Scriptural Sanctification - Media Sabda Org

Bishop Ninde comes the nearest to the theory of coetaneous regeneration and sanctification of any
of them, taking the position held by Dr. Summers, Dr. Withers, this writer, and others, that it is
possible to be thoroughly saved in regeneration. He says:
"No doubt a person who should experience the right kind and measure of faith might and would
be wholly sanctified at the same instant he should be regenerated. But such instances, if they ever
occur, are extremely rare. Usually the two works are quite distinct, both in nature and in time, as our
standards teach."
None of the bishops who had been heard from when these answers were published presented a
different view of the matter. Some of them were abroad or traveling in this country, and had not
given their opinions. Bishops Merrill and Foss have published like views, and Bishop Joyce says:
"So far as I know, this is the teaching of all our ministers, including bishops and other Church
officers."
We give some extracts from articles in The Methodist Review, written by Bishops Granbery and
Hendrix, and bearing more or less directly on some points in the proposition we are discussing.
Among many other good things, Bishop Granbery says:
"Love in the regenerate is the same as in the wholly sanctified; but in the one case it is more or
less mixed with selfishness, in the other it is entirely free from selfishness; they differ in the degree
of purity. Perfection in purity, in the exclusion of every alien, antagonistic principle, may be attained,
but not such perfection in degree as to exclude possibility of increase ... We suffer no theory or
explanation why men are not entirely sanctified in the hour they first believe. We are persuaded from
our study of the New Testament that the new birth is not entire sanctification [as Crane and Boland
teach]; that babes in Christ are inconsistent Christians -- while in comparison with all out of Christ
are spiritual -- are carnal when compared with their maturer brethren ... The process of purification,
of being transformed into the image of our Lord, from glory to glory, is sometimes very slow, in
other cases very rapid; we cannot fix a limit to its utmost possible quickness."
It may then be instantaneous. Is not the subjective purification absolutely and always
instantaneous, while the objective holiness -- improvement of life -- is always gradual?
We have space for only a few short extracts from Bishop Hendrix. As already noticed, he teaches
that we are not fully sanctified in regeneration, endorsing Mr. Wesleys and Bishop Granbery's view
of Dr. Zinzendorfianism, and saying that in all Paul's Epistles but one he prayed for the "entire
sanctification of those to whom he wrote. He also agrees with Wesley, Coke, and Asbury as to the
time and conditions of being made perfect in love, saying: "It is possible to be made perfect in love
in this life, and the final act is an instantaneous one." He also quotes and endorses these fathers of
Methodism as teaching that we should "defend" and preach it as both gradual and instantaneous:
"Therefore, whoever would advance the gradual change in believers should strongly insist on the
instantaneous."
We give below the views of two of the strongest and best known representative men of Southern
Methodism outside the episcopacy. The first passage is from the Rev. John J. Tigert, D.D., LL.D.,