Scriptural Sanctification - Media Sabda Org

"Since that resignation spoken of before, made near three years ago, everything of that nature
[unsteadiness in grace and melancholy] seems to be overcome and crushed by the power of faith and
trust in God and resignation to him. She has remained in a constant, uninterrupted rest and humble
joy in God, and assurance of his favor, without one hour's melancholy or darkness from that day to
this ... These things have been attended with a constant sweet peace and calm and serenity of soul
without any cloud to interrupt it; a continual rejoicing in all the works of God's hand -- the works
of nature and God's daily works, all appearing with a sweet smile upon them ... a daily sensible doing
and suffering everything for God, for a long time past; eating for God and sleeping for God, and
bearing pain and trouble for God, and doing all as the service of love, and so doing it with a
continual, uninterrupted cheerfulness, peace, and joy."
How fully do this experience and testimony harmonize with John Wesley's teaching and the
experience of his followers of President Edwards' day, as well as that of so many in the present day
(1) There is conversion, followed by more or less of "unsteadiness" of experience and life, and
seasons of "melancholy" or spiritual sorrow. (2) "Extraordinary self-dedication and renunciation of
the world" -- "fuller separation and consecration as our knowledge of and desire for full salvation
have increased. (3) Having this unsteadiness and sorrow instantaneously "overcome or crushed by
the power of faith and trust in God." (4) "Constant, uninterrupted rest and humble joy in God, and
assurance of his favor, without one hour's melancholy or darkness from that day." (5) "A daily
sensible doing and suffering everything for God," rendering him a "service of love, "with a continual,
uninterrupted cheerfulness, peace, and joy." As another has said, "the experience of Mrs. Edwards
seems to have been a continuous one, and to have constituted when attained an habitual state rather
than exceptional transport." In other words, her fullness of the Spirit was ethical and permanent. Her
subsequent life seems to have been most sober and orderly, "balanced with the most exalted
communion and practical service."
The labors and saintliness of the great Calvinistic divine and his seraphic wife were to American
Presbyterianism very much what those of the incomparable Fletcher and his equally saintly helpmeet
were to British Methodism. And although, because trained in different schools of theology, they did
not give the same name to their "high experience," it was very much the same thing, they calling it
"consecration" or the "full assurance of faith," while the Methodists called it "sanctification or
"perfect love."
Take the case of Merle D'Aubigne, the distinguished and devout historian of the great
Reformation. A well-known Baptist author, in giving this historian's experience, says:
"He saw the doctrine of the new birth theologically and as contained in Scripture; but as yet he
had not known it experimentally, as written in the heart. And now while at the university in Geneva
he tells us that he sought and "experienced the joys of the new birth." Being justified by faith, he had
peace with God; he knew himself forgiven and accepted. But still he lacked perfect joy and the peace
of God keeping his heart and mind.
"Some years after his conversion he and two intimate friends, Frederick Monod and Charles Rien,
were at an inn at Kiel, where the chances of travel had detained them, searching the Word of God
together for its hidden riches. D'Aubigne thus tells the story of what there passed in his own soul: