness in the anticipation that the saved ones would, alas! too probably,
soon fall into the Christ-dishonoring, faithless ways
of the professors around them; but now it was a
wonderful and joyous privilege to set forth Christ
to the young converts, not only as bearing their
sins in his own body on the tree, but as proposing
to make them by that very sacrifice " dead to sins,"
and alive to God; to show them in Christ a present
and practical redemption from all iniquity; and to
open out to them their privilege, having left Egypt,
of entering at once into Canaan, or resurrectionlife and victory over all enemies.
The type or character of the faith and life of
converts is wonderfully affected by the character




140       HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
of those who have been their spiritual parents.
Where these have been themselves groping in legal
twilight and spiritual paralysis, the same low type
is too often reproduced. But where the preachers
of the gospel have themselves had clear views of
divine grace, with corresponding entire consecration
to God and victory over sin, we generally see a
higher faith and walk in converts. Recent intercourse with some of those saved in the revival
here described, and reliable accounts from most of
the remainder, give us ground to believe that the
Holy S.pirit who' gave the victorious faith in their
spiritual parents, reproduced the "like-precious
faith," to a most satisfactory degree in those who
made a clear confession of Christ during these
services.
These special meetings presented many scenes
of deep interest. A praying father saw two of his
children, who were just arriving at maturity, confess Christ for the first time on the same evening.
The dividing line in families between faith and
unbelief was cancelled, and ties of blood were
eternally cemented by union in Christ. The numbering of converts is often an evil thing; for we
may rejoice over those who may go out, "that




ILLUSTRATIVE CASES.          141
they might be made manifest that they were not ali
of us," and we may know as.yet nothing of many
whose repen'tance makes "joy in the presence of'
the angels of God." We leave all to be ascertained
in "that day," when the wise, who turn many to
righteousness, shall shine as the stars, and when
all our crowns of rejoicing shall be laid at the
Saviour's feet as the triumphs of his grace alone in
us.
In a true revival, life is increased and developed
by exercising its functions, instead of being merely
stimulated and exjhausted. Where there is excitement without development of life among Christians, the subsequent reaction places them in a
condition as much below their ordinary level as
the stimulus raised them above it. But in soulhealth, scenes of protracted effort only develop the
life within, so that increased power follows, and
not reaction. It is therefore not only that sinners
may be saved, that the privileges of a full soulunion with Christ are to be urged upon believers,
but that, when special times of refreshing come,
there may be spiritual capacity to retain the grace
poured out.
The special work being ended, the little con



142      HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
pany of "faithful brethren," having done their
Lord's will, returned to their more private meetings,
their assembly being added to by the fellowship of
some of those lately saved. Their meeting-house
was restored to them, and they are now worshipping on the Lord's day in great simplicity, and
holding frequent meetings through the week, in
the wonderful joy and power of the Holy Ghost.
He who had preached the word and taught among
them was suddenly removed to a distant field of
labor, but they realize the truth that " the anointing which ye have received of Him  abideth in
you; and ye need not that any man teach you;
but as the same anointing teacheth you of all
things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it
hath taught you, ye shall abide in Him." Much as
they valued the gift of a teacher, they knew that
their assembly, with a public teacher or without
one, was " a house of God," "the church of the
living God." Though they may wait on God for
another pastor, they do not for the want of one
cease to know the presence and power of the Divine
Teacher in their midst.
The lessons learned in this scene were, —first, the.guidance of the Spirit in the assembly, pointing




ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. ~       143
out the mind of God as to the present line of
preaching; and, secondly, that to have a revival
that can be fully owned of God, Zion must first
herself be filled with salvation. We have more
hope for the cause of God in seeing one intelligent
soul led to this full practical sanctification in4Jhrist,
taking all from God, and giving all to Him, than
in ten ordinary conversions, where the converts
may probably, for want of knowledge an;d faith,
fall into the usual ways of the correctly called,
"Christian world." For instead of a stumblingblock, the soul thus sanctified will be a power
for God through a lifetime, leading many souls
to like privileges.
" Oh, that the salvation of Israel were come out
of Zion. When God bringeth back the captivity
of His people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall
be glad."
II.-KADESH BARNEA.
A young disciple under words of solemn warn
ing to Christians not to be always asking God for
a holiness that they could not exercise faith for, nor
even hope to receive, was led to see what it was to
be raised up with Christ in resurrection-life, to




