Scriptural Sanctification - Media Sabda Org

In harmony with this view, Dr. Daniel Steele, in his Half Hours with St. Paul, well says:
"The foundation of the Christian doctrines is laid in the word of God. We Protestants believe that
no doctrine is to be received or enforced upon any person that is not found in the open Bible.
Nevertheless, the confirmations of a doctrine are found in our own experience. I believe all the
doctrines of the Bible are confirmed in Christian experience. All the doctrines of the word of God
find a response in human needs and in human experience. They are confirmed by such experience."
Of course, Dr. Steele refers chiefly, if not solely, to the doctrines of sin and salvation, and kindred
truths, which relate to man's condition and duty in this life. Bishop R. S. Foster, in the preface to his
very able work, the Philosophy of Christian Experience, states the subject of his book in the
following words:
"The subject is sympathetic with the temper of the age. It deals with facts rather than speculations;
with experimental verities rather than mere dogmas. It subjects Christianity to practical tests, and
so puts it in line with scientific method. It offers the inner experiences of the soul and to the
examination and explanation of reason. The age busies itself with facts, demands facts, will have
nothing but facts, relegates all speculation. The subject accepts the situation, and presents facts for
consideration -- the deepest and most indisputable of all facts; not the mere facts of sense about
which there may be dispute, and which relate to mere temporal and material things, but the deeper
facts of the soul, facts of consciousness, about which it is impossible that there should be any
dispute; facts which affect character and destiny, therefore of the most profound interest possible."
The bishop, in the first chapter or lecture of his book, defines or describes the experience, whose
philosophy and evidential value he discusses. He says:
"Experience more specifically relates to the internal state and feelings, existing as present, or
recalled as past consciousness, through which one has passed or is passing. This is the sense in which
it is most commonly used, and in which it is invariably used in these lectures. Whatever a man
experiences he knows. It is the knowing that constitutes the experience. If he did not know the
experience, he could not be said to have it. There is no consciousness of which we are not conscious,
or of which we have not knowledge."
Again the bishop says:
"The proof of pain is that we feel it. The same is true of all subjective experiences. The proof of
them is that we have them. The philosophy of these matters of experience comprises simply the
consciousness of them, the right understanding of their grounds and sources, and their significance
or relation to ends to be served by them."
After thus clearly stating the principles and postulates of his philosophy, Bishop Foster proceeds
to enumerate the facts of consciousness to which they are applicable:
"To put clearly before us our task, we restate in brief the experience, the philosophy of which we
are to render. It embraces five discrete facts of consciousness: (1) Consciousness of guilt; (2)