It treats of the Disease of the Modern Church — The Remedy — How to Obtain the Blessing — The Baptism with the Spirit — Results of. Hodge — The case of Sisyphus — President Mahan’s comment, “Must sin daily in thought, word and deed”. Gordon’s view — Fairchild says: “No ground in Scripture for a second experience” — The answer is, “Pentecost” — No “purification” in Fairchild’s “Sanctification” — Nothing “sudden” — John Wesley’s opposing view — Mahan’s testimony — Fairchild says: “Could not be revealed to Consciousness” — Opposing testimony of Bishop Foster — Fairchild teaches that sanctification is only a matter of growth — His view is contrary to Scripture and human testimony — Mahan’s opposing view.
Steele’s — “The offense of the cross” is now in this doctrine — (6) It leads to fanaticism — A word to ministers — John Wesley’s testimony — People have been erratic about other things — the names of sixty “cranks” on sanctification. Catherine Booth on weakness of Christian churches — The account we must meet if not filled with the Holy Ghost — Words of Finney and of Mrs. Every true Christian may seek the blessing with full assurance of obtaining it — The baptism with the Holy Ghost is for all — III.
Distinction between consecration and sanctification — Revelation Isaiah Reid’s words — General Booth’s — The king and parliament — 2. Clark’s interpretation of Hebrews 13:10-12, and Matthew 23:19 — “The altar sanctifies the gift” — A young man in Georgia who believed for sanctification — Without feeling — Dr.
THE RESULTS OF THE BAPTISM WITH THE SPIRIT AND HOLINESS
Hold on to faith and do not depend upon feeling — Testimony of Quinan — Reid and Bishop Foster — 2. Testify to the grace received — Opinion of Reid — Moody’s unwise remark — Testimony of Fletcher — Fannie J. Conclusions — Appeal to Christians and churches, to ministers, to theological professors and to those baptized with the Spirit unto.
Holiness and Power” — The positions of this book have been proved beyond a question, if the most multiplied and varied evidence and. Protracted infancy — Andrew Murray’s words — We have pointed out the way — Will you enter NOW — Make the most of yourselves for the church’s sake — Bishop’s address of 1896 — “Privilege and duty of being made perfect in love IMMEDIATELY — 2. A word to ministers — The discouraged minister — Neglecting the spirit we miss the secret of success — To the 1,400 Congregational ministers who did not win a convert for a year — James Caughey’s words — Andrew Murray’s appeal — Jesus baptized with the Spirit before he preached — Sermon before Boston University — INSTANTANEOUS blessing — Head manager of an ecclesiastical Euchre Club — Words of Prof.
To theological professors — Ram’s Horn Cartoon — Ablest ministers without seminary training — Moody’s Institute in Chicago — You lay stress on unimportant things and ignore the baptism with the Holy Ghost — The successful preacher, “Jim” — Attended Moody’s school — It takes more than a college and seminary course to make a preacher — The ministers who fail are your own children. O that you were like Tholuck — Ministers flocking to Moody’s Institute — God will raise up more such schools — President Mahan on the importance of this blessing to the theological professor — His.
APPENDIX
DEDICATION
PUBLISHER’S INTRODUCTION
He is thoroughly educated, is a man of good judgment and unobjectionable methods, is entirely evangelical, thoroughly consecrated to his work and profoundly in earnest. He is thoroughly furnished intellectually, and preached a full-orbed gospel with a combined fearlessness and discretion which commands at once the respect and confidence of his audience. His discourses are logical, pungent, spiritual and convincing, and the blessing of God attends them.
Hills for the work of an evangelist, and in stating my convictions that God has sent him forth to accomplish a very important service among the churches. He has shown himself to be possessed of unusual pulpit ability, and we heartily commend him to the churches. For the powerful presentation of the great truths of the gospel, logical construction of sermons, pertinent illustration, absence of sensationalism and sweetness of spirit, he has few equals.
As a minister, I have engaged several evangelists of repute, but by none have I seen such thoroughness in work, nor heard so clear, logical and forcible presentations of the gospel as from Bro. We believe that this book, like its author’s oral discourses, will be used of God to lead many into the rich experiences which it so effectively.
