Scriptural Sanctification - Media Sabda Org

and testimony. We need say but little more than that this clear-cut experience fully illustrates and
strongly tends to establish the theory of this volume. We note:
1. That his baptism with the Spirit, which brought entire sanctification, was subsequent to
regeneration and different from it, bringing what he calls "a radical conscious change" -- a change
which went to the roots of evil in his nature.
2. That this baptism or "radical change" was different from any ordinary baptism or "blessing"
which the earnest believer may receive before or after his being made "perfect in love," and which
may involve chiefly an emotional fullness of the Spirit, with more or less of growth in grace. The
bishop notes two very remarkable baptisms of this sort occurring not long before his entire
sanctification. The following is his account of them. Of the first and what immediately preceded it,
he says:
"I became at last completely wretched -- more a slave than a child. It was manifest to me that in
this way I could not live. Something must be done. In the time of my extremity, deliverance came.
At a love feast at New Street, a colored church (and I had always doubted much the religion of those
people), under the exercises of these simple, ignorant Christians I was wonderfully blessed. My
whole soul was stirred within me; my heart melted like wax; tears flowed profusely; I praised the
Lord aloud. This was a great, timely, and permanent blessing. It continued almost without
interruption up to the time I am about more particularly to describe [the time of his sanctification.
No backsliding then before the baptism came]. My devotions became more spiritual, and my graces
all acquired new life. In a word, I was greatly, divinely revived.
The bishop then proceeds to tell us about another rich baptism or blessing that came to him
"during the interval" between the one just noted and "the baptism with the Spirit" which he received
at his sanctification. It was after an attack of sickness which he says "was blessed to" him. He thus
describes this second remarkable experience:
"One night, about the time I began decidedly to convalesce, my mind became absorbed in
meditations of the goodness of God to me, and my great ingratitude to him. I may say, 'He made all
his goodness to pass before me,' and all my sinful unworthiness to pass before me too. This exercise
continued for several hours; more and more my soul became absorbed, until my heart seemed to
break and melt within me, I wept, I sobbed, I convulsed and cried out. Oh, what a blessing was it
which I then received! [This, like the blessing noted above, seems to have been chiefly an emotional
fullness] ... This was one of the most holy and heavenly influences I had ever felt on my heart. And
now I began to pant for holiness. My prejudices were not all gone, but they were greatly lessened,
and I wrestled and prayed with new earnestness and desire for victory."
He had not yet received "the baptism with the Spirit," for it was only a few weeks after the above
experience that the bishop had the following additional and different one. He was in the midst of a
meeting he was holding, of which he says:
"Many were revived, a number converted. My own heart shared largely in the divine
manifestations. This continued until Thursday, the 10th [no backsliding then], when, at the evening