144       HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
" sit in heavenly places in Jesus Christ," always
walking in those "good works which God hath
before-ordained that we should walk'in them." An
anxious inquiry after the meeting as to how he
should attain practically to such a privilege, led to
a conversation, of which the following is the
substance:
"Do you desire to be wholly the Lord's? Are
you willing to receive this full salvation at once, if
God would give it to you? "
"I do indeed desire it above everything in this
world," he replied.
He was told, " You must yield to God your own
will, as well as all its evil actings. Not that your
sacrifice is the procuring cause of God's -blessings,
but it removes the obstacles to their reception.
Wfe are neither saved nor sanctified by what we give
up, but by what we receive. It is no covenant of
works that is set before you, but you must not
frustrate the grace of God, which can only reign in
the soul through righteousness. If in anything
you were regarding iniquity in your heart, God
could not answer your desires for holiness. Hence,
you are wholly to yield yourself to God, as one
alive from the dead, and your members as instru



ILLUSTRArIVE CASES.          145
ments of righteousness. You are to realize yourself by faith as' buried with Christ in baptism,
wherein also ye are risen with Him, through the
faith of the operation of God;' and this resurrection is to make you practically dead unto sins, and
alive unto righteousness. Can you die to all the
idols of your heart, that Christ may be formed
within, reigning in resurrection-life? "
"I do not know of anything that I have not
fully dedicated to God," was the reply, "but I
have not the victory you speak of yet."
"But there is one thing not yet given up, and
unless you part with it you can never hope for this
fulness of gospel blessing."
" What is that?" he eagerly inquired.
" You have not yielded up your unbelief!"
He saw this last step to be taken, and powerless
of himself to take it, we bowed before God for the
power of the Holy Spirit.  The time of our interview was necessarily limited to  about twenty
minutes, but God can bring a trusting soul into
the land of promise directly from Egypt as easily
as after forty years of faithlessness in the wilderness. Upon his knees before God, there stole over
his soul, as the dew from heaven, the God-given
10




146       HOLINESS THROUGH  ArrAITH.
faith by which he realized what it was to put off
the old man, corrupt according to the deceitful
lusts, and to put on the new man, which after
God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
The flesh was withered, but the spirit lived, and
with a strange, humble joy, he learned the first
great lesson in the way of holiness by faith in
Jesus. By faith alone will he stand in this holy
place. But, thank God, he can stand by faith in
the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
III.-A rrITY PASTOR.
I parted with this rejoicing disciple to keep an
engagement with another dear Christian, whose
history may throw one more gleam of light on this
highway of holiness cast up for the Lord's redeemed ones to walk in. Converted early in life,
and well settled in the doctrine of justification by
faith, his early joy had been chilled by some influences at a theological seminary, so that upon
entering on the pastoral office, he had found a
cold, professional feeling in all his work, that
alarmed him. He had incurred a severe disease
from laboring among the soldiers in the late Union
war, which laid him by for a season, and gave




ILLUSTRATIVE CASES.         147
him the opportunity of reviewing his past and
present position before the Lord. God created in
his soul deep longings for personal holiness, with
a feeling of intense need for something far beyond
his present life of inward failure and conscious lack
of full communion with God. So deep were these
convictions that after his recovery, and even during special services in the church under his care,
he declined to preach, leaving the work to others.
At length, over-persuaded by those around him,
he stood up to speak. In that moment, under a
perfectly overwhelming sense of need, he cast himself unreservedly upon Christ, to live and act in
Him; and to his great surprise and joy; he found
himself preaching the gospel with the I-oly Ghost
sent down from heaven, and witnessing to what
God had done for his soul with a new and strange
power never before known. For nearly a year he
lived thus, carried above the world in the victory
of faith. When he Belt for prayer, he knew not
what he was about to pray for, but he felt conscious that what he should find himself asking
should be done. It was the Spirit praying in him,
according to the mind of God, and in the name and
power of Jesus, for such things as God would bestow.




