Scriptural Sanctification - Media Sabda Org

Holy Ghost, even the Spirit of adoption or the Spirit of holiness, whereby they cry to God, Father!
and are made holy."
Dr. Tillett says:
"Spiritual blessings and baptisms of the Spirit are experiences subsequent to regeneration, which
come instantaneously to believers whenever they are needed and sought in faith; but they are not,
like regeneration, 'radical' operations of the Spirit within and upon the moral nature."
It will be noticed that, while controverting what we regard as the scriptural theory of the baptism
of the Spirit, Drs. Mudge and Tillett, yielding, it is believed, to the force of testimony from Christian
experience, if not from Bible teaching, concede nearly or quite all that is claimed by that theory. In
referring to the believer's various baptisms of the Spirit, the former says: "for most important of these
may perhaps be called the 'second blessing,' counting it, as indeed it is, a very wonderful and
precious and stirring epoch in their experience." The latter says: "The blessing which some believers
experience subsequent to their regeneration, whether it be a second blessing or 'the second blessing,'
certainty marks a mighty change for good in their spiritual lives, and must therefore come from
God."
1. They concede that this "most important" baptism is subsequent to regeneration. 2. That it is
epochal and "instantaneous" in Christian experience. In another place Dr. Mudge calls it a "crisis."
3. That it "certainly marks a mighty change for good in their spiritual lives," being a "very wonderful
and precious and stirring epoch in their experience." On the preceding page Dr. Mudge calls it a
"quickening or strengthening or uplifting of the spiritual life." In giving His experience, he says of
one of these baptisms, received about three years after His conversion: "It was certainty a memorable
hour, a turning point in my life, from which dates a decided change in my experience. I returned to
school a different individual. There was no more shirking of duty. I implicitly obeyed whatever I felt
to be the orders of God. I bore clear testimony to the full salvation with which God had so
wonderfully enriched my soul." And the Doctor tells us that this baptism came from a fuller
consecration and an "appropriating faith," and adds: "My steps have been forward from that day in
August, 1860, to this" -- it was "permanent."
Where is the sober advocate of the "second-blessing," "second-work," "perfect-love," or
"Pentecostal baptism" theory of sanctification, who claims more for it than Dr. Mudge concedes here
in His baptism or experience? He calls it a "turning point," a "decided change," and a "full salvation,"
that made him a "different individual," and "wonderfully enriched His soul," lifting him to and
starting him along a higher plane of obedience, on which he has ever since steadily walked. Yet Dr.
Mudge fails to see that even this "most important" baptism, though a "full salvation," saves from all
spiritual depravity. And Dr. Tillett cannot see that this "mighty change" involves any "'radical'
operation of the Spirit within and upon the moral nature" of its subject. Nor do we see that this
"change" is "radical" except in the sense of the Spirit's removing from the soul the disease, the
impurity, the roots of or the bias to and weakness of sin, and His bringing to it perfect health, purity,
and power, a work that was begun in regeneration, when the guilt of sin was removed and its power
or dominion was broken.