Scriptural Sanctification - Media Sabda Org

We, for a time, turn from Methodist testimony, not confining ourself to any Church, but giving
the experience and testimony of a well-known Catholic, as well as that of men and women of
different Protestant denominations.
Take first that of Madame Guyon, of the Catholic Church. A distinguished Baptist divine, in
speaking of her spiritual condition before she received the baptism of the Spirit, which brought the
experience here recorded, says: "There is every evidence that this earnest woman had already
appropriated the work of Christ for her on the cross and on the throne, and had been saved by it." She
had then been converted. Of her experience after this baptism she says:
"I slept not all that night, because thy love, O my God, flowed in me like delicious oil, and burned
as a fire which was going to destroy all that was left of self in an instant. I was all on a sudden so
altered that I was hardly to be known either by myself or others. I found no more those troublesome
faults or reluctance to duty that formerly characterized me. They all disappeared, consumed like
chaff in a great fire. Nothing was now more easy than the practice of prayer. Hours passed away like
moments while I could hardly do anything else but pray. The fervency of my love allowed me no
intermission. It was a prayer of rejoicing and of possession, wherein the taste of God was so great,
so pure, unblended, and uninterrupted, that it drew and absorbed the powers of the soul into profound
recollection, a state of confiding, affectionate rest in God, existing without intellectual effort. For
I now had no sight but Jesus Christ alone."
The Baptist divine just quoted makes this judicious comment on the above:
"When we think of the penetrating, subduing, hallowing character of this woman's piety, begetting
hatred in some, of course, but conquering so many others and bringing them into obedience to the
cross of Christ, it goes far to certify the truth of the above strong statements. Friars, priests, nuns,
men of the world, women of fashion, nobles, and peasants were drawn to her by a strange charm, and
that charm lay evidently in her presence more than in her words. Hundreds of Madame Guyon's
virgin sisters were immured in convents, seeking thus by retired and hidden communion to become
holy unto the Lord. But here was one fulfilling the duties of wife and mother, and yet surpassing
them all in her exalted devotion ... She has been called a Mystic and a Quietist ... and theologians
have said that Mysticism destroys obedience by paralyzing freedom of choice. But life is better than
philosophy, demonstrations of experience than the deductions of reason. And here was one who in
her life shone like a seraph and obeyed like an angel; and however we may reason, her own
generation and every succeeding generation have recognized the saint's halo about her head."
We turn from this seraphic Catholic saint to listen to the words and consider the life and the work
of the profound and saintly President Jonathan Edwards, of the Presbyterian Church. Of him Dr.
Gordon says:
"The diary of Jonathan Edwards furnishes a remarkable exhibition of the various stages of the
Spirit's work in the heart. His conversion was clearly marked, and at a later period his full
consecration and separation unto God not less distinctly."