Scriptural Sanctification - Media Sabda Org

the man whom the Rev. Dr. D. C. Kelley -- no mean judge of men -- has compared to the sainted
Marvin, saying: "I know no man his peer since Marvin ascended." He referred especially to the
"divinely inspired insight and luminous powers of interpretation" of the man "on whom the mantle
of the Sainted Marvin has specially fallen."
We may add the interpretation of Southern Methodism, given through her revised hymn book, Dr.
Tillett himself being on the Committee of Revisal, appointed by the General Conference of 1886.
This work of the committee was formally endorsed by our nine bishops, 1st of January, 1889. In their
preface to the revised book, the bishops say:
"The labor of the committee was carefully performed, and has produced a book of doctrinal
soundness and poetic merit, strictly maintaining, as in all previous editions of Methodist psalmody,
the Wesleyan character of the collection.
"We cannot urge too strongly the vital importance of diffusing in the homes of our beloved
Methodism the unwasting fragrance of these hymns ...
"Let our congregations hold the theology which has brought life to myriads, as it is embalmed in
these measures."
The committee took about two and a half years to do their work, and ought to have thoroughly
eliminated all unsound and unscriptural interpretation and doctrine from our hymnal. And yet we
have forty-five hymns under the heading of "Entire Sanctification and Perfect Love," twelve more
than we have under that of "Justification and the New Birth." The separation of these forty-five
hymns from the thirty-three under the last-named heading indicates beyond question that the makers,
revisers, and endorsers of the hymn book believed that the "entire sanctification and perfect love"
sung in these hymns comes to the believer subsequently to the "justification and the new birth,"
celebrated in those under the preceding heading. And many quotations from them might be given,
teaching plainly that such sanctification is instantaneous in the same sense that regeneration is. For
proof we beg the reader to turn to the hymn book and read the 411th hymn, especially the third and
fourth stanzas; second and fourth stanzas of 420; first and second of 421; whole of 422; third, fourth,
and fifth of 424; third and fourth of 425; fourth of 429; whole of 432; first, second, and fifth of 435;
second of 444; third and fifth of 445; whole of 447 and 449; 177, under another heading, and 864
among the "miscellaneous" hymns.
It is noticeable that nearly every one of these hymns contains a prayer -- prayer for something that
the author believed might be received at once, instantaneously; the word "now," so frequently used,
fixing the time of its expected answer. It is used three times in one hymn to indicate the point,
"Where fear, and sin, and grief expire,
Cast out by perfect love."
We might double the length of this chapter by quoting from the writings of the strongest, most
scholarly, most pious, and most trusted men of Methodism, who have clearly and strongly insisted
that sanctification is subsequent to regeneration, is instantaneous in its development, and is certified