148       HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
Difficulties, however, beset him. He found men
"professing sanctification," and evidently walking
in the flesh; and instead of seeing that the counterfeit always presupposed a reality, he became
perplexed. The privilege of such a walk of faith
was not clearly set forth in the standards of the
denomination in which he preached. His brethren
told him it was a joy that could not last. Alas I
instead of going only to the oracles of God for
knowledge, and casting himself unreservedly upon
Him for power and guidance, he looked to man;
he took his eye off Christ, was frightened by the
waves, and his feet sank. He limited the Holy One
of Israel, who had already gotten him  so many
victories,-and fell from the resurrection walk of
victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil.
He ceased to be filled with the Spirit. Several
years had passed, and although considered an
earnest and a successful pastor, he was now under
so painful a sense of inward failure, and of want
of full communion and power with God, that he
was thinking of giving up his large metropolitan
charge for another profession.
On the evening preceding the prayer-meeting
above described, I had accepted his invitation to




ILLUSTRATIVE CASES.          149
call' upon him. Although our first interview, he
freely opened his history, as related above.
" I have for months been asking God for some
one to be sent to lift me out of this condition.
Can you tell me," said he, feelingly, "how I may
regain the blessed experience of joy and power of
service in which I once lived?"
We opened together on Romans vii., that chapter which holds up the mirror so effectually to the
experience of the failing Christian. When at last
we came to Paul's fresh vision of Christ doing all
that Paul had failed in,-the law of the Spirit of
life in Jesus Christ setting him free from the law'
of sin and death,-we felt that God's hand was
upon us. On our knees we besought God to
restore to hirm the joy of His salvation, and the
power of resurrection-life.  The prayer was answered. He thanked God, through Jesus Christ,
and left behind him, —as we trusted for ever,"the'Seventh of Rtomans," to live henceforth in the
eighth, walking not after the flesh, but in the
Spirit.
A striking feature of this interview was that to
almost every difficulty suggested by the remaining
legality of his soul, the only reply needed was,




150       HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
"Answer as youe would to the doubts of an awaklceed
sinner." We found ourselves applying just such
words as in his own mouth had been so often
blessed to those inquiring the way of pardon"Receive God's grace by faith alone," —" Without
or with emotion,"-" Now,"-" Step out in God's
promises, and find them true," —"It is no presumption  to trust Christ for what He has
promised."  When delivered from his legal doubts,
he confessed that while he had always preached
immediate deliverance for sinners, he had indulged
the subtle unbelief which argued that time, and
sorrow, and' certain methods of feeling, were needful to saints.
These instances of the entrance on a walk in
the Spirit are selected among many as the freshest
in my memory. The testimony of those who,
beginning thus, have walked in God's highway of
holiness for nearly half a century, could be added,
were it needed. The highway was cast up for the
redeemed to walk in, though some would seem to
believe that it was only to be longingly gazed at.
A Presbyterian minister has very recently told
me, that while he had not accepted either the doc.
trine or this "gift of righteousness," he must, in




ILLUSTRATIVE CASES.          151
candor, say that he had often wondered at, and
almost envied, the uniform elevation of piety, and
the practical resurrection power in which some
around him, and even in his own congregation,
walked,-a power to which he was, alas! himself a
stranger.
My brother, you believe in the resurrection of
Jesus Christ. Have you not faith to realize practically your own resurrection?   Have you consciously given up ALL to God? Is there no reserve,
no corner of your heart retained for yourself,the old hateful self, that must be denied, not in its
manifestations only, but in its centre. If you
have, what, hinders you from being practically
risen with Christ?  Give up your unbelief in the
fulness of God's present salvation!-but oh, do not
turn back to the old hopeless ways of self-effort, or
to a trusting in means while rejecting Christ's
power.
With your sins buried in the grave whence they
can have no resurrection, can you trust Christ for
a present resurrection-life that knows no eclipse?
Whether you sweep the streets, or ride in your
carriage, you can only falfil God's purposes of love
by living and walking in Christ in heavenly places.




152        HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
The believer dead with Christ should have done
with the world, and find himself risen with Christ
in a new life.  Acceptance with God and separa,
tion from the flesh belong together.  The same
cross which connects me with God should be
found to separate me from my old self, and not be
taken as a reprieve to the flesh. Christ died that
we might also die with Him, to self, to the world
and to sin. The believer should not profess to
enjoy the ben efit of Christ's bearing his sins in
His own body on the tree, and yet refuse to enter
upon the experience of being "dead to sins," and
of "living unto righteousness."
I do not feel at liberty to close without adding
that there are many who speak of that which we
do ourselves know. We are not exhorting to a
path, the joy of which we are ignorant of. According to our small measure we are witnessing
the results and power of our Lord's resurrection
in the midst of lives of severe labor:
"There are, in this loud and stunning tide
Of human care and crime,
With whom the melodies abide
Of the everlasting chime:
Who carry music in their heart.
Through crowded streets and wrangling mart;
Plying their daily tasks with busier feet,
Because their hearts the sacred melodies repeat."




