Scriptural Sanctification - Media Sabda Org

"The moral intuition, which is infallible within the sphere of motives, never failing to condemn
the wrong motive and to approve the right one, deals with the abstract in ethics, such, for instance
as the duty to love a benefactor, while the intellect is employed with the determining of right in the
concrete, right in specific instances, my duty toward this or that man. The moral intuition gives us
the principles of immutable morality But most of the moral questions which we are called to decide
are not of the abstract kind; they are concrete, and involve specific examination by our power of
reasoning before the decision can be made. They are practical and not theoretical. They all need the
help of our intellectual powers, our enlightened judgments, to discover their bearings and relations,
before our moral intuitions can discover their moral character ... Hence the discriminating power of
the holiest man's conscience, outside the sphere of motives, must be imperfect so long as he dwells
in an earthly tabernacle.
"Hence, too [adds Dr. Steele], his moral judgments, and his acts founded on these judgments, may
be condemned by the superior judgment of another who makes no profession of perfect love to God,
or any other degree of love to him. He may have better data and a stronger reasoning faculty, and
arrive at a more correct conclusion, and put forth more commendable action in this particular case
... Here, then, is the broad ground for charity."
What a man of Dr. Whitehead's intelligence and culture might clearly see to be wrong, another,
lacking these things, but being just as conscientious as he -- just as pure in the region of motives -would
not scruple to do. And what the Doctor, in his early life, may not have seen to be wrong may
now, as the result of his growth in grace and knowledge, he heartily condemned by his more
enlightened conscience. A century ago some of our best people, "in and out of the ministry," did not
hesitate about taking a social glass or patronizing a lottery, but such practices are now almost if not
quite universally condemned by a more enlightened public sentiment. Dr. Steele gives the case of
what he calls "an eminent apostle of Christian purity," who "kept on during a year smoking his cigar
and invoking upon it the divine blessing as sincerely as he did upon his beefsteak. But when his
higher intelligence showed him the injury which his habit was doing to himself and the cause of
Christ, conscience banished that 'superfluity of naughtiness,' forever from his lips." Possibly some
of our readers may never reach that degree of moral discernment.
In the light of this philosophy and these facts, it may not be difficult to see why one who makes
no profession of "perfect love" may, in his outer life, seem to be more holy or consistent than another
who has really been entirely sanctified. Also, why the type of "character" of the latter may seem more
"faulty" and "unlovely" than that of the former. The one may have been more intelligent, and had a
better cultivated intellect and conscience before his conversion, while he may also have grown more
in moral discernment since that time than the other. The latter may be holier in the region of motives,
but, because of his ignorance, that holiness in its outward expression may fall farther below the
standard of absolute righteousness than that of his better informed but less fully saved brother. And,
hence, by comparison, his life may appear more "inconsistent," "faulty," and "unlovely."