Scriptural Sanctification - Media Sabda Org

standards on this subject." And we are assured that "our founders rightly interpreted the mind of the
Spirit, and gave us the truth as it is in Jesus" on this subject. And they close by saying: "Let us not
turn from them to fallow strange lights, but rather let us believe their testimony, follow their
example, and seek purity of heart by faith in the cleansing blood [as a condition of growth], and then,
in the steady line of consecrated living, 'go on unto perfection'" -- grow in grace toward maturity.
Is not this a most hearty and emphatic endorsement of "Wesley, Fletcher, Watson, and of our
"founders" and of their interpretation of Scripture, as embodied in our "standards," as well as a
solemn charge not to follow such "strange lights" as Crane and Mudge, of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, and Boland and Tillett, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, who, in a large measure,
repudiate the teaching of our "founders"? This is the deliverance of American Methodism as late as
1884.
We next give an extract from the Quadrennial Address of the ten bishops of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, South, ten years later, at Memphis, in 1894. They say:
"The privilege of believers to attain unto the state of entire sanctification or perfect love, and to
abide therein, is a well-known teaching of Methodism. Witnesses to this experience have never been
wanting in our Church, though few in comparison with the whole membership. Among them have
been men and women of beautiful consistency and seraphic ardor: jewels of the Church. Let the
doctrine still be proclaimed, and the experience still be testified."
That these bishops believe we may "attain unto the estate of entire sanctification or perfect love,"
both gradually and instantaneously, is indicated by the fact that they endorse the "well-known
teaching of Methodism," which, according to Dr. Tillett, includes this postulate. That they believe
it comes subsequently to regeneration is indicated by the statement that "but few in comparison with
the whole membership attain unto this experience. Certainly they do not mean that but few are
regenerated. And that they believe we may know when we come into possession of this experience
is shown by the fact that they say "men and women of beautiful consistency have given such
testimony from "this experience" -- from an assurance that they possessed it.
We next give the latest deliverance of the sixteen bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in
their Address to the General Conference of 1896. Among other things, they say:
"As a Church we have taught from the beginning that believers have power to become the sons
of God, be made partakers of the divine nature. We have insisted on the glorious privilege and duty
of all men becoming saints, of immediately being made perfect in love, and of gradually ripening
into Christian maturity in all faculties. This doctrine was never more definitely stated, clearly
perceived, nor consistently lived by greater numbers than now."
Three things will here be noted: (1) That their Church has "taught from the beginning" that it is
"the glorious privilege and duty of all men ... To be immediately made perfect in love." (2) Then "of
gradually ripening" or growing "into Christian maturity." (3) That "this doctrine was never more
definitely stated, clearly perceived, nor consistently lived by greater numbers than now." This does
not look like "an influential and continually increasing majority of modern Methodists" -- Northern