ILLUSTRATrVE CASES.         153
It is not a mere ideal, nor a translation, but an
intensely child-like and simple life lived out in the
duties and relationships in which God places us.
WVe are conscious of no controversies in our souls
with God; and, like breathing, it becomes the
habit of the soul to trust God for everything.
The cross-currents are controlled, the current of
the whole being sets towards God, and the soul
can take up the word, " How shall we that are
dead to sin live any longer therein?"  We boast
not of yesterday, nor make vows for to-morrow.
The blood of Christ now cleanseth, the bread come
down from heaven now sustains, and the faith once
delivered to the saints now gives the victory.
IV.
One or two incidents may be better than definitions. In the summer of 1868, I met; at a large
conference, a young business man, with whose variable religious experience I had been familiar for
some years. The company of some who were evidently walking in an atmosphere of Christian love,
and of victory over the world, to which he was a
stranger, led him to feel his need of a full salvation. One evening after an address on the soul's




154        TOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
union with Christ, he was asked the question,
"Do you need such a life?"  "I do indeed," was
the reply. "And are you ready to trust Christ
for a fall sanctification?" was asked.  "I feel
that I am," he responded. Then came the searching question, " WHEN?" to which he replied, " Now 1"
The conversation was so simple and brief, that
often as I had witnessed the far-reaching results
of an immediate and full surrender of soul to
Christ, I could myself hardly believe all that seemed included in those few brief responses would be
realized; but soon I heard in all directions of his
gospel labors, and the wondrous results. He was
like a flame lighting every circle it touched; and I
could name few in private life who, in the two
years that have passed since that brief interview,
have done more for the cause of God than this
young man, although up to that time he had rather needed to be himself helped than to be called
on to help others. A few days since he told me
that he was living in a cloudless rest in Christ.
I recently met in a railway car, a young lady,
of whose remarkable success in gospel labors
among the young and educated I had known. On
asking her the secret of her power, she said, that




ILLUSTRATIVE CASES.           155
after her large Bible-class one evening, under a
deep sense of need of more power in the Spirit,
she asked this same young man the secret of his
power, and how to obtain it.  "Just abandon your
soul to Christ," was the brief reply.  Accompanied
by the Holy Ghost, it was blessed to her heart, so
that before she entered her father's door she felt
that she had indeed " abandoned" her soul and her
all, without reserve, to trust Christ for victory over
every sin, and for every blessing promised in the
Scriptures to faith. Her life since seems to have
been a continuous act of trust, which like breathing has become the habit of her soul. Many stars
are already in her crown of rejoicing, and I doubt
not many more will be found " in that day."
I like that word "abandon."  It expresses the
soul's attitude towards Christ. This attitude may
be taken up at any moment, and continued without break through a lifetime —the perfect abandonment to Christ in all his offices of mercy, cleansing, power, and guidance. It places the soul in
Christ's hands, and makes Him alone responsible,
if we may so speak, for all results.  Oui responsibility ends with the abiding: for then He Himself
works in us both to will -and to do of his good




156      HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
pleasure. A life of abiding is a life in which we
sin not (1 John iii. 6); we bear much fruit (John
xv. 5), we ask what we will, and it shall be done
unto us (John xv. 7); and then when He shall
appear, we shall have confidence before ]Him at
his coming. (1 John ii. 28.)
Oh, blessed abiding in his love! Oh, blessed
keeping of his commandments!  How  can we
ever enough praise God that, in the midst of all
the evil of man and of Satan, God's power can be
so exercised toward his saints as to keep them
abiding in the Vine, as living fruit-bearing branches I
Let none stagger at the promises of God, or fail
of recognizing his grace for making them to dwell
in love, and dwell in God. Oh that the simple
way of faioth, rendered possible by an entire abandonment of soul to Him, might become plain to
all of God's children!
May our reader see by the Spirit's illumination
that God's Now is the time for availing himself by
faith of the provisions made for us in our King,
our Sacrifice, our Life, our Conqueror, Sanctifier,
oIuC ALL IN ALL.




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