PREFACE
We must wait in prayer ‘the promise of the Father,’ until we are ‘filled with the Holy Ghost.’”. The fact is, there is something sadly defective in the education of the ministry and of the Church. Oh, for a conviction of the necessity of this enduement of power and faith in the promise of Christ!”.
What is the baptism of the Holy Ghost, and what does it accomplish for believers. The corruption of nature is argued from the universal conviction of the people of God. President Mahan received his great baptism of the Spirit — “the turning point in his Christian life” (p. 6).
But for more than a score of years there has been a steady decline in the spiritual life of the churches and the college. Baker, “it has been the peer of any and the superior of most of the other denominations. Again, its polity has been in sympathy with the democratic government of the State and the Nation.
If anything in the history of the Church has proved a failure, it is the power of liberalism to reach the masses.
THE REMEDY
It is the work of the Holy Spirit — the act of God’s grace, by which “our old man is crucified” and the moral nature is “cleansed” of all unrighteousness,” — unrightness, “proneness to sin,” “sinful propensity.”. Then there is the “anointing.” Jesus said: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath ANOINTED me to preach the gospel” (Luke 4:18). God chose you from the beginning unto salvation in sanctification of the Spirit” (II. Thessalonians 2:13).
Hence the revisers have furnished five new proof texts to the definition of sanctification as an act in the Catechism of the M. Steele says: “All filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit is to be cleansed in the ACT of perfecting holiness. I do not mean to deny that the gift of the Holy Ghost may be practically on the same occasion; but never in the same moment.
Harnack says: ‘Originally the church was the heavenly bride of Christ and the abiding place of the Holy Spirit. XIV, The witness of the Holy Spirit is unanswerable proof of the attainability of sanctification. I found it day by day manifested to my soul by the witness of the Spirit” (p. 126).
That all the promises that we may be “sanctified” and “partakers of the Divine nature~” are mock promises. That the “witness of the Holy Ghost” to the sanctification of believers is all untrue. In the evangelical sense, in which God is the Justifier and the Sanctifier of the believer in his Son, this verse contradicts neither.
The trend of modern scholars is to return to the view of the Greek Fathers.
HOW TO OBTAIN THE BLESSING
We can not explain this gift, but it is the power of the Holy Spirit of God in the soul of the speaker, accompanying his word, making it cut and pierce to the dividing of soul and spirit. This is how I account for the want of results — the want of the direct, pungent, enlightening, convicting, restoring. I have known a child just entering the teens to receive the filling of the Spirit unto.
It is a purifying and filling rather than an overwhelming, a filling of the soul rather than a falling of the body. It is most needful that he be fully convicted of two things — the utter impotence of the flesh to do any good, and the mighty power of the flesh to work evil. Obedience and nonconformity to the world were the burden of her messages, as the indispensable conditions of the coming of the Holy Ghost.
It is too vile to be tolerated by the Spirit in a body which he proposes to make a temple of the Holy Ghost. Whatever in habit or life the Holy Spirit condemns must be abandoned in the spirit of implicit obedience or it is useless to seek this sanctifying work of the Holy Ghost in the heart. Consecration is the actual present surrender to God of the whole man and all we possess.
Do not try to feel anything nor to be good and meritorious and deserving of the baptism with the Holy Ghost.” The blessing is not earned, or deserved. Mahan says: “The revealed condition of the indwelling of the Spirit is a full and complete surrender, on our part, of all the powers and. It is he who fills it for the supply of the needs of others” (Wholly Sanctified, pp. 50-58).
Fitzgerald thus describes her experience: “Then it came to me, ‘Will you give your children to the Lord?’ It was suggested, ‘If you do, he will take them out of the world.’ At last I surrendered them to God. It is like marching across the desert toward Canaan, and halting on the wrong side of the Jordan. To say that in receiving Christ we necessarily received in the same act the gift of the Spirit seems to confound what the Scriptures make distinct.
Ministry of Spirit, pp. 68, 69) “Again: “The gift of the Holy Spirit is grounded on the fact that we are sons by faith in Christ. It is by the repeated statements of various persons that this all-important matter will become clear to you and you will learn how to secure the filling of the Holy Spirit — the sanctifying baptism.
