Scriptural Sanctification - Media Sabda Org

(2) with what sort of microscope he looks down through and below one's consciousness and sees
"volitions" that are so "minute" that one's own consciousness had never discovered them. (3) If they
are so "minute" that they "escape" from us under the guise of "involuntary transgressions," how does
Dr. Mudge discover that they are "voluntary"? Is he not getting into "the domain of psychology,
where," Dr. Barbee says, "all definitions cease"? (4) Where is the grace that so strengthens the
believer that he need not sin? -- "My grace is sufficient for "I can do all things," etc.
The Bible, as well as thoughtful men, seems to make the distinction between "sins" and "faults"
or "infirmities." The psalmist says: "Cleanse thou me from secret [unconscious, voluntary or
involuntary] faults. Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous [willful, known, and voluntary]
sins." Dr. Steele thus gives Jude xxiv.: "Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling [into sin,
or, as the Vulgate reads, sine peccato, without sin], and to present you faultless [without infirmity,
not here, but] in the presence of his glory with exceeding joy," etc. He adds: "Jude understood the
distinction between faults, or infirmities, and sins. In his scheme of Christian perfection faults are
to disappear in the life to come, but we are to be saved from sins now."
Dr. Mudge makes this distinction, and says that "innocent or unintentional or unavoidable
transgressions are not sins, but simply infirmities." Writers have illustrated this difference between
what they call "blameless," but "faulty" acts, with a child's bungling and defective work, which is
prompted by unmixed love. The letter the little boy writes his father, or the sewing the little girl does
for her mother, may be full of or defects, but these children are "blameless" of wrong, either of
intention or action, because their works were prompted by love, and the defects resulted from
unavoidable ignorance or lack of skill.
So, while unmixed love to God and man rules in our hearts we may commit a thousand acts,
which, because of our mental or physical weakness or infirmity, fall below the perfect standard of
right reached by our Lord in his life. Our works may be thus faulty, while we are blameless in the
sight of God. But, because these acts fall below that perfect standard, we have need to confess them,
and to resort to the atonement for absolution, and to pray daily, "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive
our debtors."
As intimated in previous chapters, we believe that we may be saved from the feeling of sinful
tempers, as well as their outward expression in word or deed that we need not feel or say or do
anything that is inconsistent with unmixed love and all the other graces of the Spirit. Professor Beet,
on I John i. 7, very suggestively and, we think, truly says: "Of such uncleanness our sense of shame
is, I venture to believe, a reliable test and measure; consequently it is our happy lot to be saved now
from whatever pollutes or, if known to others, would disgrace us." In other words, the blood and
grace of the gospel save us from all that makes us ashamed to look into God's face or the faces of
our fellows, although feeling shame and sorrow for past wrongs. We have anticipated the question
of our liability to temptation and sin after being fully saved. We need only add the well-known facts
that our Lord was tempted, and that the first pair were not only tempted, but fell. We believe,
however, that the ability to overcome temptation is greatly increased, and that the probability of
falling into sin is greatly lessened.