Scriptural Sanctification - Media Sabda Org

conserved, and, as far as possible, rescued from the abuses to which it has been subjected." Shall we
not then, if this is true, instead of rejecting this "great truth," do what we can to rescue it, as the
crowning jewel of Christianity and Methodism, from its mistaken and misguided friends? Have not
men been fanatical about instantaneous regeneration and the witness of the Spirit? But shall we for
that reason give up these doctrines and let the Church drop back into the dispensation of the Father
-- the ritualism and formalism of the seventeenth century?
(5) But have there not been and are there not still many saintly and consistent professors of this
superior experience? Dr. Abel Stevens, as noticed before, says that such professors in Mr. Wesley's
day "were generally distinguished more than other Methodists as calm and sober-minded ... and,
among preachers and people, they were considered by Wesley to be his most prudent and reliable
coadjutors." And certainly if John and Mary Fletcher, Richard Whatcoat, and Francis Asbury were
average specimens of such professors of that day, we are prepared to believe his statement. And how
about Adam Clarke, Joseph Benson, Nathan Bangs, Wilbur Fisk, Stephen Olin, Bishops Hamline,
Janes, McKendree, and Wightman, of later periods in our history? What can be said against Lovick
Pierce and Thomas L. Boswell, Frances E. Willard and Frances M. Bumpass, not long since
translated? For nearly half a century the last named professed and beautifully exemplified this
experience in her sweet and saintly life. And cannot Dr. Whitehead find among those living within
his own Conference and the Church at large professors of this grace, whose Christly spirit and holy
lives illustrate the highest type of piety ever known among men -- men and women who live all they
profess and teach? As Christians we should not practice what we condemn in men of the world -select
the most inferior specimens of piety to discredit the doctrines which they profess to exemplify.
6. Dr. Whitehead urges as another objection to remaining depravity in the regenerate, what he
calls "a very palpable difficulty in reconciling their non-removal at regeneration with God's love and
grace, and with the doctrine of a full and free salvation by grace." Dr. Crane urges a similar
objection, insisting that man needs the fullness of salvation as much at conversion as he does at any
time afterwards. In reply we would say:
(1) That similar objection may be and has been urged against other well-known scriptural
teachings touching God's dealings with the race, and with individuals. For example, it would at first
blush seem that "God's love" would have prompted him to make a full revelation of himself to our
race in the early ages of its history, instead of waiting four thousand years to send his Son into the
world for that purpose. And man needed that revelation and the "full and free salvation by grace" that
came with it, through the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost, as much before that time as he has since. But
the human conditions for receiving and improving this richer gift of God's love did not exist until
the "due time" for the manifestation of Christ to the world came. And we may say that "God's love"
would prompt him to give the gospel to the whole heathen world as soon as he did to Jerusalem,
Samaria, Athens, Corinth, and other cities and peoples. And they certainly needed it as much. But
for eighteen hundred years the human conditions have prevented his doing so.
We may apply this objection to smaller numbers and to individuals. Love doubtless prompted our
Lord to give as full revelation and as large a measure of the Spirit to his apostles before Pentecost
as he did at that time. And they seem to have needed it as much. But he reminded them that they
could not then "bear" such revelation, and they were not ready for the full coming of the Spirit. And