Scriptural Sanctification - Media Sabda Org

divinely inspired, is but the Bible translated and printed in illuminated text, "SCRIPTURE WRIT
LARGE" for the benefit of dim eyes that cannot read the fine print of doctrine."
Dr. Pierson says that the Keswick managers will not allow any one to conduct their services who
cannot testify from experience to the truth of the high doctrines which these godly people preach.
Another well-known divine has said that "one experience in the converted or sanctified life is worth
ten thousand theories." Dr. Tigert gives "experience" as one of the four pillars on which the doctrine
of "perfect love" stands. And we are glad that Dr. Tillett gives experience its due place as a means
of confirming the teaching of Scripture touching this question of sanctification.
It is well known that, as Dr. Steele expresses it, "there is in the Christian Church a strong aversion
to a profession of sanctification." This is specially true in some sections, and for reasons which we
may in a future chapter enumerate. We content ourself for the present with saying that we think the
word "profess" should be substituted by "confess," and that the latter should be applied to our
Saviour rather than to ourselves. We will add the following judicious words of Dr. Steele:
"Jesus is to be confessed by the penitent seeker as a needed Saviour. The first confession is
usually made by coming to an inquiry meeting or an altar, or rising for prayers. Jesus is to be
confessed as pardoning Saviour. This is deemed a vital point. Every skillful pastor urges on the
convert this confession by baptism and the Lord's Supper, and by a constant declaration by the
tongue of Christ's forgiving grace. Jesus as a complete Saviour, able to save to the uttermost from
fear and doubt and indwelling sin, is to be confessed to his honor, to the praise of the Holy Ghost,
the efficient agent, and to the glory of the Father. Christ should be the object of our confessions, and
not self, as justified, nor self as cleansed, nor self as filled with the Holy Ghost ... There is needless
offense given when we profess sanctification instead of humbly confessing Christ, 'made unto us
sanctification.'"
Is there any more impropriety in confessing Christ as our "complete Saviour" than there is in
confessing him as our "pardoning and partial Saviour"? Is there any more magnifying of self in
saying that Christ has given us the witness of purity than there is in claiming the witness of adoption?
Is it not more to the glory of his grace for one to say that he has an abiding and constant witness to
his freedom from fear, condemnation, and doubt than for him to say such testimony is intermittent?
Is not the richness of his grace often discounted in our love feasts and other testimony meetings by
the confession of darkness and uncertainty and defeat, instead of brightness and assurance and
victory?
The Rev. Dr. Asbury Lowrey, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, one of the ablest exponents of
this doctrine, and author of Possibilities of Grace, says:
"For many years I did not interlard my sermons with my experience nor testify explicitly to its
reception. This, I think, was a mistake, and it had two bad effects:
"1. It limited my usefulness in spreading the experience. Instances of entire sanctification did
occur under my ministrations, but they were not numerous until I began to press the matter upon the
people as a present need and an experience of which I had personal knowledge.