Scriptural Sanctification - Media Sabda Org

Advocate. Some years ago, in answering the question, "Have we any record of Mr. Wesley
professing to be entirely sanctified?" he said:
"We know of no record of his explicitly professing or saying in so many words, 'I am entirely
sanctified'; no record of uttering words to that effect. But we have no more doubt that he habitually
professed it than that he professed conversion. The relation John Wesley sustained to his followers
and to this doctrine makes it certain that he professed it, and almost certain that there would be no
special record of it.
"1. All Wesley's followers assumed him to be what he urged them to be. Before they were in a
situation to make records, his position was so fixed that to record his descriptions of his state would
have been unthought of.
"2. He preached entire sanctification, and urged it upon his followers.
"3. He defended its attainableness in many public controversies.
"4. He urged and defended the profession of it, under certain conditions and safeguards; made lists
of professors; told men they had lost it because they did not profess; and said and did so many things,
only to be explained upon the assumption that he professed to enjoy the blessing, that no other
opinion can find support."
We cannot agree with Dr. Whitehead that Mr. Wesley's "quotation" on his dying bed, "of his
brother Charles' poetical lines,
'I, the chief of sinners am,
But Jesus died for me,'
is, under the circumstances, very remarkable." It would seem to be only an expression of his perfect
lack of self-confidence and of his perfect faith in Christ. Dr. Whitehead must admit that Mr. Wesley
was eminent for piety, whether he professed perfect love or not, and that he did not in his dying hour
mean to say that he was then the "chief of sinners," either in heart or life. Would it have been
"remarkable" or out of place for John Fletcher, who professed this grace, and who was preeminent
for his humility, to have given expression to this virtue in the words quoted?
(3) Dr. Mudge cites his own experience of what we call entire sanctification to prove -- that we
are not saved from all selfishness and depravity in that work. He boldly throws down the gauntlet
to the "second blessing" writers, and gives his own experience, when he was one of them, in rebuttal
of their testimony from experience. We have copied in another chapter part of Dr. Mudge's
experience, given in his Growth in Holiness, to show that it is very much like, if not identical with,
that of others who profess to have received the blessing of entire sanctification. But after detailing
that striking experience, the Doctor says:
"Nevertheless, after a time, both while in college and subsequently, I gradually became aware that
the work performed upon me at the time above described was not so deep and thorough as I had